Promise Kept, page 31
After being unceremoniously dismissed by Asher, Promise turned to the only person she could always count on to pick her up when she was feeling down, Mouse. She had called Mouse looking for words of encouragement, but instead found her best friend going through something of her own. Mouse rarely cried, but when she picked up Promise’s call, she was bawling. Mouse was so emotional that, at first, Promise couldn’t even understand what she was saying. The only thing that she was certain of was that something terrible had happened. Promise didn’t even continue to try and decipher what Mouse was saying. She immediately jumped into a taxi and rushed to be with her friend during her time of need.
When Promise got out of the taxi in front of the projects, she could feel the dark cloud looming over it. Promise made hurried steps toward the building. Out front she found a cluster of locals, young men and women who she knew only in passing from her time staying with Keisha and Candice. They all wore looks of great sadness. Whatever had gone down had caused a ripple effect that was felt not just by the occupants of the twins’ apartment, but by the whole hood. One girl who Promise recognized as an associate of the twins stopped Promise as she was entering the building and embraced her in a hug while offering condolences. Promise only nodded and said, “Thank you.” She still had no idea what had happened and was too afraid to ask.
Promise bypassed the elevator and took the stairs up to the floor of Keisha and Candice’s apartment. From the other side of the door, she could hear someone wailing, and it made her stomach lurch. She prayed that nothing had happened to one of the twins. Though they had both treated her like shit most of the time, they had still opened up their home to Promise when she had nowhere else to go. Timidly, she knocked on the door. She only had to wait a few seconds for someone to answer it. Standing on the other side of the door was Mouse. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her makeup was streaked with dried tears. Seeing her friend in that condition, Promise knew that, whoever had died, the death hit close to home for her.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Mouse threw herself into Promise’s arms.
“I wish I could’ve gotten here sooner, but I was caught up. What happened? Are the twins okay?” Promise asked nervously.
“I wish I could say they were. C’mon.” Mouse stepped aside and allowed Promise to enter the apartment. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Long story.” Promise shook her head.
Mouse gave her a suspicious look. “Now you know you can’t throw no shit like that out there and not give my nosey ass the details. You and I are going to talk.”
Mouse allowed Promise to hold onto her secret for a time longer and led the way into the living room. This was where Promise found Keisha and Candice. Candice was in shambles, and Keisha was trying to hold her together. She stroked her sister’s hair and whispered to her that everything would be okay. This was a state of vulnerability that Promise had never seen either of the twins in, especially not Keisha. Ninety-five percent of the time, she was vicious, so the other five percent that Promise was seeing was new to her. When Keisha saw Promise standing there, she glared at her, and for a minute, Promise saw that wicked side of her peek through. Promise hadn’t forgotten how things had played out between her and Keisha, and neither had the twin. The fire burned in her eyes for a few seconds before smoldering out, and Keisha turned her attention back to her sister.
“What happened?” Promise asked just above a whisper.
“Vaughn got killed,” Keisha said softly, as if she was afraid Candice would hear and go back into her fit of screaming. “They found him and those Jersey niggas he’d taken to running with all of them dead in an apartment in the Bronx a few hours ago. I warned Vaughn that Newark don’t breed nothing but snakes.” She gave Promise a dirty look.
Promise caught the dig but was too focused on Keisha’s last statement. She thought back to her last conversation with Vaughn about this new connect that was supplying him with pills. She had learned from her nightly chats with Asher that he had expanded into pills and knew that he had dealings in New York, but she never cared to dig deep enough into that side of his life to find out with who. Then there was Asher’s seemingly harmless interest in Vaughn. She knew that Asher was a devious dude, but could he have been that low to try and pump Promise for information just so that he could get close enough to kill Vaughn? Was that why, when the man in the suit popped up on them earlier, Asher got so nervous? All kinds of wicked shit started running through Promise’s head, none of which she wanted to believe, but it was all hitting too close to home for her to dismiss as coincidence. “Newark ain’t but so big. Any idea who Vaughn was dealing with from that side?” she asked, dreading the answer to the question.
“I never let any of them snakes get close enough to me to ask,” Keisha replied.
“Saud,” Candice spoke up. This was the first piece of information to come out of her mouth in the last two hours.
The name hit Promise like a slap across the face. She knew exactly who Saud was and what he was about. She hadn’t seen him in over a year, but the mention of his name still had the same effect on her as a kid who had sworn they’d seen a monster under their bed. She felt her legs threaten to buckle at the revelation, and how it connected to her recent misadventures, but she managed to hold her balance and her game face. Against her better judgment, she turned to Mouse, who wasn’t as adept at keeping her mask in place. The color had drained from her face, and her lip quivered nervously. They both knew the implications of Saud being found dead so close to the place they had fled to. If for no one else in the room, for Promise and Mouse, this was bigger than Vaughn getting killed.
“Something y’all wanna add to this?” Keisha asked the girls. She had caught whatever it was that had passed between them.
Promise looked to Mouse, who appeared about to break and spill it all. “Nah, Keisha. It’s just all a little overwhelming. Me and Mouse gonna put our ears to the streets, and we’ll bring whatever we hear back to y’all.”
“You be sure to do that. Vaughn might not have been the most well-respected nigga in the hood, but he was fosho well-loved. A dude like that goes missing, and there are sure to be questions,” Keisha said.
“And I hope that, the next time we see each other, I’ll be able to help you get those answers. Condolences on your loss,” Promise said to the grieving twin before going back the way she had come. On her way out, she tapped Mouse to follow.
Mouse lingered for a time. She turned to her cousin Keisha who was glaring at her like she had a grudge.
“You don’t hear your massa calling? Go on and see what she wants,” Keisha dismissed her cruelly.
“Fuck you, Keisha. I’m my own woman. You ain’t shit for suggesting otherwise,” Mouse shot back.
“Maybe, but I’m gonna keep feeling that way until you show me different. Y’all might be girls but don’t forget whose blood pumps through your veins.”
Promise was outside, leaning against one of the project fences smoking when Mouse came out of the building. She looked pissed. “Your cousin is a real trip.”
“Did you know?” Mouse asked.
“Know what?” Promise was confused.
“That Asher was going to kill Vaughn?”
“Mouse, you’re starting to sound just as crazy as your cousin. Why would Asher kill Vaughn? And if he did, how would I know?” Promise questioned.
“Because I know you’ve been seeing him,” Mouse revealed. Promise opened her mouth to speak, but Mouse waved her silent. “Promise, we ain’t never lied to each other, so let’s not start now. I knew that you and Asher rekindled whatever it was you thought y’all had in Newark. I was just waiting for you to keep it real and tell me. Your ass has been floating on a cloud lately, and there’s only one person I know who can have you running around like a lovestruck little girl, and it ain’t Sin.”
Promise was busted. Mouse knew her better than anyone, so she had been a fool to think she could hide something like that from her. “Yeah, we talked, and I met him earlier, but it ain’t what you think.”
“Then what is it, Promise? Asher pops up in New York, and all of a sudden, Saud gets clipped. Shit, I didn’t even know he was in the city. Do you realize what would’ve happened if he’d caught up with us?” Mouse was livid. Promise remained silent. “Well, I guess we ain’t gotta worry about that now, thanks to your little boyfriend.”
“I know that I kept seeing Asher from you, and I was wrong for that. As far as Saud being here, I had no idea. That’s on my mom. And we don’t know for sure that Asher killed him. They used to get money together, so what would be his motive to kill him?” Promise argued.
“For one, Asher is a double-crossing snake who would step over his mama for a dollar. And for two, if Saud is dead that would mean you were safe. You said, when y’all first hooked, he told you that you didn’t have to worry about that business in Jersey anymore, right? How could he be so sure unless he knew that anyone who would want to see us dead wasn’t around anymore?”
Mouse raised a good point. Promise hadn’t looked at it that way, but the more Mouse talked the more sense it made. When Asher kept asking about Vaughn and who his supplier was, he had likely been fishing to see how much Promise knew before he made his move. Once again, he had used her. “Damn” was all she could say once the realization had set in.
“Damn is right. Now, I had no love for Saud, and I can’t say that I’m mad that he’s gone, but Vaughn didn’t deserve that. There is going to be a shit storm behind this,” Mouse told her.
“You think Keisha and Candice are going to go to the police?” Promise asked.
“The police?” Mouse chuckled. “Hell no, but the law is going to be the least of Asher’s worries if my cousins put two and two together.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, even though Vaughn was a fuck-up and half-ass hustler, he comes from a family tree of certified psychopaths. His cousin is a heavyweight, and I don’t mean a boxer. He is going to scorch the fucking earth behind Vaughn getting killed, and God help anyone he thinks was involved.”
There was something about the tone of Mouse’s voice that made Promise very, very nervous. “Who is this cousin?”
“I don’t know his real name, but on the streets, they call him the Outlaw.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Cal sat behind the wheel of his car, sucking the life out of a blunt. He checked the time on the dashboard and saw that it was well after midnight. Asher was late, but that wasn’t unusual. The boy would be late to his own funeral, if he showed up at all. What was troubling Cal was the location where Asher suggested they meet.
The Pit, as they called it, was really an abandoned housing project off MLK Boulevard in Newark. Back in the day it had been home to dozens of underprivileged and working-class families, but now it was just another victim of Newark’s gentrification project. It was one of the many housing projects that they had torn down, displacing families while trying to make the city a more appealing place to live for the influx of transplants that were now calling Newark home. The abandoned projects were now home to mostly junkies and rats. Asher had turned it into an open-air drug market where their crew could sell drugs and not have to worry too much about the police because the law didn’t care what went on in that area.
“Say, man. You holding?” A drug addict approached Cal’s car. He was a shabbily dressed man wearing a tattered overcoat and a hood pulled over his head.
“Man, get your hype ass away from my ride!” Cal barked on him.
“Fuck you, too, nigga!” the dope fiend spat before going back to join two other junkies who were huddled around a fire burning in a trash can.
Cal watched the man shamble away toward the others. He was easily the biggest dope fiend Cal had ever seen and looked like he might’ve been a football player before the drugs got ahold of him. If shit had gotten crazy, Cal would’ve had to shoot his overgrown ass. This was yet another reason Cal hated being in The Pit. The junkies were more treacherous out that way. Normally, they let the young boys, who were a little on the wilder side, work The Pit. They had less to live for than a man like Cal who was getting to the money.
He checked the time again. It had inched closer to twelve thirty, and there was still no sign of Asher. Cal was now starting to get concerned. Asher had been acting strange lately. He was more paranoid than usual and barely came through the block anymore. The last time Cal could remember Asher moving like that was when Zul had first put him in a trick bag to kill B-Stone. There was definitely something going on, this Cal was sure of, and he had decided that would be the night he confronted his friend and demanded that he tell him what was going on. This is why he had chosen to roll with his big .45, instead of the baby 9mm he usually carried. He and Asher were like brothers, and he didn’t think his friend would double-cross him, but he imagined that was the same thing B-Stone and Ab had thought until they both found themselves in the ground.
In his rearview, he saw headlights turn onto the block. He recognized the blue-tinted LEDs that Asher had fitted his Benz with. The car pulled directly behind where Cal was parked. He waited for a few minutes, expecting Asher to get out, but no one emerged from the car. He just sat there. “Fuck is going on?” he thought to himself. He grew tired of waiting and decided to get out, after he secured his gun in his waistband.
At the same time Cal got out, the driver’s side door to Asher’s Benz opened up. He’d killed the overhead light, so Cal couldn’t get a good look into the car. “Man, you had me out here waiting all night. I thought . . .” Cal’s words trailed when he saw who had climbed from behind the wheel. It wasn’t Asher.
Asher had it all mapped out. Get rid of Saud, reconnect with Promise, and then put the nail in his enemies’ coffins. Giving Zul Cal’s location was the final piece to the puzzle, but what he hadn’t planned for was Zul taking him hostage and forcing him to ride along. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen that coming. Zul knew Asher too well to trust him blindly.
“You awful quiet back there,” Baby Blue said over his shoulder. He was behind the wheel of Asher’s Benz, and Zul occupied the passenger seat. Asher was in the back sandwiched between Fangs and Whisper.
“He’s probably trying to think of how he can weasel his way out of this one,” Fangs said. One side of Fangs’s face was covered by a large bruise, and there was a knot just below his eye that was the size of a baseball. Atilla had caused all that damage with just one punch.
“No worries, Asher. It’ll all be over soon. I’m a man of my word,” Zul assured him.
Asher didn’t like the sound of that. Zul had promised him that, once the traitors had been eliminated, they could get back to business as usual, but Asher was no longer so sure. His heart began to thud in his chest when they turned onto the block and he saw Cal’s car idling. They sat there for a few minutes, waiting. On what, Asher wasn’t sure. Asher had done some low things in his short time on earth, but this ranked as the lowest.
Baby Blue pulled the Benz directly behind Cal’s car, before reaching up to switch off the overhead light.
“You try anything, and I’m gonna let Fangs have his way with you,” Zul warned.
“Please try something. I want you to,” Fangs pleaded.
Asher watched helplessly as Cal got out of his car and approached the Benz. If only there was a way for him to signal to Cal; maybe there was still a chance to get out of this. There was no way. Asher knew that, at the slightest wrong move, Whisper and Fangs would make lunch meat of him, so he sat there quietly while his friend walked to his death.
“What the fuck?” Cal cursed when he saw Baby Blue get out of the car. He made to reach for his gun, but Whisper and Fangs jumped out with their weapons drawn. They had him.
“Go on and toss that piece over here before this shit gets messy,” Baby Blue told him. Reluctantly, Cal did as he was told. “Good boy,” Baby Blue spoke to Cal like he was a dog.
Zul was next to emerge from the car. He paused at the backseat and motioned for the last occupant of the car to get out. Cal’s heart dropped when he saw it was Asher. “You set me up?” he asked.
“Cal . . . let me explain . . .” Asher began, but Zul cut him off.
“Of course he did. Ol’ Ash here traded your life for his. I don’t know why you’re surprised. Your boy has a history of doing dishonorable shit. And the way I hear it, some of his grease ball ways have rubbed off on you. Did you think that I wouldn’t find out what you were up to?”
“Zul, I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Cal said honestly.
“Lying-ass snake!” Baby Blue snuffed him, dropping Cal to one knee.
“Blue!” Zul barked his name, signaling for him to relax. Baby Blue mumbled something under his breath before backing away.
“Zul, I don’t know what this lying muthafucka has told you but don’t believe it,” Cal said, glaring at Asher. Asher couldn’t hold his gaze.
“Asher’s might’ve led me to you, but it was your actions that put you on my radar. How long were you feeding Saud off my plate?” Zul asked.
“Saud? I ain’t seen or spoke to that dude since not too long after B-Stone died,” Cal told him.
“It’s okay, Cal. Zul knows everything,” Asher said. “He knows all about you supplying Saud for his operation in New York. Might as well confess.”
“You dirty muthafucka!” Cal lunged at Asher, but Whisper clocked him in the side of the head with his gun and dropped him.
“So, we’re square now, right, Zul? You said that, once I took care of Cal and Saud, we were all good,” Asher reminded him.
