by Kiki Swinson
“Miss Marshall! You will not have outbursts in my courtroom. No attorney has put himself on the record for you. Certainly not Saul Kaufman, who I saw make an appearance earlier today. He may be your dream attorney, but he sure hasn’t recognized you as his client. Now I will not allow you to waste this court’s time any longer. Next outburst, you will be held in contempt,” the judge growled.
With that, the court officer rushed over and roughly grabbed me as he tried to cuff me.
“I have an attorney! I paid him! Let me call him! Please! Mr. Kaufman is my attorney!” I cried as the officers manhandled me and began dragging me back toward the door that led to the cells. I could feel the hot tears welling up in my eyes, but the anger that was flashing in my chest was more overpowering. I truly felt like I had the strength of ten men at that moment. I had lost all hope and when that happens it seems like something inside of my mind just snapped loose. Miraculously, at that moment it seemed like all the pain I had suffered from my attack previously had gone. I went straight in attack mode.
“Get the fuck off of me!! Get off of me!” I screamed, bucking my body and dropping down to the floor. I flailed my arms and legs like a crazy woman and started spitting and kicking too. Within seconds there were about six court officers surrounding me and roughly putting their hands on me. Some of them slapped and punched me as they tried to grab me and I would get a kick in. I saw one of the officers drop to his knees as my foot connected with his balls. I didn’t give a fuck at that point. I was kicking, spitting, screaming, and trying to bite them. Even if it meant they would beat my ass to a bloody pulp . . . what else did I have to live for.
“Ahhh!” I screamed when one of them finally had enough sense to spray me with pepper spray. “Aggg!” I coughed and wheezed as that shit set my entire face, throat, and chest on fire like I had swallowed a flaming torch. I was choking and gagging, but I was still trying to fight. Another blast from that potent spray and I finally collapsed. I felt pain coursing through my whole body once again so I finally gave up. My head was pounding and my heart was broken. Mr. Kaufman had got me.
“Take her to psych holding now!” one of the court officers screamed. They were still surrounding me but I didn’t have any more fight left in me. They hogtied me with flex cuffs and carried my ass through the cell block. I could hear hushed murmurs from the chicks in the other cells talking about me. The officers took me to a small, padded holding room, but not before they got their rocks off with a few punches and slaps and rough slams into walls. I deserved it. I had put them through unnecessary bullshit that day and I knew it, but fuck it, at least I didn’t go back to the regular cell crying and shit like a weak bitch.
Once the door to the padded room was locked, all I could do was slide down to the floor and scream at the top of my lungs. I kept screaming until my voice box could no longer make any sound.
It was crystal clear to me that Mr. Kaufman had pulled a heist on my ass. He had probably snatched my stash money as repayment for Todd’s debt with no intentions of ever representing me.
After exhausting myself with screaming and crying, I lay perfectly still on the floor. My mind raced with ways to get Mr. Kaufman back. He had just added himself to my shit list along with Todd, Jock, and those cops. I was Shannon Marshall and I was going to get the last laugh and the last heist on all of them.
8
Todd
The next nigga I went to see was Billy, another one of my old partners that had thought I was going away for life. Billy and I had been boys since we were young. We didn’t go back as far as Jock and I did, but I had considered Billy a pretty good friend before I got locked up. In fact, I was the one that had put Billy on to the game and helped him out of the hood. When I heard that nigga shitted on me, I was hurt but not surprised. There was no loyalty in our business. I had something a little different for Billy’s ass. His betrayal was different than what Zack had done. I wouldn’t say one was any worse than the other, but Billy had gone to a whole different level of disloyalty. His betrayal was the type that got niggas killed on a regular day because there were certain rules and one of them was never disrespect the next man’s wife. When Shannon told me the story about what Billy had done, I could picture the whole shit happening like I was sitting right there. I could picture it every time I thought of Billy’s name. Even now I could see it clearly.
Shannon said she rang Billy’s bell and within minutes he was at the door. She was kind of still distraught from being dismissed by Zack so she was kind of out of it. She said Billy pulled back the door and was standing there in his wife-beater and boxers.
“Wassup, Billy? I’m sorry if I woke you up but this is an emergency,” Shannon said, on the verge of tears.
“Nah, I’m good. I heard about T . . . are you a’ight?” Billy asked her like he was real concerned about me.
Shannon said she felt like breaking down but she held her head up and got to the point, something I had taught her to do.
“I’m good. Todd asked me to come by and check for some loot that you got for him,” she explained to Billy as he let her inside his crib.
Shannon said Billy’s eyebrows went down and his face changed. She said he got a dark look over his face like he was about to scream on her. He told her she could sit down on the couch. Shannon didn’t want to be rude but she wasn’t there for all that sit-down bullshit. She wanted to get to the point. Did Billy have the money or not?
“Yeah, yeah. I owe him a few dollars. Whatcha need?” Billy had asked.
“I need all of what you owe Todd. For real, shit is crazy right about now and I just need to get up some money for his lawyer,” Shannon explained, feeling like she was doing way too much explaining for a nigga who owed the money. Shannon said she felt like she had to cop a plea to those niggas that owed her fucking husband money!
“Hold up,” Billy said, disappearing toward the back of his house.
Shannon said she got a little leery, but as she looked around, she could tell by the flat screens, the expensive furniture, and artwork that Billy wasn’t doing too bad financially.
He came back with two plastic bags in his hands with some money in them.
“Here is a little something,” he said, tossing the bags at Shannon, then he plopped down on the couch beside her. Shannon’s eyes immediately lit up, thinking the nigga was paying up. She was happy to see that he was coming up off the money, unlike Zack.
“How much is this?” she had asked Billy.
“That’s like two G’s. I’ma have to work on the rest,” he explained.
Shannon’s face went dark. She told me she wasn’t trying to be ungrateful but she was thinking what the fuck is two G’s gonna do? She still wouldn’t be able to pay for that lawyer.
Unlike that little punk-ass Zack, at least Billy came up off of something. Shannon decided not to argue. She put the money in her bag and was getting ready to bounce. The next thing she knew, this nigga Billy had moved real close to her on the couch. She said his movement had shocked her and then when he put his arm around her and got close to the side of her face she was totally frozen with shock and fear.
“Yo, if you need a nigga to take care of ya pretty ass, all you gotta do is holla,” Billy said, breathing on my wife’s cheek like he was an animal in heat.
“What the fuck is you doing?!” Shannon screamed, pushing him away, trying to stand up. Shannon told me her heart was racing so fast and she was in such shock she didn’t even know what to say.
“Don’t be acting like you too fucking good for a nigga,” Billy growled, holding onto Shannon’s arm so tight she could feel the bruises coming as she felt a sharp pain.
“Get the fuck off me!” Shannon screamed again, yanking her arm away, which hurt her even more.
“I could take ya pussy right now and nobody would know. Ya fucking man ain’t getting out no time soon. You betta get with a nigga that can take care of you without getting his ass locked up every other year,” Billy said cruelly.
&nb
sp; “Fuck you, Billy!” Shannon spat, twisting her arm out of his grasp and pushing him away from her.
Shannon said she was scared as hell but mad as hell at the same time. Billy didn’t take it any further, but he could have and he had tried it, so that was already the violation. Shannon said she was so scared she rushed toward the front door to get the fuck out of there. She said Billy looked like he was liable to rape her right there. Once she was back in the car, she cried and cried. She had felt so betrayed by Billy, knowing that he was supposed to be one of my closest soldiers.
I pulled up to Lola’s, the strip club that Billy always hung out at with the hopes that I would find him inside doing what he loved to do best—being a pervert. I drove my Benz to the club to make it more realistic that I was attending a meeting that would get me closer to Abe. It was the story I had been selling to LaBeckie every day that I went on the streets in pursuit of my revenge.
I saw LaBeckie’s crew of pigs tailing me, but I didn’t care. I had already had everything set up inside of Lola’s to go the way I wanted it to go.
When I walked in the club, I moved like my old self. My swagger was on a hundred and I played it cool as a fan. I saw mad girls that I knew from my days out there giving me the eye, and a few dudes, both past friends and enemies too.
I found Billy and his new crew of young heads in one of the VIP sections of the club. Of course they had some of the baddest chicks that work at Lola’s up in there with them. I can’t lie, if I wasn’t in there handling business, I might have stopped and got some pussy or at least a quick blow job, but I decided against it.
“Ohhh, shit! My nigga!” Billy sang out when he finally moved his face from a Spanish chick’s titties and spotted me. “I thought you was down for the count, my nigga!” Billy continued with a wide, phony grin on his face. He got up so he could greet me with the customary street pound and shoulder bump. I plastered a fake smile on my face like shit was all good too. I was better at playing the game than niggas gave me credit for.
“Nah, only weak niggas go down for the count,” I said, returning the fake gesture of love. “You know a nigga like me always lands on my feet. Shit is sweeter than ever, my dude,” I said, faking right along with Billy.
“Yo . . . sit down. Have a drink. Get some ass. Live it up with a nigga. You know we missed you,” Billy invited, spreading his arms like a game show host over the nice array of expensive bottles he had on the table in front and pointing out the beautiful strippers that were taking care of them in the VIP section. I was thinking, Yeah, nigga, it must be nice to pop bottles . . . spending money that could’ve helped me out. You gon’ learn, though.
I played it cool, though, and kept my anger at bay. I had a much more important mission rather than jumping on the nigga and wilding out. I sat down and took Billy’s invitation while he poured me some Ace of Spades. I looked around at all of the beautiful women in Billy’s company and that same pang of jealousy that flitted through my chest when I saw Zack’s girl and his big fancy house came back even stronger with watching Billy waste thousands of dollars on bottles, bitches, and bullshit. This was what these dudes were doing on the outside while I suffered on the inside. I was the one who’d taken all of them out of the hood and showed them how to be businessmen in the street, and betrayal and abandonment was how they decided to repay me. Loyalty was bigger to me than anything . . . even bigger than money.
“Yo, Todd, man, shit ain’t been the same since you been inside. Niggas all went off on their own and nobody stayed loyal to our original crew,” Billy told me. I nodded my head up and down, but couldn’t help the sneer that had taken over my lips.
“I had to look out for myself, man. You gotta understand that, right?” Billy said, a quiver of fear lacing his words. I nodded again.
“I know you was looking for niggas to come together on your defense attorney, but after you left, there was no harmony among us. Niggas wasn’t trying to stay together so nobody took the initiative. I was trying to get niggas together several times and shit. I even gave Shannon some paper towards that,” Billy copped his plea. My jaw rocked feverishly and I took my drink to the head. I needed something to calm the eruption happening inside of me.
“Listen, man, it’s all good. What matters is I came through for myself and I’m back and even better than before,” I lied, cracking a halfhearted smirk.
“Yeah, see. I knew shit would work out. And word . . . I was about to ask how you got that paper up,” Billy said with a surprised look on his face. “I heard your wife was playing that grimy role and bounced out with Jock and shit . . . a shame. I always did think Shannon was loose like that. Beautiful girl, but she used to flirt with all us niggas,” Billy said, like he felt sorry for me. His conversation had just took a turn that it shouldn’t have. I was going to let the nigga enjoy his entire night, but now it was time to put shit into play. I had had enough of his lip service and his lies. In my book niggas like Billy didn’t deserve second chances because there was always going to be a need for a third . . . a fourth . . . and so on. He was one of those can’t-give-a-nigga-an-inch type of dudes.
“I think any one of us could’ve tapped that shit out here, man. I was real mad when I found out she was with Jock . . . I’m saying how she gon’ leave you sick like that?” Billy went on, rubbing it in. His words felt like open-handed slaps to my face.
I bit down into my jaw and put my glass on the table. My ears were ringing and suddenly a cloud of red shaded my vision. It took everything inside of me not to jump up and fuck Billy up. I gave the eye signal to the chick from the club that I had hired. She sauntered over and grabbed Billy by the hand. I was smart enough to get at Billy with something I knew he couldn’t resist: pussy.
“Aye, papi . . . you told me you would have a private . . . just me and you,” the chick named Emmy said, licking her lips seductively. “I’ve been waiting for you all night, papi . . . I’m not that patient. C’mon,” she pressed Billy with a sexy groan bubbling up from her throat. Emmy resembled Shannon a lot. They both had that Halle Berry mixed chick thing going on. I chose her because she had the kind of beauty that made me want to fuck her myself.
“Mmmm, damn, mami, I would but my manz just got home,” Billy said, licking his lips like he wanted to fuck her on the spot.
“Nah. Don’t turn down this beauty for me, nigga. I’ll be around. Shit, I would leave yo ass sitting here in a minute if she was trying to get at me,” I said, laughing. “Go on get ya shit taken care of, man. This beauty is not to be passed up,” I urged. Billy seemed glad that I was letting him off the hook. He had probably grown tired of copping pleas to me about why he didn’t assist me anyway.
“A’ight, man . . . I won’t be gone all night,” Billy said as Emmy pulled him up from the couch by his hand. She was leading him away and I was thinking, You heading to your last piece of pussy ever.
As Emmy and Billy both turned their backs and headed into one of the private champagne rooms, Emmy turned around and winked at me. I guess the ten stacks I paid her was appreciated. In my assessment that kind of paper kept her off the pole all night and would be a lot of money for what was going to be slight work for her. I loved a ride-or-die chick like that. Emmy was the kind of chick I thought Shannon would be.
I eased myself back on the leather couch in the VIP section and took advantage of Billy’s high-end liquor stash with a satisfied grin on my lips. It was about twenty minutes before I heard the eruption of screams and watched the award-winning acting that took place after. Emmy should’ve won an Emmy award for her acting. Hah! The irony in that statement.
“Oh my God!!! He had a seizure or a heart attack or something! Help me!!” Emmy screamed, running through the VIP section and out into the club, holding her bare breasts. She had what appeared to be real terror etched on her face and she even made herself cry for good measure. I was loving every minute of it. I was definitely going to see Emmy again. I had it bad for her.
Pure pandemonium erupted everywhere. The
lights came on abruptly and people were running, screaming, scrambling. Dancers were scrambling to get out of there before five-o rolled up because some of them had warrants for prostitution. The club owners and bouncers were trying to run damage control so that they didn’t lose all their night’s money. It was just like I had imagined it to be.
“Call the fucking ambulance!” one of Billy’s little crew members shouted. Those boys looked frantic. I guess Billy was the kind of boss that fed them from his hand instead of teaching them the business so they could all learn to eat on their own like I did. Without Billy, I could tell his crew would fade away and become those little niggas that have to go crawling back to all the people in the hood they shitted on when they thought they had made it—including their mothers and grandmothers, most of the time. I sat back calmly just looking on and feeling a warm sense of satisfaction filling my belly like a good meal.
“Yo! The nigga is dead!! He ain’t got no pulse!” a big, brawny, sweaty bouncer screamed, panic blazing in his eyes. I tried to look concerned but it was hard as hell. With all of the commotion, no one saw me slip out just like I had never even been there. I didn’t know Billy’s new crew so I didn’t matter to any of them anyway. Their leader was dead . . . from what they thought was a seizure or heart attack, but what I knew was a lethal dose of potassium chloride that had just stopped his heart from beating. Easiest revenge plan I had ever hatched. Emmy’s sister worked in anesthesia at some hospital so she was able to get a syringe filled with enough of the drug to stop Billy’s heart in an instant. I was still a traditional street nigga that loved the shoot-’em-up bang-bang type of shit so I wish I could’ve tortured Billy a little before his death, but I figured I’d save the torture for Jock. Besides, when you’re getting the last word, it didn’t always have to be loud.
9
