Hell's Diva

by Anna J.

  If the crowd of guys made up of Harlemites didn’t look in a certain direction, Mecca and Dawn would have never noticed Tah and his crew walk in the club, most of them wearing camouflage jackets with Champion hooded sweat shirts under the jacket, black jeans, and black Timberlands. Mecca noticed Tah didn’t have any of his jewelry on, and he and his crew looked at the crowd as if they were looking at everyone individually looking for someone. Dawn was about to walk over to them, seeing her boyfriend with Tah, when Mecca grabbed her by her shoulder.

  “Chill out, Dawn. Don’t go over there. Them niggas look like they up to something, and it’s something you don’t wanna get caught in the middle of.”

  Dawn looked around the club and noticed girls and guys who were showcasing their jewelry moments ago stuff their chains inside their shirts. Some girls put their earrings in their pockets and some headed to the exit. To add to the fear and tension lingering in the air, the D.J., who was from Brooklyn, put on a Slick Rick song called “The Moment I Feared” where Slick Rick spits, “Boogie Down was performin’ hey they ain’t no joke/And a bunch of Brooklyn kids was lookin’ all down my throat/Was it my big chains with the big plates on ’em?/ Then they rolled on me and told me to run ’em/This was the moment I feared.”

  Tah and his crew split up and walked around the club. Tah made his way to the bar and bought a bottle of Dom P. He grinned at some women at the bar, who probably thought that because of the way he looked he wouldn’t be able to afford Dom Pérignon. They could tell he was from Brooklyn, and Brooklyn cats had a reputation of not being high rollers, but cats who lived off of robbery. Mecca stepped in front of him, rolling her eyes at the women at the bar.

  “What’s up, nigga? What you doing here?”

  “The question is, what you doing here?” Tah shot back.

  “I told you I was coming here tonight. Me and Dawn.” Mecca smiled and grabbed Tah’s hand. “Dance with me.”

  Tah pulled his hand away and smirked. “Dance! I look like the type of nigga to dance? You buggin’, Mecca.”

  Mecca figured Tah wasn’t the dancing type but she wanted to avoid him getting into trouble, and possibly getting hurt or going to jail. A lot of niggas in New York were hip to what went down in the clubs. Everybody came to chill and show off the latest gear. Guys came to meet girls and vice versa, but Brooklyn guys came to see what they could take and start trouble. Niggas from other boroughs knew the deal, and some came prepared for it. Some didn’t.

  “Dancing is for herbs,” Tah continued.

  Dawn was walking behind her boyfriend, who was walking toward Tah. Dawn looked frustrated to Mecca when he leaned and whispered in Tah’s ear. Tah nodded. Dawn looked at Mecca with her arms folded and rolled her eyes. Tah and his partner started to walk off. Stopping briefly, Tah turned to Mecca.

  “I’ll see you in the ville.”

  With an anxious look on her face, Mecca yelled, “Where you going?”

  Tah walked off. Walking over to Mecca, Dawn leaned to her ear and said, “They stupid, Mecca. They always starting something.”

  Mecca watched Tah and his crew walk to the exit and out of the club. The crowd seemed relieved. Five minutes later, Mecca and Dawn noticed some guys in the crowd talking to each other and hyperactively walking toward the exit. Then a bunch of girls and guys all headed toward the exit.

  Mecca heard a girl tell another girl, “Something happened outside. It’s probably them grimy-ass Brooklyn niggas!”

  Mecca had a feeling whatever happened outside had Tah and his crew written all over it. Mecca grabbed Dawn and headed toward the exit. When they got in the front, a crowd gathered around someone lying on the ground. Mecca and Dawn broke through the crowd to see who the person was and what had happened to him.

  “That’s what niggas get when they try to rob somebody. Good for his ass!” Mecca and Dawn heard someone in the crowd yell out.

  Dawn’s legs gave out from under her when she saw her boyfriend laid out on the concrete with blood flowing out of his neck. He was making a gurgling sound. Dawn crawled to him as Mecca tried to hold her. Mecca looked up and down the block to see if she saw Tah or anybody in his crew, and they were nowhere to be found.

  Ruby started second-guessing her decision to turn everything over to Mecca. Mecca was strong and could handle herself on the streets, but she had a weakness. A man. Ruby constantly told Mecca that a man would be her downfall. She introduced her to her Dominican connect in Harlem. She told her connect that she was hot, and she told him about her arrest and the arrest of her workers.

  “Don’t worry, Ruby, my friend. Everything good for you. You beat the case,” he responded in his thick Spanish accent. Ruby nodded grimly.

  “Yeah, hopefully. Until then, I’m laying low. I’m going to let her run things until this shit is over. She knows what’s what. This is my niece.”

  Ruby asked the Dominican for three kilos of cocaine on consignment so she could get things back in order. He told her to pick things up in two days. Back in Mecca’s East New York apartment, Ruby gave Mecca instructions on how to run the show.

  “Dawn is gonna have to manage all the spots for you. You’re the boss now. You got to lay low. I’m going to give you the three pies, one for Coney Island, one for the ville, and the other for around here. Li’l Shamel got these cats around here in check. He’s going to make sure these niggas do what they have to do. What’s up with Dawn? You think she can handle this?” Ruby asked.

  “Yeah, she knows what to do,” Mecca replied.

  Ruby’s face turned sad. “I might have to do some time. Hopefully, this lawyer could get me a good plea or beat this shit. I’ma need you to hold shit down though, Mecca. You got to be strong. Don’t let nothing slide. Don’t show no weakness. The minute these niggas think that you going soft, they will be all over you like vultures. Somebody fuck up something small, treat it like it’s big. These niggas y’all dealing with, don’t let them in your business. Let them continue doing their own things. In fact, don’t let them know nothing. The minute a nigga know you’re doing better than him, his eyes will get in the way and cause serious problems.”

  Mecca nodded and soaked in everything Ruby said. She felt tears about to well up in her eyes at the thought of Ruby going to jail for a long time. Things wouldn’t be the same without Ruby. She didn’t know how she would be able to hold things down without her being around. She knew she had to do it, though, for Ruby and to prove to herself that she was a survivor. That night, Mecca decided to celebrate her new position, and she and Dawn headed to Union Square. Dawn would never be the same afterward.

  The night Dawn’s boyfriend was shot and killed at Union Square, Mecca was angry at Tah because it was their troublemaking that got Dawn’s boyfriend, his partner, killed. Mecca decided she wouldn’t talk to him for a few days. On the other hand, Dawn went to Brownsville Houses to confront Tah face to face.

  “Why did y’all leave him?” Dawn yelled at Tah in an apartment rented by a crackhead Tah used as a hangout. Tah hugged Dawn, placing her head against his chest.

  “Yo, we ain’t know dude had a K-tone on him, Dawn. Son grabbed the nigga chain and yapped it before I could walk up. Then dude let off.”

  Dawn sobbed harder. “Why y’all gotta do that? Y’all got money! What y’all need a chain for?”

  Tah couldn’t answer that. He never thought of it like that. It’s just the way he and his friends he grew up with were. Dawn doesn’t understand, it’s the Brownsville way.

  Tah was caught off guard when Dawn grabbed his face and began kissing his lips. Tah kissed her back on her lips, at first gently, then their kissing became almost savage-like. They licked each other’s faces then Tah pulled off his hooded sweatshirt.

  Before either could make the conscious decision to stop and think about Mecca, Tah already had Dawn naked and there was no stopping them. In honesty it felt so good they didn’t want to stop, but after the act was over they both knew they had fucked up. Mecca was like Dawn’s sister and she
was Tah’s girl. Trying to avoid eye contact as they got dressed, they both knew they would have to take their betrayal to the grave. If Mecca ever found out what they had done, they would be in the grave a lot sooner than they would have liked to be. Without saying a word, Dawn left the house vowing to never get caught up with Tah like that again. Tah, on the other hand, knew he was wrong, but figured Dawn was weak and he could probably hit it again. As long as Mecca didn’t know, they would be cool.

  Mecca tried to block the vision of Dawn sucking Tah’s dick out of her head, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t close her eyes to the vision because it was in her head.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Mecca yelled to Lou.

  “You did this to yourself, Mecca. You chose this life. You made your bed. You ever heard the phrase ‘life is what you make it’? Well, so is hell,” Lou replied, laughing. “Ain’t it hell watching your whole life recur?”

  “Whatever point you tried to prove, you did it, okay?” Mecca yelled.

  “Don’t you wish you knew that your best friend was messing with your man, when you were alive?” Lou teased. “You would have killed her, right, Mecca?”

  Mecca stood silent. She imagined herself finding out about Dawn and Tah. She envisioned herself walking in on them, pulling out a gun from her Coach bag, and shooting Tah first while Dawn watched in horror, then turning the gun on Dawn. She played the scene out in her head while Lou watched in amusement.

  “Is he worth it, bitch? Is he?”

  Dawn was crying and pleading, “I’m sorry, Mecca. I was just lonely after my boy died. Tah consoled me.”

  “You were lonely? Bitch, you know you could have come to me. You know what, fuck you, bitch!” Mecca pulled the trigger.

  She snapped out of her vision when Lou said, “Betrayal hurts like hell, don’t it? Trust me, I know how it feels. The creation of you human beings was a betrayal,” Lou said, looking off in deep thought. “But that’s another issue. Right now, Mecca, don’t you wish you could start all over? Do you think you would do things different?”

  Mecca held her head down with her eyes closed, shaking her head.” What’s the reason for all of this?” she asked.

  Lou smiled while rubbing his palms together as if he were warming them. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘reason’,” he said, putting his index finger up on his temple with his arms folded. “I would say…” Lou paused, going into deep thought, then, pointing his finger at Mecca, he concluded. “Purpose. The purpose for all of this.”

  “Well, what is the purpose?”

  “I can show you better than I can tell you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Time waits for no man, can’t turn back the hands, once it’s too late, gotta learn to live with regrets.

  Jay-Z

  “I’m going uptown real quick, wait for me at your crib. I’ma bring those through. We are going to bag up in them tall caps. Go get them thirty ones illusion black tops,” Ruby commanded Mecca over a pay phone on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Fulton Street.

  The corner was crowded with men and women dressed in the clothing of Arabs. The men and women weren’t Arabs though. They were black men and women attending the mosque on the corner where Ruby used the pay phone. The smell of incense and oils permeated the sunny Bedford-Stuyvesant morning air.

  While Ruby talked on the phone, she scanned the area up and down the street for any tails; police, or somebody trying to rob or kill her for something she did to her numerous victims. Fulton Street was a crowded street full of vendors selling T-shirts, children’s and cultural books, and bootleg clothing and music, grocery stores, and guys hanging out hustling or looking for girls who paraded down one of the boroughs’ main strips.

  Ruby eyed almost everyone, thinking any of these people could be her killer. It was that way of thinking and paranoia that kept her alive as long as she had. Still in all it was impossible for her to see everybody, especially when that person was sitting in a burgundy Honda Accord with dark tinted windows watching her every move and following her.

  “I’ll be there in two hours. Don’t go anywhere,” Ruby concluded before hanging up. She got into her black Saab and drove down Fulton Street until she got to Flatbush Avenue. She turned on Flatbush Avenue and headed to the Manhattan Bridge. Ruby constantly checked her rearview mirror for any tail. The burgundy Honda Accord stayed three cars behind knowing, where Ruby was headed.

  She looked at her Bulova watch with gold numbers and hands against a black face. It was 9:30 A.M. She thought she’d be uptown by ten o’clock. She figured her connect would have her package by 10:45. Them Dominican niggas be taking forever with the shit. I’ll be in East New York by twelve o’clock.

  Ruby drove up the FDR Drive and got off at the 155th Street exit. She drove up to Eighth Avenue and went up to 155th Street. She pulled over, seeing her connect waiting on the corner. He smiled at Ruby as he got in. He was a skinny, dark-skinned Dominican cat. He wore a silk shirt opened at the chest, showing his multiple gold chains against his hairy chest. He reeked of cheap cologne, and his hair was slicked back. A midnight shadow adorned his face.

  “Wassup, my friend?” he asked Ruby.

  “What’s up, Papi? Where we going?” Ruby asked driving slow.

  Papi turned in his seat, looking out the back window. “Drive to the Bronx. It’s hot around here. T.N.T. everywhere.”

  “The Bronx!” Ruby barked, frustrated. “Why all the way up there?”

  “It’s not far. It’s right over the bridge,” Papi countered.

  Ruby sighed. No sense in arguing with him. Better safe than sorry. Ruby drove over the small bridge connecting the Bronx to Harlem. They drove a block away from Yankee Stadium, still being tailed by the burgundy Honda Accord, and pulled in front of a run-down tenement.

  “Wait right here a few seconds. You got the money?” Papi asked.

  If it were somebody else, Ruby would have killed him for asking for the money without showing the product. But she’d been dealing with him for years and they had a good repoire with each other. Ruby reached in the backseat and handed Papi a black Jansport book bag with $60,000 cash in it.

  “You wait here. I come right back,” Papi said, opening the door and jogging into the tenement. The area was also crowded with Spanish men on corners. Some were at small tables, playing dominoes and listening to salsa music. Women were hanging out of tenement windows looking at the men or watching their children play stickball in the streets.

  The man in the Honda Accord fit right in with the neighborhood. He was a short Spanish man with a low haircut and a red Sergio Tacchini jogging suit. He slowly got out of the Accord while concealing behind his back a black .380 with a silencer on it. Ruby kept her eye on the tenement that Papi had gone into. Fortunately for her, a police cruiser stopped across the street from where she was parked. The driver of the Accord walked back to his car. Ruby, using her street smarts, drove off and didn’t return. She drove back into Manhattan and the Spanish guy in the Accord followed. Ruby thought about the $60,000 she gave Papi, and decided she’d go back uptown tonight and meet him.

  When Papi came out of the tenement, he saw the police car across the street and he walked to the corner store. He came out of the tenement without Ruby’s Jansport. Ruby stopped at a pay phone on 125th and Eighth Avenue. Mecca picked up on the first ring.

  “I’m going to be running late. It’s hot. I had to get ghost for a minute. Just make sure you in the crib around eight o’clock tonight.” Ruby hung up, paused, then dialed another number. After three rings a voice came over the line.

  “Gilmore, Stein and Bloomberg, how may I assist you?” the secretary said in a squeaky voice, sounding as if she were holding her nose.

  “I need to speak to Gilmore. Tell him it’s Ruby Davidson.”

  “Hold on, Ms. Davidson.” Ruby held on for what seemed like hours, listening to music that reminded her of the elevators she rode in when she went on a school trip to the Empire State Building as a kid.


  “Ruby! What’s up?” Gilmore said excitedly.

  “Damn, you had me on hold long enough.”

  “Sorry about that. I was in a meeting with the partners. By the way, I got the discovery this morning. I need to go over some things with you. If you need a copy, I’ll have my secretary do them now,” Gilmore said wearily.

  “I’ll drop by and pick up the copies. I have to make some runs so we can discuss it tomorrow,” Ruby said.

  “All right, that’ll be fine. I’ll tell my secretary to have them ready. When can you stop by?” he asked.

  “I’ll be there in a half.” Ruby hung up.

  The Spanish guy driving the Accord watched Ruby from across the street while he ordered a hot dog from a vendor. With the crowds of people walking up and down and hanging around the world-renowned Harlem street with the famous Apollo Theater a few feet away, Ruby couldn’t notice if anyone was following her. The Spanish guy kept a good distance between himself and Ruby when he knew where she was headed. Now that he had no idea where she was going, he played her a little closer than before.

  A half hour later, Ruby picked up the copy of the government’s evidence against her from Gilmore’s secretary. The file was thick. There were hundreds of surveillance photos of Ruby and Stone getting into her Sterling in Brownsville. Stone’s rap sheet was twenty pages long. There were mug shots of Ruby’s workers in Brownsville and Coney Island.

  Ruby was shocked to see a picture of her and her Dominican connect sitting in a Spanish restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue. There was a picture of Mecca in Langston Hughes and underneath the picture it said, “Davidson niece.” There was a report on Mecca behind the picture. Ruby read the report.

  Daughter of Bobby “Blast” Sykes and wife Mecca Sykes, who was killed in 1982 by masked men who invaded the home to rob Bobby Sykes of money and drugs. Present during the home invasion and murder of her parents, but couldn’t identify the killers. Ruby Davidson took legal custody of her niece subsequently. G.I. Number 1 informs us that Mecca Sykes is not involved in her aunt’s organization. This has to be investigated.