Death Wish by Iceberg Slim

walled his eyes back at Jessie clicking again behind him.
    Sarge whirled off Pearl. She raced toward the kitchen. He vised Jessie’s throat with one hand and snatched the gun with the other. He smashed the butt down on Jessie’s reddening head until his blows snuffed the lights in the boy’s eyes . . .
    The police took Jessie to a hospital for scalp stitches and then to a juvenile holding station until a foster home could be found. Within two weeks Rachel’s mother signed the papers to become his foster mother.
    For weeks after his mother’s funeral, nightmares woke him up dripping sweat. And he fell into a deep silent depression whenever he thought of her. Three years later, when he was fifteen, he slipped into Rachel’s bedroom and her strait-laced mother caught them petting and giggling on the side of the bed.
    Two days after he was thrown out, he came out of an all-night Westside theater. On the sidewalk down the street he saw six tough-looking Italians leap from a jalopy. They had knives and ran to attack a powerfully built young black guy. He drew a switchblade and put his back against a building.
    The black guy shouted at Jessie, “Man, you gonna let these dagos waste me?”
    Jessie dashed to a sawhorse over a repair hole in the street. He stomped off a leg and gripping the two by four, rushed into the fray. A lean guy with odd yellowish eyes thrust for a heart shot. Instead, he plunged his stiletto into the black guy’s shoulder as he twisted away. Jessie brought the club down and saw the wrist of the hand holding the stiletto pop bone and blood. The lean guy screeched and spun to face Jessie. For an instant, Jessie stared into his eyes, radiant with pain and anger. Jessie felt stinging slashes on his back. The lean guy rocketed a foot at his crotch. Jessie turned and felt toothache pain in his hip.
    He stared into Jessie’s eyes and said in a hoarse whisper, “I’ll remember you, and I’ll get you for this, nigger.”
    Jessie swung the club at his head. He heard the crunch and saw his jaw drop stupidly as bloody spittle leaked down his chin. He heard bones crack and break as he whirled and swung his club on the others. The gang fled. Jessie’s and the giant’s superficial stab wounds were oozing blood.
    The giant said, “Man, I’m Kong.”
    Jessie said, “I’m Jessie. Why was they out to waste you?”
    Kong answered, “Gang war, man, gang war. C’mon, and let’s get some patching.”
    They went to a jalopy, and Kong drove away.
    Kong said, “Them dagos is members of the Sicilian Knights. I’m the leader of the Black Devastators. That stringbean dago you busted up was Lupo Collucci, their leader.”
    Jessie said, “I guess I’ll need a piece to stay on this side of town.”
    Kong grunted. “Jessie, you gonna need to be a Black Devastator. I’ll shoot you right in. Make up your mind, brother. We need bad dudes like you to take over the Westside from Lupo.”
    Six months later, Jessie had a steel plate in his skull from a bullet Lupo Collucci fired into his head in an ambush on Devastator turf in Douglas Park.
    Kong had become dependent on Jessie’s gems of strategy which gobbled up big chunks of Collucci’s turf. Jessie’s planning of creative burglaries and shakedowns of hustlers and dope pushers and their pads bulged the Devastator treasury.
    Kong took a Collucci slug through a lung. When he got back to the turf, all the Devastators wanted Jessie to lead them.
    Jessie’s habit of taking prompt and reckless vengeance against any odds earned him the “Tit For Tat” moniker.
    T. and Kong remained tight buddies. They and Kong’s cousin, Buncha Grief, were ambushed one midnight on Sicilian Knights’ turf. They were gunned down by Lupo Collucci and his constantshadow and right hand, Angelo Serelli. Buncha Grief left the scene with a grazed skull.
    After