by Brick
That was where I’d listen to my favorite female MC and poetry chick, who was on another level. Too bad she had disappeared. At the local high school, where I used to go, we’d see the step squads battle the cheerleaders, as well as banging football and basketball games. Everything was cool except for the occasional shoot-outs, which involved niggas trying to create some turf war. I’d occasional spot these chicks, known as queens, who protected us.
Glancing at an empty, well-kept house, I smiled at the memory of the old lady who used to live there. I used to go to her church. She’d hand out bomb cookies and frozen slushies to us kids in the summertime. Was crazy how she was found dead in her home. Shaking off that thought, I kept going until I rounded the corner and ended up at my mom’s home . . . well, my house now.
After stepping inside, I glanced around at the familiar items all around me. Pictures of my mom and me during our happy times adorned the walls. Me at graduation. Me as a little kid. All the pictures of my father were gone, which was how we had both liked it, and now I was left with the reality that my mama was gone. Sadness filled me, and I went to my bedroom. The cops were on my ass. I knew my neighborhood inside out, and I always knew when people were watching me. I had some cleaning to do just in case.
So I left my bedroom and began rushing around my house. Went to my attic and basement to hide all evidence of my illegal activities. I cleaned thoroughly. Wiped my hard drives and then moved them. Broke down the machines I had around and placed them in spots where they blended in with the furniture in the rooms. If the cops decided to search my house, they wouldn’t find a damn thing. I’d been doing this long enough to know how to hide microchips in picture frames. I knew how to make my tiny ATM cameras look they were just a part of my home security system. If the cops searched upstairs, they’d just think I’d made myself a security room.
I then changed out of my clothes, showered, and went into the kitchen. The sound of my burner cell going off drew my attention. Keisha’s ugly mug, with her bubble gum–pink lipstick, appeared on my screen.
Annoyed, I snatched up the phone and sucked my teeth. “What?”
“Ah, ew!” she said in her nasal voice. “Oh my gosh, Nia. You a’ight? I’m so sorry I was scared, girl.”
Keisha had to be a stupid bitch. Why she would call me and try to talk about this shit over the phone was beyond me.
Bitch was killing my vibe and lying through her teeth. “Scared of what? We weren’t doing anything.”
“Nia, what you talking about, girl? Come on. We were going to grip those people, and I was going to be able to feed my kids.”
Again, that feeling that this chick was off her rocker was working on my nerves. “Keisha, what do you want?” The sound of Keisha’s babies crying in the background had me feeling soft for a moment, but the fact that she had played me pissed me off. “You know what? I should stomp your ugly, goat-looking ass for lying on me. Next time you contact me or come in my face, know you will get handled.”
It was almost as if Keisha hadn’t been sad just moments before, and I knew she hadn’t. I’d feigned hurt and regret enough to know when another bitch was faking it.
“Bitch, you ain’t shit any damn way, and I’m tired of your ass talking to my baby daddy!” Keisha shouted back at me.
I hung up on her face.
Fuck her, for real. She was another stupid bitch having sex with nothing-ass niggas and producing bastard babies who would grow up to be menaces to society. No one wanted that nigga. No one! I couldn’t believe that after whining to me about that nigga not paying her child support or handing her even a dollar, she’d play me like that.
Everything I had done for her was really for her kids, because I felt really sad about them not eating and not having diapers, so forget her. She could choke on that nigga’s dick as far as I was concerned. Ramon was her dude, and he kept flirting with me. He beat her ass, and I had tried to help Keisha. I hated niggas who thought using their fists on a woman would get them the glory, respect, and power they sought. That was why I had got caught up and had allowed myself to feel sorry for this broad.
Annoyance had me talking to myself as I cooked. I mixed together a cup of ground beef, chopped-up onions, and green peppers in a pot and cooked it on my stove until the beef had browned. I then drained off the fat and added onion soup mix. Then I opened a can of crushed tomatoes, dumped the tomatoes in the pot, and stirred in some ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, and hot sauce. I mixed it all up for ghetto sloppy joe’s. I hadn’t gotten a chance to cop any real groceries, and this was all I had found in my kitchen. My mom would try to eat healthy due to her sickle-cell anemia, so this stuff was left over from before she went into the hospital.
I grabbed some bread and a plate, I slapped everything together, and plopped down at my table. Chilling in my small T-shirt, bikini-cut undies, and socks, I thought back to all the bullshit Keisha would say about Ramon. She’d always yapped about his good dick, his tongue, and about how she missed him and how pissed she was that he kept flirting with me. My locks fell over my shoulder, my mouth was full of food, and my head hurt from her stupid bullshit. I didn’t want Ramon’s evil ass. Keisha should have been checking Trina. She was the one who wanted Keisha’s man’s dick, not me.
Dude was ugly as shit in the soul. So his dick was nothing I was thinking about. Fucking was nothing I was thinking about. Never had had time for it, anyway, or had wanted it, because my mind was on protecting my mama.
Every guy who tried to get at me, I ignored. I didn’t want to get pregnant. Didn’t want no STD and didn’t want to be Keisha, since all she talked about was dick. I had my mind made up to have a different life. Guessed that was why I was a virgin still. I didn’t care. But I knew if I got hot in the ass with the way chicks always came up missing in the trap, I knew I could be a target. I mean, I could become a target, anyway, but at least sticking close to home and not running the streets kept me safer. There were some guys I was into, but when my mama got sick, nothing else had mattered to me.
As I sat in the kitchen and ate my sloppy joe, the silence hit me. I was all by myself now. No one to take care of anymore besides myself, and it seemed strange. It scared me. Stuffing my face, I looked across the kitchen table at the empty chair that had been my mom’s, and my fork dropped, and the tears followed. I missed her. I just wanted some peace. I could tell by the way Keisha had talked to me on the phone that the bitch was trying to set me up. So I wouldn’t be talking to that raggedy ho again.
When I was finished eating, I tossed the leftover food in the trash. Cleaned the kitchen, then headed to bed. Wasn’t no need for me to sit and have a pity party.
* * *
I woke up the next day, knowing something was off. On my way to work, I used one of my dummy cards to get some money to stash, just in case I needed to hide and lay low. A dummy card was one that I’d made with someone else’s card number and information. Back in the day when I was stealing, you had thirty days to get three hundred dollars a day from a dummy card. It used to take thirty days for the billing cycle to come around or thirty days for the statements to be mailed. Before all the high-tech security shit took over, shit had been simple. Now, for those of us in the business I was in, you had only fifteen days, max. Banks and credit card companies were more alert and paid attention to suspicious activity.
In hindsight, I could see how fucking stupid I was to try to use that damn card. For some reason, I didn’t think the cops would really take the time to bother me when there were other, more serious crimes afoot.
People rushed past with no cares in the world. I stared at every passerby, because I kept feeling like I was being watched, and I hated that shit. Sliding my hands in my pockets and keeping my head down, I kept it pushing.
Cars zoomed past me, but it was the nice blacked-out Audi R8 that drew my attention. I couldn’t really see inside it too well, but then I did make out the top half of a dude, who locked eyes on me. He revved his engine, then darted his eyes befor
e driving off. If that dude had parked that shit and had left it near me, I most definitely would have stolen it, checked out the engine, and enjoyed the pleasant weather. But I had work to do, even though the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
As I turned to head off, I stopped in my tracks when flashing lights quickly surrounded me. The police had me surrounded, guns cocked and aimed. People gave the police a wide berth. If they weren’t running and screaming, they were standing around, staring. I held my hands up and stopped. I didn’t want to end up shot.
“Get on the ground! Get on the ground,” a cop shouted.
I quickly dropped to my knees, then lay on my stomach. I swore, it felt as if those niggas were trying to paralyze me. Knees in my back and on my spine. My hands and wrists twisted awkwardly so they could get the cuffs on.
I guessed the investigation was over, because now my ass was being hauled back to jail. I sat in a holding cell at Clayton County Jail for a good three or four hours before I was pulled out and placed in an interrogation room.
“Look who we have back here with us, man. This lying bitch,” Mr. Blond taunted me sarcastically. I remembered him whispering to Mr. Michelin the last time I was here.
Guessed I wasn’t too sweet or too cute to be a thug anymore, because these fellas were all the way turned up, and Uncle Phil was nowhere to be found. They tried to get me to answer questions, but I refused. I had the right to remain silent, so that was what I did, until they got frustrated.
“Get her ass up outta here, and let’s see how she likes sitting behind bars. These goddamned kids are getting too smart for their own good, and we’re not about to have another punk act the hell up and tear up the interrogation room. Two is enough. Stop playing with her, Derrick,” Mr. Michelin barked.
So Mr. Blond is named Derrick, I thought.
“I will, but we should let her see at least a piece of the evidence. Let her see what got her in here, since she wants to be all smug and silent,” Derrick suggested.
Derrick took out his cell and angled it in front of me. He slid his hand across the touch screen, and I watched as a video started playing.
I heard Keisha’s voice. “Look in her locker. I promise, she put me up to it all. I ain’t want to do it. Was going to wait on my baby, Ramon, to pay his child support check, but she told me it would help me with my babies. She planned it all!”
I felt the need to speak up. I could admit I was panicking. The shit I had been doing could get me some serious federal jail time.
“She’s lying, and I don’t know why, but she’s lying,” I pleaded, cupping my face.
Derrick stopped the recording and smiled. “We searched in your locker, Ms. Gaines, and guess what we found in your uniform pocket.”
Anger bubbled up inside me at the bullshit I heard. My eyes narrowed while I ran my tongue over my teeth, then sucked them. “My ass to kiss, because I ain’t did anything!”
“Excuse me?” Derrick said in my ear, causing me to sigh and pray to the heavens. Derrick, with his sour breath, was all in my face, trying to make my life worse than it already was.
Pictures flashed in front of me, and then various IDs, credit cards, and money in a plastic grocery bag. My mouth dropped open. I sat back, tight lipped, because in front of me was also a video of me handing Keisha that very same bag days before all the shit had hit the fan. That bitch Keisha had really sold me out. All the IDs and credit cards I’d gotten for her lay in front of me now.
Suffice it to say, the bitch had set me up real good. She had set me up so well that days later, I was still being held at Clayton County Jail. After that, they found more shit and so-called proof that I was a thief. A few days turned into several weeks and counting. I’d been arraigned and brought up on charges, like identity fraud. That alone could have me sitting in prison for ten years.
Mix that charge with all the others and the DA was trying to plead me out for twenty years. Twenty years for all that bullshit? Wow! I knew Keisha had sold me out to save her own ass. I got it. But if I ever saw the light of day again, I was going to kill that bitch. Maybe she’d done this because she was jealous or some shit. Whatever it was, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that broad. I felt like an ass for feeling sympathy for her fucking snotty-nosed, crying babies. Damn, man!
Chapter 2
Code
I moved with a purpose. Anxiety was riding me like a two-dollar whore. Sweat beaded at my temples. Normally, I’d stop and chat it up with the guys around the shop, but I was in no mood to. The auto shop was loud. The smell of oil, tar, and grease assaulted my senses. My heart thumped in my chest as I speed walked in the direction of the back office. Male and female voices were chattering as I went, but I kept going. I needed to be in the security room.
“What the fuck took you so long?” said a voice behind me as I kept walking.
I glanced over my shoulder at Auto, the manager of the shop. He was also my partner in crime. Auto’s black, shoulder-length hair was drenched in sweat, as the shop felt like a sauna. His Asian features were set in an impatient scowl. Sweat rained down his chest, which was covered with black specks, no doubt because of the oil and grease from cars. Abs constricting with each breath he took, he looked anxious, like he had something of importance to tell me.
“Cut me some slack, a’ight? The old man had me tied up with family shit,” I countered. The “old man” was Papa, my grandfather.
He looked like he wanted to counter what I’d said, but he knew that the new package coming from Vegas was needed and that we had no time to be arguing about other shit. We’d run into a lot of interference lately because of an unforeseen enemy. He sighed loudly, then shook his head as he fell into step beside me.
“Yeah, well, this shit here is more important than that old man,” he snapped as we walked.
“You know when he calls, I have to answer.”
Auto shook his head. For as long as we’d been partners, we’d had words when it came to where my loyalty lay.
He said, “One day you’re going to have to choose between us and him. We got a lot of money involved in this shit, and you letting that old motherfucker get to you again.”
I shook my head and stormed on behind him toward his office. No matter how many times I had explained the dynamics of my family to him, he had never got it. Auto didn’t know where his family history began or ended, so a long time ago, I had stopped expecting him to get why I had to show loyalty to the old man, my grandfather.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Just tell me what the fuck is up.” I didn’t know if he believed my apology. All he did was shake his head.
“Those new parts we’re supposed to be getting . . . seems like our supplier also made a deal with a set of dudes who run a similar operation out in Minot, North Dakota,” he then informed me.
Nervousness settled in my spine. We couldn’t afford to lose another shipment of parts. “So he played us?” I asked.
“He’s been playing us. That shipment we lost last month, he told them about it. That was how we lost it. It cost us only three hundred thousand then, minus what we paid him. If we lose this, we’re fucked.”
Both of us were silent as we walked into his office. He closed the door behind us. We both made sure the door was locked before he laid a hand on the digital panel beside the wall. I dropped the bag in my hand on the floor, then waited impatiently as the file cabinet slid over like it had an invisible motor. My breathing intensified when the wall glided over and revealed a hidden room. We stepped into the room, and six fifty-inch flat-screen TVs greeted us. Then the movable wall slid closed behind us.
“Get Lelo on the line,” Auto ordered me.
While he was my partner in the very lucrative business we ran, sometimes he lost track of this fact and treated me as if I was the help. When he was angry, he always threw his weight around. Luckily, I knew him and knew he meant no harm. He also knew I loved him as if he was my blood. Our different races didn’t matter. I was older than he was by three
years, too, so sometimes my bossiness kicked in as well. But Auto was a businessman, and when something didn’t go right, we all saw a side of him he rarely showed. Fear.
While he may not have known where he came from in a sense, he’d made his own way. Made his own family. Our connection had started after I purchased a car from him. He’d already had this business up and running by the time I’d come around. But I’d never been one to turn down money, and since I’d never been like most of the women in my family—they lived off family money—I’d asked him for a job. It was only when he fell in the hole monetarily that I was able to buy into the business. Even so, the Eraserheads belonged to him, and he made sure we all knew it.
It took a little less than a minute for me to get Lelo on the main screen. Lelo’s butter-pecan face could be seen as he shielded his eyes from the sun. The Las Vegas sun had darkened his already brown skin.
“Talk to me,” Auto spat in a no-nonsense tone. His breathing intense, Auto stood with his arms crossed over his chest, legs wide. With each breath he took, I could see the expansion of his chest, the rise and fall of his shoulders.
Lelo was looking around like he was paranoid. Fear was written across his face, and that alarmed me.
“They got the shipment,” he said, clearly stressed out.
“What?” I yelled.
Auto came up behind me. “How? What the fuck happened?”
“We got robbed,” Lelo roared. “These big, blond white niggas robbed us. We took a different fucking route, and they still got us. They took the fucking truck. Every fucking thing except the tracker and the device in my glasses.”
My blood was boiling. Something akin to indignation was overtaking my senses. The tears burning my eyes told of the plethora of emotions I was feeling. Still, we needed to make sure he and Stitch were okay. Auto kicked a chair around the room, then stalked across the floor with his fists clenched.
