by Erica Hilton
After exiting the bathroom she went back to the pay phone and tried calling Nico again, but this time his phone didn’t even ring; it went straight to voice mail. She knew he’d turned his phone off, but a part of her wanted to believe that he was driving through the Midtown Tunnel and didn’t have any reception.
She put the phone on the receiver and stood with a blank look on her face.
“Miss, what’s your name?” the officer who’d given her the change said after he had walked over to her. There were other officers manning his post while he went on his lunch break.
“What?”
“Your name.”
“For what? What difference does it make?”
“Let me help you.” The officer was definitely attracted to her, but at the same time he was genuinely concerned.
“If you wanna help me, call my man and find out where he’s at.”
“Oh, you waiting on a ride?”
Jasmine wasn’t in a talkative mood, so she didn’t reply.
“My shift ends in a couple of hours, so if you still need a ride, I could look out for you.”
Jasmine didn’t even look him in his face. She nodded, and he walked off. She walked toward the exit of the building. She thought about taking him up on his offer because she was clearly out of options, but she knew it would look way too crazy if Nico caught wind of a cop dropping her off at the crib.
Like a true soldier, she walked back to the corner of Reade Street and waited loyally for her man to come scoop her.
Unfortunately for Jasmine, another hour passed by, and still there was no Nico. It seemed like ages had passed since the feds had shown her those photos of him with Mia, and she was wondering if, in fact, those photos were real. She did her best to shake the thoughts from her head. As soon as she was able to convince herself that those photos were a result of Photoshop tricks, she heard Agent Battle’s words playing in her head when the agent had mockingly asked her if she was a ride-or-die chick.
Jasmine walked back into the federal building one last time and stood in front of the pay phone, wondering what she should do. She was down to her last quarter when she saw an advertisement sticker for a cab service plastered on the pay phone. She knew her best bet would be to use that quarter to call herself a cab, and that was exactly what she did.
When the cab arrived, Jasmine instructed the cab driver to take her to her mother’s house in Queens. She was hoping that either her mother or father would be there so that she would be able to pay for her cab, take a shower, and change her clothes.
As the cab made its way from Manhattan into Queens, all kinds of thoughts ran through Jasmine’s head. Something had told her not to go to Nico’s sprawling Long Island estate that she shared with him, so she decided to follow her gut.
Three
After a good night of sleep at her parents’ house, Jasmine was in no mood to go to school. She ate breakfast and then headed out to Long Island, where she let herself inside Nico’s mansion with her spare key. Nico wasn’t home, and Jasmine still hadn’t spoken to him. She dialed his number from his home phone, but he didn’t answer.
***
“So you good?” Nico asked Mia.
Mia nodded, and Nico reminded her that he would be sitting in the rental parked right across from the only entrance to the Marriott Hotel in Hartford, Connecticut.
“Baby, I’m good.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and exited the Holiday Inn hotel the two of them had checked into an hour earlier.
Mia left the room with 32 ounces of “China white” heroin in her Louis Vuitton shoulder bag, her heart pounding as she made it to the hotel parking lot. She placed the bag in the trunk of the rented Volvo and got behind the steering wheel, pushed the ignition, and headed downtown to the Marriott, while Nico followed her in another rental.
After the ten-minute ride to the Marriott, Mia parked the car and called and reported the rental car stolen. She left three hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of pure heroin inside the trunk of the car, got out, and headed to Room 605 on the sixth floor with another Louis Vuitton bag that held inside only her makeup, wallet, and other personal items.
A buff African dude named Twist opened the door to the hotel room.
“Twist?” Mia asked.
Twist nodded and invited Mia into the room. There were two other African dudes in the room seated at a table, smoking cigarettes and drinking Jack Daniel’s.
“You drink?” one of the dudes asked her.
“I’m not here to drink and socialize,” Mia said in a no-nonsense tone. If any of these dudes were federal agents, she would be looking at football numbers behind bars, but she did her best to not let her nervousness show.
Twist started speaking in his language, and soon the other two dudes started to laugh.
“Have a seat,” Twist said to her.
Mia remembered Nico’s instructions. She told Twist she wanted them to meet at the bar downstairs, near the lobby.
Twist smiled and said something else in his language, and the other two dudes again started laughing.
“Have a drink. Just sit and relax,” Twist said to her, while his boy poured a drink for her, and his other boy got up and went to another room.
“Listen. No disrespect, but can you do me a favor and speak English? I don’t wanna hear all that African jungle voodoo language shit that I can’t understand.”
Twist looked at Mia and smiled. “African jungle voodoo shit?” Twist said with a thick Kunta Kinte-sounding accent. “You’re funny.”
Mia didn’t smile because this wasn’t a game to her.
“So where’s Nico?” Twist asked.
“Why the fuck you asking all these questions? I told you I’m not drinking, and I told you we gotta go downstairs.”
Twist’s man came back into the room with a black knapsack and tossed it to him. He unzipped it and showed it to Mia.
Without saying anything, Mia immediately turned and walked out of the hotel room. She knew there was always the possibility that the room could be wired with cameras, so she said as little as possible. She only wanted to talk business at the bar.
Twist followed her.
“Sweetie, I only talk in bars and lobbies.”
Twist nodded, and they made their way down to the bar, where Mia ordered a soda for herself and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks for Twist. After about five minutes, one of the dudes from in the room came downstairs and placed the black knapsack near Twist’s feet and walked off. Twist sipped on his drink, and then he looked around the bar and asked Mia who she thought was five-0.
“You tell me,” she replied.
Twist motioned his head at someone seated not too far from them. “That’s one right there, and see homie that just walked in . . . that’s a cop; he’s wearing a vest.”
Mia looked at Twist and shook her head. She sipped on her Sprite and placed it back down on the counter. “That’s my shooter with the vest.”
Twist looked at her and smiled.
“It’s three-fifty inside the bag, right?”
Twist nodded, and then Mia instructed him to take the car key that was sitting on the counter.
“Walk out front, and in the second row you’ll see a gray Volvo. Check the trunk.”
Twist was expecting to handle everything inside the hotel room, but he knew that if he wanted the deal to go through, he had to play by Mia’s rules or he’d run the risk of having her think that he was a cop.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” Mia told him.
Twist took the key and made his way to the Volvo. He checked the trunk and saw what was inside the Louis Vuitton bag. A smile flashed across his face, his white teeth contrasting with his blue-black skin.
“You think your girl will like the bag?” Mia asked after he’d returned to the ba
r.
Twist smiled. “She’ll love it.”
“That’s what’s up.”
Mia placed a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, knelt down and scooped up the black knapsack, and headed out of the bar. She tried to walk as normal as possible, but she felt like she was going to shit on herself. It seemed as if every step took the equivalent of two minutes. She was praying that federal agents didn’t swarm her and slam her to the ground and arrest her.
When she made it to Nico’s rental car, Nico moved to the passenger’s seat, and she got in the driver’s seat. Mia put the car in drive, and she and Nico drove off. She reached over and kissed him on the cheek.
“I told you I got you, baby,” she said.
Nico looked inside the black knapsack and smiled.
Four
Nico had a lot on his mind. He had an uneasy feeling that Bebo was planning to take him out, and he constantly looked over his shoulder. Not only did he feel that his life was in danger, he could also sense that he was close to being indicted. He just didn’t know how close. His lawyer had warned him to be careful over the next couple of weeks and to avoid talking on the phone.
Despite the warning, Nico reached out to Jasmine on his way back from Connecticut.
Jasmine picked up on the first ring.
“Jasmine.”
Jasmine broke the silence when that anger she felt when she was left stranded at the federal building instantly returned.
“Nico, how the fuck could you just leave me stranded in Manhattan like that with no money or nothing, after you told me you was on your way to come get me?”
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m in the house!”
Nico was quiet.
“So are you going to tell me what happened or what?”
“I might pass through later on tonight, but I’m not sure. I got some moves I gotta make.” Just as Nico said that, the prepaid phone he had recently purchased began vibrating. He saw it was his right-hand man BJ.
“Yo, let me hit you back,” he said to Jasmine.
“Nico, don’t hang up this phone!”
Nico abruptly ended the call.
Jasmine’s blood was boiling, and she really couldn’t take any more of Nico’s bullshit.
“Ugggghhhh!” She slammed her phone down on the bed.
“BJ, what’s good?” Nico asked.
“Bebo want us to come through for a meeting tonight.”
BJ was also speaking on a prepaid cell, since he too knew that the feds had stepped up their surveillance.
“Call that muthafucka and tell him to suck my muthafuckin’ dick!” Nico barked into the phone. “Shit is hot as hell right now, and this muthafucka setting up play-date meetings and shit, like we’re fuckin’ two-year-old kids.”
“A’ight,” BJ said, not wanting to question Nico’s bravado. After a moment of silence, he asked, “How that thing go?”
“Everything’s good. ’Bout to cross back into New York right now.”
Both of them were silent for a moment.
“You want me to go through just to see what Bebo is saying, or what?”
“If you go to that meeting, you ain’t coming outta there alive. Trust me on that.”
Nico’s main cell phone began ringing. It was Jasmine. He picked up. “I’ll hit you right back.” He ended the call without giving her a chance to say anything.
Jasmine was beyond enraged. For the first time she truly contemplated her options, wondering just what was up with Nico. Now it seemed like he was purposely avoiding her, like she had the monster or something.
BJ was about to hang up, thinking that Nico was talking to him.
“Nah, nah, not you. I was talking to Jasmine. She just hit me up on my other phone,” Nico explained.
“But, BJ, trust me, if you go to that meeting, I’ll be going to your funeral next week. Fuck Bebo! This is my muthafuckin’ shit! This is my muthafuckin’ crew and my muthafuckin’ city!”
BJ and Nico ended their call. Nico didn’t have to spell things out for BJ. He knew it was just a matter of time before Nico called on him to murder Bebo.
***
But what Nico didn’t know was that Twist was working for Bebo. The two had met while in prison. Bebo was furious that Nico had crossed him and cut him out of a deal that he thought Bebo knew nothing about. More importantly, he had no clue who was supplying Nico with that 95% pure heroin.
Bebo knew that he had to maintain his rep at any cost, even if it cost him the life of his top lieutenant. Most of his anger stemmed from his envy of Nico. He took it as Nico was trying to outshine him. Nobody outshined the master.
Five
Nico wanted to stay off the radar until he could figure out for sure what was going on after he came back from Hartford with Mia. He had Mia open up a safe deposit box at a Chase Bank branch in White Plains, where he stashed the three hundred and fifty thousand.
Mia was more than willing to do whatever Nico asked of her, and she was right by his side when the two of them checked into the W Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where they decided to stay for a couple of days before heading out to Las Vegas.
***
Jasmine still hadn’t spoken at length with Nico to find out where his head was at, but she decided to just chill and give him space and not press him. She was trying her best to go about things as normally as possible, but it was hard because she was insecure about what the future held for her.
She had started to get real close with a Puerto Rican girl from her school named Narjara. Narjara was a little younger than Jasmine at eighteen. She was from Washington Heights and lived with her man. Jasmine liked Narjara because she was real cool, she was pretty, and she had swagger that Jasmine liked. Plus, Narjara sort of looked up to Jasmine like she was the big sister that she never had. Narjara was always complimenting her on how beautiful she was and was always asking her for advice. Narjara’s man was a mid-level drug dealer from Newark, New Jersey, and he was real abusive to her.
When Narjara called Jasmine, crying and hysterical after getting her ass beat by her man, Jasmine didn’t hesitate to tell her to take a cab to Long Island and come chill with her. Jasmine wasn’t really in the mood to entertain company, since she had so much on her mind, but she figured it would be a much-needed distraction for her.
When Narjara arrived at Jasmine and Nico’s estate, she called Jasmine on her cell phone, and Jasmine ran out to greet her and to pay for her cab.
“Oh, my God!” Jasmine covered her mouth with her right hand, looking at Narjara’s face in disbelief as she escorted her into her house. “You gotta go to the emergency room and get that eye checked out.”
Narjara’s right eye was closed and swollen shut, and her bottom lip was split and swollen. She looked as if she had been on the receiving end of head shots from Floyd Mayweather.
“I can’t, Jasmine.”
“What you mean, you can’t? You don’t have a choice; I’m taking you myself. You could lose your eye. That shit don’t look good at all. What the hell happened? That muthafucka can’t be putting his hands on you like that!”
Narjara, on the verge of tears, shook her head. “It’s always the same bullshit. It’s like no matter what I do, I can never make him happy. He always finds something to scream on me about. I get so tired of him reminding me how, if it wasn’t for him, I would still be working a stripper’s pole somewhere.”
“For real, for real, you ain’t fuckin’ with his ass no more, and I mean that shit. You can just chill here until we figure something out.”
Narjara went to the mirror and looked at her face. “It wasn’t even this bad when I got in the cab.” Right after she said that, she fell to the floor.
Jasmine screamed, and then she ran to her aid. “Narjara! You okay?”
/> Narjara had fainted, but she quickly came to. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just real dizzy,” she said from the floor, trying to sit up.
“See, this is what I mean—Your ass is going to the hospital right now. I was going to drive you, but I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Jasmine, no. I’m all right!”
“No, you aren’t all right. You fuckin’ just fainted. You getting checked out by a doctor.”
“And what am I gonna tell them happened to me? That my boyfriend beat my ass? Then they’ll call the cops. And I just don’t feel like dealing with that drama.”
Jasmine shook her head. She blew out air out from her lungs. At that very moment, her front doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting anyone to come by at such a late hour. She was hoping it was Nico; that he had forgotten his key or something.
The bell rang again, and Jasmine told Narjara she would be right back.
She looked on the security camera and saw Bebo. A smile came to her face. She knew if Bebo was there that Nico was more than likely right behind him.
“Hey, Bebo,” Jasmine said, after opening the door. She leaned over to give Bebo a kiss on the cheek.
Bebo brushed past her without accepting the kiss, not even bothering to say hello. Two dudes she hadn’t seen before followed him.
“Where your man at?” Bebo asked.
Jasmine opened her hands and shrugged.
“Jasmine, I asked you—Where was your man at?”
“And I said I don’t know!” she replied, sensing something was wrong.
“You shrugged your fuckin’ shoulders. Open your mouth and address me with words.”
Narjara walked into the living room to see what was going on. She had put on a pair of Jasmine’s shades, but her swelling was still visible.
“Are you high or something?” Jasmine asked. “Where the fuck is Nico?”
“I don’t know. I thought he would be with you.”
Bebo tried to detect if she was being straight up with him. “Nah, he ain’t with me. Get him on the phone.”
