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| 005. american life |
[March the 8th] |
"Lina, it ain't so bad. You got dis house. I mean look this shit, Lina." Daryl took hold of her biceps and steered her around. She was no longer brooding by the door, but instead looking at a spacious first home with freshly-painted, white walls.
"You see dis, Lina? Hardwood floors, Lina! Hardwood floors." Daryl slapped her back companionably and pointed to the floors. "Did you see how clean dis shit is? I could see my reflection in that shit."
"Nah, it's straight, D. It's straight." She was gracious. Lina stepped away from the man in the wife beater behind her to look over the living room and dining room. She hadn't changed out of the suit she'd worn to work; she hadn't even traded her heels for sneakers or nothing at all. "Who the fuck would have thought, man?"
Daryl snorted and shook his head. "Honestly, man? Pssht. Nobody."
Angelina Torres grew up in the projects, in Oakland. Like so many young children there, her mother and father had jumped ship -- whether it was because they were incarcerated a few states over or getting high a couple floors down. Because it was so common, it wasn't a sob story. Project people hardly ever got out of the projects. You know, unless they went to jail.
But Lina had gone to juvi, which was part of the reason she was standing in the middle of a really nice starter home with a shitty job Actually, it wasn't so shitty -- she wasn't a smiling face at McDonald's. In fact, she could scowl as much as she wanted at the OPD. Everyone else did.
Not only had Torres managed to get out of the projects, but she'd managed to do it relatively cleanly. She moved dope and sold drugs when she was a kid. When her older brother Dennis wasn't pulling in as much in sales as he should have been, he took her along to peddle to the junkies that moved like zombies in the Thriller video, surrounding her for what was in the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt.
"An' look, dawg. You didn't have to do shit fo' it. All you gotta do is help Warren out. You know, my boy Warren, I know you don't have much love for him." Daryl's hands swallowed her shoulders, his chin resting in the crown of her hair, almost as though he was her child. "But he can take care of you, T. Not that you can't yourself but you know, you're on the other side of the game, now."
"It's not a game."
"You're right, it ain't. Everything counts."
"I owe you. I know I owe you. I got your back, D. It's done."
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| 004. Stakeout |
[July the 1st] |
( the groom )
Lina> You wanna see a picture of him?
Danny> You're fuckin' around on THAT guy?! SHIT! He'll shoot you. REALLY. And me
Lina> Psh, he's just a pussycat. And when it comes to me fucking around, he's like Stevie fuckin Wonder -- He don't see nothin'
Danny> What's wrong with him?
Lina> He doesn't know how to work with what he has
Danny> Yeah, well, I don't think I'd know what to do with all that either. Sort of overwhelms, doesn't it?
Lina> Shit, I would
Danny> It's a lot of responsibility. Yeah, what would you do with it?
Lina> First, I'd pee
Danny> Taking a leak. It's a start. Then what would you do with the man's third arm? Leg, arm, trunk
Lina> What do you think?
Danny> I'm askin you. You said you'd know exactly what to do with a ten pound dick. SO, what would you DO with it
Lina> I'd get myself a nice piece of ass -- a cute little nurse or something. And cause I'm a nice guy, I'd let her put me in traction before she blew me so she don't have to hold it up all on her own
Danny> Your arm cramp up when you gotta do the duty?
Lina> Hers might. Then I'd go defile white bitches in porn
Danny> How come your man doesn't go make easy cash that way?
Lina> And lastly, I'd volunteer to be the death penalty
Danny> Oh right, he can't fuck, I forgot -- to BE the death penalty? What're you gonna do, go all Seven and stab the bitches with your dick?
Lina> In the ass. Equal opportunity. Oh, and that Michael Vick motherfucker
Danny> You sure got some homoerotica going on in that brain of yours
Lina> Why give some cat the finger when you can give him the arm?
Danny> I think you've developed a whole new realm of dirty talk
Lina> Why's, it gettin' to you?
Danny> Oh yeah, you've got me straight shooting, baby. Tell me more about your adventures of crime solving with your huge ass dick
Lina> Pssht. I'd be a superhero. You know what my name would be? Superdick
Danny> Supacock. The Wang Man. Dick O'Steele -- that could be your alias. I wonder if that's what that Hancock movie's really about. A giant, black-dicked superhero
Lina> If you're wrong, you blow me. if you're right, I'll blow you
Danny> God, go down on a girl once and that's all she wants
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| 003. Biography |
[June the 26th] |
If someone told a young Angelina Torres that when she grew up she would become a cop, she would have told them that they had lost their fucking mind. Angelina was born and raised in Red Hook, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York that acted as a breeding and training ground for almost every soldier supporting the drug machine and its intrinsic circuitry throughout the tri-state area.
She’d survived her father’s murder, her mom’s descent into drugs, a school shooting when she was twelve, and the move to the from the projects and into an apartment to live with her Aunt Anita, Uncle Daryl, and little cousins. Instead of coming home to make sure Angelina had dinner and had done her homework, her brother Danny (older by 5 years) was one of the lucky ones, finally able to focus on himself. Danny still took Angelina along wherever he went, for the most part. Unfortunately, that meant he was taking her back to hang out and chill with their old friends in the projects.
By the time Danny was a sophomore in high school, Aunt Anita and Uncle Daryl divorced. Money was tight, and Aunt Anita developed alcoholism. She’d talk to herself for hours, and constantly complained aloud about having to take care of kids that weren’t even hers.
Being the man of the house, Danny and his friends came up with the idea of breaking and entering. They started doing work for the Big-T – stealing cars, dealing drugs, drug running, collecting pay-offs, beating those who didn’t cough it up, and other odds and ends. The money was good, family life improved drastically, and even though he had the money to leave the hellhole and never return, he had a responsibility for his family – what was left of it. He stayed.
Angelina, at twelve, became the woman of the house and tended to her aunt and cousins. She went grocery shopping, she packed lunches, she told bedtime stories, and she acted as a human alarm clock. The maternal instinct wasn’t there; her sense of duty was.
But so was a lot of pent up rage and resentment for everyone but her brother Danny. When Daryl swung by to spend time with his children, he gave Angelina a little cash, cut her loose, and told her to get of there and have some fun for a while.
Fun was meeting her brother and his gang at the local pool hall. They treated her like a little sister and didn’t look at her as otherwise until she got initiated. She earned a test-run when she beat one of them at pool. Angelina was fourteen by the time they considered her one of them.
Three years later, Big-T was in jail. A couple guys were on parole, a couple never wanted to lead, they wanted to be part of the team. And the ones with ambition, the others didn’t like. With her boyfriend and brother in the crew, Lina managed to take point on a mission, and it was successful. After seven or eight that ran just like it, she and the crew got a little too cocky and planned to steal a shipment from a mid-grade dealer at the docks.
Someone must have tipped the dealer off – her brother, her boyfriend, and another guy walked straight into a snake pit. Her brother was shot and killed during the heist-gone-bad. Really bad.
“A little friendly fire,” the voice told her over the phone. “Your brother cried like a little bitch, man. We told Lorenzo to kill or be killed, and your boy Lorenzo turned like a fucking snake. But you, you got balls, Lina. I like you, so I’m gonna do something for you: You got an hour to pack your shit and get the fuck outta New York. Then I’m gonna send my dogs out. You don’t want them to find you, Lina. Word to God.”
Angelina had little choice but to go, so she did, but planned on coming back fucking hard, avenging her brother, and killing Lorenzo. But for now, she took a friend up on his offer to look for some people he knew out in Jersey. On the way, she changed cars a couple times out of paranoia; a state trooper picked her up on the highway in a stolen vehicle. Up in New York, nobody snitched. She was never linked to what occurred on the docks.
She did wind up getting charged and threatened with juvenile detention. Instead, Angelina cut a deal to sign with the army for four years and arranged to get her mother’s signature on the document she needed her guardian to sign. Her mother signed for $50.
After four years in the military, which included two tours in Iraq, Torres returned. Unlike her contract with the military, Angelina did not feel that joining the NYPD was her only option. It was the best option – she was going to avenge her brother and use her experience and contacts to her advantage. She also got extra points on her entrance exam for being a resident and for her experience in the armed forces.
The Police Academy churned out another class of patrol officers, and Angelina Torres was one of them. Three years later, she was assigned to Narcotics. It only took her eight months to be promoted to ‘detective’ because of her impressive busts.
Angelina Torres currently resides in an apartment in Las Vegas and is in Homicide. She’s been a detective for two years, and has been partners with Danny McCoy for one year. She is 29 years old and recently married.
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| 001. Prologue |
[June the 26th] |
I.
Do I look like I ever got anywhere by talking? In my business, it's my business. You want a piece, you take it. Chances are, you'll need one if you ever wanna get anywhere in this town. And if you want out, it's almost the same story, but you're pulling the trigger and dropping more bodies all the way down.
That's how I got here -- New Jersey. All the shit in New York sinks to the bottom. This place is full of fuck-ups and fall out. There are enough deckers to hot-wire underground lovelines to anyone you want to reach. You have a mark? Pass a photograph around a corner bar in Jersey -- you'll find the seediest, dirtiest fuck to do it, and do it for fucking dirt.
You'll find three sorts of criminals here. The first -- retirees who didn't make enough to try their luck at the Millionaire Mansion. Instead of taking their chances in Vegas, they'll piss their money away on Atlantic City slots, elbow to elbow with old, ignorant fucks from Florida. Or maybe they had Nevada-sized balls and got drained and spit out faster then a Vegas whore could swallow. The second -- the blackballed. These are chumps that botched a job so bad, people don't want to hire them to clean their toilets, so they're stuck here, doing chop-shop work for the third brand of criminal -- the exiled. The one-time top dogs that lost the game, but don't intend to lose the series. The ones that, if someone so much as smells them taking a step north, will be hunted down -- some like dogs and others like endangered animals because packing their pelts isn't just a status symbol, it's the mark of a true hunter.
I'm a true hunter. I am hunted.
II.
Lorenzo was my brother's best friend, but Lorenzo was mine just like everyone was mine. Call me self-centered and you'd be mistaken. I'm territorial.
Nine boys played on my grounds - it wasn't always mine. I didn't just take point, I fought and won -- He took my virginity at thirteen, I took his crew two years later. Beat out the hard-ass twice my age, fair-and-square. When I took Cash's place, Lorenzo took mine.
Lorenzo and I got hot and heavy on jobs before that. In one light, it's a science -- take a male and a female and give them an assignment -- drive out to x-street, kill the engine, and wait until you see x-guy from x-photograph to make an exit from x-warehouse. Kids in the business, we've got no morality. In fact, that's what I told Lorenzo give or take two and a half months after I inherited the crew -- we were alone in the garage. He told me it would be his first time, and I laughed. He asked me where my morals were, and I whispered against his ear that they were in my pussy.
It wasn't about romance. It wan't a recreational fuck, either. I had something in mind for Lorenzo that far exceeded both of those possibilities. Using him? That's an ugly way to say it, don't two naked bodies always use each other? I got him good and hooked. I enjoyed him. I shaped him. I was loyal to him, and he was loyal to me. He was a pawn, yes. I intended to make him a king. My king.
The king is a priveledged piece -- he stands by the queen. He protects the queen. He will sacrifice himself for the queen. But like I said, he stands beside her. He's entitled. Would I worship him? This is a business. There's no time for romance.
I'd put twelve months into him, and it was twelve months of success, power, momentum. Twelve months of jacking cars and working our way into the drug trade. Twelve months of being the little men on the totem pole.
To get anywhere, you've got to make a move. If you lack ambition you lack what it takes to be something besides someone's prison-bitch. I didn't get my cred from taking it in the ass, I'll tell you that, and I'll give it before I take it. So let's talk about what I wanted to take:
Ceasar was an up-and-coming kingpin. Young but establishing himself quickly. Routine dock-deal -- he was running them like clockwork. Was I tempted? You bet your sweet ass, there's not a body that's fucking prettier than that body of water, glittering black and vast and secretive, reflecting just enough moonlight to play peek-a-boo on glossy car hoods, marking their popped-open trunks, and doing nothing to spotlight the dark line of the cargo Ceasar's people were moving. And you know the movement's almost as smooth as the drugs Ceasar's people are packing. It'd be so easy to take. They're so clockwork they'll never see you coming.
That's not greed, my friends. That's lust.
It wasn't our first time planning a steal. We spent a week, every night at the pool hall that doubled as our headquarters, covering all our angles. On the night it was supposed to go down, I made sure Lorenzo and my brother Dennis were going out there together. Strategy tells you its not safe to put the most precious ones in the same car, but they were best friends. They had each other's backs. They were the best we had.
By the time I got word, I'd played six games of pool, a fifth of Jack, and was pacing the floor. A guy comes came from the scene. He said he thinks Ceasar's guys might have gotten Lorenzo and Dennis. He said it didn't look good.
More pacing. Another guy -- Charlie -- comes back and confirms -- They nabbed Lorenzo and Dennis. He didn't want to tell me, and nearly fucking peed himself when I grabbed him by the neck and told him to tell me the rest:
"They told Lorenzo to shoot your brother if he wanted to live. Dennis is gone, Lina."
He opened his hand and showed me the cross my brother wore around his neck. The chain was ripped.
I let Charlie go and told him to sit the fuck down. I told him he looked like he could use a drink, and poured it myself. I told him to get Ceasar on the phone, and he did.
"I like you, Lina. I like you enough that I'm gonna tell you to get out of town, or I'll kill you myself."
"What happened to my brother, C?" I insisted.
Ceasar laughed. "You should have seen that kid shoot him, Lina. Lorenzo's a straight up snake in the grass. Dennis didn't get the chance to beg."
This is the beginning.
I hung up with Ceasar when they told me Lorenzo was on his way. Five seconds later, he's at the door to VIP -- bloody, but alive.
Information and emotion hammered and hemorrhaged:
Facts -- We have a rat. My brother is dead. I sent him out to get executed.
If Ceasar was telling the truth, Charlie was my rat. I could hear him, and the way he was rocking his chair up on its two back legs. I was so close to him I could hear him swallow. If Ceasar was lying, Lorenzo was my rat.
"Get in here and close the door," I told Lorenzo, quiet and calm. I didn't have control of my voice. I didn't know what did.
He was afraid to do it. And the minute I did, I pulled out the glock in my waistband and put a bullet in Charlie's skull. He and his glass dropped. The crew gaped. I stood. Every millisecond is a new time to act. This time, there wouldn't be another mistake.
I asked him what happened. He told his story and I stared, wishing that there was a sun behind my magnifying-glass eyes, and his face would start to smoke and burn and melt so I could see his bones before I broke them.
"Lina," Lorenzo breathed, pure anguish. Usually I respect the sound of someone who knows they're going to die. This time, it didn't sate me. I felt no peace. I told him to do one thing:
"... Run."
I'm a hunter. I am hunted. Ask him. He'll tell you the same.
III.
Lorenzo Alcatraz. I can't keep him off my mouth.
Sure, it's been that way since we were kids, but ever since he shot my brother to save his yellow hide, it doesn't come with quite the same exhilerating rush. The three years since then, it's been a steel cage. To avenge, that sounds a little more light-footed, a little more lost in the clouds. To avenge is to honor, to avenge is to right a wrong, to avenge is to move, a movement. To avenge is to rebel and to conquer.
I call bullshit: It's slavery. And it's okay, I happen to be into a little kink.
To get anywhere, you have to have a plan, plans have to have order. Get blackballed by a rook? Hook up with a king. People say Cesar's a beast. After what he did to my brother, I've got to agree. He's a wild dog. But everybody knows there are places where that's just meat and potatoes.
Now Ambrose, Ambrose is higher on the food chain, he's an easy hook -- long legs and fishnets. It's no secret. In fact, it's played out old hat, what men will do for the love of a woman. Ambrose though, he's no fucking romantic, but neither am I. It's about sex and business -- you give good head and you represent? Take your Get Out of Jail Free Card and Welcome to the good life. If you're smart enough to get in like that, you're smart enough to watch your back. For all my talk, I don't showboat, not when it comes down to the wire. You've got to be one cocky motherfucker to trust. And not just cocky. You gotta be stupid, too. Real stupid. Sometimes you've got a little breathing room. Sometimes you can be a little of both and as long as you're a cat when it counts, you land on your feet.
But this isn't my time to fuck around. When Ambrose fucks other women, so what. I'm not his girlfriend, I'm just a whore with a title -- adviser. In these parts, that trumps Girlfriend and equals Queen.
We were in the middle of fucking the other night when a call came through on his version of the red phone. Ambrose slowed down the pace to answer -- I didn't have to encourage him to, but I would have. It wasn't hard to keep it down, considering I dress up our usual fucks with a few loud fakes to make him feel like a man. Guys like that. Whenever that phone rings, I shut up and listen.
"Yeah?" Ambrose grunted out. He grabbed at my thigh and gave me a yank down the bed, so he could thrust and hold the phone with ease.
"You have a great deal of ambition Mr. Ambrose. It's earned you a reputation."
"I'm sure my reputation, and patience you well know. The latter is shorter in stature. What exactly is this all about? You didn't call me at the ass crack of dawn to chat about my reputation."
"Indeed I have information regarding your rival, Cesar Brigante."
"So you're a snitch th --"
"Mr Ambrose, lets not descend in trivial dramatics. I have information that comes with a fee. You keep a table at Mischief. How does noon sound?"
"Mischief ... Smart Man ... neutral ground it is."
"Then I look forward to our discussion."
Ambrose flipped the phone closed and flung it to the other side of the bed. "We're going to Mischief tomorrow. Wear something nice."
I agreed.
* * * * *
Ambrose sent a handful of guys over to make sure Mischief was safe and secure an hour and a half before we climbed out of the Mazaratti, him in his white suit, me in skintight vinyl and some fishnets. We got out of the car and shut the door. Immediately, I grabbed a cigarette and hung it from my mouth. It was 11:45.
"And you keep your damn mouth shut," he was saying.
"Light my fucking cigarette, Ambrose."
"Just play it cool, Lina." He grabbed his Zippo from his pocket. "I need to know what this fucker has to offer before I deal with him."
"You think he's watching you now? I bet he's not. I bet he's watching me."
* * * * *
By 12:11 PM, we're sitting pretty at Ambrose's table. It's a top tier location -- second floor, not too far from the bar. A waitress brought us ice waters. Ambrose told her he'd call her when he needed her. The mystery man showed up on time.
"You're the man I'm here to see, then. Juan Ambrose." Ambrose reached across the table; they shook hands.
Ezekeil glanced idely towards Angelina, the cut of dark blue eyes holding a steady gaze, far different from a predator looking upon his prey.
"Ezekeil Larrocca," he said when he cut his eyes to me. He was gritty like the street. We stared each other down like cats.
"Angel Torres," I told him and crushed out the tail end of my cigarette.
Ambrose cut in: "Down to business, Ezekeil. What's this business with Cesar?"
"He sent me to kill you. Imagine my luck."
My eyes lifted from the cigarette I'd just crushed out. A quite pointed, robotic shift to Ezekiel's.
"I've come to negotiate your life. It isn't beyond a price is it, Mr. Ambrose?"
"A price then ..." Ambrose considered it slyly, like he wasn't sure of the man's talent, and turned to me. "What do you think my life is worth, Angelina?"
"Not a dime." I grinned and turned to Zeke. "How much to kill Cesar?"
"$500, 000 Juan's head. Twice the amount would be advisable. Anything more is waste."
"You don't do the job, he shoots you and find someone else who will. This place is secured. You'll have a bullet in your brain before you can reach for a gun, no matter how fast your hands are. We're not going to do that. We're civil, we're here to make a deal, you've already incriminated yourself so sit down, have a drink. Let's talk Cesar. That's where the money is."
"That we can discuss," Zeke promised, and addressed Ambrose "when she leaves the table."
"Take a stroll, Angel. This is business."
"It's your table." I got another cigarette and got up. "Give me a light, and I'll go get a drink."
"Now, I want Cesar dead," Ambrose was saying once I was three feet away on the slow stroll to the bar. "And I ... uh appreciate the gratitude you've shown with such advice. Your price, I can accommodate."
* * * * *
By 12:27, I got the call back: "Angelina." Ambrose snapped his fingers.
"Boys ..."
"You'll be assisting Mr. Larrocca, whatever he needs you supply. You're his."
"You fool." I spat and smiled. Then, to Zeke: "Meet me out back."
* * * * *
People get paid for losing, Stocks and Queens get bought and sold every day.
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