by Erica Hilton
“What is Nico saying? The funeral is this morning. Is he going?”
“Listen, things have been so crazy and happening so fast, I haven’t even seen Nico since I got back from Vegas. I’m going to—”
“Let me explain something to you, Jasmine. I need you to treat this like it’s a full-time job. You need to eat, drink, shit, and sleep what you agreed to, and cut out this half-ass bullshit you’ve been offering up.”
“But I’m trying. You just don’t understand.”
“Well, try harder. I need information, and you’re not giving me anything. Before you left for Vegas, you had nothing. You go out to Vegas and come back with nothing. There is a major shooting, and you have nothing. You do understand what we agreed to, right?”
“Yes,” Jasmine meekly replied.
“Well, then what’s the problem?”
Jasmine sighed. She was tired of getting chewed out. “I just need more time.”
“Time? That’s all I keep hearing: you need time.”
Getting close to Nico was going to be tough, but she didn’t want to tell Gosling that. She also didn’t want to tell him that she had found out where Black Justice hung out and that she had formulated a plan to get close to him. What she wanted to do was first get something concrete and then let Gosling know what she had come up with.
“How much time do you need?” Gosling asked in a disgusted tone.
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks . . . ”
Jasmine waited for Agent Gosling to tell her how he was going to throw her black ass in jail if she didn’t come up with the info they needed.
“I tell you what. Make it a full thirty days. But in thirty days I don’t want any excuses. None. Are we clear?”
A slight smile appeared across her face. “No excuses.”
After the call ended, Jasmine went back to the mirror and continued to examine the tattoo on her neck. She loved the way the tattoo looked, even though it would take at least another two weeks for it to fully heal.
Jasmine had heard that on Friday nights Black Justice could usually be found at a strip club called Sue’s Rendezvous. Sue’s was located in his hometown of Yonkers, which wasn’t too far from the Bronx and Harlem, areas of New York that Black Justice pretty much controlled.
Jasmine and Simone weren’t the biggest fans of strip clubs, but Jasmine had convinced Simone to go with her to Yonkers. She explained to Simone that they had spent too much time fucking with dudes from Brooklyn and Queens, and that it was time for them to start mixing it up with dudes from Harlem and Bronx.
Simone continually stayed on the prowl, hoping to land a baller who would spoil her and take care of her, so it didn’t take much convincing. The only thing Simone couldn’t understand was why Jasmine wanted to play with fire. Simone couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, but she instinctively knew that things were on a downward spiral between Nico and Jasmine.
***
It turned out that Jasmine and Simone had picked the right night to go to Sue’s Rendezvous. Two of the chicks from Basketball Wives were scheduled to make an appearance at the club, and a popular porn star was also dancing there that night. When Jasmine and Simone pulled up to the club at one o’clock in the morning, the streets were flooded with high-end cars, and there was a long line of people waiting to get in.
Jasmine didn’t want to spend fifteen minutes circling around looking for a parking spot, so she let the valet park her truck for her, and she and Simone made their way toward the entrance of the club.
It was summer time, so Jasmine was wearing a pair of tight shorts and a twelve-hundred-dollar pair of black Jimmy Choo peep-toe suede shoes with a five-inch heel and back zip. Simone was also dressed sexy, but she was more conservative with a pair of form-fitting jeans and much less expensive high heels.
As the two of them approached the front of the club, a bouncer spotted them and called out to them. “It’s just the two y’all? No dudes?”
“Yeah, just me and her.” Jasmine smiled.
“Okay, that’s what’s up. Y’all don’t have to wait on line. Just stand right here, and as soon as he’s done with them, he’ll frisk y’all, and y’all can go right in.”
“Thank you,” Simone responded.
“Do me a favor and open up your bags, so he can check those too.”
Before long Jasmine and Simone had been frisked, and they both paid their twenty-dollar cover charge to get in. When they walked into the club, they quickly saw how rammed it was.
“This shit is way too packed up in here!” Simone screamed into Jasmine’s ear.
Jasmine ignored Simone. She started looking around to see who she knew and tried to figure out where to go. Simone wanted to go to the bar area next to the main stage, but Jasmine wanted to get closer to the tables, where all the ballers were poppin’ bottles.
Jasmine felt somebody tug on her arm. She turned around and saw Ish, who was part of Ghetto Mafia and real cool with Nico. That was just what Jasmine didn’t want. She hoped she didn’t see anybody she knew.
“Hey, baby,” Jasmine yelled with a smile. She gave Ish a kiss on his cheek. “What you doing here?”
“What the fuck you doing up in here? That’s the question.”
“I just needed to get out. I been cooped up in the house ever since I got shot, and this is my first time out,” Jasmine yelled into his ear.
“Oh, right, right. The streets is crazy right now. You got shot, Bebo got murked, then Lo. Shit is on fire.”
Jasmine had heard about BJ and Lo getting shot, but she didn’t know if Ish was trying to say that Lo had died, and she didn’t want to ask any questions.
“Exactly. That’s why I just wanted to get out and get my mind off everything, and when I heard my girl Tami from Basketball Wives was going to be here, I had to come.”
“Oh, so that’s what the fuck you doing here. That Basketball Wives shit. I feel you. Nico coming through too?”
Jasmine shrugged her shoulders. “Ish, you ever met my girl Simone?”
Ish squinted his eyes to look at Simone, who was attracted to him from the moment she saw him. Ish had that thugged-out look that she loved. He had a deep caramel complexion and full lips and hazel eyes. Ish was about six two, and two hundred pounds of lean muscle, and his deep-set eyes gave him a very menacing appearance.
“Nah, I don’t think I ever met shorty before.” Ish smiled as he extended his hand to Simone.
“Well, buy her a drink and a lap dance and then get to know her,” Jasmine playfully commanded.
“No doubt, no doubt.”
“The drink would be fine, but no lap dances, thank you very much.”
Simone was “strictly dickly.” In fact, she’d told Jasmine that the strippers had better not come near her, trying to grind and dance on her. Simone followed Ish, and they made their way to the bar.
Jasmine walked through the club, and before long she spotted Black Justice sitting with about five other dudes who were drinking and tossing money at strippers. She got as close as she could to him and his crew, and then she found a seat and started to move her body to the music.
One of the dudes with Black Justice asked her, “Want a drink, ma?”
Jasmine nodded, and within seconds the dude poured her a glass of Ace of Spades. Jasmine thanked him and started sipping the champagne.
“So what’s your name?” he asked.
“Ask your boy. He knows who I am.”
“Who? Black Jus?”
Jasmine sipped more of her champagne and nodded. Then she put the drink down and stood up and started dancing by herself to one of Drake’s hit songs.
The dude told Black Jus what she said, and Black Jus looked in her direction and stared at her, trying to remember her name. Black Justice was a half-black, half-Colo
mbian pretty boy who had fucked many bad chicks in his lifetime. He was trying to remember if he had fucked Jasmine.
The dude who had given Jasmine the drink walked back up to her and told her that Jus wanted to see her. Jasmine nodded and turned around and looked in Black Justice’s direction. She kept dancing and waved at him, and then she signaled for him to give her a minute. She didn’t want to seem all eager and desperate. When the song ended, Jasmine made her way over to Black Jus, who stood up as she approached.
He looked at the tattoo on her neck. “Love is cursed—I like that. You just got that tat?”
“Thank you,” Jasmine replied. “Yeah, I just got it.”
“Yo, I know that I know you, but I’m trying to figure out from where.”
Jasmine gave Black Jus a disgusted look. “Jasmine.”
“Right, right. You from Queens, right?”
Jasmine nodded and smiled.
“You used to fuck with that nigga Shabazz?”
“Yo, I swear me and Shabazz might as well have been married or some shit. Everybody links me to him, and I wasn’t even fuckin’ with him for that long before he got killed.”
“So what’s up wit’chu?”
“I’m just doing me right now, trying to make my own moves.”
“Whatchu mean?”
Jasmine looked at Black Jus, and then she drank some more of her champagne. “It’s too noisy in here. I can’t really talk like I want to, but I gotta get wit’chu and discuss something.”
“Fuck the music! Let’s talk now.”
Jasmine didn’t want to talk right then and there because she wanted to record the conversation. Turning on the recorder at that point wouldn’t have made any sense because the music would have drowned them out.
Jasmine stood on her tippy toes and yelled into Black Justice’s right ear. “Here’s what it is. I just need a new connect right now. I got this nigga from North Carolina, and I had him going through Ghetto Mafia niggas, but you know how hot shit is right now with them.”
Black Justice was as greedy as any drug dealer, and the only thing he cared about more than money was his looks.
“So what’s good, ma? Talk to me. He lookin’ for weight?”
Jasmine nodded her head.
“I gotchu. You know how I gets down.”
Jasmine smiled.
“So you fuckin’ with that nigga? It’s your man or what?”
“Something like that.”
“Whatchu mean?”
“I mean, I ain’t trying to tie my pussy down.”
Black Justice laughed, and then his man came with a brand-new bottle of Hennessy and handed it to him.
“You want some?” he asked Jasmine.
Jasmine shook her head. “So let me get your number because I see you about to get twisted.”
Black Justice took out his cell phone and gave Jasmine his number. “Call me right now, and I’ll lock you into my phone, and you can lock me into yours.”
Jasmine didn’t know which number to give him, but something told her to just give him the FBI-issued number, and that’s what she did. She took out her FBI BlackBerry and dialed his number.
“Two-five-two?” Black Justice commented, referring to the area code of Jasmine’s number.
Jasmine froze because she didn’t have a ready-made excuse as to why the number was out of state. In fact, that was the first time it had dawned on her that she should have known the number.
“Yeah.” Jasmine nonchalantly locked in Black Justice’s number.
“Oh, that’s that North Carolina area code, right?”
Jasmine’s heart began to race. She didn’t know what to say because she had no idea if it was in fact a North Carolina area code. She just smiled and nodded.
Jasmine and Simone both ended up having a great time at the strip club. Simone had managed to hook up with Ish, and Jasmine had made the initial inroads into Black Justice.
Jasmine was able to exhale later that night. She knew the “confidential informant gods” were on her side because, as luck would have it, the 2-5-2 area code was, in fact, a North Carolina area code.
Twenty-Three
The following afternoon, Black Justice found himself waking up next to a stripper named Bella, who had recently relocated from Miami. Although Bella had a small frame, she had a huge ass, which was what had attracted Black Justice to her. In spite of Bella’s ass, Black Justice found himself unable to get his mind off Jasmine. He got out of the bed and walked over to the vertical mirror on the back of his bedroom door.
“We would have some cute kids,” Bella said as she partially sat up in the bed with her elbow on her pillow and the palm of her hand supporting her head.
Black Justice walked into the bathroom and put water in his hands and then ran it back and forth through his hair, causing it to curl. He then went back into the bedroom and looked at himself again in the mirror.
“Yeah, we would have some fly-ass seeds,” he replied.
Bella got out of the bed, walked up to him, and rubbed on his dick.
“I’m good, ma.”
“You good?” Bella smiled as she continued to rub on his dick.
Bella was always trying to use her position as a stripper to land a baller like Black Justice, and now that she had one in front of her, she felt like she had to impress him with her sex skills as much as she could. She had already let Black Justice fuck her when they’d come home from the club, but she wanted to exhaust him with her pussy.
“I said I was good.” Black Justice pushed Bella away. It wasn’t a hard push, but it got her attention. “I’m going to the barbershop, and then I got some moves to make.”
“Oh, okay.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as Black Jus looked through his phone.
“So can I chill here until you get back?”
Black Jus didn’t say anything as he put on his watch and chain and walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Bella wanted to jump in the shower, but she decided against it. She just threw on the same pair of thongs and the same bra that she’d had on the previous night, and she started to get dressed.
“I got another shorty coming through in about a hour or two; otherwise, I would let you chill with me until I get back.”
Bella felt like shit after that comment, but she was sort of used to being treated like a whore. She tried to play things off like it didn’t affect her. “So you a pretty boy playa? Playa, playa, playa,” she chuckled and said.
Black Justice smiled as he looked into his mirror again. Then he put on some cologne before quickly getting dressed.
“I just do my thing. You feel me?”
Bella nodded as she put on her stilettos. Then she grabbed her bag, walked up to Black Jus, and kissed him on the lips. “Call me if you ever need me.”
“No doubt.” Black Justice reached into the pocket of the jeans he’d worn the night before and pulled out a wad of cash. After peeling off three hundred dollars, he threw the jeans to the ground and handed Bella the cash.
“Thank you, sweetie.” Bella gave Black Jus another kiss.
“Yo, how these kicks look with these jeans?”
“It’s official.” Bella was surprised at how vain Black Jus was. She had been around a lot of thugs in her short lifetime, but Black Jus was definitely more preoccupied with his appearance than any other dude she knew.
Bella made her way out of the house and into her Mitsubishi Galant, and she headed to her Harlem apartment.
Black Jus ignored the missed calls he had on his phone from about five different chicks and called Jasmine.
“Hey,” Jasmine replied after answering on the third ring.
“What’s good?”
She stretched and yawned at the sa
me time. “Nothing. Just woke up.”
“So, yo, I’m heading to the barbershop. What you doing later? Why don’t you come through?”
Jasmine didn’t respond.
“Hello?”
“Come through where?”
“To the crib.”
Jasmine knew that if she went to Black Justice’s crib that he would make a move on her and try to fuck her. She remembered Gosling’s warnings about no sexual involvement with any of the targets. “Jus, I told you I got a man. I can’t disrespect him like that.”
Black Jus was quiet.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, yeah, so just come through anyway, so we can chop it up about what we was talking about last night.”
Jasmine knew she had to get something incriminating on Black Jus, and therefore she had to play the game on his terms. So she got his address and made plans to meet up with him at his crib at four o’clock.
***
At four o’clock Jasmine found herself at Black Justice’s huge New Rochelle home just off North Avenue in Westchester County.
Black Jus opened the front door to his house. “You found it okay?”
“GPS.” Jasmine smiled while her Blackberry lay in her bag recording everything that was said. “You have a nice house.” The house was nice, but it couldn’t touch Nico’s estate.
“Yeah, it’s cool. It’s quiet up here, you know, when you want to get away from all the noise and drama.”
Jasmine nodded. “Does Irv Gotti live around here?”
“Yeah, that punk-ass nigga live about two blocks away.”
Jasmine chuckled. “I thought so.” She had been to a party before at his house and thought the area looked familiar.
“So them Ghetto Mafia niggas is dropping like flies,” Black Jus commented. He was referring to Lorenzo, who had succumbed to the gunshot wounds.
“Yeah, that’s so fucked up.” Jasmine had always thought that Lo, like BJ, was so cool.
Jasmine hadn’t spoken to Nico, but with Lo’s death, she knew she would hear from him soon and, at the very least, would find out about funeral arrangements and would run into him at Lo’s funeral.
