Chapter 19
Reflexes, muscle tone, endurance, and hand and eye coordination was why every boxer
loved the speed bag. Pone was no boxer, but his fighting style was based on that of a boxer,
thanks to Wisdom. Pone wanted badly to make amends with his mentor because he was the
closes thing to a father. Shelia never told him who his parents were and he didn’t bother to
ask since she and Wisdom treated he, Birdie, and Jade better than their maternal parents
ever could. That was why Pone needed to speak to Wisdom. Bringing up Shelia at the
dinner was like a boxer hitting below the belt.
He still couldn’t figure out why Wisdom used a long awaited dinner invite and try to
convince he and Birdie to change their lifestyles. Birdie could make the transition a lot
easier than he could, but then again how would her clientele take it if she didn’t have Nadine for
them to unwind after a hard day of blowing up, shooting, stabbing, and making illegal deals
what not after making people lives miserable. She also maybe in danger because her clientele
may fear she knows too much, but she could still make an easier transition then him. Pone
left the speed bag and put the hits on the heavy bag. Where the speed bag was for speed, the
heavy bag was for power. Pone wasn’t working out because he was angry though now that
he was on the heavy bag, anger did come out thinking about Wisdom suggesting he change
his lifestyle. He was no longer a hit man or assassin for hire. His job now was to try to keep
the peace which was a hell of a lot different than before when J. Paul use to order him to off
somebody who did or did not deserve it.
Pone hit the bag harder and harder, he had beads of sweat running down his forehead and
his work out clothes were drenched and weighed heavy on him. He loved every minute of
working out on the heavy and speed bags. He wasn’t about to ask Red to make him a parking
enforcer. Talk about an unappreciative job; no respect from patrons or at times the city
itself. Besides he had a college degree, but he was no pencil pusher. Pone cringed thinking
about getting up every morning going to a office or worse a cubicle. Either way he’d be
in closed quarters and to him that would be like being in a trash compactor. The
idea of wearing a tie also bothered him. Pone had no problem playing dress up, but a
noose around his neck on a daily bases was something that was not for him. He’d be the
first to admit that his degree was about to be wasted, but he was too entrenched into the
life of being a troubleshooter. The freedom he had was like a leaf in the wind, but with more
control. Red was the tree and once she gave him an assignment, how he handled that assignment
was completely up to him as long as he got the job done. He couldn’t have asked for a better
boss, the woman was putting herself out on the limb for him against her own family.
He couldn’t explain their connection, but he knew some people just had a magical chemistry
with one another. Pone would make sure to do his best to keep things between them professional. His
arms began to ache and tire, knuckles sore, but his mind was more than alert so he decided that both
the speed and heavy bag had had enough pounding for one day. Pone took off his gloves and
grabbed a bottled water from his basement mini fridge and sat on his seldom used weight
bench.
Sweat plopped on the smooth cracked burnt orange concrete floor. Pone thought about
his conversation with Brown and Ella. He knew he was right not to tell Brown that White
and his Prohibition partner blew up the kids. A gambler never puts all his cards on the table,
he thought. Pone would have to keep a poker face when dealing with the lieutenants of both
gangs. The enemy of his enemy was not his friend and that was for both parties. Brown was not his
friend and the reason he spoke more with Brown than Rudenbaugh was because the hits on his life
were from Brown neck of the woods. White was a former Hip-Hopper and he was a fool for convincing
his relatives to try to take him out.
Ella was right about her cousin being a piece of shit especially sending his relatives to a
guaranteed death going up against him. He was glad Brown didn’t tell Ella he took out her
cousin Wanda. Pone didn’t know if Wanda was close with Ella, but they were family just the
same and even though Ella wanted nothing to do with Roland, he could tell she was proud
that he had enlisted in the Army, but disappointed he got out and by the way she looked at Brown
she must have known about their association. Pone then wondered why she seemed comfortable
around Brown. She did all that lord Jesus crossing her heart and clutching her crucifix, but
yet paraded around with well maybe not the devil, but Brown was at least a demon. Maybe they
had some kind of connection between them that had something to do with the restaurant. After all
there’s a reason they call it organized crime and then again she may have been dumb when it
came to her son, but smart enough to keep her mouth shut about Brown. She had to know what
he was about, but the best way to stay alive around a gangster was to have a tight lip even when
she got wind of her son trying to get an entry level job with the Hip-Hoppers.
Pone thought, maybe Ella was the type of mother who struggled all her life and no
matter how much she prayed, and try to do right, she still got the short end of the stick and was
willing to look the other way if her son was to live a successful gangster life, she would take
the blood money just to get a taste of how the other half lived. She was only human and would
have probably accept the gangster life taking away her son’s innocence which it eventually
did being in involved in taking an eight-year-old boy’s life and also put him in an early
grave.
The thought of Ella’s son made Pone focus on Macone’s and G.’s children. They were
definitely innocent, but suffered because of their fathers sins. Pone knew it was his job to
find out who would be cruel enough to snuff out two kids with bright futures. At least he
knew who planted the bomb; Roland White and James Krasko, but who was the man behind
them calling the shots. Pone’s gut feeling took over and the man that came to mind was none
other than ex District Attorney Harvey Crowe. He put a lot of criminals away basically giving
him a card catalog of names to manipulate and he chose White and Krasko, bomb makers. The
hits on his life both came before and after meetings with Crowe and it was the only time
the hits happened.
What puzzled Pone the most was why would he target two kids of powerful fathers and not the
fathers themselves? The other thing Pone was sure of was that Crowe wanted to stop him from
solving the case and he wanted a war between the Prohibitions and Hip-Hoppers and he took
the lives of two innocent kids to get the wheels turning.
