The Block Read online

  “Can I help you?” she asked in a snotty tone.

  “Oh, what’s up?” Tone asked as he picked up the menu and began looking inside.

  “Umm, can I help you?” Serena said, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, this is my table.”

  “I’m just tryin’a get something to eat and didn’t wanna eat by myself.” Tone paused. “And I saw a beautiful lady over here eating alone, so I thought, why not eat together?” He shrugged his shoulders.

  Serena rolled her eyes. “How you know I wasn’t waiting for someone?”

  “Are you waiting for somebody?”

  “That ain’t the point,” she said with a smile.

  Tone returned her smile. “Nah, but for real, I had to come over here and talk to you. I’ve yet to see a woman as beautiful as you in my life. You must be from out of town, ’cause ain’t no chicks out here that look like you.”

  “Yeah, I am from out of town, but beauty is only skin deep,” Serena said in her West Coast accent.

  The waitress walked up to the table, interrupting the conversation. “Are y’all ready to order?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tone said politely. “Can I have a steak, some French fries, and some rice, please?” he said as he handed the waitress back the menu.

  The waitress looked at Serena. “And you, ma’am?”

  “Yes, can I have some chicken fingers and some fries, please?”

  “And to drink?”

  Before Serena could say a word, Tone quickly replied, “Two Long Island ice teas please.”

  “Coming right up.” The waitress smiled as she turned and disappeared through the double doors.

  The two ate and talked for about an hour. As they sipped on their third Long Island ice tea, Tone asked, “So how long you in town for?” though he already knew the answer.

  “Two weeks.”

  “Damn! So I don’t got much time then?”

  “Much time for what?” she asked suspiciously.

  “To try and convince you to stay,” Tone said with a smile.

  Serena chuckled. “I like New York, but that doesn’t mean I wanna live here.”

  “I can dig it.” Tone smiled. “So what you doing later on?”

  “Nothing. Probably just gonna sit in my room and watch movies all night.”

  “Fuck that!” Tone said, canceling her movie night. “I’m taking you out tonight. I’m not gonna let you spend your two weeks here just sitting up in a room.”

  Serena liked the way Tone was taking control, and the way he carried himself. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Just be ready around eight o’clock,” Tone said with a smile as him and Serena got up and exited the restaurant.

  “Yo, what you doing?” Tone asked when he saw Serena trying to flag down a cab.

  “Trying to get a cab,” she said innocently.

  “Don’t disrespect me like that.” Tone smiled. “Wait right there.”

  Five minutes later Tone pulled up to the corner in his Benz. Once Serena got in, he quickly pulled off.

  Maine double-parked his Denali in front of the projects. Now that he was in charge while Tone was on that other mission, he planned on letting it be known that he was moving up in the empire and wasn’t taking no shit. He walked up to a building, where about five local guys stood in front. “What’s good? How’s it looking out here?” Maine asked as he gave each man dap.

  “Slow motion,” a skinny cat named Calvin answered.

  “Yo, any of y’all seen Gruff out here lately?” Maine asked.

  “I saw that cat the other day,” Calvin said, searching his memory.

  “Word? You know where I can catch up with him at?”

  “Nah. You know Gruff moves like the wind. It’s hard to catch him in one spot,” Calvin reminded him. “Why? Something up?”

  “Nah, we cool. I just got something I need to give him,” Maine said as he headed in the building.

  After waiting a few minutes for the elevator, Maine decided to take the stairs to the fifth floor. He walked down the hall until he found the door he was looking for. He knocked and waited for a reply. He heard somebody fiddling with the locks. A man with a messed-up Afro opened the door and stepped to the side for Maine to enter.

  “Damn, nigga! Why it always smell like ass when I come up in here?” Maine huffed, his nose wrinkled up.

  “Fuck outta here! I ain’t smell shit until you got here,” Afro capped back.

  “Man, just gimme what you got for me, so I can get up outta here.” Maine covered his mouth and nose with his shirt as he watched Afro head toward the back.

  Afro returned with a book bag. “Take this and get the fuck out! Coming up in here, funking my shit all up with that cheap-ass cologne you got on.” He escorted Maine to the door. Every time him and Maine got together the two would go at it.

  “Fuck outta here!” Maine said, walking out the apartment. “Nigga, you smell like a dead body,” he yelled over his shoulder and disappeared through the staircase door.

  Maine slid back behind the wheel of his Denali when he heard his cell phone ringing. Instantly he recognized the number. “What’s good?”

  “Got a little problem I need you to solve for me,” Detective Abraham told him.

  “E-mail me the nigga résumé.”

  A minute later Maine checked the e-mail on his phone, and an address and profile picture came up of his target. He quickly punched the address in his navigational system and headed toward the destination.

  Detective Abraham sat in an all-black van along with three of his crooked partners. For about two weeks, they had been scoping out Big Mike’s dope house. Detective Abraham was tired of watching him get rich. He took a deep drag from his Newport. “Damn! This nigga spot is really clicking.”

  Maxwell, one of Abraham’s crooked partners, said, “Yeah, he going to have to come up off this spot.”

  “Y’all muthafuckas ready?” Detective Abraham asked as he loaded his MAC-11.

  All three of his partners nodded their heads yes.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Detective Abraham slid out the van and ran up toward the back door. He silently counted to three and watched Maxwell kick the back door open.

  “Police! Nobody move!” Detective Abraham yelled as he stormed inside.

  Big Mike tried to grab the AK-47 that sat next to him, but he quickly put the assault rifle back down when he realized they had the drop on him.

  “Don’t fucking move!” Detective Abraham said, his MAC-11 trained on the drug dealer.

  “Fuck y’all pigs want?” Big Mike asked with an attitude. “Y’all want money, or y’all came to lock me up this time?”

  “Depends.” Detective Abraham smiled. “How much money you got up in here?”

  “About fifty thousand. Why?”

  “Hand that over,” Detective Abraham said quickly.

  “It’s over there in the safe,” Big Mike said.

  Just then somebody knocked on Big Mike’s door.

  “That’s just one of my customers,” he said nonchalantly.

  Maxwell looked over and saw the table covered with bundled-up dope. He grabbed a few bundles and walked to the door and served the fiend.

  Detective Abraham smiled as he dialed his son’s number.

  On the fifth ring, Tone finally answered. “What up?”

  “I need you to send me a few workers over here,” Detective Abraham told him. “Got us a new spot.”

  “I got you. Just e-mail me the address,” Tone said as he ended the call.

  Once Detective Abraham hung up the phone, he quickly e-mailed Tone the info he needed.

  “Y’all already got the money. Now what?” Big Mike said.

  “Now you say good night.”

  Detective Abraham smiled as he raised his MAC-11 and pulled the trigger. The rest of the crew watched Big Mike’s body jerk back and forth as the bullets ripped through him.

  “Clean this mess up. Call me and let me know when the workers get here.” Dete
ctive Abraham walked out the dope house like nothing never happened. This was just the beginning of his big plan. Plus, who was going to stop him? He was the police.

  “A’ight,” Tone said to his workers, “I need y’all over there as soon as possible. One.”

  As soon as he hung up the phone, Mya was all over him. “Where you going, looking all nice?”

  “Looking all nice?” Tone echoed. “I got on regular clothes.”

  “I thought you was taking me out tonight,” Mya whined. She had been waiting all day for Tone to come home so they could go out, like he had promised.

  “I was, but I gotta do something for my pops tonight.”

  “But you promised me. Can’t you do whatever it is you gotta do for him tomorrow?”

  “Nah, it’s gotta be done tonight. Sorry.” Tone kissed Mya on her forehead. “But, I promise you, I won’t be out too late.” Then he stuck his .40-cal in his waistband and headed out the door.

  Maine pulled up in front of the building his GPS led him to. He quickly pulled out his .380 and screwed on the silencer before exiting his whip. He walked in the building and took the stairs to the third floor. When he reached the apartment he was looking for, he flung his hood over his head as he knocked on the door. Once he saw somebody looking through the peephole, he quickly raised his gun up to it and pulled the trigger once. After Maine heard the body drop, he shot off the doorknob. Then he busted up in the apartment and shot the body that lay on the floor two more times before shutting the door behind him.

  As Maine slowly eased his way through the apartment, he could hear soft R&B music coming from the back room. Holding his gun in a two-handed grip as he approached the back room, he quickly busted up in the room and saw a woman breast-feeding an infant. He raised his gun and sent a bullet through her skull. The woman collapsed straight back on the bed, and the baby rolled out of her arms onto the floor, screaming at the top of its lungs.

  Maine checked the rest of the apartment to make sure there was nobody else inside. Then he disappeared out the front door.

  Maine pulled up in front of his crib and let the engine die as he stepped out the car. As soon as he walked in the door, he saw his girlfriend Monique halfway dressed, and two of her girlfriends sitting on the couch.

  “Fuck you going?” he asked.

  “Out,” Monique replied. “You think I’m supposed to be stuck up in this house all muthafuckin’ day while you just out doing whatever? I don’t think so.”

  “I know that’s right,” one of her girlfriends cooed.

  “I’m out getting money,” Maine said, nodding down to the blood on his shoes. “And you out running the streets.”

  “I can’t go out every now and then with my girls? Why I always gotta be ‘running the streets’? You must be out doing dirt. That’s probably why you never want me to go nowhere.”

  “You know what? Just get your shit and get the fuck out!”

  Monique smiled, her hands on her hips. “You kicking me out?”

  “Either get out, or get put out,” Maine said in an even tone.

  Monique saw the look in Maine’s eyes and knew he wasn’t bullshitting.

  “Fuck you, nigga!”

  Monique huffed as she grabbed a few things from out the back room. “Bitch-ass nigga! I was doing you a favor staying here. Talking ’bout get out or get put out—I wish you would put your muthafuckin’ hands on me!”

  “You see, if I had a white bitch, I wouldn’t have to go through this kinda shit,” Maine spat. He knew she hated to see a white woman with a black man.

  “Nigga, fuck you and your white bitch! I wish I would catch you with a white bitch. I’ll beat you and that bitch’s ass!”

  “Just get out!” Maine smirked. “And hurry the fuck up!”

  “Get a good look ’cause you ain’t gon’ never see me or this ass again,” Monique said as her and her friends left, leaving the front door wide open.

  Maine closed the door and flopped down on the couch. After a long day, all he wanted to do was have a drink, get some head, and watch a movie until he fell asleep, but instead he had to come home to chaos and foolishness.

  Chapter 3

  Tone pulled up in front of the New Yorker Hotel and saw Serena standing out front looking super sexy. He tapped the horn twice and watched as Serena strutted toward the Benz and slid in the passenger seat.

  She kissed Tone on the cheek. “I thought you was tryin’a stand me up.”

  “Damn! A nigga can’t even be five minutes late.” Tone smiled as he pulled out into traffic.

  “So where we going?”

  “To go eat,” Tone answered quickly.

  Thirty minutes later Tone pulled up to a nice soul food restaurant. “You like soul food?”

  “I love soul food,” Serena answered with her glossed-up lips. “I’m glad you brought me here.”

  “Why? What’s up? You wanna go somewhere else?”

  “Nah, I just don’t like being around a lot of bushy people. I just like eating around down-to-earth people,” she tried to explain.

  “I feel you.” Tone smiled.

  Serena liked that the clientele at this soul food restaurant was mixed, with white, black, and Spanish customers. That meant that the food was tasty, and appealing to everybody.

  Once the two were seated, Serena popped the million-dollar question. “So what do you do for a living?”

  Tone smiled. “You want me to lie or tell the truth?”

  “Both,” Serena said, matching his smile.

  “Okay, I’m the local cable man, and I do electrician on the side.”

  “Okay, now the truth,” Serena said, shaking her head and smiling.

  Tone paused before he answered, “I control a big drug empire,” looking at Serena for her reaction.

  “Fuck it! We all gotta do what we gotta do,” she said seriously.

  Her response caught Tone off guard. “So you cool with that?”

  “Yeah, my uncle and a few of his peoples used to fuck around in the drug game, and half of my family use drugs. So I’m no stranger to that type of stuff.”

  “You ever had a boyfriend that was into that lifestyle?”

  “Not yet. Why you ask?”

  “’Cause, as you can see, I’m really feeling you. Everything about you. I’ve yet to meet a woman who I can talk to on some regular shit, feel me?”

  “I feel you, but this ain’t gonna work.”

  “What you mean? Why not?”

  “Because we live in two different cities. And you have a life, and so do I.”

  “What if I want you in my life?” Tone pressed.

  “How are you so sure? You don’t know me like that.”

  “I want to get to know you,” Tone said, looking Serena in her eyes. “I don’t care if I have to come out to L.A. once a month so we can be together. Whatever I have to do, I’ma do it.”

  Serena smirked. “I hear you talking.”

  “I let my actions do my talking,” Tone countered.

  The two ate their food and sat and talked for about forty-five minutes in the restaurant before leaving. As they walked back to the car, Tone felt his phone vibrating. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Mya. He quickly put his phone on silent as he put it back in the case.

  “So what you got planned for the rest of the night?” Tone asked as he slid in the driver’s seat.

  “Go back to my room and get some rest.”

  “You want some company?”

  “That would be nice.” Serena smiled. “But that don’t mean you getting none of this good pussy.”

  Tone smirked. “I just wanna spend as much time with you as I can before you leave,” he said as he pulled into traffic.

  As the two drove chitchatting, a crackhead flagged the Benz down like his life depended on it.

  “Fuck!” Tone huffed as he quickly pulled over to the side of the road and rolled his window down.

  Serena was about to say something but decided to just keep quiet.<
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  The crackhead ran up to the driver’s window all out of breath. “Tone, wassup, man? I thought that was you,” he said, trying to fix the collar on his shirt.

  “Fuck you doing out here, Malcolm?” Tone asked, not looking the fiend directly in his eyes.

  “Just out tryin’a get some fresh air.” Malcolm wiped the slime from the corners of his mouth. “You got a few dollars you can spare so I can go get me something to eat?”

  Tone pulled five twenties from his knot and handed them to Malcolm. “Swing by my house tomorrow night so we can get you straightened up.”

  “Okay, I got you.” Malcolm hurried off across the street.

  Tone pulled off, a frown on his face.

  “You okay?” Serena asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he huffed. “It just bothers me to see him all fucked up like that.”

  “He a close friend of yours?”

  “Nah, that’s my brother.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s all good,” Tone said as he pulled up in front of the New Yorker Hotel.

  “You still coming up?” Serena asked.

  “Nah, I’m about to go back and try to find my brother before he gets himself killed,” Tone said, a sad look on his face.

  “Okay. You know where I’m at if you need me.” Serena kissed Tone on his cheek and headed inside the hotel.

  As soon as she disappeared inside the hotel, Tone pulled out his cell phone and dialed his pops’ number.

  “What you want?” Detective Abraham grumbled into the receiver.

  “I just saw Malcolm out here.”

  “Fuck you telling me for?”

  “Maybe because that’s your son.”

  “That muthafucka ain’t my son!”

  “Malcolm out here looking real bad, Pops. He needs our help.”

  “Fuck Malcolm! I done helped that boy as much as I can. Once a muthafucka steal out my house, he ain’t considered family no more. He lucky I didn’t kill his ass!”