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  CHAPTER 9

  Kareem closed his register and took the money bag to the customer service area. He then walked out to the parking lot toward his car. When he arrived to the car, he mouthed, “Damn!” as he looked around hopelessly for security or a witness. “I do not believe this bull shit,” he said, ranting. He threw a jab into the air. How would he explain to his grandmother that her car stereo was gone? His lap top in the back seat also was gone. And her front passenger window was gone, too.

  He paced, annoyed, on the passenger side of the car looking at the broken glass, while he chanted profanities. He was further enraged that he had left his lap top on the seat and that may have tempted the thieves. Good thing that he had all of his school material backed-up on a travel zip drive.

  He gathered himself and pulled out his cell phone to call Dre. He had to tell his older brother about his stupidity. Dre did not answer, though. Rather than leave a message, Kareem hung up as mall security arrived on the scene.

  The frail, slick haired rent-a-cop stepped out of a security pick-up, holding a flashlight. He pointed it at Kareem, and blinded him. Kareem put his forearm over his eyes before the guard asked him, “Is there a problem?”

  Kareem stepped out of the light, and told him, “Right now that silly ass light is the problem!”

  “Excuse me! I beg your pardon! Is this your car?” Kareem nodded and the guard asked, “Do you have the registration and license to prove that?”

  “What!” Kareem was pissed off. “I am not driving, so I don’t have to show you shit. My car was vandalized and robbed, yet, you’re questioning me. You should be looking for the little bastards that robbed me.” He reached into his wallet and tossed the man his ID. He then reached into the glove compartment through the broken window, and passed the guard the registration. It was that moment that he was glad that his father had put the car in his name. First, because the feds would have taken it had they knew about it. Second, Kareem had to be prepared for a driving while black assault.

  Bozo scrutinized Kareem’s credentials and then sarcastically asked, “So, Mr. Bezel, would you like to file a report?

  “That would be a negative, pretending Officer Saminowski. You’ve proven your competence. No, thank you.”

  Kareem’s mind swirled with anger. His car was robbed. He was mocked by a security guard. This had to be karma, he thought. John Carter was being avenged. He sped off and drove fast through the mall parking lot. After a long five-minutes drive, he parked in the family home garage and walked straight to Dre’s room to tell him the bullshit.

  He tapped on Dre’s door and walked in, figuring that he was asleep. Dre was not there. At first, he was confused, but then it dawned on him that, Tasha had driven Dre home. He must have been at her house, in her dimly lit bedroom, playing R. Kelly.

  CHAPTER 10

  Dre drove along the Schuylkill Expressway, and he blared Mase’s Welcome Back album; very smooth, but gangster. The title track described his mind frame, perfectly. He remained focused on each of his actions to avoid an unwarranted police stop. He was aware that becoming a trafficker was just as bad as being the dealer or manufacturer. His dad had schooled him on the drug game, but he had also acquired knowledge observing his surroundings, even after his dad was arrested. He knew that if he was caught, he was off to federal prison.

  He drove the speed limit and, so many things played devil’s advocate in his mind. Before he knew it, he viewed the picturesque Philadelphia skyline. He approached the Girard Avenue exit, and stared at the historic Boathouse Row with all of its lights illuminating the freeway. He prayed that this was not the last time that he drove along the Schuylkill River. Without handcuffs, and stuffed in a bloody, stinking, Philadelphia PD patty wagon, anyway.

  He arrived at the drug infested, government deprived 17th and J Street intersection with an advantage, something that BG lacked: he was from the hood. BG showing up on that stage was easily mistaken for a member of Mayor Street’s “Safe Streets” team—a task force of the PPD to rid Philadelphia of its increasing drug epidemic and rising body count. Dre was just a hood nigga, whose father was as legendary as Biggie.

  Dre parked the Impala and approached, drug king-pin, Ice, known for his flashy diamond collection. He saw Dre’s slim figure enter into his no-fly zone and couldn’t believe that it was Dre.

  “Dre, what the hell are you doing here this time of night?” Ice asked. He seemed concerned. He had not seen Dre since his move to the suburbs. Delores had also previously cursed Ice the fuck out for encouraging her son to follow in his father’s footsteps.

  “Dawg, it’s a long story. To cut to the chase, I need some raw.”

  Ice walked away and indicated for Dre to follow. They entered one of Ice’s dope houses and walked pass a wino slumped in the corner with a bottle of Wild Irish Rose resting on his lap. There was also, a young buck who received a blow job in the corner from an ogress crack head in another corner. Dre was not fazed. He had seen far more obscene shit on missions with his father.

  Ice stepped into the kitchen and asked, “Tell me you have not started using this shit, out there with those white boys?”

  Dre looked at him crazily and barked, “Hell no! I’m trying to get some of that suburban money, because it’s definitely out there.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, why would I let you take my white customers?”

  Dre could not believe his ears. Go ahead, Dre, the devil told him, remind that pussy that your father made him. Dre opted for a less controversial reply, though. He was not strapped, a mistake that he would not let happen again. He was there for one reason only. “We both can eat. I’ll cop weight from you, and those white folks can stop blowing up the spot. You know they get followed from here and turn tapes in a heart beat when the feds stop them.”

  “How much weight you talking?” Ice asked curiously, after hearing the magic word, weight.

  “That depends on your numbers. I need raw.”

  “Look—how much money you talking?” Ice asked getting closer to the dead presidents.

  “What you want for a block? From me?”

  “Damn, a whole block, huh? I’m thinking you came down for somthin’ minor.”

  Ice sat back and thought what type of numbers he would throw at Dre. He knew that Dope had schooled Dre on the “Art of Drug Dealing,” so to play the seventeen-year-old was not an option. Especially with a buyer that Ice knew could move on to the next man, easily.

  Dre broke the silence and Ice’s concentration. “Give me a number so that I’ll keep coming back.”

  “Just on the strength of your pop, I’m gonna give you a square for twenty.”

  “Well, look, lemme get a half square,” Dre said, and took advantage of the numbers, quickly.

  Ice pulled out his cell phone and made a call to his runner. He spoke in a code and had his runner fetch the half-kilo that Dre wanted. He then informed Dre what he wanted would arrive in fifteen minutes. The prompt service was dubbed “The Fed-Ex of Cocaine.”

  Dre told Ice, “Take this ride with me to the Broad and Diamond Streets McDonald to count this quap.”

  Five minutes later, Dre parked in the McDonald’s parking lot and Ice offered a meal on him. Dre was disrespected. Ice went into the fast food joint while, Dre went into the trunk to grab the cash. He thought about how he came up off the deal. He had extra ounces of coke and extra cash, all for simple negotiation. He couldn’t wait to treat the extra coke as a commodity to inflate the coke price if a drought stumbled into the city. He was in a win-win scenario.

  ***

  An hour later, Dre pulled back into King of Prussia and parked in a Genaurdi’s supermarket parking lot off Route 202. He went into the trunk and separated his product from BG’s without a scale. He thoroughly guesstimated, learning early in life how to weigh the product by eye.

  Dre had a plan, and soon he would be on top. Screw a bank loan to start his accounting firm. He planned to stack his cash, buy into a firm and then get out the game. He
didn’t plan to fall victim to the drug game. He had learned from history. And he wasn’t about to repeat it. Not knowingly, anyway.

  How could BG think that I would be so naïve to let a white pussy pull one over on me? His slickest move was no match for my slowest, Dre thought as he walked to the Wachovia Bank adjacent to the supermarket and called BG. He told him to meet him in the supermarket parking lot. Dre waited and did his own surveillance for cops, and wondered what his brother did hopping into a limo in the same bank parking lot, earlier that day.

  Minutes later, Dre watched BG approach the rental, as he looked around puzzled for his mule and drugs. Dre watched BG spin in circles, and felt his cell phone vibrating and knew it was BG. He ignored his calls.

  Dre walked to the payphone in the shopping plaza parking lot and called BG from a public pay phone. He did not want any phone records linking him to late night calls with BG. When BG picked up, a disguised voice said, “The doors are unlocked, the keys under the visor, and the gym bag in the trunk.” Nothing else needed to be said, and Dre hung up.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next night, Kareem’s much needed lunch break could not have arrived sooner. He walked to the employees lounge, punched out, and then walked through the lower level of the mall until he reached the corridor that led to the public bus depot.

  He walked down the corridor until he reached a door labeled: MALL SECURITY. He knocked on the door and awaited a response. He stood against the wall and watched mall patrons pass him. He wondered if any of them were shoplifters. Mall security was strategically placed in the bus depot hallway to catch thieves trying to make it to a SEPTA bus. The buses offered a convenient vehicle from the city to the upscale mall.

  The office door opened, and Kareem was signaled in by his friend, Joel. Joel had graduated from Upper Merion the previous year and was a member of Kareem’s record-setting 4x100 relay team at the previous year Penn Relays. Joel made the video screening available without question. There had been a string of car thefts and purse snatchings in the mall parking lot, and Joel welcomed Kareem’s assistance to nab the knaves.

  Kareem sat in a small room filled with seven-inch television monitors. Each camera recorded the activity in any area of the mall and all points outside. After a twenty minute search, Kareem watched as Joel worked his walkie-talkie to assist two patrol cars with finding a thief who hid between cars to avoid capture. Kareem was amazed at the episode and had a heightened desire for the perpetrator to escape. Kareem, too, was a criminal and felt the man’s pain.

  Kareem turned back to the video. He watched and had become ill. He took his finger off the fast forward button, pressed rewind, and could not believe what he saw. His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose in disbelief. Jaws dropped at the unnerving sight.

  He turned to be sure Joel was occupied before he slid the tape into his shirt. He secured it and buttoned his blazer to conceal the bulge. He walked over to Joel to say that he was leaving, but Joel waved him off, occupied, looking for the thief.

  “I’ll let myself out.”

  “The door code is 9-8-4-4-1,” Joel responded, sure that he could trust the seasoned thief that he let into mall security headquarters.

  ***

  By nine that night, the night air was glacial as Kareem walked to his car after work. His mind raced with the analytic flair of a lifer on a shrink’s couch making a case for parole. The contents of the tape had him vexed. He started the car and drove off, mapping how best to approach the situation.

  Knowing Dre all his life did not make approaching him any easier, especially when the proposed conversational topic involved Dre’s personal affairs. Kareem was well aware of Dre’s desire for privacy, having watched him fight for it their entire lives with their mother. Family meant everything to Kareem, a force that propelled him to move back with his father’s mother, Jean-Mary. No matter how he felt, Dre would be confronted when he got home, and not a minute later.

  When Kareem walked into the kitchen and observed the red IN-USE light lit on the base of the cordless, he knew that it was Dre on the phone. Perfect because he had a lot to talk about.

  Without a knock, Kareem barged into Dre’s room and said, “I need to holla at you in a minute.” He was stern and slammed the door as he left for dramatic chide.

  Kareem went into his room and changed out of a fine Gucci suit and into Versace pajamas, both appropriately stolen. He brushed his teeth, and then returned to Dre.

  Surprisingly, Dre was off the phone. Kareem sat in the desk chair and swiveled until his back was to Dre.

  “Dawg, I do not know what’s got you barging in my hut, but this better be worth me hanging up with Tasha,” he said to Kareem’s back.

  “Oh, it’s urgent,” Kareem assured him, then spun around in the chair, clasping each arm of the chair with his hands using strangling force. “Look, I’ve been hearing some stupid shit about you selling drugs.”

  “Do not come in here on any he-said, she-said bullshit, because a nigga ain’t tryinna hear that shit.”

  “At any rate,” Kareem said to him. “What’s this I hear you’re out hustling with BG. Or is it for him?”

  “What!” How dis nigga know that? Dre thought.

  “You lied to me about Tasha taking you home last night, so that you could—”

  “Mind my own fucking business,” Dre said, cutting him off. “Who da fuck you think you talkin’ too?”

  “You!”

  “Nigga, you got me fucked up. Who the fuck got they eye on me, running and telling you like you my fuckin’ dad? Tell those bitches you fuckin’ to mind they fucking business, for I pop one of them hoes,” Dre said and pulled out a Desert Eagle.

  “You carry guns now, and have that shit in the house. You got the game fucked up. This person does not lie. So, Tasha drove you home last night?” Kareem couldn’t believe it.

  “Get out my room, nigga.”

  “You’re a dumb-ass-clown. If Tasha was asked by the cops, would she confirm that she drove you home? Better yet, would Talibah and Sasha, considering they all left the mall together, and without you?”

  Dre was numb, but he snapped, “Mind your fucking business, Kareem. Real rap! I’m a grown ass man. When I saw you hopping in that limo, did I run back questioning you? No! So, how ‘bout you fall back, homey?”

  Kareem thought that his hearing had failed to convey Dre’s last statement. Suppose Delores had seen him? “You’re right. My whole approach was wrong.” Kareem confessed balming the atmosphere. “Lemme just say this: mall security records all activity.”

  “So does banks!”

  Get the fuck outta here. “And mom or dad won’t like you getting locked up, again,” Kareem said, ignoring that reality.

  “Investigated, not arrested.” “Same thing.”

  “And fuck your dad. Had he been out of jail, being a real father, maybe, I wouldn’t be involved in this shit...”

  “Hold the fuck up.” Kareem growled and stepped into Dre’s face. “Don’t blame my father for your fucking stupidity. You should be learning from his mistakes, dumb-ass-nigga!”

  “You’re right. Your dad.”

  “Nobody put a fucking revolver to your dome and forced you to do shit.”

  “Nobody is the same person that moved you with grand mom Jean-Mary, and left her a Lexus, that somehow landed in your hands. You’re his favorite son.”

  “You sound like a real bitch. You’re the one who was bought off by Eli. Your step-dad. You liked his fresh kicks, and new gear. His money had you cooped up in Andorra, and now out here. You didn’t want to struggle in the hood, just hang there. I begged to get away from that lame. You stayed and had it good, and your still a fuck up. And here’s my stupid ass right here on your team. Fuck you, nigga!”

  “You swear you’re a genius. Get the fuck outta my room, before I shut your lights off.

  Kareem cocked his head to the side, and raised his eyebrow. “Pussy, you can’t beat me.”

  ***

  Kareem
lay in his bed, not the least bit concerned about the fight that he had with Dre. He couldn’t believe that Dre underestimated his smooth aura as cowardly. Dre, equally, could not believe the over-hand-right that landed over his eye, very unexpectedly. It was shameful that Dre had to have his lesson of the night beat into him: never do a drug deal in a mall parking lot.

  CHAPTER 12

  That weekend, Kareem awoke to the smell of breakfast, and rolled over, before he checked the alarm clock. It was nine- thirty a.m. The sun beamed through his window, but he was not convinced that it was warm outside.

  He freshened up, stumbled into the kitchen, and found his mother cooking his favorite breakfast—bacon and cheese omelets, waffles, and fresh squeezed orange juice. This was the one thing that Saturday mornings brought to his home. Since they moved to the suburbs, he was forced to embrace a culture that he developed long before he moved there. It was easy when Jean-Mary drove him to Upper Merion, and he lived in the Germantown section of Philadelphia with her. Yet, over the past three months, he had successfully completed the crossover.

  Delores did as well. She was in a local book club, and president of the Home and School Association. She was also the best interior decorator in King of Prussia. She used her urban spice to add flavor to the traditional suburban styles.

  “Take that doo-rag off at my table,” Delores said in her soprano tone. Everything that she said was in the possessive —“my study,” “my lawn,” and “my garage.”

  “Good morning to you too, mom,” Kareem replied. He then informed her, “This is a wave cap, Mother, and perfectly legal at the kitchen table for breakfast, according to Molly Foster, the etiquette instructor that you send us to.”

  “Then eat breakfast as Molly’s. Take that doo-rag off at my table.”

  There was that my, again, Kareem thought. He replied by snatching the doo-rag off. He exposed a sea of waves, and then made a plate. After he wolfed down the food, and excused himself from the table, Dawn stumbled into the kitchen. He picked her up and spun her in the air.