Читать книгу Gods & Gangsters - Соломон - Страница 6

“Several members of the notorious rap group Q.B.C. were arrested today in Raleigh, North Carolina on firearms and related offenses. It began as an altercation after a performance in a local nightclub, but quickly escalated when shots were exchanged between the group and the crowd. The police found that several of the guns used in the shooting had been stolen three years ago and police say the altercation ultimately cost one man his life. The body, however, was never recovered.”

Messiah gazed up at the screen as he stood in the day room of the Wake County Jail.

The red peel swallowed up his slim but wiry frame because they only had one that was three sizes too big for him. He also hated the fact that he had to wear cheap ass flip-flops with no socks, keeping his feet cold.

“Man, this some bullshit,” he grumbled to himself, as he looked around his bullpen.

Overcrowded wasn’t the word for the conditions. There were three people sleeping in a cell meant for one man — people sleeping on the floor, people everywhere. The place stank like a dirty armpit in summer all day long. The smell never got out of his nose, never went from his mouth. On some days even, the food tasted like armpits. Messiah was already pissed, but the Carolina niggas were making it worse, ice grilling him as if looks could kill.

Messiah took one look around at the squalid day room and decided a single cell in the hole was preferable to being cramped up in general population.

Besides, he wanted to release some stress.

He stepped up to three dudes standing by the phone who had been ice grilling him since he came in. The biggest dude was four inches on Messiah’s six feet even stature, but size was never a factor when his outcome was to be determined by will.

“Ay yo, you know me or somethin’, son?” Messiah questioned, ice grilling the dude just as hard.

“You know me?” the big dude shot back.

Messiah could see that dude really didn’t want any problems, but the mere fact of having his two mans right there was putting a battery in his back. So Messiah knew sooner or later, the situation would escalate. He preferred sooner.

Ssssshhitt! Messiah spat the gem star razor from his mouth.

The dudes never even saw it coming. Messiah had marveled when he came in to Wake County the police officer who strip-searched him never told him to open his mouth. Now he was glad he hadn’t.

The big dude cried out as the razor slit his face open like it had a zipper. The straight lipped line ran from his temple to his chin. Blood spitting, landing on Messiah’s cheek as he ripped the big dude again across the lip, splitting it in two.

Then in the same motion, he pushed the big dude into his man on the left, who was lunging at Messiah. Cooler than new frost, Messiah slit the dude on the hand, right across the palm, wrist and forearm because he raised his arms in time to save his face.

“Oh shit.”

“God damn!”

“Fuck!”

Niggas standing around jumped away as blood gushed, but Messiah wasn’t done. He went after the third dude just as four police officers burst into the pod, spraying mace and pulling out Tasers.

“Get down on the floor now!” the first officer bellowed as he reached to grab Messiah.

But Messiah was in a zone. He didn’t know it was the police who grabbed him, so he spun with the razor and slashed the officer across the check and the bridge of his nose.

His flesh sliced open, yanking a bitch scream out of his mouth as blood got in his eye.

“I can’t see! I can’t see! My face!” he yelled.

The other officers made short work of Messiah, punching, stomping and tasing him until he went down and his lights went out.

When he came to, Messiah was laying on a cold steel slab in a solitary cell. The stench of mace was still on him, and when he tried to get up, he grimaced with excruciating pain because his ribs felt like they were broken. There was no window in the cell, so he didn’t know if it was day, night or even how long he had been there.

“Ay yo,” he called out, hearing only the echo of his own voice in response. “Yo!” he screamed louder.

This time he heard the jingle of approaching keys, slowly scraping into the lock. A fat redneck officer appeared in the window of the steel door.

“Get up, you’ve got a visitor,” the redneck told him, voice dripping with contempt.

“Get up?! Man my ribs feel broke. I need to see a nurse,” Messiah said.

The redneck shrugged. “She ain’t here. She’s busy stitching up the officer you cut. Maybe you can see her tomorrow…or the next day. Maybe. Now get up or I’m coming in there to get you up,” the redneck growled.

Messiah knew he was in no shape to buck, so he struggled… painfully…to his feet, walking like an elderly man, gritting his teeth and holding his ribs with every step.

The redneck opened the tray slot in the door.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back to cuff up,” the redneck’s orders were like snot sneezed onto a hand.

“This some fuckin’ bullshit,” Messiah mumbled, as he turned his back to the door.

When the redneck snatched his arms behind his back, the pain was so intense that Messiah saw stars, but he refused to give the satisfaction of hearing him cry out, so he bit his lip until it bled.

“Open 211,” the redneck squawked into his walkie-talkie. The steel door slid open as smoothly as the rock in front of Jesus’ tomb. Messiah stepped out, eyes red with pain, but a smirk on his lips. “QB we take it and smile.”

The redneck shoved him forward. “Just walk!”

He led Messiah to an interrogation room. As soon as he walked in, the first thing he noticed was the two-way mirror that covered the entire right wall. He hadn’t even noticed the two detectives sitting at the deck, until Spagoli remarked, “Remember us?”

Messiah turned his head to the sound of the voice and his heart sank. He knew the game was over. O’Brien read his expression.

“No smile? And here I thought you’d be glad to see us, after we came all the way from New York in your honor,” O’Brien remarked. The redneck sat him down hard. He grimaced.

“What’s the matter? You don’t look so good? But then again, you never look good,” Spagoli cracked.

“Fuck you. I need a doctor, my fuckin’ ribs are broke,” he seethed.

Spagoli shrugged. “Imagine how it feels to be buried alive, suffocating, begging for air. Did you let him see a doctor?”

He glared at Spagoli.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Spagoli shot back, slapping four 8 x 6 glossies on the table in front of Messiah. He refused to look.

“Look at it,” Spagoli ordered in a menacing tone. He shifted in his chair, refusing to look.

“I need a doctor!”

“Look at it!” Spagoli spazzed, grabbing him by the neck and forcing him to look at the photo.

The body was sprawled out on the ground beside the hole he had been buried in. The body had decayed badly, maggots having eaten away at his face, but he knew exactly who he was…Tyrone.