by Joy, E. n.
Denise had no idea what was going on or what she was looking for, but her sister was in some serious trouble, with some serious people, and she knew that pretending to be her sister might cost her, her life. But all she could think about were the lives of Dinky, Kayla and Kima.
She began to search through Dina's belongings. Knowing her twin, she decided to look under the bed. That was always a hiding place for Dina when they were kids. She bent down and noticed that someone had beat her to looking up under the bed. Shoe boxes were scattered about with some shoes being dumped from their box. Denise still decided to continue her search. She pulled over a dozen pairs of shoes and boxes under the bed. Once she got them all out of her way is when her hands came upon a large velvet box that the shoe boxes had been hiding. She pulled the box out and opened it. Her mouth fell open. There were stacks of one hundred dollar bills bound by rubber bands in the box. She figured this must have been the money that the person on the phone was looking for. There was also a black velvet pouch inside. She pulled it open. There were diamonds in the pouch. There had to be at least fifty of them. Who did Dina take them from? Had she lost her mind? So many thoughts were going through Denise's head.
Denise suddenly heard someone kicking and banging on the front door. She immediately put everything back where she had found it. They hadn't found the box the first time, so she thought it should be safe. She dialed 911 on her cell phone. The pounding on the door became heavier.
The operator answered. "Emergency, 911."
"Yes, my name is Denise Stewart. I'm at Essex Village in apartment number 5518. There is someone trying to break into my sister's apartment."
"Are you sure?" the operator asked.
"What kind of question is that? Yes, I'm sure! I need you to send some officers over here right now."
"I'm going to need some information from you."
"I just gave you all of the information you need," Denise yelled.
The door was busted off of its hinges as the perpetrators entered the apartment. Denise whispered in horror into the phone. "They're in. They just broke down the door."
"Okay, ma'am, just be calm. Officers are on the way," the operator assured her.
Denise ran into the closet. She closed the sliding double doors and pulled as many clothes on top of her- self as possible. She tried to calm the adrenaline pumping throughout her veins. She tried not to even breathe too heavily. Once again, for the second time in one day, Denise began to pray. She then heard voices of what seemed to be two men. She didn't dare move. Hopefully the police would be there soon to rescue her. The voices became louder. They were getting closer.
"Yo, Queen D, we know you're here. We smell your pretty skin. Gamble Dick wants what belongs to him. We're not leaving until we get it! So make it easy on yourself and come on out. Maybe we can work some- thing out," one of Gamble Dick's goons yelled.
Denise thought for a split second that maybe she should just give them what they came for, but then she quickly changed her mind. She had researched enough cases to know that victims rarely made it out of these situations to tell the story. She'd wait for the police. They were her only hope, that is unless God had actually heard her prayer.
"Police!" an officer shouted, startling one of Gamble Dick's boys who was about to make a move.
"Don't you move or I'll blow your freakin' brains out," another officer warned.
"Put your hands up where we can see them," a third officer demanded. There were six white police officers altogether. Richmond police made a habit of swarming in on a matter. It was typical to see one car pulled over on the side of the road with no less than six police cars, with flashing lights, trying to get a piece of the action.
The men were caught off guard. Their backs were to the officers. They had no choice other than to surrender. As the police were disarming and handcuffing the two men, Denise appeared in the hallway of the apartment. She was so relieved that they arrived in time to catch the monsters that were after her sister.
One of Gamble Dick's goons saw her and snapped, "Well, if it isn't the Queen herself? I knew I smelled you, you stank trick! You're as good as dead!"
"Enough with the threats," shouted one of the officers.
"Dina, Dina Stewart?" an officer asked.
"No, I'm her twin, Denise Stewart," Denise replied.
"Do you have any identification?" he asked.
"Uh...I left home in such a hurry...I forgot my purse...I guess I don't...uh," Denise stammered, realizing where they were going with their line of questioning. Her sister was good for having outstanding warrants.
The officer looked at her closely. He was an officer who had arrested Dina before. He was convinced that the woman who stood before him was Dina Stewart. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to place you under arrest. You have two outstanding warrants."
It was just as Denise had suspected. "Let me call my fiancé. I'm sure you've heard of Cannon Matthews. He can straighten this out. My name is Denise, not Dina." Denise was trying to be calm, hoping for the best. "I have plenty of people who can vouch for my identity." She reached for her cell phone. The officers drew their guns.
"Don't move," they all shouted.
Denise panicked. "You've got to be kidding me.
You're going to shoot me for trying to prove I'm who I say I am?" She was no longer calm. She was scared.
"You'll have plenty of time to prove who you are. Right now you need to come with us," said one of the officers who looked way too heavy to be chasing suspects.
Denise's face displayed utter disbelief as she was escorted, along with the two men, downstairs and placed in a separate police car. The entire neighborhood was out peepin' the show. As the police cars pulled off, Denise saw her one, and only, sister sitting in her car watching from a distance. Their eyes locked. Denise saw that Dina didn't make a move. She didn't even try to help her. Denise's chest began to burn as she realized what was happening. She lowered her head and began to cry. At first she almost began to pray, but then she figured why waste her breath. As much as she had always believed in prayer, obviously God wasn't listening, because things had now gone from bad to worse.
Chapter Two
THE MASTER PLAN
Dina had long ago made up her mind that she wasn't doing anybody's time. She had bucked on the last two cases she caught and made a self vow that she would never see the inside of a police station again, let alone a prison. She would hold court in the streets before taken into custody.
Both of her cases held an array of charges and were all felonies that carried sentences of a five year mini- mum, maximum life. The two warrants she had out- standing were results of snitches hatin'. Dina had a major dislike for snitches, but she had a larger dislike for the law. She had both of her middle fingers up to them all, cops and courts alike. There was no way she was going to allow someone to dictate to her when to face the world, when to wash her hind parts or when to rest her mind. She'd die first. So forget about telling the police that they had the wrong woman; it wasn't goin' down like that. Her sister had mad connections in the courts. Dina was sure Denise could pull some strings and get herself out without Dina having to turn herself in.
Dina pulled closer to her building in Essex Village and scoped out her surroundings. Once the police cars left the hood and the spectators went back to their various activities, mostly criminal, she parked near Denise's car and cautiously walked to her apartment. Dina peeped over her shoulder once again to make sure she wasn't being followed.
Once inside, Dina's keys dropped from her hand to the floor as she viewed the sight of her crib. Her furniture had been sliced up and ripped apart. The flat screen televisions and all of her glass tables had been bashed in. Dina walked to her bedroom. There was a message sprawled in what she determined to be the blood of an animal on the wall. It read, "YOU GON' DIE TRICK!" Each of her children's rooms was christened with a statement of its very own. Dinky's room read, "MAMA'S BOY- GAMBLE DICK'S TOY". Kayla and Kima's ro
om that they shared read, "WE KILL LITTLE GIRLS TOO!"
All of the rooms had been turned upside down. Dina was sizzling. Her skin was literally burning hot. They disrespected the place in which she and her children lay their heads. Dina wanted to kill someone, preferably Gamble Dick. No one threatened her children, not even a murdering loan shark and gangster like Gamble Dick.
She hyped herself up into a rage as her hands and arms waved wildly in the air. "See, I knew it! I knew you was a punk. You can't even deal with me straight up! Sendin' your flunkies to handle your business. Come on, Gamble Dick. I'm right here! You want me? Come and get me! The Queen is right here!" Dina yelled as she beat on her small chest.
Real talk, Dina went hard for a female. She'd kill someone in an instant if she felt they were a threat, no questions asked. She already had five bodies under her belt and was itchin' like a fiend to make it six. The night that the diamonds and cash were copped, Gamble Dick's demise was supposed to be a part of the plan, but he never showed up.
Dina went straight for the stash. She was nervous at first when she saw all the shoes in such disarray. But then she reached under her bed and breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she felt the velvet box grace her hand.
"It's all good. As long as this box is still here, I'm straighter than straight," Dina said aloud.
Thinking just as Denise had earlier that night when she was looking for just the right outfit to pull off her plan of pretending to be her sister, Dina went to her closet and tried to find the most conservative clothes she could find so that she could pull off her plan of pre- tending to be Denise. Navy blue Liz Claiborne slacks and a powder gray Evan Picone blouse was all she could muster up from the pile of clothes on the floor. She would peruse her sister's closet once she had the chance.
Dina raced into the bathroom with the clothes, and a half hour later emerged from the bathroom as Denise Stewart. Her dark brown hair that would normally flow freely down her back was slicked into the common ponytail her sister preferred. The change that just the set of clothes made surprised even Dina. She removed the gaudy diamond rings from four of her fingers and panicked. Her sister was engaged the owner of a three carat, single solitaire ring on her finger. Where would Dina get a three carat ring? She couldn't worry about that right now, though. She had some business to take care of.
Her golden brown skin glistened from her perspiration. She had to go. Gamble Dick was coming back and she knew it. Dina wasn't scared in the slightest, she just wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of dying in her home. That was a mess she wasn't trying to clean up.
Dina put on an old camel colored cashmere coat, grabbed her oversized quilted Chanel satchel and emptied the contents of the velvet box inside of the bag. She then scooped up her baby .380 and two extra clips. She put them in her bag, walked out of her apartment and went straight to her car.
"YOU'RE A DEAD WOMAN!" read the note Dina snatched off of the windshield of her navy blue 05' Acura RL. She looked around quickly, but saw no one. She forgot about the articles she was about to cop from the Acura. Knowing her sister always left her doors open and spare keys in her glove compartment, Dina quickly entered her sister's black 06' Audi A6, took her steel from her bag and placed it under her seat. She then retrieved the keys, started the engine and sped off.
Dina, calm down, she thought to herself. She needed to switch her mood, for she was now Denise. Cannon, as well as a host of others, had to be fooled. She didn't plan on pretending to be her sister forever, just for as long as it would take to dodge the police and Gamble Dick, or until Denise made that one phone call and convinced Cannon that she was his real fiancée.
Before Denise did anything, she figured that she needed to holler at one of her dudes, Solo. At nineteen years of age, he was the youngest of her stable. Dina normally wouldn't have taken on a buck so young, but Solo was an exception. He had been in the game since he was eight years old. He was a Capricorn with a sharp mind and a loyal heart. Loyalty was everything to Dina. In her profession, it was a rarity. Solo also made her feel her best when they were together physically. He was very eager to learn exactly what made his Queen tick. He was molded by her, for her. The magical part was that their bodies fit together like a hand in glove. Once she taught him everything she liked, like Chris Brown said, Solo kept it on and poppin'.
Dina dialed Solo's cell phone. When it rang, he checked the number and quickly took the call. "Hey baby, you missin' me already?" he said into the phone.
"Fo' sho, you know I miss my magic stick. What's poppin'?" Dina asked.
"I can't call it, shawty. What about you?"
"I'ma need you to handle up for your Queen."
"You know all you gotta do is say the word."
"I'ma be off the scene for a while. I need you to keep thangs straight. Keep these knuckleheads in line and keep my stacks on deck. Any one of 'em come up short, they need to come up missin'. Anybody come around asking for me, you ain't seen the Queen."
"What's goin' down? How long is a while, shawty? And where you goin' without me?"
"You got me or not?" she asked, purposely ignoring his questions. The less anyone knew, the better.
"Come on, you know I got you," he assured her.
"Fo' sho'. That's what it do. I'll hit you up latergone," Dina said.
"Gone," Solo told her.
Dina looked at the digital display in her sister's car and calculated the time. Denise would not be able to make a call until she was fully processed. That would take a while, so she still had ample time to formulate her plan. It was now time for Dina to make her next move. She called Blaze.
Blaze was her dark chocolate, bald headed, ride or die soldier from up top. He stayed ridin' dirty on I-95 on the regular to make sure his Queen stayed supplied with the best of the best narcotics money could buy. If there was beef, Blaze would kill all the noise at the drop of a dime.
"What it do?" Blaze spoke into his Bluetooth as he turned down the loud and bangin' "Ballin" by Jim Jones. The leather ivory Coach interior enveloped his deep dark skin. The tinted windows of Blaze's 06' Pearl Cadillac Escalade disallowed the human eye to see inside of this moving fortress as he rode high and smooth on his custom made 24" O.Z. Raffaello's. They set the truck on fire.
"Gamble Dick is a problem. Blaze, I want that one, baby. Hold him for your Queen," Dina stated as she checked her rear view to make sure she was alone on the road.
"Say no more," he said. Dina knew she didn't have to, and disconnected the call.
Dina then called her sister's office and left a voice- mail for David Blake, advising that she, Denise that is, was taking some time off because of a family emergency and that she would be in touch.
For a brief moment, Dina invaded Denise's con- science. Dina thought about the look on her sister's face as she wept in the police car. Dina knew her sister wasn't cut out to deal with some of the wenches behind those walls, but she wasn't about to sacrifice her own freedom. She wondered what Denise had been doing at her crib anyway. But then Dina thought back to the voice message Denise had left saying that she had changed her mind about watching the kids and was on her way to pick them up. Dina figured she must have taken the kids to her house and came back to be nosey. Huh, I bet after this you'll mind your own business! Dina thought. She made her next call.
"Speak," the voice answered.
"This is The Queen," Dina said.
"Speak," the raspy voice said again.
"I got five mil' in ice that I need converted to paper."
"That's a lot of paper," the voice replied.
"I'll take a hit for one and let you get that straight off the top. I really need this score. You know I wouldn't have hit you on the hip unless it was absolutely necessary."
"Yeah, I know. Tomorrow, Prince Anne Park, sixteen hundred hours," said the voice.
"I can't wait until tomorrow. I need my cheese now. I can't eat my sandwich without it. You feel what the Queen is layin' out to you, baby? I need to be seeing you wit
hin the hour."
"That's straight. I'll be there."
"Fo' sho', that's what it do." Dina concluded the call. The snow flurries whipped across the windshield of the Audi as the wipers quickly scraped off the accumulation. The bad weather made it difficult to see. Dina was ready to get this business over with and get back to her kids, but she had a few more calls to make. Getting in touch with Scratch was a priority.
Scratch, a.k.a. Maurice Givens, was one of Dina's men who had a legitimate hustle. He was a manager for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Scratch had connects with passports, drivers licenses, state identification cards, license plates, vehicle registrations and a host of other services at his disposal. Scratch had it bad. He was addicted to his Queen, so much so that he had chosen to risk his career and freedom to be with her.
His task was seeing to it that Dina, her kids and himself all assumed new identities. They would then head to Ecuador where they could live freely and enjoy the riches of the land. Dina didn't think anyone in the world would think to look for her there. That had been the plan from jump. That was the whole reason for the diamond score in the first place. Dina knew she wouldn't last in Richmond much longer with two warrants out and still trying to pump strong on the streets. But now her sister had to go on one of her Angela Lansbury missions, causing her to speed up her departure.
All Dina had asked her to do was watch the kids, but no, she had to come back and go snooping around in her things. That's why she really didn't feel sorry for her. Dina was going to make sure that she and her kids made it out of the country safely. Then and only then would she help her sister get out of the jam that Dina felt Denise had gotten herself into.
Dina selected Scratch's name in her phone and made the connection.
"Hey, where you been?" Scratch asked.
"I got a little side tracked, but everything is straight," Dina told him.
"Cool, everything is everything on this side too. I got everything we need. Our plane leaves the day after Christmas. I figured you would want to take the kids to see their grandmother one last time, so you'd better go on and get that out the way," he told her.
