The House that Hustle Built, Part 1

by Nisa Santiago

  “So, what happened, son?” Petey Jay was compelled to ask.

  Cash smiled. He took a few pulls from the joint burning in the room and passed it to Manny. “Nigga, I jumped into my whip and hurried over there. I mean, if you seen this bitch that’s telling me to come over for a late-night booty call, you would go too in a fuckin’ heartbeat.”

  “Wit’ her fuckin’ husband home?”

  “Yup. Yo, you know me—I love the challenge. But, anyway, I gets over there, right, and I don’t knock, ’cuz she don’t want to wake up her husband. So I call, tell her I’m outside. She tells me to go around the back, and she lets me inside the back way.”

  “Literally, right?” Petey Jay uttered.

  The room erupted with laughter from his sly remark.

  “Yeah, I fucked her in the ass. But anyway,” Cash continued, not losing his beat in telling the story, “the minute I walk inside, she’s butt naked and all over me, grabbing my dick, tonguing me down, and I’m touching her tits, got my hand between her legs and rubbing her clit, right? She mad wet and shit. But we gotta be quiet; her man’s sleeping in the bedroom upstairs. Nigga, I waste no time. I push this bitch on the couch and fuck the shit outta her.”

  Cash’s peoples were listening intently.

  “Yo, she was feeling the dick so good, she started moaning, about to get loud and shit. I’m like, ‘Shorty, you gotta be quiet, but she can’t, ’cuz you know when I fuck a bitch, they can’t help but to yelp out. So, as I’m fuckin’ her, I gotta put my hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Man, I ain’t gonna front though—that pussy was so good, I almost had to put my hand over my own mouth to keep me from screaming out.”

  His friends laughed again.

  Darrell shook his head. “And you telling me her husband ain’t wake up not one time?”

  “Nah, nigga. I guess he’s a heavy sleeper.”

  “Yo, that’s disrespect right here, fo’ real. I would kill a nigga if I caught him fuckin’ my bitch in my crib,” Darrell stated.

  “That’s why you gotta know how to creep and be very careful. That shit was fun, though.”

  “Her husband must be a stupid muthafucka, yo,” Petey Jay said.

  “Yo, and that nigga’s a cop,” Cash told them.

  “Aaaah, nigga, get the fuck outta here! You lying, nigga!” Darrel exclaimed. “He ain’t five-O. Fo’ real?”

  “Nigga, if I’m lying, I’m dying. I’m telling you, he five-O. His wife showed me pictures of him in uniform and everything. He like a sergeant or something.”

  Manny said, “Nigga, you fucked a cop’s wife in his own home while he was ’sleep? You is either fuckin’ stupid or crazy—Which one?”

  “Maybe I’m both,” Cash said, a grin plastered across his face.

  “It couldn’t be me, yo,” Petey Jay said.

  Cash finished telling his spirited tale by saying, “It was some of the best pussy I ever had.”

  “Yeah, better be worth dying for,” Manny told him.

  The fellows continued to trade stories. Liquor continued to flow into their systems, and the weed had them so high.

  Cash leaned back into the sofa, feeling proud he was the man in the room. He loved being around his crew. Next to pussy, friendship was the best thing to have. He couldn’t ask for a better group of friends.

  “Yo, what’s up wit’ you and Pearla?” Petey Jay asked out of the blue.

  “Yeah, nigga, I saw you chattin’ wit’ her for a minute at the block party yesterday,” Darrell chimed. “You tryin’ to fuck her too?”

  “I’m still workin’ on that,” Cash replied. He looked at Petey Jay.

  Petey Jay grinned. “I need me two hundred dollars in my pocket fo’ real. Ready to go to the club wit’ the cash.”

  Cash lightheartedly tossed up his middle finger Petey Jay’s way and said, “Nigga, it’s only been twenty-four hours.”

  “Time goes by fast, yo.”

  “Not in my book.”

  As Cash was about to take a swig from the Grey Goose, his cell phone rang. When he looked at the caller ID, he grinned and nodded his head. Yeah, that’s what’s up. He held up his cell phone to Petey Jay and said, “Yeah, nigga, look who’s calling me—I want that in all twenties.”

  ***

  She was five-five, 120 pounds, with a brown face nearly looking angelic as a baby doll in her long curls and ruffled sundress. She stepped out of her building lobby with somewhere important on her mind. It was a beautiful Sunday evening, the perfect day to show off her sexy. There was no need for a jacket, but she carried one anyway, draped over her bare shoulders. It might get cold later on in the evening; better to have and not need, than to need and not have.

  The beautiful, petite girl strolled out of her building lobby on the Brooklyn street and walked toward the nearest train station three blocks away, all smiles, looking innocent and eager to travel into the city and enjoy the picturesque day. She was known in the area, well liked, and had a few boys crushing on her. She was unemployed at the moment, due to a misunderstanding at her job in the mall, but with her personality and her healthy résumé, finding a job never proved to be difficult for her.

  The A train was a block away. She walked freely toward it, not knowing she was being watched. As she was about to cross the street and approach to the subway, the attack came suddenly—like out of thin air.

  Pearla swung at that bitch first, her fist meeting flesh, and Rebecca stumbled. Jamie came in next, attacking from behind, and punched her in the back of the head. The girl fell like a drunken misfit—confused and unaware. She struggled to her feet, but she was savagely being thrown left and right, punches raining down on her like a hailstorm.

  Pearla, sweating fire and scowling, stared in Rebecca’s eyes. Before she struck again, she screamed out, “You snitch on us, you fuckin’ bitch?”

  Rebecca caught an uppercut to the bottom of her chin, and blood spewed. She dropped face down to the concrete in serious pain.

  The three girls attacked viciously, ripping apart her yellow sundress and beating her maliciously in the street. There was screaming and yelling.

  Rebecca tried to get up, but she faltered, and Roark swiftly kicked her ribs in. She howled from the pain.

  “Snitching bitch!” they all yelled.

  It went on for less than a minute, but Pearla and her girls continued to be animals and unapologetic for their violent behavior.

  They left Rebecca cowering on the dirty street, bloody, her dress ripped apart. Pearla had been fighting and knocking bitches out since she was twelve years old. The darker skin girls would always tease and pick on her while growing up, so she learned to scrap at an early age. Rebecca was lightweight to her; hardly a challenge.

  They all retreated.

  They could already hear the sirens blaring. Pearla decided to go a separate way from the others. It wasn’t smart to walk around in a group after they’d brutally assaulted a young girl.

  Pearla moved briskly, walking up the avenue nonchalantly. The NYPD cop car went speeding by her. She smirked. They didn’t have a clue she was involved.

  The day went by with her chilling from one place to the next—over Jamie’s place where they watched music videos and smoked weed, then she and Roark hung out on Pitkin Avenue, window shopping and scheming what store they could take from next.

  All day, no matter what she was doing or who she was with, she thought about Cash. Since the block party, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, wondering if he would be the one to call first. She didn’t want to look desperate and call him first. She hoped to maybe run into him while hanging out with her friends in Brooklyn, but it was to no avail. Anyway, Cash wasn’t one to walk around leisurely. He was always driving or doing something mischievous, probably fucking some bitch or stealing a car.

  Why do I like him so much? she asked herself. There were
so many things wrong with him. He was a womanizer, but there was something intriguing about him, something about his quaint personality that stuck on her.

  “You thinkin’ about him, aren’t you?” Roark asked.

  “What you talking about?”

  Roark sucked her teeth. “Pearla, I ain’t stupid. I see that look on your face. You feeling him like that, huh?”

  Pearla tried to play it off, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t about to play herself like some cheap floozy. She wasn’t going to sell herself cheap, giving up the pussy so easily, becoming a one-night stand in his book and never hearing from him again. She was too smart for that.

  Once again, Roark warned, “If you fuck wit’ him, just be careful, Pearla. You know his reputation.”

  “I know. You don’t have to keep telling me about him,” Pearla replied, sounding a bit perturbed that Roark was talking to her like she was some off-brand bitch from the country.

  The two drove around Brooklyn in her Benz, trying to make moves. Since the Roosevelt Field mall incident, their shoplifting organization took a backseat. It was time to lay low for a minute and figure something else out. Pearla was always good at figuring things out.

  Her cell phone rang as they were cruising down Fulton Street. Her heart started to beat rapidly, as she was thinking and hoping it was Cash calling. Her expectation washed out quickly when she saw it was only Chica. She was happy to see her friend calling, but she had been frantically thinking about Cash.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “Bitch, it’s about time you answer your fuckin’ phone. What you been doing all day that you ain’t got time to call your favorite bitch?” Chica hollered bubbly.

  “Hey, Chica,” Pearla replied.

  “Don’t hey me, bitch. You cheating on me?” Chica joked.

  “Just been busy.”

  “Uh-huh. Busy beating some bitch’s ass in the streets, from what I’ve heard.”

  “How did you hear about that already?” Pearla asked.

  “Bitch, I hears everything that goes on in Brooklyn. You don’t know? I’m queen bee bitch out here.”

  “Hey, Chica!” Roark hollered from the passenger seat.

  “Who that? Roark?” Chica asked. “Tell that Indian-lookin’ bitch she ain’t right too. She doesn’t know how to call somebody either. Tell her don’t fuck wit’ me, ’cuz I’ll scalp her tribal-lookin’ ass.”

  Roark heard the comment and could only laugh. Chica didn’t hold her tongue for anyone. She was a transvestite and gay man with more attitude than Rupaul and Lafayette from True Blood put together.

  “Anyway, where you at, bitch? We need to talk,” Chica said.

  “On Fulton,” Pearla said.

  “Well, take your ass off of Fulton and come this way, bitch, quickly, like you were riding on some good dick.”

  “I’ll be that way in fifteen minutes.”

  “Bitch, don’t keep me waiting.”

  “I won’t.” Pearla hung up.

  “She a trip,” Roark said, laughing at Chica’s crazy antics.

  “She is,” Pearla agreed.

  Chica was a get-money bitch like Pearla, and Pearla had nothing but respect for the six-one, drag queen. Chica taught Pearla everything she needed to know on how to become a skillful shoplifter and a player on the streets. When Pearla was fifteen, Chica took her under her wing and molded her into the hustler and businesswoman she had become. In fact, Chica was like a big sister to Pearla.

  Pearla hurried Chica’s way, moving through the Brooklyn traffic.

  “How did she know about Rebecca?” Roark asked.

  Pearla shrugged. “I have no idea. That bitch be knowing everybody’s business.”

  “I know, right?”

  Twenty minutes later, Pearla was pulling up to Chica’s place in Canarsie, a working- and middle-class residential and commercial neighborhood in the southeastern part of Brooklyn.

  They got out the car and walked toward the like-new apartments on the corner of Avenue D. It was stairs only to Chica’s alcove studio on the top floor. Pearla knocked on the door.

  Chica’s door came flying open like a gust of wind had hit it, and the first thing Pearla heard from her friend was, “Bitch, I said fifteen minutes, not twenty. You know my time is valuable, Pearla.”

  “Blame it on traffic,” was Pearla’s excuse.

  Chica sucked her teeth. “You see, bitch, don’t get smart.”

  “Whatever.” Pearla replied coolly. She and Roark walked into the apartment.

  Chica closed the door behind them. She quickly snapped her fingers repeatedly, saying, “Um, y’all bitches forgetting something—y’all shoes, take them off like you give a fuck about my place. You know I don’t like germs up in here. Understand?”

  “Damn! You meticulous wit’ a capital M,” Roark stated.

  “That’s right, ’cuz a clean bitch is a lovely bitch.”

  Chica greeted them in a sexy satin, animal-print chemise. She wore a blond wig, and her makeup was flawless—lips glossy and long eye lashes applied better than any professional.

  She greeted everyone with bitch like a regular hello.

  “Bitch, you got a cigarette?” she asked Pearla. “’Cuz I need my fuckin’ nicotine right now. I’ve been having a stressful fuckin’ day.”

  Pearla reached into her purse and pulled out her pack of Newports. She passed Chica two cigarettes.

  “You a lifesaver, girl, ’cuz a bitch didn’t feel like walking to the store in this heat.” Chica lit up, took a few pulls, and enjoyed the nicotine flowing through her system.

  Roark and Pearla stepped deeper into the place. Chica’s place was decorated precisely in the art of Feng Shui, a system that concentrates on the flow of good energy.

  Chica had a thing for Japanese culture too, with the zen bed, the Japanese flower-tree birds plastered on her walls, the Japanese decorative mask Okame, and the large vintage decorative paper umbrellas.

  “So, what is this I hear about you acting like some savage and fuckin’ some bitch up on the street?” Chica asked.

  “She almost got me and my crew locked up the other day in Roosevelt Field mall,” Pearla explained. “She had it coming.”

  “Bitch, you supposed to be a bitch about class. You can’t be fuckin’ up bitches out in the streets and chance getting locked up. Pearla, didn’t I teach you better than that?” Chica said, moving her index finger as she talked.

  “I know, Chica, but that bitch was a snitch.”

  “And that bitch supposed to get fucked up, but you a diva bitch. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, girl, and sometimes you don’t have to get your hands dirty.”

  Pearla nodded.

  “And, Roark, I know your Cherokee ass wasn’t out there fighting too.”

  “I had to have my girls’ back, Chica.”

  “Uh-huh, sure. You Rocky Balboa all of a sudden, huh?”

  Roark shrugged.

  “Listen, bitches, be about that money and don’t be about stupid.”

  “We won’t next time,” Pearla replied.

  “Anyway, I called you, bitch, because I might need a favor from you.” Chica walked into the room and sat on her couch and crossed her legs like a lady in front of them.

  Pearla sad, “I’m listening.”

  “I need one of your bitches to get married,” she said.

  Pearla and Roark looked at her confused.

  “What?” Pearla said. “Run that by me again.”

  “Bitch, you fuckin’ heard me. I need a bitch to get married.”

  “You’re confusing me,” Pearla said.

  “Okay, bitch, I need you to listen like this is a fuckin’ hearing test. I know this guy, he’s from Nigeria. He got money, and he got a fuckin’ problem—he needs his green card. Let’s just say, he’s a friend o
f mine.”

  “He’s gay?” Roark chimed.

  “Like a rainbow,” Chica said, sitting back and puffing on her cigarette. “But he needs to stay in the country. He needs a bitch willing to marry him—nothing serious, just a ceremony, some fuckin’ cake after the ‘I do’ and shit.”

  Pearla looked at Roark, and immediately Roark spat, “Don’t fuckin’ look at me!”

  “Oh, and he’s willing to pay five thousand dollars,” Chica added.

  “Word?” both girls exclaimed simultaneously.

  “The nigga got money. So you changed your mind, Roark?” Chica asked with a grin.

  “No.”

  “I can find somebody, but what’s our cut?” Pearla asked.

  “Well, you know I play fair . . . sometimes.” Chica giggled. “But you find me a good bitch for this fuckin’ Nigerian, and let’s say, twenty-five percent.”

  Pearla nodded. It sounded like a fair agreement.

  “But, bitch, I need somebody reliable, not some dumb, hood-rat bitch. The bitch gotta show up at City Hall, memorize the questionnaire with the likes and dislikes of their future husband and go to all the appointments at immigration.”

  “I can find somebody.” Pearla was very sure.

  “I know. Why you think I called, bitch?”

  The trio continued to talk about the marriage hustle, and the more they discussed it, the more Pearla liked what she was hearing. It was a genius plan. Illegal immigrants or immigrants who were in the country by means of a work or school visa didn’t want to return back to their country when their visa or time expired in the States. So they were desperate and willing to do or pay anything to stay in the country, and maybe become an American citizen.

  At the end of their discussion, Pearla was already plotting to get more in her cut. Twenty-five percent out of five thousand was less than fifteen hundred. The girl would get two thousand, and Chica would get the rest. If she was going to do all the leg work, she felt she deserved a little bit more.

  Pearla and Roark left Chica’s place feeling good that they had another hustle to jump into. Shoplifting was okay, but it was too risky. On the other hand, this immigration/marriage scheme had the possibility to take off if operated right, and it felt like there were fewer risks involved.