Read Online Ride or Die by Solomon Jones - Free Book Online Page B

contemplating what he should say.
    â€œYou know, Reverend Anderson, I had a case a few years ago in the East Bridge Housing Projects that kind of reminded me of this one,” Lynch said, breaking the silence. “A little girl disappeared, and I went in to try to find her.
    â€œIt took me back to my roots, I guess, because I grew up there, watching the people in that building destroying each other, a little at a time.”
    Anderson looked up at him. “What’s that got to do with me?”
    â€œYou said this whole thing was about someone trying to rape your daughter,” Lynch said evenly. “I’ve got a daughter of my own, so I can understand that. But it’s not just about your daughter, is it? It’s not even about that woman they shot last night. It’s about you and Nichols destroying each other a little at a time. Except now you’re destroying other people, too.”
    â€œLook, I just wanted to help—”
    â€œHelp who?” Lynch snapped. “You took matters into your own hands. Now the police commissioner’s dead, and right this minute, cops are on every street in this city trying to find his killer, and they don’t care who gets in their way.”
    Anderson started to speak, but Lynch wouldn’t allow it.
    â€œThat means people are gonna die, Reverend Anderson. So if you really wanna help as much as you say you do, you’ll tell me what I need to know, and you’ll tell me now.”
    Anderson wanted to attack Lynch for having the audacity to look beyond his rhetoric. His war against North Philly’s drug
trade was, after all, a just war, waged to take back the souls of mothers who’d become whores, fathers who’d become murderers, and sons who’d become victims. It was a war to save his people. At least, that’s what Anderson told himself.
    But now, as he sat at the table, with Lynch waiting for him to offer something real, he knew that it was time for him to admit the truth. Not only to the cop, but to himself.
    Anderson folded his hands on the table and took a deep breath.
    â€œFrank’s parents died when he was seventeen,” he said haltingly. “Got killed in a bus accident on a trip to visit relatives down South. Since Frank and I were pretty good friends and my father needed another set of hands in the family business, we took him in.”
    â€œAnd what was the family business?” Lynch asked.
    â€œDrug dealing, numbers, prostitution. My father ran his business like the mob. Had it all set up in crews with lieutenants and captains and a boss.”
    The pastor looked up at Lynch uncomfortably and waited for judgment to sweep across his face. When it didn’t, he went on.
    â€œMy father was John Anderson Sr. They called him Johnny Hands, ’cause he could strangle a man with one of them.”
    â€œI remember the name,” Lynch said. “First real gangster in North Philly.”
    â€œYeah,” Anderson said, nodding his head. “And he taught us well, me and Frank. Taught us according to our strengths.”
    â€œAnd what were your strengths?”
    â€œMe? I was strong and big, so I was an enforcer. You crossed my pop, he sent me out with one of his soldiers, and we handled it. After a while, I got so good at it, he started sending me out on my own.”
    â€œSo you hurt people for your father?”

    â€œI knocked a few heads here and there,” Anderson said. “Nothing major. But what I did is beside the point, if you wanna know about me and Nichols.”
    â€œOkay,” Lynch said. “Go on.”
    â€œThe same way my father trained me to my strengths, he trained Frank to his. And Frank’s strength was his mind. After three years in the business, my father made him a lieutenant, and then a captain, gave him a few corners to run and taught him how to get men to do things. Terrible things.”
    â€œAnd your father didn’t do the same thing