A Hustler's Game

By David Harris

This is a book written by David Harris. When this book was originally written, David was an inmate within the Florida Department of Corrections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329170551

David Harris

David Harris is a historian and novelist for both adults and young people. Among his many books is an account of his own search for the lost city of Li-jien, built by the ancient Romans in China. He lives in Adelaide.

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A Hustler's Game

A Hustler's Game

An Original Manuscript:

David K. Harris

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book is an original publication of Y-B-C-M PUBLICATIONS

A Hustler's Game: Copyright 2014 by David K. Harris. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-300-09263-6

For information please address inquiries to: Y-B-C-M PUBLICATIONS, C/O: Mrs. Ann Anthony-Harris, 4834 W. Potomac, Chicago, IL 6065I

Monday; May 4, 2009, 8:35 a.m.

Good morning people. Jessup said, smiling and walking into the office, with a spirited air of confidence preceding him. Thank you for making time for me this morning.

Walter Jessup, the lead prosecutor in this case promised every one this would be a quick meeting and he intended to deliver on that promise. There

were still a lot of things to do.

I only have a couple of things to go over this morning, but they all revolve around one important event. He said as the room began to settle.

He stopped to look around. After he was sure that he was the focus of everyone's attention he continued.

We'll be closing this case by weeks end.

As if by some unperceived signal, everyone began trying to speak at once.

Jessup simply smiled. He knew this news would be received with skepticism, to say the least. That's why he decided to give his team the news all at once.

He figured it would be easier than trying to convince them one at a time that they were ready. He also knew he would still have some convincing to do. At least now, he could ease all of their apprehensions at one time. That included bringing them up to date regarding the one important factor he hadn't had a chance to tell anyone since receiving the message concerning Lo.

Holding up both hands to quiet the buzz he said, "I know what you're all thinking, and it couldn't be further from the truth. Let me just say that, at

6:38 yesterday evening, I received confirmation that our secret confidential informant, whose identity is known only by me, has obtained and passed along the vital information and details that make it possible for us to effectuate the arrest of DeJuan Walker. The man that is believed to be the largest supplier of narcotics, weapons, and illegally tagged cars, south of Tennessee."

You're crazy. Mike blurted, standing and scratching his head How're we going to do that? We ain't even close to getting 'Dee Walk' yet. I'll tell you what we need to do... What we need to do is get the Feds to give us a hand on this thing. It's been over four years already and it seems like we're no closer to getting ‘Dee Walk’ than we were when we started.

Mike Stanfield is Jessup's second in command. He and Jessup began at the A.G.'s office together, fresh out of law school. Jessup was more of the go-getter type. Nothing but top dog would do for Jessup. For Mike however, it would seem as though he was content with settling for next best. While they were in college their friendship just seemed to materialize when they became roommates. That friendship eventually evolved into a bond that only they were privy to. They knew each other as if they were brothers and nothing came between them.

Wait... What do you mean 'passed along vital information and details'?

Mike said, finally realizing what Jessup was saying to them.

One thing at a time Mike. I'll explain. First of all, let me just inform everybody that from almost the beginning of this investigation, I've had a set of eyes and ears on the inside of Dee Walk's out-fit.

And when, pray tell, were you planning on telling us about this information? Mike interrupted, without the slightest attempt to mask the sarcasm. Or more to the point, when were you going to tell me?

Everyone in the office knew of Jess and Mike's bond. In addition, Jess knew that out of everyone he worked with, Mike would accept this bit of vital information with the most contempt.

Calm down Mike and let him explain, Michelle said exasperatedly, trying to calm the sudden tension from the room.

Oh... You knew about this? Mike said looking hurt and confused.

No, but if you'd shut up and sit down long enough for Jess to give us an explanation, we'll all know about it, and hopefully sometime before we retire.

Michelle... Jessup though. With the office for a little over three years now, she has turned out to be a Godsend. If not for her, more times than not this office would probably be one big room full of mass pandemonium.

Thank you Michelle, Jess said.

I need for you all to understand. It wasn't my intention to keep this information from you. It's just that I didn't receive it until late yesterday evening and I've been coordinating with S.W.A.T. to set up the take down.

Jessup's apologetic eyes seemed to help smooth the tension from the room.

Not even the boss knows about it yet. I know that it's usually office policy to keep everyone informed but it just wasn't enough time. It was a spur of the moment thing.

When Jessup was first assigned the Walker case as Lead Special Prosecutor, he decided to begin by putting an undercover investigator on the inside. It was Jess' plan to pound the streets while his undercover gathered and relayed vital details of Dee Walk's criminal enterprise back to him. At least, that was the plan.

Jess' plan, however became altered when an old street informant contacted him with information that a new player, by the name of Dee Walk, was moving in on the resident dope dealer. Little did the informant know but that information was just the kind of thing he would use the undercover agent for. So, why should he risk the life of law enforcement when he could let the scum take care of the scum.

That was when Jess' plan was changed to include the street informant as an undercover informant.

Everything seemed to be going according to Jess' plan, until about a year into his operation. On top of every other thing that could go wrong, lately there have been a lot of innocent people dying. People caught up in drive-bys and shootouts between the two biggest drug factions in the city. So when Jess

received a message regarding details of one of the largest drug buys in recent memory and that it was about to go down, he decided to forgo the formalities and schedule a take down without the benefit of his staff's input.

After the final check of the equipment and the positions of the team members, Jess gathered his assault team in a van and positioned them at their pre-arranged vantage point to wait for the players to arrive.

Jess will never forget the sickness that quivered through his stomach as he sat and waited in that van well past the time scheduled for the deal to take place.

At 20 minutes past, he received a report that the conversation from within the warehouse had ceased. And that's when he signaled the team to take the warehouse.

Like the fine inner workings of a Swiss timepiece, the team moved unit by unit, toward the warehouse, while Jess watched on monitors inside the van.

Just as the team reached their entry points, it dawned on Jess. He'd been tricked ... But how... When could they have ...

On the monitors Jess watched the units converge on one central point inside the warehouse.

There in the center of the warehouse stood four, ten-foot walls of thick white sheets of plastic. The plastic walls were approximately fifteen feet in length and arranged to form a square.

After finding an entry point, the team advanced one by one, in such a way that every member covered one another from different strategic vantage points.

It wasn't until the team was positioned inside the plastic room that the realization finally dawned on them.

After verifying the message from his snitch, he thought finally, his hard work; the many hours his team had spent investigating and gathering evidence was about to payoff. He was finally about to catch Dee Walk with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar. He could barely concentrate on the plans for the takedown without constantly being distracted by visions of himself in the courtroom presenting his case during opening arguments in front of the jury.

So, no. Jess said, showing signs of frustration. "I won't involve the Feds in this because to begin with, I don't want to go through the bureaucratic bullshit. On top of that, I don't want them taking the credit for our hard work.

We haven't weathered over four years of investigating this guy, while he murdered his way to the top of the food chain, just to give it all over to the Feds."

In addition, Jess thought, no words in the English language can describe how personally I take this case.

I'm sending in S.W.A.T. and that's the bottom line Mike.

Finally, the time had come.

Jess' S.W.A.T. team was 75 members strong. They had arrived at their staging point two hours before the buy was scheduled to go down and his team was beginning their reconnaissance of the area.

By using long range listening devices, S.W.A.T. had detected at least six occupants in the old warehouse where the deal was scheduled to go down.

On the left side of the entrance, there stood what appeared to be an electronics rack, on top of which was mounted a multi-track reel-to-reel tape player.

At various places throughout the room stood six, three-foot high tri-pods with multi-directional speakers mounted to the tops of them.

When the unit commander's helmet-earn came to rest upon the center of the room, Jess' greatest fears were manifested.

Right there, in the center of the plastic room, mounted to the floor was a metal chair. Secured to the chair with zip-ties and duct tape, was Jess' informant. Although he wasn't dead, he was so close to death, medical attention was already too late. His mouth was duct taped yet his eyes were open with a look that told the story of torture by Satan himself.

Thumb tacked to his forehead was a three by five inch index card with the words Not This Time, written in what was, at the time presumed, and later proved to be, his blood. The shock of what Jess had just witnessed was interrupted by a clearly audible CLICK, followed by a smooth melodious voice that seemed to emanate from the speakers, placed throughout the room.

Mr. Jessup, the voice said, with the clarity of electronic processing, second only to the real thing.

"From what I have been able to gather from your man there, you and I are a lot alike. We both strive to be the best at what we do. After having said that, I can only add that I eagerly anticipate a formidable adversary in you.

"Although I look forward to making your acquaintance someday soon, a prior commitment forces me to set our meeting off for some time in the future.

So, Mr. Jessup, as much as I know you were looking forward to our little get-together, it pains me greatly that it won't be this time."

As if on cue with the last words spoken, a red light in the center of each speaker flashed on and began to blink. Within seconds, an explosion erupted from within the warehouse so powerful that it not only annihilated the warehouse, but car windows were reported to have been shattered for distances of up to four miles away.

CHAPTER ONE:

A NEW BEGINNING ...

Strip away old ideas and habits, eliminate what is unusable, outmoded or worn out.

The IChing: Shapes of Change; No. 23.

DeJuan Walker was a product of the streets. He detested violence. He just wasn't brought up that way. He was, however, brought up in a broken home where it seemed his parents were always broke, so he was used to doing whatever it took to come out on top.

DeJuan made himself a promise early on in life. He plans to be the epitome of wealth. He is determined to get his to the penny plus tax. But he has a major hurdle to cross first. He isn't going to get anywhere hangin' out on the same old streets throughout Chicago's south side, settling for every two-bit hustle that comes his way.

The way he sees it, he has to do what all rich people do.

To get rich, he has to be in the right place at the right time. And that's damn well what he's going to do. Even if it means putting himself in the right place at the right time.

DeJuan's first step has got to be finding the right place. There ain't no rich people on these grungy ass streets, DeJuan told himself.

So, he's got to think of the best place to go to make his fortune.

How about Cali. or New York... he thought to himself.

But hustlers of all makes and models set their sights on Hollywood and the Big Apple.

The more he thought about it, the more the thought of Florida appealed to him. Everybody longs for the sunny beaches of Florida. Especially the rich.

But where at in Florida, is his next challenge.

The idea of going to Miami, Orlando or Fort Lauderdale doesn't appeal to him because that's where everybody else who's playing the game of hustle goes.

He wasn't looking to try to move in on anyone else's hustle. That could create competition as well as enemies. The Comp he welcomes with open arms. It's the enemies he knows he'll have to keep to a minimum if he intends to compete.

The game of hustled is based upon one simple principle, he thought to himself. Competing.

But, to do so effectively he has to compete without making enemies because, as everybody in the game knows, people respect competition but they kill enemies.

As he thought about it, he remembered hearing about a place called Sarasota. He'd heard Sarasota's got plenty of beaches and it's sort of in between Miami and Orlando.

Logic told him Sarasota just may be the place rich people would go when they want to take a break and relax. And that's where they would make the acquaintance of DeJuan Walker, future multi-millionaire.

Now DeJuan's hustle game had what every hustler needed: A purpose.

And that provided motivation. He went and bought everything he could find, from maps to almanacs. He set out to find as much information about Florida, and Sarasota in particular, as he could.

Once he felt satisfied with the amount of literature he had, he said his good-byes and caught a Greyhound Express for Florida. He used his three day bus ride to quickly siphon as much information as his brain could hold. By the time he reached Florida, three things had become abundantly clear. The first was, Florida's criminal justice system is particularly hard on crimes against its tourist and retiree's. The second thing was, Sarasota is thought of as a haven for its wealthy retiree's. That meant, any crime that's committed is considered committed against its retiree's. And finally, Florida boasts some of the stiffest penalties for crime in the nation.

DeJuan knew he had a decision to make. Yet, the more he thought about it, the more he came to terms with being all in. The thing is, he has to add one significant factor to his hustle. He has to be more of a thinker. He can't just walk around jumping on every hustle that looks good.

All money ain't good money, He thought to himself.

So he knew he'd have to lend more thought to his hustles.

He also thought, the best way for him to start out would be to remain as anonymous as possible, for as long as possible. That was the one thing he had to his advantage. No one knew him. He could move around and make his plans, invisibly. Thus, he knew his first plan would be about creating a new identity for himself. His new identity had to be his alter ego. So, the first thing he had to do was, come up with a street name for himself.

Finally, his bus pulled into Sarasota's Greyhound Bus Station. DeJuan stood and collected the one Gym bag he owned, containing all of his worldly possessions, from the overhead storage bin and began making his way toward the front of the bus.

After disembarking he followed the crowd over to a building that he’d have mistaken for a convenience store if it weren’t for the Greyhound Bus sign out front.

Unfolding his map, he quickly located where he was. He already knew where he wanted to go. All he had to do was find it on the map and that didn't prove to be too difficult. He needed to go to the one place every city in the world had in common with each other: the ghetto.

DeJuan's first thought was to just walk around for a couple of days; sort of keep his ear to the streets and get to know the hood.

He thought about flagging a taxi but decided against it. What better way to get to know the streets of a new city than to walk them? Besides, long ago when he was hustling on the streets of Chicago, he came to realize he did his best thinking while walking. And then it hit him.

'Dee Walk.' He smiled as he thought, That's going to be my street name.

Dee Walk began walking north on State Road 30I until he reached the corner of 30I and Martin Luther King Boulevard, where he noticed a neighborhood liquor store. He stopped and sat his gym bag on the ground and pretended to use a pay phone that was mounted to the wall on the outside of the liquor store.

He peered down the stroll and unconsciously began to nod his head to the universal music of the game being played by ghetto musicians.

He thought to himself, This is too sweet to be true.

He knew looks could be deceiving so he decided not to jump to any conclusions. He hung up the phone, picked up his bag and went into the liquor store.

Stepping into the liquor store, he noticed that he immediately became the focus of every one's attention.

A new face gets noticed quick around here, he thought to himself.

The girl behind the counter stared at him as if he was prime rib at a vegetarian retreat. Yet, she smiled at him professionally and asked, May I help you?

Dee Walk smiled in