by L. Brown
Both employees were stuck in awe—the man because a flashing figure had suddenly burst past with what looked like a gun in his hand, and the woman because the dark figure was rushing toward her, pointing what she was sure was a gun at her.
The female’s instinct kicked in a little too late, but soon enough to slam the door and crush the culprit’s fingers in between it and the frame.
“Ahhh, shit!” Reem hollered in pain as his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets and grew to the size of Ping-Pong balls.
The woman’s attempt to close and lock the door were thwarted by Reem’s fingertips. With an aching hand, Reem fiercely ripped the door open, took the female by her collared shirt, and shoved his pistol in her face. Before she could make a plea for her life, she was airborne. Reem clipped her from behind with one leg and clotheslined her across the chest. She hit the ground quick and hard. He was on the verge of blacking out due to the anger as he raised his gun to strike her with it.
“Chill, dawg! What the fuck!” Ghost said from behind. He wrapped an arm around Reem. Then, he clutched his shoulder and pulled him back. “Come on, man. Stay focused.” He tried to cool Reem off.
Schemes kept his .50 cal. Desert Eagle stuck to the male employee. The employee cooperated after the sight of the large weapon. They were certain they would use them, especially the angry one because he fiddled, gritted, and clenched his jawbone tight as if he was dying to pull the trigger to avenge his swollen finger.
“How many people are in here?” Ghost asked the male employee, putting his finger up to his mouth to let him know to answer quietly.
The man, obviously counting in his head, looked up at the ceiling as if he’d found the answer somewhere up there. Maybe he was saying a silent prayer asking to get out of this alive.
“Eight,” he finally answered.
“Where are they located in the building?”
The man was growing impatient with the survey. He wanted desperately for this to be over, so he told them where he believed the other employees were.
They quickly bound the employees with zip-ties. They could tell they were in the warehouse of the store and quickly realized they had made a mistake. Although Reem knew where the manager’s office was, he knew how to find it from the front of the store and not the back. They never got a full layout of the store and now had to find it. Before securing the two employees inside a smelly mop closet, they stripped them of their cell phones and found out how to find the manager’s office. They told them both to stay in the mop closet without making a sound until they were discovered by someone else. The threat was understood, so they didn’t mutter a sound.
Ghost, Reem, and Schemes crept through the warehouse with their guns drawn. From what the other employees told them they had an idea where to find the other employees and the office. According to them, there would be several workers doing stock and inventory in the warehouse and a couple more in the office.
Voices could be heard in the trenches of the dusty warehouse. They followed the voices, which grew louder the closer they got. Oblivious to the presence of the robbers, the employees were laughing and carrying on carelessly while taking inventory. They were equipped with scanners, clipboards, and other miscellaneous equipment.
They were caught off guard by the three masks who came up behind them from nowhere, swinging guns and making demands. They complied by dropping the equipment and falling to the ground, onto their bellies. They were stripped of their cell phones and tied up with zip-ties in a matter of seconds. Schemes towered over them while Ghost and Reem went to their final destination.
Ghost tapped on the manager’s door after trying to twist the locked knob. Commotion could be heard from inside the office. Reem positioned himself on one side of the door while Ghost went to the other side, like they had been trained in a police academy.
“Didn’t I tell you not to bother us?” a feisty manager said as he yanked the door open.
“Shut the fuck up!” Ghost snapped, shoving the gun in his face. Instead of finding one of his antagonizing employees, the manager was startled by men bursting through the door. His glasses were knocked from his face as he was swung to the floor.
A female employee was sitting on the other side of a table, counting money with a digital money-counting machine. In a matter of seconds, Ghost was around the table with her on the floor being hog-tied. Because they knew the manager was a guy, they turned their attention to him.
“Open the safe,” Reem instructed, holding a .44 Bulldog at the back of his head. The Bulldog was anxious to bark at Reem’s itchy finger holding the trigger.
The manger was whining like a little girl—literally. He was a full-blown gump. Everything but his manly features imitated a female. The way he spoke, the way he screamed, and his entire demeanor was that of a woman. Both Reem and Ghost pulled out black, large folded laundry bags from their waist sections.
“Open the fucking safe!” Reem repeated over the he-she’s sobbing.
“I need my glasses,” he managed to answer through sniffles.
Reem scanned the floor and handed him his cracked glasses.
Ghost was cleaning the money off the table while the man was entering the combination for the safe. When the safe cracked open, the sight was overwhelming—stacks of bills rested perfectly and safely inside. Well, at least, until they were being swept into the bag. The dead presidents weren’t safe anymore as they were taken into the possession of the masked robbers.
After bagging all the currency, Reem tied the manager’s hands and feet up. He giggled inside at the sight of the name tag pinned to the man’s shirt: Ryan. And for a minute, he was worried about Toya wanting to stay at the job because she was fucking him. He had to smirk again at the thought of it. This time, he smiled openly, but no one but him knew why. It was his personal moment of self-amusement.
They locked the employees in the office and sped through the warehouse. Schemes followed them as they flew by him, carrying the large drawstring bags. Ghost smirked as he passed the mop closet where the other workers were still trapped.
Inside the stolen car, they disappeared into the darkness of the night, racing through the back blocks to the switch point. Then, they jumped into the Buick Century. As they flew down Michener Avenue, sirens could be heard screaming in the tranquil streets of Mount Airy. Someone must have finally gotten loose back at the store.
The ride back down the way was filled with adrenaline. With the trunk loaded with an underdetermined amount of cash, the take was back on. Laughter and excitement pervaded the car. Reem was just as excited, but they were laughing at him.
They were grinding him up about his bold move of running up on the female employee and getting his hand smashed in the door.
“Really funny, y’all! Real fucking funny!” he said, pulling the gloves off his hands and staring at his blood-clotted fingertips.
He thought, That fucking bitch!
CHAPTER 12
THE WALMART JUX WAS tallied at $378,000. This was somewhat expected. The split was tremendous. It was $125,000 a piece for less than five minutes of work. The only problem with the large lump sum was that there wasn’t a secondary source of income since the war was still on.
The police were lurking, and they were sure Reese and Mar were still assembling a plan to touch the other side. Even though Ghost and his team were sitting on a nice piece of change, they still knew they had to strategize to get at Reese and Mar to put an end to the drama. Their whereabouts were just a mystery. They seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.
The three of them took a little trip to Atlantic City to get away from the drama and have some fun. They needed desperately to enjoy themselves and splurge with some of the money they had come up on. Of course, Ghost and Reem had a lot of explaining to do to the women in their lives about the weekend they’d be missing in action. Over complaints, due to their insecurities, they accepted that their men wanted a little space.
“Snake eyes! All field
bets a winner!” the casino employee yelled as the dice hit the wall of the crap table.
“Yo! It’s jumping down here tonight,” Reem said, walking up to the table where Schemes and Ghost were already stationed.
Well, Ghost was participating in the crap game while Schemes was in the ear of some woman. She looked like she was giving him some rhythm, too.
“Come on, nigga. This table is hot. Win some of the bread!” Ghost told Reem.
The Trump Casino was packed to the max, if it even had one. Drunk gamblers—men and women—played the games, chasing a few extra dollars. Of course, many left empty-handed or with dramatically less than what they had come with, all surging its way into the already overloaded pockets of the great Donald Trump.
Reem and Ghost were posted at the crap table, drinking and yelling along with many others surrounding the table’s bar. Reem and Ghost’s racks were aligned with hundred and twenty-five dollars chips. To them, they were the ballers at the table. Until, just like the previous night, a middle-aged man, clad in designer clothing, approached the table. With a complete rack of hundred dollar chips, the man threw his chips on the table and made his bets carelessly. He was betting thousands at a time, like money wasn’t shit. Everything about him spelled money. The stud in his left ear twinkled off the light, saying, “We can hit the mall together.” His GQ cover attire said, “Ain’t nobody fresher.” The Audemars Piquet watch wrapped around his wrist said, “You know what time it is!”
Dude knew all eyes were on him, too. People watched him with envious hearts and jealous stares. Who is this dude? Ghost wondered.
“Six hard! Six hard!” the casino employee yelled enthusiastically as a woman crashed the dice off the table’s wall.
The payouts continued all night. The table was as hot as a pot of boiling water, so the gamblers’ chips added up, bashing just a small dent in Trump’s deep pockets.
Eventually, seven crept it’s way on the table, cooling things down. Reem was past tipsy; he was pissy drunk, but Ghost was only buzzed from the few drinks he had thrown back. Schemes had spun off with the bunny he was rapping to. They probably were up in a room somewhere. Ghost and Reem had hit the food court to grab something to quiet their stomachs’ rumbles.
“Yo! How much you win?” Reem asked with a slur.
“Don’t count mine, nigga. Can’t a nigga get money anymore?” They both laughed.
“Whatever, nigga,” Reem retorted. “I know you came up something nice.”
Ghost ignored Reem because he had the raps. He kept talking, but his words were going in one ear and out the other without registering at all. The liquor had him ramming incessantly. He was becoming a bit annoying, and Ghost wanted him to shut up.
Ghost’s attention was diverted from his food to the figure hovering over his side. The man from the crap table approached.
“Y’all mind?” he asked, nodding his head toward the vacant seat at the table.
At first, they were reluctant to let him sit with them. They looked at each other with puzzled faces before telling him it was cool for him to take the seat. They didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but what harm could he do anyway? They were about to depart, calling it a night at any minute anyway.
“So how long y’all staying in town?” the man asked, breaking the ice.
“We’re out of here tomorrow night,” Ghost told him. “After we win a couple more dollars,” he continued with a smirk.
“Yeah, we hit them hard tonight, didn’t we?” the man said. “Better that than last night, huh?” Last night hadn’t been so lucky.
“We never got your name,” Ghost said.
“Oh, how rude of me. I’m Shareef.” He held out his hand and gave both of them firm handshakes while maintaining eye contact. “I’m actually a good friend of your father’s.”
Ghost pulled back his extended hand. Before he or Reem could fully introduce themselves, the man made it known that he already knew who Ghost was. The mention of his dad was peculiar because he barely knew his own father, so who was this man, and how’d he know who his pop was?
The dialogue lasted awhile longer. Shareef told them how he and Ghost’s dad were tight back in the day. He shared a few interesting stories that had them all cracking up. He explained how he had recognized Ghost the moment he saw him last night, but was hesitant to cut in on him, so he didn’t say anything until he saw them eating at the table.
“So, I see y’all getting a little money. What y’all do for a living?” Shareef asked, indicating he had been watching them just as closely as they had watched him.
“We...”
Ghost started to speak but was interrupted by Reem.
“We take money,” Reem recklessly blurted out.
Shareef furrowed his eyebrow at Reem’s audacity and looked at Ghost to see if he would confirm what his man had just revealed.
“Listen. My man is a little drunk.” Ghost looked at Reem with a no you didn’t just say that frown on his face. “We run a little business of our own back home.” He turned back to Shareef, knowing he wasn’t buying the bullshit he’d just spit at him.
Shareef chuckled. He liked Ghost already for trying to clean up after his bonehead friend. Reem had allowed the alcohol to pass his judgment and give him loose lips. He had just revealed something that no one but their immediate circle should know to a complete stranger.
Ghost was furious with him. He could have knocked Reem out the chair he was sitting in. Luckily, Shareef wasn’t a bad dude. He took a liking to Ghost, and he figured Reem wasn’t too bad, either. He’d just let the liquor get the best of him. Little did they know, but they had more in common than they thought.
“So, what do you do?” Ghost asked, curious about where the old head was getting the paper he was flaunting.
Surprisingly, Shareef was upfront with them, but he had a little bit of sarcasm in his answer. “Well...ironically, I take money, too.”
Reem had only been gone for a couple of days, but Toya was already missing the presence of her man. Only two days prior, he had departed for his gambling venture, and she was already yearning for his return. She missed the smooth sound of his voice, the way he spoiled her with gifts like every day was a holiday, and, most of all, the softness of his gentle touch. The way he held and looked at her demonstrated his love for her, so she knew he was falling in love with her, and she was falling even deeper for him. He was due home sometime today, and she couldn’t wait.
“So tell me about this Mr. Wonderful you’re dealing with,” Rita said.
“Girl, where do I start? He’s everything rolled into one. Just when I thought I couldn’t love again, I fell for him,” Toya said. “I’ve known him forever from around the way. I never thought we’d be fucking, but shit, since we’ve been getting it in, I can’t get enough of him.”
Rita sat quietly in the passenger seat. Even though she had started the conversation, she was now quiet. Toya wasn’t sure if it was her jealousy or if she had drifted off to thinking about the robbery the other night at Walmart. Rita was the one who had slammed the door on one of the robbers’ hands.
“Girl, why you get quiet all of a sudden?”
“I’m good. Just thinking,” Rita said dismissively.
“Thinking about what? That shit that happened the other night?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Rita didn’t want to admit that she was a little jealous and envious of Toya because of her new relationship with Reem. Before she started messing with Reem, they would spend a lot of time together, but, since then, they weren’t chilling together as much because she was always with her man.
Rita wasn’t completely lying, though, because she was thinking about the robbery, too. One bad thing always triggers another, so she was thinking about how lonely she felt after being a victim of robbery.
“You’ll be all right, girl,” Toya said, rubbing her leg for comfort.
Rita nodded and mumbled, “That’s easy for you to say.”
&
nbsp; Toya was one of the employees who was lucky enough to have had the horrific night off from work. Therefore, she didn’t feel the pain of her friends. They were traumatized. Although she and Rita had talked about the event countless times, she still couldn’t understand the wrath of her feet and hands stripped of their liberty.
“Girl, ya crazy ass slammed the door on that niggas’s hand. Shit! At least, you put up a fight with your crazy ass.” They both laughed about that.
Toya had initially questioned the black blood clots under Reem’s nails to herself, but he had dismissed it as his hand getting slammed in the car door, so she thought it was a coincidence.
Rita told her about the time she spent in the mildew-infested mop closet. She shared the short-term memory that surfaced at the very smell of mildew. Toya was like her friend’s personal shrink, listening and coaching her by day.
They were on their way to pick up their checks from the haunted Walmart. The December air was crisp but a bit warmer than usual. It was pushing sixty degrees outside.
Reem had finally laced Toya with a wheel. He got tired of taking her back and forth to work and damn near everywhere else she needed to go like he was her chauffeur. The fully-loaded Champagne 300C gleamed in the sun. Dr. Dre’s Beats speakers rocked the interior of the car as Beyoncé boomed through the new line of speakers.
Toya loved her new car. She was sunk in the silky leather seat, gyrating to and singing the touching music. They whipped into the parking lot and parked in a vacant spot in the crowded lanes.
Nearly a week had elapsed, but Rita still became sullen at the sight of the store. She withdrew the second they entered the lot.
“Come on, girl. Let’s go. It’s all right.” Toya rubbed her hand, trying to comfort her. She killed the engine, and they went inside the store. The last week at the gig was like walking in the center of an iceberg. The tension cut through the aisles of the department store like a fog driven cloud. People acted like the place was haunted or the robbers was coming back or something.
