The Tale of the Blood Diamond Read online

  He was a john’s baby, everyone knew it, and he hated her for it. His brothers had come from the loins of their street creed, revered father. They looked just like the man, but not Lorenzo. He was the odd man out. Lorenzo had fair skin and dark, soulful eyes with lashes so long he had been nicknamed ‘Ken-doll’, to punk him out in school. He was deemed ‘pretty’, while his brothers were called ‘hood’, ‘hard’, ‘solid’. He wanted to be called hood and hard and solid, but it never happened, even though he fought better with his hands than both of his brothers combined.

  He had to fight ten times harder just to make a name for himself. His brothers weren’t always there to protect him from rival enemies. He was left vulnerable, in the lurches and had to learn how to keep his next breath a sure thing. It wasn’t always his siblings’ fault though. At times, they were in jail and couldn’t assist and it always seemed that during those intervals, he’d be tested the very most. He loved them more than life itself. They never made him feel bad or brought the shit up about his daddy. It was like a code of ethics…

  Lorenzo stood there a bit longer, looking down at his brother’s grave. His thoughts grew dark and sullen as he slipped down a stinking alley in the recesses of his memory…

  His brothers’ father was the love of his mother’s life. The man was a pimp, one of the biggest and baddest in the history of Baltimore. Gloria had two of the man’s babies and collected quite a colorful rap sheet on his behalf. She was in stark, raving love with the man. He was her first pimp, and she was his first whore, and she was certain they’d always be together. She’d done everything for that man, but then, things got greasy. She had to call a final curtain call — one built on the back of jealousy and rage. After the man brought yet another woman in his stable, one that he showed extreme favor towards, even taking the new tramp’s side during sister-wife disagreements, Gloria had had enough. Mink became disrespectful, cursing her out in front of the other girls. He was known to take those matters behind closed doors, but now, he didn’t give a shit who was standing around. He’d never done that before until this new whore came on the scene.

  According to his mother, the young, naïve Southern tramp was manipulative and a liar, stealing right under the man’s nose, but he had his snout so far up her ass, he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. She brought the man to his knees, turned him to a fraction of his former self. Mama didn’t like sharing ‘Mink’ with no one, but as long as the other whores knew their place, she could deal with them. But this one right here, Cassandra, was a whole different breed. Mama’s pride wounded, she left but it was the wrong damn decision. She didn’t know at the time, but she was a couple months pregnant.

  She tried to double back, retrace her steps and ask for forgiveness, but Mink sent her back out into the cold. She couldn’t strike it out on her own; she was starting to show, so hustling would be hard. The market for pregnant hookers existed, but it was short, slim and reserved for a concealed number of low-key freaks. They’d try to low-ball, too, knowing that the prostitute couldn’t pull the attention she used to once the potential money tossing dick slingers saw that protruding gut. Only a man who had sired that seed would be turned on by such a sight… but this sleazy market of ‘hard-ons for the knocked-up whores’ was a short list of derelicts.

  Lorenzo knew, from the time he was born, just what his Mama thought of him. She was certain he, too, like his brothers, was Mink’s baby so she went to that man again, and this time, he all but slammed the door in her face, along with his two brothers, so little and young, standing there by her side. He told her the little bastard in her belly wasn’t his, that he had been doing a bid at the time of conception; and he recalled that big trap money she’d sent him after she landed the prized john he suspected of being the father, and the shit was just not adding up. That was one thing a good pimp knew how to do if nothing else: count. They were arithmeticians from the moment they popped out their mother’s sorry wombs. Apparently, Gloria was less capable of carrying her two and subtracting her ones. She swore up and down he was mistaken and marched off, eager to prove him wrong. Back on the streets she went, hauling the two boys around, and her belly grew and grew until his birthday arrived. When that baby came out, she cursed him the moment her eyes landed on his.

  The story, told to him years later, was that in a moment of financial weakness, she let this trifling high-yellow bastard of a john, a rich oreo mothafucka that looked damn near Caucasian, have his way with her. He donned straight blonde hair, vibrant green eyes and the only thing that alerted anyone he may have once had an African or two in his family tree, were his full, fleshy lips. He owned medical facilities, of all things, and since his price was right, she chanced it and let that bastard shoot off in her raw, eager to show her ‘Daddy’ the nest egg she’d caught just in time for his ‘coming home’ party. After it was all over, she wasn’t sure that any amount of money would’ve been worth it. The john was a raunchy son of a bitch that wanted her to do freakish acts while he sauntered around in his expensive suits and hats and lived in a big house with his pretty white wife and their three children, their hair all perfectly coifed and their shoes alone worth more than her entire miserable life.

  This man had two lives. He got his black pussy from the street, and kept his white pussy clean and neat. She’d stared down the bastard, into his blazing green eyes, the sight making her sea sick as she rocked back and forth, mulling his request, and conceded. That is one thing she never did, let anyone but her man fuck her with no condom, but he waved a thousand dollars in her face and promised to double it after he was finished. She knew taking that kind of stash home to Mink would make the man love her a little longer and harder, and he’d forget about Cassandra once and for all. She was getting old, he was getting distant, and women were choosing him. What was she to do? This was her ticket back into his heart.

  Years later, Lorenzo made the childhood mistake of asking this woman who his daddy was. Gloria gripped a shiny brown bottle of liquor in one hand and a sorry cigarette in the other as she glared at him through crimson eyes, a smear of a smile on her sloppy, drunk face. She’d drank her good looks away, and the street life had made the disastrous transformation complete.

  “You really wanna know, son?” she slurred, her skinny long legs hanging open while a green housecoat with lint balls covered them in 3-D mini polka dots. “He was some half breed fucker who thought he was better than everybody damn else! He messed up my damn life, made me lose my man! He wasn’t no damn good. Just …like… you…”

  Lorenzo never asked her that question again…

  Over the years, after that incident however, he noticed Gloria seemed to warm up to him, treat him a bit better. She was in rehab and off the streets, though bitterness lingered between them. He hated and loved her at the same time, wished the woman would love him back, but instead, she only started giving him kind regard. No hugs were exchanged or a tender kiss administered, but he’d come home to find freshly laundered clothing on his bed. Sometimes it was brand new, the tags on it to prove it. Other times, his favorite meal was fixed: smothered pork chops with French cut string beans and red skinned mashed potatoes. Or a video game he’d been eyeing was suddenly accessible. He didn’t know it then, but he realized it years later —the woman knew her two eldest son’s bloodlines, the sons she so adored, would eventually get them killed, so she’d better put her bets on the ‘pretty one’, or there’d be no one left. She predicted people’s deaths as though she’d been given a time watch from the Grim Reaper himself. Mink had perished in 1989 from one of his women not taking too kindly to being beat about the head after she crossed him one too many times.

  He’d gotten a hold of a ruthless broad who didn’t have a conscience. Mink played to win, but this new whore he had acquired played to kill, and if she succeeded, there would be no need in making another bet. Game over. He had two bullets in the head when it was all said and done, and even in handcuffs, his killer with bright red lipstick and a twinkle in he
r hate-filled eyes smiled all the way to prison.

  Lorenzo’s mother had been right, unfortunately. Women like her could smell death, they’d been seasoned from the streets so long as to know its long, hideous gait when it arrived on the scene to steal its next victim. Death didn’t give a hot damn who witnessed or protested its coming. Baltimore had changed over the years, for the worse. Suddenly, a serial killer was on the loose, terrorizing the streets across the land, and just as Gloria predicted once again, Death came knocking at the door. This time, it was her child. Her son was snuffed out, her eldest boy, the love child. He’d been conceived during the happiest time in her life, created from passion and undying love, her first taste of ‘Mink.’

  Lorenzo wiped a tear from his eye and sniffed, rolling out the soiled carpet of the traitorous memories of his birthright. His eyes were swollen to the point he could barely see.

  That next victim was you, Preacher…

  He missed his brothers so badly. He still couldn’t believe, even as he stood there, that Preacher was dead, too. Lorenzo had been all set up in New York by then though, a grown man. He’d made a nice name for himself in Brooklyn. He’d even gotten arrested a couple of times, but they never discovered his ‘situation’ back in Baltimore. And besides, that old mug shot looked so much different than he actually did now. He’d grown tall, six two, and his arms and shoulders were tight with lean muscle. The vulnerability in his coal black eyes was long gone. Before, they’d looked like shadowy puddles of hope. Now, they were fountains of molten tar, reflecting street life baptisms and a hatred for himself that ran deeper than Atlantis. Not only had his eldest brother been killed, he’d been decapitated and sliced into bits like a sushi knife demonstration at the local grocery store. His big brother’s entire crew had been taken down in an alley, not far from a strip club Preacher had grown to love and shop for the latest whores. Preacher, his brother, also known as Lewis Carter, never made it to the big time as his potential allotted, and Lorenzo knew why.

  Preacher had a fucked up band of thieves around him, and worked so hard, he was at times too overextended to check out his players thoroughly. He wasn’t enjoying the fruits of his labors, and things were getting sloppy. The notorious ’XXX’ killer that everyone all of the country was hearing about had stolen his brother’s life, and marked him, leaving him almost unrecognizable. It was a slaughter, and from the news reports and corner notes, whoever did the shit didn’t take much time at all, but it looked like it had been planned for years. Clean. Swift. Deadly.

  When he was told the news of his second brother’s passing, he felt his heart stomp out of his chest, land in his gut and set up roots. Preacher was all he had left. Mama had died not long after him, probably from a broken heart. That was her favorite child after all, and she made it no secret. Regardless, she tried to get Lorenzo to move back to Baltimore. She didn’t want to be alone and finally admitted that a few months before she died. His life was in New York, however. He was torn; he wanted to go to her, to finally get the chance to show her he wasn’t a ‘mistake’ after all, but then, lest he admit the heinous thoughts, another part of him wanted the old broad to die alone since that was in fact her greatest fear. She’d made his life a living hell, and she deserved exactly what she got. Nothing.

  “Everyone has gotten quiet, Preacher. The murders have stopped…but I ain’t forgot, man. Believe me, big brother, I haven’t forgotten a damn thing…” The words exited his lips as if a chariot angel had spoken from a trumpet. He was talking to Preacher’s grave, making the hidden, rotting corpse of the man hear what he had to say, and believe him.

  The ‘XXX’ Killer had terrorized New York, just like all the other major cities, so he had to lay low. Lorenzo had been driven into hiding. The money was better than ever, his competition was getting wiped out left and right, but he never got too comfortable; he knew his time could be next. A sigh of relief fell upon the few lone survivors as murders in neighboring states popped up, proving that the maniac had moved on. Instead of taking the opportunity to step out into the light once again, Lorenzo put down his deals for a spell, and concentrated solely on his stable.

  That was much safer. He wouldn’t dare admit it to a soul, but for the first time in his life, he was actually afraid. Even though the threat had left, he had a wicked sixth sense, and it served him quite well over the years. He knew who to trust, who to listen to and who to ignore simply by sizing them up over some good times and even better conversation. His sixth sense had once again saved his life because if he hadn’t had put that vocation down, he would have been slated for slaughter. Just in the nick of time, he realized another dealer in Brooklyn had been sliced up — the ‘XXX’ mothafucka had doubled-back, just as he feared. His hands were clean; no dope had passed them in quite some time. But right before he returned to dealing hard, he got word of his brother’s murder, and immediately got on a plane headed to Baltimore. He’d missed Justin’s burial, was told it was too risky for him to return just yet, but he’d be damned if he’d miss Preacher’s, too.

  What was supposed to be a two week stay had turned into a year and there he was, running Preacher’s accounts, setting shit straight, taking care of the man’s family, organizing his stable of whores who didn’t understand he had no interest in beating them into submission. Instead, he had a silver tongue and planned to use it. Preacher had a rep for being hard on his women, but that was not how Lorenzo handled business. He’d never had to hit one of his whores and he wasn’t going to start with that untrained stable. They were a terrified group. Lorenzo hated to admit it, but he lost a tiny shred of respect for Preacher after seeing the results of that, and it wasn’t because he gave one iota about a woman’s emotions. Many were damaged merchandise, and he had a thing for beauty.

  You can’t sell bruised produce to the customers! What kinda shit was that? Your product had to be in tiptop shape in this madly competitive world. There was only so much Clinique make-up could do for a swollen black eye. Lorenzo liked his women perfect, from the top of their heads down to their freshly pedicured feet. When he sent them out for a date, heads would stop and stare. He knew how a woman was supposed to walk, talk, smell and yell. He understood the art of femininity and the power of pussy. His mother, by example, had taught him well. Gloria knew how to work a man into submission, and Lorenzo saw her work magic, even in her older age, to keep a roof over their heads. Unlike his brother, he was more drawn to the females, while they hustled in the streets with dice and dope.

  He wanted to be just like his brothers, but he couldn’t shake his attraction to the catty eyes of broken women, to the glitter in their words and wounds, to the way they sold dreams of desire between their legs and promised to take a man to heaven and back for a small fee, but a spiritual fortune. He’d became addicted to the street life, and for him, the street was a Queen dressed in gold and diamonds. Regardless of the torrid love affair, the death of Preacher forced everything to come to a screeching halt. Once his feet hit Baltimore soil, he didn’t waste time. He bought a large house for Carter’s stable, decked it out, and got their hair done — for the funeral, of course…

  The ladies of the night paraded around, weeping and moaning in their corals, blacks and blues while Preacher’s widow, with her young, plain self, barely twenty-six, sat huddled with their four children clustered all around her shaking body as she mourned a man that most hated. Too damn bad she didn’t know Preacher had five other children about town or maybe she did, but simply didn’t give a shit. Lorenzo couldn’t tell and didn’t give it another thought. All he cared about was making sure the women, his home, and his cars looked good; and that his sister-in-law, nephews and nieces — the ones he knew of — were comfortable.

  He took care of his kin. Blood was bond. The bills stayed paid, he did his duty, but now, he was trapped. He couldn’t let this stable go now that all but one of Preacher’s women chose him once he set foot in town. Lorenzo had a reputation that spanned county lines. They knew who the fuck he was bef
ore he’d even caught their attention, so they bowed down as if he were a king, and in his heart, he felt he was. Regardless of all of that, he had one main concern, and one only. He had to find out who killed his big brother. He was fighting an uphill battle, too, but that didn’t deter him.

  The police couldn’t stop the bastard. No one could it seemed, but he had a funny feeling, he’d get his day in court with the son of a bitch. That sixth sense, the one his mother told him was an after-affect, the seed of evil from the yellow half-breed father of his, was deeply imbedded in him. From his part, he knew his father didn’t have shit to do with it; he’d gotten it from her. Regardless, this third eye was his best friend. It afforded him the luxury of seeing peoples’ true colors, of knowing when he was going to cash in on something that was rightfully his…and revenge was lawfully his all right. He’d extract it, make it do his bidding. After all, he was part of a legacy, the Gloria Carter legacy, and birthrights were meant to be infamous…

  CHAPTER THREE

  “We now introduce you to Sergeant Jayme Khrome!” someone belted as she opened the main lobby door to the building of the police station.

  The room thundered with applause as Jayme sashayed dramatically, batting her lashes and taking a bow as she laughed and made her way to her paper-cluttered desk. She fought mixed feelings regarding her recent promotion, but she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. She hid her true mood, and she tried to concentrate on the bright side of the whole thing. After all, she wanted to make Lieutenant; this was just a stepping-stone to land her right at that very spot.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Captain Jasper approached her, a big smile on his face.

  “Uh, sitting down at my desk,” she said apprehensively, not certain what code she’d violated. She glanced over her shoulder at the clock. She wasn’t late. Matter of fact, she was eight minutes early. She looked back at him; the only sound was soft murmuring, coffee percolating, and men and a few women dressed in their blues milling about, getting ready to leave the precinct for the possible quiet and tranquility of first shift.