"Dats fucked up, man," Trap said, looking down at his ringing cell phone. "I gotta take this. I'll holla at you later," he said, walking.
"OK," J-Rock said, falling back on the steps. He grabbed his back feigning pain before getting up and stumbling back into the house. He called Special Agent Livingston.
Agent Brown had a home in sunny Burbank, California over three thousand miles from where he was. His wife was there waiting for him to close this case, a huge motivator to get Lamar off the streets quickly and for a long time. He informed SA Livingston about his investigation on a play-by-play basis because he didn't want the case determined by a drip-drop of evidence. When he was done, there would be no wrist slap negotiated by savvy attorneys for the perpetrators.
Concluding his call, he grabbed a shower because he smelled to high heavens like an alcoholic locked in a distillery for a few hours.
CHAPTER 15
At University Hospital, Lamar roamed into Gunna's room unimpeded by security. Two days had passed and he contemplated what it would be like if he was in the hospital. He had no family to be by his side. Sure he had his street brothers but how effective would they be at questioning doctors and guaranteeing that he received proper care. Other than how to cause them, they had no idea about trauma caused by a gunshot wound.
Mrs. Robinson had told Lamar that Gunna's blood pressure had dipped to sixty over zero. He had no idea what that meant, other than his pressure was dangerously low.
Lamar walked into the room and observed Gunna hooked up to so many machines, he was visibly shaken. On the bright side, he was alive, albeit unconscious. He had a torn radial artery, collapsed a lung, and his own blood was poisoning him. In other words, his man was about to check-in to the Upper-Room; he had better hurry to be with God before the devil stamped his ticket for admittance into the gates of hell. He had definitely committed enough crimes to pay for a first-class ticket.
A doctor walked in and smiled at Lamar before grabbing a chart at the foot of the bed.
"What's up with his arm, Doc?" Lamar asked.
Gunna's arm was encased in an elastoplastic cast and hung in the air using a trapeze bar.
"Well, he was shot in the elbow and near the wrist which ripped through an artery. We're trying to heal the elbow, but the damage to the artery may render his arm useless. I'm assuming it was his shooting arm, so he'll need to stay out of the streets if you catch my drift." The doctor was tall, handsome, in shape, the kind of doctor that looked like the star of a TV one-hour drama.
Lamar furrowed his brows and leaned his head to the side.
"Don't look flustered," the doctor said. "He's been tested for gun residue. The levels were off the chart. Positive for cocaine and mary-joo-anna use, also." His eyebrows went up as if to say what now.
"Oh," Gunna said, and then foolishly added, "Self-defense."
"What a shame. Pennsylvania doesn't buy that. But, I guess," he said, putting the chart down after making a few markings.
"Hey, Doc, what's the problem?" Lamar asked deadpan.
At the door, he said, "You know, I'm tired of patching up young, black men that look just like me. Nothing major."
"That coming from the good doctor who grew up in white America and probably went to Yale. Miss me with that bullshit, Doc."
"You're wrong! For the record, I was orphaned at birth, because my crack addicted mother left me in the hospital to get a hit. I bounced from home to home, abused, starved, and at one point locked in the basement for hours by a white family. My sixth. I used a flashlight to do my homework in the cellar. Homework kept me out of the basement mentally. I studied an old, mildew-ridden set of encyclopedias down there. Through it all, I graduated from Harvard and John Hopkins. No one gave me anything. I earned my academic scholarship. I made me. I'm self-made. So miss me with the bullshit." He stared Lamar down for ten seconds, before he left the room with a sardonic smirk on his face.
Lamar slammed his body into a chair envious of the doctor. He continued to stare at the monitor that provided Gunna's temperature, pulse, EKG, and blood pressure readings. That could have been him. Still could be. Fortunately, it wasn't and until it was, he would exact revenge on the people responsible for Gunna's situation.
Business as usual. With reckless disregard for what the doctor had said.
CHAPTER 16
Later that night.
"Shaquille," Safari called out from the upstairs bedroom, "did you order the pizza and ice cream?"
Shaquille Riley was high as the moon, relaxing in a black leather recliner in the three bedroom duplex that he shared with his girlfriend and three-month-old daughter. It seemed that his partners, Cutty and James, lived there, also, in the drug stash house located on a tree-lined street in Upper Darby. The exterior was constructed out of bricks, red cracked and faded. The yard consisted of a small patch of grass. Even though the living room was sparsely furnished, there was plenty of seating for the crew to hang out and enjoy recreational drugs―selling and using them.
Dressed in a night gown and fuzzy pink slippers, Safari left the bedroom to see why Shaquille hadn't answered her. "I know you heard me," she said, standing over him. "I'm up here starving and in pain, so the least you can do is order the food." Two days earlier her brother, Snake, was killed and she didn't have much strength. "Y'all sitting around here playing games and getting high when you should be finding out who killed my brother, and took over four ki's from y'all."
"First of all, I told you about parading around my boys with no clothes on. What type of time are you on?" Shaquille asked, looking at his watch. "I'm about to order the food now."
James turned his attention from the game, and said, "Oh, and we got the drop on who killed your brother. We letting shit die down before we act."
She stared down at James' poppy eyes, and said, "Oh sure," before heading back upstairs. In the middle of the stairs, she yelled, "Order my food, or I'm leaving." Her favorite threat.
FORTY MINUTES HAD PASSED.
The pizza man approached Shaquille's front step just as a gunman had. He dropped the pizza box and brown paper bag filled with food. He froze, and said, "I only have thirty dollars cash."
"I don't want your money. Give me your work T-shirt, Sammy, and run along," the robber said, having read the delivery man's name on his shirt.
This wasn't a part of the plan, but it was a convenient improvisation. He slipped on the T-shirt, picked up the pizza box and bag, and then proceeded to deliver the food.
Bullets and blood would be included. Free.
