"Wassup with y'all, though?" Trap asked.

"It ain't shit, homie, just hanging out," Lamar replied.

Trap looked off down the street to be sure Gunna was out of earshot. "Akh, Gunna been on some bullshit lately. He kind of nutty. I don't know what's up with him, but he been kicking it with that dude, J-Rock, that moved on the other side of the Village. I bet he at his apartment now." Trap nodded his head in the direction of J-Rock's crib.

"Who? J-Rock, the nigga who I shot his white bitch and just got outta jail for almost killing?" Rhetorical, but a valid question.

"Yup," Trap said in disbelief. "He claims dude got a gun connect. This white dude is with them some days. He says he just using them for they drugs and gun connections. I don't see how, when we ain't had no constant work in about a month. This muthafucker just wanna get high and fuck up money. Me and Turk had to put our own money together to get some weed out on the block."

"Yo, what's up?" Turk said, approaching them after serving a feign.

Turk was a husky kid, just eighteen with thick jowls and a turkey neck. At six-two, two hundred twenty pounds he was an enforcer, and soft for the ladies, who called him a teddy bear.

The conversation continued, puzzling Lamar who was lost for words. After hearing the same complaints from Turk, he actually wondered what had Gunna really been doing while he was on vacation from reality. He knew that he had to get to the bottom of it, but was sure the white coke lines were in the way.

"Aye, y'all listen, everybody gonna be all right. Proud that y'all used y'all own money and copped some work. Showing leadership already. I'm gonna get some work for y'all soon as I link with the plug. For now, y'all keep doing what y'all doing with the weed."

"All right," Turk said.

"Here, go grab some Dutch's and we'll talk some more when you get back." Lamar gave him a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

"Aight."

"Ayo, Trap, let me get a five for twenty," someone yelled at his back.

"Yeah, hold on, Dot." Trap dug into his boxer briefs where he kept his weed in a Ziploc bag. Like a seasoned drug dealer, he pulled out the amount his customer requested, and then, exchanged the product for the payment.

"Damn, dog, these bags small as shit. Look out, nigga," Dot said, examining the bags of weed like he had a degree in visually weighing things.

Dot looked on knowing where the comment was headed. Conspicuously, he examined the man's shirt for a weapon's bulge. Lamar had vivid memories of Dot's dangerous and reckless actions because Dot had only lived a few blocks over in the Ruby Terrace purlieu of Bartram Village.

"Naw, playa, all deals final," Trap replied, smiling cockily with his head on the butt of his gun.

Dot quickly assessed the situation and summed it up to be a lose-lose, with him on both losing ends.

"You know what? Y'all got that," Dot replied with a wicked sneer on his face.

Lamar knew that Dot was a shooter. A stupid shooter.

"I know we got it. Don't let that weed be the reason you get left out here," warned Trap.

Dot nodded. Smiled at the threat. Well, the joke.

Once he was some distance from them, Lamar said, "Fuck him. Let him be."

Having caught the tail end of the conflict, Turk said, "You ain't hip, Lamar. That nigga keeps comin' around here making demands and shit like he trying to intimidate niggas."

Trap added, "He's going to do like everybody else, cop and fuckin' roll. That nigga from Ruby Terrace and he know niggas over here in Harley Terrace ain't really fuckin' with them right now. A lot has been going on since you got booked."

"Calm down," Lamar said, "it sounds like y'all two wreak chasin'. Fuck all that arguing shit. If y'all gonna lay a nigga, then, lay a nigga. You win wars through actions, never through arguments." Lamar then pointed at Dot who was half block away. "That nigga ain't even a threat," Lamar said, and then, out of his peripheral noticed Dot walking back in their direction with a gun. "Oh, shit," yelled Lamar.

CHAPTER 4

Lamar's instinct forced him to push Trap and Turk behind a car before reaching for his .40.

On cue, Dot began firing rounds from a Mac-11 9mm. It sounded like claps from the hands of a giant. The report was sharp, piercing, and filled the quiet street with the unmistakable sounds of doom and gloom. A regular day in the village.

Lamar looked to the opposite end of the street in search of Gunna who was nowhere in sight. Then, all in one motion, he stood with both hands wrapped around the 40-caliber with little to no fear and Dot in his crosshair. He walked towards him, firing in his direction shooting out the window of a car that Dot had ducked behind.

Dot peeked up and returned fire, but learned he was out gunned and out numbered. He mistakenly let Trap out of his sight for a second too long. By the time he located him it was too late, and all he heard was a thunderous roar as a bullet crashed into the side of his temple.

Dot's body hit the ground.

It struck Lamar that he didn't experience anything, neither cold nor heat, not even stress or reservation. He didn't feel anything. He was enveloped in a vapor, numbed, all senses dormant. He wondered what he would say to the young man who had just laid to rest a human being.

He didn't care, so there wasn't much to say. Good job, perhaps?

Suddenly there was a horrible gasp and a final expulsion of breath. Dot's body jerked off the ground spastically before it became rigid. His eyes were wide open, staring up at his final destination, his lips parted in death. The process had taken less than twenty-seconds.

Trap remained in shock realizing that he'd caught his first body.

Lamar, however, with rage in his eyes, ran up to the body and picked up Dot's gun. He, then, kicked the dead man in the face, and spat, "Bitch-ass, nigga."

Trap looked on at his idol as they heard screams from onlookers.

"Come on, big homie, we got to roll," Trap said, pulling Lamar's arm.

Lamar slowly regained his composure and the two ran off towards the Marauder with Turk in tow. All three got inside and Lamar sped off without a destination in mind. He needed to put as much time and a distance between them and the bloody mess that was Dot, though.

FBI AGENT BROWN'S THOUGHTS were interrupted by the familiar sounds of the ghetto coming from somewhere outside the row home. He listened, his breath arrested.

They were shrieks of some sort...yelling...screams. People were screaming!

He looked out of the front window; the heavy curtains pulled back to observe a dead man in his final above ground resting place. A massive pain shot through him: the agent shoved a gun into his waist to join the other onlookers on the street to find out who was shot and by whom. An undercover at work.

DURING THE DRIVE, THE trio remained lost in their respective thoughts. Lamar had bagged his sneakers in a plastic bag and had Turk throw them into a sewer hole at Fifty-Second and Chestnut Streets. He parked in the McDonald's parking lot at the intersection and sent Trap to a clothing store to buy him new footwear. They didn't realize the time that had passed until the sound of Lamar's iPhone came to life. Forty-minutes had passed and Gunna was calling. They were driving along Sixty-Third Street.

Lamar lit up a Dutch filled with Sour Diesel and accepted the call. "Yo, Gunna, what's up?" Lamar asked, turning down the music. It was as if a dead body was not left on the block riddled with bullets.

"Y'all just shot up, Dot. What's with that? I leave for a few minutes to get some quick head and a fuckin' body gets dropped. You have only been out a week. You had them dumbass young bulls drawin' on the set." Gunna was upset.