The Hurdler

By Bill Shralow

On the blood-stained streets of a ruthless American city, the fight for survival takes on a meaning unknown in the cushy suburbs just a few miles away. Working the drug corners and back alleys, Shadeed “Deed” Fleetwood deals rock and blow to the endless stream of customers. All the while, he harbors bigger dreams – dreams of competing for glory on the world stage.

But the underworld figures who rule the streets aren’t interested in Deed’s dreams – they’re interested in cash, cars and women. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep their stranglehold on the forlorn city – even if it means innocents fall in the crossfire.

Deed also harbors a secret, one that could bring down the baddest of the bad: Kareem Payton, a.k.a. “Pay Day,” the charismatic killer and drug lord whose past intertwines with Deed’s by threads that can’t be unwound, only violently torn. The threads also connect Pay Day’s younger brother Tony “Tone Bone” Payton, Deed’s best friend since they were toddlers.

When the thirst for profit launches a street war for Pay Day’s lucrative turf, the resulting bloodshed brings Deed face to face with a life-changing decision. It also brings him face to face with Sgt. Al Peoples and Detective Eddie “E-Rod” Rodriguez, who are trying to solve a murder mystery that has haunted the city for years. Does Deed remain loyal to Pay Day and the crew? Or does he make a break - and risk all? Besides his own fate, he holds in his hands the fate of his girlfriend Tyesha and their young son.

His decision forces him into a whole new life; new, but not without its own perils. And the streets don’t let go easily – revenge can be as deadly a motivator as money. Once again, violence shatters Deed’s world and thrusts him into unfamiliar territory. There, he meets Reggie Nguyen. Reggie recognizes something special in Deed – traits that could propel him beyond his past to lofty heights available only to the truly gifted.

But it’s a long, hard road and the hurdles Deed faces, though less deadly than the ones back home, are equally daunting. They will require new kinds of strength and bravery, defined much differently than on the street.

And the streets have a long memory – they are not inclined to forgive and forget. In a fight to survive, in a place where the blood of the innocent runs together with the blood of the damned, can Deed outrun his pursuers – and his past?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Shralow
• Release date: Apr 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476051123

Bill Shralow

Bill Shralow is the former head of media and public relations for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office in Camden, N.J., one of America's poorest and most violent cities. He lives in southern New Jersey with his family.

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About the author:

Bill Shralow is the former head of media and public relations for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office in Camden, N.J., one of America's poorest and most violent cities. He lives in southern New Jersey with his family.

Part I - 1996

Chapter 1

Seven-year-old Shadeed Fleetwood stretches across the couch and falls asleep with the TV on. He’s too tired to make it upstairs; plus it’s so hot up there. A pleasant tightness squeezes his legs from running on his street all day with his best friend Tony, while his dad chilled with a beer on the front steps.

A low thump outside awakens him - a car door closing, maybe? Shadeed pushes himself up on the couch and squints through curtains at his street. But all he sees are row homes and cars parked in pale luminescence of streetlights and the shimmer of shattered glass.

He knows his neighborhood is different, different than the ones he sees on Nickelodeon. He has known this as far back as he can remember, known this about his neighborhood with its boarded row homes and boys on the corner with hoodies and shadowy faces.

Tonight a light wind drifts in the window, warm and almost sweet, and he knows instinctively it’s blowing toward the sewage plant because there’s no trace of its sickly whiff. He hears voices and realizes blearily it’s Homer and Bart Simpson. The TV throws colored light onto the ceiling and big black recliner, where his father, Mo, is asleep. Mo breathes noisily, long legs outstretched and head tilted onto one shoulder.

Deed takes another look down the block. No one in sight. Shadeed knows too that it is Mo who stands between him and the corner boys who haunt these streets. Somehow Mo has gained the respect of the boys who work the streets selling tiny bags of rock and powder to the cars, and the boys leave them alone. Now that he’s 7 Mo even lets Shadeed wander down the block when he’s racing Tony, his next-door neighbor.

Shadeed lies back and rests his head on a pillow his dad must have put there. A sheet now covers him too. The boy twists it around himself and burrows into the couch. Slowly he spins into sleep and then he is running on his street, whipping past row homes and broken-down station wagons in the strange sepia tint of this other realm. He runs faster, lighter with each step, floating farther between touchdowns until, with one last push-off and a swift rush in his gut, he soars over his neighborhood.

CRACK!

The sharp report of wood fracturing jolts Shadeed awake. He lurches up on the couch, eyes thrown open, and sees big, dark figures piling through the front door, which now hangs at an odd angle from a shorn edge. He realizes they are men, three of them, dressed all in black with hoodies pulled tight and faces covered by dark bandanas.

The boy whips his head to look at his dad and sees Mo start to push himself up in the recliner. But the biggest of the masked invaders steps forward and raises a big black pistol in his right hand. He jabs the barrel into Mo’s chest, pushes him down.

The voice comes fast and edgy through the bandana: Sit the fuck down, mutha fucka.

The guy turns and looks right at Shadeed, pistol still trained on his father. The boy’s eyes go wide and search the space above the bandana. He expects the glowing red eyes of a monster, but sees instead the dark eyes of a man.

Mo says breathlessly, Listen, man, leave the kid out of it. The boy hears panic in his father. Don’t hurt the kid, that’s all.

The guy looks back to Mo without moving the gun. He looks as wide as a truck and tall too.

Shut the fuck up, jack, he says, staccato. He looks back over one shoulder and says, Man, close them windows. One of the others behind him moves quickly to the front windows and slides them shut.

Check upstairs, the leader says to the third one. "Come on! Move mutha fucka!" and number three goes from a walk to bounding the steps two at a time. Shadeed hears the footsteps creak overhead.

The big guy says over his other shoulder, Put the kid in the closet, to the masked kid in black at the windows, the smallest. The big one waves the gun toward an open coat closet near the TV. The small one grabs Shadeed by the shoulder of his Spiderman pajamas, yanks him off the couch and drags him to the closet. He keeps his bandana-covered face turned away. Carnival music floats from the TV, Tha Simpsons.

The big guy turns and points his gun at Shadeed and says: You come out that closet, I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off. Got that?

The boy shakes his head vigorously yes. His father lets out a muted sob, puhh. Shadeed looks at Mo. His father looks right back, fear in his eyes. He mouths, I’m sorry.

Lez go! The small invader throws Shadeed in the closet and slams it shut. It’s stuffy and pitch dark. The boy’s face is pushed into a coat and he smells his mom’s perfume.

The boy hears the leader say, Get up mutha fucka, mean. The recliner clicks closed. Where’s that bundle?

What bundle?

Shadeed hears a dull thud, then a deeper thump as Mo’s body hits the floor and he moans, "Oooooaah." The boy starts to scream, cuts himself off and bites the coat. He presses his eyes closed. Tears leak out.

Toss it, he hears the big guy say. Hurry.

He hears feet moving and then a cascade of objects hitting the floor.

You got a safe, bro? Where the fuck is it? You don’t want to see your boy get hurt, right?

The footsteps upstairs stop and Shadeed realizes the one who went up is pushing open his mother’s bedroom door. He hears the light click, then an instant later, a high-pitched shriek, eeeeaaaaahhh.

Mommy! the boy yells and sobs into the jacket.

He hears the rapid movement of feet toward the staircase, then grunting, cursing, bodies hitting walls. BANG! The gunshot is shockingly loud. He can’t take it anymore and bursts out. Mo wrestles the big guy with the gun at the bottom of the stairs. Shadeed hears his mother’s voice upstairs screaming, "Eeeeaaaaahh. Oh God! Fuck YOU! Aaah-" cut short like someone gagged her. Mo has his hands on the big guy’s hands and is trying to wrench the gun away. But the guy pivots and uses his thick body to break Mo’s grip and rip free.

He takes one step back, raises the gun sideways, gangsta style. Ear-splitting shots and Mo’s body jerks twice. Red splatters the wall behind him. He falls back and slides to the floor. The shooter steps closer, straddles Mo and looks into the upturned face. He raises the gun and puts one through Mo’s forehead. A shell casing hits floorboards with a plink. A burnt smell drapes the room.

Shadeed screams, Daddy! Daddy! Mo! Mo! and runs toward his fallen father, but the invader moves to block his path. The boy runs into the guy’s leg and bounces off what feels like concrete as the guy shoves him and sends him stumbling back onto his bony little-kid ass. The guy stands over the boy with feet spread and gun raised. Shadeed stares into the bottomless black eyeball of a 9mm barrel. His father’s killer squints and says, Kid, what’d I say I’d do if you came out that fuckin’ closet?

~ ~ ~

PART II - 2003

Chapter 2

Detective Al Peoples rolls up in an unmarked blue Taurus and sees the news vans already lining 7th Street. He sees too a small crowd a few hundred yards down the sloped and rutted road, which ends near the river curling big and bronze like a copperhead in October sun. He eases down 7th, weaving around curiosity seekers in baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts. A blonde TV reporter walks into the road from between an Action News van and a Channel 10 SUV and Peoples almost clips her but swerves around. He checks his rear-view to make sure she’s OK, and God, is she ever: tight black skirt, heels and black leather jacket to her slim waist. Blonde locks dance as she trots gingerly, holding a wireless mic while a fat guy in faded jeans schleps a big black camera on his shoulder and tries to keep up.

A uniformed Camden officer is posted behind yellow tape stretched across 7th to keep media and gawkers back. Peoples pulls up and sees it’s a patrolman named Valezquez he knows from working a homicide job over the summer. Valezquez waves him through.

Peoples parks on the grass where the street ends 50 yards from the Delaware River at the edge of Pyne Poynt Park in North Camden. He sees the lump covered by a white sheet on the brown riverbank. Three men in suits stand around it, ties billowing in a stiff westerly breeze that raises whitecaps on the river. Peoples scans the vista, now marred by the sheet-shrouded lump near the river.

Peoples steps from the Taurus and weaves past squad cars placed strategically around the body to block the TV cameras. A sour whiff of spoiling flesh hits him.

It’s her? he asks.

We’ll have the ME confirm, but yeah, it’s her, says Camden Police Detective Sgt. Ronnie Chapman. All the descriptors match up. The crime scene guys are staying pretty much hands-off ‘til the ME’s people get here. But Norwalk did a quick check and found the scar on her back.

Her name was Analisa Ruiz and her family had reported her missing three days earlier. Her panicked mother had gone to the media, assuring them this was no runaway, so the story was out in a big way. Analisa’s picture had appeared in the newspapers, online and on TV, along with her description: 15-year-old Hispanic female, 5-foot-1, 112 pounds, black hair and brown eyes. The family provided Camden Police with an additional identifier, which there was no need to make public: an eight-inch scar on her upper back from a gash she suffered a couple years back when she crashed on her bicycle, landed on a broken bottle and needed a couple dozen stitches at the emergency room.

Peoples approaches the lifeless victim, an approach he has made hundreds of times. And each time he does, just before he looks into the empty eyes, it is the same: a dream-like feeling of somehow watching himself from another place, seeing himself from afar, alive next to the corpse, just for a second and then he regroups. He wonders whether other cops ever get that feeling. But he never worked up the nerve to ask.

Peoples lifts the sheet. The smell hits him hard so he turns his head aside, then looks back. The teenage girl lies on her side, legs akimbo, her dark hair snarled with gooey crimson twisted in. He maneuvers to look at her face and sees the resemblance to the pretty girl he saw on TV, posed for a family photo in a yellow summer dress. He sees the faraway look in her brown eyes.

He drops the sheet.

Who found her?

One of the kids playing soccer. Chapman tilts his head to the crowd behind the crime-scene tape.

Peoples scans the locals lined up along the yellow tape. Many are kids wearing red and blue uniforms. Off to his left the park is lined into soccer fields of various sizes, with little kids’-size goals now being packed away by volunteers dejected by the early end to their weekly Saturday morning games.

Why do parents let their kids watch this shit? Peoples asks no one in particular. Shouldn’t they be home reading the Bible or something?

There’s plenty of murder in the Bible too, Al, Chapman says.

Good point, Chaps.

How’d the media get this already? Peoples asks.

Scanner, maybe. Or calls from the peanut gallery? Chapman says.

Right. Who you got working the job?

E-Rod.

Cool. Where’s the kid who found the body?

Eddie’s got him in the Crown Vic there, Chapman says, motioning toward a shiny, black unmarked sedan parked in a small dirt lot near the soccer fields. His mom’s with them too.

We’ll take him to the Prosecutor’s Office and get him on tape.

Peoples spots Jimmy Norwalk from the Crime Scene Unit traipsing along the riverbank shooting video. He walks a wide arc to stay out of range and waits for Norwalk to lower the camera before calling out, Hey Jimmy. Find anything good?

Not really, Norwalk says. He’s a Chris Kringle look-alike in jeans and black wind-breaker with Camden County Prosecutor’s Office in silver on the back.

A few boot prints and a couple tire tracks in the general area, but they could be from anybody anytime.

Heard from the ME’s Office?

Affirm. Post this afternoon.

Blunt force, you think?

Most likely.

All right. Let me know. I know I don’t have to remind you, but just in case, make sure the doc does a rape kit.

*

An hour later, Peoples sits in an ancient metal chair with flimsy padding in the Detective Bureau of the Camden Police Administration Building on Federal Street. His partner on the Analisa Ruiz homicide job, Camden Police Detective Eddie Rodriguez, walks file-in-hand across the large, open room sectioned off with clusters of two-decade-old metal desks and chairs.

Here’s the missing persons stuff, Rodriguez says, holding forth the folder. There’s a couple reports from Dawson. He interviewed the mom, the sisters, a couple friends. Didn’t come up with much.

Rodriguez sits down and opens the file, scans through papers. "She was last seen on Federal Street near Woodrow Wilson on Wednesday afternoon. She had been with some friends but left alone to walk home.

Get this, he continues. The mother told Dawson her daughter has boyfriends and she believes the girl is sexually active. Christ, she’s only 15.

Was only 15. Didn’t I see Dawson just now?

They called him in to tell her family.

They don’t know yet?

We sent an unmarked to get them, figured the media would be all over the house pretty soon, Rodriguez says. They’ve been waiting in the conference room. They know something’s up but not what. We kept them away from TV. Here they come now.

He nods toward a glass door leading to a hallway. Mike Dawson, a Camden Police detective in a suit, leads a dark-haired beauty in her 30s and two girls - Peoples guesses they’re 8 and 10 - through the door. They all have black hair and tear-stained eyes. Dawson follows them into an interview room and shuts the door. A moment later, the detectives hear shrieks and sobs and the mother wailing, "Oh no! Oooh nooo! No mi bebe!"

The words disintegrate into a howl of grief broken only by sobs. Peoples says quietly, I think it’s gonna be a while before she can talk. Let’s go check on the autopsy results, and the detectives head out into bright autumn sunshine.

*

Deed! Deed! Come on mutha fucka. Get up.

Shadeed Fleetwood is 14 years old and sound asleep in the middle of the day, curled into a sheet on his single bed. Suddenly he’s grabbed by the shoulder and jostled hard. He presses his eyes closed tighter. He fights to stay in his dream - he’s running beside an ocean with an incredible girl in a black bikini.

But his tormentor persists.

Deed opens his eyes a slit and sees his best friend, Tony Payton. "Come on! Get the fuck up, Deed. Come on, man. Get up," with a shove.

What the fuh-? What time is it? He squints at the clock on the floor across the room: 11:57. Yellow blades of sun slice into his aching eyes from around the edges of a towel Deed nailed up to cover the window. "Ahh. I worked until 4 a.m., jagoff."

You needa get up, niggah. Sumthin’ up with that missing chick.

What you mean?

Come on, let’s go watch the news, Tony says and jabs Deed in the shoulder. News comin’ on. I saw it at the commercial during Penn State-Iowa. I think maybe they found her.

Really?

I think maybe they found her dead.

Deed moans, Ah shit, still groggy. Sudden nausea rises in his throat.

Let’s go. Get the fuck up. We gotta watch TV.

Why I gotta watch TV? Mon, I worked ’til 4.

Let’s go. If she dead you gotta help me find Kareem.

Deed forces himself to his feet. They take the stairs to the first floor and into the living room of Deed’s grandmom’s house.

Deed? That you? What you doin’ up? The elderly woman’s rich voice comes from the direction of the kitchen.

Watchin’ T.V., Grams.

What?

The news comes on and the dead girl is The Big Story on Action News. The report starts with the weekend anchor guy backed by the photo of Analisa in her yellow dress - the one the family put out when she went missing. Then they cut to a live feed from Pyne Poynt Park, a wide shot that shows cop cars by the river behind yellow tape and serious-looking men and women in uniforms and suits talking in small groups.

The camera pans the scene and comes to rest on the serious face of the hot blonde weekend reporter.

Police have identified the person found dead today in Pyne Poynt Park as 15-year-old Analisa Ruiz, of Camden, she says. They roll a clip showing cops put the body bag in a station wagon, the camera shot partially obscured by squad cars. The reporter’s voiceover says they ID’d the body and a homicide investigation is underway. As the wagon pulls away, they cut back to the blonde live beside the Delaware.

The official cause of death awaits autopsy results expected to be available later today, she says and signs off. Tony punches the TV off with the remote. Deed flops onto a threadbare gray couch.

Mutha fucka, Tony says. He turns and stares down at Deed. What the fuck?

Well, it ain’t a total surprise. She been missing three days.

I was still hoping she just run off or sumthin’.

Where Pay Day?

Don’t know. Gone when I got up.

Call his cell.

Don’t you think I fuckin’ tried that, niggah? Three times. Texted him too. I’ll try again.

He flips open a metallic blue cell phone and dials.

Deed lies back in his bed and stares at the water-stained ceiling. Holy shit, he says.

Tony flips the phone shut.

"Still not pickin’ up. Jerk off.

He and Deed walk outside and wait gloomily on the steps out front of the rowhouse where Tony lives with Kareem, Tony’s older brother by five years. Fatigue overtakes Deed and he dozes sitting up. He and Tony are both scheduled to meet Kareem at 7 to spend a couple hours cutting blow into $20 bags before they work the set from 10 until 3 a.m.

Kareem finally pulls up about 5 and parks his dark green 1998 Explorer down the block. He gets out, looking big and bad in black leather RocaWear jacket and dark shades.

What’s up, my niggahs?

Pay Day, man. I been trying to reach you all day, mutha fucka, Tony tells his older brother. Where you been?

Who you mutha fuckin’, punk? I’ll kick your ass good. It’s none uh your business where I been. He walks along the sidewalk.

Kareem, yo, mon, we gotta talk, Deed says, catching up. That girl is dead.

Kareem stops and looks at Deed.

No shit?

No shit. They found her at Pyne Poynt Park.

That’s a shame. Come on, down here. He leads them down a narrow alleyway between row homes.

Kareem pulls out a joint, lights it up and passes it to Tony, who takes it with trembling fingers.

Kareem, the girl is dead, Deed says again. They found her at Pyne Poynt Park, North Camden.

I heard you, Deed. She dead. What that got to do with me? I told you, when I left her, she was fine.

Maybe you should tell Five-O, bro, Deed says. They lookin’ for help on the case. Put a phone number on TV, said to call.

What are you, some kind a wise-ass niggah bitch today? ‘Hello, Officer Dicklicker? It’s Kareem Payton. How you doin’? I run four drug sets in Camden, New Jersey, and I just wanted to let you know, I didn’t kill the girl.’ Fuck you, Deed.

I saw you hit her. Deed says it quickly but doesn’t look right at Kareem until a second later. He waits for Kareem’s reaction and is surprised when the older teen shows no response but continues drawing off the joint. This time he passes it to Deed, who puts it to his lips and breathes deep. Kareem grabs Deed’s hand and shoves it into his face, doob and all, slamming Deed’s head painfully into the brick wall behind him. Kareem lays his left forearm on Deed’s throat and pins him to the wall while his right hand reaches down, comes up with 9 mm Beretta and presses the barrel into Deed’s left nostril.

What the fuck you say, niggah? Deed can barely breathe and he’s choking on smoke but Kareem’s face is right up in his so he can smell hot breath over cologne and leather jacket. You never saw shit. I never hit her, I never touched her, I never even met her. Understood?

Pay Day shoves the barrel harder into Deed’s nose and tears involuntarily stream down his cheeks.

Understood?

Understood, Deed gasps.

~ ~ ~

Part III - 2005

CHAPTER 3

Peoples stands by the computer and shakes off a chill left over from the frozen January night outside. Eddie Rodriguez clicks a mouse and the mug shot flashes onto the monitor in the Homicide Unit of the