Hard Candy Saga (21 page)

Easy watched as one of the three men stood over her and began unzipping his pants. He bit down into his jaw, drawing his own blood. His blood was boiling in his veins, but still he didn't say a word.

“You still playing hard-ass? Well, I'm about to show you real hard-ass,” the same Hispanic said. “Do it,” he ordered the other man in the room.

Eric Junior snapped out of his drug-induced haze. The drugs were wearing off a bit. “Hell naw! Y'all not gonna rape my fuckin' baby sister!” he screamed.

“What!” One of the men whirled around and leveled the gun at Brianna, who let out an ear-shattering scream.

Eric Junior let off one shot, but it missed the Hispanic man and hit his sister instead.

The other man lifted his gun menacingly. “Oh, you had a change of heart just like your punk-ass father?” He grabbed Eric Junior by the neck.

“Oh God!” Corine cried out. One of her kids was shot and lay bleeding to death, and she was about to watch the other die.

Easy rocked back and forth, his fist clenched so tight, he was sure the bones in his knuckles would burst through the skin.

The most evil of the Hispanic men dragged Eric Junior over to his mother. “Shoot her! Shoot her in the face!” the man demanded.

Eric Junior was crying, his mind muddled and his vision fuzzy.

The man grabbed his arm and hoisted it up. He pulled the hammer back on the gun that rested against Eric Junior's head. “Kill her now!” he whispered harshly in Eric Junior's ear.

Eric pulled the trigger without even thinking, and his mother's body slumped forward.

The other man used a knife and cut away the material of her dress, leaving her naked, to further degrade her. “Now you will kill your father,” he said, dragging Eric Junior over to Easy.

Easy didn't look up. He hung his head.

Eric Junior was bawling now. “Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for all of this to happen,” he cried.

“Junior,” Easy said softly.

Eric Junior blinked back tears.

Before he could open his eyes, in that split second, another of the Hispanic intruders emptied a magazine into the back of Easy's head.

Eric Junior began to scream.

“Now you will kill yourself,” the man holding him hostage said.

With his heart racing, Eric Junior lifted the handgun he'd been given earlier to use against his family and shot his brains out. His blood splattered against one of the intruders' clothing; his body fell right at the entrance to the living room.

The men exited the living room via the hallway. One of the men reached back and pulled the door closed with a bloody hand. There was a car waiting out front for them.

* * *

Candice doubled over as if she had been punched in the stomach. Uncle Rock's story had shaken the very foundation of her life.

“But why?” she cried out. “Why?” She needed to rationalize the events of her past before she could move forward with her life.

“Your father made a deal with the government, and there was no turning back. Rolando DeSosa worked for the CIA, and so did I. They used your father, and they weren't finished with him when he decided he wanted out of the game. I found out about the government's plan and convinced him to leave the game. Easy trusted me. It was partly my fault that he and your family died,” Uncle Rock lamented.

“But why would Eric Junior turn on him?” Candice asked.

“Because . . . they had taken him. Snatched him off the streets and gave him the same mind-altering drugs they gave us after 'Nam. Once they put that stuff in your system, your mind would be so fried, you would do anything, including kill your own flesh and blood,” Uncle Rock explained, knowing from firsthand experience.

“You had pictures.... There were news reports,” Candice cried, still refusing to move her gun from Junior's head.

“They were all media feeds. I only kept them because I thought it was so fucked up. I wanted to track and see if the government would eventually kill these supposed murder suspects. They would have to do it to cover up the fact that any DNA tests they ran at the crime scene would come up negative.”

Uncle Rock's explanation made sense, but Candice still didn't want to believe it.

“So who the fuck killed Razor, Broady, and Shana?” Tuck grumbled. Rock had pulled Tuck up off the ground but still had a gorilla grip on his arm. He knew not to fuck with the old man.

Uncle Rock was silent.

“Phil killed them,” Junior answered.

“All of you are fuckin' wrong, wrong, wrong,” a voice called out.

They all turned their attention toward the entrance of the abandoned warehouse as Brad Brubaker stepped out of it. The black-tinted car was a prop. He'd set it up that way, using a remote control “bait car” with dummies inside. He knew Junior would be coming to meet the connect—the government's man.

Candice pulled her gun from Junior's head and pointed it at the unknown white man, and Uncle Rock did the same.

Junior finally managed with his one good hand to get his gun from his waistband.

Tuck was speechless, but he bent down and snatched his small handgun from his ankle rig. He squinted his eyes into tiny dashes. “You motherfucker!” he screamed. “You were working with them all along!”

Brubaker laughed. “All of you have been pitted against each other. Can't you see that?” he taunted.

“The story will be spun like this. Barton, you killed Corey Jackson so that little Hardaway here would keep her hands clean. Carson, you will look like you killed your own brother because of the war he started, and the girl, Broady's girlfriend . . . Well, it will just look like she was a revenge kill. Don't you see how we wanted it to look?” Brubaker laughed again, so pleased with himself.

“Now, none of you are leaving here alive. Not even you, Tucker,” Brubaker said with a sneer.

Brubaker had set up a team to handle this crazy standoff. He didn't trust that Rock would take care of Tucker. When Brubaker had seen Rock's condition, the CIA director's plan didn't sit right with him. Brubaker wasn't going to take a chance and let his moment of triumph go up in smoke. Taking down all of them was the ideal scenario. Brad Brubaker could see his name etched in glass at DEA headquarters already.

“Take them down!” Brubaker screamed into a small black clip-on radio attached to the lapel of his suit jacket.

Everybody took cover.

Candice hit the dirt. Junior ducked behind the car. Tuck inched to the back of the car, staying low.

Rock, however, didn't budge. “You can't be that stupid,” he said, walking toward Brubaker with his gun leveled at him.

Brubaker's face turned so white, it was almost transparent. “Take them out!” he screeched into the radio again.

“They're not coming. They hired me for one last cleaner job, but it wasn't for who you thought,” Rock said, a cough starting to well up in his chest.

“What the fuck are you saying, old man?” Brubaker said, his voice quivering.

“Did you think the government would laud you for being a traitor? Did you think they would promote you and respect you after you threw your own partner to the wolves, betraying him, lying on him, committing murders and putting them on him? Did you really think they would kill another federal agent to get him out of your way? Couldn't you see, while you thought Tucker's case was all one big red herring, that you were being duped?” Uncle Rock rattled off.

Brubaker shook his head in disbelief. He hadn't even brought his weapon with him, because he was so confident that the DEA and CIA sniper teams would be ready to take down all of his pawns.

Rock advanced on him like an avenging angel.

“You—you can't kill me,” Brubaker pleaded, his palms extended in supplication.

“I always complete a job when I'm paid to do it. I never renege on deals, especially with the government. Don't you see where that got my best friend, Easy Hardaway? Don't you see where that got you?” Rock asked, ready to unleash his full fury.

Rock placed both of his hands on his weapon, thumb over thumb, closed his weak eye, and let off a single shot that hit Brubaker in the center of his forehead. Brubaker's body remained standing for a few seconds then dropped like a heavy sack of potatoes. The back of his skull burst open like an overfilled water balloon.

Candice, Junior, and Tuck watched the scene unfold, speechless.

Uncle Rock turned around and began walking back toward them.

Tuck gripped his gun tightly. He couldn't be sure that Barton hadn't been hired to also take him out.

Rock, coughing fiercely as blood dribbled from his lips, walked right past Tucker.

“Uncle Rock!” Candice cried out, moving toward him.

“Stay there!” Uncle Rock screamed, halting her steps.

“Yo, this is some straight-out-a-movie shit! All I wanna do is take my fuckin' dough and get the fuck outta here! I can't have my moms burying two sons!”

“Wait!” Uncle Rock yelled at him.

“Candy, what you read in my last will and testament was true. I am dying. I have cancer. I did love someone at one time, and that love bore a son. His name is Joseph Carson, but his mother called him Junior,” Uncle Rock said, leaning over to cough up more blood.

“What, nigga?” Junior barked, lifting his gun. Staring at Rock, Junior remembered him as the old dude hanging with Easy when Easy gave him a job. “You fuckin' punk-ass bitch nigga! You let me go years without a father? Suffering at the hands of Broady's fucked-up pops, watching my moms get her ass beat up. You watched me go fuckin' hungry and have to steal from the store, and you ain't do shit.” Junior choked on his words. He was a man, and he wasn't going to let no tears fall, especially at no soap opera shit like this.

Uncle Rock spat up more blood.

Junior growled, “I should kill your fuckin' ass right here!”

Candice raised her gun. “I don't think so. He saved your fuckin' life today.”

“Candy, let him do it,” Uncle Rock rasped out. “Let him do it before they come for me.”

“What are you talkin' about?” Candice asked.

“I'm dying anyway. Shoot me now. Don't let them have the satisfaction.”

“No!” Candice screamed.

“All of you have to go. Get out of here! Run! It's never over when you have information about the government.” Uncle Rock wheezed.

“You can go with me. I have the money, from, from Daddy.” Candice couldn't stand losing her uncle Rock. Not now.

“Candy, you especially need to go. They will have a bounty on your head. You need to run.”

Before any of them could blink, Uncle Rock looked at Candy and let his gun hand drop to his leg. Then he fired a single shot.

Candice opened her mouth to scream, but it happened too fast.

“Noooo!”

Uncle Rock's body dropped to the ground, but his eyes were still open. Blood leaked from his mouth, but he was still trying to talk.

Candice ran to him. She knew she had only ten seconds or less. Uncle Rock had taught her about this very moment. She bent down at his side and could see the blood soaking through his pant leg.

“Why!” Candice screamed, trying to apply pressure on uncle Rock's wound.

“Be—because I—I love you,” Uncle Rock managed. Then his head lulled to the side, his eyes open and vacant.

“What the fuck!” Tuck huffed, bending down next to Candice.

She looked at him. Tears ran down her face in buckets. “He shot himself in the femoral artery,” she cried.

Tuck grabbed her around the shoulders. “There's nothing you can do for him, Candy. He did it all for you.”

Junior walked over and stood over the man who had just confessed to being his father. He wasn't going to shed a tear.

“Yo, Tuck, who the fuck are you?” Junior asked.

Tuck stood up, face-to-face with Junior. “I am Avon Tucker, a DEA agent that got set up by his own partner.”

Candice looked at him strangely, too overwhelmed with a mixture of emotions to be mad. They had both operated under false pretenses.

“So you were tryin'a take me down?” Junior asked.

“That was my assignment, but it was all a fuckin' joke. You've been working for the government, anyway,” Tuck told him.

A loud chopping sound could be heard overhead. The helicopters were hovering just above them.

“They're coming. Barton warned us. We need to get out of here,” Tuck said urgently.

“What about Uncle Rock's body?” Candice asked.

“They will make this one big crime scene. Once they do their investigation, they will contact his next of kin,” Tuck told her.

“Which is you,” Candice said to Junior.

The sound of the helicopters was louder than ever, and sirens could be heard in the distance. They all started to disperse like rats in an alley.

Candice went left, Junior went straight ahead, but Tuck remained back. He was the only one who didn't have a ride. He watched Candice walk toward her car and disappear from the darkened street. Junior quickly got into his truck and peeled off.

Within five minutes Tuck was surrounded.

He lifted his hands in the air in surrender. “I am Avon Tucker, DEA agent,” he screamed out.

One of the black Impala doors swung open.

“Are you still a DEA agent, Avon Tucker?” Dana Carlisle called out.

Tuck smiled and put his hands down. Thank God for honest DEA agents like Carlisle.

Candice pressed her foot lead heavy on the gas pedal and drove away from the crime scene like her life depended on it. Pulling up near her apartment building, Candice wiped the tears off her cheek. She had to focus on getting the hell out of the area, like Uncle Rock had instructed.
You're a big girl.... It's time to grow up. It's just you against them. C'mon, Candy, you can do this. Make Uncle Rock proud.
Candice gave herself a stern pep talk as she exhaled and put the gear into park. She rushed out of the car, whirling her head around in every direction, making sure she wasn't being watched. With her heart racing, Candice took the steps leading to her apartment two at a time. This was one of those times she had to heed Uncle Rock's lessons about being stealthy, accurate, focused and fast when on a mission.

Candice reached the floor where her apartment was located in the old high-rise building. The hallway was empty. Candice's hands were shaking badly; she could barely get the key into the lock. Finally the lock clicked and she pushed her way inside the familiar doorway. Before she could get her bearings, her jaw went slack with shock.

“These bastards!” Candice growled as she moved slowly. She took in the nightmarish scene and instinctively fumbled in her bag until she located her two favorite weapons, a .40-caliber Glock 22 and a .357 SIG Sauer. Her fingers instinctively chose the Glock.

Shaking her head from left to right, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, Candice slowly moved through the now-unfamiliar space filled with the debris of her ruined personal effects. Candice kicked a path clear and roved the rooms with her protection gripped tightly. Everything in her apartment had been turned upside down. Candice moved slowly toward the back of her apartment, where her bedroom was located. In there was a safe, which contained her life savings. Candice swallowed hard and forced her legs forward. Her survival instincts began to take over. She had to get that money, and get the hell out of there fast.

Moving with her back up against the walls, in case someone was still lurking about, Candice finally made it to the bedroom doorway. With her gun leading the way, she dipped her head inside quickly and backed out, just as fast. She said a quick, silent prayer and rushed through the entranceway. As she entered the room, glass crunched under her feet. Candice stopped breathing for a minute. She bent down and picked up the shattered photo frame, which contained a portrait of her slain family. Her heart jerked in her chest as she looked at the jagged lines from the broken glass running across her father's face. How ironic that his face was sliced in half by the glass, much like the double life he had led as a drug-dealing government mule. Quickly coming back to the reality of her situation, Candice whirled around in the middle of the floor, with her weapon pointed out in front of her. It appeared that whoever had been in her apartment was long gone.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Candy tried to unravel the mystery behind her trashed apartment.

What the fuck were they looking for?
Candice wondered as she trod carefully around her once-immaculately-clean bedroom. The box spring lay exposed and her mattress was on the floor, sliced and diced, with the cotton spilling out as if someone had been digging in the middle of it. Her closet had been emptied of its contents, with her clothes, shoes and handbags tossed into a pile on the floor. Her desk had been turned over, and her laptop screen smashed. The cork message board that was usually above her desk, which had contained pictures of Junior and his crew, was also broken into three pieces. All of the pictures had been removed. Who would want to steal those pictures?

Maybe Uncle Rock was right. Maybe the government was after her because of the skills she possessed and the information she was privy to as a result of her association with Rock. Or maybe Junior was coming after her to avenge the death of his brother, Broady. The conspiracy theories abounded in Candice's mind, but she didn't have time to give them any real thought. Her first priority was locating the safe in the bottom of her closet. Frantically she tossed aside the pile of clothes and shoes that covered the closet floor. She blew out a cleansing breath; then she noticed that, strangely enough, the medium-sized gray fireproof safe was still there, seemingly untouched. Candice was no dummy. The safe wasn't still there because the intruders wanted her to have money to live. The whole thing reeked of a setup; whoever had wrecked her apartment wanted to make a statement, but they also wanted her to get away.

Candice entered the safe combination, but her hands were unsteady and she had to spin the wheel a couple of times before it opened. Once the lock clicked, Candice pulled the small metal door back. She let out a long sigh of relief when she noticed that the money her father had left her—what she hadn't spent keeping up with Junior and his hustling crew—was still there. All of the ammunition was still there as well. Money, guns and bullets—that was all she had left in the world. It was also all she had conditioned herself to believe she needed. The safe would be too cumbersome and heavy to try to carry out of the apartment, so she quickly emptied the contents into a duffel bag.

Fuck love. Fuck having a family.
Candice told herself she was about to step out into the world alone. Before she left, Candice carefully placed the picture of her family on top of the stacks of money in the bag, picked up her loaded weapon, and raced for the front door. With a quick, last look around, Candice knew she would never again set eyes on this place. She was about to embark on a whole new life, and she was painfully aware that she was no longer the hunter, but the hunted.

* * *

After almost being killed by Candy and watching Rock take his life, Junior fled the scene and headed straight to his mother's house. He had rushed up the front steps of his mother's house, unable to get a handle on his feelings. How could his mother have so willfully deceived him about who the fuck his father was? He entered the brownstone furious like a gust of wind around a tornado.

“Ma!” Junior called out as he stalked through the hallway leading to his mother's kitchen. “Ma! Where you at?” Junior belted out, his voice a quaking baritone. No response. He finally found his mother sitting at the kitchen table, with her head down, clutching a wadded-up napkin.

“Ma, didn't you hear me calling you?” Junior huffed, his tone going higher with irritation. “We gotta talk! I need to ask you some questions right now, and I want the truth!” he boomed, slamming his fist on the table. He was ready to lay into his mother about who his father was, but his plan was quickly derailed.

Slowly raising her head, Betty Carson looked up at her eldest son. Fear was evident on her face. Junior halted in his tracks at the sight of his mother; he rushed to her side.

“Ma, what happened to you?” he barked incredulously. His mother sobbed even harder and quickly lowered her head. “Ma . . .” Junior's tone had softened; sympathy was tracing his words.

His legs felt weak and something deep in the center of his chest ached. He placed his hand under his mother's chin and lifted her face so he could get a better look. Junior let out an animalistic moan as he examined every inch of her paper bag–colored skin. Her left eye was swollen shut with dark purple and deep red rings forming around the outside of it. Her nose was red and swollen, with crusted blood rimming the inside of her nostrils; dark welts were rising on her cheeks.

“What happened to you?” Junior asked again, his heart thumping wildly at the idea of someone harming his mother.

“What did you do? What did you do to your brother? What did you do to me?” His mother suddenly came alive, her voice a high-pitched screech. The bitterness in her tone caused Junior to take a few steps backward.

“What are you talking about?” Junior replied, pleading ignorance.

“They told me what you did! They came here and did this to me!” Betty belted out, unable to control her wails now.

Junior swallowed and bit down so hard into his cheek that he drew his own blood. The acrid taste seemingly fueled his homicidal feelings. He felt like wrecking shit around him. The heat of his anger rose from his toes and climbed up into his soul.

“Who was it?” he managed to croak out as his chest rose and fell rapidly. He balled his fists in an attempt to keep his rage at bay.

“He said his name was Phil and that you killed his baby brother, so he killed yours. Said you tortured that boy, a twelve-year-old boy, and then killed him!” Betty sobbed, accusing her son through her one good eye. “Oh, Junior . . . I saw that story on the news!” she wailed some more. “Are you out there killing people, Junior?” she asked in a low whisper, her eyes pleading for an explanation.

Junior stood mutely at her side.

“Oh, God!” his mother called on the Heavenly Father for understanding and comfort.

Junior suddenly felt too weak to stand. He flopped down onto one of the kitchen chairs. His mother took his disregard for her question as an admission of guilt, but there was no way that he would tell his mother that Broady was actually to blame for most of what had happened. Junior's body felt hot, and his healing gunshot wound began to throb from the adrenaline pulsing through his body. His head pounded with a migraine-caliber headache at the base of his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut and let the silence in the room settle around him—the calm before the storm.

Phil, the leader of the uptown crew of drug dealers, had crossed the line when he touched Junior's mother. Junior and Phil had called a truce years ago. It was agreed that Junior would run the Brooklyn street empire, and Phil would remain Uptown. They were supposed to be peers in the game, on the same level, but Phil had reached down too far. Junior would never have thought to touch any member of Phil's family. Junior had even told Phil that it was Junior's hotheaded brother, Broady, who had harmed Phil's little brother, Carmello. Junior thought Phil understood, but now he knew different.

Junior's eyes were ablaze, and his nostrils were flared. He felt the strong desire to grab his mother into his arms and comfort her with a hug. He hadn't hugged his mother since he was a small child. Betty was never real big on affection. It was a wall that her children simply acknowledged as insurmountable. Though she never told them with words or actions that she loved them, they knew she did in her own way. But perhaps this urge to comfort his mother was merely an excuse to receive it in return. Obviously, sorting out the truth with his mother about his real father was a conversation Junior would have to have another day and time. Right now, he had to get back to the streets.

* * *

“I've told you all that I know!” Avon Tucker screamed, clenching his fists so tight his knuckles paled. He looked around at all of the accusatory faces and bit down into his jaw. This was some bullshit. It had been two weeks since the shootings that had claimed his partner's life, and he was still being interrogated as if he were the bad guy.

The DEA, NYPD and, of course, the FBI had converged on the scene, each wanna-be-in-charge acronym vying for jurisdiction over the scene. Avon had raised his hands like a suspect, his street clothes, obligatory diamond Jesus piece and long chain not helping him make the case that he was actually an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Immediately following the shooting, Avon was treated like a victim. At first, he was given time to “think things over.” He was taken under the wing of the Employee Assistance Program. This was called the “get your story together” time among law enforcement officers—a week's worth of meetings with EAP shrinks, and strict isolation from the media and the U.S. Attorney's Office investigators. In fact, this was his first “on the record” interview regarding the incident, and everyone wanted a piece of it.

Avon's role as “victim” somehow blurred into “suspect” as probing, accusatory questions seemed to become the order of the day. Where was Tucker when Brubaker had been shot? Had he identified himself as a DEA agent? How long had he been undercover? Wasn't it true he had committed violations of the undercover rule, and only Brubaker had knowledge of this? Did he blame Brubaker for the shooting incident that involved the fifteen-year-old boy early in his career? It was a memory he couldn't shake anytime someone brought it up.

All of the people in the room now were supposed to be on his side; but the earlier shoot-the-shit atmosphere had been replaced by a harsher, more attack dog format. Now Avon sat in the hot seat and was forced to defend his honor and his actions. Had Avon set Brubaker up to die, after finding Brubaker having an affair with his wife? Did he know Joseph Barton personally? Did he want Brubaker dead because he would expose Avon for committing crimes while undercover? And finally, why didn't he try to save Brubaker?

Apparently “no” or “I don't know” were not satisfactory responses to the investigators. Instead, they would simply rephrase their questions to try to trip up Avon. It was a law enforcement philosophy—the more times someone had to tell the story, the more holes they might find. And, of course, these were holes that might be filled with lies.

Letting out a long sigh, Avon roughly rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation. It was going to be a very long day.

“Like I said, Joseph ‘Rock' Barton was the shooter. He was the older guy on the scene. He said that he was working for some fuckin' body inside of this agency—the DEA!” Avon's voice rose an octave or two, startling his fresh-out-of-law-school Federal Law Enforcement Officer's Association–funded attorney.

Avon couldn't help it; his emotions were on a hair trigger. He had been shot at, betrayed and hunted while working undercover on a case that was never intended to go anywhere. And now he was suddenly a suspect in some fictional conspiracy.