A Girl From Flint

by Treasure Hernandez

  “Since we taking all the risks, we want seventy-five/ twenty-five,” Honey stated firmly. “Fifty percent between four people ain’t a lot.”

  Manolo hadn’t expected them to bargain with him, but he was money-hungry, and these cats had too much dough to let the opportunity pass. “Deal! Now, is y’all down or what?”

  Honey looked at Mimi and shrugged her shoulders, not knowing whether or not she should give the proposition any thought.

  “You know I don’t give a fuck.” Mimi grabbed the blunt from Honey. “Let’s get those niggas.”

  Honey looked at Amra and could see she was unsure about the situation.

  “What do you think, Tasha?” Amra asked.

  Tasha thought about it for a minute, then did the math in her head. “It’s cool. I’m down. I’m not about to pass up no scratch.”

  Amra sighed, figuring that if Tasha agreed to it, then it must be alright. “I’m in.”

  Honey said, “So, how we supposed to hook up with them?”

  Manolo nodded his head at Amra. “It’s a party tonight. They gon’ be there, and since Amra already got one of them interested in her, then she can just introduce the rest of y’all when you get there.”

  Honey said, “Okay, but it takes money to get ready for a party like this, and since we ain’t making money yet—”

  “If you can hustle them niggas like you hustling me, then we straight.” Manolo laughed. He knew that the dark-skinned beauty sitting in front of him was a hustler at heart. It was obvious that she was the leader of the crew. He reached into his pocket and counted out two thousand dollars and handed five hundred to each girl. “Y’all straight now?”

  Mimi nodded. “We good.”

  Manolo walked out of the room, and a couple minutes later, he came back with four cell phones. “This is what you handle business on. If you ain’t hustling a nigga, then he shouldn’t be calling on this phone. I’ll be calling too, so always keep it on.” He handed a phone to each girl.

  Tasha looked around his plush apartment. He had black leather furniture on top of white carpeting, and a plasma TV. He’s living kind of nice, so I guess he got money. She saw that her friends were getting ready to leave, so she rose up and walked to the door.

  The girls left the house and walked a couple blocks before hopping on the city bus. “So, what y’all think?” Mimi asked as they all piled in.

  “He cool, and I’m definitely down to do this shit,” Amra replied.

  Honey laughed. “Hell yeah, we down to do this shit. First, we about to go get some outfits for tonight, though.”

  The girls headed to the Valley, Flint’s only shopping center, and immediately split up. Tasha hit store after store trying to find an outfit that she could afford. Eventually, she bought a black dress that was completely out in the back. It wrapped around her neck and barely covered her breasts, and the bottom clung tightly to her voluptuous hips. She tried it on, put her hands on her hips and looked into the mirror. Hell yeah, this dress is nice. She looked at her flat stomach, then turned around and looked at her butt to see if it looked too big. She looked at Honey and asked her, “What about this?”

  Honey looked at the outfit and immediately nodded in approval.

  Tasha smiled then looked at the price tag. “Damn! Four hundred and twenty dollars!” she said aloud. “I thought this was on the clearance rack!”

  “Girl, Macy’s be taxing on they clothes. In a minute, you ain’t gon’ have to shop on the clearance rack.”

  Honey bought a bluejean skirt that was so short, it barely covered what it was supposed to. She bought a black one-sleeve shirt and black strapped sandals that laced up to her ankle.

  They walked around the store until they found Amra and Mimi. They were trying on clothes. Amra ended up buying hip-hugging bluejean pants, a white bikini top shirt that would show her flat stomach, and a silver Gucci belt.

  Mimi tried on a sleeveless black bodysuit that hugged her skin like plastic, and picked out a silver necklace to go with it. “How does this look?” she asked Tasha.

  “It’s cute. Buy it.”

  Mimi started to unzip it in the back. “Nah. I got an outfit at home that I’m gon’ wear.” She went into the dressing room and got dressed.

  They rushed home to prepare for the party. Since they only had a couple of hours to get dressed, they started as soon as they walked through the door.

  “Honey, you know you’re doing my hair, right?” Amra walked into the bathroom to get the first shower.

  “Alright, that’s cool, but hurry up, ’cuz I got to do mine too.”

  Tasha laughed. “Yeah, Honey, you doing my shit too.”

  “I’ll do it if you want me too,” Mimi told her.

  “Yeah, it will save time,” Honey stated. “She can do your makeup too.”

  Mimi did Tasha’s hair and makeup even better than Honey could have done it, twisting Tasha’s long hair into a knotted ponytail. Tasha looked in the mirror at her hair and makeup. “You about to be hooking my shit up all the time.”

  “You should have been letting me hook you up, instead of letting Honey mess you up!”

  They laughed.

  Honey walked in the room. “Bitches, I heard that!”

  Mimi put on the outfit she had tried on in the store. Tasha knew for a fact that Mimi hadn’t bought it, and seemed to be the only one who had noticed that. Tasha didn’t say anything about it, though. She just went and got dressed.

  By nine thirty, everybody was ready to go. They asked Tammy if they could borrow her car. When Tammy agreed, they jumped into the red Monte Carlo and left.

  They walked into the party at eleven o’clock, and immediately all eyes were on them. Amra made her way through the crowd, her friends following behind. They chilled by the bar, accepting drinks from men who were trying to take them home. The music at the party was loud, and the DJ was spinning Jay-Z. The atmosphere in the club was cool, and most people were dancing in the middle of the floor, but the people who thought they were too cool to dance were sitting at the many tables that surrounded the room. It was dark, with the exception of a strobe light and the light coming from the bar, so it was hard for Amra to spot the guy she had talked to the night before at the club.

  Mimi leaned over and asked Amra. “Do you see him?”

  Amra shrugged her shoulders. “It’s too dark. I can’t really see anybody.”

  Honey jumped up off the stool she was seated on and said, “Come on, we can’t find them. Fuck it! We’ll just have to tell Manolo they didn’t come. I didn’t buy this outfit just to sit around. I’m about to go dance.” She disappeared into the crowd. As soon as she entered the crowd, she drew new attention as she danced in the middle of the floor.

  Amra looked around, and gave up when she was sure that she couldn’t find him in the dark. She looked at Mimi and Tasha and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Don’t trip,” Tasha said. “We can do it another night.”

  Amra ordered a drink from the bar.

  “What up?”

  She turned around when she heard the deep voice, and saw a dark-skinned dude with cornrows standing close behind her.

  “What up?” she replied, not trying to show her interest in him.

  The man stood close to her as he bent down to whisper in her ear, “It looks like you waiting on somebody. I don’t wanna throw salt on your game, so I’m gonna cut to the chase. Can I get your number so I can call you later?”

  Amra wanted to deny him, but his intriguing smile and dark skin tone lured her in. She was about to reply when Honey came back out of the crowd smiling, and stepped directly in between Amra and the dude she was talking to. Honey looked at him rudely and said, “Excuse me!” and he took a step back. She turned to Amra. “Fuck them niggas! It’s these dudes sitting over there. I just danced with one of ’em. Let’s go chill with them.”

  Amra nodded her head okay, and Honey began to walk away. Before leaving the bar, Amra wrote down her number and handed it to him. �
��What did you say your name was?” she asked him.

  He rubbed his neatly trimmed goatee. “Lloyd.”

  Honey led the way over to her new friends, and Amra immediately spotted the dude from the night before. “That’s him!” she whispered excitedly in Honey’s ear.

  Honey’s smile immediately got ten times brighter as she took a seat next to the guy she’d been dancing with. The girls sat down in between the group of dudes.

  Amra sat down next to the guy she had talked to and said, “What up?”

  The dude was as high as a kite. He looked at her and his eyes lingered on her breasts, which were easily visible from the bikini top she had on. “What up, ma? What did you say your name was last night?”

  Amra couldn’t be too upset at him for forgetting her name, because she didn’t remember his either. “Amra,” she said.

  “Seneca.” He hit the blunt he was smoking and passed it to her.

  Amra relaxed as she let the weed fill her lungs. Seneca was all over her, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was dancing in front of him as he put his hands on her body, touching every place that she would let him go. She noticed the platinum necklace that hung low from his neck, the diamonds glistening brightly. Yeah, he got money, she thought to herself as she drank the Hennessy she had bought from the bar. She looked around and noticed that her friends were having a good time too. Seneca’s friends were all over Mimi, Tasha, and Honey.

  The party started to wind down, and they all walked out to the parking lot.

  Seneca looked at Amra and said, “Roll out with me tonight.”

  Hell yeah! I’m about to get this nigga! Amra looked at him and his boys, and then said, “Well, it’s still early. Y’all want to come back to our hotel room?”

  Seneca was the first to speak up. “Yeah, that sound good.” He looked at his boys and asked, “Y’all trying to roll?”

  They all quickly replied, “Hell yeah,” at the same time.

  A smile spread across Amra’s face. She could hear the eagerness in the men’s voices. They thought they were getting some ass. She looked back at her girls and winked her eye. Now the only thing they needed was Manolo to come through.

  They instructed the group of guys to follow their cab to the hotel. After they got into the cab, Mimi immediately picked up her phone to call Manolo. “It’s all set up. They’re meeting us at the room you checked out for us.” Manolo said something to her, and she hung up the phone. She looked at her friends and informed them about what was going down. “He said that the key will be waiting at the front desk under my name. He wants us to get them drunk. Y’all know the rest. He’s gonna be waiting in the bathroom, and when he hears the signal, he’s gon’ come and rob they asses blind.”

  Tasha frowned up. “What’s the signal?”

  Mimi answered, “Oh yeah, when we turn out the lights, he knows to come in.”

  The girls were silent for the rest of the ride.

  Tasha looked at the illuminated streets of the city. I hope we get away with this shit. It seems too easy. Manolo better be there, ’cuz I’m not trying to fuck these niggas for real.

  The cab finally arrived at the hotel, and butterflies filled their stomachs. Tasha was nervous and tried not to show it as she looked at her friends. She gave the cabby a ten-dollar bill and got out of the car.

  Seneca and his carful of friends pulled up. Their music could be heard for blocks away, and announced their arrival before the car actually pulled up. Seneca stuck his head out of the window. “I’m ’bout to park in the lot. Meet us in the lobby.”

  Amra spread a fake smile across her face and yelled, “Okay. Is y’all trying to drink something?”

  He replied, “Yeah. Do y’all got some drank already?”

  Honey interjected, “Nah, but we drinking Rémy.”

  Seneca looked at Honey and replied, “A’ight, I hear you, ma. We’ll buy. I’ma hit the corner store. We’ll be back in ten minutes. What’s the room number?”

  Mimi quickly replied, “Two-o-four. Hurry up, so we can get the party started.”

  With that, Seneca and his boys pulled off, headed for the liquor store. As soon as the girls saw the taillights pull out of the parking lot, they entered the hotel and approached a woman sitting behind the front desk. She had an outrageous hairdo and big gold hoop earrings.

  Mimi was the first to speak, “Hello, my name is Mimi—”

  The woman pulled a key out and said, “Hurry up. Manolo is waiting for you upstairs.”

  Mimi took the key, and they headed to the second floor.

  When the girls reached the room, Amra hesitated at the door. She was beginning to have second thoughts. “I don’t know about this,” she whispered to her friends as they stood outside the room.

  Honey looked at Amra and smacked her lips. “Well, it’s too late now. We’re here and we got them niggas on their way, so you better get your shit together before they get here. And stop looking so nervous. You a dead giveaway.”

  Tasha was nervous too, she just hadn’t said it aloud. She looked skeptically at Honey, and then at Amra. “Come on, Amra. It’s easy money. It won’t take that long. Let’s just get it over with,” she said, trying to convince herself too.

  They entered the room, and Manolo came out of the bathroom with bluejeans, a white T-shirt, and a black ski mask rolled up around his face. “Is everything set up?” he asked.

  Tasha could see the dollar signs in his eyes, “Yeah, they’re on their way.”

  Manolo pulled his gun from his waistline. “Cool.” He sat on the bed with the gun in his palm. “Just follow through with the plan, and we are about to get paid. What kind of car were they driving?”

  Honey looked in the air, trying to remember what kind of car they had been in. “I don’t know. It was one of them new boys. I think it was an Excursion . . . yeah, a silver one. It was sitting on some nice rims, though. I do remember that.”

  Manolo rubbed his hands together. “That’s mine too. I can use some rims for the whip.”

  At that moment, they heard a knock at the door, and everyone immediately froze.

  Oh shit! I wonder if they heard us talking. Tasha looked around the room. She could tell that the same thought was on everybody’s mind.

  Manolo whispered, “Showtime!” He hurried to the bathroom and closed the door.

  Amra yelled, “One minute!” and all the girls sat on the bed, trying not to look suspicious. She walked to the door and opened it.

  Seneca and his friends walked in, holding brown paper bags in their hands. Seneca had a blunt in his mouth and a big smile on his face.

  Tasha watched as the group of dudes entered the room. They all seemed to rush her way, but the fat, ugly one reached her first.

  Honey saw the look on Tasha’s face when he introduced himself, and she wanted to laugh. Damn, that nigga look just like Biggie Smalls! She turned around, trying to muffle her laugh.

  “I’m Rico,” he said cockily.

  “Tasha,” she replied with a sexy smile. She looked him up and down. The nigga was ugly, but she had to admit, he was geared from head to toe. This is a fly-ass fat mu’fucka, she thought to herself. The platinum chain with the diamond cuts in it made her warm up to him quickly.

  “You drinking something?” Rico held up his bottle of Rémy.

  Tasha hated the taste of liquor. “Crack it open.” She went and got some plastic cups off of the sink that sat outside the bathroom door, and walked back over to him. She stood directly in between his legs as he filled her cup. She sipped on her drink as she watched him kill cup after cup of the hard liquor.

  Amra walked over to the radio and turned it on to keep everyone entertained.

  Seneca walked around to all his boys and tipped the bottle of Rémy that he had, so they could bless it. Each dude tapped the top of the bottle before he finally popped it open.

  Tasha looked around and saw that her friends had finally begun to relax. At first the air was filled with tension, but once they got som
e liquor in their systems, they began to act normal.

  “So, where you from?” Rico asked her.

  Tasha frowned. “Where you from?”

  Rico smiled slyly. “I’m from here. This is home, baby girl. I’m a North Side nigga all day.”

  Tasha smiled as she listened to Rico rep his ’hood. His speech was slow, and he was emphasizing every word. She knew it was only a matter of time before he got pissy drunk.

  “I got to piss,” Rico said abruptly. He got up to go to the bathroom.

  Tasha stood up with him, her heart pounding. “Wait!” she yelled.

  “I’ll be right back.” Rico got up and walked into the bathroom.

  Tasha closed her eyes, waiting to hear something, and Amra’s eyes bucked as she sat completely still. Honey looked over at Tasha, and could see the panic in her face.

  Tasha walked over to the bathroom door. Just as she was about to knock, Rico walked out of the bathroom and saw Tasha waiting for him. That was close! she thought to herself.

  She entered the bathroom and locked the door once she was inside. The bathroom was empty. She was relieved, because she thought for sure that they would be caught. She looked into the tiny mirror and saw Manolo step from behind the shower curtain. He had reacted quickly and jumped behind the curtain when Rico had come in.

  She turned around, and he walked close up on her and pressed his dick against her ass cheeks. Tasha could feel his body heat, and her breathing got deeper and deeper. Manolo leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Go back out there and get this shit started.”

  Tasha just nodded her head and walked out the door, nervous about the possibility of the dudes peeping their game. She made eye contact with Mimi, who then looked over to Honey.

  Amra already had Seneca tipsy. She was sitting on his lap, facing him, and his hands were on her ass.

  Tasha walked over to the bed where Rico had laid down and kicked his feet up.