“Yo,” Thomas Mills answered.
“This Hawkins.”
“You got a lot of fuckin’ nerve calling me after the shit you pulled.”
“So, you know that it must be serious.”
“You in trouble?” Mills asked.
“Big trouble,” he said and explained his situation to his old partner.
“Why the fuck would you do some dumbass shit like that? Mutha fuckin’ Rain Robinson ain’t nobody to be fuckin’ with. What could possibly make you do some shit like that?”
“Money.”
Mills laughed. “You always was a greedy fuck. I told you that one day money and pussy would get your mutha fuckin’ ass killed.”
“Yeah, well you may be right, but I ain’t trying to make that day today. So, you gonna have a nigga’s back or what?”
“Yeah, I got you. Truth be told, I was done with her pretty ass anyway. But it was just the principle of the thing; you know what I’m saying. I counted you a friend and you went behind my back and went hard at her, that’s all. But like I said, you always was a greedy mug, that went double when it came to pussy.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Tell me what you need and I’m there?”
“I need numbers.”
“I got ten treacherous niggas that’s ready to ride on my word. You just need to tell me where and when.”
“I’ll call you back,” Hawkins said and ended the call. Now he needed a place to meet AD, someplace where he could see them coming and a place that would be easy for him to defend.
If this went south and AD was just tying up loose ends, he planned on surviving it. With that singular thought in mind, he knew that it had to be a public place and it needed to be outdoors.
He called both AD and Mills back and told them to meet him at Van Cortlandt Park; Mills in an hour and AD in an hour and thirty minutes. That would give him enough time to pack up and move someplace where AD didn’t have the number. Once he had gotten himself moved, Hawkins went to the park and walked around for the next ten minutes to be sure he would be safe. When he got to the meeting place, Mills was there waiting.
“I was just about to bounce,” he said.
“Just checking things out.”
“I hear you. Where you want us?”
“Right here,” Hawkins said, and they sat down to wait. Their wait wasn’t long because soon after they sat down, he saw AD, along with another man, walking toward them.
“That’s him,” Hawkins said and stood up.
“How you wanna play this?” Mills said, standing next to Hawkins.
“Walk with me,” he said and started toward AD.
“Y’all be ready for whatever,” Mills said as he walked off with Hawkins. “This just like old times.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“We done faced down a bunch of niggas in our time,” Mills said.
“And we still standing. A lot of mugs we came up against are across the street rotting at Woodlawn.”
“I don’t like that it’s just two of them. I smell some trick shit coming.”