Читать книгу Gods & Gangsters - Соломон - Страница 8

“I told you shit was sweet!” Lil’ Earl exclaimed as he, Tyrone and the twins pulled up behind an abandoned warehouse.

It was after midnight, and like most small southern towns, Goldsboro had tucked itself in. Few cars were driving around, and the ones that were had the same criminal intent they did.

They drove past the warehouse to the back of the pawnshop – a small brick building about the size of the average convenience store. The face of the store fronted one of the busiest streets in town, but the back was totally obscured by the leftover pallets and an old rusty bread truck. Perfect for a robbery.

“Man, they get ery’ gun on earth in there,” Tyrone remarked, with his smooth country accent.

Messiah eyed him in the mirror hard.

“Ay yo, shut the fuck up! I’m tryna think!” he hissed.

He wasn’t feeling bringing Tyrone along from jump. The nigga just didn’t sit right with Messiah. But Lil’ Earl had vouched for Tyrone, and since Lil’ Earl was family, he trusted his judgment. Mistake number one.

Knowledge cut through the tension in the car, when he said, “Fuck that bullshit. Let’s get this money!”

“Everybody know what we gotta do, right? No mistakes,” Messiah warned, as he opened the door.

The rest of the team filed out behind him. Knowledge popped the trunk; inside were four sledgehammers and a coiled rope. Messiah, Power, Tyrone and Lil’ Earl grabbed one a piece.

“Let’s go!” Messiah said, amped for the action at hand, took the rope and the last hammer. The weight of it in his hand felt good. He felt like Black fuckin’ Thor.

Messiah walked up onto the rental car and grabbed the roof of the pawnshop. He threw the rope and hammer up, and when he heard them clatter down, he pulled himself up. Standing on the roof made climbing up like doing one pull-up – something Messiah was used to. So was Knowledge and Tyrone. They came up easy. The night was warm and there were no homes nearby, the strip was all businesses. Across the parking lot, Messiah scanned roofs and windows of the nearby businesses. A Wells Fargo office with windows all dark. A tire and auto repair shop across the street quiet as a grave. All the way through the trees out to the huge blue mushroom of the Goldsboro water tower by the railway track, everything was silent and sweet.

“H-he-help me up,” Lil’ Earl strained, holding on by the grip of his fingers. Being little, it made it hard to grab, jump and pull.

Messiah laughed. “Man, pull yo’ little chubby ass up.”

“I…can’t,” Lil’ Earl wheezed.

Messiah relented and pulled him up. Once he was up, Messiah handed him back his sledgehammer. “Get to work.”

They each wrapped their sledgehammer in a towel to muffle the thud of each blow.

The streets may’ve been empty, but the silence would only make the noise carry further. They also coordinated their blows to strike at once, so there wouldn’t be a cacophony of impacts.

It had only been a half hour but they had banged open a hole large enough to go in through the roof. Messiah looked down and from where he stood, he could see the alarm beeping red, still engaged because it wasn’t connected to the roof in any way.

Stupid muhfuckas he thought to himself. If you had the balls and the brains you could get into anywhere.

Knowledge tied one end of the rope around an iron pipe sticking out of the roof, then knotted the rope in several places so it would be easier to climb down.

“Ay yo Lil’ Earl, stay yo’ fat ass up here. I ain’t tryin’ to have to pull you up,” Messiah remarked playfully, but he was dead ass. Tyrone laughed.

“Man, fuck y’all,” Lil’ Earl chuckled.

One by one, Messiah, Knowledge and Tyrone descended the rope, and Lil’ Earl was alone with the night.

Once they were down, they were like kids in a candy store. The counter was full of guns; the display on the wall was full of riot pumps, AK47s and rifles.

“God damn! Jackpot!” Knowledge whispered excitedly, giving his brother a loud smack of a handshake.

“Yo, here go the duffles,” Tyrone called out, as Lil’ Earl stuffed them through the hole. Messiah and Tyrone caught the bags, but Knowledge was distracted. He fell to his knee behind a display case of pistols.

“Yo, police!” Knowledge said, somewhere south of a shout, but well north of a whisper.

They all ducked and looked as the police car drove by without even looking.

“Man, they ain’t even look. This time-a night in this one camel town, po-po just want their donuts and coffee, they ain’t lookin’ for or expectin’ missions.” Messiah retorted, upset with his brother for scaring him for no reason.

They forced the door into the warehouse and it was like they’d woken up in a fairy-tale. All there was were boxes of guns. Like that place they put the Ark at the end of Raiders. Messiah almost cried tears of joy.

“We ‘bout to get rich!” Tyrone cackled. “It must be at least a thousand guns!”

There were actually 1200 – nines, four-fifths, .40 calibers, revolvers, .38’s, .357’s, 44’s, all shapes and sizes down to pink derringer .22’s.

“This for my bitch!” Knowledge laughed, kissing the gun’s box like his girl.

Then there were the bullets. There were so many, they filled a duffle bag the size of a body bag. Bag after bag went up the rope; so many, Lil’ Earl yelled he was getting tired of pulling them up. In all, they filled 8 full-size duffle bags.

That’s when Tyrone saw the watch.

The rest of the jewelry on display was pawnshop-typical - thin ass herringbones, pinky ice rings and a couple of cheap tennis bracelets. But the watch stood out.

“Yo, I gotta have that watch!” Tyrone’s voice was full of lust.

“Yo, we out. Fuck that watch. You can buy a hundred of them cheap ass shits,” Messiah replied taking hold of the rope now all the bags were on the roof with Lil’ Earl...

But Tyrone was too locked in. He used the butt of the gun to break the glass…and sealed his fate.

“Shit fuck and day-um!” Tyrone hissed as the glass from the display case bit into his palm. He held up his hand for them to see the fresh wound, gripping his wrist hard, red blood running over his sleeve. “Fuck, look at that!?”

But Messiah wasn’t looking at the cut on Tyrone’s palm. All he saw was the blood on the glass, the blood in the case and the blood on the floor.

In some ways he wished he’d shot the stupid ass nigga in the face right there.