by K'wan
“Be glad you didn’t. That broad is so fertile, if you sneeze on her, she might get pregnant.” Knowledge chuckled. He’d never smashed her personally, but he knew a few cats who had, and they all swore her pussy was lined with gold. I guess that explained why she was twenty-five with three kids by three different niggas and, from the looks of things, one more on the way. “What you doing out here, making sales to pregnant women?”
Power shot his friend a look. “C’mon, God. You know I ain’t a complete savage. She needed the bud for a get-together she’s having.”
“Bullshit—she’s probably selling it,” Knowledge said.
“Considering she bought a half pound, I wouldn’t doubt it. But so long as she’s not stepping on my toes, I don’t care.”
“A half pound?” Knowledge asked in surprise. “Now where does a broke-ass hood rat who ain’t never worked a day in her life suddenly come up with the cash to buy a half pound of weed and a new BMW?” His wheels started spinning.
“I wondered the same thing,” Power admitted. “You know her man been running around for the last few weeks on some bossed-up shit. You remember the skinny dude TJ, right?”
“The guy she was messing with in high school?” Knowledge searched his mental Rolodex to put a face to the name.
“Yeah, that’s him. I was at the spot a few nights ago when he pulled up, flossing in the new Benz truck. My mans and them was plotting on sticking him up, but he was rolling with some new faces, some real hard-looking cats. Nobody was really sure what time it was with them, so they let TJ breathe. But if I were him, I’d slow down with all that fronting.”
Knowledge processed what Power was telling him. From what he recalled, TJ had always been one of those dudes who danced on the fringes of the game but had never gone all in. Knowledge had heard chatter over the last few months that TJ had been trying to step his game up, but he had never been big enough to really be on Knowledge’s radar. Now all of a sudden he was throwing bread around and flossing new whips.
“Everything good?” Power asked as if he were able read his friend’s face.
“Nothing, just trying to sort some shit out,” Knowledge told him. More pieces of the puzzle were being dumped onto the table, but he still wasn’t certain how, or even if, they fit. “So, you cutting today or you thinking about becoming a full-time hustler again?” Knowledge said, changing the subject.
“I never stopped being a full-time hustler; I just switched the product. On some G shit, I’m good with cutting hair. Selling this weed helps me make ends meet and have a little extra to play with, but ain’t no way I’m throwing my hat back into the arena with y’all cats unless it’s for a damn good reason.”
“I guess prison does reform some people.”
“Not everybody—just the smart ones. See, you ain’t never been locked down for no long period of time, so you don’t know how that shit is. Bulls barking at you twenty-four-seven and dictating when you eat, sleep, and shit like you’re some damn dog.” He shook his head as some of the memories came flooding back. “Living in captivity is enough to make you lose your shit. The most valuable lesson I learned in prison was that it ain’t for me. Some cats go back and forth like a revolving door, but bet I won’t be one of them. When I say they’d have to lay me in the streets before I ever allowed myself to be caged again, I mean it!”
“But fuck all that jail talk. I’m trying to get blazed. What you got for me?” Knowledge inquired.
Power’s face lit up. Weed and cutting hair were his passions. “I got the usual suspects, Haze, Dro, and a real mellow strain of chocolate. But if you really wanna go to the moon, I got some new shit in from Portland that’s supposed to be hitting. I call it the Electric Boogie.”
Knowledge was curious. “Why you call it that?”
“Because after you hit that shit, you’ll be so high that you might find yourself break-dancing!” He burst out laughing.
“If that’s the case, give me an eighth of that shit!” Knowledge began fishing around in his pocket, but Power placed a hand on his wrist.
“Don’t insult me like that. Your money ain’t no good here. Go see my man in the building and tell him I set to set you out.”
Knowledge walked into the building and, less than thirty seconds later, was coming back out, a huge smile on his face. “This shit must be superpotent, because you can smell it through the bags.”
“C’mon, sun. You know I don’t deal in no bullshit,” Power said proudly.
“You trying to blaze one right quick before I dip off?” Knowledge offered.
“Nah, I’m gonna pass on that. I gotta work at the shop today, and I don’t like cutting heads when I’m high. Besides, my PO is gonna piss test me this week when I go check in.”
“How the fuck do you know that? I thought the urine tests were always random?”
“Not when you’re knocking the lining out of your parole officer’s pussy.” Power smiled slyly.
Knowledge gave his friend dap. “I’m glad to know some things haven’t changed.”
“Oh shit,” Power blurted out. “I meant to ask you: What you make of that fire last night?”
“What fire?” Knowledge asked.
“Pops Brown’s bar burned down last night,” Power told him.
Knowledge was stunned. Pops Brown’s place had been around for longer than Knowledge could remember. It had started out as an arcade and candy store where all the kids had gone to play video games, but about ten years ago Pops had gotten a liquor license and turned it into a bar. It became a wateringhole for gangsters throughout the city and was considered neutral territory. More important, it was the same place he had seen Pearl the night before.
“What happened?” Knowledge pressed.
“There’re a few different versions of the story. The official word is that it was some kind of electrical fire.”
“What are the streets saying?”
“The streets are saying Pops Brown pissed the wrong people off, and they expressed their displeasure with a Molotov cocktail. Most of the people inside made it out, but not all of them,” Power said sadly.
“And Pops? He good?”
“He’s alive, but in bad shape at Harlem Hospital. They say he’ll make it, but losing that place will likely take him out of the game,” Power said, stating the obvious. Pops had a few operations going on in the streets, but the bar and the things that went on there were his bread and butter.
All Knowledge could do was shake his head as he processed everything he’d learned in the last twenty-four hours. First Pana gets knocked off, and then someone firebombs Pops Brown into retirement. Had these two events occurred individually, they could’ve been shrugged off as rotten luck, but their happening back to back meant something bigger. There was a power move being made. “I need to go see Big Stone. I’ll get with you later, P.” He gave his friend dap and then started for his car.
“You watch your ass out here, Knowledge!” Power called after him. “I got a bad feeling that it’s cats out here who ain’t moving correct, and I’d hate to have to lay somebody for coming at my brother,” Power said seriously.
Knowledge stopped, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you said you’d never throw your hat back into the arena?”
“I said it’d have to be for a good reason, and somebody trying to hurt you justifies breaking that oath,” Power said seriously.
This brought a smile to Knowledge’s lips. “Glad to know there’re still a few of my day-one niggas who’re still down for me.”
“No question, God. From the cradle to the grave, baby. We all we got.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Pearl awoke the next day, she was sore as hell. It felt like somebody had whipped her ass in her sleep. She guessed that was what happened when you tried to play Spider-Woman. The night before had proven to be both eventful and informative.
She reached for her phone and saw she had several missed calls, most of them from Marisa. Pearl started to dial her back
, but then she remembered she wasn’t fucking with her like that again just yet. She was mad at Marisa for disappearing on her, and would surely give her the cold shoulder for a while before making up. Sheila, on the other hand, she wasn’t sure if she could ever be friends with again. None of them were angels—they had all engaged in some grimy shit—but Sheila walking them into a den of prostitutes and not letting them know ahead of time was low. There were a million things that could’ve gone wrong in that situation, and Pearl shuddered to think what would’ve happened had she had to call on one of her father’s people to get her out of a jam. Somebody would’ve likely gotten killed, and Big Stone would’ve hung his foot off in all three of their asses for being fast.
Though she was angry with Sheila, she was also concerned. Pearl knew Sheila’s family wasn’t as well-to-do as hers or Marisa’s, so she always had to have a side hustle to keep up, but selling pussy? At one point or another, they had all slept with someone in exchange for gifts, but that was the game. Outright slapping a price tag on her ass was something Pearl would never do. For Sheila to go that far, something had to have been going on at home that she hadn’t told them about. Maybe when Pearl calmed down, she would investigate, but right then she didn’t give a fuck.
Pushing thoughts of other people’s problems from her mind, Pearl focused on her own … namely, the homeless-looking condition she was in. She was still filthy from the night before and felt like she had slept in the streets. She hopped into the shower and let the scalding-hot water run over her body. As she shampooed the grass out of her hair, her thoughts went back to the previous night’s event. She had to admit, before Zonnie had come at her with bullshit, Pearl had been having a good time. Doodles and his people partied like bosses, which is the only way Pearl knew how to do it. She couldn’t have seen herself getting with any of them, except maybe Franz, but now that she knew how his team got down, that was off the table. At least now she knew why he had looked at her as if she was shit on a shoe when she tried to push up.
Her thoughts then shifted to the drink she’d shared with the man whose mother had named him Diamonds. Out-of-town guys usually weren’t Pearl’s speed, especially country niggas, but there was just something about Diamonds that made her itch in places she’d be ashamed to scratch … at least in public. He had a presence about him that made Pearl feel like the walls were closing in on her. From the moment she’d looked into his inky-black eyes, she’d known he was dangerous, and that was part of what attracted her to him. It was true what they said: little girls grew up and looked for men who reminded them of their fathers. Diamonds definitely embodied that. Pearl had never been in love, so she had no clue what it felt like, but she imagined it to resemble the growing tightness she felt in her chest when visions of Diamonds danced in her head.
Until she felt the wave of pleasure roll up through her thighs, Pearl hadn’t even realized she had been touching herself. She blushed, thinking how a man who had never laid hands on her could take her mind so far into the gutter. Pearl felt ashamed, but not so ashamed that she wasn’t going to finish herself off before she got out of the shower.
Feeling fresh, and relieved, Pearl strolled into her bedroom to dress for the day. She threw on a pair of fitted blue jeans, a cute top, and her vintage white Reebok 54-11s. Thankfully she didn’t have school, so she could spend her day doing more important things, like shopping. She scooped up her phone and saw that she had had another missed call while she’d been in the shower. This one was from an unknown number. Before she had time to even ponder it, the phone rang in her hand. Again the call was from an unknown number. Normally Pearl would’ve let it go to voice mail, but her curiosity got the best of her so she answered it.
“So what, you ducking my calls now?” Devonte’s voice boomed over the phone before she could even say hello.
Pearl pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it to make sure she wasn’t bugging, before going back to the call. “Nigga, you need to slow your fucking roll. Ain’t nobody gotta be ducking you. I didn’t know you called. I’m just waking up. And why are you calling me from a blocked number?”
“Because you weren’t answering when I called you from my cell. Now, don’t change the subject. Where you been?”
“I told you—I’m just waking up,” Pearl repeated.
“Must’ve been a rough night for you, huh?” he asked accusingly.
“It was … interesting enough.” Pearl smiled, thinking of Diamonds.
“I’ll bet it was, since you was in the back of Pops’s bar, selling pussy with the rest of them bitches!” Devonte raged. “Don’t try to deny it either. One of my boys was in there, and he told me that you and your girls were getting busy with them nasty-ass Jamaican niggas! How you gonna do me like that, Pearl?” he said, his voice trembling.
“Devonte, on my mama, don’t ever disrespect me by insinuating some I’d stoop to doing some ho shit. You know my name and my fucking pedigree, so don’t play yourself!” she spat. “Now, if you’d asked me instead of shooting off at the mouth like you somebody’s daddy, I’d have told you that I was in the bar with some friends last night. I’d have also told you that once I realized what the fuck was going on, I got the hell out of there. Not that it’s any of your fucking business,” she added.
“I don’t even know why Pops let you in there. Your ass isn’t even old enough to drink!”
“I’m not old enough to be fucking a nigga seven years older than me either, but it don’t stop you from sniffing around this pussy!” she shot back. “You know what? I don’t even know why I’m on the phone, explaining this shit to you like you’re my man, when you’re really just a slide. As a matter of fact, you ain’t even a slide. You’re just some nigga I let get me off on them days when my dick reservoir is running low.”
Devonte was silent for a long moment. For what seemed like a minute Pearl thought he might’ve hung up the phone until she heard his cracking voice come back on the line. “You’re a heartless bitch, Pearl.”
Was he crying?
“I tried to show you love,” he continued, “but what I should’ve done was treated you like the low-life cunt I knew you were.”
Pearl’s eyes flashed rage. Had Devonte been standing in front of her, she would have laid hands on him, but she had to let her words do what her fists couldn’t. “You listen to me, and you listen good, you half-ass fucking hustler.” Her words dripped venom. “You a weak nigga, Devonte. More important, you’re insignificant. You’re so low on the totem pole that I could get you erased with a phone call and nobody would miss your hand-to-hand, crack-slinging ass. Your saving grace is that on this side, we only dispatch hitters for real threats and you ain’t no threat. You’re a side bitch who didn’t know how to stay in his lane, so consider the road closed.”
“So I’m supposed to let you go, just like that?” Devonte choked up.
“Nigga, whatever you do or don’t do ain’t my concern. I thought you was cool, but you turned out to be a real cornball. Lesson learned. Now lose my fucking number, clown!” She ended the call.
Pearl was in such a rage that she nearly threw her phone, until she remembered how much her father had paid for it. It would’ve been her second phone in two months, and he had made it clear she wouldn’t be getting another one. Devonte had played himself, which he’d been doing a lot of lately. She could overlook the clinginess she’d started to notice in him, but disrespect was something she wouldn’t tolerate from him or any other man. Part of her was sad she had to cut him from the team, because Devonte ate pussy better than any nigga she had ever laid with, but bomb head be damned, he couldn’t stay in his lane so he was gone.
The smell of something tasty being cooked tickled her nose. Her stomach churned, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the previous evening. Sandra must’ve awoke from her drug-induced stupor and was getting busy in the kitchen. It was only right, seeing how her unofficial man was back from vacation and no doubt craving some home-cooked fo
od. If Pearl knew Sandra the way she thought, Big Stone would be eating more than just bacon and eggs for the rest of the weekend. A well-fed and well-fucked man was a happy one, so Pearl decided to make her way downstairs to crack on her father for some mall money while he was in a good mood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The smell of fried bacon filled the upstairs hallway of the house, causing Pearl’s nose to twitch like Elizabeth Montgomery’s in Bewitched. It was like the closer she got to the kitchen, the hungrier she became. Her mouth watered at the thought of tasting some of Sandra’s homemade banana pancakes.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the first person she ran into was her brother Stoney. He had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face and a new gold chain hanging from around his neck.
“You see what Dad brought me back?” He brandished the round medallion hanging from the end of the chain.
“That’s nice, little bro.” She leaned in closer to inspect it and saw that it bore his initials. “You better make sure you don’t let one of these jack boys snatch it from you out in these streets.” She faked like she was going to grab the chain, but her little brother didn’t even flinch.
“These muthafuckas ain’t crazy enough to try me out here. They know who my daddy be,” Stoney said confidently.
“Stuff like that sounds cool when they say it in the movies, but that ain’t how the real world works. Daddy has a lot of respect in the streets, so it does provide us a veil of protection, but never fool yourself into thinking any man is untouchable. For as many people there are that love Daddy, there are probably twice as many who hate him and would happily get at one of us to get to him,” she warned. “This is why I always be on your back about hanging with them thug-ass niggas Raheem and Domo.”
Stoney rolled his eyes, not really wanting to hear Pearl’s speech. “Why you always sweating me about my friends?”
