by K'wan
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pearl stood on the corner of 125th and Lenox, trying her best not to freeze her ass off. The short black leather miniskirt and thigh-high boots were cute to death but hardly appropriate for the weather. She looked like she was out there selling pussy, and she wanted desperately to get off that corner before she was either arrested or abducted.
It had been no easy task for her to slip out of the house dressed the way she was. After eating dinner, she had expected Sandra to do her usual and go to bed early, but as dumb luck would have it, The Ten Commandments was coming on television that night, and Sandra planned to stay awake to watch it. There was no way Pearl was going to wait three and a half hours until it was over, so she had to take matters into her own hands. She offered to make Sandra a cup of tea, and then spiked it with Benadryl. An hour into the movie, Sandra was fast asleep and Pearl was in the wind.
The plan was for Marisa and Sheila to swing by and pick her up in a cab, but it was fifteen minutes past their meet time and there was still no sign of the girls. This is why Pearl hated moving on other people’s time. It was bad enough she only had about an hour or two to chill, and their being late was cutting into that. She would give them five more minutes and then she was taking her ass home.
Before she could make good on her threat, a red Jeep with big gold rims came bending around the corner. Reggae music blasted from the speakers, and even though all the tinted windows were rolled up, you could still smell the weed smoke seeping from it. When it stopped on the corner where Pearl was standing, she wisely backed away from the curb. Her father had always taught her never to get too close to a car if she couldn’t see who was in it. With all the dirt her family was into, death or being kidnapped were constant threats. Her hand had just slid inside her purse when the passenger window rolled down and she saw Sheila’s face smiling out at her.
“What’s good, Pearl?” Sheila yelled louder than she needed to. She was tipsy already.
“Sheila, you know better than to be rolling up on me, all suspect. We almost had a situation out here.” Pearl patted her bag.
“Stop fronting.” Marisa rolled down the back window. “You nice with ya hands, but you ain’t killing nothing.”
Pearl took the small .22 from her bag and brandished it. “Like Pac said: I ain’t a killer, but don’t push me.”
“She listen to Pac and carry iron. Me thinks me like her already,” someone with a heavy Jamaican accent said from the recesses of the backseat.
Pearl peeked inside the car and, for the first time, noticed there were two dudes in the back with Marisa. One of them was staring at her like she was well-cooked steak. He was light-skinned and rocking a Blue Jays fitted cap that was cocked to one side.
“I thought y’all were coming to pick me up in a taxi?” Pearl looked at the Jeep suspiciously.
“We were, but we figured, why waste the money if Boom was already in the area and could pick us up?” Sheila touched the arm of the dude behind the wheel, marking her territory. Boom was cute, handsome with a wavy fade and rocking large diamonds in both ears.
“Come on, mami. Jump in so we can go.” Marisa pushed the back door open. In addition to the dude with the Blue Jays cap, there was another young man wedged into the backseat, closest to the opposite door. He was dark, rocking a freshly tapered cut and a thick gold rope chain around his neck.
“Looks like y’all are already full. I can’t fit back there,” Pearl said.
“Come, baby girl. Me got plenty of room for you to ride.” The dude with the Blue Jays cap patted his lap, offering Pearl a seat.
Pearl rolled her eyes. “Nigga, what do I look like to you?”
“It’s cool. I’ll take one for the team. Let’s just go,” Marisa said, scooting onto his lap, much to his disappointment.
Pearl wasn’t feeling her friend’s display of thirst, but she kept it to herself. Holding her short skirt down with one hand so her entire ass didn’t show, she climbed into the back of the Jeep. The first thing she noticed was how soft the cream leather seats were. They felt like butter. The interior was fully loaded, with a crisp sound system and three television screens, one in the dash and two on the headrests. On all three screens, the movie Paid in Full played with no sound. As she was admiring the car, she happened to look up and notice the driver, Boom, watching her through the rearview mirror. Pearl turned away and occupied herself by looking out the window.
During the ride to the spot, they passed around a bottle of Jamaican rum and two spliffs. Pearl only took one shot of the rum, but she hit every blunt they passed to her. Boom and his crew had some good-ass weed, and it had Pearl extremely relaxed and way less defensive than when she’d gotten into the car. She learned that the two guys riding in the back with them were called Ricky and Franz, Ricky being the one with the baseball cap. Ricky was the more talkative of the two. He kept going on and on about how much money he was getting in Brooklyn and how many bottles he was gonna pop at the club. Pearl hated dudes who always talked about what they had, because it usually meant they didn’t have anything. Even if he hadn’t been finger-banging Marisa for damn near the whole ride, Pearl couldn’t deal with him.
Franz was different. He didn’t talk much, other than to say a few words into his cell phone, which seemed to ring every five minutes. She read in his eyes that the constant calls from whoever was on the other end were getting on his nerves, but he never raised his voice or showed any kind of emotion. He was very composed for a dude that young, and it intrigued her.
“So, whose birthday is it?” Pearl asked curiously. She didn’t really care, but the weed had her feeling chatty.
“My homie Doodles,” Boom answered over his shoulder. His voice was thick and heavy like the bass from a speaker.
“Doodles—what kind of a name is that?” Pearl laughed.
“The kind of name you don’t want to let him hear you laughing over,” Franz spoke up. Pearl noticed now that his voice also held a hint of an accent, but not as heavy as Ricky’s or Boom’s.
“Chill out, Franz. You gonna spook her,” Ricky teased.
“Shit, I doubt it. Pearl is used to being around gangsters. She comes from a whole family of them,” Sheila volunteered.
“Oh, so your people in the game?” Franz asked, suddenly quite interested in Pearl.
“Pay that drunk-ass girl no mind. My daddy did some time back in the day. Nothing special,” Pearl said, downplaying it. She was secretly fuming at Sheila and her drunk-ass mouth. Pearl hated her family’s business to be put in the streets, especially in front of strangers. Thankfully Franz picked up on her mood shift and let the subject drop.
A few minutes later Boom was parking the Jeep in front of the spot. Pearl had expected them to be hitting up a club, but it was more like a lounge … a bar, to be exact. She had ridden past the neighborhood wateringhole on the corner of 145th and Lenox plenty of times, but had never gone inside. The way she’d heard it, it was a den for thieves, killers, and hustlers. She would be surprised if she didn’t run into one of her father’s associates inside the place. Pearl was pissed that she had put on a good outfit to kick it at a local spot, and made a note to herself to have a conversation with Sheila about being more diligent in her reconnaissance before inviting her anywhere.
The girls spilled out of the Jeep, looking like eye candy. Sheila was wearing a smoke-gray faux fur coat with a one-piece white catsuit that threatened to burst at the seams trying to contain her huge ass. Marisa was wearing an off-the-shoulder red dress that hugged her hips tight enough to show off her shape, but not so tight that she looked slutty. From their heavily made-up faces and their choices in outfits, they looked more like grown-ass women than schoolgirls.
There were a surprising number of nice cars lining the block in front of the bar/lounge. Congregating on the sidewalk were small pockets of people, talking amongst themselves or smoking. Some of the faces Pearl recognized, but for the most part she didn’t know any of them. They likely weren’t from
Harlem, which told her that this Doodles person had to have been a man of some type of stature to bring them out like that.
Boom led their way toward the spot, Sheila clinging to his arm as if he might fly away if she let it go. At the entrance there was a doorman checking the IDs of the people going inside. Pearl became nervous because she knew none of them were old enough to be in there. She looked at Sheila as if to say, What’s the deal? Sheila gave her a wink and signaled for her to be cool. Boom greeted the bouncer with a firm handshake when they got to the door. He whispered something in his ear and motioned toward Pearl and her friends. The doorman looked out at them before smiling and giving Boom the nod. With just a few words, he had thrown the gates open to the start of their night.
* * *
The inside of the spot wasn’t as sleazy as Pearl had expected. It was far more spacious than it looked from the outside, with a wide dance floor and fully stocked bar. It was dark, but the fluorescent bulbs that framed the bar mirror illuminated the room enough for them to navigate their way across it without breaking their necks. They picked their way across the dance floor, with occasional stops for Boom to shake hands with someone or offer a word of greeting. Pearl noticed that there were a lot of Jamaicans, Haitians, and West Indians in the spot, and most of them seemed to know Boom and his friends.
There was a small crowd gathered on the dance floor, watching the spectacle of a man and woman dancing suggestively. Pearl watched in fascination as they gyrated and ground against each other, lips locked and swapping breath. If not for the fact that they were both fully dressed, you would’ve thought they were fucking right there on the dance floor. Something stirred low in Pearl, and her face flushed a bit in embarrassment. She pulled her eyes away from the couple in time to see that her friends had moved on.
A quick scan of the crowd and she found them on the other side of the bar. They were approaching the roped-off area in the back, where about a dozen people were partying privately. In the center of them was a brown-skinned man with a shaggy beard. He towered over the crowd, probably standing on a couch or table, waving a bottle of champagne over his head and unapologetically spilling it on whoever was standing close enough to him to get wet. He seemed to be having more fun than anyone else in the joint. Pearl needed some of whatever he was drinking to get to that point, and she wouldn’t get it standing there like a lame duck.
The crowd seemed to have doubled in the short time since they’d first entered the bar, making it hard for her to move without bumping into somebody or somebody bumping into her. Ahead, a word exchanged between two girls got things heated. A well-placed drink tossed in one girl’s face was the match that lit the fuse of the brawl that ensued. Pearl tried to sidestep the fight and ended up slipping on a wet spot on the floor. The tall heels of her boots made it hard to catch her balance, and the next thing she knew, she was stumbling on her way to a face-plant on the floor. She closed her eyes and braced for the impact, but it never came. When she opened them, she found that it was a muscular brown arm wrapped around her waist that had stopped her fall.
A soft breath tickled her ear. “You okay, miss?”
Once Pearl had gotten over the shock of almost falling, she pulled free and spun to find herself confronted with a man who she could only describe as beautiful. He was tall and athletically built, like he might’ve played ball at somebody’s university. His long dreads were pulled into a thick ponytail that hung down his back. He didn’t wear much in the way of jewelry, just a gold chain and a nice bracelet, but she couldn’t help but notice the brilliant assortment of diamonds covering his top and bottom teeth.
“I asked if you were okay?” he repeated, snapping Pearl out of her daze.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” Pearls busied herself smoothing her skirt so that she could avoid looking into his eyes. There was something in them that made the hairs on her neck stand up, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Looks like you spilled your drink.” He motioned to the liquid on the floor she had slipped in. “Let me replace it for you.”
“Oh, that wasn’t mine.”
“An empty hand in a bar is a sin,” he said playfully. “Have a drink with me, love.” He touched her wrist.
The simple gesture sent a chill up Pearl’s arm. “I’m good. I’m here with my people for the private party in the back.” She motioned toward Marisa, who was watching the exchange from across the room.
Diamonds glanced over at the crowd in the VIP area. “There’re a million people back there. I don’t think the party will grind to a halt if you slip off for a few ticks. Besides, it’d be rude of you to turn down the hospitalities of the man who just saved your life.”
“You’re persistent, aren’t you?” Pearl looked him up and down.
“Nah, just focused.” He openly admired her.
“But I don’t even know you.”
“Padonnen m’.” He gave an apologetic half bow. “My name is Diamonds.” He extended his hand.
“Pearl.” She went to shake it but was surprised when instead he lifted her hand and softly kissed the back of her knuckles. His lips felt like fine silk on her skin.
“Diamonds and Pearl,” he said aloud, letting it hang in the air. “It’s catchy.”
“We sound like an R&B duet,” Pearl joked.
“I’m sure we’d make some beautiful music,” Diamonds said. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, how about that drink?”
Pearl took one last glance over her shoulder at Marisa, who was now occupied with some young hustler pressing her to dance. “Fuck it. But just one. I don’t wanna keep my people waiting.”
Diamonds flashed his brilliantly jeweled smile. “Fair enough. I’ll have you back before they even notice you’re gone.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The crowd parted like the Red Sea for Diamonds as he led Pearl by the hand to the bar. There were two dudes occupying the stools directly in front of them. Pearl recognized them from the streets, but she couldn’t remember their names. They worked for one of her father’s associates and had reputations as tough guys around the neighborhood. Pearl was about to suggest that they move to the less crowded end of the bar to place their drink orders, but Diamonds was already heading in the direction of the men. She watched as he tapped them on the shoulders and whispered something to them. Pearl’s heart leaped into her throat when one of the men jumped to his feet and squared off with Diamonds. The man outweighed Pearl’s rescuer by nearly fifty pounds, but Diamonds was hardly fazed. Before anything could pop off, the man’s partner jumped between them and made an apologetic gesture to Diamonds before pulling his friend by the arm through the crowd.
“Here you are.” Diamonds pulled out one of the now vacant stools for Pearl.
“A gangster and a gentleman, huh?” She perched herself on the seat.
“Now, what would make you go and say a nasty thing like that?” Diamonds took the other stool. He waved the bartender over and placed their drink orders while waiting for Pearl to answer.
“Because I just watched you put two known killers on time-out without having to raise your hand,” Pearl observed. “What did you say to them?”
Diamonds shrugged. “Only that I had met an angel of mercy with an injured wing, who needed to take a load off for a spell.”
“Aren’t you a smooth devil?” Pearl teased.
“Baby, you have no idea how accurate of an assessment that is.” He laughed, giving her another glimpse of his jeweled teeth.
“So why do they call you Diamonds? Is it because of that shiny grill of yours?” Pearl asked.
“No, they call me Diamonds because it’s actually my name. I can even show you my driver’s license if you don’t believe me,” he offered.
“Nah, it ain’t that serious. That’s just a strange name for a guy to have.”
“So I’ve been hearing all my life. See, when I was in my mama’s stomach, the doctors told her that I would be a girl, so she decided to nam
e me Diamonds, after my granny. Imagine her surprise when the little girl she had been preparing for all those months came out with a dick.” He chuckled. “She was already committed to the name, so she never changed it.”
“Now that’s an interesting story.”
“My life is full of interesting stories. I’d love to tell you a few of them, if you’d but permit me the time.”
Just then the bartender came back over and placed two glasses in front of them: one was a Hennessy on the rocks, and the other was a rum and Coke. Diamonds tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table and told the bartender to keep the change.
“What made you order me rum instead of Hennessy too?” Pearl asked, sipping the rum and Coke.
“Because I didn’t want you mixing liquors. I smelled a tinge of rum on your breath when we were first talking, so I took a stab in the dark.” Diamonds winked.
Pearl covered her mouth in embarrassment, thinking her breath stunk.
“Easy, love.” He gently pulled her hand away. “Your breath is fine. My nose is just a little more sensitive than most.”
“You part bloodhound or something?”
Diamonds laughed. “No, I’m one hundred percent wolf, amoure.”
“What is that, French?” Pearl asked.
“Close—Creole. Where I come from, we speak just as much of it as we do English,” he told her.
“And where is that?”
“Da Boot, but you might know it as New Orleans. I grew up in a small parish just outside the city.”
“So what brings you to New York?” she asked.
“Same thing that brings everybody else this way. I’m looking for the pot of gold at the end of that concrete rainbow.”
