Animal Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I: Mo Money . . . Mo Murder . . . Mo Homicide

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part II: Omens

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Part III: You Ain’t Never Had A Friend Like Me

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Part IV: Love & Gunplay

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Epilogue

  “The Dream is birthed by a thought and is given heart, soul, and character by the road traveled in pursuit of that dream.”

  K’wan

  PROLOGUE

  THE RAIN HAD STARTED EARLY. FROM THE dark clouds that had been brewing all morning it looked like it was going to be a full-blown storm, but so far, it had been limited to a constant drizzle. They say that when it rained it meant that God was weeping and if that was the case, then he wasn’t the only one because there were at least two dozen tear-streaked faces gathered around a hollowed plot at Rose Hill Cemetery. They had come to say farewell to a soul who was loved by almost everyone she encountered.

  Ashanti stood off toward the back of the crowd trying his best to look comfortable. He was dressed in black jeans, a black t-shirt, and had two black bandanas tied around his wrists. Printed on the t-shirt was the phrase “gone but not forgotten” and a picture of the deceased. King James had been pressing him to wear a suit, explaining that it was a sign of respect to the deceased, but Ashanti wasn’t trying to hear that. A lot of the people at the funeral knew him and therefore knew how he gave it up, so wearing a suit would’ve been out of character for him. Respect or not, he would say good-bye to his friend the same way he had said hello: G’d up.

  On the other side of the plot someone had broken down into tears which made Ashanti uncomfortable. He had been around death most of his young life, but this was only his second time attending a funeral. The first time had been when his mother passed, and that was only because Social Services made his current foster family take him. She had given birth to him so they would always share the bond between mother and child, but other than that Ashanti felt nothing for her. How could he bring himself to love someone who had sold his sister off into prostitution to pay her own debts and released her baby boy to the streets to feed her demons? He felt no sorrow when his mother passed, only closure, because the one person who had been able to hurt them would never be able to again.

  A cold chill ran through Ashanti’s body bringing him back from the place his mind was trying to take him. Standing to his left, hands folded over each other and head bowed, was Alonzo. He had passed on the suit also and opted for a button-up and some black-on-black Prada shoes. Alonzo, known as Zo-Pound to those who knew that part of him, was the younger brother of a dude who ran with King James named Lakim. Though Lakim was notorious on the streets, Alonzo wasn’t without his fair share of horror stories. He and Ashanti had gotten tight since both of them were reluctantly recruited into King James’s crew. Like Ashanti, funerals made him uncomfortable too, but he volunteered to roll with Ashanti when no one else did. Partially because he knew how important the deceased had been to Ashanti, and partially because he knew the parts they had all played in her death.

  Ashanti’s eyes drifted to two women sitting near the head of the casket. One was older wearing a large colorful hat that he had seen around the neighborhood when he and Brasco were hustling in the projects, but her name escaped him at the moment. Sadness was etched across her face, but she held back the tears that danced in the corners of her eyes behind her bifocal glasses. The younger woman was far less composed. It seemed like every time the pastor opened his mouth the younger one would break out into a wave of sobs and the older one would reach out to console her. Ashanti wanted to go over and offer his condolences but couldn’t find the words. What does one say to a woman who has just lost a child? Watching them grieve crushed him, so he turned away for fear that he may not be able to hold in the sadness that filled his own chest. Wanting to focus on something else, he scanned the sea of faces sitting, standing, and some even being held up. Many of them he knew, but there were a few he didn’t. At the end of the day it didn’t matter who knew who because at that moment the pain they all shared was what bound them. Though he was standing merely a few feet away from her casket, his mind still couldn’t process the fact that Gucci was dead.

  “You look like you just lost your best friend,” someone said from behind Ashanti.

  “Something like that,” Ashanti said without bothering to turn around. His eyes were misty, and he didn’t want anyone to see him on the verge of crying.

  “You know, eventually death comes to us all. Some sooner than others.”

  “You ain’t never lied about that,” Ashanti said, looking at the casket. “Seems like the good die young and the wicked live forever.”

  “Indeed, which is why it’s up to men like us to keep the scales balanced. Killing is a dirty business, but somebody has got to do it. Ain’t that right, Ashanti?”

  “Homie, you know me from somewhere?” Ashanti looked up at the man who was addressing him for the first time and was shocked to see who it was.

  Animal stood there in all his glory, dressed in a long black trench coat and dark glasses. His long hair blew freely in the breeze.

  “Holy shit!” Ashanti staggered backward, tripping over a hill of dirt and landing on his butt a few feet away from the casket. “Animal? No, no, no . . . you can’t be here. You’re dead, ain’t you?” Ashanti got to his feet.

  “Dead as a doornail.” Animal opened the trench coat and exposed his bare chest for Ashanti to see. There were several bullet holes in his chest, some of which were still bleeding. He walked closer to Ashanti causing him to back up further until he was at the edge of the plot the casket would be lowered in. “They killed me, then they killed my lady, and none of my so-called homies did shit about it.”

  “I been trying—”

  “You ain’t been trying hard enough!” Animal cut him off. “Don’t worry yourself too much about it though. Hell is pretty nice this time of year, and I’ve come to give you the full tour.” Animal pushed Ashanti into the hole.

  Ashanti awoke screaming at the top of his lungs. His head whipped back and forth, expecting to see the dirt walls of the hole he had been pushed in, but found only the pale cream paint of his apartment walls. There was no ghost, and no cemetery. It had all been a bad dream.

  He sat on the edge of his b
ed and let out a sigh of relief. Then he grabbed the half-empty bottle of tequila on his nightstand and tossed it into the waste basket. “No more Cuervo before bed. I’m switching back to dark liquor.”

  PART I

  MO MONEY . . . MO MURDER . . . MO HOMICIDE

  ONE

  “MY BABY, PLEASE TELL ME THAT AIN’T my baby.” The woman burst through the throng of onlookers, dressed in only a bathrobe and house shoes as they were all she had time to grab when the frantic knocks landed on her door. The crowd parted like the Red Sea so that she could get a bird’s-eye view of what everyone else had been staring at for the last ten minutes, a corpse under a bloody white sheet.

  Alvarez was the first to notice her. The tall Hispanic detective had been standing over the body, picking his teeth with a toothpick and analyzing the crime scene in his mind. Dressed in dark jeans, a T-shirt, and white Nikes, he looked more like a spectator than a detective. “Damn,” was all he could say when he saw the distraught look on the robed woman’s face.

  The robed woman burst through the police tape to where the corpse was laid out, followed by two young ladies and a young man. They all looked distressed. The robed woman went to pull off the sheet, but was cut off by two uniformed police officers. They were a bit overzealous in their handling of the woman, which caused a shoving match between them and the family of the victim.

  “They said that’s my baby laying there! Get off me.” The woman struggled against the cops, which only agitated the already tense crowd.

  “If you don’t calm down we’re gonna haul all your asses in,” one of the uniformed officers threatened. He was a beefy white cop with a salt-and-pepper mustache and a thick nose. In his hand he held a nightstick and looked eager to use it.

  “Take off that badge and that gun and I’ll show you what to do with that nightstick,” one of the boys in the crowd threatened, which only stirred up the crowd more. Things were getting ugly.

  From his position, kneeling beside the corpse, Detective Brown watched the officers roughly handle the grieving woman and a frown creased his dark face. Unlike his partner Alvarez, Brown was the straitlaced, no-nonsense cop who had a low tolerance for bullshit, especially from other cops. Brushing off the knees of his black slacks he approached the brewing mêlée. “Why doesn’t everybody just cool out.”

  “Why don’t you tell these Nazis to cool out?” another boy shouted, getting in the mustached officer’s face. In his excitement spittle flew from his mouth and splattered on the officer’s face.

  “Did this muthafucka just spit on me?” the mustached officer wiped his face with the back of his uniform sleeve. From the shock on the boy’s face it was clear that it wasn’t intentional, but it was all the officer needed to employ excessive force. When he reached for his pepper spray Detective Brown grabbed him by the arm.

  “At ease,” Detective Brown whispered to the officer. “We’re in foreign territory, and the natives are restless, so we don’t need you doing something stupid to put us all in an awkward predicament. These people just lost a family member, so if you can’t show respect, at least show a little compassion.”

  The officer’s eyes said that he wanted to try Detective Brown, but he wisely fell back. Detective Brown approached the grieving woman and her family. They cast intimidating glares at him, but he was unmoved. “So this is how you wanna go about it, huh?”

  “Fuck that. That’s my li’l brother lying out, and these assholes are treating us like criminals,” a girl who looked like a younger version of the woman in the robe barked.

  “And they’re gonna keep treating you like criminals the way you’re carrying on,” Detective Brown shot back. “C’mon, people. We all know how this is gonna play out if this gets crazy. Them bluecoats are gonna come through kicking ass and taking names, and that ain’t gonna bring your family back or get us any closer to finding out who did this. Now, we can do this the easy way and have this woman step over and identify the body or the hard way.” He looked over his shoulders at the cops gathering behind him. “Your call.”

  The woman motioned for her family to be calm and stepped forward. “Please, just let me see my boy.”

  Detective Brown took the woman by the hand and walked her over to the corpse, where one of the medical examiners was scraping under his fingernails. As they neared the body he could feel her begin to tremble so he squeezed her hand to try to comfort her. “Ma’am, I gotta warn you that this isn’t the prettiest scene in the world.”

  The woman composed herself enough to speak. “I don’t care. Please just let me see if that’s my baby under that sheet.”

  Detective Brown leaned in and whispered something to the medical examiner that made her face sadden. With a reluctant nod, she pulled the sheet from the corpse’s face. As soon as she laid eyes on her baby boy she broke down. Her eyes were telling her one thing, and her heart was telling her another. Before anyone realized what she was doing the woman snatched the sheet off the body completely and beheld what was left of her son, Slick. His eyelids had been melted shut, and the corners of his mouth were cut back to make it look like he had a permanent smile on his face. Slick’s body was covered in cuts and bruises, and his throat had been slit clean to the bone. The only thing keeping it attached to his body were shredded pieces of skin. The most disturbing thing was the word war carved into his forehead. She had seen enough.

  Detective Brown barely had time to catch the woman when she collapsed into him. She buried her face in his chest, soaking his silk shirt with her tears. Her sobs were so intense that Detective Brown could feel them vibrating in his chest as they came. “I’m sorry for your loss,” was all that he could think of to say, rubbing her back to offer some sort of comfort. Being a father himself, Detective Brown could only imagine what she was going through, and the thought of losing one of his own kids scared him to death.

  The woman peeled her face from his shirt and looked up at Detective Brown. Her eyes were swollen and red and would no doubt get worse before the night was over. “Who would do this to my boy?” Her voice quivered. “What kind of animal would do this to a child?”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am; catching animals is our specialty. We’re gonna get the son-of-a-bitch who did this to your boy,” Detective Brown assured her. After a few more minutes of consoling and kind words the detective passed the distraught mother off to her family and walked over to join his partner Alvarez, who was scowling over the scene.

  “This is fucked up,” Alvarez said in disgust.

  “Tell me about it.” Brown loosened his tie. “How many does that make for us this month?”

  Alvarez thought about it for a minute. “Five or six. I lost count.”

  “And those are just the ones we’ve been working. Think about how many other poor bastards have been splattered around the city in the last few weeks. Nah, this whole situation smells funny. These people haven’t been random shootings or arguments gone wrong. They’ve been murdered . . . brutally.”

  Alvarez finally caught on. “Like someone is trying to send a message?”

  “Bingo,” Detective Brown nodded, “and from the looks of things it isn’t a friendly message. Something is afoot in the jungle, and I’d be willing to bet my pension that if we dig deep enough, you and I both know who we’ll find tied up somewhere in this.”

  Alvarez didn’t understand what he meant at first but when he really thought about it his eyes widened. “You don’t mean . . .”

  “Indeed I do,” Brown said. “I thought maybe I was bugging when I first started putting it together, but once I really began to roll it around in my mind,” Brown shook his head, “this has that little punk written all over it.”

  Alvarez shook his head in protest. “Brown, I know you’d like nothing more than to slap a life sentence on that whole clan, but I think you’re reaching. Besides, the last time I checked, the deceased was an affiliate, so why would he whack one of his own?”

  Detective Brown gave Alvarez a comical look. “J, I swear if
the brass ever decided to give you a random drug test they’d kick your ass off the force. He’s not the deliverer of the message, but the recipient. Three of those messes we were called in on were current or past employees. Looks like somebody finally got up the balls to try to put Prince Charming back in his place.” Brown’s lips parted into a wide smile.

  “Damn,” was all Alvarez could say once the pieces started falling into place. “If that’s the case, then it’s gonna get way worse before it gets better.” Alvarez shook his head.

  “Yup, and once again, we gotta step in to clean up his shit,” Brown said, disgustedly.

  “The first thing we gotta do is try to get a line on who the new player in the game is. There aren’t too many powerful or stupid enough to go at him in the streets like this, so the list of names should be a short one. Where do you suggest we start our search?”

  “At the source,” Brown said before heading to their car.

  Animal stood just beyond the police tape, watching the crime scene among the rest of the spectators. His mane of wild black curls was tucked deeply into a Rasta-style wool cap, and black glasses covered his eyes to protect his identity while he moved within mere yards of the men looking to bury him under a prison for the rest of his days. It was dangerous playing the crime scene so close, but Animal wanted to feel the public’s reaction to his handiwork.

  When he noticed the black and brown detectives in the sea of blue uniforms, a smile parted his lips. He was both surprised and impressed that they had survived his prison escape a few years back when K-Dawg’s men came for him. Los Negro Muertes had been ruthless in Animal’s abduction, and to his knowledge, there had been no survivors. The fact that the detectives had not only survived, but had returned to active duty, told Animal that the two men were more resilient than he had given them credit for. As preoccupied as everyone was with the body and controlling the mob, it would’ve been fairly easy for Animal to kill one, if not both, of the detectives and have a good chance at escaping, but he would let them keep their lives. They’d earned them and were safe . . . unless they came between him and what he had to do.