The smile disappeared off Lil Cee’s face and then Bill frowned. “Nah, Rome.” He shook his head.
I finally looked at him as my eyes met his. “I wasn’t asking Bill.”
It got real quiet for a few seconds because nobody was trying to rush to speak and nobody got defensive either. Instead, Bill took one step closer to the truck and looked down into the backpack himself before rubbing the back of his neck.
“It ain’t what you thinking.” He told me.
I raised a brow. “Shit, I hope not. You ain’t never been short so what’s up?”
He nodded toward Lil Cee. “The short money ain’t on him. We had to pull fifteen off the top yesterday.”
“For what?” I frowned trying not to get irritated.
“Cuzzo got picked up.” He informed like I knew who the fuck cuzzo was.
I closed the backpack. “Who?” I asked.
“Paper.”
My expression didn’t change but I was wondering why the fuck nobody informed me. “What he get picked up for?”
He looked around and then adjusted his gun on his hip. “It was a traffic stop, but they found his pole.”
I leaned against the truck and folded my arms across my chest. “And?”
He shrugged. “They still got him.”
I frowned once again. “For a gun?” Florida was an open carry state, and Paper been got his rights back to carry.
Bill nodded. “Yeah man, you know he got all those priors too plus he had an out-of-town hold for some shit in Brevard.”
I took a deep breath and slightly cocked my head to the side. “Ain’t nobody calling me over no damn gun charge.”
“He on probation too.”
I looked over at Lil Cee, who hadn’t said shit since we started talking about it. He kept looking everywhere except at me, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like this wasn’t his lane. Lil Cee wasn’t no scary ass lil dude though, he just knew better than to challenge me.
“You knew that?” I asked him.
He nodded his head. “Yeah.”
“And you waited until now to say something?”
Lil Cee shrugged. “I thought Bill told you.”
I looked back at Bill. “Dre knew?”
Dru stared me dead in my eyes and frowned. “I found out this morning.”
I was quiet for a second. Not because I was mad. Because I was thinking. Every decision cost money. Every mistake cost more. Paper sitting in jail on a probation violation wasn’t just Paper’s problem. It was everybody’s problem if people started talking when they got scared. I tapped my fingers against the backpack before looking back up at all three of them.
“Aight,” I finally replied. “We’ll deal with Paper.”
I zipped the backpack closed before sliding it back across the hood. Bill caught it with one hand, but I never took my eyes off him. Being in the streets since fifteen years old taught me one thing and that was the money talked long before people did. You could tell when a count was right by the way a man stood and Bill usually stood tall but today his shoulders had dropped enough for me to notice.
“What else?” I asked ready to get the fuck on and check on the rest of my lieutenants.
Dre looked relived as he shifted his weight and adjusted the fitted Miami Heat hat on his head before answering. “Everything else straight through and the south side been moving. We had one lil’ issue on 36th, but it got handled.”
