Dutch

  No one came.

  Qwan hoped and prayed no one would answer. Be asleep, God let them be asleep or not here. But the sound of footsteps on the stairs bottomed out his heart of all hope.

  “Who is it?” Mrs. Smith asked, pushing the door curtain aside to peer out of the glass design.

  “Hi, Mrs. Smith? I’m the friend Simone told you about. She said you’d be expecting me.” Dutch spoke like a choirboy.

  “No,” Mrs. Smith’s face contorted in confusion, “I’m not expecting anybody.”

  “I swear that Simone said she’d call you and tell you we’d be stopping by. My grandmother’s birthday is today and we were visiting. She asked if I’d drop you some chicken by,” he said, holding up the plate. “She musta forgot to call you.”

  “Well, that girl is always surprising me with things, God bless her heart. You say it’s fried chicken, huh?” she asked as she unlocked the door. She opened the door and Dutch held out the tray and smiled.

  “Surprise.”

  Before Mrs. Smith could thank him, Qwan and Craze came around the door as Craze stuck a gun in Mrs. Smith’s face and shoved her against the wall. Dutch put on his gloves and proceeded into the living room, where Craze had Mrs. Smith in a chokehold with the gun to her head and where her husband stood in the middle of the room.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Mr. Smith, all 235 pounds of him raging, his bull kept at bay by the gun to his wife’s head.

  “I’m here for Simone, but since she’s not here, one of you will do.”

  The large man didn’t understand what Dutch was talking about. He didn’t catch the true gravity behind the words. All he knew was that three hoodlums had barged into his home and were holding his wife at gunpoint. Every muscle in his body flexed, the vein that ran down from his forehead to his neck pulsated with rage, but he remained as still as a stone.

  “Take what the hell you want and get the hell out of my house!” Mr. Smith bellowed.

  “I intend to, but before I do, I want you to know about your daughter, Simone.”

  “What about my daughter? What have you done to her?”

  “It’s not what I did to Simone, it’s what I’m going to do to you,” Dutch said as he walked over to Mrs. Smith, as Craze pushed her into the wall and took aim.

  Mr. Smith never had a chance to react.

  Craze squeezed the trigger three times, hitting the man in the chest. Mr. Smith fell to the floor.

  “No! No! Harris, no!” screamed Mrs. Smith at the top of her lungs for her husband’s life. Tears fell as she screamed again, “No! God no!”

  Dutch approached her with a large hunting knife and put it to her throat.

  “You hear me? Look at me!” Dutch ordered.

  Mrs. Smith’s heart was pounding fast; she was scared. As she looked down on her husband’s bleeding body, she saw Craze fire two more bullets into the man’s head, leaving him lifeless.

  Dutch grabbed her by the arm and the back of the neck, forcing her to look first at him and then at her husband’s lifeless, murdered body.

  “You see that? You see it? You tell your daughter this is all her fault! He fuckin’ wit’ the right one now and you next if we gotta come back! You hear me? Now you tell Kazami that!”

  It was too much for the fragile woman of forty-eight to bear, and she fainted in Dutch’s arms. He let her drop to the floor.

  The entire courtroom was silent as Qwan finished his story. He dropped his head, teary-eyed on the stand. “All he said was, ‘Let’s go,’ ” he mumbled almost in a whisper. Many of the jury members were in tears; the rest eyed Dutch with murder in their eyes. Even Jacobs was amazed at the level of savage butchery of which Dutch was capable.

  Jacobs wanted to milk Qwan’s testimony for all it was worth, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to continue. His own voice cracked as he spoke.

  “No, no more questions, Your Honor,” he said as he headed back to the prosecutors’ table.

  “Your witness, defense,” ordered Judge Whitaker.

  Michael Glass slowly began to rise from his chair when Dutch grabbed his hand. Glass looked at him and Dutch shook his head no.

  “What’s the problem?” Glass asked.

  “Let him go,” Dutch answered, never taking his eyes off Qwan.

  “Let him what?” Glass whispered back in shock, his face torn up. “Are you crazy? On his testimony alone the jury is ready to fry you! Let him go? Look at that jury over there. They want your blood! Now!”

  Dutch slowly turned to Glass and simply repeated, “Let… him… go,” keeping eye contact with Glass to let him know how serious he was.

  “Defense, it’s your witness,” the judge repeated.

  “Just a minute, Your Honor,” Glass said, again looking at Dutch, who was looking at Qwan’s bowed head.

  “The defense has no questions, Your Honor.”

  The courtroom burst into astonished chitter-chatter, which ran wild through the room as the judge called for silence with his gavel.

  “Order, I say. Order in the court!”

  Jacobs looked at Glass in amazement. Glass simply shrugged his shoulders. At that moment, Glass knew Dutch was crazy. He had heard that he was insane, but not crazy enough to hang himself. If he won’t let me do my job, no one can blame me in the end, he thought to himself.

  “Reverend Taylor, you may step down,” the judge informed Qwan.

  Dutch watched the man he’d known and loved for so long slowly get down off the witness stand. He couldn’t help but think of Craze and how he predicted this day would come.

  “I told you that nigga not built for this shit, son,” Craze said after Dutch told him Qwan was leaving for California.

  “He said he scared something is going to happen to his family,” Dutch said, shrugging his shoulders as if there was nothing he could do.

  “Man, that nigga Qwan know too much, way too much,” said Craze, his eyes telling Dutch what had to be done. “Let me take care of it, Dutch. I know you a little personal with the nigga and shit, but fuck that. You can’t let that nigga walk no where.”

  “What’s he going to do? Nothing but go out to California and what, become a preacher or some shit. Man, leave that nigga alone. Let him go. If that’s what he wants to do,” said Dutch, never thinking that Qwan would really become a preacher. Not to mention come back one day and testify against him. Craze meanwhile had it all figured out and was prepared to kill Qwan out in California, but Dutch refused.

  Now he had spilled his guts to the twelve people who held Dutch’s life in their hands, and again he refused, because he understood.

  Dutch knew why Qwan had gone to California. He understood why he became a man of God. He pictured Qwan preaching to lost souls and could imagine him doing a fine job working with the youths. He knew that, for Qwan, it wasn’t a witness stand, and he also knew Qwan had no malicious intent toward him.

  To Qwan, the stand was a confessional. After all these years, he finally had a chance to exonerate himself, in his own eyes, and Dutch understood. When all was said and done, Dutch understood.

  Qwan passed without looking in Dutch’s direction and Dutch didn’t look in his. And even though no words or glances were exchanged, there was relief in Qwan’s passing…

  Now, he would finally be free.

  “Is the state ready to call its next witness?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE SETUP

  Craze sat in his Porsche, almost falling asleep. The trial was coming to an end and the time was drawing near. So much had been done, so much to do. I can’t believe Qwan testified like that. Craze had told Dutch he would chirp like a bird if ever under pressure, but Dutch never listened. And there he was chirpin’, just like I said he would be, Craze thought to himself as he thought back to where Qwan had left off.

  While they carried Mr. Smith’s body out on a covered stretcher, they brought Mrs. Smith out in a straitjacket. She spent the next seven months in Bellevue Hospital.

  Sugar Ray was
shocked to learn that his advice had been followed so precisely and scared to know these young wolves were definitely serious. But when Dutch and Craze had driven Ray to Bellevue Hospital to show him Simone, he knew that the plan could actually work. They sat across the street from Bellevue and watched as Simone came out of the hospital to where Kazami was waiting. Simone’s mother had refused to see her, blaming the death of her father on her wild lifestyle. Simone came out in tears. When Kazami and his two henchmen approached her to show her the waiting car, she pushed away from him, screaming in his face, then ran for the subway. Kazami jogged after her, calling her name.

  After that, Simone was putty in Ray’s expert hands. It took some time, but Craze remembered the day when Sugar Ray called and said, “It’s done.”

  Craze told Dutch and they headed over to Sugar Ray’s apartment. When they arrived, Sugar Ray opened the door wearing a red silk robe and red silk slippers and smoking a Newport.

  “Come on in, lil’ niggas, come on in. Don’t forget to take yo’ shoes off ’cause Sugar Ray got that precious shit up in here,” he said as he stepped aside, allowing them to pass.

  Craze and Dutch kicked their shoes off at the door and followed Ray down the hall and into the living room. The thick white carpet felt like a cloud under their feet. A lengthy fish tank lined one wall of the living room and the other wall was covered with a wall unit. Teddy Pendergrass was playing in the background as Sugar Ray sat down in a green leather recliner and reclined. Craze and Dutch sat cattycorner to him.

  “Yeah, lil’ nigga, the bitches keep Sugar Ray living real good,” he said as he saw them admiring his apartment.

  “You called?” Dutch asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, youngun, I called,” Sugar Ray drawled out in an extra-syrupy countrified voice.

  He had the floor and intended to keep them on his time. “You know, youngun, you’sa treacherous muhfucka, you know that,” Ray told Dutch as he rubbed his chin. “I’ma be honest wit’ you. I ain’t think y’all lil’ niggas would pull this shit off for real, but when I read how you left that bitch father…” Ray shook his head in admiration. “I knew right then I was fuckin’ wit’ some thoroughbred-type lil’ niggas.”

  Ray paused to give Dutch a chance to respond, but Dutch sat quietly, so Ray continued.

  “So, who did the ol’ man, huh? You?” Ray asked, referring to Dutch.

  “Whut you writin’, a book?” Dutch responded, and Ray chuckled.

  “Naw, youngun, nothin’ like that. I just think shouldn’t be no secrets, ’tween partnas, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  Dutch knew exactly what he was implying: partners.

  Ray leaned forward in his chair and put his feet on the floor.

  “That sound ’bout right, don’t it? ’Cause, you know, the way I see it is, no doubt, you did the heavy shit, ’cause you know, Ray ain’t no killer, but ahhh… you did come to me, am I right?”

  Dutch just looked at Ray with a curious little smile that Ray couldn’t figure out, but he was too smooth to show the ruffle in his feathers.

  “Of course you did, ’cause you had a bitch to crack and you knew Sugar Ray crack five bitches like five knuckles, then ball my fist, right? So, it’s only right for a fifty-fifty job, we do a fifty-fifty split.”

  Dutch nodded as he listened, then spoke.

  “I see what you sayin’. Like you said, we did call you. So, fifty-fifty is cool, but on one condition.”

  Ray wasn’t prepared for a proposition. He had figured on doing all the proposing. After all, he had the trump card, but he asked anyway.

  “Condition?”

  “You come with us, ’cause I mean, we could lick then come back and tell you anything and if you feel like you been shitted on we might ruin this beautiful partnership,” Dutch explained.

  Sugar Ray dragged on his cigarette, then crushed it in the ashtray. He hadn’t thought about being there personally, but then again, he had to ensure his own interest.

  “I ain’t got no problem with that,” Ray answered and shook Dutch’s hand.

  “So, can we get down to business now?”

  “The bitch is done for. It took a minute ’cause Ray knew what was on the line, so I made sure the shit was laid real thick, but ahhh,” he held out his jeweled hand and pointed to a large gold nugget ring that was covered in diamonds. “This used to be Kazami’s… just like his bitch. Plus, I got two one-way tickets to Georgia in the bedroom. She think we gonna go together after the shit go down. But Ray rolls alone. Besides, if Kazami can’t trust the ho, how I’m ’posed to? So, how ’bout makin’ sure Simone take the trip wit’ Kazami and not wit’ me?” Ray asked, hoping it wasn’t too much to ask for.

  Dutch already intended on that, so he nodded in agreement.

  “Good. Now, the nigga don’t keep no real paper in the crib, maybe a couple hundred thousand. But as for his real money, she don’t know. Nigga sprung, but he damn sure ain’t a fool. As for the safehouses, there’s two, one in Newark and one in Elizabeth.”

  “I already got that covered,” Dutch informed him. He had two teams ready to move in on the safehouses filled with heroin.

  “Now, he rest his head in Roselle Park and he keep two muhfuckas wit’ ’em, since that beef wit’ them spaghetti heads. He done lost a lot of his closest people. These two Africans is like the last of his original team. They big, black, and trail that nigga like a shadow and they ready to die. So the only way we can get in on this cat is as satellite installers. She said she been buggin’ the nigga for months to get one of them shits and now that this shit wit’ her parents done went down, he feelin’ guilty, buyin’ the broad everything she want. Only problem,” Ray paused for a moment before he dropped his bomb, “ain’t no way we can get in strapped, so she gonna have two guns waitin’ for us.”

  Craze and Dutch looked at each other like Ray was joking, and he could tell they didn’t like what he had just said. Dutch had all kinds of thoughts running through his head. This nigga must be tryin’ something slick. I know he not trying to stick me.

  Ray took one look at Dutch and read his mind.

  “Ahhh, naw, youngun, don’t tell me you thinkin’ like that. You thinkin’ Sugar Ray done gave the rabbit the gun, huh? Come on, lil’ nigga, even if I did, do you think Kazami would invite you to his house to dead you? Hell no, he’da been here waitin’ on you when you got here, or better, he woulda gunned you down in the street like the rest of them muhfuckas.”

  Dutch looked at Ray. He was right. Craze looked around the apartment waiting for someone to jump out on him. That place could have easily been a death trap, and he could tell Dutch was thinking the same thing. When Ray saw they understood his point, he continued.

  “Now, back to this installation shit. Man, this nigga been hit on twice, so he paranoid. Muhfuckin’ Jehovah’s Witness can’t even get too close to this nigga with too many Bibles in they hand, so we lucky the bitch wanted satellite television.”

  “Yeah, you got a point, but going in this cat’s house unarmed, dependin’ on his chick to gun us?” Dutch just shook his head.

  Ray leaned back in his chair, kicked his feet up, and said, “It’s the only way. Shit, you think I want to go up in this crazy nigga’s house without no gun? Hell no, but the broad wide open. She’s gonna do what I tell her. You can take that to the bank wit’ cha, youngun.”

  “What you think?” Dutch turned to Craze.

  “I’m sayin’, Ray right, ain’t no way we gonna hit him this lovely nowhere else. Like you told me in Roberto’s van that night, ain’t no turning back now, ’cause we ain’t got nowhere to go,” Craze concluded.

  “Set it up,” he said to Ray.

  A week later, they pulled up to the door of Kazami’s house in an all-white stolen van. The house wasn’t large, but it was definitely in good taste and extremely expensive. It sat back in a low-key section of Roselle Park, an area made up of mostly retired white folk. Craze drove with Dutch in the passenger seat and Ray in the back.

&
nbsp; “There it is.” Sugar Ray pointed.

  Dutch didn’t say a word, just glanced over at Craze, grabbed the toolbox, slid open the back door, and got out. He turned to Craze, who sat in the driver’s seat with his nine-millimeter on his lap.

  “You got ten minutes. After that, I’m comin’ in.” Then he held up his gun and looked at his watch.

  Dutch smiled and winked at him, then turned and walked away.

  “Let me handle the door, i-ight?” Ray demanded more than asked.

  Dutch eyed Ray closely, then slowly nodded.

  “Don’t worry, youngun, I done talked us this far, right?”

  Dutch didn’t answer him. They climbed the stairs and Ray rang the doorbell. Dutch glanced around to survey the scenery. A black Lincoln sat in the driveway along with a silver convertible Jaguar. Up the block an elderly white man was watering his lawn. Dutch looked back at the van and saw no sign of Craze, who had reclined in the passenger seat out of sight.

  After a few moments, the door opened and a large black man silently filled the door frame and stood there. Ray looked at the clipboard he had under his arm, then looked up at the huge black man.

  “Umm, Mr. Carter?” asked Ray.

  “Who you?” the big African replied.

  “Look, evidently you ain’t Mr. Carter, ’cause if you was, you’d know I’m from Universal Installations. Mr. Carter ordered a satellite,” Ray said, feigning annoyance and nodding to the satellite box.

  The African looked at Dutch, then at Ray, then at the satellite box.

  “Open it,” he ordered.

  “Huh?”

  “I said open it! Open the box!” he said, then made a move as if he were going to open it himself.

  “Hold up, big man. I don’t mean no harm, but until I know if you’re Mr. Carter or not, that there don’t belong to you, i-ight.”

  The large African man just eyed Ray, hard. “Wait here,” he said, then slammed the door and relocked it. Dutch looked at Ray, who winked at him. A few short seconds later, the African returned with the most beautiful woman Dutch had ever seen.