“We got somewhere to be.”
“Mannn, it’s eight in the morning and my whole body hurt like a muthafucka still.”
“I know. Get dressed anyway.”
—
When I made it outside, Gutta drove me to the other side of town to a stretch of abandoned apartment buildings that had been empty for years. The kind of place the city forgot about and nobody came to unless they had a specific reason to be around that muthafucka. We pulled around the back and I could see two of Gutta’s runners posted up outside a ground floor unit with their hands visible and their eyes scanning everything.
I looked over at Gutta.
He was looking straight ahead with that flat expression he wore when he was in business mode.
“What is this,” I said.
“You’ll see.”
We got out and walked to the unit, one of the runners pushed the door open and stepped aside. I walked in first.
The three men from my alley were zip tied to chairs in the middle of the empty apartment. Wrists behind their backs, anklessecured, heads up because they had heard us come in. The one whose nose I had broken at my building had two black eyes and dried blood still caked around his nostrils. All three of them looked at me when I walked in and I watched what happened in their faces when they realized who I was.
The one in the middle, the one who had pressed the gun to my temple.. he kept his face the straightest. But even he couldn’t keep that fearful look out of his eyes completely.
Gutta came in behind me and stood near the door.
“My men snatched them up when they were leaving the warehouse last night,” he said. “A couple of hours after we walked out. They been here since.”
I stood in the middle of that room and looked at all three of them and let the silence sit for a moment. My ribs were still screaming from the fight but I barely felt them right now. Gutta did exactly what needed to be done without me having to explain shit to him. Yeah, I was still on that.
“Back up,” Gutta told his runners and they stepped away from the men and gave me the room.
I started with the one on the left. Untied his wrists from behind the chair, stood him up and he came up swinging. I let him swing because that first one missed and then I took over. I put three punches on him that sat him back down on the floor, then I picked him up and did it again until he stopped trying to get up. I beat his ass so damn bad, he was visibly dizzy.
Then I moved to the one on the right and did the same thing. No weapons. No anger on my face because real violence didn’t need a face. It was just work that I put in on the asses.
The one in the middle — the one with the gun — I saved him for last.
I untied him, waited til he stood up and he looked at me straight which I respected even then.
“You put a gun to my head,” I said.
He didn’t say anything.
“You came to my house. Where I sleep. You brought yo bold ass to my shit and put a gun to my head.”
Still nothing.
“I want you to know something.” I rolled my neck and felt it crack. “Tavarus can’t save you fuck niggas. My business with him is done, but you niggas are a whole other story.”
I worked him over for damn near ten full minutes and when I was done he was on the ground with the other two. I knew they’d heard what I have done to niggas in the streets, but still made it their mission to try me. I straightened up and rolled my shoulders. I looked at Gutta.
Gutta stepped forward and looked down at all three of them.
“Y’all hear me,” he said. Not loud or extra, but his voice was stern. Gutta never needed to be loud. He was killer by nature. “We know where you stay. We know your people. We know your mamas address, your baby mama address, we know your kids school. That’s not a threat — that’s just letting you know how close we can get if you play stupid. Let this shit go.” He crouched down so he was level withthe one in the middle. “You go back to Tavarus, you tell him his money was paid and business is done but if he think about being on some fuck shit in the future, shit will go sour, quick.
“I’ll take the silence,” Gutta said and walked toward the door.
I looked at the three of them on that floor one more time and shook my damn head. Them niggas was only hard when they had another nigga giving them orders. Lame ass, fuck niggas.
