Authors: Nikki Turner
Taj knew that Luck was going home soon and needed a real connect. Taj thought about his faithful sister sacrificing her college dream for him and felt terrible. So, the day before Lucky went home and after a series of loyalty tests during the 60 days locked up, he decided to put Luck on. What did he have to lose? If Luck didn't play fair, Taj would eventually see him again in the penal system. Luck's life was a revolving door concerning jail. So, Taj would get his revenge one way or the other.
Taj gave him the two vicious plans. First, Taj needed to get back at his old drug connect, who discontinued all ties with Taj when he got busted and didn't send him one penny, after all the money that he had spent with them, and was caught with their product. Day one, when Luck hit the street, he was suppose to rob the African connect blind and when it was successfully done, then Taj would turn Lucky onto some Dominican guys he knew of and that he was planning to do business with right before he got bagged.
The night before Lucky went home, Taj stayed up all night talking to Lucky. Finally, he told Lucky. "Look man, before we get into this, you gotta give me your word that on your life, you gonna do what we've been talking about over the past few weeks."
After Lucky looked into Taj's eyes, he gave him his word. Taj walked over to his bunk and returned with his photo album. "Look man, this is the dude right here." He pointed to the extremely dark skinned man in the photo and handed him the photo.
"They call him Radda. We took this photo about two years back when we were in Vegas at a fight." Lucky listened attentively as Taj gave him all the necessary information. "Look man, dude probably done gained some weight since this flick was taken. I don't know 20
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where he lives now, but I do know he likes a lot of young girls, owns a club on Jeff Davis Highway and is real flamboyant. So, when you see him, he'll stand out.
Lucky knew better than to cross Taj. Taj may have not have had any weight on the streets anymore, but he had it in prison. See, it's funny, but the same kind of people that Taj surrounded himself with on the streets, are the same type of people who mostly ended up in the prison system. So, guys in prison knew the power Taj had on the streets, so when he went to jail, he built an empire within the prison system as if he was on the streets. After all, prison is a world within itself. Lifelong relationships are built, friends, enemies and bonds are made behind bars, while principles and rules are applied and broken. Taj was a real gangsta on the streets and only carried it gangsta while in prison. He only dealt with other real guys, he was always put at risk because there was always a sucker or weak dude trying to get "brownie points" by trying Taj. So, there was never a moment that Taj let the least little thing slip when anybody tried him. It was automatic for him to straighten anybody out by any means, with his knuckles or his shank. If it had to be done, it was done.
This gained Taj much respect in the prison system.
As far as most were concerned, he was one of the key players in the Richmond team/gang prison system. It was quite peculiar that there were known beefs throughout 233, 644, 321, and 359 neighborhoods across Richmond.
However, once the fellas from Richmond were behind the prison walls, many beefs no longer existed. Instead, they all came together and the wars went on from the Richmond dudes with the Tidewater dudes (anybody from the Norfolk, Virginia Beach or Hampton area), or the DC dudes.
Since the relationships built behind bars are taken seriously, it was nothing for Taj to have something done to Lucky if he ever set foot into the penitentiary. It didn't matter what institution Lucky was in, because Taj had family (his prison family) all throughout the system. And if Taj needed to have something done to Lucky, all he had to do was write a letter to one of his boys he knew at the same prison and it was taken care of. This was something that Lucky was well aware of and he wasn't trying to deal with that from Taj. So, the dirty dude that Lucky was, he 21
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decided to play fair and map out his master plan to pull the heist off.
Right before Lucky walked out of the door of the Richmond City Jail, Taj gave him a manly hug, and as he did, he whispered one phrase as he pat him on the back.
"Make sure your word is your bond."
When Lucky hit the streets, his first priority wasn't sex or shopping for new clothes after being away for 60
days. It wasn't getting at any of his workers or going to see his old supplier. There was no need to, he knew that after he pulled off this move, everything else would come, the women, workers, the shopping, and yes, even his old supplier would become a buyer from him.
Lucky's first order of business was buying a hooptie, a 1978 Caprice classic with a factory radio, no tape deck, CD player, rims or a paint job. Just a good running quiet motor, and the most important feature, was the old round self adhesive .99 cents digital clock that appeared on the dash board of the car. He sat in his hooptie every night outside of the club, with his picture in his hand, studying the actions of Radda and even followed him a few times.
Taj was right and didn't exaggerate about it either, Radda was the jackpot with his extremely flamboyant lifestyle, and without a doubt, he loved the young girls. There was only one problem, Radda kept three or four guys with him at all times.
After three weeks of surveillance, and especially after he followed Radda to his house, Lucky felt it was time to pay Taj a visit. When Lucky went to visit Taj at the city jail, Taj was already visiting with Tressa. When Lucky walked up, he spoke to Tressa. Tressa glanced at Lucky who was looking like Wild Man Jack, with a full-untamed beard growing on his face. It was evident that Lucky hadn't had a haircut or shave since he left the jail. It was a pity, he had smooth chocolate skin covered up with hair all across his face. The only thing that was kosher was the snow white on blue Nikes he wore on his feet. Tressa couldn't help but notice the gold teeth in Lucky's mouth when he handed Tressa three hundred dollars so she could walk to the front entrance and put the money on her brother's account. Tressa was happy to do so. This was a big relief, because the $30.00 that she was going to leave 22
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her brother, she could now keep for herself. The icing on the cake was that, for the next ten weeks she didn't have to leave her brother any money, because $30.00 was the maximum the jail permitted them to spend at the canteen/commissary every week.
As soon as Tressa was bent around the corner, Lucky skipped the intro of the greetings and small talk, and got straight down to business.
"Look man, let me run this down before lil' sis come back."
"What you waitin' for? Run it."
"Look Shawdy, I seen dude. I have been on this nigga like a pamper on a baby's ass. And like you said, he is getting it."
Taj didn't speak, he just looked at Lucky through the glass and listened attentively as Lucky talked over the two-way phone.
"A few times, I followed him to a mini mansion way out in Bon Air. But he don't dare go every night. But when he did go he stayed in for a day or two straight."
"What kind of cars out there."
"Shiittt nigga, the driveway look like some shit off the lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, a drop top Porsche, a big body Benz, two clover green Rovers." Taj cut in. "Is the Porsche black?"
"Yup" Lucky said, shaking his head.
"Then that's the house where he lay his head at."
"A'ight, but Shawdy, I ain't going to be able to do this alone, cuz the nigga always have niggas wit him. I'm gonna have to get some other dudes to help me.
"Look, Shawdy do what you gotta do then."
"A'ight."
"Look man, I call my sister just 'bout everyday. So, when you take care of it, let her know that you took care if it. You know she don't know what time it is, so just tell her that you took care of it."
"A'ight man, I got you."
Just then Tressa came back and when she did, Lucky left.
Later that night at the club on the stakeout:
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Lucky sat in front of the club with two of his homeboys. They watched a beautiful, young light skinned girl with body for days, waiting in front of the club after using the payphone at the corner two times. Lucky's mind was not really being focused on women since he had been home. He had a few "wham, bam thank you ma'am's". As long as anybody could remember, he had always been weak for a big booty broad and the body attached to this girl, it would be a crime for her to get away from him.
Lucky had put his hand on the door to open it, but just when he was about to get out of the car to make her acquaintance, Radda appeared out of the club, alone and straight into the arms of the girl. Radda was displaying enough jewels that could have amounted to a car around his neck and on his fingers with his gold framed Versace glasses. The multi-colored brown shoes threw off the bright green and gold linen ensemble. The girl didn't seem to notice Radda had on the wrong shoes, for she was looking deep into his eyes while they conversed. Their conversation only lasted a couple of minutes, but the body language told it all, as Radda looked at his watch and uttered a time to the girl after going in his pocket to retrieve some bills to pass onto the girl. As the girl walked away, Radda stood there lusting over the girl, while gripping his penis in his hand. He put up 4 fingers. "I'll be there at 4." He said as he smiled and the girl walked off.
Lucky told the two homeboys in the car. "He's going over Shawdy's house tonight. I know that nigga ain't taking none of his clown bodyguards. This may be easier than I thought."
Low and behold, Lucky was right. At exactly 3:45
am, Radda hopped right into his spanking new big boy Lexus with thirty-day tags on it alone. First, Radda made a turn off the main road, and as soon as he approache the stoplight, Lucky bumped into the back of Radda.
Radda slowly gets out of the car and is clearly pissed off. "What tha fuck?" He says, so mad that he's huffing and puffing, looking at the bumper.
Lucky immediately gets out of his car and is very humbling and apologetic to Radda. The combination of Lucky being clean-shaven, along with his slender build and remorseful attitude, made Lucky appear harmless as he 24
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kept apologizing. Radda was not accepting any apologies from anybody, instead, he got very vulgar and started cussing and fussing about his brand new car.
"Man, you hit my shit. I haven't even paid the first fucking payment on it. Then you hit it with that big old ass raggedy car." Radda says, pointing to the Caprice Classic and sucks his teeth.
Radda is too busy looking at the bumper, still being very belligerent and loud mouth, and doesn't even notice Lucky pulling out the gun until it's right to his left temple.
"Nigga get the fuck into the car." Lucky said so serious, and it was a total shock to Radda how Lucky switched from his humble tone to his "this ain't no game" tone.
Once Lucky's homeboys saw the gun, they hopped out the car. Number One automatically helped get Radda into the front seat of the Caprice, while the other sprinted over to Radda's car. Lucky drove straight to Radda's house, while Two followed in Radda's car. Once they arrived at the house, they made Radda use his own keys to open the door.
Lucky pushed him face down on the floor with excessive force and asked. "Where da money at?" Radda didn't respond.
As soon as they were inside the house, Number One moved briskly throughout the house, room by room, to check to make sure no one else was in the house. He went into the bathroom, pulled down the shower curtain.
Unfortunately, the very last room he checked, he found a woman sleeping, and right beside the bed was a bassinet with a sleeping baby inside. He quickly pulled the white goosed down comforter off of the woman, only to find she was naked.
"Get da fuck up." He shook her.
As soon as she opens her eyes to the barrel of a black 9mm in her face, she gets hysterical. "Please, please don't kill my baby."
One ignores her and pushes her into the living room buck naked. As soon as Two sees her coming, he takes over and lays her on her stomach beside Radda.
"Where da money at?" Lucky asks, while thinking to himself, how phat the woman's butt is.
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Radda didn't say a word, but that's before Lucky saw that Number One was coming back with the baby cradled in his arm.
"Oh, this your baby huh?"
"Pleeaazzz, don't kill my baby!" The woman started screaming and whimpering.
"Shut up!" Number one yelled.
Radda started talking. "Look man, please don't kill my baby. I'll give you the money, just please don't kill my baby! I just had him. He's new. He don't know nothing." Right away, Lucky and Two got Radda up and Radda took them straight to the room where the money was. The safe was in the wall of one of the closets, and what looked like it could have been a legitimate fuse box, but after Radda jingled the light switch in a certain type of way, there behind the fuse box, sat a nice size safe.