The Family Business 3(42)

“My name is Brother Xavier, and I want you to deliver a message to the Duncans. Can you do that?”

The man nodded his head. “As long as I’m alive.”

I laughed. “Tell the Duncans that we’re going to keep making these little field trips until they give us Junior. Now, can you do that?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, looking like he was about to piss his pants.

“Good.” I turned to Ahmed. “Drop him off near that hospital once we get this all wrapped up.” As Ahmed escorted our guest toward the cars, Elijah approached me with his phone to his ear and a frown on his face.

“It’s the Jew,” he said, handing me the phone. “He says it’s important.”

“Bernie, this really isn’t a good time,” I said into the phone. He ignored me and began spelling out the reason for his call.

“Oh, really?” I replied when he was finally finished. “Well, thanks for the heads up, Bernie. I’ll make the necessary arrangements on our part.” I hung up and handed Elijah his phone.

“What’d the Jew have to say?” he asked.

Several of our men had started spilling out of the building as the smoke inside grew thicker. They were loitering around, close enough to hear anything I might say to Elijah. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before we all get contact highs. I’ll explain it to you on the way back to Rosedale.”





Junior





27


After a week of the most unbelievable sex with not a care in the world, Sonya and I had finally come up for air. We traveled down to Camden, New Jersey, in a Zipcar, had a little lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack, then left the Zipcar in the parking lot and headed down the street to an old tenement. We went around to the unmarked entrance in the seedy-looking alley in the back. It was a place where you had to be either desperate or brave to enter. At the moment, I was a little of both. There was nothing I wanted more in life than to be with Sonya, and I was willing to do anything to make that happen.

“Hey, man,” Damon greeted me as we slipped into his office, a twenty by twenty room jam-packed with computers and printers.

Damon was one of the East Coast’s best counterfeiters, and quite possibly the most successful in the world because of his approach. Most U.S. counterfeiters concentrated on making fake $20 and $100 dollar bills, but Damon’s specialty was foreign currency. He’d pretty much cornered the market on people looking for non-U.S. money. Our fathers had done business together for years before his pops died, but this was the first time I’d come to him for my own needs. Because of our personal history, he was willing to expand his services beyond counterfeit bills for me.

“My man.” We slapped our palms together in greeting. “You got everything we need?” I asked.

“Yeah. New identities, with passports and credit cards to match.” He held them up for me to see, but his eyes kind of glazed over and he looked away, which made me think he had something else on his mind. Damon had always been a little odd—a genius at what he did, but seriously lacking in social skills. I figured he was just uncomfortable about asking for his payment.

“Don’t worry. I got your money,” I said, motioning to Sonya. She opened her purse and handed over the large envelope containing his six-figure fee. Sure, it was a hell of a lot of money, but like I said, I was willing to do anything to be with my woman.

He looked down at the envelope and scrunched up his face. “It’s not that,” he said. “I just . . .” His voice faded away and he got that glazed-over look again. Dude was acting truly weird, and it was starting to piss me off.

“What, Damon? Just spit it out.”

“Just, well, I just didn’t think you’d go through with jumping town with what’s going on with your family.”

Damon usually stayed holed up in this dark room with all his computer equipment, so it hadn’t occurred to me that he would have heard any talk about our beef with Brother X and his crew.

“Shit, to be honest, that’s why we’re leaving,” I offered as an explanation. “With us gone, X should lose interest and back off my family.”

Damon didn’t say anything as he walked over to one of his desks and picked up a newspaper. I looked at Sonya, who was still holding the envelope full of cash, and shrugged. I probably should have prepared her for how weird this guy was before we came over here. When Damon brought the newspaper back to me, however, I realized that he wasn’t acting strange for no reason.

“This was five days ago, man. You didn’t know?”

“What the f*ck!” I dropped the newspaper to the ground after I saw the headline: CAR DEALER SHOT IN LOT AMONGST LUXURY CARS. The room started spinning, and I had to lean against a nearby table to keep myself from falling over. How could I have misjudged the situation so badly? I thought that me and Sonya disappearing would stop the war from escalating, but it seemed to have done the opposite. And now Pop had been shot. Guilt ran through me like a knife to my heart.

Sonya came running to my side. She screamed when she saw what had set me off.

“Oh my God! He did it.” She started to cry.

I don’t know how we got out of there and into the car, but Sonya was behind the wheel as I started working the phone.