12. Ghosts Leave Breadcrumbs #4
Within ten minutes, he’d managed to knock out the opening, and sure enough, there was a slot as thick as three encyclopedias. Dropping the sledgehammer at his side, he grabbed the flashlight he’d set on top of the freezer and shined it into the space.
“Mothafucka.” Midas grinned, reaching inside and gripping something with thick plastic around it.
Giving it a tug, his heart thudded anxiously when he pulled the Jackson Pollock piece out and uncovered it.
“That’s a pretty muhfucka right there,” Midas said after a whistle.
“Look at you,” Bull’s voice echoed in the darkness before the lights flickered on.
Midas turned. Bull at the entrance. Jewel leaning against the counter. Eazy with his back against the front door, arms folded across his chest. All dressed in black.
“You ended up exactly where I told yo’ ass to be.” Bull grinned, and Midas’s thoughts drifted back to the cookout.
“You set me up.”
“Nah, I was at a cookout. Chillin’.” Bull shrugged, hands in the pockets of his black jeans.
“You put that info out there for me to hear.”
“And you could’ve stayed home with your wife,” Bull reminded him. “But you couldn’t help yourself, right?”
Midas laughed. A good hearty one that made his shoulders jump.
Pinching the tip of his nose, he nodded.
He prided himself on staying ten steps ahead of the next motherfucker, so clearly karma was showing him the same could be done for him.
He’d crossed the line the first time trying to get his hands on these pieces, and now he was going to suffer the consequences for those actions.
“Y’all got me.” He threw his arms up, his playful grin shifting into something more sinister. “What you gon’ do about it, though? Go back on your word to Taci? What about Essence?”
“Better off without you. Like the rest of the world.” Eazy shrugged callously.
“She’ll never forgive you.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Eazy replied.
Midas’s arms lowered, and he attempted to be swift when he moved his hand behind his back.
Too late. Pop! Pop! Pop! Bull sent three to his chest before he could even get a grip on his gun.
Midas crashed into the wall, grunting in pain as he looked down at his clothes and saw the blood soaking through them from his wounds.
He hit the ground, head still propped up, eyes wide open as he took his last breath.
“Stupid ass nigga.” Eazy pushed himself off the door.
He walked right over to the slot in the wall and removed the other contents inside. Every painting was accounted for now. Eazy examined them with a trained eye. They were definitely the real deal.
“What made you think about this place?” Jewel asked.
“Fucking Bronx. I retraced a few of his steps. Found out he was fucking Ruby’s daughter.
She’d given him keys to this place. He fed her some bullshit about having a buyer for the building.
I didn’t think nothing of it at first until I was looking through old photos.
Something just clicked. It’s the only thing that made sense.
The only place other than his spot with Fancy, the hideout with Toni, and his regular spot that he frequented.
Especially in that last week he was alive,” Bull voiced.
“Smart ass nigga. Just like Bronx.” Jewel tittered, shaking his head.
“Go pull the truck around so we can load this shit up and get the fuck out of here.” Eazy felt around on the back of each painting, unsure if what he was looking for was there.
Jewel stepped out through the back to grab the truck from the end of the alley. Midas hadn’t even noticed it parked there in the shadows; he was so anxious to get inside.
“Is it there?” Bull questioned, waiting for Eazy to react.
A slight frown crowded his face before his eyes lit up, and he grinned.
He tore at the back gently, not wanting to disturb the painting too much.
His fingers brushed across something, and he pulled out a black, leather-bound book.
At the top in gold letters, it was personalized.
B. Andrews. Eazy handed it to Bull, who pulled it open and flipped through it. Shit was like a winning lottery ticket.
“Let’s move.” Bull tucked the ledger in his hoodie and helped Eazy with the paintings to the back door. “Acid is coming to grab him.” Bull nodded to a lifeless Midas.
Once they got everything loaded into the truck, Eazy, Bull, and Jewel loaded up.
The plan was to hold onto them until they sat down with Sudan.
Either way, they were all sure to get paid, providing a stable life for the ones they loved and creating generational wealth.
Eazy settled in the passenger seat beside Bull, and Jewel leaned forward near the middle console with a freshly lit blunt dangling off his lips.
“I think we all need a fucking vacation after this. I’m talking about the whole family too. Somewhere dope. Tropical”
“Shit,” Eazy grumbled, staring down at his phone screen.
“What happened?” Jewel nosily leaned forward to view the screen of his phone with him.
Staci, Oracle’s baby mama, was being interviewed on their local news channel. Lip busted, eye swollen, the paramedics wheeled her into the ambulance as the camera zoomed in on her. The headline indicated that there was some kind of shooting.
“Ms. Jones, can you tell us what exactly happened tonight?”
“That crazy (BLEEP)!” Her slurs were sensored as she ranted into the camera. “She killed him!” Staci screamed. “She killed my baby daddy!”
“What the fuck?” Bull mumbled.
The next shot showed them walking Niva out in handcuffs from Oracle’s house with her head down. Eazy’s stomach turned. Watching them force her into the back of a police car, he swallowed the lump in his throat. Niva looked dead into the camera with empty eyes.
“Yo, that’s fucking crazy.” Jewel bit his fist and leaned back.
Bull’s eyes darted to Eazy. He could see him struggling with it.
“Ain’t nothing you can do about that, bro.”
“I know.” Eazy shook his head anyway, rocked by the turn of events.
Summit told him a long time ago ‘you can’t save everybody.
’ For the longest he thought finding out what happened that night and making the person pay would bring some kind of peace.
What he found instead debunked everything he thought he knew.
Now that it was all over, the only future he was concerned about was what he shared with Lotus and soon, their son.