Hell To Pay

Tulip sat in the back room of his Flower shop somberly sipping a glass of Hennessey...Kool Kat drank with him...Neither man said anything....The News of Big Al's death was heavy on both men...It had put a sour note on what otherwise was a triumphant day. I had gotten the charges against Tulip dismissed and had gotten him out of jail...which was all I came to do...but now I felt as though I owed him some help in his problems with Little Anthony, who had no doubt ordered the hit...I wasn't worried about "Hell" or Anton St. James or his partner "Angel"...They had no idea that Kool Kat and I were here...but I knew they'd come looking for Tulip and any member of his organization.

He made a lot of calls in the wee hours of the morning...Both of his bars were closed until further notice and all of his people were ordered to get out of dodge for their own sake...Go to ground...But the boss himself..insisted on sitting in this Flower shop.

''I want em to come..." he grumbled as he shined his nickel plate. 44 magnum...."I got somethin for both of those pre-adolescent punks." he said...No sign of a smile on his face. I knew , As did Kool Kat, that we had to get out of that flower shop and get somewhere safe and soon...Hell wasn't finished and he wasn't going to stop with just one kill for the night...Meanwhile, I had been on the phone to Philly most of the night myself...Talking to my wife, Sepia...I missed her terribly and talking to Peeping Tom... He had given me the name and model number of a machine that could literally pull conversations off of cell phones, Blackberrys and Smart Phones...It could pull text messages off of them too. He gave me the name of another device that could record the text messages and the phone conversations and a store in New York City where it could be purchased. New York City was a mere eight miles away...We had to get out of here and away from Newark.

I also called Sean Jackson......He gave me the model of the very type of high powered digital camera that I needed...That could snap good photos from distances. The store where it could be purchased was also in Manhattan. I was putting together a plan to put Little Anthony out of business and in the klink...Which was better than outright killing him..I knew that it would be hard to convince either Tulip, a stone cold gangster and my buddy, Kool Kat, a former stone cold gangster who still followed the codes of the street not to just drive around, find him and kill him!

"Alright gentlemen...we gotta get outta here...I got some stuff to pick up in New York." I said.

"New York?" said Kool Kat..

"Yeah...a little somethin for the war effort....Come on Tulip, you comin with us." I said.

"You buyin guns in New York? I got plenty of guns right here." he said as he got up and shut out the lights..

"Who said anything about guns? Just come on...We sittin ducks in here." I said.

The three of us put on kevlar vests under out shirts and checked our weapons of choice and headed out of the back door of Tulips flower shop and right into....well... Hell! I ducked down and rolled and Tulip slipped back inside, while Kool Kat dove behind some trash cans...Damn if I wasn't right....Anton St. James....a six foot ,two dark skinned young man with a goatee and a close haircut opened up and fired a fusilade of shots our way...I pulled out my .45 and returned his fire.. He looked stunned..He didn't expect to see anybody else with Tulip...He ran and dove for cover behind a car...

For the next five minutes...Hell and I traded gunfire...back and forth from across the street..Each of us moving, each of us trying to get a position on each other....Then I heard footsteps a little way behind me...Another person was in the alley...It was a short, light skinned
man, who looked like a boy...That had to be Angel....I fired three shots at him to keep him at bay.

Tulip came outside with two nickel plated .45's blazing away....The shots from his gun stitched Angel up the middle and dropped him where he stood.... Kool Kat unleashed his shotgun , which ripped the glass windsheild out of their car window..."Hell" was now on the move...Trying to run and trying to shoot at both me and Tulip....I got a bead on him and I fired four shots...Tulip fired a volley of shots and Kool Kat fired that shotgun again! Hell spun around and his body jerked like a break dancer for a minute....Then he stopped...He dropped his gun and stumbled like an old drunk over to the wall....

"Arrrrgggggggghhhhh, I don't believe it....I've been shot...ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.." he wheezed as he slid down into the street....He was unbelievably , still alive!! Tulip walked over to him and looked down at him.....Then to my horror at least...Tulip aimed his .45 at his temple and fired!

"That was for Big Al...you lousy punk" he said...

Kool Kat and I walked over to Angel's body...He was good and dead also....I looked at my watch...
It was 5:00 am in the morning.....the alleyway was a bloody mess.... Tulip holstered his gun.....He looked at Kool Kat and I and said.

''You guys go on to New York without me...I gotta call my guys over here to clean this up and get rid of these bodies." he said. This time I wasn't going to argue.. Strange..We had just had a running wild west gunfight...The neighbors were so used to this stuff that nobody bothered to come out or call the police...a sign of the times! Not a good one.

Kool Kat sat next to me as I drove the rental car to New York......For the first time that morning he smiled...

"What are you smiling about?" I asked as I made my way through midtown traffic.

"That kids name was "Hell" and Tulip, you and I sent him to Hell ...It's kind of funny when you think about it." laughed the big man.

"The things you find funny scare me, you know?" I said as I continued to drive.

(To Be Continued.....)