The House that Hustle Built, Part 1

by Nisa Santiago

  “Well, for the moment, Perez needs an Accord. He needs the parts.”

  “As long as he payin’ the cash, we deliver the cars,” Darrell chimed.

  Cash fixed his eyes on a silver 2012 Honda Accord with its king-sized cabin. It was parked in a secluded area near the parking garage, sitting there on factory rims, no tints, and looking regular. “Bingo!” he said, pointing to it.

  Darrell nodded and drove closer to the car. At 2 a.m., the area was quiet and still. It was a golden opportunity. Darrell stopped the car, and Cash, knowing the routine, quickly jumped out with the slim jim in his hands. He promptly scoped out the car and went into action. He preferred to steal a car without an alarm, but if there was one, he was able to disable it and drive off.

  There was no blinking red light inside; the alarm hadn’t been activated—a big mistake for the owner of the Accord. In case there was an alarm on the car, Cash didn’t want to take any chances setting it off. He positioned himself on his back and quickly maneuvered himself underneath the engine and looked for the alarm horn, which would usually be on the passenger side, nearest to the firewall. He yanked that, and then poof! If there was an alarm, then there would be no sound, only fun lights.

  He removed himself from under the engine and inserted the slim jim carefully between the passenger door window and the weather stripping. He moved the tool slowly back and forth until it grabbed the lock rod. The lock flipped over, unlocking the door. No alarm, no lights.

  Cash hurriedly jumped inside and began to hot-wire the car. Knowing the make and model of the Accord, he knew what to do. He removed the plastic cover on the steering column and tried to find the wiring joining the connectors, a coil of electrical wires.

  Darrell and Petey Jay were waiting in the idling car, keeping cool and keenly watching their surroundings. If anything looked wrong, they were ready to abandon the mission.

  Cash worked his magic while remaining out of sight, and within seconds, the Accord came to life. He popped up behind the steering wheel, looked over at his cronies and smiled.

  “Who fuckin’ wit’ me?” he exclaimed jovially.

  “Let’s get the fuck outta here,” Darrell said.

  Cash put the car in drive and followed behind his friends. Another stolen car meant more money in their pockets. They were on their way to Perez’s chop shop on Liberty Avenue. The crew got two grand or more a car on average, and they stole no less than ten cars a week from all over the city.

  Cash turned on the radio and tuned into Hot 97. He nodded to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” as he cruised through Brooklyn, out of Cobble Hill and closer to his stomping grounds. He couldn’t wait to get money and see his bitch later on. His dick got hard just thinking about Stephanie sucking his big dick. For good measure, he dialed her to make sure she was still awake, and she answered after the second ring.

  “You still up, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m still up. Damn, Cash, what’s takin’ you so long?” Stephanie whined.

  “We ’bout to hit the shop now, and it ain’t gonna be but a minute. So keep them lips suckable for me and that pussy nice and tight ’cuz you know I’m ready to stretch you out like a rubber band.”

  Stephanie chuckled. “You so silly, Cash. But hurry up before I get too tired.”

  “I’m already there. Play wit’ your pussy or somethin’ to stay up. A’ight?”

  “Bye, Cash.”

  Cash hurried behind Darrell, but he couldn’t drive too fast or too reckless in a stolen car. Even though he outran police a few times in a high-speed chase, he didn’t want to wear out his luck. No matter how late it got though, he knew Stephanie would wait up for him. She wanted him just as bad as he wanted her.

  ***

  With his share from the chop shop in his pockets, and on his way to see his freak bitch Stephanie, Cash was a happy man. It was four in the morning, and he was far from tired. On his mind was some nasty sex, smoking weed, and having a good time. Cash loved the life he lived. He was a young kid who grew up around poverty all his life, so stealing cars was a goldmine in his eyes. Even though it came with risks, he felt like he could do it until the day he died. One day he hoped to maybe run his own chop shop and drive the baddest car in the city. He loved being a playboy. He loved the streets, he loved the hustle, and he loved his crew.

  He pulled up to Stephanie’s apartment building in another stolen car, checked himself in the mirror, licked his lips, and smiled. He was ready. He climbed out the stolen Buick and hurried into her project building on New Lots Avenue in East New York.

  Stephanie lived with her grandmother above a corner bodega in a graffiti-covered, three-story building that had seen better days. It was a violent, crime-ridden area, but Cash wasn’t worried because he was a familiar face. He walked into the lobby and through the broken security door. He went up the stairway and knocked on her door. It didn’t take long for Stephanie to answer her door—buck-naked.

  Cash smiled broadly. He couldn’t wait to get the party started.

  Stephanie wasn’t what most would consider beautiful; she had big eyes and a big nose and looked good from afar, but not too good up close. But her phat ass, luscious curves, and balloon tits could arouse envy from a few bitches that didn’t have her wonderful body. She’d been one of Cash’s jump-offs for almost two years. Out of all his bitches, he loved fucking her the most. She always had the wettest pussy and gave him the best head.

  “Damn, nigga! You took long enough. You lucky a bitch didn’t fall asleep on your fuckin’ ass and let you suck ya own fuckin’ dick,” she barked, her hands on her hips.

  Cash looked at her shaved pussy. Her dark nipples looked like Hershey kisses pasted on her breasts, and her dark skin glistened like neon. “Damn!” he uttered at the sight of her raw nudeness. “You miss me? I know you did.”

  Dropping her attitude and smiling at his humor, Stephanie replied, “You a fuckin’ trip, nigga.” She stepped to the side and allowed him inside.

  Stephanie’s grandmother was out for the night, probably spending the night at her boyfriend’s place, gambling in the casino, or drinking and playing cards with her friends. Stephanie didn’t care. It gave Cash and her all the privacy they needed.

  The minute Cash was inside the apartment, he unfastened his jeans and dropped them to the floor, along with his boxers, eager to show off his big, black dick that was hardening in front of her eyes. He touched himself as Stephanie approached closer with a strong, sexual gleam in her eyes. Fast cars and fast women—who could ask for anything more?

  Stephanie reached down and grabbed a fistful of dick and stroked him gently, causing him to moan. “What you want me to do wit’ this?” she asked with a teasing smile, her tone dripping with lust.

  “You know what I want. Stop playin’ wit’ me.”

  Cash didn’t like foreplay. He wanted sex right there and now, starting with a blowjob from her full, wet lips, and then he wanted to fuck her in every hole.

  The two tongue-kissed fervently for a moment, and then Stephanie slowly went down on her knees before him, his big, throbbing dick still wrapped in her fist. She leaned closer to his sexual tool, opened her lips, and covered his hard flesh with her mouth.

  “Ugh!” Cash groaned, his eyes shut. His knees trembled, and he was in complete bliss. “Oh shit!”

  Each stroke of her tongue made him shiver. The perversion she catapulted him into seemed endless. Each time her tongue would wrap completely around the base and slide up to the tip, his mind went haywire, and his body felt like putty.

  With her hands wrapped around his dick, she started kissing and sucking on the head. She released his dick from her mouth but not her hand and looked up at him. Her eyes seemed distant, but hungry at the same time.

  Cash stared down at her, and she became the most beautiful woman in his eyes. He was about to say, “Don’t stop,” and it seeme
d like she read his mind.

  She continued, her suction and salivating mouth bringing him closer to ejaculation. He could no longer stand, and pedaled backwards toward the couch and plopped down with his legs spread and Stephanie in between them, lowering her lips around his erection again. She cupped his balls, her nails tickling the back of his scrotum. Her other hand gripped the base of his cock and became like a vise, not allowing anything to get past her fingers as she sucked him harder than he ever remembered her doing. She moaned while giving him head, and the vibrations flowed along his shaft past her fingers and into his balls.

  Cash grunted and moaned. He threw his head back against the couch and placed his hand around the back of her moving head, causing her to deep-throat him more. She sucked his dick so good, there was no way for him to keep his flood from rushing forward.

  “I’m gonna come!” he cried out.

  Just as he was about to reach the point of no return, she suddenly stopped. Cash gazed at her dumbfounded and asked in exasperation, “Yo, what the fuck!”

  “Uh-uh, not yet.”

  Stephanie straddled his dick raw dog and fucked him on the couch. The two of them had an intense fucking session. Cash threw her against the wall and pounded her doggy-style on the floor. Then they went from the floor to the bedroom, from the bedroom to the bathroom; the entire apartment was their realm.

  Stephanie had fallen in love with Cash, but he didn’t know the meaning of the word love. All he knew was sex, cars, and just doing him day by day. He was a young goon with a provincial way of living; anything outside of Brooklyn or Queens was a stretch to him.

  Nestled up against Stephanie, Cash was sleeping like a baby. Her big tits and soft skin were comforting like a cushy pillow. Their intense sexual encounter had drained them both. After busting multiple nuts and fucking their brains out like high-paid porn stars, Cash plunged into la-la land and planned to be there for hours. He was never a morning person. For him, seeing the sunrise was like seeing the bottom of the ocean. It was never going to happen, at least intentionally anyway.

  Stephanie’s apartment was a temporary place to stay, since he didn’t have a place of his own. Though it was messy and cluttered with clothes and looked like the living room in Sanford and Son, she had food, weed, liquor, and cable TV, which was bliss to him.

  ***

  Cash’s cell phone ringing in the morning made him wish he’d put the damn thing on vibrate or left it in the other room. It was loud, chiming 50 Cent’s “I Get Money, Money I Got.” He tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. He winced from the sound and spun over, wrapping his arms around a sleeping Stephanie and giving his back to the phone. Whoever it was, they would stop calling.

  The cell phone rang again. Whoever was trying to reach him wasn’t going away. Agitated, he spun back over and gruffly snatched the phone off the nightstand and looked to see who was calling him. It was a number he hadn’t seen before. Reluctantly, he answered the call with an irate tone. “Who the fuck is calling me?”

  “Cash, it’s me, baby. I need you to come bail me out,” he heard her say hastily.

  Cash sighed heavily. He didn’t respond right away. He was sick and tired of her. It was a perpetual thing with her, getting locked up for prostituting herself and looking for him to bail her out. When will it ever end? he thought. Cash closed his eyes and asked, “How much is it this time? And where are you, Momma Jones?”

  “I’m being arraigned downtown Brooklyn. They say my bail is fifteen hundred this time,” his mother said tensely.

  “Fifteen hundred?” Cash repeated loudly, taken aback. “Are you serious?”

  He sat erect now, clutching the cell phone tightly to his ear and gritting his teeth. Why were his mother’s problems always his problems? Fifteen hundred was nothing to sneeze at, and he didn’t have that type of money at the moment. From last night’s score, Perez had paid them $2,500 for the stolen Accord, but the money had to be split three ways, leaving him with a little over eight hundred dollars. With the four hundred dollars he already had on him, it still wasn’t enough to bail his mother out of jail for prostitution.

  Cash sighed once again and wiped the sleep out of his eyes. He looked at the time. It wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet. He was upset at being awakened so early in the morning, especially after a late night. He wanted to curse his mother out, but he held his tongue.

  “Baby, I don’t wanna be in here. Can you come get me out?” his mother pleaded. “I don’t belong in a place like this, and you know it. It’s goin’ to kill me.”

  “I’m comin’, Momma Jones,” he replied nonchalantly. “Just chill out.”

  “I owe you, Cash. I love you. You’re my favorite son.”

  “I’m your only son,” he reminded her.

  Cash hung up, feeling even more agitated. He wanted to go back to sleep or fuck Stephanie again, but for some reason, he felt obligated to help out his mother, though she was never in his life, and most times, he despised her.

  “Stephanie . . . Stephanie,” Cash said, nudging his jump-off in her side, trying to awake her.

  “What, Cash?” Stephanie exclaimed, obviously annoyed Cash was disturbing her sleep.

  “I need five hundred dollars.”

  “What?”

  “My moms got locked up again.”

  “And why you think I got that kind of cash on me?”

  “’Cuz I know you do. You workin’, right?”

  “So what? That makes me your personal ATM now?”

  “You know I’ll pay you back. I’m good for it.”

  Stephanie sighed. “You better.”

  Cash smiled. He then added, “And I’ll pay you back with interest wit’ this tonight.” He grabbed his flaccid, big dick and played with it in front of her then rapidly moved his hips left to right, making his penis flap side to side against his thighs. It was an impressive trick. Stephanie couldn’t help but laugh at his silly and perverted antics.

  Cash had Stephanie wrapped around his finger. Whatever he needed from her, he didn’t get much resistance. The way she gave up pussy, money, and a place to stay was proof that she loved him.

  Stephanie worked at a doctor’s office in Sheepshead Bay, and though she was ghetto, rough around the edges, and trashy, she had a good job and was reliable.

  Stephanie, laughing at Cash’s playfulness, removed herself from the bed and went into her purse to give him the five hundred he needed. She’d recently cashed her paycheck, and her bills weren’t due anytime soon. She handed Cash the money, and he snatched it without a single “Thank you,” from his lips.

  “I owe you,” he simply replied.

  “Pay me back by eating out this good pussy tonight,” Stephanie said with a wayward smile.

  Cash chuckled. He wasn’t too eager to go down on any bitch and was going to, somehow, some way, talk his way out of giving her oral sex. He would pay her back, but it wouldn’t be a priority on his list. She always gave him money when he needed it, and he always promised to pay her back, maybe giving her half or a small percentage of what he owed her when he had it. In his head, giving her some good dick was payment enough.

  Cash quickly got dressed. He walked out the building on what was a gorgeous, warm spring day. He wasn’t in any rush to bail out his mother for the umpteenth time this year. He jumped into the stolen Buick parked out front and revved the engine. He hated to cough up that kind of money to the city, but he had a good heart and couldn’t let his moms rot in jail. However constantly aiding his mother with her legal fees and addiction, he would have to steal over a 100 cars a week to be able to help her out every time she got into trouble.

  Cash lingered for a moment behind the wheel. With Stephanie’s five hundred, he was up seventeen hundred, minus the fifteen hundred bail money; he would be left with two hundred dollars to his name. Shit was stressful on him. Tonight, he and his crew would simply go back out
, cruise a neighborhood, and steal another car to sell to Perez.

  Three

  Pearla woke up with the morning sun seeping through her open window. It was another day, another hustle. She had a lot of things to do—orders to fulfill and merchandise to snatch up. She and her crew planned on hitting Roosevelt Field mall again that afternoon. They had run their shoplifting scheme over a dozen times at that mall. Long Island was risky, since mall security and Nassau County police were harsh, and that particular mall had the latest high-tech security in place to deter shoplifters or catch them in the act. But nothing deterred Pearla and her crew.

  The minute Pearla climbed out of bed, she heard the loud music playing from the living room from her bedroom, a clear indication that her mother was already up, probably drinking, and certainly had some male company over. It was the only time she played music so early in the morning—when she had dick in the apartment. Pearla’s mother loved fucking to blaring R&B music.

  Pearla decided to linger in her bedroom for a moment, afraid to walk out and interrupt something. Her mother had no shame in her game, from her constant profanity to her vulgar sexing anywhere in the apartment without caring who saw.

  ***

  One time, Pearla walked in on her mother riding some big-dick nigga on the living room couch in the early afternoon. Pearla was mortified. She stood there like a deer caught in headlights.

  Poochie had said to her daughter then, “What? You gonna fuckin’ stand there and watch us fuck until we finish? Ain’t you got some place to fuckin’ be? Let a bitch come in peace.”

  Pearla had no words. She hurried off and locked herself in her bedroom that afternoon.

  Poochie was a trip, though. She was selfish, loud, aggressive, ghetto, mean, whorish, and a judgmental hypocrite. She believed in “Do as I say, and not as I do.” It was hard for anyone to believe she was a 38-year-old federal correction officer working in lower Manhattan. She had ten years on the job and loved every bit of it.

  Working around violent and unpredictable inmates all day kept her mean and pugnacious. Her mouth was reckless because she always carried a gun, and she would do unruly things that could cost her her job.