Unzipped: An Urban Erotic Tale

by Noire

  Mookie kept right on squeezing. It was true that Gallon was his cousin and that his moms had been good to Mookie, loving him, feeding him, and clothing him when he was a kid. But these days Mookie was strictly about his fuckin’ money, and none of that family shit meant a damn thing stacked up against his gambling loss.

  By the time Mookie came to his senses, his cousin was slumped over backward with his mouth gaped open and a thin stream of blood running from his nose.

  “Get up, niggah!” Mookie eased off the man and punched him hard in the gut. He looked around the stands, wondering why the fuck everybody had their eyeballs all up in his grill.

  “Gallon! Man, you know I was just playing with you. Get the fuck up you dyslexic muhfuckah!”

  But Gallon wouldn’t get up. He couldn’t.

  He was dead.

  For a brief second Mookie felt a hint of remorse. Him and Gallon had come up together in the same house when they were kids. As tykes they had slept on opposite ends of the same raggedy sofa. They’d taken baths together, and ate off each other’s plates. Gallon had slipped up on Mookie’s instructions, but he was steady and loyal. Mookie was gonna miss him. But that’s what the niggah got for fuckin’ up his bet. Mookie could overlook a whole lot of things, but making him lose a bet was unpardonable.

  Mookie had barely made it outta the race arena before the boys in blue were on the scene. Yoda and his boyz had hustled him down the bleachers and over to the fence where Donut had driven the front end of Yoda’s Hummer through the fence’s wiring. The crew from Harlem stuffed Mookie’s jiggly bulk into the whip and burned rubber, getting the fuck outta there before security was on their asses.

  The second time Mookie lost sight of Capo’s warning it almost cost him far more than the loss of a loyal family member. Mookie had caught a fever for casinos, and one in Connecticut in particular had stroked his passion.

  For every security system in a casino, there was a slickster who spent valuable time and brain energy devising a scheme to beat the house. Mookie loved everything about gambling except losing, and he had no problem stacking the deck to make sure the odds were in his favor. Of course he did all the usual shit that dirty gamers do, like bribing officials and paying key players to throw matches and games, but the world of casino gambling was an exciting challenge for Mookie, and he looked forward to pitting his game against the house’s best operational defense and seeing who came out on top.

  Mookie had a sharp mind and knew he could outslick a dealer, but there was no way he could show up in a casino and not be watched like a hawk or remembered long after he had won a big bank and gone home. He’d put one of his manz on the task of scouting out a couple of loyal chicks who had superior brains and could stay cool under pressure. One such jawn came highly recommended due to her street knowledge and her brilliance with numbers. Mookie was eager to set her up as a card counter at the blackjack table and use her to tip the odds in his direction.

  The first time Mookie watched the girl practice on video he was damned impressed. Her eyes flitted around the table virtually unnoticed. If you didn’t know she was a plant designed to produce a certain outcome, you would have thought she was just one beautifully lucky bitch.

  Six weeks later Mookie was highly pleased with the results this chick was getting at the tables. She didn’t get stupid with it or nothing, just made small, reasonable bets that didn’t invite too much attention. Mookie respected that shit. The bitch was fine and she was a natural with numbers. Even though he could tell she was a dabbler, she didn’t look run through and her mega winnings were proof that she was keeping her concentration up while on the job.

  Shit went on grand like this for a minute and Mookie was thrilled with his wins, but then suddenly the bitch fell off. One of his boyz thought she mighta been getting high before work, causing her to lose focus and slip up at the table, but Mookie wasn’t trying to hear that shit. Game recognized game, and after a week of straight losses Mookie knew what time it was.

  And man, that ho caught a bad one.

  Stealing from any niggah in the game was some risky biz, but skimming off Mookie Murdock’s table winnings was a cardinal fuckin’ sin. The ho prolly could have gotten away with fuckin’ with his money stream from any other revenue without a whole lot of fanfare, but dippin’ in his gambling pot was a big no-no.

  A little surveillance and investigating uncovered the fact that the chick had sticky fingers and a greedy heart. To Mookie’s fury, she had gotten down with the dealer to shut him out of his wins. The bird was losing on purpose at times, and winning big at others, then splitting the ends with the dealer without giving Mookie a cut.

  Mookie blacked the fuck out.

  He rolled up on that trick in daylight right on 125th Street. He jumped outta his whip in the middle of the street and crashed his tool across her face.

  “Bitch, you can either take one in the dome,” Mookie said, cocking the burner and pressing it against her temple as she cringed and clung to a parking meter for dear life, “or you can pay me with them sticky-ass fingers you got.”

  It really wasn’t much of a choice.

  Seasoned hustlers flinched on the sidelines as Mookie held his Glock to the chick’s head and dragged her into the middle of the street, where he had left his car running. He forced her to stick her fingers in the small crack between his whip’s body and the door as the chick screamed and begged for mercy.

  Blood flew everywhere as Mookie made sure her hand was jammed in the crack real good, then slammed the car door closed with every bit of his massive strength, swinging it so hard that the impact shattered the glass in the window along with most of the bones in the girl’s fingers.

  “What about that thumb?” Mookie demanded at the top of his lungs as the poor girl shrieked and gripped her bloody hand to her chest. You could tell the pain was excruciating by the way she heaved and vomited all over herself, but Mookie gave a damn about all that. “You throwing up and shitting all over ya self and I ain’t even get you good yet, baby,” Mookie told her. He shoved the barrel of his piece into her ear and not a soul on the streets doubted that he would pull the trigger. “Stick that thumb in there now.”

  Not every gangsta had the stomach for this type of thing, but Mookie Murdock did. He actually enjoyed it to the max. He saw the way some of them bitch-ass posers who was supposed to be hardbody were turning away from the scene in disgust. They prolly felt sorry for the dumbass girl, but not sorry enough to open their traps and take her fuckin’ punishment!

  Mookie damn near sliced the girl’s right thumb off in the car door, and then he went to work on her left hand. By the time he had gotten his money’s worth she was a mess. With both of her crushed, rapidly swelling hands pressed to her chest, the chick stumbled over to the curb and fell down in the gutter, slumped over. Passed the fuck out. Her hands mighta been all fucked up, but at least she still had her life. And she could thank Mookie Murdock and his generous spirit for that.

  “Time to fly, boss,” his manz Donut had said, urging Mookie toward their whip as a small crowd of concerned Harlemites gathered around the unconscious girl.

  “That’s domestic fuckin’ violence, yo!” somebody hollered from a nearby window. “Call the fuckin’ cops!”

  Mookie took his time getting in the whip. He didn’t give a fuck who they called. Putting a bird in her place wasn’t a federal offense. He kept mad pockets lined in every precinct in his perimeter, and there wasn’t much the local authorities could do to Mookie Murdock.

  But it wasn’t the local boys who would prove to be a problem.

  “You gone wanna lay low for a minute,” warned a quiet voice in the backseat as they whipped down the streets of Harlem. “There’s bound to be some dirt kicked up behind this shit.”

  Mookie had shrugged. “That scheming bitch is nothing. Street grime. Just another slimy ho like all the rest of them out there.”

  Reclining in the comfort of the backseat, Yoda nodded his agreement.

 
“Yeah. She’s dirty all right. Been that way for a long time. But she’s also something else, ak. She’s Diamond Baines, yo. Irish Baines’ daughter.”

  Not a damn thing changed about Mookie’s demeanor on the outside, but inside he was silently apologizing to Capo and cursing at himself for once again losing his head and putting his whole operation at risk.

  Mookie knew all about the OG Irish Baines. He had been watching Irish and all that bullshit he was conducting over at his boys center for a minute now, and his manz out on the streets had been steady scooping up all the leftover kids that Irish couldn’t rehabilitate.

  Fucking Diamond up was a mistake, Mookie soon realized. It wasn’t even the money that had sent him into a rage when he found out the trick bitch was skimming. It was the loss! Mookie Murdock didn’t lose fuckin’ bets! Not on shit that he’d set up to work to his advantage!

  Intuition told Mookie that trouble was coming. Diamond was a piper and a fiend, and it prolly woulda been better just to get one of his boys to give her a hot shot and be done with the thievin’ bitch. But both the gambler and the gangsta in him had driven Mookie to make a public example outta Diamond’s ass on the streets where everybody could see it. He bet the next bitch he sent to that casino on a special job would think long and hard about fuckin’ over Mookie Murdock. Those jawns didn’t realize that those faggot-ass dealers couldn’t protect they ass. Diamond had actually come out lucky. The dealer she had gotten down with had bucked when Mookie’s manz went to teach him a lesson, and ended up rotting under a piece of cardboard in a deserted alleyway.

  Yeah, the bitch had been lucky indeed.

  But luck didn’t have shit to do with the aftermath that followed. That old niggah Irish had been outta the game for so long that he’d forgotten a cardinal street code: you don’t get in bed with the Feds. That do-gooding cat had taken Mookie’s retribution personally, and a little birdie tweeted the news in Mookie’s ear that thanks to Irish he was being watched by the Alphabet Boys and investigated for illegal gambling, tax evasion, money laundering, and racketeering.

  Mookie was enraged, but he felt a little remorse too. Not for hurting Diamond—he could have easily murked that bitch and thought nothing of it. Nah, Mookie was down on himself for violating Capo’s cardinal rule and blowing his fuckin’ top in public. He’d shined a light on himself and brought attention to his operations on a level that was now out of his control.

  Mookie knew what was coming next, and when his manz found a bug under his couch and strange cars were seen parked outside his crib at all times of night, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was riding him. Them Alphabet Boys followed Mookie everywhere, and he took them on a guided tour through the streets of Harlem every chance he could. Sometimes he would order his driver to just drive around town for the fuck of it. They wouldn’t get out of the car, they wouldn’t even stop anywhere. They would just ride. Mookie was just letting those muhfuckahs know that he knew.

  The surveillance didn’t last long because Mookie was one boring muhfuckah. He went to bed early and slept late. He seldom went to any clubs, especially those he owned, and he used his crew as a buffer between him and every kind of transaction that went down.

  In short, Mookie looked real clean. He smelled clean too.

  But appearances could only take you so far, and when the Feds started connecting the dots between Mookie’s preciously guarded stolen-identity ring and his offshore bank accounts, the shit hit the fan all over Harlem.

  Like his street daddy Capo, Mookie had been stacking paper for his retirement. But unlike Capo, Mookie didn’t plan on waiting until he was old as dirt to break out of the game. But now, with Irish orchestrating the Feds on his ass, everything Mookie had worked for was at risk. He could fuck around and lose his entire bankroll just because some old-ass washed-up G couldn’t keep his daughter in his fuckin’ yard.

  The more he thought about it, the madder Mookie got.

  And when Mookie got mad, shit happened and it happened in a major way. Deciding to get rid of Irish Baines was a no-brainer. That niggah had flapped his lips and sucked federal dick, and there was nothing street about that. Mookie sent his goonies to take care of Irish in a way he thought was most fitting. He’d show Irish what a dick down the throat could do to you. That niggah wanted to bring the heat down on Big Mookie? Well Mookie would light a fuckin’ bonfire under his natural ass!

  Irish Baines didn’t know who he was fuckin’ with. But by the time the smoke cleared over his property Mookie was sure the old head had figured that shit out. Mookie had laughed like fuck as his manz Yoda described how Irish had cried and begged just like a bitch. Yoda had made sure Irish’s woman sucked Mookie’s metal dick real good, and he’d had even less mercy on the two little future hoes they’d found crying together in their bedroom.

  Yeah, Mookie’s boyz had dealt with Irish in a brutal, gutter fashion, and the whole time they were handling Irish, Mookie was across town at Club Humpz handling the thievin’ bitch who had started it all: Diamond.

  Yeah. All them Baineses had been served. It wasn’t business either. That shit was personal! Chaos had been coming down on his empire because of Irish, and Mookie was glad that niggah and his family were burned and gone.

  Problem solved!

  Mookie was happy as fuck. Without Irish pushing the issue the Feds had eased off somewhat and moved on to cases that were much easier to trace and prosecute. And now that Irish was nothing more than hood dust and that bullshit little center of his was on the rocks, Mookie’s business revenue was about to pick up lovely.

  The first few weeks after the murder of her family members were pure hell for Pearl. She was staying at Cole’s apartment because she wasn’t capable of being alone. Carlita came by to check on her every day after work, and her niece Zoe called Pearl with words of sympathy and support several times a week. Pearl hadn’t heard a word from Diamond since the night before their birthday, nor had her twin shown up at the funeral or at the cemetery to see their loved ones put in the ground.

  It was hard for Pearl not to go crazy thinking about where Diamond could be or what could be happening to her, but it was even harder to accept the fact she’d never hear her mother’s sweet voice again or never again be able to call on her father for wisdom or advice. But the hardest thing was the knowledge that she’d never kiss or hug her daughter Sasha again, and that she’d never have a chance to explain to her child why she hadn’t been more of a mother to her during her short, beautiful life.

  The funerals had been heart wrenching. Twice Pearl had lunged from her seat and tried to climb on top of her mother’s closed coffin. And twice Carlita and Zoe had broken into tears as several men held Pearl down while she kicked and screamed that her baby girl couldn’t breathe down inside that fuckin’ box!

  And now, no matter where she was or what she was doing, Pearl just couldn’t get Sasha’s cries out of her ears. Her daughter’s spirit haunted her from the grave. Pearl just couldn’t stop seeing Sasha’s beautiful face or hearing her choking, anguished pleas for help as she suffered a cruel and heartless death that no child should ever have to bear.

  Pearl also went through anguished bouts of guilt that were sometimes far more painful than her unbearable grief. She would fall to the ground on her hands and knees, wailing and screaming with her entire being racked with guilt and convinced that her selfishness had contributed to the murder of her precious little girl. If only she hadn’t left home! If only she hadn’t wanted to be somebody and have a fuckin’ future! If only she had stayed her ass in Harlem where the people she loved were, somehow she might have been able to protect and defend her family!

  From head to toe, Pearl was an emotional wreck. She lost insane weight and her pretty hair started falling out in clumps. She couldn’t work and she couldn’t eat. Sleep eluded her night after night as she trembled and moaned and cried out, tortured by a child’s horrible screams that no one else seemed to hear.

  Pearl’s emotional torment was unspeakable, an
d it was definitely unbearable. She had gone from a scared, nervous kid to a wild teen and had finally evolved into a highly capable young woman, yet she had failed at the one task that should have meant more to her than anything else: being a good mother to her daughter.

  Cole was there for her 24/7. He fed her soup, bathed her tenderly, held her when she cried, and soothed her through the murderous, smoke-filled night terrors she fought against in the midst of her dreams.

  In fact, if it hadn’t been for Cole then Pearl would have probably died from grief. The FBI had placed her on a leave of absence from the Hostage Rescue Team immediately following her family’s murder, and they had even sent an agent to a Harlem precinct to inquire about her sister’s whereabouts.

  “They don’t have any information listed about Diamond,” Carlita told Pearl after accessing the file. “But it looks like somebody up in higher headquarters put out some feelers based on a request by your father. I couldn’t get access to the complete file, but one of our governmental agencies was investigating something on your father’s behalf. Unfortunately, there’s nothing at all here about your sister.”

  Pearl was devastated. It was like Harlem had opened its filthy mouth and swallowed Diamond whole. No matter which grimeball hole in the wall the cops searched, Pearl’s twin was nowhere to be found.

  Pearl was emotionally busted. The leave of absence the FBI had insisted she take was definitely needed because she was in no condition to work anybody’s high-intensity job, not even at a desk answering phones. The FBI psychiatrist said she was in a severe depression brought on by extreme grief, and he prescribed her an antidepressant and something strong to help her sleep through the night.

  But a couple of weeks later Pearl woke up in the middle of the night sweating in a cold panic. Sasha was crying and screaming for her in her dreams, and Pearl was reliving her worst nightmare. It was the night of the fire all over again. She was running out of Baskin Robbins and her high-heel pumps clacked on the concrete like drums in her ears.