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  As D. pulled back up to Bobby’s place, he saw someone exiting the house holding on to a silver briefcase for dear life. It took him a minute but he finally realized who it was, and when he did, all of the hate he had in his heart for him came rushing back. “That’s that bitch-ass nigga, Mike Spits,” he said to himself. “What the fuck he doing coming out of Bobby’s crib?” All the pain and frustration from their first encounter came and hit him like a ton of bricks. “I knew I should’ve bodied all them niggas when I had the chance.” Before D. got the proper opportunity to make his move, Spits had already jumped into his truck and sped off. His first instinct was to follow him, but reluctantly changed his mind. He decided that it would just be smarter to tell Bobby in detail what had happened, so that they could plan something out together.

  D. got out of the car and before he could cross the street toward Bobby’s crib, he suddenly saw police cars approaching from both sides. His immediate thought was to flee as he assumed they were after him for one of the many crimes he’d committed in the past, but they weren’t headed in his direction. He made a sharp left away from Bobby’s gate as the officers blew past him and into the house. Seconds after they were in the house, wild gunshots started going off. The shots would last for no longer than five seconds, before they came to a complete halt. That was it. It was all over now, and neither D. nor Bobby could’ve ever seen it coming. He knew then that his man Bobby was gone, and his entire body started to feel numb. He couldn’t even focus on anything that mattered. All he thought about was the times they’d had, and the fortune they’d seen together. They’d never get a chance to catch up and reminisce about those old times, and it would never again be how it used to be. The sky seemed to get dark directly over his head, and a cool breeze came through the block. D. felt a slight chill run up his back that made his shoulders shiver. He zipped up the velour jacket that he had on and put his hands in his pants pockets. As he walked back in the direction of his car, his immediate feeling was to take it all out on Spits. He blamed what had happened to Bobby on him, as he hadn’t known what Bobby, a.k.a. Tec, had done just a few minutes ago down the block on the 8th. It was no one’s fault but his own that he was gone now, but that was the furthest thing from D.’s mind.

  “When I catch up to that nigga Spits again, it’s on,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “It’s on.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Please stand. Court is now in session. The honorable Judge Marilda Rosenberg presiding.”

  “What?” asked Trigger in disbelief. “Who the fuck is she?” he asked as he stared at his attorney to wait for a response.

  “I’m not sure, Mr. Beckford,” said William. “This is very unorthodox.”

  “Well, you better do something quick, Doberman. That’s, of course, if you like your fucking job.”

  “I’ll get to the bottom of this, sir,” said William as he stood to request the attention of the judge. “Please, Your Honor, may I approach the bench?”

  “There will be no need for that,” said the judge. “I’ll answer any and all of the questions you may have once I am through.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” responded William as he sat back down.

  “Now, I know that this may come as a surprise to many of you. And I know that this may not be considered conventional practice, but I will be acting as judge for the remainder of this trial. There are details regarding this situation that will not be revealed at this time, due to an ongoing criminal investigation surrounding interactions between the defendant, Peter Beckford, and the previous judge, Edward R. McHullan.”

  “This is an outrage,” said William, as the rest of the courtroom came to an uproar.

  “Order, order in the court!” yelled Judge Rosenberg. “I will have order in my court or you will all be escorted out of the building.”

  “Your Honor, I would like to go on the record as objecting to . . .,” said William before the judge cut him off.

  “Your objection is duly noted, counselor, but I was not yet through. This case will be under strict observation, as well as any connections to criminal involvement on the part of the defendant. Now, I will need until tomorrow to get up to speed as far as deliberations before my arrival. Court is now in recess until eight o’clock a.m. tomorrow morning, May 11th.” When she was done, she got up and walked back into her chambers, where she could get ready for the morning. All Trigger and the Doberman could do was stare at one another in awe.

  I got the call that morning from Trigger, and he told me what had just happened as he exited the courtroom. Things were all messed up now, and we needed to have a roundtable meeting as soon as fucking possible. I told him to call everybody, and have them all meet me at my crib at noon. When I hung up the phone with Trigger, I sat out on the terrace, and thought for a while. Things had to go down with complete precision or it would not work at all.

  They all arrived together promptly at twelve o’clock noon. We sat around my dining room table and officially began our meeting.

  “Everything is all fucked up, Spits,” said Trigger, opening the meeting. “What the fuck we gonna do now, son? Damn!”

  “All right, calm down, my nigga,” I said, trying to slow down the pace of the conversation. “Just fill in all of the blanks for us, Trig.”

  “Listen,” he said in a calmer voice. “This new judge they got on my case just put our progress in reverse. Son, they launched a criminal investigation on the judge that me and the Doberman paid off. Now you know that nigga’s gonna rat. Before anything, we need to find his ass, and put him to sleep before he start flapping his lips.”

  “Nah, listen,” said Spits, disagreeing. “The way that all went down left no paper trail back to us. We sent a nobody to make the proposal on the Family’s behalf. There’s no way he can tie us to the money he took. Now if he turns up dead or missing all of a sudden, then they’ll really be in our asses. We’d just be making ourselves hot.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Trigger. “That’s true, but what about this new judge? You think we can turn her, too?”

  “I doubt that, son.”

  “The thing is, with the judge in our pocket, we controlled the whole trial. Without that, they’re just going to readmit all of the evidence that our judge deemed inadmissible. All of his rulings are going to be fucking overturned and shit. I’m fucked, dog!”

  “Relax, Trig,” I said in a calm and collected voice. “We gonna figure this shit out, son.”

  “Yo, you a little bit too much on the nonchalant side of this shit, son,” said Trigger, implying that I wasn’t as worried as everyone else. He was absolutely right. I wasn’t as worried as everyone else was because I’d already anticipated this situation. I knew exactly what we were going to do.

  “All right, fuck it,” I said, finally letting my thoughts out. “I know what we can do.”

  “What?” asked Trigger while everyone else waited for my response.

  “You,” I said, pointing at Trigger. “You gonna be the new boss of our West Coast operations.”

  “What the fuck you talking about?” asked Ceelow.

  “That’s the only way this problem can be solved. Now, we all know that if this trial gets a brand-new judge to start poking around and looking for an example to set, that even the jury won’t rule in our favor. Fuck the money we paid those cocksuckers; they’ll shit on us real quick when faced with the possibility that they could do time. The only way to beat this shit is to outrun it. I don’t give a fuck how much money we throw at this courtroom, this new bitch ain’t letting it stick to her pockets for one second.”

  “Well, what the fuck’s on the West Coast for us?” asked Poncho.

  “Opportunity, dog. The time I spent out there ain’t go to waste. I met a few real niggas out there, and on some real shit, all it would take is a phone call and they’ll be ready for whatever. It’s that real, son. You know gangsta recognize gangsta, and they respected my flow. They want to get it just the same, son. They even hungrier than we were when we
first started.”

  “Word?” asked El. “You sure about this, dog?”

  “One hundred percent, my nigga. As a matter of fact, I spoke to my sister before ya’ll got here and she said you can even stay there for a while until shit starts really jumping.”

  “Oh, that’s love for real, son,” said Ceelow. “She a real gangsta bitch, huh?”

  “Listen,” I said with a stern voice. “Just so that ya’ll niggas know, there ain’t gonna be no disrespect in anybody’s mouth regarding my sister, Rachel. That’s still my sister, ya na’mean. Don’t get it twisted.”

  “My bad, son,” said Cee. “You know what I mean, right?”

  “It ain’t nothing, dog,” I said, relaxing my tone. “I’m just bugging. I know what you meant.”

  “Anyway,” Trigger said, interjecting. “When and how is all of this going down?”

  “All right, peep this. If this is going to work properly, you can never get out of control out there. As soon as some overworked dickhead pig takes a peek into your history, he gonna see a fucking big ass warrant for your arrest staring back at him. All they need is a reason to take you down, and you’ll be extradited back to NY facing trial again. You’ll have to come in contact with no work whatsoever, so that they can’t tie you to shit. Them mu’fuckas out there need not even know your real fucking name, na’mean? You’ll be a completely different dude out there at all times; no matter what. If you call your mom’s, that’s your ass. We have to assume that everything that’s connected to you, is connected to the mu’fuckin’ FBI also. Don’t even let the workers know what’s up, ’cause I trust them and all that, but if one of them gets knocked who’s to say they won’t give you up to get off. You gotta be on them P’s and Q’s.”

  As I went on and on and on about how careful Trigger would have to be to make this whole thing work, it seemed that he’d been taking it all in very seriously. He knew how much he’d be responsible for and I trusted my nigga with that. If I had to put this kind of shit in anyone’s hands, it would be the Trigger-man’s. Especially with what he was leaving in NY waiting for him, I knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be careless in taking on this project; even with very little help from home. This is what it had to be, until that day came where we hung it up. When all of this was over, we could all buy some land on some tropical island and chill. We’d just have to see.

  The day after that was supposed to be Trigger’s first day back in court with Judge Marilda Rosenberg fully prepared to dive in headfirst. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting judge, there wouldn’t be any more deliberations for her to referee. This would be the beginning of the mu’fucking end for Mr. Peter Beckford. Once Trigger became a no-show that first morning, there was a warrant issued for his arrest. The judge would set two more court dates before she would officially declare him a fugitive of the law. Once this happened, I got the call I’d been nervously waiting for.

  “Hello.”

  “Hola, Sr. Spits. I think we have some things that we need to speak about concerning your organization, no?”

  “All right, cool, Mr. Ortiz. Where and when?”

  “I’ll come to you.”

  Now, that was a bit frightening to hear Romero Ortiz, the king of drug trade in Puerto Rico, saying that he’s coming to me. The dude never left that island as long as I knew his ass, and now he was coming to see me? What for? Did he only make personal visits when he wanted to make sure a hit was properly executed? Did he want to send the message that I wasn’t untouchable and that I could get it just like everyone else? I didn’t know what to think after hanging up the phone with him. I just told myself to be ready for anything, and cross any bridge once I got to it with both guns blazing. My destiny would already be written, so all I had to do was play my position and let the chips fall where they may. I got a call later that evening from one of Mr. Ortiz’s associates informing me that he would meet me at a tapas restaurant in SoHo, named Pintxos. I would meet him there at 7:30 sharp the next evening.

  When I arrived at Pintxos, it was six o’clock. I wanted to get there early to scope out the area, and look for anything out of the ordinary. I went down Washington and up Hudson Street, then across Canal Street, then over to Vandam Street. I covered every inch of the entire area. I drove up, down and around those streets over and over again until I’d memorized every last thing, from the timing on the streetlights, down to the color the bums had on. When I felt comfortable enough with my surroundings, I pulled back up to the restaurant where I was probably going to meet my death. I bypassed the valet parking and found a spot around the back in case I had to make a sudden exit. I was prepared to my fullest ability. It was time to meet with Mr. Ortiz.

  “I’m here to meet an associate of mines . . .a Mr. Romero—” I said right before the maitre d’ cut me off dead center of my sentence.

  “Right this way, Senor Spits,” he said as he led me to Romero’s special table. “Mr. Ortiz left specific instructions to show you to his table until he arrived. He’ll be here shortly.”

  “Thank you,” I said with uncertainty in my voice.

  He wasn’t here yet? Why would he be late to a meeting that he’d arranged? With all of these things racing through my head, I was beginning to regret even coming at all. Then, I realized that I had no choice. If I hadn’t come because I thought that I would be killed, that would just give him a reason to kill me anyway. One way or another, I had to be here.

  “Good evening, Senor Spits,” Romero said in suave voice as he stood in front of the table. “Did you find this place all right?”

  “Yeah, it was no problem. I come here all the time,” I said sarcastically. We both gave a chuckle, and then it was time to get down to business.

  “Senor Oberman has informed me of your situation here in the States, Senor Spits. He told me that one of your associates got himself into a pickle.”

  “Yeah, but we have a contingency plan all ready to take effect now. He’s not an associate either, Mr. Ortiz; he’s family. Everything is under control.”

  “Yes, I’m sure everything is under your control. But, you should understand my dilemma if you and your institute were to be placed under extreme surveillance by law enforcement. I would like for you to reassure me that our relationship will not be tarnished due to all of this legal basura.”

  “I feel you, Mr. Ortiz—”

  “Please,” he said, interrupting before I could finish. “I’ve told you on numerous occasions that you need not call me Mr. Ortiz. That sounds so formal. We, Senor Spits, are colleagues. Call me Romero.”

  “That’s cool, Romero. I was saying that I’d never do anything that could possibly affect our relationship in a negative way. My first and only priority is to preserve our business interests. You have my word on that.”

  “Good. Now we can discuss your plans for our future establishment located in California.”

  “What?” I asked with bewilderment. “How did you—”

  “Listen, Senor Spits,” he said with a condescending smile on his face. “I have eyes and ears everywhere. You should learn not to underestimate the people that you do business with. I’m sure that you wouldn’t be pondering using another connection for this infrastructure. That would be most disappointing, as I’m very excited that we are expanding our businesses to the West Coast. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, I got you in my radar. The fact that you had been informed of our new venture doesn’t make me uncomfortable. You just caught me off guard; that’s all. I’ll try and make sure that doesn’t happen again, but I had no intention on cutting you out. Besides, I have no other connections.”

  I was starting to figure out that this meeting had nothing to do with Trigger’s trial. That may have been of some importance to him at some point in time, but that was the furthest thing from his mind, now that he’d found out about us expanding to Cali. With all that “we” and “our” shit he was talking, Trigger’s issues had absolutely nothing to do with it. He just wanted to make certain that I knew t
hat he knew what we were planning, so that I wouldn’t try and cut his greedy ass out. I don’t know how, but he’d found out. I also didn’t know how much he’d already known, so I told him everything. No detail would be left for his imagination. He would be no threat with this information anyway. Shit, ain’t no cop gonna give him a shorter sentence for giving little ol’ me up. If anything, it’d be the other way around. For anybody that gets their hands on Senor Romero Ortiz, I’d be the last thing on their minds.

  When our meeting was done, I left the restaurant with a sigh of relief. I’d imagined all the worst that could’ve happened from this situation, but I’d never imagined that all that prompted this meeting was plain old greed. When I left there, I went home and called Gin.

  “What’s up, Gin?” I asked once she’d answered the phone. “Listen, pack a bag, nothing heavy. We’re going to California in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 9

  When Spits first told Ginger about his plans for California, she’d become very nervous. She’d still been contemplating his suggestion for them to go away, but had yet to make a decision. Now everything was moving so quickly. Before she knew it, he was spitting directions and locations at her before even asking her if she felt okay going. Spits automatically assumed that she’d want to be with him, no matter what. He was right about her wanting to be with him, but she couldn’t help second-guessing the flight.

  “I don’t know about this,” Ginger said as they stood in line to board the plane.

  “What do you mean?” Spits asked. “We’re already here, Gin.”

  “I know, but I’m having second thoughts.”

  “Listen, this is business. I don’t have time to play around. Now, I told Trigger that once I was out there to set everything up, that he could come. I can’t let anything fuck that up, Gin. Trig’s depending on me.”