Dead By Popular Demand (Devil Barnett Detective Book 2) Read online

  She only looked up and took any notice at all because of the noise. She saw the young man wave and then quickly run into the building, before turning her mind back to food, rheumatism and rain.

  Shogun took the elevator to the fifth floor. He glanced at his gold Rolex. He was twenty minutes late. He readied his mind for a dirty look from Man O War.

  He loved War like a brother. They had been mates since they were barely old enough to walk and were as close as blood and bone.

  The door buzzer was answered by a smiley-faced man who he knew.

  “Hey wha’ppen,” Shogun greeted as he crossed the threshold into the nicely decorated and furnished apartment. “Where’s War?”

  “Not here yet,” the man said.

  “That’s good,” Shogun said and relaxed.

  “Want to see it?” the man gleamed at the briefcase in his hand.

  “You got it?”

  “Right here.”

  “Ain’t we going to wait for War?”

  “Of course. I bet you’ve never seen that much cash before, huh?”

  “Yeah, OK,” Shogun said expectantly.

  The smiley-faced man led Shogun into the next room where he opened the briefcase in the light of an open window. Inside was filled to the brim with green bills in neat bundles.

  The smiley-faced man grinned. “It’s exciting just to see it and it’s nice just to touch it, go ahead,” he coaxed.

  Shogun smiled. He picked up one of the bundles.

  The smiley-faced man was right. It did feel nice to touch all that cash. Nicer than Shogun had expected. It sent a tingly feeling through his body. Shogun leaned forward to pick up another bundle when suddenly everything went black.

  The blow from the axe severed Shogun’s head cleanly from his body. The severed head fell off his shoulders and rolled out of the open window.

  Sister Sally was still looking up into the sky for rain when she saw something fall out of the window above. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew Harlem well enough to know people were liable to throw anything out of a window - shoes, garbage, TVs… But when it dropped right into the middle of her pot of black eyed peas, Sister Sally couldn’t believe her own eyes.

  A human head with eyes bucked out and looking straight at her, as big as life itself.

  Sister Sally couldn’t even find voice enough to scream, she just fainted on the spot.

  CHAPTER2

  Cowboy stood at the end of the bar and looked out on the street. He was dressed in his usual outfit - a grease-spotted green plastic rain poncho, combat boots, battle fatigue pants and a Stetson cowboy hat wrapped in a covering of brown plastic tape. The expression on his deeply-lined face was one of permanent irritation. He clenched a thick dung-coloured cigar between his uneven and broken yellow teeth, fidgeted with a black leather pouch strapped around his waist and mumbled something unintelligible to himself. As he polished the glasses Duke Rodgers, the bartender, had his small portable TV tuned to a news story about a crooked politician who had been caught taking bribes in the form of prostitutes from organised crime figures. Cowboy glanced at the TV, frowned then quickly downed half of his drink with the usual one gulp decorum.

  “Damn shame,” he said out loud.

  Duke looked up and waited for the follow-up. With Cowboy one could never be sure. His normal commentary ranged somewhere between outright lunacy to highly intelligent. Depending on how the spirit hit him.

  “They act like them politicians ain’t got no dick. Hmph, they got dicks same as you and me, don’t they? Sho do. Damn sho do,” Cowboy stated unequivocally.

  ’Nuff said. It was hard to disagree with that one. Duke glanced in his direction and smiled but opted to say nothing.

  “Ain’t I right?” Cowboy asked again, this time in my direction.

  I was cleaning the beer taps.

  “Yep,” I said, looking up into his dirt-stained features.

  As quickly as he had sprung to life, Cowboy receded back into the solitude of his personal hell as I served two customers who had just entered.

  In most other parts of the world Cowboy most probably would have been considered a certified nut case worthy of free room and board in a mental institution. But this was New York City where nut cases not only walked the streets freely, but were elected to high office, hosted programs on TV and ran the biggest and best institutions. Besides, this was Harlem, where too long and too often people had been cheated and shortchanged. So to even things up, maybe somebody somewhere along the line decided to give Harlem more than its fair share of nut cases and make it a model community for nut case equal opportunity. Cowboy was just a very small potato in a very large pot. He looked down at the baby stroller he always pushed around and smiled indulgently. Strapped into the baby seat was a dirty teddy bear with one eye missing. This was his son Gerald. If you didn’t respect that, you could be sure to expect trouble from Cowboy. Gerald was his pride and joy, the heir to his personal madness. According to Cowboy, Gerald liked peanuts. So on some days Cowboy bought his kid a bag. Neither Duke, myself or Christine ever questioned him, we simply sold him the bag of peanuts.

  For as long as I had owned the Be-Bop Tavern, Cowboy would come in twice a day like clockwork and order his usual - a double double Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale in a tumbler, no ice. He never ran a tab, always paid in cash and was always accompanied by Gerald. One day some smart ass had had a few too many and got up the nerve to ask Cowboy what he was doing about Gerald’s education. Cowboy told him that he had Gerald in a special school which trained him how to cut the balls off people who fucked with his father. After that story went around the bar, nobody seemed too interested in Cowboy’s relationship with Gerald. Cowboy generally minded his own business except for his occasional lunatic comment on life every now and then. Somehow Cowboy just melted into the fabric that had become the Be-Bop Tavern. Nobody seemed to mind. Least of all me, he was a good customer.

  It was mid-January and things had gotten back to normal after the Christmas holidays. Christine had become the manager of the bar and was doing a great job. Duke was holding down the daytime shift from 8:00am until 5:00pm, Benny Sweetmeat worked part-time making sandwiches during lunchtime, and Christine had hired two new people, Lonnie and Sarah, to work in the evening on her shift. Business was good.

  Po Boy and Goose Jones, two old-timers sat at their usual booth sipping coffee and reading the Amsterdam News. They were having a conversation with Benny Sweetmeat who was cutting bread behind the counter.

  “Mohammed Ali in his day was a revolutionary man, he stood up to the whole doggone US government and won,” explained Goose pointing to a story in the Amsterdam News about the ex-heavyweight champ.

  “Yeah, that’s right. They tried to take everything he had. They even took away his title and his right to make a living, but the more they tried to take, the more the people loved him and the bigger he got,” Po Boy chimed in.

  “That just goes to show, ain’t nothin in this old world set in stone. Things change all the time in ways people can’t never predict,” Sweetmeat said.

  “He was a real man. They don’t come along like that no more,” said Goose.

  “Like my Daddy used to say,” inserted Benny Sweetmeat. “If you gon be a man, be a man in full. Let your balls hang down like a Jersey bull.”

  “Quit tellin the truth, brotha,” said Po Boy holding up his glass and toasting Benny Sweetmeat’s words of wisdom.

  “Hey Devil,” Goose called over to me. “I bet you don’t remember the Rumble in the Jungle, do you?”

  “Yeah I remember, Ali verses Foreman in Zaire. That’s when he did the rope a dope. That was also Don King’s first big international promotion.”

  Goose smiled. “I’m impressed, you know your stuff, huh?”

  “Damn skippy,” I smiled back.

  Cowboy paid up, adjusted his hat, made sure Gerald was comfortable inside his baby buggy and left.

  Betty Logan, one of the regulars, made her way to the bar a
nd stood where Cowboy had vacated.

  “That man need to be in the crazy house,” Betty said. “Give me another beer please.”

  I started filling another glass for her from the Budweiser tap.

  “I’m gonna shock you Betty,” Benny Sweetmeat said.

  “What?”

  “That man got a college degree and he used to own and manage lots of property right here in Harlem.”

  “What kind of college, the college for crazy folks?” Betty wanted to know.

  “Nope, he’s an accountant. If you don’t believe me ask Duke.”

  Betty glanced over at Duke and scowled at the thought that he was part of the joke obviously being played on her.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Duke confirmed her questioning glance.

  “What happened to him?” asked Betty, taking a swig from the freshly drawn glass of beer.

  “Woman trouble,” Po Boy said matter-of-factly.

  “Woman trouble?” echoed Betty innocently as if it was the first time she had heard the phrase.

  “Caught his woman cheating on him and it drove him off his nut.”

  “He was pretty well to do, too, from what I can understand,” Benny Sweetmeat added.

  “That’s what happens when men start to thinking with that little head instead of that big head,” Goose commented and adjusted his trademark which was an old style pork pie hat.

  “Hmph, well I’ll be damned,” was all that Betty could seem to say at the thought of such a thing. Without further comment she went back to her table and continued reading Ebony magazine while drinking her third beer of the day.

  Winston, a crackhead and beggar who was selling stolen dresses walked into the bar looking around. Duke spotted him before he had gotten halfway into the room.

  “Not in here, you know better,” was all the Duke said.

  The crackhead saw Duke meant business and turned around.

  Just then Shelby Green walked in. Winston stopped Shelby.

  “A little something for a brotha,” the crackhead said, holding out a dirty palm in Shelby’s direction.

  Shelby shook his head. “Fight poverty, get a fucking job.”

  The crackhead left and Shelby came over to where I was wiping down the bar.

  “Hey Tuffy, what’s up?” he greeted.

  I had known Shelby Green all my life, and all my life he had called me Tuffy. Shelby Green had been a long-time friend of my family’s since before I was born. He and my father had been the best of friends for over forty years. Shelby was in his sixties but appeared younger because of his high energy level and youngish features under a close-cropped bush of salt and pepper hair.

  “Can we talk?” he asked me.

  “Want to go into the back or sit at one of the booths?” I asked.

  “Let’s go in the back.”

  I took two coffees and we went into the back room that I had made into my office, complete with computer, filing cabinets, desk, telephone, my coveted CD jazz collection, CD player system and a sofa.

  Shelby sat on the sofa while I took a seat behind my desk. He unfolded the morning paper.

  TWO DANCEHALL DOGZ FOUND DEAD IN HARLEM.

  The newspaper article told of the decapitation of one rapper named SHOGUN a.k.a Alan Leeds and the drug overdose of another, one MAN O WAR a.k.a Lee Mainwaring.

  “One of those boys is nephew to a friend of mine.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” I said.

  “The cops notified him of the death, but when he started asking specific questions, they just turned off. You know, just another couple niggers dead in Harlem,” Shelby said. “I don’t know if you can do any fucking thing but, if you don’t mind, as a favour to me I’d like for you to meet with him. You’re smart, so I figured you might be able to at give him your professional take on the thing,” Shelby stated. “You know yourself, it’s a bad thing to be bullshitted when your people get killed.”

  How well I knew.

  “I ain’t trying to pin no fucking roses on you, Tuffy, but you’re better than any of these cock-sucking Harlem detectives, hands down,” Shelby said.

  “These rappers must have been pretty big to make the front pages,” I said showing my ignorance.

  “Big! Big ain’t the word. The biggest on the scene right now, and making more money than God. Put it like this, these boys make more fucking money in one weekend than the average person makes all year long. All they got is one album out, but that one album has been selling like muthafucking hot cakes,” Shelby explained.

  We finished our coffee and set a time to meet up with his friend later in the day. Then Shelby left.

  I felt chilly. For the past days it seemed that I had had to wear an extra layer of clothes just to stay warm. I didn’t like to think about it, but I knew that the unpredictable weather could affect my sickle cell anaemia. Could send me into a crisis, too, if I’m not careful.But what could I do?Sickle cell isn’t the kind of disease you can do much about. My fate was in the hand of the gods.

  I wasn’t as yet experiencing any of the signs usually associated with an attack. None of the normal background pain and no fatigue. I figured that maybe what I needed was some TLC. I smiled to myself as I thought about a place where I knew I could arrange some, no problem.

  I got into my car and drove east to Spanish Harlem. At the corner of 135th and 3rd Ave sat the Cruz empire. A supermarket, funeral parlour, beauty salon, restaurant and twenty-four hour bodega all located in one block. The Cruz family had emigrated from the Dominican Republic fifteen years earlier, and through hard work had built a number of successful businesses in the neighbourhood. Rudolpho was the patriarch of the family. At seventy-five, he was still strong and capable of running the day to day operations. His second in command was his eldest son Paco, who had become a friend of mine as a result of my dating his sister Sonia. Paco was about three years older than me. He was short and built as solidly as a bull, always dressed sharply in immaculately made to measure Italian suits and shoes. Paco was the financial brains behind the operation. He had received his MBA from City College and had used the knowledge to grow one business into the other. We took to each other right away because we both shared a love for jazz as well as an interest in martial arts. Paco had just received his black belt and he was good for an amateur.

  As for me, martial arts had been more than just an interest, it had been part of my training as well as part of my survival kit during those years in the Agency.

  “My man Devil, what’s up,” Paco said, smiling up from a plate filled with yellow rice and sausages. I sat down across from him at the table as he ate. Paco motioned for the waitress to come over and I ordered a cup of coffee.

  “Sure you don’t want nothin else, you know, it’s on the house, you almost family, you know,” he winked.

  I smiled back. It was no secret that Sonia was pushing to change our steady dating into something more permanent.

  Paco and I talked about the latest CDs. He mentioned a new musician on the scene named Siraj Al Hasan.

  “I swear, this boy is awesome. He plays all of the saxophones as well as the flute, plus he plays the hell out of some latin percussion, and he writes and produces his own music. I saw him live the other week at the Knitting Factory. He’s the best I’ve seen and heard in a long long time. Real talent, not like some of these bullshit guys who have to do it all in the studio. Guess what else? He lives right here in Harlem.”

  “He has his own band?” I asked.

  “Yeah, this guy named Paul Chaplin is on keyboards and he’s awesome too. Nice gospel and jazz feel. Good fucking band. I went right out and bought the CD. If I had known the night was going to be slammin like that I would have called you up, but I just went on the spur of the moment, you know.”

  I nodded.

  “Speaking of music, ever heard of the Dancehall Dogz?”

  “Who hasn’t, that’s all the kids around here are talking about, one of them got his head chopped off and another one died from an
O.D. It’s like they were royalty or something.”

  “Why, you know them?” inquired Maria, Paco’s seventeen year old daughter who worked the cash register within earshot of our conversation.

  “No, just a friend who knows one of the dead boys,” I told her.

  Paco finished his meal and washed it down with coffee.

  “I haven’t heard the kids around here so upset since Tupac and the other one, the fat one, Big Daddy croaked,” Paco said.

  “Excuse me Poppy,” Maria chimed in authoritatively, “get the name right please, Biggie Smalls, OK?”

  “Big Ass, Fat Ass, Small Ass, it’s all the same to me,” Paco smirked enjoying his own joke.

  Maria just twisted her mouth in disgust and gave her father a look that exiled him from the human race. A look that sent him to that place that all teenagers at one time or other will invariably banish their parents to. To that great vast wasteland of un-hipness and know-nothingness where only squares exist and nobody knows their ass from their elbow.

  Paco gave her a patronising look and we started talking about going to the amateur karate competitions which were being held upstate in a couple months.

  “You know it’s a conspiracy, right?” Maria said.

  “What?” Paco said.

  “They just killing them off because the lyrics they dropping is telling the truth, and certain people don’t want the truth to come out so they killing them all. First it was Tupac and Biggie, now they killed Shogun and War cause they lyrics was just too strong,” Maria insisted with adolescent indignation.

  “Both those rappers you talking about was murdered by members of their own gangsta rap community. So tell me who is this so big that they running some kind of conspiracy against them? You must think these raggedy-assed rappers are as big as Communist China,” Paco quipped.