e’s six feet from the car when I swing open my door.
The front and back passenger doors on the hooptie open, thugs pop out. The dickhead sees me and once my face clicks in his memory he shits his pants. Oh goodie. Wheels his hands in thin air. Backpedals. Stumbles, lands on his sweet little tush.
I rush forward, iron out. I put two through the hooptie’s passenger side. Glass shatters. The thugs raise their guns. I drop one where he stands. The second one fires wildly and tries to take cover in front of the car.
The driver and some other dude hop out, come around with their pieces aimed in my general direction. Which, since they’re gang members, doesn’t mean much.
Dickhead scrambles away from me, a kind-of crabwalk as he scurries. His pants are belted just above his knees and dragging his ass along the street pulls them down around his ankles. “It’s him!” he shouts and his voice squeaks with it. Nothing makes me more proud of my effect on people than when grown men screech like women as they announce my presence.
“It’s fuckin’ him! The guy that jumped us!”
I’m the guy that jumped a robbery set up? Of course I am.
The thugs hear that and they run. Don’t bother with the car. Don’t bother with revenge. Don’t even bother with rescuing their dead homie or the living one right in front of me. They beat feet in the opposite direction.
I snag this fucker by the collar; lift him up. “That’s gotta make you feel good, don’t it?”
“W—what?”
“Your whole crew jets when I show up, and leave you here with me.”
“What you want, man?”
“I want Thuggie.”
“Nah, man. Nah. Kill me. I ain’t no snitch and I—”
Uppercut to his guts and whatever he was going to finish that sentence with gets lost in the forced exhale. His feet leave the street and my knuckles rub along the interior of his spine. I let go of his collar. He hits the ground hard.
I go down to one knee beside him, dig through his pockets. Gasping, he squirms. Tries to get stupid. Now, I’ve punched a lot of people. Hitting them while they’re standing up is best because you’ve got all that room behind their head to snap back. When you drill someone lying down—especially on concrete—the give ain’t what it is when they’re upright. The plus side they get hit twice. The downside is I’ve broken my hand more times than I can count. Oh well.
I drill him.
The concrete hits the back of his head as hard as I hit his jaw and lights out.
Find his cellphone in a pocket and pull it out. Some weed and rolling papers fall out as well. A condom. Some pocket change. This guy must have had only one pocket he trusts. Scroll through the phone—which is a cheap piece of shit, by the way—find Thug Dawg. Winner winner chicken dinner. Dial the number.
One eye on the phone, one eye on the punk before me. He stirs just a bit. Blinks a bunch. Groans and one hand rubs his face. He probably doesn’t think it, but I see him reaching behind his back.
“What?” Answers the phone.
“Thuggie?”
“’Course! Man, what the fuck is going—”
“Thuggie, you must think I’m the turd whose name is on your caller ID. I’m the guy who rolled your Baltimore and Forty-second intersection crew. Burned down your cathedral. Know me?”
A moment of recognition and I can hear him draw in a furious breath. “Mother fucka, you ain’t got no idea how bad it’s gonna be when—”
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t think you have the hair on your balls to come get me yourself. I don’t think you’ve got ’em.”
“You don’t? For real? Are you playin’?”
“Nope. I hear you’re too big of a bitch to do the work yourself ’cuz you’re afraid of sucking more dick inside prison. Am I right?”
“Oh...oh you’re goin’ die slow ’cuz of that. Slow.”
“Liar liar pants on fire.”