and they all respected him or feared him. i heard respect. i didn t hear them talking about my father, who had just blown his head off. he was irrelevant. respect was a currency as important as money in hell s kitchen. the code of the street is you never tell on your friends, you never you d never hurt your friends. respect respect was a big one, a very big one. kenny gonzales became one of john lennon s friends. we were selling drugs on the corner. we were robbing. we were doing burglaries. we were crooks. we didn t respect the law. we didn t like cops. our influences were gangsters, john gotti was like tissue like we read about him in a paper every day. gonzalez was an early guide to lennon who was excited to learn about his world of drugs and guns. and it was funny watching him. it was like watching a baby horse learn how to walk. but he eventually did and started to hustle.
brooklyn. alex was he was a hustler, and he was a smooth cat. i admired him. and he had swagger, and he was just a guy that was smart that he would not sell crack in the project, where guys were killing each other. they were friendly rivals until just before christmas 2001. i can t tell you exactly why he killed alex lawson. i think that he was thirsty, starving for the attention on the street that it would bring him. the story, according to lennon, is that he was trying to find out who was stealing from him. there was a couple guys i delivered packages of heroin and cocaine. this russian dude, he made a lot of money for me. he started coming up short. he never came up short. he said, look, you know, every time this guy calls me, he s shaking me down. he ll take whatever bundles i have. and i was like, how long s this been going on? and he said, you know, if i tell you, then i m dead. lennon says he was told the guy doing the extorting was alex lawson. so he took ma