Free Invincible: A Novel by Styles P Page A

asked. “How could you laugh at a time like this?”
    Jake answered, “Sometimes you got to laugh to keep from crying.”
    The police told Kim and Jake that they would have to come to the precinct and give a report. Kim assured them that that wouldn’t be a problem, then explained that she would have to do it alone and in the morning because her man had just got out of the hospital. The police said they understood—just some more black folks getting shot at.

PURE EVIL
    Phil was standing in front of the bathroom mirror preparing for trial. He was defending the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. If he came out on the winning end it could be the biggest case of his career, and he felt pretty good about a favorable outcome. And why shouldn’t he have high expectations? He was fucking the judge who was presiding over the case and the DA was a very close friend of his. After he pulled this one off, he envisioned himself making about forty mil a year, not including all the perks: vacations, usage of the company jets, yachts, five-star suites, call girls … the possibilities were endless.
    Phil worked hard kissing ass and cutting throats to get to where he was. He had some of the most notorious crime bosses in the world eating out of the palm of his hand, but there wasone little chink in his armor, one skeleton in his closet, and he needed to get rid of it. That skeleton was Jake Billings.
    Phil had just gotten the news this morning and he couldn’t believe what he had heard. There was no way Jake was still alive; he had heard of being lucky but this motherfucker had to have cat in his blood. Why was the man so hard to kill? “I should’ve finished him off while he was in that damn coma,” Phil screamed at his reflection in the mirror. It didn’t matter to him that deep down inside he knew he really owed Jake his life. And the funny thing was that Jake was the kind of guy Phil liked; the kind of guy he wouldn’t mind going to a ball game with or just shooting some hoops with. Sure, Phil was a Jew, and Jake was a nigga, Phil thought at times, but they had so much in common. But as quick as those thoughts would arise, they would be overshadowed by this: The nigga has to die.
People supposed to walk around life knowing that they owe me a favor, not vice versa. Who the fuck is he?
And then there was that thing about Jake fucking his lady. Some how Phil couldn’t get past that part. That and the daily nightmare he would have almost every morning—while he was awake.
    The nightmares started the day after Jake saved Phil’s life, back when Phil was defending Don “Phat” Murphy, who in Phil’s mind had to be one of the sickest bastards God ever decided to put on earth. The best therapy money could buy couldn’t make him feel sane after the whole ordeal. He could barely sleep and felt haunted every time he took a shower or endured any idle time. Not even Phil’s eight-figure salary could ease his pain. He just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened, and in order for that to happen, Jake had to die.Phil convinced himself that that would be the only way to purge himself of the horrible memory. Jake was the link to a very deep, dark, and painful secret. If it got out, Phil felt it would ruin his career and his life.
    A few years back, Phat Murphy and his ten-man organization were picked up on gun-running charges and distribution of heroin on school grounds. Everybody thought it was over for them, including Phat Murphy. Then a friend of his told him about a lawyer named Phil Rosenberg; one of the best Jewish attorneys in town. The friend said he cost a lot, but he gets charges dropped like weight from a fat man on crack. It didn’t take much more convincing than that for Phat Murphy to hire Phil, and sure as shit Phil got Murphy and eight of his boys completely off; the other two took the weight for the rest of the crew. The two that laid down had no priors, which made it easy for the judge to justify giving them only