“Brother Xavier, I think we might have something here,” Ahmed shouted from across the warehouse.
Elijah and I walked side by side to where Ahmed was struggling to open a large, heavy door. Elijah stepped over to help him, and when they managed to pry it open, we saw something we definitely hadn’t expected. I think we had all been surprised by the Duncans’ power on some level, but this took it to new heights, because piled almost to the ceiling in that room was enough of marijuana to fill four tractor trailers.
“What do we do with this?” Elijah asked.
It took me a moment to wrap my head around just how much dope in dollars and cents was piled up in front of us. It had to be millions. Sensing that something was up, a group of our men had gathered near the doorway, and turning to look at them, I swear I could see dollar signs in their eyes.
“Burn it!” I barked at Elijah. “Burn every drop of this poison.”
Elijah, as always, didn’t hesitate. He shouted to his men, “You heard the man! Burn it!”
I was sure some of the less devout among our men were silently questioning my judgment, no doubt tempted by the money that could be made selling this weed on the streets, but no one was stupid enough to protest out loud. Wisely, they scrambled to set the Duncans’ weed aflame.
I stepped outside as the smoke started filling the room, and one of my soldiers brought the lone Duncan survivor out to me. As they approached, I could see that he was terrified.
“My name is Brother Xavier, and I want you to deliver a message to the Duncans. Can you do that?”
The man nodded his head. “As long as I’m alive.”
I laughed. “Tell the Duncans that we’re going to keep making these little field trips until they give us Junior. Now, can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, looking like he was about to piss his pants.
“Good.” I turned to Ahmed. “Drop him off near that hospital once we get this all wrapped up.” As Ahmed escorted our guest toward the cars, Elijah approached me with his phone to his ear and a frown on his face.
“It’s the Jew,” he said, handing me the phone. “He says it’s important.”
“Bernie, this really isn’t a good time,” I said into the phone. He ignored me and began spelling out the reason for his call.
“Oh, really?” I replied when he was finally finished. “Well, thanks for the heads up, Bernie. I’ll make the necessary arrangements on our part.” I hung up and handed Elijah his phone.
“What’d the Jew have to say?” he asked.
Several of our men had started spilling out of the building as the smoke inside grew thicker. They were loitering around, close enough to hear anything I might say to Elijah. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before we all get contact highs. I’ll explain it to you on the way back to Rosedale.”
Junior
27
After a week of the most unbelievable sex with not a care in the world, Sonya and I had finally come up for air. We traveled down to Camden, New Jersey, in a Zipcar, had a little lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack, then left the Zipcar in the parking lot and headed down the street to an old tenement. We went around to the unmarked entrance in the seedy-looking alley in the back. It was a place where you had to be either desperate or brave to enter. At the moment, I was a little of both. There was nothing I wanted more in life than to be with Sonya, and I was willing to do anything to make that happen.