The Corner III (No Way Out) Read online

  The Corner III

  No Way Out

  by

  Alex Richardson

  This is a work of fiction. The author has invented the characters. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  If you have purchased this book with a ‘dull’ or missing cover you have possibly purchased an unauthorized or stolen book. Please immediately contact the publisher advising where, when and how you purchased the book.

  Miller Beach Publishing

  PO Box 11502

  Fort Wayne, In. 46858

  www.millerbeachpublishing.com

  Author: Alex Richardson

  Cover design/graphics: www.mariondesigns.com

  Edited by: Lu Ann Wells

  Cover Models: Jasmine Williams, Malachi Morris III John Ramos Sr. and Jasmine Williams

  Copyright © 2012 by Alex Richardson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages to be printed in a newspaper or a magazine.

  1

  “You are going to die, the question is how painful”—CHAVEZ

  Slim, LaTanza and Bone sat at the large cherry wood table as Dmitri Sokolov’s maid served them Russian Stolichnaya Elit, one of the world’s most expensive vodkas. The African-American hustlers were used to drinking top shelf liquor, but had not indulged in the best Russia had to offer. They were told by Dmitri that this was one of the best vodkas they would ever taste, and they welcomed the Russian underboss’ hospitality. The gangsters toasted their partnership. One that would have them buying all of their drugs from the Russians. Slim knew it was a dangerous move since the Russians were no joke—they were about their business. Gangsters who didn’t tolerate fuck-ups. The bottom line, if you don’t have their money, they kill you, your mother and would dig up your dead daddy and kill him again just to prove a point to others. The three leaders of the city’s drug trade collectively got into bed with the Russians to receive an incredibly low price on their drugs, but Slim made sure that it was separate on paying back the Russians. Dmitri made the points on the shipments slightly higher, but Slim didn’t care. He wasn’t going to take a chance on Bone or LaTanza deciding not to pay their share because Dmitri would send a hit squad to deal with all three of them. Bottom line, the three of them were like a couple who were sleeping in bed together, but weren’t fucking.

  They drank the vodka, and Dmitri’s right hand man, who only went by his last name, Kozlov, poured another round. Bone had sized up Kozlov the minute they entered Dmitri’s family room. He was about six-four and a rock solid two-fifty. He had a scar flowing down his strong jaw line, and the hint of grey hair and age line on his face told that the man was in his forties.

  “This is going to be a great partnership, my friends. I see great things in our future,” Dmitri said then raised his glass.

  This oyster eating mahfuckah drinks this damn vodka like water. I need me some fucking Hennessy! Bone thought to himself. At first, Bone wasn’t on board with collaborating, but when he saw what the prices were going to be for the drugs and saw his profits would triple for the year, he jumped at the chance. The thing was he had planned to get out of the game. His little brother had been shot and killed months ago while trying to hustle in the city of Gary and it hit him hard. His uncle convinced him to stack his money for a year and get out before he was dead or in jail. Bone’s plan was to get a couple of million put away and retire down south away from everyone. His uncle had land in Mississippi, and they were going to live life doing absolutely nothing but fishing and fucking. No big elaborate house, just something nice so his money would stretch a lifetime.

  LaTanza, on the other hand, didn’t care too much for the deal, but Lucky paid her husband, Carlos, the boss of the Fuentes’ cartel, a visit at Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary and convinced him that this was the best way, and he ordered his wife to take the deal. That the Russians agreed to deal on a yearly basis and when they were ready to get out, all was good. Carlos knew if they were making the Russians serious money that they wouldn’t let them walk away so easily, so he and Lucky made an agreement that when the time came, if the Russians didn’t let them end their contract, they would join forces and get out the gangster way.

  Slim swallowed his shot then said, “We still have that other thing.”

  Dmitri smiled at Koslov then turned his attention back to Slim. “My friend, that thing is being taken care of as we speak.”

  Dmitri and Slim were speaking of Slim still owing the Italian mob millions. Each year they were adding a tax on the one million dollars Slim had owed them, but Slim refused to pay on the strength that when he was going to pay—the Capo Tommy Giadano wasn’t having it. He tried to tax Slim and had Slim’s life-long friend, Skills, killed while he sat in prison. Once Giadano pulled that unnecessary act of violence, there was no way Slim was going to pay him. While Slim was out of the country in hiding, he met Dmitri in the Cayman Islands, and they hit it off. Once the gangsters were comfortable with each other, Dmitri promised Slim a profitable and safe partnership. He also said that he had the power and muscle to get the mob out of Slim’s hair—the easy or the hard way.

  “It’s being taking care of, is that right?” Slim asked with a raised brow.

  “Come,” Dmitri said as he motioned with his hand for the three to follow.

  LaTanza adjusted her pants suit and grabbed her handbag.

  Bone, who was surprisingly dressed in crisp two-hundred dollar jeans, five hundred dollar snake-skinned shoes and a button-down, asked, “Where we off to?”

  “A little show. You Americans like shows, no?”

  “As long as it’s a good one,” Bone said as he grabbed the bottle of vodka and topped off his glass.

  Koslov simply shook his head at the low-class move as he opened the door of the great room and held it open for the three to follow Dmitri. They walked down a hallway that was lit by the picture lights illuminating various artworks of people, buildings and ships of Russia hanging on the wall.

  Dmitri stopped at a door, and as he grabbed the handle, he turned to his friends and said, “This will show you that I mean what I say and I say what I mean.” He locked eyes with Slim. “This is the first step to your problems being solved, my comrade.”

  He opened the door and they followed him down the stairs to a brightly lit basement. Stretched out on the table was an Italian man. When Slim got past all the half-inch slits on the man’s face, that were leaking blood, he noticed who the man was. Dmitri slapped the man on the cheek. “Do you know who I am? No, I didn’t think so.” He pointed to Slim. “You know who this man is, no?”

  The man, whose name was Gino Marcelli, smiled and laughed, “Is this what this is about? You raw fish egg eating bastards are in bed with these niggers?” He spit a chunk of phlegm at Dmitri.

  The spit hit the underboss on his black suit jacket. One of the muscular soldiers slammed his heavy fist down on Gino’s rib cage for the disrespectful act.

  “Ahh,” Gino moaned then laughed. “The Giadanos will be on your asses for this!”

  Not phased, Dmitri asked, “We’ve only put superficial wounds on you for a reason. So I’m going to ask one time and one time only before I use force to get what I want. Where do I find your Capo Tommy?”

  “Fuck you!” Gino spat. “Do what you gotta do. Gino is loyal, not like you faggot Russians getting in bed with some coon ass niggers!”

  Dmitri asked, “You call me a faggot, no?” He gave a hard wave to one of his soldiers.

  The man quickly tied a rope around Gino’s thick ankles and another soldier, who sported a black cr
ew cut and was just as muscle-bound as the other, slid the gurney-style table toward a long black curtain. Crew cut looked at his boss, and Dmitri nodded. The soldier threw the rope over a pole that was on the high ceiling then attached it to a wench that was bolted to the floor. He pressed the on button and the wench began turning, and it slowly pulled Gino feet first off the table as the other soldier pulled the curtain back exposing a tank with about one hundred Amazon River Piranhas. Gino, for the first time, was showing some nervousness.

  Dmitri said, “Now you will understand what my, as you call it, ‘faggot ass’, do to people who don’t answer or respect me.”

  Dmitri nodded to the man controlling the wench, he pressed a button and it slowly lowered Gino’s body. The carnivorous fish began to swim wildly, pooling below Gino.

  Gino jerked his body and screamed, “You son-of-a-bitch! You are gonna pay!” His head was a foot from the water when he screamed, “No, no, nooo—” The water drowned out his cries, and the blood that was on his face from the cuts washed in the water and that sent all the flesh eating fish into a feeding frenzy.

  Only Gino’s head was in the water, and it was only for a few seconds. Dmitri yelled, “Bring him up!”

  A couple of piranhas were hanging onto Gino’s face. He was still alive, but his face was mutilated. The piranhas worked quickly, and if Gino’s head had been in the water long enough, the fish would have cleaned all the flesh from his face.

  Dmitri turned to his three new business partners and asked, “What do you think?”

  Calmly, Slim answered, “You proved your point.”

  LaTanza, who had no expression on her face, knew Dmitri figured with her being a woman she would be the weakest of the three. She answered, “I would have dipped his entire body in the tank.”

  Dmitri looked at Bone and asked, “And you, how do you feel?”

  Bone smiled, “It’s all in the game, bruh.”

  Dmitri grinned. “Get him down. Take him to Little Italy and dump him on the street in front of his social club so his comrades can see him. He’s breathing enough to tell his people who did this terrible thing to him.”

  Slim stated, “He’ll warn Giadano.”

  “Don’t worry, my comrade. That’s the beauty of it. I didn’t need this man to get to Giadano. I simply wanted to prove a point to the Italians—and you three.”

  * * *

  Slim gave Jamel a pound of the fist as he entered Lucky’s home. “What’s up, Jamel?”

  “Nothing much, Slim. Lucky’s in his study. He’s waiting for you,” Jamel said as he closed and locked the door.

  Slim didn’t smell any food. Something he was used to when he came to Lucky’s home. Ms. Joplin, who worked for Lucky, was the keeper of the thirty-nine hundred square feet suburban home. She cleaned, ran errands, kept Lucky company and most important, cooked. She was from Mississippi and had been cooking all her life.

  “Where’s Miss Joplin?” Slim asked as they walked from the foyer through the living room.

  “I know what you’re thinking Slim. I said the same thing when I got here. She went with Chantel to the doctor about the baby.”

  Concerned, Slim asked, “Is there a problem?”

  “Nah, a regular appointment. She was over here last night talking about it and you know how Miss J is. She never had kids, but she said she raised over ten brothers, sisters and cousins so she’s like doing that ‘filling a void’ thing or something,” Jamel said as he rubbed his stomach. “And she was going to fix me some black-eyed pea soup and some cornbread.”

  Slim laughed. “What do you know about that?”

  “Enough to know that frozen pizza I’m about to fix ain’t gonna do any justice.”

  Slim patted the youngster on his shoulder and before entering the study he said, “You’ll survive.”

  Slim walked in the study, and Lucky’s back was turned to him as he looked out the bay window into his plush backyard that had a pool, basketball court, garden and pond. Slim saw the smoke that was permeating the air above Lucky’s head.

  Slim said, “You know you shouldn’t be smoking that.”

  Lucky took a hard pull then said, “Yours is on the desk in the box. And what’s going to happen? I’m going to get lung cancer on lung cancer?”

  Slim picked out a cigar and cut the tip with the cutter that was beside the box. Before he lit, he said, “Nah, but remember, you’re going to beat that shit. That is how we are, we overcome adversity!” Slim puffed several times as he held the flame of the lighter to his cigar.

  Slim sat on a leather sofa that was facing the side of Lucky’s desk. He held the cigar in front of his face and nodded his head in favor of the robust flavor then puffed again.

  Lucky smiled. “I remember the time when you wouldn’t have even been around someone smoking a cigar. Now you’re smoking them yourself.”

  “Only when I’m feeling good.”

  “I guess that means there is good news about the meeting with the Russians,” Lucky replied as he sat in his swivel chair. He reached for the ashtray that was on his desk and put his cigar out. He’d only smoked a quarter of the cigar. He had cancer and needed to be as healthy as possible, but cigars were his vice. He also used the flavorful tobacco to calm his nerves, and Slim’s meeting with the Russians was something he was worried about.

  “All was well. And I think our problem with the Giadanos is about to be solved,” Slim told Lucky without going into details.

  “How are things with Bone and that Mrs. Fuentes?”

  Slim puffed. “It went well. We are going to get thirty percent a piece, bring that to ninety percent.”

  “Where is the other ten going?”

  “Since there is a group of three of us, we have agreed with Dmitri to go on a yearly deal. At the end we evaluate our partnership and if we want out, that ten percent of all we were due to make off everything goes to the Russians as a penalty for getting out of the deal.”

  “Damn, they’re operating like them motherfuckers on Wall Street.”

  “Without a doubt, but we will make damn near three times as what we were making between getting drugs from the Italians and the Columbians.”

  Slim watched as Lucky said nothing and lit another cigar. He knew Lucky was tired and didn’t fully agree with dealing with the Russians, but he also knew that it was the best way to make enough money in a shorter period of time. Slim still had hustle in him, and Lucky wished there was a way he could get that addiction out of him. Lucky had seen the light. When you’re told that you were living on borrowed time, it was hard to see things in any other light than to get prepared for your time to meet your Maker. Lucky’s idea was for Slim and him to make enough money so they could retire and leave Chicago and all of their enemies behind. Lucky also wanted to make enough money so that all the people who worked for them could get away. It would be their choice, but Lucky’s idea was to sweeten it with property out west and south. Places where no one in the city would figure they would go. He would then offer them all a substantial amount of money because he knew most hustlers lived in the moment, spending money as fast as they got it because they had the means to get more. Slim was on board with the idea and was making it happen.

  Lucky puffed, tilted his head back and blew the smoke in the air. He wheeled his chair toward Slim. He leaned forward and with seriousness in his eyes he told Slim, “I want you to consider running that one year and get out because if I’m dead in a year, I’m out the game. If I’m living, I’m out the game, and I’m taking that young man in that other room, Miss Joplin, Chantel, Noonie, Tesha and my only son with me. I haven’t talked to them yet, but I’m sure they will be on board. Anyone else who wants out, I’m all for helping. But you are the main one. They all listen to you, and you are like a son to me, so I want your word that you will get out also.”

  “I can’t promise you that, but I’m considering it. Just like the ones who are willing to go, I have to be here for the ones who are hesitant,” Slim told his friend.


  Lucky patted Slim on the knee. “I understand and commend you for that. Just try to make an effort.”

  “I will and I’m still setting things up so that it can happen.”

  “Also, are you sure about Reese being second in charge? He’s a good soldier, but I don’t know about him running things.”

  Slim blew a hard breath. He knew what Lucky was saying to be true. Reese has been on his team since they were in high school, but it was a fact that Reese was more of a gangster and not someone who could run a crew. He liked the glitter of being a baller and the women and power it brought, and Slim wasn’t sure about him being in charge of the crew if something was to happen to Slim.

  Slim blew a concerned breath then said, “For now, Reese is to be in charge. Unless something happens, that’s the way it is.”

  Lucky said, “Ever thought about Noonie?”

  “Reese has been at this shit way longer.”

  “That doesn’t replace being smarter, and Noonie is the smarter out of the two. Hell, behind you, he’s the smartest.”

  Slim smiled and stood. Lucky did the same and Slim gave him a hug. “Lucky, that shit with the Russians has me tired. I had to deal with that damn Bone and LaTanza and then sit and drink vodka.”

  Lucky laughed.

  “Do you know them Russians can drink that shit—”

  “Like water.”

  They walked toward the door of the study. Slim grabbed the handle and Lucky stopped him, saying, “Consider Noonie.”

  Slim replied, “At one point I did, especially after he took care of DC, who was his partner. That showed his loyalty and strength.” He shook his head. “I really didn’t want for him to have to do that. That is the part of the game I hate, but for the greater good of all of us—”

  “It had to be done. But that’s why we need to get out. Blood is on our hands that we can’t wash off, but we can spend the rest of our lives doing right, and maybe He will forgive us, for at the time, it was all we knew. We were a product of our environment.”