No More Tears In The End

Rain shook her head.

We drove to Co-op City, which is located in the Baychester section of the Bronx, close to I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway. It’s the largest cooperative housing development in the world. If it were a municipality instead of part of Bronx, it would be the 10th largest city in New York State.

We got to Nacho’s building and went in behind one of the residents. We took the steps to Nacho’s floor and knocked on his door. It took awhile before a male voice came back from the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Rain. Open the door, nigga!”

“Go away!”

“Oh-so it’s like that, huh?”

Rain started bangin’ and kickin’ the door until he opened it. When he did, Rain stuck her gun under his chin. “Go away, my fat ass,” she said and took his gun from his waist. “Now, where’s Nacho?”

The man pointed.

“Well move then.”

He started walking backwards slowly, and Rain kept the gun pressed to his chin. I followed her in. For a young girl, Rain could definitely handle herself. As we got closer I could see that there were three men seated in the living room.

“Who’s at the door?” one of them yelled.

Once we were in the room one of the men started to reach for his gun, but the other one stopped him. I assumed that he was Nacho. “What do you want, Rain?”

“What’s up, Nacho?” Rain said and pushed the doorman to the floor. He looked at me and started to get up. I shook my head and showed him my gun. He decided to keep his spot.

“Get off the floor, you look ridiculous,” Nacho said. He looked at me one more time to make sure it was all right before he got up. “Now, what do you want, Rain?”

Rain went and sat across from Nacho with her gun on her lap. “I don’t want nothin’. I maybe just came to holla at you, Nacho. You know, since we cool and shit.”

“Yeah, Rain, we cooler than a fan. Now what the fuck do you want?”

“See how you treat a sistah? That shit ain’t even necessary.” She looked at me. “Why can’t muthafuckas just get along?”

I don’t know what she was lookin’ at me for. I agreed with Nacho. I wanted her to get to the point too.

/>

“Like I said, I don’t want nothin’, but this man here; he got a couple of questions he need to ask you.”

Nacho looked at me. “Who are you?”

“That ain’t important. Right now, all you need to know is that I’m the one askin’ the questions.” I said and slowly reached in my pocket. I pulled out a wad of bills and that got his attention.

“What you wanna know?”

“There was a robbery at Paradise Fish and Chicken a couple of days ago. You know anything about that?”

“I heard about that. Couple of people got shot.” Nacho looked at my roll again. “But as much as I hate to say it, I can’t say who did it.”

I put my money back in my pocket. “If you hear anything, you tell Rain. It’ll be worth your while.”

“If I hear anything about it I’ll let her know, for sure.”

Chapter 18

When I turned to leave, Rain stood in front of Nacho. “Say goodnight, muthafucka.” She pointed her gun and put two in Nacho’s head. “Rude muthafucka.”

Then she turned and shot at the one sitting on the couch near Nacho. But he moved a little too quickly for her. The other man in the room pulled his gun, hit the floor quickly, and fired at me. I hit the floor and returned fire, but he had clawed away. I looked for Rain; she was runnin’ down the hall chasin’ the doorman and the one she’d missed. “I got them,” she yelled and ran down the hallway.