Wifey: Part 2

“That’s the streets,” Nico replied real coldly.

“Word up,” BJ added.

It was starting to drizzle lightly, and although the wake was nearing its end, it seemed as if there were now more people standing outside the funeral home than at any other time during the wake.

The funeral was scheduled for the next day, Friday morning at 9 A.M., at Allen A.M.E Cathedral, which wasn’t too far from the funeral home.

“So in the morning we riding together or what?” Lo asked BJ and Nico as they continued to stand on the steps.

Before either Nico or BJ could answer, an all-black Hummer SUV sped up to the front of the funeral home. The Hummer, driving eastbound on Linden Boulevard, was driving so fast, people had to scurry out of the way to avoid getting hit.

As the Hummer came to a skidding halt on the slick roads, the front and rear passenger side windows both rolled down, and masked gunmen in the front and back seat both stretched their bodies out of the windows and started firing toward Nico, BJ, and Lo.

“Oh shit!” BJ hollered, ducking for cover behind one of the funeral home’s wooden pillars.

The gunman in the front passenger seat had fired off sixteen shots from a 9mm handgun and was quickly out of bullets. He pulled his body back inside the Hummer and began to urge the driver to pull off. “Drive, nigga! Drive!” he yelled.

The driver didn’t listen because he didn’t want to pull off too quickly and have his other homeboy fall out of the rear passenger window.

TATATATATATATATATATATATAT

That was the sound of gunfire coming from the second gunman’s Calico M960 that had the capability of letting off 750 rounds a minute. Luckily for all of the innocent bystanders, he only had a one-hundred-round magazine in the gun.

After emptying the magazine, the gunman slipped his body back inside the truck, and it peeled off down busy Linden Boulevard before making a quick right turn onto 195th Street.

Within seconds, police and ambulance sirens could be heard blaring from every direction.

Lo had been hit multiple times in the back, legs, and ass, and was laying on the steps of the funeral bleeding and writhing in pain.

BJ had also been shot multiple times. He was hit in the stomach and in his right arm. He was doubled over in pain and hiding in bushes he’d jumped behind after unwisely stepping from behind the wooden pillar.

Everyone outside the funeral home began screaming when the shots rang out, and a good majority of them rushed into the funeral home fleeing from bullets.

Nico had managed to make it inside the funeral home. He was kicking himself for not being strapped. He was trying to figure out which way to go, and then he saw a sign that said “exit” and he headed toward it and ran down some steps that led to the basement. In the basement there were about five dead bodies on silver tables and there were caskets everywhere. Nico saw another exit sign all the way on the other side of the basement, and he bolted toward it. He was breathing hard and moving as fast as he could.

Nico knew that he shouldn’t have come to Bebo’s wake, but he’d gone against his better judgment. Now he felt like he was going to have to pay for it with his life.

He pushed open the other basement door, and that triggered a loud alarm that scared the shit out of him. When he emerged from that door, he realized he was in the back of the funeral home. He saw people running down the street in a panic.

At that point he didn’t hear any more gunshots, but he did hear a ton of police siren

s, so he figured he was safe. He leaned against the brick rear wall of the funeral home and tried his best to catch his breath. It was at that moment that he realized that BJ and Lo weren’t following behind him.

“Muthafucka!” Nico yelled out loud. He then left safety and ran down the block toward the funeral home. He was running in the opposite direction of all of the people who were trying to get away.

As soon as Nico made it to the front of the funeral home, he saw twelve different people, who had been shot, lying on the ground. Including a four-year-old girl.

He looked for BJ and Lo and saw them both on the ground, and from his vantage point, they both looked as if they weren’t moving. “Ahhh fuck!” he hollered.

Cops had quickly roped off the scene with police tape, and where there wasn’t police tape, the cops wouldn’t let anyone near the funeral home. They were trying their best to clear everybody from the streets.

Nico’s driver had been forced to move the Maybach, so Nico couldn’t locate his car. But it wasn’t his car that he was concerned about; he was worried about his two homeboys. When he was prevented from getting closer to them, he had no choice but to think the worst.

Nico helplessly looked on at the chaos until he was forced by police to leave the scene, which he reluctantly did. He later learned that fifteen people had been shot—four fatally—and more than twenty people who hadn’t been shot were also injured. He had gotten no word from BJ or Lo, and his calls and texts to their phones went unanswered.

Twenty-Two

The morning after the shooting at the funeral home, Agent Gosling called Jasmine on her government-issued BlackBerry. Jasmine was hesitant to answer, but she didn’t want to duck him, only to have him pop up unexpectedly in person somewhere.