1. Pearce #3
I stood six feet even just like my father.
We had the same peanut butter colored skin, and the same thick beard.
We even had the same bowlegged stance. On any given day people thought we were twins versus father and son.
One thing I absolutely respected Kalim for was that he never wanted me in the drug game.
His drug empire wasn’t passed down to me and while being a contract killer wasn’t a noble occupation, I was able to make my own money and live well and I only took six or so jobs a year.
I also had a commercial and residential cleaning business that my mother and aunts ran.
If it was up to me, my mother would be retired and damn sure not cleaning anyone’s houses, but she wanted to work, and she liked her job.
My mother was a person that loved to clean and organize.
Our home was always spotless when I was growing up.
Shit, she was the reason I was a neat freak that cleaned better than some women.
I’d had the company for five years, and there were clients that had been with me since the beginning.
My mother had so many regular customers that only wanted her to clean their homes and aside from them tipping her, she often got bonuses around the holidays.
One judge gifted her $10,000 last Christmas because when his wife was battling serious health issues my mother went like clockwork twice a week and kept their home in excellent condition.
She did things she didn’t normally do like laundry and cooking and didn’t charge extra.
For four months, she went above and beyond for that family.
My parents were never together. I was the result of a rebellious teen with an attraction to the neighborhood knucklehead.
My pops didn’t have money like that during my parents’ brief four-month fling.
The moment he was sentenced to a year in prison, and she couldn’t come up with the money for an abortion, her rebellious stage ended, and she did what she had to do.
When my father got out of prison, she didn’t keep him from me.
They were strictly co-parenting. The deeper he got in the streets, she became uncomfortable with the kind of money that he was giving her, but she wasn’t in the position to turn it down.
He hated the neighborhood that she lived in, but she lived where she could afford because she refused to rely on the money, he gave her.
When I was four, there was a shootout across the street from our house that claimed four lives.
Kalim bought my mother a house in the suburbs, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
They tolerated one another well, but the romantic relationship was never rekindled.
Because of the life he lived, my mother was skeptical about me visiting him at home, but he assured her that he lived in a gated community and that I’d be fine.
When I stayed with him, he spent time with me, but he also juggled making money and various women.
As I got older, that was how I was able to spend so much time in Terror Terrace.
Kalim had too much going on to keep up with my every move.
My mother was a gorgeous woman that prioritized working and raising me over anything else.
Truth was, she could have easily used the money that my father provided and not worked but that wasn’t how she was.
As a kid, I never noticed my mom have any kind of social life, sneaky links, or any of that.
Once I was older and able to run the streets, she joined a book club, started traveling, even began dating.
Of course, my mother thought I was spending my father’s money and living off the cleaning business.
If she ever caught wind of how I made the bulk of my money, she’d have a heart attack for sure.
At home, I showered and poured a double shot of some expensive ass cognac I’d paid way too much for, but it was smooth, and it got me where I needed to be off less than four shots.
After powering on the cell phone Pauly had given to me, I scrolled through the only text message that was in the phone.
I assumed that he had used another burner phone to text me all the info I’d need to find his son and kill him.
He wanted me to make it clean, so I was going to make sure his son went out doing something that he loved.
The plan was simple. Get some pure, uncut, heroin that wasn’t stepped on, and hang out in one of the spots that Pauly frequented.
It might take a couple of interactions because I wasn’t just going to walk up to his ass and announce that I had heroin for sell.
If I seemed too thirsty, it would look suspicious.
Good dope sold itself. I needed Pauly to come looking for me.
If he heard I had some good shit and sought me out, when he overdosed, no one would think twice.
I would let him cop from me once or twice, then I’d sell him a hot shot.
Or rather heroin mixed with something else.
Something else that would more than likely kill him.
Draining the alcohol from my glass, I sat back and processed the fact that I actually made a living from taking lives. At the end of the day, I wasn’t too much different or better than my father or Pauly.