CHAPTER II
00:00
Naomi slept with her arms around Branson. Unbeknown to him, he curled up in a fetal position this second night they were together in his apartment. She had awoken to ease herself and when she returned to bed, he wss in the exact middle of the bed, tightly curled up. As soon as her arm went around him though, he uncurled a bit. They had gotten home past 23:00 and he had gone straight to bed. He had given her instructions about the paper bag he had kept an assiduous eye upon after she and two companions left the movies slightly prematurely to meet up with Branson and his co-boss, Get Right.
As Branson had fallen on the bed fully clothed, Naomi had taken out the money in the bag that she proceeded to count. There were twenty-five thousand dollars in clean Benjamin notes, the "big faces," as they were called in the 'hood. Every Black folk had saved somewhere in their kitchen plastic grocery or shopping or other such bags. Branson was no exception. Naomi looked in the bottom drawers of the kitchen and shortly enough came across the collection of plastic bags. She took two - one small one for the money to be tightly bound with before putting it inside the larger plastic bag. Then she went into the room and, with herculean effort, managed to peel off Branson's outer layer of clothes while he partially dozed. It had been a hell of a battle.
While emptying his pockets and putting the items on the dresser, Naomi came across a nameless phone number on an anonymous piece of paper. She mistakenly reasoned that it had to do with his... business rather than automatically assuming it to be from a woman because who writes numbers down anymore?
Anyway, it was best to not pry too deeply as Branson had done more for her in these two days than most men had ever done for her. And, for some bizarre reason, he trusted her.
After all, she had given him no reason to distrust her and she wouldn't start now. She arranged his things on the dresser and then got undressed. A quick shower later and she came back in the bedroom ready for him to spoon with her. During the night he tossed and turned a bit and she wound up behind him. It was some hours later when she went to take a shit (as most women shit mainly at night or in the early morning when most men are already asleep), that she returned to find Branson in such a curious position. Curious not because people didn't sleep in the fetal position - everyone began life in that position! But curious in that, for him, it was so vulnerable a position. This whole big ass queen-size bed and there he lay in the middle like a human armadillo.
Going on 05:00, Branson gave a mighty yawn and stretch; he immediately noted Naomi's arm draped over his back an on his torso. He held her hand and lay thinking how he would approach his brother about the Chulo situation. The fact that Kingson was involved in the process of divorcing his wife would also make this a strange and sensitive time to be approaching him about this new case.
He got up at a quarter to six and initiated the opening of the stash room with the finely cached triggers in his walk-in closet. He went to the bathroom and closed the door. There was a secret floor to ceiling door panel by the shower stall that was triggered open by the mechanisms in the walk-in closet. He opened the door to a dark room lit only by a single low watt light bulb.
It was time to start packing heat again. Shit had started feeling bizarre and, emboldened by Chulo's recent incarceration, he had been told some rumors on the streets about how The Forum was to fall in a little while. Branson had alerted some of his shooters and so it was back to the days of "better to be caught with it than without it." Harlem was on standby for imminent violence.
Inside the stash room were two bookbags full of money hanging from the wall. There were also various firearms all on the walls, legally and illegally bought or _taken_ over the years to form this present collection. Two handguns would do: the Glock 18 with the fully auto switch on the upper left with the extended (or normal) magazine and the Ruger LCP .380, a very light to carry semiautomatic handgun. Branson loved the Ruger because he had big hands and, to him, it was palm sized, easy to carry and conceal. He loved the Glock 18 because of its fully auto capacity; it was gotten from a long closed dealer who never gave up his license when he closed down. The Glock 18 was heavier than the Ruger but the cutout in the slide of the barrel was for gas to escape and help reduce climbing of the muzzle during shooting. That was a necessity in fully automatic firearms. There were various other handguns, mostly semiautomatic, but he also had some machine guns locked and loaded.
These were only the opening moves to a game wherein you couldn't afford to call someone's bluff. The game of life.
On his way out of the room, he picked up a .25 - that was for Naomi's personal protection. He took another look around the small space before leaving and securing the door. Taking a shower proved cathartic. While drying off he went back in the room where Naomi laid, undisturbed. Branson threw on an Armani jumpsuit and some Retro Jumpman kicks. For the headwear he chose a Bulls fitted, keeping in color coordination with the Armani sweatsuit. He sprayed on a bit of Armani cologne and put the hammers one to each side of his waist.
"You going to see your Kingson?" Naomi asked drowsily.
"Yeah," Branson responded, turning around. "I gotta make him an offer he can't refuse." He walked to her side of the bed. "One I hope he doesn't refuse."
She nodded, as if she understood. Well, and maybe she did, if only topically. He leaned over and stroked her hair, clenching and unclenching it in his fist. She was a bad bitch! The day before she had taken a heap of photos with two new friends of hers, those companions, named Imani and Katrina, when Branson and Get Right had sent them off on a shopping spree. Get Right was the third partner to the trio of The Forum, which had turned out to be a small, quiet and effective conglomerate.
The Forum's radius of influence and control spanned twenty blocks and two avenues: from 125th Street to 145th Street and from 7th Avenue to Saint Nicholas ("St. Nick") Avenue. They supplied the major hustlers with three products: weed, dope and cigarettes. They didn't touch the prostitution and a few other nocturnal operations with crack-cocaine and the "water" (angeldust, also known as "PCP"), but the people controlling those operations in their territory had to pay for such a privilege; and they paid. Four street Captains, also known as "Strongmen," collected daily and nightly earnings of their denoted areas of responsibility: Bucky collected from all the major hustlers and hustling hubs from 125th Street to 135th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Reggie's zone was from 125th Street to 135th Street from 8th Avenue to St. Nick Avenue. From 135th to 145th Streets was Brice's sphere of responsibility between 7th and 8th Avenues. And finally, the fourth Captain, Skar, was tasked with taking the earnings of 135th to 145th Streets between 8th and St. Nick Avenues. The Captains gave all their daily profits to one member of The Forum, usually Get Right, who would come around for the pick-up at approximately 6p.m. and 6a.m. The Captains and three bosses got paid usually on Sundays by Chulo, the financier, by direct deposit into whatever mobile money account number each person provided.
Sure, there was skimming, that was to be expected at all levels, but never had anyone's skimming cut so drastically into their earnings as to be noticeable. That was where Branson's two bookbags of cash came from: years of the minutest off the top taking. Whatever side businesses any of them had going on was fine, even encountered, just as long as it wasn't in Forum territory or with official Forum money.
"I'll be back before noon," Branson told Naomi. "But I'll likely be with Kingson most of the morning." Naomi sat up in alarm when Branson produced the revolver. "This is for your self protection and home defense. You do believe in both, right?" Eyes wide, she nodded. "Good. We got some things to do later." He left her gun on the dresser and took some cash as well the money meant for Kingson and headed out the door.
"I'ma make you something to eat," Naomi called out.
"Fine," he called back. Today he would take the train downtown. It had been a while since he had last taken public transportation and within five minutes he remembered why he had bought a car in the first place. At this early hour it wasn't overly congested but it sure picked up quick fast and in a hurry. School kids, Wall Streeters and middle classers were the majority of the riders. He found an empty seat and quickly sat down. Different perfumes and colognes mingled to create sometimes horrible concoctions; knees being sideswiped, especially by young kids whose hands were inevitably soiled with gooey remnants of breakfast; extremely fat people squeezing into the seat right next to you which was several acres smaller than the acreage of their arses - all these and other nuisances, especially with the overcrowding in New York, made the City *home*!
You may not like home, might not even be too comfortable there, but it fit. Like your favorite pair of jeans that were no longer in style but you just loved the feel of them; or, as Jay-Z said: "like the drunk uncle in your family: you know they lame, you feel ashamed, you still love 'im the same"; or your favorite watering hole where, like the anthem of Cheers sings: "everybody knows your name." In no time, the A train pulled up to West 4th Street. Branson sauntered to Kingson's building in front of which an older person on the other side of a tinted, idling Cadillac SUV was getting in the back of the truck. As he came around the truck, the person closed the passenger side door and a chauffeur drove off.
