Paper Chasers (8 page)

I didn't say anything, but having full knowledge of Latiefe's evil nature, and his love for money, not to mention the fact that he probably would have stabbed one of us in the back if given the chance, I just knew that he had pocketed some of the money. He was a con artist in disguise, even though he was our man.

So Wednesday turned out to be a heck of an easy day for us. Depending on how much loot Donnie, Erik, and J.P. came up with, we were sure to be damn near only two thousand dollars away from our goal.

I decided to spend the rest of that day with my girl, Sabine. I needed to make love to her real badly. That would be a real good way for me to release some of the tension that went along with the activities of the past couple of days. No way was I going to tell Sabine what we were up to, 'cause I knew that she wouldn't have approved. But at the same time, it was for that very reason that I should have told her.

See, my rationale was, I knew that if I had told her then she would have gotten so upset with me that she might have left me. And with the way Sabine had me whipped, if she had even hinted that she was going to dump me, I would have gone crazy trying to find any way to please her. Yes, if she found out and told me to stop all of the robbing and to rid my mind of the senseless thoughts about dealing drugs, I definitely would have ceased with all of the negativity because that's how much I cared for her.

I often daydreamed about buying Sabine a nice car and new clothes. I even daydreamed about buying her and myself a house of our own and starting a family. All that could happen, I told myself, if this drug thing worked. It was funny because Sabine would never have wanted any parts of me if she knew I was in the drug game. Yet I had convinced myself to stick with the robbings and the drug plan because I figured that eventually I would be able to give Sabine whatever she wanted. Now was I weird, or what?

Later that night we found out that Donnie, Erik, and J.P. had netted $560 for the day. I didn't want to calculate it exactly, but I knew that we were only about fifteen hundred dollars away from our goal.

Before I slept that night, I made a point to have a meeting with God.

Finally it was Friday. TGIF. Our crime spree was behind us. Thursday we'd gobbled up three more cars and brought them to Sal. He gave us about nine hundred dollars a piece for the cars. The cars weren't that expensive—two American made jeeps, and one Honda Accord. I have to say that although Sal had only given us twenty-seven hundred dollars, we still made off good. For the week we'd made more than what we intended to make. Best of all, we were all still alive and free from jail.

We decided to go to the park and play some basketball. The exercise benefited us all. As I laced up my sneakers and prepared to play, I found nothing wrong with what I was about to do with my crew on this day, maybe because I was preparing to be an athlete and not a murderer. All I wanted to know was, how on earth did I let myself and my friends who I'd claimed to love, get to the point where we would kill innocent people and have no remorse? Or to the point where we wanted to get involved in something that ultimately was either going to get us killed, or get the people around us that we loved hurt? I guess the love for cash was controlling us.

Maybe it was not my fault for behaving like a heathen. It was bugged 'cause man I just hated what we were getting into. I hated it, but at the same time I loved it. I mean I was a rationally thinking human being, so there was no way for me to justify my actions. The guilt and anxiety inside me is what would make me feel like I was gonna go crazy. The only reason that I had guilt and anxiety was because I knew full well what the right thing to do was, but I just didn't have the courage to do it.

Could my lack of courage be the blame for all of this nonsense? I didn't know. But I did know two things. The first was that in a quest for riches and paper chasin', I had come very far along the path of destruction and there was definitely no stopping. The second thing that I knew was that I had to get “The Elements To A Black Man's Fist” out to the rest of society very quickly, because something just wasn't right.

That night I planned to write about one of the elements and to stop procrastinating. I felt that writing about the elements would probably wake me up to the realities of what I was doing. But again I felt bugged because if I didn't have the courage to stop myself from doing what I knew was wrong, then how on earth was I going to have the courage to hold the world accountable for helping to stop black on black crime?

“Yo, Randy, pass me the ball. Hurry up and pass me the rock, kid . . . Holz catches the pass. He sets. He shoots. For three . . . at the buzzer . . . The shot . . . Swish! . . . It's gooooood . . . It's goooood! The crowd goes wild!”

Fourth Crew's second pre-planned breakfast was scheduled for Saturday June 29. Since we had accumulated so much money during the week, we decided to scrap those plans that we had had for McDonalds and splurge and live it up. No more McDonald's or small time Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast from IHOP. We decided to play like Big Willies and take a cab to City Island. Everyone in the Metropolitan area knows just how expensive food is at City Island. But when most people think of City Island, they think about expensive seafood dinners. What many people sleep on is the breakfast that is served up at the many City Island restaurants. The breakfast at City Island is off the hook! And since we were rollin', we had to splurge.

We arrived at City Island at about ten in the morning. Once we were seated we took a look at the menu and we knew that we didn't belong. It cost ten dollars for one scrambled egg and six dollars for seven ounces of orange juice. When it all boiled down, we really didn't care how much the food cost. We had cash and we were there to discuss how we were gonna make more cash. We pulled out all the stops. After looking at the menu, I was estimating at least a three-hundred-dollar bill.

All faces in the restaurant were on us. Fourth Crew always attracted attention wherever we went. We were always making noise and cracking jokes, showing no class at all. Yeah, we had class—street class. The simple way that my pants hung off of my butt, that right there was in a class by itself.

The pretty white waitress who had taken our order amidst catcalls and propositions for sexual favors, had finally returned with our food, and we dug in right away. We attacked our food as if we were a pack of deranged lions.

When the feverish pace of eating had slowed down, we continued talking and laughing. Our conversation was based on a recap of all of the robberies that we had committed during the past week. Randy and I, for whom an obsession with the Mafia has lingered throughout our lives, suggested that we start our own Mafia. A black Mafia, one in which all of the members would have to be African American, including the “associates” as well as the “made members,” and no Haitians or Jamaican unless they were born in the United States.

“Yo, we could really do it y'all!” Randy emphatically said. “All we need is a little more organization, just like the real mob.”

I jumped in and reminded Randy that the real Mafia didn't like to deal with narcotics.

“Yeah, whateva . . . we'll still deal with drugs, because we'll be a black Mafia. A black La Cosa Nostra, that's what it'll turn into!” Randy screamed, sounding as if he was auditioning for a role in the
Godfather
movie.

“Y'all gotta understand,” I said, “even doing illegal shit, black people will still never have anything. Why doesn't the real Mafia deal with drugs? Because they know that with drugs they'll get too much friction from the cops, and too many disputes from within the organization. The mob's reasoning is exactly right. I mean look at black criminals. All of the big time drug dealers eventually get pinched, or their organization eventually falls apart because of the little people in the organization. The little ones get greedy and be wanting all the glory, and they cause the whole organization to crumble. Even with the legal things in life, black people won't ever really have anything, simply because no one is willing to accept their role. Everyone wants the spotlight. Everyone wants to lead our people. If “they” are not the leader, instead of trying to help out in another way, “they” belittle the one who is trying to lead. That's why black people in this country won't ever have nothing. They won't ever have nothing because on a whole, black people's egotistical and materialistic attitudes always cause a breakdown in their intentions.”

“Holz, shut the hell up!” Latiefe shouted, sounding as if he was annoyed.

“I know,” Erik added. “Who do you think you are, Martin Luther King?”

“Nah, nah,” Dwight said while laughing. “He's, um, a new Spike Lee or um, Malcom X. Holz, just please shut the hell up you Crispus Attucks looking bafoon!”

When that was said the crew burst out into laughter.

“All right, I'll be quiet,” I said. “But watch, even in our crew, as close as we are, this drug thing is gonna cause something negative to happen from within. Watch. I'm sayin', it happened to the Gambinos when they brought drugs in, and it's gonna happen to us.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK, Holz. Now shut up, nigga, please!” Latiefe shouted. “Earl, you got all the money counted up, right?”

“Yeah, we have eleven, or something close to that.”

“A'ight, eleven Gs is what we have,” Dwight said as he took charge. “Now, do y'all just wanna split the loot and forget about this whole paper chasin' thing? I mean, we'll each get a little over a G.”

“What?” Randy barked. “Hell no! We going through with this. I'm in it to win it. All y'all still wit' it, right?”

Everyone quickly agreed that they still wanted to stay in.

“That's what I thought,” Dwight replied. “Now it's time to really get this paper. As for any of y'all who still don't understand how we're gonna get paid, I'll explain it. See, anytime that you have a business, your objective is to make a profit. Now we're not in the service business, we're in the retail product business. When your business sells a product, no matter what kind of product, certain principles are usually followed. One of those principles is to purchase your product wholesale, then simply sell it above wholesale prices for a profit. Now, what do you do with the profits? Number one is, you pay your expenses in order to keep the business going. Number two, the rest of the profits are yours to keep and spend however you choose. Smart business people save most of their profits and reinvest those profits back into the business. And that's exactly what we're gonna do. We're gonna buy our drugs wholesale, package them ourselves, put them on the street, and sell for a profit. It's as simple as that. Now tonight we're going uptown to buy the work. I know y'all all heard of the crew called Mob Style, right?”

Everyone had heard of those cats. They basically ran the drug scene in Harlem and in the South Bronx.

“Well, my cousin Bunny knows a lot of the kids that are down with Mob Style,” Dwight went on to say. “She already told some kid where to meet us at tonight, and he's gonna have some work for us to move when we get there.”

Contrary to our inventory plans of a week ago, Dwight suggested that we step it up and buy a quarter of a kilo of cocaine, and three pounds of weed.

“Yo, Dee,” Earl interrupted, “we shouldn't even mess wit' the cocaine and the cracks. I'm telling y'all, we should just deal wit' the weed. Think about it—marijuana is damn near legal in New York, and in some states it is legal, knaaimean? Plus, if we get busted with weed, the cops ain't gonna do nothing, and if they do, all we'll get is a slap on the hand, probation at the most. But we won't do no time.”

“Nah, nah, no.” Everyone voiced disagreement to Earl's suggestion.

“Yo, Earl, I hear what you saying,” Dwight responded. “But all I'm saying is cocaine moves much quicker and it makes you much more loot. So if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right. We're dealing with both.

“Now, Bunny told me that the kid will sell us a quarter of a kilo of coke for about six. And for three pounds of weed, he only wants thirty-five. We'll buy that and still have a little bit of cash left over. We'll be starting off in the black.”

So that was it. Time to get paid. I started thinking big. I was thinking about all of the new clothes and jewelry that I was gonna buy.
Yes!
I was thinking in my head.
Yes!
My orgasmic-like feelings were warranted. We were about to purchase a quarter of a kilo of coke, which was the equivalent to a little more than half a pound of coke, for sizx thousand dollars. If we cut it up right and sold it correctly, which was what we were planning to do, we easily estimated getting back twenty to twenty-four thousand dollars. Easily! Even the three pounds of weed was guaranteed to make us somewhere in the neighborhood of ten grand. Rich, rich, rich—that's what we were gonna be—young, black, and rich.

Latiefe asked Donnie if he had spoken to any of Montana's boyz and all of the other cats that were gonna sell for us.

“Yo, I been took care of that,” Donnie replied. “All y'all gots to do is give me the packages and I'll give it to them, or y'all can give them the packages yourself. They been ready to knock off the work. They already know who y'all are, so it ain't nothing to it but to do it.”

“One question,” I interjected. “They know us, but who are they? Donnie, give us some names so that we'll know who to go to.”

Donnie proceeded to spit the names out of those who he'd recruited.

“Now, y'all know,” Donnie added, “so just give them the packages or whatever, and check with them every now and then to see if they knocked it off or not. If they did, just take the loot, give them their cut, and y'all take the rest.”

Latiefe mentioned that he had spoken to Gangsta. Gangsta was Latiefe's big drug dealer friend from Far Rockaway, Queens.

“The spot in Far Rock is waiting for us,” Latiefe said. “Gangsta has cats set up and ready to work for us. So as soon as we get the drugs, we have to head straight out there before somebody else comes and tries to set up shop on our block.”

“So, Earl, what's up with the spot in Brooklyn?” Dwight asked.

“I didn't speak to my cousin yet,” Earl added. “I didn't wanna ask him for anything because we wasn't ready, and I didn't want him to think that I wasn't for real, you know what I'm sayin'? But, yo, I'll just call him today and get everything organized. Don't worry, that Brooklyn spot is definite, and it's a definite money maker.”

“So, yo, how are we gonna get uptown tonight?” I asked.

“Why don't we just get X to drive us in his ride? It's small and it's not flashy, so it won't attract any cops,” Randy answered.

“Xavier is in summer school at his college,” I reminded the crew. “He ain't trying to take us uptown. He probably has to study or something. Plus, if we tell him that we're going to pick up drugs, you know that he's definitely not gonna roll with us, much less take us in his whip.”

“Yo, all we gotta do,” Randy said, “is tell Xavier that we're going to see Latiefe's cousin Bunny. You know he'll go then. Everybody loves Bunny and her fat tail.”

“Yeah, that's a good idea,” Dwight said. “'Cause it's not like we'll actually be lying. But the only thing is that all of us won't be able to go. We can't all fit into that car. So me, Holz, Latiefe, and Xavier will ride.”

Dwight explained that once we got there, all of us except Dwight would stay in Bunny's apartment while he and Bunny would go downstairs to the kid's apartment and purchase the drugs.

“Yo that'll work, word,” Randy said. “But either Holz or Latiefe, one of y'all should actually go with Dee and Bunny to the apartment when they go to make the purchase. Don't let Dwight go into that kid's apartment by himself. I'm just sayin', we gotta be smart and we gotta be safe, knaaimean?” Randy paused and then he quickly continued on. “Yo, matter of fact, y'all better make sure that y'all are strapped just in case those niggas try to flip.”

“There ain't no way, yo. I'm sayin', them niggas uptown ain't stupid,” Dwight said. “They're gonna frisk us before they even let us in the apartment. So we ain't tryin' to go up in their piece with heat. Forget about it. We can't take no gun. If they frisk us and find the gun, then they'll think that we had plans on snaking them, and it's our first time buying from them, so we don't need that kind of first impression. I mean, we can take guns, but we're gonna have to stash them in Xavier's car. Randy, I'm telling you, it just won't look right if we try to go up in there with guns on us. Besides, Bunny will be with us and she knows them, so they ain't gonna jerk us.”

For some reason I sort of agreed with Randy. But I didn't say anything. I mean, going into a major drug dealer's apartment uptown, with no heat in our waistbands, I didn't know about that. As wild as those Harlem cats were, they were liable to kill Dwight and Bunny. And it wasn't like our crew had a reputation throughout New York, a reputation that carried some weight and would help to protect us. Aside from our family and friends, nobody had really heard of our crew. As far as street thugs were concerned, the illest crews in Queens at the time were The Supreme Team and The Lost Boyz. If Mob Style sensed that we weren't really live, they would gladly take all of our loot and then take our lives, and they wouldn't lose a night's sleep in the process. “Let's get up outta here,” Dwight concluded.

We paid our bill and departed from the restaurant.

“Holz,” Dwight said as we were driving home in a cab, “when we get home you call X and get him to take us uptown tonight.”

“Nah, let Latiefe do it,” I said. “Latiefe is more convincing than I am.”

“Yo, if Latiefe does the asking, X is gonna know that we're up to something no good,” Randy commented.

“True,” I said. “A'ight, I'll ask him.”

Once we reached our block, some of the crew members departed and went their separate ways. The rest of us, including myself, went to parlay at Randy's crib.

“Yo, Holz, Xavier's car is outside. Call that nigga right now before he leaves or something,” Dwight said as we all sat around watching music videos.

“Yo, Randy, where's the phone at, man?” I asked.