Page 126 of Smoke

“Who are you?” asked a nigga with a thick island accent. I assumed he was the one in charge.

“I believe I asked you first.”

He turned to Derrick. “Who is this fool?”

I chuckled. “Ooo, we’re name calling? Okay. Mathis, you got about five seconds to tell me who this is before I get trigger happy in this bitch.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, raising his hands.

“One.”

“If you just?—”

“Two. This your supplier?”

“Yes—”

“Five,” Roux said, sending a bullet through the man’s forehead.

My uncle and I followed suit by giving the other three men headshots as well. Their bodies hit the dock with hard thuds. Derrick took off running, dipping and dodging through the shipping containers.

Roux sighed. “They always want to run. If I break a sweat, I’m shooting his old ass.”

We split up and started searching.

“Come on, Derrick!” I taunted. “We just wanna talk, man!”

I focused my senses so I could hear him, even if I couldn’t see him.

“Didn’t I warn you about trying to move in our city? I thought your son’s death would have been all the warning you needed.”

“Show yourself, old man!” Roux yelled somewhere in the distance. “I’m not gonna kill you. I just wanna shoot you a little.”

I stifled a laugh because that was a wild thing to say.

“Don’t worry, man. I won’t let her feed you too many bullets. Just a lil’ flesh wound.”

I peered around a container to see him scaling the side of the one across from me. Quickly and quietly, I darted down the line to the end of my container to catch him. He was so busy looking back that he didn’t even realize he was coming right in my direction until it was too late. I chopped him in the throat before sending a punch to his face that landed him on his ass.

“The fuck you thought you were running? Huh?”

He struggled on the ground as Roux and my uncle joined us. Roux kicked him in the groin.

“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you in the dick like I did your son,” she said. “Got us doing all this damn running. Get your ass up.”

I guess he wasn’t moving fast enough for my uncle because he grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up from the ground. With one hand around his neck, he shoved him into the shipping container.

“Mathis, I know you were present when I had this same conversation with Councilman Hayes all those years ago about moving weight in my city. I told you to sit the fuck down, just like I told him. Don’t get put with your dead homie, since you seem to miss him so much.”

His eyes widened. “Dead? I… I thought he was missing?”

“The only thing he’s missing from is the land of the living. Y’all keep playing like y’all don’t know who runs this city. Now what were you talking to them niggas about?”

He released Derrick, leaving him gasping for air.

“I just… I was trying to make other arrangements.”

I laughed. “Thereisno other arrangement. It’s dead. It died along with your son, and unless your name is Lazarus, there ain’t no resurrection for you either.”

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