Free No Room for Mercy by Clever Black Page A

ice cream cone and listening to Carmella talk about
her younger days.
    “Are you good at soccer, Carmella?” Pepper asked.
    “I hate that game, Pepper,” Carmella said through
laughter. “I never wanted to learn how to play. So, tell me,
what is it that you like to do?”
    “When my mother was alive she used to take me walking in the
square back home. They had a band that used to play there and me and
my mother would dance together. We painted pictures and baked bread.
I had a good mother,” Pepper sighed as her eyes filled with
tears. “I wish she wasn't dead.”
    Carmella’s heart really did go out to Peppi Vargas. What a
twist of fate that things had unfolded the way they had back in Valle
Hermoso.
    “Toodie and Phoebe are not really nice, Carmella. Well, Phoebe
is, but not Toodie. She yells at me a lot.” Pepper said,
shaking Carmella from her thoughts.
    “I will talk to Toodie for you and tell her to stop yelling at
you, okay? They don’t know you, but they get along with
children.”
    “What about you?”
    “What? Do I get along with children?” Carmella asked as
she pressed a finger to her heart.
    “Si.”
    “Of course! I love children. I wouldn’t be here with you
if I didn’t love children.”
    “I want to go to church and pray for my Ma-Ma that she’s
okay in heaven.”
    “Church?,” Carmella smiled. “Okay. We’ll go
to the chapel here in the hospital before you leave, okay?”
    “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
    “It is all my pleasure. Oh, if the doctors ask you, I am your
aunt and you’re staying with me and your cousins here in Saint
Louis, alright?”
    “Okay, Auntie.” Pepper joked.
    Carmella laughed and touched Pepper’s face with the back of her
hands. “You are such a darling,” she said sweetly as she
pictured Peppi Vargas years from now, all strong and healthy. “You
will definitely be okay as long as I have a say so in the matter,
baby,” she said as her phone vibrated.
    Carmella picked up her phone and looked at the text. Old warehouse
in East Saint Louis in one hour.
    “The Somalis. Good job, Toodie,” she said lowly. “Pepper
I must be going now. But I’ll be back to have dinner with you
tonight, mi amiga.”
    “I’ll be here.”
    Carmella got up off the bed and kissed the top of Pepper’s head
before she left the room and told one of her workers, whose job it
was to sit outside of Pepper’s room, to notify her of DSS
should they ever visit, and to make sure that Peppi received any and
everything she asked for.
    After leaving orders with her soldier, Carmella left the hospital and
jumped into a yellow 2001 convertible Ferrari 360 Spider and hopped
onto Interstate-70 and crossed the Mississippi River over into East
Saint Louis and took Interstate-55 north for a few miles. She could
see the old warehouse where she normally held meetings off in the
distance to her left as she exited onto to Saint Clair Avenue and
entered an abandoned warehouse district.
    This part of East Saint Louis was a pure dump. Dilapidated
multi-story brick buildings that should’ve been torn down years
ago lined pot-hole filled streets that were littered with debris. Old
abandoned rail lines with rusted out rail cars still perched on the
tracks sat out front some buildings that once thrived with human
activity. The new tenants were now the incalculable amount of
pigeons, rodents and stray animals.
    Carmella cruised under the pylons holding up the expressway and
turned onto a service road and grabbed her .50 caliber and cocked it
as she turned into the abandoned warehouse’s back shipping dock
which was hidden from the highway. She rounded the bend and saw
Toodie and Phoebe, along with six other females from Fox Park sitting
out on the concrete dock in the shade smoking blunts. She scanned the
area briefly and noticed that only her girls’ SUVs were parked
in front of the building. Everybody was waiting patiently, but the
soldier on the phone had caught Carmella’s attention.