Good Night Baby...Time To Die.

One thing I did know about Mr. Sonny Byrd was that he loved the ladies....Kool Kat and I rousted several local pimps...including our old friends Rollo Jones  and Marco Gervay...and in no time..we found out who Sonny Byrd was keeping time with...

A sexy young woman named Edna Green....She lived in West Philly...The only thing about rousting folks is that while you're rousting them for information...other folks are rousting them also... We already knew that New York was sending someone down here to Philly to "take care of" Sonny Byrd... It wasn't his fault that his people got arrested or that his warehouse got raided or that his connect in Newark got busted..That was basically due to my investigation...but he didn't know that.....and the people in New York didn't care...as far as they were concerned...He was their point man and he had dropped the ball...

I happened to catch up to Edna Green on afternoon in Victoria's Secret of all places...

I walked up to her and grabbed her arm...

"Ummmm those look nice...Buying those for Sonny ?" I asked..

She jerked her arm loose from me..

'Take yo hands off of me..."she snapped.

"Look...I'm here to help Sonny...There's somebody after him...Somebody that means him harm....If you see him, tell him to either get out of town and do it fast or keep a very low profile..." I said.

''Who are you? A cop?" she sneered..

"No...but I'm trying to save his life." I said.

"Hmmmph." she said.

"And if I were you...I'd distance myself from him for awhile....Bullets don't have names on em." I said.

''Get outta my face." She said.

"Just give him the message." I said.

She instead gave me the finger....I just looked at her and shrugged my shoulders..She was very attractive...I wondered why scumbags like Sonny Byrd always got girls like her....I watched her walk out of the store ,loaded with two shopping bags full of lingerie and to my surprise...Sonny Byrd drove up in a Blue Ford Focus and picked her up...They drove off together before I could do anything.....

That afternoon, I was in Josies having a few drinks with Kool Kat, Owen Todd, Clerow and Lockpick Johnson....

"You mean you had a scope on Sonny Byrd and you missed him?" said Kool Kat...

"Yeah man..he drove right up in a blue Ford Focus and picked baby girl up and they drove off." I said.

"Damn man....a Ford?  That don't seem like the kind of car Sonny Byrd would roll in ." said Owen Todd..

Clerow grinned.....

''That's exactly why he'd be rollin in one....That babe ,Edna Green didn't mind...She hopped right in, with enough panties and bras from Victoria 's Secret to keep ol Sonny inside the rest of the winter." I said.

" Damnnnnn..I know her, she's fine as she wanna be...Sonny is poppin that?" asked Owen Todd.

"When you got juice like Sonny got..you roll with prime beef like that." laughed Clerow...Kool Kat nodded his head in agreement...

"Hey ,Hey good brothers...I couldn't help but over hear you guys...You say Sonny Byrd is keepin time with ole Edna Green eh?  I used to flow with her back when I was usin and slingin." said Cordell Rodgers, the ex marine in Basil Robinson's Young Men's Outreach program.

"Oh yeah?  What are you doin in a bar Cordell, aren't you in recovery?" I asked..

"Uh..yeah...yeah...From Heroin and Coke.....I just grab a cold beer every now and then to let a little load off ,ya know?" he said.

''Hey man ,I aint judging you...I'm just messin with you." I said ..laughing...Kool Kat, Clerow and Owen Todd all laughed...

Cordell's face grew cold and sullen and he walked out of the bar....

Kool Kat nodded to me...

"Bait dropped !"

I nodded...

"Yup...Let's move baby." I said.

II-

About three hours later, Clerow parked the car a block away and he and Owen Todd, Kool Kat and myself walked the block up towards Edna's house.....To our surprise there was a throng of police around and an ambulance and Detectives all over the area....I saw Lt. Sissy Van Buren of Homicide..

"Hey Lieutenant, what's going on?" I asked...

''Caught a double homicide Kev" she said...

"What?" I asked...Had I been too late??? I looked around for a Ford Focus, but there was none....

"We found a woman, identified as Edna Green , shot to death  at close  range and a man, Clark Wooden, also shot in the head with a revolver.....Both were naked...Looks like they were caught doin the nasty by a jealous boyfriend." she surmised...

.

Not what it looked like to me....It was too close and personal to be my suspected killer.My killer used an M-16...This was done with a revolver..and since nobody reported hearing aanything..the killer probably used a silencer...This was the work of a professional killer...A hitman who probably thought he killed Edna and Sonny Byrd....Now my investigation was further complicated. It wouldn't take whoever did this long to find out that they had killed the wrong guy!...Poor Edna...She didn't listen...In the wrong place at definitely the wrong time....Good Night pretty baby!


III-

I ran into Roscoe, Fathead Newton's enforcer and picked his brain for information a day later....

''Yeah Kev...Sonny Byrd was workin for a guy out of New York named Sammy Golden...Big time playa." he told me...

"Oh really...So Golden was the one who put Johnny Porter on?" I asked.

"Nah...that would have been Johnny's Uncle....Junior Porter and his associate, Tenderlion Smith....You aint gotta worry about them...They both dead....One was found bound and gagged and shot in the back of the head and the other was found face down in a pool of blood on a Brooklyn street and guess who did them both?" he asked me...

"This Sammy Golden's man right?" I said.

''Sammy Golden did it himself..He's a real hands on kinda guy...Where everyone else hires muscle..He does the damn thing his self..." said Roscoe...

''So he's here in Philly?" I asked.

"Yeah....I seen him around..." he said..

"He probably knows by now that he hit the wrong guy in that room with Edna.." I said.

"More than likely...but check this out...Sonny Byrd aint exactly been hidin either..He's been at the strip joints,been in Ciros, The Mermaid Club, all of the joints...Lookin for Sammy...He says he'll kill Sammy if he sees him..." Said Roscoe..

"Oh really? Hey Listen Roscoe....Why don't you put the word out in the streets that Sonny wants a sit down?"  I asked...

" A sitdown?" he said looking puzzled...

"Yeah and I'm gonna put the word around that Sammy can find Sonny at that old warehouse where the bust went down..." I said.

"You don't even know what Sammy looks like." he said.

"I don't have to....There's enough thugs in Ciros and the Mermaid club that will know how to get in touch with him...Just do me that solid." I said.

Roscoe just shook his head.....then he laughed... "Man..you crazy.....I'm glad you're my friend and not my enemy." he said, continuing to laugh.


IV-

Nobody likes a longshot better than a gambler and I was really gambling here...I was depending on the word on the street to bring all of these snakes out into the open... Not to mention that I had purposely had a loud conversation with Owen Todd, Clerow, Marco Gervay, Kool Kat and Cordell Rodgers about the entire matter in Mabel Jenkins's Soul Food joint , a day later.....

The old warehouse was now empty and abandoned....surprisingly enough...Sonny Byrd and a young hood arrived first..They had .45's with silencers on them...They clearly didn't come to talk things over....The warehouse was huge...and very empty..Your voice echoed when you talked.....

The man known as Sammy Golden showed up shortly afterwords... He had a .44 magnum, much like Kool Kat's....and one black leather glove..Other than that..He was dressed in black jeans, Black shoes, A Black turtle neck and a White Trenchcoat...He had on Aviator glasses with clear visors....he looked like something out of a movie...

"You shoulda never have killed my woman Sammy." said Sonny Byrd....

"I thought I was killin you...apparently...even your woman don't think much of you..She had another guy up there with her.." he snapped.

"You LIE!" screamed Sonny Byrd...

''Didn't you read the paper...I dropped two." He said ,laughing mockingly...the skirt and a dude and they was both naked as a jaybird..." he laughed..

"Good night baby, it's time to die." said Sonny Byrd, who cocked his pistol....

'Famous Last words eh Sonny?" laughed Sammy Golden....The ironic thing was..it was to be Sammy Golden's last words...

A red dot appeared on the back of Sammy Golden's head.....Before anybody could do anything...there was a flash of light.......and a shot fired...a bullet entered the back of Sammy Golden's head and exited out of his right eye..He dropped to the ground, dead as could be...The young thug with Sonny was startled..He fired at
the bright flash in the distance ,only to  be hit in the chest and dropped ,just like that..He too was dead!!..Sonny Byrd dropped and rolled...breathing heavily..

"What the hell? Who else is in here? Who?  Whoooooo..?"

At this point...Kool Kat and I leaped out of the corner we had been hiding in...We saw a figure moving...

"Cordell, drop it...Drop the gun.." I yelled...

"Cordell Rodgers turned and was aiming for me as I was moving...I dropped rolled and fired three shots..Kool Kat fired two shots from his .44 magnum  and Cordell stumbled, dropped his M-16 and moaned

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....I don't believe it...I've been shot,,,,Awwww lawdddd!" he said as
he fell to the ground...

Sonny Byrd leaped up...

''What the hell kind of set up is this?I'm Out!" and ran for all he was worth...Jumped in his car and pulled off....

"Damn niggas done gone crazy..shootin at everybody...just to be shootin.." he mumbled as he drove off!

Kool Kat and I stood over him....

"You...You knew it was me..all the time...didn't you?" he said through heavy breaths....

"I figured it out....I saw your military record....Sniper..Marksman......Tour of duty in Iraq....It wasn't too difficult." I said...

"Uhhhhhhh...I didn't kill much...just some drug dealing scum...Some...Some people need killin...uhhhhhhh.." he said and then he wheezed one last time and then he died....

''Wow!" said Kool Kat....

"Let's get out of here Kools." I said.

"Sonny got away." said Kool Kat...

"Yeah...Who cares?  He'll get got one day." I said.

We both walked to our cars and drove off into the Philadelphia night.

EPILOUGE:

It took the Police at least a day to find the bodies in that warehouse.... 29 year old Cordell Rodgers was found with his M-16... A ballistics check linked him to the murders of Chico Harris, Pony Boy, Grease , Sammy Golden and Eric Pastors...the young thug who had come with Sonny Byrd....The papers described him as a troubled young man....

Sonny Byrd was picked up by the Philadelphia Police sometime later and charged with Drug distribution and conspiracy...He got up to 15 years for his crimes...

Sepia and I sat in Chinese Bob's late one night and enjoyed some nice hot steamy but delicious chinese food...Bob Lee was nowhere around, but his wife Susie was .  A tall handsome young Asian man walked in and began talking to her...We couldn't hear what was being said at first...but then the air was punctuated with a loud slap!

"Low Mein, I never want to see your ass again." said Susie Lee.

"Baby please...Please let me explain...I had nothing to do with any photos of your husband being sent to you..That man in Chinatown , he told you wrong....He lied.." he said.

"Getttt outt...You lie....My husband is a good man and when he comes in tonight ,guess what? I'm going to make love to him for a very long time..I'm going to leave the window open so your lying ass can hear us.." she screamed...

"Please...Please...just give me a chance..Baby please...I want to love you...I can love you better than Bob Lee.." he said.

Just then Chinese Bob walked into the restaraunt...

"Low Mein you lousy dog...get out!" he screamed..

"Bob Lee!!! How are you doing?   I was just leaving." he said as he ran out....

Susie Lee walked over to our table....Sepia and I were the only customers....

"Kevin...Sepia...I hate to ask you this, but can I give you to go boxes?" she asked...

"Oh sure girl...Kevin ,Look at the time!!" said my wife Sepia as we hurriedly got up, paid our bill, got our to go containers and left the store...

The drama...Sometimes it seems like I can't escape it!



(FOR SLC)