Exclusive book extract: Cheats and Lies

GABBY EASED HIS Lewisburg-hardened bulk behind the steering wheel of the deep burgundy 1963 Oldsmobile Starfire. I rode shotgun as we drove fifteen blocks to our work car, a black 1956 Chrysler 300 Sedan.

We felt comfortable about the scene after circling the block twice, so we parked a distance away and walked to the Chrysler. A short drive put us in Central Park, heading uptown to Harlem. Gabby turned left at 118th and parked three car lengths into the block, so we could back out for a quick getaway down Fifth Avenue, if necessary.

We entered the corner building and walked to the end of the hallway, down the staircase and into the dark alley. We opened the backdoor and went in. The naked overhead bulb was busted. I looked over the rail and up the stairwell. Pitch-black, all the way to the top.

That shit ain’t right.

I reached for the stiletto on my left inner thigh, popped it open and charged ahead in the darkness, an act of pure instinct. Nothing was going to stop me from picking up my money. Gabby pulled the Italian Beretta from the back of his waistband and with ham hands, screwed on his silencer, gifts to me from Frank Madonna.

The glass crunched under our feet and the stairs creaked on our way to the fifth floor. With one flight to go, that smell stopped me in my tracks. An unwashed dope fiend was waiting to get the jump on us. Only now, I had the advantage.

“Nicky Barnes comin’ up! Whoever the fuck is up there better show or I’ll spark this whole motherfuckin’ hallway!”

A voice croaked from above. “Nick? It’s Boy. Boy Best. I’m sick. Real sick.”

He stepped into the faint beam of Gabby’s flash and shivered violently, his unusual light-brown eyes – that all the girls liked, glowed in the half-light.

“You squattin’ on Reenie?”

“No. Just tryin’ to beg some from her.” That was a lie. Boy didn’t beg for nothin’. He’d just put a gun in your side and take it.

“You strapped?”

Boy held his hands up, “I ain’t strapped.”

“Yeah,” smirked Gabby, “yeah.” He put his silencer to Boy’s chest, let him feel the iron.

“Where Ralphie?” I asked.

“She here,” Boy said.

“She holdin’?”

Boy waved and there was the sound of slight movement as the shadows became Ralphie, Ralphie Red Bone as she was known because of her black Cuban skin and shoulder length, frizzy reddish brown hair. A leather miniskirt clung tight to her bow hips.

“Pass me the piece,” I told Boy, “left hand.”

She stood there like an emaciated warrior as Boy’s hand rose between her legs and up her skirt. He pulled the blue steel .25 automatic from her vaginal vise. The barrel was still moist with her pinkness when my hand encircled it. I almost felt my dick arch. Ralphie used to be a beautiful woman.

Gabby moved them up the next flight and made Boy knock on the door.

“Reenie,” I said, “it’s Gabby and Nicky Barnes.”
“Boy and Ralphie out dere!” she whispered, looking through the peephole of the reinforced door.
“We got ’em. Open up.”

She unlatched the deadbolts and let us in.

Half her apartment was a palace, the other half chaos. A pile of broken and worn-out furniture, partially covered with red sheets, had been shoved aside in a pile to make room for the new leather sofa, dinette set and black and white, stereo television.

Gabby put Boy and Ralphie on the loveseat. Little round balls of perspiration rolled down Boy’s smooth face, like water on a newly waxed car. I could’ve sparked him right there, but I had to help. I knew what it was like to be sick, to have that hard driving need to get that drug in your system.

“Put something in the cooker, Reenie,” I said.

An old friend but my newest pusher, Irene didn’t operate on the street, just sat in her pad and waited for the deal. Got to where she was too afraid to lose business to leave the house. But the baby in her stomach had been dead for weeks, and she still hadn’t gone to the doctor to get it removed.

Lots of times I told her, “Reenie, you go and take care of that. Your spot ain’t goin’ nowhere. You’ll still have it when you come back,” but she just wouldn’t listen.

Irene passed a set of works to Ralphie and a small glassine bag of stuff . Boy watched as Ralphie cooked a hit, drawing up a third of the eyedropper for him.

“Fill it,” Boy told her, but Irene reminded them that this was my shit and it was the best.
“Right Nick?”
“That’s right. You can walk with that bag. Go slow, Boy.”

Boy was silent as Ralphie tied his arm to force blood into his veins, and then she stuck him. The blood pushed its way into the dropper like a small mushroom cloud. She squeezed the bulb, forcing the blood and heroin into his vein.

Gabby and I watched, four eyeballs locked on Boy as he began booting the blood up and down. We both got dry throat – not wanting, but reliving the dope-fiend life. A fucked-up experience.

Boy’s face turned into a sponge and absorbed all that perspiration. He was high and rambling.
“Remember we was in Riker’s together? We used to work-out? Yeah, I always respected you. Even when I beat down Monkey Man for your dope I respected you … Nick, I left a thousand messages for you. I tried to see you, man. I tried to tell you it was just one of those things.”

I put the word out – If I catch you, Boy, I will kill you. If I catch your brother Sugar, or any muthafucka in your family, I’ll kill them, too – and set lots of traps, only Boy proved too slippery for all of them.

This time he wasn’t getting away.

“Tell you what, Boy. I’m gonna give you half a spoon as a gift. If you can handle it, I’ll also give you a $500 package to sell on the street. That ain’t a gift. That’s a loan. By next week, I’ll want $500 in return.”

Boy’s eyes lit up from his stupor. “I’ll have it to you tomorrow.” He got up, gave me a hug and told me how much he loved me. Ralphie sat there, kind of rock-faced, but I could see the appreciation in her eyes as she took Boy’s needle, hit herself and got mellow.

“Boy, I don’t want no, ‘Here’s $450,’ or whatever.”
“Five hundred dollars, Nick. Tomorrow.”

He did just that. So I gave him a little more to sell and a little more to use. He not only became my top pusher, he pulled out of the grave and kicked the habit entirely. But even then, everybody knew that Boy Best, the fiercest stickup man in Harlem, was still hooked – firmly under my thumb.