Lighter Shade of Brown (Urban Fiction) BWHM

Chapter 19

"Clean," Ortiz answered. "Ain't nothing movin' out this bitch but us and the trees."

C's nodded and went back to scoping out a possible target. A minute later each team checked in with a quick description of their target and affirmation that their guides had found them. After that, the line went radio silent, as everyone on the other end waited on C's to give the word. Before he did though, he said a silent prayer which he was more than sure, probably went straight to hell, to warn Satan of his impending arrival. It didn't matter however, he still had to try to get into the Lord's ear. If not for his squad and him, then for sure, for the loved ones who sat waiting at home for their safe returns. His moms had raised him to always put things on wood with God, and have faith that he would still hear him even when he was low down dirty wrong. So he spent the next couple of minutes in his own head doing just that. When he'd finally uttered the last syllable of his prayer, he gave the order that popped the lock to the gates that let all of hell loose.

In strategic synchronization, he and his squad left the cover of the woods firing, taking the guards in the yard by deadly surprise. Seconds upon entering the clearing C's took down his chosen duck with a head shot. Soon as the fire fight started, it ended without the benefit of any shots being fired from the other side. Too early for celebration, he warily eyed the shack that loomed eerily quiet in front of him. These mother fuckers must had thought he was born last night, instead of at night. Eyes never leaving the trap house, C's lifted his arm in the air and pumped a fist, and then let the appendage fall back to his side. No sooner than he gave the order, they all began to fire on the house, hitting the rotten wood and bursting the bug stained windows with a hail of buck shots and hollow points.

Shortly after they began to fire, the front door of the shack flew open, and a linebacker looking hombre rushed out on the shifty porch returning shots with a gun the size of the one Tony Montana used in the last scene of Scarface. But shit, rarely does, if ever, work out like it does in the movies, because vato only got off a few shots before finding himself face down on the wooden platform floor drowning in his own blood.

"Hold ya, fire," C's yelled over the thunder and gunfire. All but the thunder fell silent. His crew turned to look at him expectantly. "Putt let's check this bitch out. The rest of y'all cover us."

He moved to enter the house from the front, while Putt kicked the back door open. Inside the house, bodies in tattered clothes riddled with bullet holes lay strewn across the floor and on broken furniture. Walking further into the house, C's tried the light switch on the wall with no luck. The bulb in the living room's light fixture, was shattered. Snatching, the flashlight from one of the pockets on his utility vest, he switched it on and swung the light over the dingy small expanse of the two room shack.

Amongst the dead bodies, lay a shit load of dead presidents. C's released a low whistle. Jack-motherfucking-pot indeed. The dudes must've been in the process of trying to count the paper when they unloaded on their asses.

"C's," Putt called from the back of the shack. "Better come take a look at this shit."

Stepping over a couple of dead bodies, he made his way over to the corner of the room, which substituted as the kitchen. The refrigerator doors and deep freezer were opened to reveal that they were both loaded down with bricks of cocaine. C's quickly glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else had followed him in, when he saw that they were alone he returned his gaze to Putt.

"Does Juan Alejandro still supply Vasquez, on the reg?" C's asked, closing the lid on the deep freezer.

"Naw." Putt shook his head. "Not in while, Vasquez cut ties with him about two years ago to go in with the Canadians."

"Then, there isn't any way in hell we takin' this shit with us," C's said, slamming the refrigerator doors as well.

Putt stared at him like he'd forgot his mind. "Why the hell not?"

"It's evidence." When clarity still refused to register on Putt's face, he tried again. "When was the last time we had some Canadian blow flow through P'Cola or the surrounding area?"

"Never," Putt said with an, 'are you, crazy' frown. "Juan Alejandro don't play that shit."

"Exactly, the only squad he allows to move their product through his area is the Gulf Cartel, everybody else is only safe if they're scoring from him." Putt's eyes flared with realization, and C's bobbed his head as he finished driving the meaning into his skull. "If we start slanging some shit that's exclusive to the Canadians then Vasquez is gonna know off rip who hit his spot, and even if by some slim chance he doesn't, and we just so happen to get by him..."

C's voice trailed off, but Putt smoothly picked up where he left off. "We'll never get that shit by my uncle."

"Now you see where I'm goin' with this."

Putt's glare left him to scrutinize the deep freezer and the fridge. "We can't tell them fools about this shit. They wouldn't get it."

"I know, that's why you're gonna stand here and watch the kitchen why they come in and scoop up the money in the front room," C's said, as he turned to cross the shack back to the front door, but on his way, something moved in the shadows in a dark corner of the room. He caught sight of it out the side of his eye, and without second guessing himself, or drowning his instincts with bullshit doubts he raised the barrel of his M-16 to take aim at the corner. "Hold your hands out first, and then walk your ass out into the open."

Two medium sized palms slipped from the dark shelter of the corner first, attached to a jit who looked no older than thirteen. His skinny little hook body looked as if he hadn't had a complete meal in years. He wore the same tattered clothes as the others, and his face was covered in sooty smudges, while his hair hung in his face in dirty greasy clumps. Despite the sad innocent, Oliver Twist vibe, the boy exuded C's refused to lower his gun. He knew a killer when he saw one, and the simmering hatred in the boy's eyes did nothing to put his own homicidal tendencies at ease.

"You speak, English?" C's demanded.

The boy nodded once as his eyes strayed outside to the dead body on the porch.

"Then get out there. I want you in the center of the yard on your knees, and if you so much as breathe too fast, I'll spray the ground with your insides, ya dig?" The jit nodded once more. "Move." Outside the boy marched to the center of the yard, and dropped down to his knees. "Lock your fingers behind your head, and don't move unless I tell you to."

Afterwards C's gave orders to his hombres about the money inside, and they went to work clearing out the bread, and dragging all of the bodies in the yard in to the house. For the next thirty minutes they set about gathering all of the money, that wasn't too saturated with blood, into three large trash bags. When they'd flung the last bag out in the front yard, C's walked over to the jit still kneeling in the front yard.

"Give your boss a message from Reyes," C's said, squatting so that he could be eye level with the boy. He waited for the jit to lock gazes and bob his head, before he would go on. "Let Vasquez know that nobody rides for free when dealing with the Maldonado Cartel. Tell that fat motherfucka that his bill was due, and that Reyes and Maldonado considers all of this," he waved his hand at all of the destruction and carnage around them, "payment in full." Rising, he gestured at Miguel, who in turn moved forward and bashed the jit in the back of the head with the handle of his gun. When the boy fell face first into the dirt, Ortiz and Miguel lifted the boy and dragged him further away from the trap house, dropping his body at the edge of the forest.

Putt lifted an eyebrow to him. "Are we a go?"

"Yeah. Light this bitch up," C's said, spinning on his heel to walk back in the direction of the forest.

Two minutes later when the explosion of the trap house shook the forest floor, no one even flinched. They'd done what the fuck they had to do to secure the safety of their block. Was the move right? Hell no, probably not, but in the end everything was still everything.