Bankroll Squad (4 page)

four

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alcolm tried to park as close to the entrance of the Prime Stop as possible. Shit, he wasn’t driving a Chrysler 300, he was driving the

real deal. He couldn’t just park it anywhere. A Toyota Camry backed out of a parking space on the left side of the store entrance, and zoomed on about its business. Malcolm pulled right into the empty parking space listening to 50 Cent’s “I Get Money/ Money I got.” All eyes were on him as usual. He relished this type of attention and recognition. It’s what he hustled for, what he wished for and what he lived for. He knew that if his day was fucked up, him riding in his most prized possession could cheer him up when nothing else could. A series of horns blew back on the highway, as the vehicles started to exit to get on the 25 south expressway. He turned around to see if he could make out who it was, and realized that it was Pam, Catfish, Brink, Marco, and Prince Tron headed back to their respective homes. He turned the engine off, opened the door and placed the keys in his pocket. Little kids were pointing at him and his car screaming “look mommy! Look! Wowwww!” Another vehicle pulled up along side him on his right side. He glanced up and saw Kyla’s big Kool-Aid smile. He rolled his eyes, shut the door, and started walking towards the store entrance. Kyla rolled down her window and spoke out of desperation,

“Malcolm, can we talk for a minute?”

He reached the store entrance, opened the door, and spoke in an irritated tone,
“Wait till I come out!”
He went in the store searching for some Tylenol and orange juice to give to his wife when he got to his estate. He figured that she would be suffering from a hangover pretty soon. Kyla exhaled and laid back in her seat waiting on Malcolm to come out of the store.

$ $ $ $ $

One of the Cowards saw it. His eyes got huge and his breathing sped up. It was a drop top Bentley. Free of charge. The Wolf saw it too. They showed the other Coward and he immediately put one in the chamber and got out of the Neon. The Wolf started to tell him to wait, but what the hell, he had already started walking across the parking lot towards the Bentley. When Malcolm came out of the store, Kyla rolled her window down again.

“Malcolm?”
He held up a finger.
“Hold up a second,” He arrogantly remarked as

he went and sat in his car.

Then he rolled his window down the same way that she had hers.
“Yes Kyla?” He shouted.
Kyla looked at him lovingly.
“Why can’t we get back together Malcolm? We belong together. I just-”
In the middle of her sentence, Malcolm started backing his car up, about to leave. His logic was that Kyla left him once, so she would do it again. That’s why he never gave her another chance.
“Malcolm!” She screamed as loud as she could.
“Please, Malcolm talk to me!”
He ignored her.
She knows I’m married,
Malcolm thought to himself as he continued to back the Bentley out of the parking lot. Looking in his rear view, he realized that there was a line of vehicles behind him trying to exit the parking lot to get back on the highway. The car at the front of the line seemed to be waiting on the next red light in order for it to pull out into the road. Malcolm exhaled and pulled back up into his parking slot until he could get enough room to back his car out and go. Kyla was still sitting there staring at him. He pushed a button and the roof of the Bentley evaporated. Every man was giving him thumbs up and every woman was giving him the eye. Occasionally, someone would ask him “how much?” Nonchalantly, he would reply “200 thou.” “Damn!” Would be the typical response. One of the Cowards were approaching him from the driver’s side of the car, looking as if he was dazzled and impressed and had a series of questions that he wanted to ask the owner of the vehicle. He had on blue jeans and a white polo shirt and the gun was in his right hand; his right hand behind his back. Kyla saw him, he paid no attention to her, since he was smiling and attempting to make eye contact with Malcolm. Malcolm saw him approaching and thought,
“Damn, another car question. He’s probably gonna ask me if I wanna sell it or some other weird shit.”
Malcolm glanced away as the Coward approached.
Kyla had a bad feeling in her stomach, she could sense that something was wrong. Then she realized it, she couldn’t see the guy’s right hand ... and when she did see it, he had laid the barrel on the side of Malcolm’s head. Malcolm froze. He couldn’t believe it. One of the most horrible feelings that a human being could ever feel crawled through his body. It weakened his bladder, but he was too strong and too gangsta to piss on his self. He wasn’t scared of dying, he just didn’t want to. He was as mad as he could possibly get. Red hot. He couldn’t believe that he had relaxed so much that he had failed to pay attention to his surroundings. He was mad at his self. This was an internal failure. A failure between brain and eye to communicate with each other. Had he not failed to pay attention, a fuckin’ gun would not be resting on the side of his head.
“Take the watch, those rings, and that chain off and throw it in the passenger seat!” The Coward barked at Malcolm.
Malcolm started relieving himself of his jewelry.
“Hurry the fuck up!” The Coward screamed.
Damn, Malcolm thought, this is really happening to me. If only he knew ... I could make a phone call and have his whole face removed from his head. This idiot doesn’t know who the fuck I am. Kyla ducked down in the seat of her truck so she could pull her .380 from the compartment under the seat. She grabbed it. It was loaded. The Wolf saw her duck down in the seat and started driving over to help out. He could tell that the Coward was paying no attention to the girl in the pink truck. What a costly mistake he could be making.
The Wolf and the other Cowards were about 20 feet away when they saw Kyla put the gun in the air and point it at the robber. The Coward in the Wolf’s car panicked, and without warning, he pulled the 12 gauge shotgun from the backseat, and pointed it at Kyla’s truck aimlessly. BOOM! Glass shattered, people started screaming, car alarms went off from a few parked cars, and blood splattered against the cream white seats of Kyla’s Range Rover. Kyla was hit. Buckshots burned through her body as she tried to focus on what had just taken place. She was in pain. Her body went into rapid convulsions, and then the horn sounded. And sounded. And sounded. Kyla had passed out on the steering wheel, face down, the Range Rover horn screaming out for her. The other Coward smacked Malcolm with the butt of the gun; knocking him out cold. He pulled Malcolm out of the Bentley and jumped into the driver’s seat. The Wolf smiled. For the first time, the Cowards had done something perfect; well ... almost perfect ... if it wasn’t for the body, it would have been a brilliant job. But a damn good job of Coward 2 for saving Coward 1’ s life. Coward 1, sped off in the Bentley, the Wolf and Coward 2 followed. Fuck it, the Wolf thought once they hit 25 north, the job was fuckin’ perfect. The vanity plate on the Bentley read: IM PAID. The Wolf smiled again.

$ $ $ $ $

Jennifer Powers plopped down on the butter soft sofa in the great room. All sorts of thoughts ran through her head. After Malcolm left to go to the Power Building for a meeting, she had taken a zip lock bag filled with cocaine and poured a small mound of it onto an ESSENCE magazine. And tried it. She did it the same way she saw it get done in the movies.

She snorted it once and thought that maybe she had done it wrong. She started to panic because she couldn’t feel her face.

“Oh my God, I hope I’m not allergic or something. Ohmi God ohmi God ohmi God!”
Her chest felt like she was standing in the club directly in front of the speaker. House music. No, yes, ohmi God, ohmi God, what’s happening to me? Jennifer thought to herself. Her nose burned ... then went numb. It tasted bitter. She rubbed her hand across her face to make sure it was still there. It was. She pinched it hard and then jumped from the sofa. She looked around the room frantically, she thought she heard someone talking. It was someone talking. She quickly poured the mound from the magazine to her purse, and threw the zip lock bag into the purse as well. She brushed off her nose so that no residue showed. She ran to a mirror, her nose was red. She took make-up from her purse and quickly coated her nose. She went back and sat down. Her left foot was tapping against the floor at the same pace as her heart beat. She put her hand to her chest ... yes, it was still beating at a rapid pace. She listened ... the people in the house were still talking. It sounded like they were in the next room. She ran and grabbed the biggest knife she had out of the kitchen. It had a soft black flexi-grip handle. The blade was a whole chicken’s worst nightmare. She ran back into the great room, knife in hand, purse on arm. It was dark outside, so she was a bit scared since it sounded like complete strangers in the house.
“Malcolm, is that you?” No response.
“Jeffery! Is that you? Who are you talking to?”
No response, but the damn voices continued. I don’t understand how anyone could get past all of our security and end up in the house. It must be Malcolm ... and he must have company. She thought to herself, even though the voices didn’t sound like his. She decided to go find out what the hell was going on. She jumped up and ran towards the voices that she was hearing. Then she saw them. It was the intruders. It was the television. Jennifer was high.

$ $ $ $ $

The get-together at Club Splash that night was canceled. Pam, Brink, and Malcolm were at Sinai Memorial hospital in full support of Kyla. Catfish, Prince Tron, and Marco were out hunting. They took the surveillance footage from the Prime Stop by posing as FBI agents. They told the manager that they were in a hurry and left them a phony business card. The real police officers were searching the crime scene for clues and/or witnesses. The ambulance had already come and gone when Catfish came out with the footage. After studying the footage, Marco stated that he knew one of the guys. The driver. He lives on the east side and they call him “Cat,” or “Bird,” or “Wolf,” it was one of those three animals. Then they started the animal hunt. They were on a mission like no other. A member of the Bankroll Squad was on her death bed. The leader had been robbed. Retaliation was mandatory. If the streets caught wind of the Prime Stop incident, there’s no telling what would happen next. Everybody would be plotting. We have to make some examples, reasoned Catfish. They were all in the van dressed in all black. Even Prince Tron left his chain at home for this. The artillery they had was dangerous and illegal enough to get them all federal life sentences. Rocket launchers, grenade throwers, car bombs, and uzies. They had their ears to the streets and were following up every possible lead on the Animal’s whereabouts. At one of the bars, when Catfish went in to ask questions about the Animal, the bartender told him that she hadn’t heard anything about a stolen Bentley or a shooting. Then, after Catfish displayed a photo printout of the driver, the bartender recognized him

“ Ohhh, I know him. That’s Wolf.” She said.

“Wolf, you say? Tell me about him if you don’t mind.”
The bartender glared at him for a moment. “Well, actually I do mind, I’m working here. If

you’re not going to tip me then you need to keep it moving so that the people that do tip me can sit down and tip comfortably.”

She walked away and went to a customer. Catfish pulled a $50 bill out and waved it at her in order to get her attention. She saw it but continued serving the other customers. He looked at the long string of drinkers that were ahead of him and decided that since he didn’t have much time to just be sitting around waiting on her to serve them all, he reached in his pocket, pulled out a fistful of 100 dollar bills, and held them in the air. The bartender wasted no time in pouring Grey Goose for her current and hurriedly made her way back to Catfish. She was grinning, so was he.

“I figured that I could get some type of attention if I went about it like that.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself. I just came to tell you to put your money back in your pocket. I’ll get to you when I get to you.”
With that, she smiled seductively and went to service another customer. If she wasn’t so pretty, Catfish would have pulled a pistol out on her. He went outside to tell Tron and Marco to give him a little more time, he might have a good lead. As soon as he told them that, they started reaching for their guns.
“Wait a minute.” Catfish directed.
“It’s just a girl. A bartender actually. I don’t need any help. Ya’ll just give me a few minutes!”
“Man fuck that!” Marco exclaimed.
“Anybody that has a lead on these bastards gotta’ come with us. Now!” Marco tucked the gun under his waistband and try to get out the van.
“Wait muthafucka!” Catfish was getting irritated.
Sometimes it seemed as though Marco thought he was in charge.
“You don’t think that I can get information out of a bitch?”
“Not if you thread the bitch’s lips together you asshole!”
“Fuck you Marco!”
Sensing that the situation was getting entirely out of control, Prince Tron intermediated.
“Stay focused!” Tron was shouting.
“Catfish, you’re the leader of this shit, so you know what’s best! Marco, this is not your specialty, so let this nigga’ do what he does best!”
He looked at Catfish with eyes of trust.
“Do your thing man, we gonna’ follow your lead regardless of what Marco says. We’re doing this for Kyla. We’re doing this for Malcolm, for the Squad, for respect and principles. We’re down for whatever!”
Catfish gave Tron a nod and walked back in the bar. Marco laid back in his seat. He exhaled. $ $ $ $ $

Sinai Memorial Hospital smelled like Lysol and death. It was gloomy and ice cold. The emergency room had a variety of different types of patients. One guy had endured a stroke at a gay porn theater. Another guy was suffering from internal bleeding, he had been hit by a car while trying to run across three lanes on a freeway to save a dog. It didn’t work. A construction worker had fallen off of a house and couldn’t feel anything on his body. These were Kyla Brent’s new neighbors. She was in a coma. Buckshots had been removed from her chest, shoulder, arm, and there were even a couple in her shoulder, arm, and there were even a couple in her gauge blast, a small piece of glass flew back and scarred the right side of her face. There was white gauze taped from the side of her eye down to the bottom of her cheek. The doctor told Malcolm that she probably wasn’t going to make it. He asked probably wasn’t? So there was a chance, right? The doctor answered No, more than likely she will not make it. Don’t get your hopes up. But she was fighting. She hadn’t let go yet. Malcolm, Brink, and Pam were in the waiting room in a prayer circle. They knew that it was only one person who could deliver her, and He would do so if it was His will. Pam was crying. Brink was crying. Malcolm was going crazy. If there would have been a gun around, he would have killed himself. Malcolm fell to his knees with his hands clasped together. Please Lord, please bring Kyla through this. He sat down and covered his face with his hands out of shame. Pam and Brink came to his side to comfort him. Pam put her hand on Malcolm’s shoulder reassuringly.