Prologue:
The Hook Up
They sat
beside each other on hard plastic chairs in front of a decaying wooden table in
a room bathed in shadows and cigarette smoke. Two young men, one white and the
other African American, wearing expensive and exquisitely tailored gray Armani
silk suits. The room had no windows, no vents, and only one door. A single dusty
light bulb hung from the ceiling, its glow barely doing any justice to the
nearly pitch black room.
Donovan
Ray coolly sat in his seat, his hands folded on the decaying table in front of
him as he waited for their mystery guest to arrive. Hearing the door behind them
creak open, his deep blue eyes stole a glance over at his partner, Deaqon Hayes,
wondering what he was thinking at the moment. A pair of buff middle aged men
walked into the room carrying semiautomatic weapons in their hands. Another man
followed them in, quite older, maybe in his fifties, with graying hair and a
very hard look on his face.
“Hello,
boys, it’s nice to finally meet you,” the man said in a cocky New Yorker
tone as he sat down across from them, the single bulb barely illuminating his
face and making the hallows of his eyes, cheeks, and mouth even more pronounced.
“Tommy
Gallo,” Donovan replied as he stood from his seat and extended his hand.
“I’m Van, and this is Deaq,” he introduced as the man glanced over at his
partner while they shook hands. “We’ve been waiting a while for this
meeting. I’m glad that we’ve finally had the chance to see each other face
to face instead of through channels.”
“Well, I
had to get you guys checked out beforehand, and guess what, you’ve made the
cut. How can I help you two young entrepreneurs?” Gallo questioned as he sat
back down and gazed at the two of them with intent eyes.
“You
supply the goods, we supply the cash,” Van answered, holding up a little black
plastic card then grabbing the bag on the floor beside his feet.
“My, my,
you really are pretty, young rich boys, aren’t you?” Gallo said with a sly
smile coming across his face. There was almost a gleam in his eye, proving to
Van that he was the money hungry bastard he knew him to be. Gallo took the bag
from Van and unzipped it to find stacks of hundred dollar bills inside amounting
to nearly $150,000. That made him even happier than he already was. “Alright
boys, let’s do business.”
“Marijuana,
ecstasy, cocaine, and heroin; we want five hundred pounds of each delivered to
Club Ryde within the next week. We’ll pay the rest in cash once it’s all
delivered,” Deaq finally spoke up, coolly staring at the old man in front of
him. Even though the pair had sold the club to their good friend Aquarius, he
was letting them use it as a drop off point for their operation.
“Not a
problem,” Gallo responded. “I like you boys, so I trust you.”
“Nice
dealing with you, Gallo,” Van remarked as he stood from his seat and leaned
over the table to grab them man’s hand once more to finalize their deal.
As Van and
Deaq made their way out of the building, Gallo turned to one of his guards and
said, “Follow them and never let them out of your sight. If you see anything
funny, I want you to call me and tell me. I’ll decide on a course of action
from that point on.”
As soon as
Van and Deaq reached the car they used to get to the run down old warehouse, a
yellow Porsche, Van took the opportunity to call his boss. He flipped out his
cell phone and dialed her number.
“Hello?”
came her strong, sensual voice over the phone line.
“Gallo
took the bait. We’re high tailing it out of here. See you in a few,” Van
replied as he began to hang up.
“Hold on
there just a second, speedy. Gallo is gonna send someone after you. Don’t come
back too quick,” she warned.
“Billie,
I already know. You don’t have to remind me. We read that file together,
remember?” Van retorted as he sat down in the driver’s seat and started the
car. He back away from the old warehouse parking lot, pulling onto the main road
for a short trip to the area designated as a drop off point for the car. It was
an apartment complex in
“Van, if
he finds out you’re a cop, you’re dead meat. You got that?” Billie yelled
back as she hung up.
“Jeez,”
he recoiled. “She’s got to have something stuck up her ass today. I wonder
what it is.”
“Probably
the fact that it’s taken us so long to crack the case. We’ve been on it for,
what, six weeks already? And we didn’t get anywhere until today,” Deaq
replied as Van looked into his rear view mirror and spotted the car that had
been tailing them since they left the warehouse. It was a black Jaguar S-Type,
easily blending in with the other expensive cars on the road.
Van pulled
into the apartment complex parking garage minutes later, parking beside his neon
green Mustang and pulling off the suit to change into something a little more
comfortable, a pair of brown leather pants and a sleeveless white tee shirt. As
soon as Deaq had made his switch, they were off again back to the office, a
warehouse filled with confiscated goods including cars and clothing which Billie
affectionately called the “Candy Store.”
‘What a day,’ Van thought to himself as he pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car.