Chapter 1 1
Frankie Paul sits at the clean, white picnic table. His hands are clasped in prayer and his palms are clammy with sweat. His restless feet throw squeaks up from the tile floor. He is only in the prison’s visitor’s room, but it is enough to make him nervous.

A guard stares Frankie down. Frankie quiets his feet. Feels a lot like school, he thinks to himself.

The room for the guests of inmates is stark and antiseptic. The smell is of bleach and linoleum. Only one of the white walls is decorated—a large sign hangs head high: NO SHOUTING! NO TOUCHING! NO EATING AND DRINKING! NO CELL PHONES!

Two other visitors, a Latina woman and her teenage daughter, sit silently at a similar table twenty feet away. A low-pitched alarm rattles the metal bars that crisscross the windows. Frankie looks up to see Willie escorted through a thick steel door by an armed guard. His tattooed neck, arms, and chest bulge through the bluish-gray, government-issued jumpsuit. He has been working out.

Willie walks over calmly and slides gently into the seat opposite Frankie. He looks relaxed and unbothered, but Frankie knows that his older cousin is not happy.

Willie stares back at the teenager who decided to dress up for the visit—a Chicago Bulls warm-up suit, all white, from head to toe, and a bright offsetting MJ red hat. Willie does not say anything to his cousin, except to nod that he is ready to listen.

Frankie starts off with an apology that he has been rehearsing for the past hour.

“Wasn’t my fault, Willie, I did my best. We got a problem…” Frankie stammers. “Willie, I know you’re mad— But… but I need need to explain something to you.”

Frankie starts to perspire. His speech is halting and he is losing his breath. He struggles to finish a sentence. Then Willie raises his hands and shakes his head. Relieved, Frankie stops talking. The inmate’s eyes turn steely and his nose flares. Willie has decided that today’s conversation will now be a monologue.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says softly. “But I do understand why you’re here. I mean, I wish you weren’t here, cuz, but we got to get past that, right? Is what it is.”

Frankie sits back and mashes his sweaty palms together. Before leaving for prison, Willie instructed Frankie to stay away from lockup. Far away. Specifically, Willie gave orders to remain in Chicago. Frankie should only send messages via Calvin, the prison security guard who Willie’s gang keeps on retainer. Willie warned Frankie that cops would be checking the visitation logs of new inmates. It is the easiest way to figure out who might be taking over the street drug trade of an incarcerated kingpin.

Over the past two months, Frankie has been using Calvin to communicate with his cousin in prison.

Calvin is happy to provide this service for Willie and other imprisoned gang leaders—the $500 per month, tax-free, is helpful given his salary is never enough to pay the bills. And, for Willie, Calvin is particularly useful since the two grew up together in Rosewood, the South Side Chicago neighborhood where Willie set up his drug business. Calvin shuttles back and forth between the downstate prison and Rosewood to transmit messages, keep tabs on Frankie, and provide general intel on happenings in Rosewood’s underworld.

The most recent messages came in hot. “It’s all going to shit, Willie,” Calvin reported. “You got to do something.” Calvin recommended that Willie step up his communication with Frankie and give him more direction on how to run a drug trafficking business. Calvin has seen this situation many times before—a newly imprisoned drug leader tries to keep control of their drug trade from behind bars. Managing from the streets is hard enough, but directing from prison is nearly impossible.

Calvin’s last two updates for Willie made it clear that his seventeen-year-old cousin was failing as the crew chief. His report to Willie was simple:

“You gonna lose your business, Willie. Everything you worked for,” Calvin said directly, a few days before Frankie’s visit. “Niggers all around you looking to step in—take your shit. Let Frankie come down here and talk with you. Your boy ain’t handling things well.” That was all it took for Willie to accept Frankie’s request for a face-to-face.

At the visitor’s table, Frankie fidgets nervously. “I’m gonna say a few things, Frankie,” Willie says firmly. “And you gonna listen. Dig? Look around. Ain’t no need for you to say nothin’ in this room. Dig?”

Frankie looks around and notices that the guards are watching them closely. He nods, though reluctantly. He wants his turn to speak. He needs Willie to understand just how difficult his life has become. He has never managed a gang, never sold drugs, never faced hostile competitors. Every day is new to him. He has come with a long list of questions for Willie: How do I deal with suppliers who are getting pissed at me? How do I get my crew to listen to me? Should I be nervous about the car sitting across the street that watches us all day?

As a rookie street manager, Frankie has been facing one stressful situation after another. It all started the day Willie announced that Frankie would be stepping in to lead the team. Hearing this, Willie’s team members quit in disgust. They refused to take orders from an inexperienced teenager. And they were angry Willie didn’t have enough confidence to select one of them.

Frankie ended up replacing Willie’s veteran crew—each member had been around for at least a decade—with inexperienced teens, much like himself. This action only further excited the local gangs who began plotting their rival takeover. Customers also took notice, immediately heading out to find a new drug supplier—no addict wants to be caught in the middle of gang crossfire.

And, worst of all from a purely business standpoint, the sudden drop in demand made suppliers hesitant. They retreated and walked away, which meant Frankie’s crew was running out of product. Willie would now need to communicate with suppliers from his prison cell. Through Calvin, he would need to send them a message his operation was secure and demand was strong.

And then came the final blow. Some local youth robbed Frankie’s men in broad daylight. They laughed as they took the loot in front of a group of teenage girls who, witnessing the entire incident go down, quickly spread the news on Facebook and Twitter.

Bunch of fucking pussies!

Them bitches got what they deserved.

Hour after hour, across social media, Frankie’s team suffered a virtual beatdown.

The net effect was that Willie’s drug outfit, with his little cousin Frankie now in charge, was vulnerable and weak. The lucrative turf at the western border of Holden Park, the turf that Willie risked his life for so many years to retain, could soon very well be under someone else’s control. The business he built up—the years he spent fighting and clawing on the streets to stay in command—was about to be taken from him.

Over the years, Willie had rightfully earned his many titles—“King,” “Kingpin,” “Boss,” “Chief.” People referred to him with each. He was now on the verge of losing it all.

With his hands resting on the picnic table, Willie is well aware he cannot focus on these disastrous outcomes. The brief meetup in the visitors’ room is not the place to show weakness. He does his best to find words that might soothe Frankie. “Cuz, I been where you been, I know this ain’t easy. You can do this. I promise. Just remember you’re dealing with young niggers. That ain’t always easy. You dig?”

“I get it, I get it, Willie,” Frankie stammers. “And I got some ideas myself.”

Willie is in no mood to hear Frankie’s ideas. He raises his hand again.

“Frankie, your team is young,” he says quietly. “When a young nigger gets in the game, he can be confused. You’re their leader and they depending on you. Dig?”

Willie chooses his words carefully. Frankie has assembled a team of boys with no street background to do the man’s job of running dope 24-7. They are unfamiliar with the pressures of street trading. Frankie needs to turn them into a team.

Willie needs Frankie to take control and show some guts. Be a leader, not a scared teenager. Willie knows he must inspire.

“Right now, you need to give your crew someone to fight, got it? Find someone who wants to see your boys get hurt, be dead, or worse—flat fucking broke. Every soldier got to have an enemy or he ain’t a soldier. It’s that simple. Dig? You need to start hunting someone down. Find an enemy! Now! You dig?”

Willie pounds his fist into the table. The visitors and guards turn around abruptly. He motions to the guard that he is ready to return to his cell. He has heard enough. He nods at Frankie—a final note of encouragement.

Frankie looks up at Willie as he leaves the room and the door clangs behind him. All he wishes for is to return home and curl up in bed. He wants his former life back—the one that did not involve directing a complex drug trafficking operation. He wants Willie to be the supportive and wise older cousin, the nurturing family member who looked out for him.

Not his boss.

Ten minutes later. Frankie sits alone in his car, in the middle of the larger of two parking lots for visitors. He stares up at the prison, expecting to see Willie looking down at him from the thin window slits that break up the concrete and steel wall. He lights and discards one Newport after another and combs through Willie’s words for meaning as the song on the stereo gathers force. Tupac’s voice soothes him. Frankie closes his eyes and loses himself in the lyrics.

I bet you got it twisted, you don’t know who to trust. So many player-hatin’ niggas tryna sound like us.

Frankie reminds himself how far he has come. He tells himself to be proud of his progress. The world changed abruptly after his mother died from cancer over a year ago. Frankie moved from relative to relative. For a stretch, he was shuttled off to foster care. The constant move from family to family left him fragile and depressed. New schools, new gang boundaries, new friends and foes. The experience put him in a perpetual rut, anxious and moody, and without hope. Each morning, he woke up scared and in a pool of sweat. He could barely get out of bed.

It was Willie who came to the rescue. Didn’t matter that his old cousin could only offer Frankie an old, tattered mattress. It was family. It felt good to be at Willie’s side.

Frankie spent his days working menial side jobs for Willie’s drug crew. He didn’t mind running errands, washing cars, or going to the corner store to buy extra condoms when the sex workers arrived for the weekend poker parties. He didn’t even mind that he was living in a house that was used primarily for storing drugs, guns, and cash. Willie had purchased the home in his aunt’s name with his drug receipts. According to the state, Willie’s aunt, who had never set foot in the place, was Frankie’s guardian. None of this mattered. Willie made Frankie feel needed. Loved. He could stay there forever.

Eventually, Willie taught him things. Useful things like how to package dope, how to hire a homeless man for daily chores, like hiding cash or picking up lunch for the crew. Willie would challenge Frankie by giving him new tasks. Frankie relished the apprenticeship. No one had showed such care since Mom passed away. After a few months, Frankie casually mentioned to Willie that he quit school. He informed the Boss he was now devoted 100 percent to the cause. Frankie may not have found his calling, but at least he was out of foster care, thank the Lord. And he was happy.

Then came Willie’s arrest. Willie knew he’d made a mistake purchasing twenty handguns from an out-of-town trader. The buy was large enough to attract the attention of a surveilling undercover police unit. Cops will let you run a little dope and they may even look the other way for a purchase of a few guns. Willie knew that. But if you go big—guns, drugs, money laundering—you’re screwed. No neighborhood cop wants someone hanging around with so much power.

Once again, after Willie’s arrest, Frankie felt the world crumble around him. He feared that he would return to foster care.

“You gonna be okay, cuz. Everyone been doing this for a long time, so you just gotta let them do their thing. Got it? Don’t try to do something different. No one expecting you to do that. Dig? You keep it easy, and you gonna be with me for a long time.”

How bad could it really be? Frankie thought. Willie promised the five-year sentence would be shortened to three years for good behavior. Frankie wasn’t paying much attention. The crew was trained. The day-to-day work was one routine after another. The business looked to be on autopilot. Leading the team would be straightforward.

Things unraveled right away. Nothing went right after Willie told his men that Frankie was the new boss. His orders were met with laughter and some days no one showed up for work. Frankie couldn’t understand why. It seemed like such a small change. Just keep doing what you are doing, Willie told the team. Frankie repeated it. But no one listened. In fact, they soon rebelled. Crew members, most in their twenties and thirties, stole product, hid cash, played with the numbers and, when nothing was left to pilfer, they walked away. There was little chance a teenager would be their boss.

What happened to the old days, Frankie kept asking himself, when gang loyalties were said to pass from father to son—when even the thought of exiting could earn you a severe beating?

Frankie assembled a new crew, a five-person outfit—three scrappy ex-athletes who’d been kicked off the football team and two more from a foster care home where Frankie had once lived. He found them, recruited them, and assigned them each a role in the gang. But once again, he was alone, overwhelmed and without a trusted adult whom he could lean on for guidance. No surprise that the frightening thought crept into his head: Maybe going back to foster care would be better for me? This is not a thought Frankie likes to acknowledge. Whenever it rises, he pushes it away. Foster care is endless misery, a cycle of new homes with new rules, and one low-income neighborhood after another where he was alone and afraid to walk the streets for fear of being beaten or recruited by local gangs.

Frankie feels stuck. Street thugging or cycling through unfamiliar foster care families. Both feel like forms of punishment.

There’s got to be a way out, Frankie thinks to himself.

As the song concludes, Frankie opens his eyes and looks around. People are staring at the thumping, swaying car. Frankie wants to sob. He wants the relief of letting out a long wail. He rolls down the car window, lights another cigarette, and gathers himself.

He does his best to take some comfort from the visit with Willie. Find an enemy. Find an enemy. Willie’s words ring in his ears.

Frankie starts laughing out loud. Is it really so simple? he wonders.

At that moment, Frankie realizes that Willie has given him a way out. These three words are his path to freedom. Frankie whispers them over and over until his grimace breaks into a soft smile. Find an enemy. He shakes his head and laughs at himself. Why didn’t I think of this before?! he mutters to himself.

Frankie pulls out of the prison parking lot and drives off northward, back toward Chicago and his Rosewood neighborhood. As he speeds past the cars on the two-lane highway, he does a mental survey of his Rosewood community back in Chicago. He comes up with other gangs and crews who are his likely competitors—Vice Lords, 88th St. Disciples, Black Devils. A few occupy neighboring territories, while some are based miles away. He settles on a half dozen who seem intent on trying to take over his operation.

He doesn’t know these people. None of these half-dozen intruders feels like an enemy. And, even if they were, they frighten him. Each is led by a far more experienced leader. Frankie knows he will be hurt or killed if he puts up any resistance.

What the hell is an enemy, anyway? he wonders.

Swerving across several lanes of traffic, Frankie exits and drives into a convenience store parking lot. He leaves the engine running, skips in and out of the store, and drops three Mountain Dews and a bag of donuts on the seat.

An enemy is someone you hate, right? But, who do I really hate? I know I hate somebody.

Frankie smiles and grabs his cell phone.

“Better tell Antoine,” he mutters. Antoine is his trusted lieutenant, his best friend, and the smartest person he knows. And, though Antoine also never ran drugs, Frankie finds him to be sensible and capable of making good decisions.

When Antoine answers, Frankie blurts out. “Antoine! Listen! Got to do it. We need a meeting! Call a meeting, now! We got work to do. We’re going after the enemy.”

Two hundred miles away, back in Rosewood, Antoine struggles to keep up. Frankie’s shouting catches him off guard. The cold September wind makes it difficult to catch every word of Frankie’s shouting. Antoine can’t recall Frankie mentioning that he would be heading downstate to see Willie. Antoine tries to slow Frankie down, pressing him to give up details about the visit.

“What did Willie say?” Antoine wants to know.

“Don’t worry,” Frankie says. “Let’s meet at the Lake in a few hours. I’m driving back. Just do what I say. Get everyone together.”

“For what?” Antoine asks incredulously. “People gonna ask me what we meeting about. It ain’t time for our weekly. So, what’s the big deal?!”

“We’re going after someone! We’re gonna go after Marshall Mariot! We gonna take that nigger down!”