Chapter 19: Power Play

The young punk— I never did find out his name— ended up at the Community Hospital in Tallassee, as that was the closest place they could take him. Since I wasn’t there and I could only track him through the GPS app I’d installed on his phone, I could only assume that he’d spent the rest of the day in surgery for the ruined knee, then tucked into a room later that evening.

I went to the hospital the next day, and managed to get up onto his floor and into the waiting area of his wing without a lot of notice; I pulled up a simple game on my phone, and parked myself near the elevators to wait things out. I was pretty sure that I’d know who I needed to keep an eye out for as soon as I saw them; I figured that his compatriots would likely stand out like the proverbial ‘sore thumb’.

Boy, was I right.

They came out of the elevator, and while they weren’t loud, they weren’t very quiet, either. I could hear them talking about finding the person who had shot their boy, and while they didn’t quite state what they do, explicitly, they left enough implications in their words to get the idea. The one in the lead— and who as likely the leader the group, judging by his outfit— was dressed in a black tracksuit/sweatsuit kind of deal; black sweatpants and matching sweat jacket, piped in red. He wore a purple bandana on his head, partially covered by the red ballcap he also wore. I took him for the leader, in part because he was walking at the head of his entourage— consisting of two other young men, and three ladies trailing behind the men— and because of his swagger. The other two young men were dressed in black, but it was more jeans and dark jackets, while the young women were dressed in dark jeans with bright tops. Everyone wore some configuration of red and purple- one of the guys wore red and purple wristbands, while the other had a pair of folded bandanas in a back pocket of red and purple, just barely visible beneath his jacket; the ladies each had two ‘scrunchies’ of red and purple each, constraining pony tails on their heads.

I watched them all as they headed off in one direction together, and after waiting about five seconds or so, stood up and followed them. I wasn’t the only one interested in them; I happened to spot another person, who just about screamed ‘cop’ by their bearing, fall in behind them, just ahead of me; they fell out just a few doors down from where the small group went into one of the rooms, and I waited a minute or so more, before I made my way down to the room, but didn’t go in the door; I ducked into the alcove made by the construction of the hallway, and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long; a “what da fuck!? Who da fuck is this asshole?” came through the door just loudly enough for me to hear. I took that as my cue.

“The asshole is me,” I said after opening the door without knocking; I purposefully kept my voice gruff, even though I wanted to laugh at the suddenly surprised faces that turned to regard me. Almost by instinct, each of the guys seemed to reach for their waistbands, not quite in sync, and then belatedly realized that they weren’t carrying, and let their hands drift away. I could almost feel the sudden burning fury being directed at me, though, as I stepped into the room, and closed the door behind me.

“I’m pleased to hear that my message was delivered,” I continued, adjusting the suit jacket I had decided to wear today, though I didn’t need to; appearances, and all that. I wanted to convey a look of a slightly casual businessman, and give off the attitude that what I was about was business, not tomfoolery.

“Your message?” The apparent leader blurted in angry surprise “Your message? You’re the one who shot Lamar and told him to say that crazy shit?” He was a caramel-complexioned young man, broad and heavy, with a bit of a beard and goatee combination going on; he looked like maybe in high school he’d lifted some weights, but had let that go in the last few years.

“I am,” I returned with polite civility.

“I oughta have your ass capped right now,” he growled, trying to be threatening, “when we get outta here—”

“Let’s dispense with the empty threats, shall we?” I interrupted him, keeping my voice gruff, but also light and civil, as though I didn’t need to raise my voice to threaten. I didn’t, but he didn’t know that yet, and I needed him— I needed them, to come to that idea by the tone in my voice.

“I needed to get your attention to propose a deal,” I continued, “I wasn’t going to waste time trying to find you and convince you to have a drink with me; so I arranged for you to come to me.”

“Muthafucka, I’ll—” he began again, and again I cut him off.

“This deal has its ups and downs, but I think you might like the deal, in the end ... provided that you’re willing to really listen to what I have to tell you,” I interjected.

I gave them all a flat, hard look that seemed to give them a moment of pause.

The leader seemed about to open his mouth again, and I continued, steamrolling over him again, “If you refused to listen, to not hear a word I have to say, then I’ll kill you. The moment you step out of the hospital, I’ll make sure that the Blood And Pain crew is no more.” I paused again, letting my words sink in. “Or, you could use your brains, and close your mouths. Because while I’m not offering you a lot of choice, I am offering you a way to make a lot of money.

“So what will it be?” I asked evenly.

The leader seemed to be trying to think of what he wanted to say in response, and his entourage stayed silent, looking to him to see what their responses would be.

“I’m listening,” the leader growled back at me, grudgingly I felt.

I nodded curtly.

“The first phase of things is to turn your crew into a specialized crew under the newly formed TMC- the Tuskegee Mercenary Crew. Crews like yourselves will be tasked to deal with weapon distribution, escort services or medicinal distribution within your areas, whatever services that we’ll be needing to be worked out. I say it like that, because the TMC will eventually take over the entire state- which should point out to you that there will be plenty of money to be made for those who get onboard and stay onboard.”

“First phase?” the leader blurted, “whatchyu mean by that?”

“What I mean by that- wait; first, tell me your name.”

“Yo; they call me C-1,” the now named leader replied.

“Okay, C-one,” I gave it a slightly sarcastic tone, “well, that means that there’s more to come than just that. The second phase of things, once we’ve got a majority of the state rolled up, is to take the best of you, who are actually willing to work, to be employed, and turn you into an actual mercenary company, who get hired out by folks who need guards, bodyguards, protection, security- that sort of thing, and make even more money that way.”

C-1 scoffed, sucking his teeth. “Maaaan,” he drawled, “shiiit—we can make bank doin’ what we doin’ right now.”

I scoffed right back at him. “And if you could,” I shot back at him, “You’d already be doing so. Neither you nor your crew has what it takes to make serious money- and by serious, I mean like millions, or tens of millions, not the petty few thousand you might make before some other crew decides to put you and yours out of business.” I paused. “Like the crew I’m working with right now; I’m their enforcer, and to be straight about it, they think that that means I’m supposed to put you all in the ground. But the one I actually work for has big plans, and that means getting all the bodies I can get, to put in the work to make it happen. So, instead of smokin’ you fools, I’m workin’ to help everybody who wants it, get well paid.”

C-1 seemed to think about that for a moment, before blurting out, “So you’re double-crossin’ ya crew?”

I rolled my eyes.

“No,” I stated to him. “The leader of that crew, he thinks that my job as an enforcer, means that I’m supposed to be like a thug and kill the competition. The person I actually work for, stated that my job is to deal with the competition, which in this case means that I should bring the competition into the plan, if they’re willing to be a part of it, and kill ‘em only if they aren’t. It’ll cost more money in the long run to take out folks and then have to recruit and train up more folks to fill the gaps left behind. And the one I work for, does not like to waste money like that.”

C-1 looked at me, sullenly, like I had pissed in his oatmeal and told him to eat it.

“The bottom line is that you have three choices,” I began to state, “First choice, you do as I say, and in perhaps as little as a year from now, you can either choose to get out of the game and have a mill or three in the bank of your very own, and be most likely not dead so you can enjoy it, or stay in, and make millions more. Second choice is to say “nah, we’ll take our chances”, and hope that you don’t get smoked by some other crew. While, of course, I’m still going to be gathering up other crews, and eventually if you didn’t get taken out by a smaller crew, you’d get taken out by the TMC. Or, the last and final choice, you say something like “fuck you, asshole”, and the BAP crew is done by the end of the day.”

“Don’t sound like much of a choice,” one of the guys with C-1 said.

“But, it is a choice,” I shot back at him. “Of course, you could decide to think about it; I’m gonna hit up the other four crews in the area, and then get everybody together so you all know who you’ll be working with. Give me your number, and take a couple of days to think on the matter.”