With Tak watching in silence, Poppy disemboweled the apartment. From the seams of curtains, from the bottoms of cupboards, from the rotting floorboards behind the toilet, from an envelope pinned to the back of the couch, Poppy Martens pulled all the money he had in the world. Money that had come all the way from Buffalo.
“What the hell is that?” It was the most excited Tak had sounded in years.
Poppy counted the loot, considered moving it, considered giving it to Tak so he could be safe and away from whatever hell was coming, considered asking one of the hop-heads he knew in Cypress Court to dispatch Coopersmith and have this cat-and-mouse routine done once and for all.
He went to his typewriter instead and scrolled in sheet after sheet of white paper, hammering furiously on the keys. Then, on an envelope he wrote, Open in Case of Emergency or Tragedy, and slipped the folded pages inside. He waved it at Tak who stood nearby, watching. Poppy placed the envelope on the table. He wrote out a letter in longhand and put it and some cash in another envelope addressed to his wife. This he placed in the breast pocket of his overcoat. He forked over enough bills to Tak to keep him in high cotton for quite awhile. He smiled, feeling as though he was making tithes at St. Francis de Sales.
“Where the hell did you get all this cash?” Tak wanted to know. “What have you been up to?”
“It’s from a long time ago. Before California. My rainy day money,” Poppy said.
“Is it raining now?”
“Once I drop these letters off, it’ll be pouring. You best be ready, my friend.”
From the tiny closet Poppy took a leather satchel he’d always been too self-conscious to carry. Though he bought it second hand, it screamed prosperity. In it he put a letter, wrapped five hundred dollars in the funny papers as if it were catfish, and carefully tied the bundle of bills together with twine. He snapped the case shut and handed it to Tak.
“I want you to take this to the courthouse when you’re feeling better. Ask for the district attorney.” Poppy saw the doubtful look on Tak’s face. “Of course, they won’t let you see him, but tell whoever’s guarding his door that the satchel is for him and him alone. Make a fuss if you have to. But make sure you put it in his hands.”
“Why me? Why can’t you do it?”
“Poetic justice.”
Tak didn’t have to navigate a gauntlet of underlings at the courthouse. That very evening Poppy and Tak found the district attorney’s car parked outside the courthouse and placed the satchel on the passenger seat. In it was an unsigned letter, implicating Coopersmith in the Japanese property scandal that had cost his colleague his career.
It was no bloody knife, Poppy realized, but it would serve.
The Streets Don’t Love Nobody
by Harry Louis Williams II
Brookfield Village
A fat roach trekked silently across his bloody brown hand. It flicked its antennae as it waddled across fingernails caked thick and black with dirt. Outside, the piercing howl of sirens racing down 98th Avenue collided with the heavy pounding of hip-hop beats from the fifteen-inch speakers in a passing car.
A moan came from the dark couch rank with old beer stains. Super Blast was startled to find that it had emanated out from deep within his own parched throat. Anticipating the call, his homeboy Lyle stepped over to the couch where Super Blast lay sprawled. Lyle bent over and rested the open end of a plastic water bottle on his bottom lip. Then he untied the fat laces on the brand-new Jordans before slipping them off Super Blast’s feet.
A damp crimson blotch spread out across the chest of Super Blast’s once-white Raiders T-shirt. Lyle had tried to stop the bleeding, to no avail. The .44 slug had hit Super Blast in the center of his chest, sending bone fragments scrambling toward his heart and lungs. It had hit so hard and with such fury that it had actually set his shirt on fire. It scalded his belly and shredded his breastbone.
“Am I... going to die?” Super Blast asked.
Lyle chuckled, “Fool, you too rich to die. You got ’em, dude. Don’t you remember?”
Yes, he did remember. Super Blast had slipped through an open bedroom window in one of the Black Christmas Mob’s trap houses. He had cracked open the safe in the bedroom with an ax. There were two kilos of raw cocaine packed in clear plastic packages, along with three fat stacks of folded money tied with red rubber bands. Super Blast chucked the kis and the dough into a duffel bag. He was home free until he heard someone holler, “Hey, did you hear that? Somebody’s in the bedroom!”
Super Blast zipped up the duffel and tossed it through the open window. His mistake was instinctive: turning to see who was coming through the door. And they came in blasting. The first slug hit him before he could jump on the chair to leap over the window ledge. He heard seven shots in all before he fell down into the tall grass outside. For a moment he lay there in the dark, twisting like a snake, waiting for death to come. Somehow, he summoned the will to stand. This feat achieved, he grabbed the duffel bag and ran for his car.
The front door of the trap house opened. Super Blast ducked between parked cars, running with his head down. Bullets whizzed overhead. A Corvette’s rear window exploded, showering glass all over him. It wasn’t until he’d made it two blocks that the adrenaline rush subsided. He dashed to the Jetta that he’d stashed at the corner of East 106th and San Leandro Boulevard. He started the engine, veered into traffic, and raced in the direction of Sobrante Park in East Oakland. He couldn’t go home — War Thug had seen his face, so they’d be looking for him. He took a right on 105th Avenue at Edes, sped past Scotty’s Liquor, zoomed across the railroad tracks, and took a left into the stony heart of Brookfield Village.
Super Blast was headed for Lyle’s crib. Lyle was the one person he felt he could trust. Once people learned he had those kis, they’d be trying to take everything away from him. But not Lyle. Lyle was his crime protégé; Super Blast had introduced Lyle to the game.
He parked the car around the corner and limped up to the tiny brown wood-frame house at the center of the cul-de-sac. It took Lyle forever to get the door. He was laughing into his cell phone when it swung open. The pain in Super Blast’s chest was nearly unbearable; white flashes of light blinked in his skull. His shirt was soaked in blood and the duffel bag dangled from his fingertips. Lyle’s eyes settled on the bag and rested there.
“What’s up, my dude?” Lyle asked.
“What it look like, playa? Let me in.”
Super Blast stumbled through the doorway right into Lyle’s awaiting arms. Lyle draped his right arm across his shoulders, then half-carried, half-dragged him into the living room area. He let Super Blast down slowly onto the couch. Finally, he noticed the bleeding chest.
“Damn, man! How is you still alive? What happened?”
Super Black gargled and spit out a mouthful of blood. “War Thug got me.”
“War Thug? That Black Christmas Mob capo?
Super Blast nodded. For the moment it was all he could manage.
“Why he do this to you, bruh?”
“Look in the bag.” Super Blast thrust it in Lyle’s direction, never letting go of the handle.
Lyle unzipped it, peered inside, and grabbed his own chest. “Holy!.. Man, that’s two kis in there. How much money is that?”
Super Blast’s smile broke into a laugh but he cut it short. Hurt too much. “C’mon, dude. You know how I get down in these streets.”