The Diamond Syndicate

“To hell with what those assholes think! Not one of these officers out here seems to think we got the wrong murder suspect, and they have the same description we do.”

Ed walked away and got into the driver’s seat of the squad car. Jerry reluctantly followed, and the squad cars all pulled off in different directions, lights flashing.

After the police cars disappeared into the night, Dante relaxed his tense body and sat on the grass. He breathed a sigh of relief, but he knew this was only temporary relief. It was only a matter of time before the cops realized they had the wrong person. What he needed to do was change his clothes and get the money he’d stashed in the hollow statue that stood on top of the water fountain in the backyard of his house. Then he planned to go back to the old neighborhood where he and his mother used to live to see if anybody knew anything about what was going on. His friends from the old neighborhood always seemed to know what was going on in the streets.

He carefully looked around to make sure the coast was clear and then walked out of the front yard of the house where he’d been hiding. As he walked home, he constantly looked around, making sure no one was tailing him. It was well after midnight, and he was paranoid and uneasy. A dog ran up to a fence, barking loudly and startling him. Sweat surfaced on his forehead and ran down the sides of his face. Realizing that being outside was like a circus elephant walking down the middle of the street, he decided to hail a cab.

Ten minutes later, Dante had the cab driver drop him off a few blocks away from the new home his mother had recently purchased. Making his way carefully up the street toward his house, he surveyed it before walking to the back of his neighbor’s home so he could check out his backyard.

From the neighbor’s backyard, he carefully studied the house he and his mother lived in—a quaint four-bedroom colonial they’d purchased together, with a large backyard that had an in-ground pool and a water fountain. The statue in the middle of the fountain was an African queen that stood tall and erect, wearing native African garb. Dante had made sure the commissioned custom statue was hollow, so he could stash the money he and his mother made from their illegal enterprises there in a secret compartment located under the water.

Before approaching the fountain, Dante sat still, patiently waiting to see if police were watching the house. He was sure they would set up some kind of a stakeout to capture him if he returned.

After about fifteen minutes of observing the inside and outside of his house, Dante scaled his neighbor’s tall picket fence with ease. He had done this a million times. Once he jumped to the ground, he crouched low and didn’t move a muscle. Finally, after nothing seemed out of the ordinary, he proceeded.

He was thankful his mother had turned off the fountain for the night. He slithered over to the fountain, pulled the lever to the secret latch, and the hidden bottom door to the statue popped open. He reached inside and pulled out the duffel bag. He unzipped the bag and saw it was just as he’d left it—seven bundles of bills, each bundle holding five thousand dollars. He removed the .45 that sat at the bottom of the bag. He chambered a bullet and placed the gun in a side pocket of the duffel bag.

He closed the bag and draped it across his shoulders. After taking one last look around the yard, he made his way toward the back door of his house to change his clothes. He thought about just squashing the idea of changing clothes, but just as quickly as the idea came, it disappeared from his mind.

Taking deep breaths, Dante prepared to go inside the dark house. He carefully opened the back screen door and stayed close to the ground as he slid through the back door and onto the porch. He crawled over to the door that led to the inside of the house. He reached up and turned the handle. The door was open, so he quietly made his way into the dark kitchen.

He thought he heard something and immediately pressed his body against a wall in the kitchen. He stood still, trying not to breathe, and listened intently. I should have just grabbed the loot and bounced!

After hearing nothing else for several seconds, he decided that leaving was a better option than trying to change his clothes.

Just as he started to turn around, he heard a creaking sound coming from the adjacent room. He removed the .45 from the duffel bag and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Looking through a mirror that hung on the wall in the kitchen, he saw a shadow creeping along the wall, and his heart sped up to twice its normal speed. Sweat ran down his neck and down the middle of his back. He placed both hands around the gun, gripping it tightly, and watched the shadow approach. Dante had no idea who the intruder was, but at this point he didn’t care. It was do or die.

As the intruder tried to make his way into the kitchen, he knocked the leg of the dinette set chair, sending out a scratching noise.

That was Dante’s cue. He stepped out into the open and squeezed the trigger repeatedly, flares of light sparking from the barrel of the gun as each bullet exited. When return fire whizzed into the kitchen, Dante dashed out of the back door and escaped the same way he’d come, leaving gunfire echoing behind him as he traveled through each yard.

Finally he slowed his pace when he realized no one was chasing him. Then he stopped and took in deep breaths, trying to control his breathing. He switched the duffel bag to his other shoulder, readjusted the straps, and began to walk down the street.

About twenty minutes later he arrived at Trey’s apartment, a new townhouse he’d purchased in the Society Hill section of Newark, New Jersey. He could smell the weed coming from inside, so he reasoned Trey was still awake. He knocked on the door and waited. Then he heard rustling behind the door, and then footsteps.

“Yo, it’s me, Trey,” Dante said in a loud whisper, so his friend could hear him, but not loud enough to wake the neighbors.

Trey unlocked the door and peeled it back slowly, and Dante dashed inside.

“Yo, what’s up with you?” Trey asked, barely awake.

“My bad for waking you up, man, but the cops are after me. Man, they got my moms, and they was at the crib waiting for me when I got there. I had to shoot my way outta that muthafucka,” Dante said, exhausted.

Trey stood there looking confused. “They got your moms?”

“Yeah, they got her, and now they after me. Listen, man, I need to stash this loot here until I can figure out what to do.”

“Until you can figure out what to do? How you sound, nigga? Them muthafuckas locked yo’ mother up. You need to be trying to get her up outta there.”

“They after me too!”

Trey didn’t comment. He sat down and placed his hand over his face. “Do you think they coming for me too?”

“If they was coming for you, you’d be got already. Yo, let me get a change of clothes or something. I’m gonna go see if I can find out anything.”

“Why don’t you just chill? I’ll go out and see what the streets are talking about.”

“Naw, man, I ain’t gonna be able to sit up in here,” Dante told him. “I need to be out there.” He went into Trey’s bedroom to find a change of clothes.