The Nine

Chapter 7.2: Wallace

In the car, I phoned my shooter Josef. Josef had been involved in some some deep marksman type shit ever since I met him back in the fifth grade - whereas I had taken the dough boy route, he had become a killer. A good ass one too; he'd shot down at least eight niggas that I knew of in the past couple years and was never tried or even suspected in their murder cases. It was a family business, as far as I knew. His daddy, before his arrest, had been on the same shit.

Josef operated from here to Baton Rouge and even in some parts of Mississippi. I offered him a cheap five grand to do the job and he was more than happy to bite. Honestly, the nigga might have taken the job for a six pack of beer. He just loved how he made his living.

"So what's this cat's name again?" He asked me through the phone.

"Sweet," I told him that was all I knew. None of Sweet's workers had ever gotten a real name out of him. "He's based in Gulfport. You shouldn't have too much trouble finding him, he's a big name out there."

He halted for a second before answering. "Imma see what I can do."

"You got five days until the money's no good potna', get on your job." I relayed to him that the job needed to be done before this coming Thursday. We were having our first public show and it wouldn't be a life threatening affair. I was resolute on the six of us coming out, putting on a hell of a show, and getting our first pay off this rap shit.

"I gotchu fam, I gotchu."

Josef hung up. I had faith he'd get the job done - I was paying some good cash. He couldn't afford to let this money slip through his fingers. Not only that, Josef had never missed an opportunity to kill. Once you gave Josef a name, the target was as good as dead. He was relentless.

I stopped at Sonic on my way back home. A nigga was starving. Cori mean ass hadn't let me get a plate at the funeral, and her shit smelled so good it had my mouth watering. I re-entered Bonita Park at six forty-five. The sun had just gone down and Jamari was hassling a couple kids for some dope money. The radio was playing "La Di Da Di" by Slick Rick. That joint took me back to my days as a youngin, tryna do Doug E.'s beat. Now, I had that bitch down pat; he was my sole reason for getting into beat boxing. Now, in addition to being able to play most instruments, I could mimic their sounds and even the sounds of animals when I wanted to. If the Nine had never formed, I prolly coulda made a decent living as a street performer. Doug was definitely one of my musical inspirations, that nigga was clutch.

I boxed along to the song as I took a left down the street where Cayman's once-fully furnished house stood. I expected to see it seeing there, vacant, the way we left it some three hours ago.

That's not at all what I saw when I took a closer look.

I saw two black, illegal unmarked cars pulled up to the side garage. Both cars had heavily tinted windows, but I suspected no one was in them anyway. I could just barely make out two dark, slim figures silently picking the front door's locks and tiptoeing inside. The living room lights flickered on.

Good luck finding anything in there, I thought as I took pictures of the scene on my phone and sent them to Cayman. I lingered there for a moment, seeing several upstairs lights flicker on and off as the men turned up nothing. I put my phone back in my pocket and made my way down the street to mom's house.

I was just about to turn onto the driveway when I realized I was being followed.

The whole time I was watching two dudes break into an empty house, a third nigga crept up on me from behind. The music in my car was too loud for me to even hear them pull up behind me, but I just barely made out a silhouette of a man behind the wheel of his black Monte Carlo in my rear view. Vaguely, I could see that a pair of eyes were staring back at me.