by Kiki Swinson
“Okay, ready to go,” Mr. Schitz said. He pulled out a fingerprint kit and had both Matt and me press our thumbs into the pad of black ink and transfer it on the documents we signed. We gave the bank manager four prints in total. And as soon as we were done he handed us wet wipes to remove the ink from our fingers. I let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess that’s it?” I said, and then I smiled. I was ready to get the fuck out of this damn bank. I felt like a sitting fucking duck. I reached over and squeezed Matt’s arm to get him to chime in. “You sound like you’re tired, honey,” he commented.
“No, I’m just a little famished,” I replied. I was giving Mr. Schitz some hints to let him know that I was ready to go once and for all.
“Oh, well, we’re done here so I guess you can get you two something to eat,” Mr. Schitz said after he closed the fingerprint kit. Then he reached down and used his intercom to call someone to bring us the money.
I balled my toes up in my shoes and I could feel my hands shaking. We were so close. Please God. Please God. Please God, I chanted in my head. I could only pray that Yancy’s ass was in the bank making sure she didn’t see any police cars or any security heading toward the back where we were waiting. All she had was that one job. I had assigned her to be the lookout because I knew that banks sometimes stalled scammers to give the police time to come. I had had a close call once down in South Carolina.
I jumped at the sound of three hard knocks on Mr. Schitz’s door. Sounded like a police knock to me. Matt looked at me and I looked at him. I could tell that, just like me, Matt was holding his breath.
Matt furtively pointed to his waist, letting me know that if the bank or the police tried to detain us there we would be shooting our way out of the bank. Matt had already said he wasn’t going back to prison, that he would rather die first.
Mr. Schitz jumped up from his desk and rushed to the door. He pulled it open and at first I couldn’t see who was standing on the other side of it.
“Thank you, Olga,” Mr. Schitz said to the lady at the door as she handed him the two bank satchels with the money inside. There were also two security guards with her. Olga left and both of the security guards stepped into the office. I couldn’t even focus. I could no longer see, hear, smell, or feel anything. It was like I was suddenly in another place. All of a sudden the room started to spin and my ears started ringing. My nerves had completely come undone. I could tell Mr. Schitz was talking to me because I saw his paper-thin lips moving but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Honey. Honey?” Matt shook my arm. “Are you all right?”
I snapped out of my trance and noticed that the security guards and Mr. Schitz were all watching me with confused expressions on their faces.
“I have both bank satchels. These nice guards are going to walk us to the door,” Matt told me. I blinked a few times so that his words settled into my mind.
“We are finished here,” Matt said. “We have our cash. We can go now.” Matt was speaking like I was a deaf and dumb person who couldn’t understand. I let out a long sigh. Finally, everything came together.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry. Just all of a sudden I got the worst headache,” I lied, smiling awkwardly at Mr. Schitz and the guards.
“Sorry to hear that,” Mr. Schitz said. “Thank you again for your business,” he said with finality. Matt stood up and shook Mr. Schitz’s hand. Then Matt turned toward me and extended his hand to me in a chivalrous gesture.
I grabbed his hand and let him help me up. I looked into his eyes and suddenly I saw the man that I had fallen in love with all those years ago. Matt held on to my arm and helped me get steady on my feet. I was so nervous and overjoyed at the same time that I could barely walk straight.
When Matt and I exited the bank and the warm Norfolk, Virginia, air finally hit my face tears of joy sprang to my eyes. I did it! I did it! I did it! I screamed inside of my head.
“Don’t say a fucking word until we are in the car and back in Virginia Beach,” Matt mumbled to me as we raced down the sidewalk toward the waiting car. It was the most intelligent thing I had heard him say in years.
Matt opened the door for me and let me into the backseat. Then he slid into the front passenger seat. Yancy turned toward him with greed flashing in her big bug eyes.
“Did y’all get it? Did y’all get all of the money? Is that what’s in those two bags?” Yancy fired off questions in rapid succession. She sounded like a money-hungry ho, which is basically what she would always be in my eyes.
“Just drive. Get the fuck from around here and we can speak about it all later,” Matt instructed. He didn’t dare turn his head to look at her. I watched from the backseat with my insides practically on fire. Yancy snapped her lips shut, stepped on the gas, and headed toward the highway. There was total silence in the car. I was silently going over my plan in my head. This was going to be the sweetest fucking revenge anyone has ever carried out, I was thinking.
I’m sure Matt and Yancy were having some sinister thoughts of their own because, trust me, if there was a way they could get their hands on all of that money without having included me they would have. I was the one with the connection so they had to include me, but that wasn’t lost on me.
I wondered if they were both also trying to figure out a way to fuck me out of the cash. It didn’t even matter because it would come down to who was smarter in the end. As we got closer to home the reality of the situation finally started sinking in on me. We had just pulled off the biggest bank scam of our lives and we had three million dollars of free and clear cash in our possession! Both bags were heavy as hell but it didn’t matter because this was a once-in-a-lifetime type of lick. I had so many plans. I was going to get the next flight out of the country and after I settled down I was going to buy myself a brand-new foreign car, a brand-new condo, and a whole new wardrobe. Who knows, maybe I’d find a new man with more money than I had. What a life that would be. Fuck Matt and Yancy. They could have this godforsaken place. I wanted bigger and better things. A husband and kids and that’s exactly what I intended to get.
MATT
I can’t front. My stomach was in knots all the way home. I needed a fucking blunt to calm me down. Shit like this just don’t happen to regular niggas like me. All kinds of shit was running through my mind like what if we got pulled over and the cops found all this cash or what if someone was watching us and somehow knew we had the loot? When we finally pulled into our building’s parking garage a warm feeling of relief came over me. I started thinking . . . maybe this shit is reality. We got three million fucking dollars in our hands!
As soon as me, Yancy, and Lauren were all inside of the condo, I clicked on all the locks on the doors and closed all of the shades and blinds. Even though I was home, I still felt a little uneasy. In my mind, I felt like the cops could run in here at any given moment. This shit was too good to be true.
I threw both of the satchels with the money in it on the living-room coffee table, opened that shit, and stood back for a few minutes so we could all take it in.
“Gotdamn!” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “I’m fucked up right now because this shit just seemed too fucking easy.” I didn’t have that kind of fucking luck. It wasn’t the amount of money that had me bugging because I had seen more money than that when I was on the streets. It was how easy it was that had me paranoid.
“It wasn’t easy at all. This was a lot of work right here,” Lauren corrected me. “It took me a lot of planning. This kind of lick is much harder than slinging dope and quick snatch and grabs,” she continued. I could tell that she was throwing shade at the drug game but I ignored her ass. Instead of feeding into her bullshit, I stared down at those neatly laid stacks of cash and I swear my dick started to get hard. Looking at that money was probably better than the best piece of pussy I ever had in my life. I had forgotten how powerful that kind of money could make you feel. Everybody stared at the money for a few long moments. They were probably thinking about how m
any shoes and Chanel bags they were going to buy, but I was thinking about how I was going to take care of my dudes who were locked up and about how I was going to buy back into the drug game from behind the scenes.
Lauren was the first to walk over and pick up one of the cash stacks. The bills were those crisp, brand-new ones that looked like they had come fresh from the United States Mint.
“This shit right here is pretty as fuck,” Lauren gushed. She fanned her fingers through the bills and turned toward me and Yancy. Before Lauren could say another word . . .
“Ahhhhh!” Yancy screamed out in joy. “We are fucking rich! We are fucking rich!” she sang, dancing around the table. I saw when Lauren cut her eye at Yancy. I was thinking, Oh boy, here comes the bullshit. Women were so damn catty it made me sick.
Yancy rushed over and picked up another one of the cash stacks and held it up against her nose. She inhaled deeply like she was sniffing a line of the best cocaine. Her eyes rolled up in her head and her lips had a lazy grin on them.
“Ain’t nothing like the smell of money to make a bitch high as shit,” Yancy said, like she was getting high for real.
“Yeah, and it ain’t nothing like the feeling you get when you pull it off with no strings attached. I did it. I fucking pulled it off like a pro,” Lauren cheered proudly. Neither one of them was going to let the other have the shine for long. I just shook my head in disgust at both of them.
After that initial shock wore off, I was cool about the money. I didn’t scream, dance, or sing about the money. I didn’t need to pick up a stack, sniff it, or fan myself with it. Stacks of cash wasn’t nothing new to me, but it damn sure felt good to be in that position again. I shook my head and stared at the money, reminiscing on when I had it like that. I hadn’t seen that much paper since all my trap houses and my house where I lived had been raided. Back in the days this type of money would’ve been light work for me. I would have two and three money-counting machines going at the same time in all of my trap houses. I became lost in thought thinking about my manz Ak, Boone, Dread, and Born who were all doing time right now behind a fucking snitch-ass nigga. They had all gotten caught on the bad end of my business and I had skated with almost no time, thanks to Lauren hiring the best defense attorney money could buy at the time. I was going to have to make shit right with my crew. I was a parolee so I couldn’t even go see my dudes. I mean, I sent Lauren up there when I could and I kept their commissary accounts on fleek, but that shit ain’t the same as knowing your people out in the world were still holding you down. The cash laid out in front of me would be a good place to start. As soon as I got my cut the first thing I was going to do was send Lauren or somebody with a clean record up to the feds to tell my crew that I was about to find the next Johnnie Cochran–ass attorney to work on their appeals. I often dreamt of the day when we would all be a crew again. The street takeover would be real.
“I’m that bitch. That shit was like taking candy from a baby,” Lauren bragged, seemingly rubbing it in. If I didn’t know any better I would say she was definitely trying to provoke something with Yancy. Lauren had interrupted my thoughts with all the shit she was yapping about. It seemed like she wanted Yancy and me to feel that she was single-handedly responsible for the whole thing.
“We all did it,” Yancy snapped back, feeding into Lauren’s bullshit. “You ain’t do everything by yourself. But that’s always you . . . bossy Lauren . . . do-it-all and know-it-all Lauren. Take-all-of-the-fucking-credit-for-everything Lauren. I mean I was the one who was responsible for coming to this lick,” Yancy reminded her.
Both Yancy and Lauren exchanged evil glares at each other. Yo, I don’t understand why females just couldn’t get along. It was so stupid how they acted when it came to dealing with each other. If they only knew how stupid and childish they looked when they took shots at each other.
“We all? I think I was the one who made it happen. You found a wallet . . . so fucking what! A bum in the street could find a wallet and after the bum took the cash out if they were dumb what good would the wallet be? That shit would’ve been useless to you if I didn’t have the right connections and the right brains to make a move,” Lauren shot back. She moved toward Yancy and I could tell this wasn’t going to end well. Lauren had a short temper when she wanted to. I had seen that shit in action many times.
“But your connections would not have mattered if I didn’t find the wallet, so what’s your point? This bum found a wallet that happened to lead to this lick so you’re not the only one responsible. Like I said, we all did it,” Yancy went right back at Lauren. She didn’t show any signs of backing down. She moved toward Lauren too. The tension between them was palpable.
I eventually stepped between the two of them with each of my arms extended out in both directions. I was literally in the middle. This is how I felt all of the time lately—like the fucking monkey in the middle.
“Yo chill. Both of y’all need to be easy. This shit was a team effort. This is supposed to be a happy time for all of us. We came off lovely. We ain’t got no time for pointing fingers and shit. Look what we have in front of us . . . a future. Stop the madness and grow the fuck up,” I lectured. I’m sure they could both hear the disgust in my voice.
“People need to stay in their lane,” Lauren mumbled. “Bitches think because you’re nice to them you like them.”
“Oh, I’m in my lane,” Yancy shot back. “You just mad because the lane don’t belong to you no more.” Yancy threw a low blow. I saw the moment when that shit hit Lauren, too.
Lauren moved her head as if Yancy’s words had landed like an openhanded slap to her face. Lauren’s eyes hooded over with straight malice. Her lips curled into a snarl on her face. Her nostrils flared and her fists curled at her sides. I knew that fucking look. Yancy’s words were like the spark that set off the powder keg that had been building. And, BOOM! Before I could say a word the shit exploded. With the quickness Lauren maneuvered around me and grabbed a handful of Yancy’s long weave. Lauren yanked Yancy’s head like she was trying to disconnect it from Yancy’s body. Yancy screamed but she wasn’t going down without a fierce fight. She started swinging her arms trying to grab for any piece of Lauren she could grasp.
“Oh that’s the problem, bitch, you think I don’t know!” Lauren shouted. “You could never take anything that belongs to me, bitch, unless I let you have it!” she hollered.
“Get-the-fuck-off-of-me!” Yancy belted out each word.
“Yeah, bitch, you thought you were so tough,” Lauren growled as she walloped Yancy.
“Agh!” Yancy screamed. She swung her arms wildly. I heard a cracking sound when Yancy finally caught Lauren with a two-piece right to the face. Lauren took the blow like a pro boxer and shook it off, but still wouldn’t let go of her death grip on Yancy’s weave. I saw a trickle of blood coming from Lauren’s nose but she was still fighting.
“Bitch! I’m sick of you!” Lauren gritted. “I was the one who was there for you! I took your skank, dirty ass off the street! If it wasn’t for me you would be dead somewhere, you ungrateful ho-ass bitch!” Lauren screamed as she pulled Yancy’s head down and then lifted her knee until her knee crashed into Yancy’s face. Lauren repeatedly kneed Yancy in the face until blood gushed from Yancy’s nose. Yancy was still trying to fight but I could tell she was getting weak.
“Enough! Y’all stop that shit! Let go!” I barked at Lauren. I tried to separate them but to no avail. They were scrapping like two wild dogs fighting over a bone. I took more than one wild slap, punch, and kick in the midst of me trying to break up their fight.
“Get off me!” Yancy screeched. Lauren wasn’t letting go though. Yancy got a few hits in but she was clearly taking a dusting from my girl. Yancy tried to bite Lauren but she wasn’t able to get a good grasp. She did manage to inflict a long scratch across Lauren’s left cheek. I had seen enough. This time when I rushed in I took a fist to the face from Yancy but I wasn’t going to let them keep fighting.
&nb
sp; Finally I was able to grab Lauren around her waist and hoist her up. She was literally going crazy. I almost dropped her a couple of times because she was thrashing so wildly.
“Enough! Let go, ma. Let go of her hair. C’mon with this bullshit. We are supposed to be a team. Let go. You won. You always win. Let go,” I urged. I was saying anything to get Lauren to give up. I knew if I didn’t separate them they would fight to the death.
“C’mon, Lauren, you won,” I said again.
Finally, Lauren released her grasp and Yancy crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap.
“I’ll kill that ungrateful bitch! I took that bitch off the street . . . out of the gutter! Everything she got is because of me!” Lauren screamed, flailing and kicking her arms and legs trying to get back to Yancy. I wouldn’t let go of her though.
“Shhh. C’mon, ma, you better than this. You got way more going for yourself. C’mon,” I placated as I carried Lauren out of the living room and into our bedroom. Once inside I dumped her on our bed. She was still going crazy. She was snorting and breathing like a bull ready to charge. Her face was red and blotchy, she had scratches on her face and neck. Her hair was a bushy mess on her head. Lauren literally looked like an escapee from a mental institution. She was acting like one too.
“Calm down, bae. It’s not that serious,” I told her. Lauren glared at me with her chest heaving up and down.
“You would say that,” she huffed. “You would take up for a bitch like her.”
I don’t even know what Lauren meant by that but right then I needed to secure the money. Fuck all the dumb catfighting.
“Let me go get the money and take care of her and then we will take care of everything together,” I said in a comforting tone. Lauren squinted her eyes into dashes and pursed her lips. At that moment, Lauren looked at me with the most evil, vengeful glare. That look scared the shit out of me and sent a cold chill through my body until I shivered a little bit. I hadn’t seen that type of hatred and malice in a person’s eyes since the day one of my workers had looked at me like that. He had shot me that exact look just weeks before he ruined me. Out of nowhere and out of my control, the day someone I had once trusted promised vengeance with his eyes started to replay in my mind....
