“You need to stop treating your own flesh-and-blood daughter like she’s a fuckin’ stepchild. She’s your firstborn!”
AZ could make a lot of money if he got a dollar every time she used the expression “firstborn.” He was sick and tired of hearing it repeated.
Lisa got closer to him, yapping her mouth wildly with everything foul and crazy.
In the midst of their argument, the front door opened, and Wendy and the boys walked in. The moment Wendy saw Lisa standing in her living room arguing with her husband, a hard frown splattered across her face. She was already having a bad day from work to home. Seeing Lisa, she knew her day was about to become even worse.
“This bitch here,” Lisa exclaimed.
“What is she doing here, AZ?” Wendy asked composedly.
“I’m here to have a talk with my baby father. That’s what I’m doing here. You have a problem with that?”
“Yes, I do. Matter of fact, I want you to leave my house, and leave my husband alone.”
Lisa’s blood was boiling. The word husband made her skin crawl. Every time she got close to Wendy, she wanted to rip her face apart and beat her to the ground. She was the reason for AZ not taking care of his daughter and moving to Maryland.
“I’m not going any-fuckin’-where,” Lisa said, glaring at Wendy.
As the women hissed at each other, Randy and Terrance clung to their mother’s legs and stared questioningly up at the hostile lady. The boys didn’t know anything about their half-sister, Alice.
Lisa shot a look down at the two boys and spat, “You so worried about them two little niggas, catering to these two muthafuckas, and treating your firstborn like a muthafuckin’ stepchild, when them two little niggas don’t even look nothing like you, AZ. How you know them your babies?” She stood there looking smug.
The house became silent.
Then she added, “You treat these little muthafuckas like they’re the Holy Grail. Well, they ain’t. You need to start treating Alice better than these two little niggas. Nigga, did you even get a DNA test done? They probably ain’t even your kids.”
Wendy had heard enough. Her hands turned into fists, and she reacted without any thought to it. She swung at Lisa, and the punch landed to the side of her face. The blow was shocking, but it wasn’t enough to take Lisa down. She had come ready to fight.
A fight ensued. Fists went flying at each other.
Lisa quickly had the advantage. She was a bull seeing red, knocking Wendy around in her own home. Though Wendy had twenty pounds on Lisa, Lisa was a beast with her hands. Lisa never became civilized, had never stopped fighting, while Wendy hadn’t thumped anyone in years. The only fighting she did was in the courtroom.
Wendy went crashing to the floor with Lisa on top of her.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” Lisa hollered. “Don’t fuck wit’ me, bitch.”
The punches to Wendy’s face continued. Wendy desperately tried to lift herself from the floor and shield herself from the onslaught, but Lisa was like a lion tearing apart her prey. Once her teeth were fixed into flesh and she smelled blood, there was no stopping her.
Lisa had Wendy’s long hair knotted into her fist, and she had control, bringing on pain with hair-pulling and punches.
The kids started crying.
AZ ran toward the brawl and attempted to break it apart. “Get the fuck off her, Lisa!” he shouted.
Lisa was ready to fight him too. She glared at AZ. “Get the fuck off me, nigga! Don’t fuckin’ touch me!” She pulled out a knife.
Now, he was ready to go get his gun and make a statement. Did Lisa forget who he was and what he was about? “You gonna show out like this in my home and in front of my kids?” he barked.
Lisa’s shirt was torn and her hair disheveled, and Wendy was a true mess too, her face bleeding, her hair everywhere, and her outfit ripped. Both ladies were breathing heavily.
AZ stood in between them. “Leave, Lisa, before I make you leave,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“So this is how you gonna do us? Huh, nigga? This is how you gonna do me and your daughter?”
Alice was in tears, and Randy and Terrance were screaming and hollering, clinging to their mother’s leg tightly like they were being pulled away.
“You’re a disrespectful bitch!” AZ exclaimed.
Lisa started to shed a few tears. What had hurt her most was AZ turning against her. What was more painful was seeing him protecting Wendy and her two kids, and he didn’t come to comfort his daughter. She was crying too.
AZ reached for his two boys and put them into his arms. He turned to his wife. “You okay?”
Lisa took a deep breath. She had seen enough. The rage and antagonism she felt quickly transitioned into soreness and abandonment in the pit of her stomach. She went to Alice and took her hand. “C’mon, Alice, let’s go. Fuck your father!” She marched toward the exit, pulling Alice along forcefully.
Alice glanced back at her father with the saddest eyes. AZ swallowed hard as he locked eyes with his daughter, a mirror image of himself. He wanted to say something, but he stayed silent.
“I’m calling the cops,” Wendy said. “You see what that bitch did to me?”
AZ heard her, but he wasn’t listening. Alice had his undivided attention; she was still his heart. He loved her deeply, but her mother was so complicated.
Sixteen
AZ wanted total annihilation of his wife’s side-nigga. He couldn’t sleep much because he was constantly thinking about the affair happening right under his nose. He was so busy in New York, putting together a multi-million dollar drug deal, someone else swooped in and fucked his wife.
He was rising faster in power, but he was losing stability at home. Nothing he tried—sex with Baron, business, exercising—could completely free his mind from Wendy’s betrayal. He wasn’t going to feel right until he got the name and location of the man she was fucking. Wendy was being stubborn, protecting her lover tooth and nail.
They argued incessantly, and the kids were witnesses to their drama. Wendy wanted him to forgive her, but at the moment, he couldn’t. She had betrayed him, and he didn’t take betrayal lightly.
The incident reminded him of Aoki. Though it was a long time ago, the memories of the friendship they once had, his feelings for her, his revealing his homosexuality to her, and her stabbing him in the back were vivid. He never wanted to go through that feeling or situation again.
He’d thought Wendy was different. Because she was educated and a prosecutor, he figured her to be the perfect woman for him. Their pillow talk was him inquiring about the law, hypothetically putting himself into situations and having a prosecutor’s point of view. He would ask questions, and she didn’t hesitate to answer. Each day, he grew wiser and wiser about litigation, procedure, and certain indictments, as he prepared himself for what-ifs. Though he was careful, there was always the possibility of the DEA kicking down his front door and taking him away in handcuffs in front of his family.
AZ’s home office was quiet. The boys were out with the babysitter, and Wendy was working feverishly on her rape/robbery case. Supposedly. He sat in his high-back leather chair and threw back a few shots of dark liquor as he contemplated his next move. Life on top could be exhausting. He felt he always had to be three or four steps ahead of everyone, from Oscar to the streets, his business, the DEA, and even his wife.
He had gone through Wendy’s cell phone records meticulously, looking for a number that was out of place. But with her being the assistant state’s attorney, many different phone calls were coming in and going out, so it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Wendy wasn’t stupid. She knew how to hide her irregulars. That’s why he hired two goons to follow her nonstop. He wanted to know where she was at all times. He couldn’t take any chances. Did the man she was fucking know where they lived? Had he
ever been to the house? Did he fuck his wife in his bed? The thought of it refueled AZ’s anger and made him sick to his stomach.
*
Heavy Pop drove to Maryland, and the two met at AZ’s home. Though Heavy Pop had been to AZ’s mini-mansion in the Maryland suburbs several times before, he was still impressed. After AZ told him about Wendy’s affair, the next day he drove straight there ready for things to pop off, but Wendy wouldn’t give up the name or location of her lover.
The two friends sat in AZ’s stylish office, downed a few drinks, and shared ideas. AZ spilled out his frustration like an erupting volcano. Heavy was the only one he could talk to about his problems. Though they were close, AZ still kept his homosexual lifestyle a secret from him, fearful that Heavy Pop wouldn’t understand and would turn against him. There had been times when AZ wanted to reveal his secret to Heavy, feeling he could trust him with it and their friendship would stay intact, but he would always have second thoughts. Homosexuality was still considered taboo in the ghetto, and if word got out, AZ knew it would open up another can of worms. So he decided he would take his secret to the grave. He wasn’t going to make the mistake so many others had made by coming out of the closet and hoping things would be the same. In reality, widespread knowledge about AZ being gay would create a tailspin in the game.
AZ told his friend about the fight between his wife and his baby mamma.
Heavy Pop found the incident amusing. “Lisa has always been a firecracker.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. I was ready to shoot that bitch.”
After that, AZ went on to talk again about Wendy’s affair. There was no way AZ could escape it.
“I know you love her, AZ, and she’s the mother of your kids, but knowing this, do you still trust her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Push comes to shove and she needs to be dealt with, could you do it?”
“She’s an assistant state’s attorney, well-connected politically.”
“And you’re a fuckin’ drug kingpin. What if the day comes when she finds out who you really are? Then what? Are you trying to run for mayor or something?”
“She’s been an advantage to me since the day we met, Heavy. I know what I’m doing. The information she’s provided over time has been helpful to me.”
“And your relationship with her can harm you too.”
Heavy poured another shot of Hennessy into his shot glass and threw it back, feeling the dark liquor tingle in his throat. He leaned back in the plush chair and lit a cigar. He inhaled and savored the flavor; there was nothing better than a Cuban cigar.
He had always been the voice of reason with AZ. The men had grown wiser since their hustling days in the Pink Houses. Their survival almost made them feel invincible. Seeing death made them take nothing for granted.
“I’m no slack, Heavy. You know me. If I need to handle things, I will.”
“I know, but don’t let her become another Aoki. You already know how that shit went down. Wendy’s a lovely woman. I like her. But at the end of the day, is she loyal to you, her husband? And this affair she’s having, it’s already telling you what you need to know. What if she decides to divorce you and have her lawyers and her peoples start investigating you?”
“I deal with that problem if it comes. But I’m on top of things. I have two of my men following her closely. Where she goes, they go. If she takes a piss in the bathroom, I’m gonna know what color it was.”
“Married life. A nigga like me will always stay single, because married life is more treacherous than the street life.”
They shared a laugh.
AZ enjoyed having his friend around. For once, he didn’t have to travel to New York to enjoy a cigar, a few drinks, and good conversation with him. The comfort of his home office was just fine. It was safe to talk. Once a week he had it swept for any bugs.
An hour later, AZ received a phone call via a secure line from his henchmen following Wendy.
He answered, anticipating some good news. “Tell me something good.”
Heavy Pop lifted his heavy frame from the chair to get some circulation going in his legs as AZ conversed on the phone. He walked around and looked at numerous pictures AZ had of them when they were younger on the walls of his office. The glory days back when Brooklyn was all they knew, and the street life and selling drugs was survival of the fittest. It still was, but now they had “Pablo Escobar dreams” about the street life.
Heavy Pop’s eyes lingered on a picture Heavy’s Pop aunt took of them back in the day. They were sixteen-year-olds with cornrows. Heavy Pop had a huge baby face, and AZ was skinny like a broomstick. AZ had his arms around Heavy, and they were showing off their herringbone chains and cheesing for the camera. The boys were happy and inseparable like brothers. It was around the time when Rich Deal put them on his crew and threw them out there to hustle drugs. They’d bought the chains with their first drug proceeds and had felt like kings with their new bling. It was amazing that AZ still had the picture. Heavy Pop wondered if he still had his herringbone chain.
The phone call was brief. AZ hung up and smiled. “I got a name.”
“You do, huh.”
“Justice,” AZ said.
Heavy Pop chuckled. “How ironic. Well, let’s go give him some justice,” he said with a cutting smile.
AZ wanted to know everything about Justice, the man who had his wife’s attention.
*
Heavy Pop found out Justice was born in Brooklyn, but built his reputation in Baltimore and was a serious figure in Maryland. He was a Blood, an OG whose name rang out, and a drug dealer, but nowhere near the level of AZ and Heavy Pop. He was a three-to-four-kilo-a-month gangster and drove a Range Rover and a Benz. He was tall, bald, and handsome with green eyes, and he always dressed in the finest attire. He had several baby mamas and a reputation with the ladies. A year earlier, he was the prime suspect for two murders in the city. Two men were gunned down on the East Side, but murder charges were never processed due to lack of evidence and no witnesses coming forward.
AZ was baffled. How did his wife and that hoodlum drug dealer ever hook up? Meanwhile, he’d been hiding his own lifestyle from her, thinking she wouldn’t accept it. What the fuck?
Seventeen
Justice climbed into his black Range Rover in his boot-cut jeans, leather coat, and beige Timberlands. He was sporting a diamond earring, pinky ring, and a long platinum diamond link chain with a diamond-encrusted Jesus head pendant. From the East Side to the West Side, there was no argument that Justice was making money in Baltimore.
Talk was spreading that he was fucking a high-end bitch, a city prosecutor at that. He boasted about Wendy to his friends and associates, not considering that he was putting her job at risk. She had quickly become his favorite bitch. Damn, the things she could do! She was an undercover freak, and smart too. She had her own money and was far removed from the ghetto chickenheads of Baltimore.
He started the ignition to his truck. Then he pulled out his cell phone and scrolled down to Wendy’s number. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He desperately wanted to see her tonight. She had been ignoring his phone calls for almost a week. He had left messages, but she hadn’t called him back. He knew it had to be her husband getting in the way of them seeing each other.
Though he’d had a few harsh words with the nigga over the phone, he didn’t feel threatened by him. In fact, he was thinking about having him killed. With AZ gone, Wendy would undeniably be his. He didn’t want to share his favorite bitch with anyone, not even her own husband.
Justice felt that it was time to put the murder into motion. First, he would talk to Wendy about it, see how she would react. She hated the man anyway, so why wouldn’t she be down with killing him? She was a prosecutor, so she could easily cover up the crime. He had the perfect guy to call—Matrix, a white boy from D.C. He wa
s expensive, but he was really good. They said that his victims only saw him coming when he wanted them to, and that meant a slow and painful death.
Justice lit a cigarette and attempted to call Wendy again. His call went to voice mail again. He exhaled in aggravation. Usually, bitches couldn’t stop calling him, but he couldn’t stop calling her. He couldn’t stop thinking about that pussy. She had him tripping. Was he sprung?
He had a lot on his mind, not just Wendy, but his competitors in Baltimore. The game was fierce, and the snitches were overwhelming. Running a drug crew wasn’t easy, with envy out there, stretching for miles.
He tossed his cell phone in the passenger seat and sighed. West Baltimore was bustling twenty-four/seven with drugs, bitches, parties, violence and crime, even police passing by on the humble. Justice sat on the corner of W. Preston Street and Druid Avenue in an $80,000 truck with no concerns at all. This was his territory. He could park wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted. He could walk around Baltimore with a handful of hundred-dollar bills and was sure no one would rob him or come after him.
“Fuck that bitch!” he uttered out of frustration.
He decided to text her: Yo, I’m calling u. Where u at? Ya husband got u igging me? Tell that nigga he don’t wanna see me. I don’t give a fuck about him. I just want you and that fat pussy on my dick tonight. Holla at ya boy. Miss you.
Justice waited for her to reply.
Unbeknownst to him, AZ was reading the text. The man fucking his wife was becoming a lot more disrespectful. AZ texted back from Wendy’s phone: I see you, nigga! Just wait around and we’ll have our talk. I promise you that! Facts!
Oh shit, Justice thought. But he didn’t cringe. He laughed. “Nigga got balls. He don’t know me.” He texted back: Nigga, you fuckin’ wit’ death, muthafucka. Ask bout me. I’m no suburban, rich punk hiding behind his wife’s phone. I’m the real thing, nigga. Don’t die because of some pussy.
AZ texted: Lol, and you’re about to die because of some pussy. My pussy, nigga. I told you, she’s married. And I see you bout to die now nigga on that corner in that Range Rover.
Killer Dolls, Part 3 Page 10
