by Leo Sullivan
On the day of the grand opening of father’s first architectural firm Mr. Robertson’s daughter flew in from Milan to visit her parents. She hardly spent time in the states, but her father insisted that she meet the ambitious young man that he’d grown very fond of. To make a long story short, my mother was the beautiful model in the perfume advertisement. She was even more beautiful to him in person. Over time they got to know one another. Daddy told me that mom was very seductive and sexy back then. He said that after one night with her he was whipped. It was too much information, but I thought it was so cute. I guess all the Beauvois women had that power. Well, at least I did. About a year after they were married Renell was born.
I looked through the bags and took out every last box with my name on it. So far none of them were small enough to hold a bracelet. I was so disappointed, until I spotted my name on a box in the last bag. I tore the box open and pulled the beautiful bracelet out. Aww, she had remembered. I was surprised that she’d been able to get the bracelet in the first place. There were only three more in the world like it. I ran down the stairs to thank my mother.
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The Cocaine Princess
By Rio
Prologue
Brownsville, TX October 2010
“There were seven hundred kilos in the back of our eighteen-wheeler when my sister had it delivered to your men in San Antonio. I’m not understanding how two hundred of them suddenly disappeared”, said Juan “Papi” Costilla.
He lit a Cuban cigar and scowled at his captive, who he knew only as Salvador. The bloody-faced man was tied to a ladder-back chair in the garage of Papi’s five-hundred-thousand-dollar Spanish-style villa. Flanking Papi were his two younger siblings, Flako and Jenny, and Jenny’s two sons, Santiago and Savio, were sitting on the trunk of their mother’s sleek blue Rolls-Royce Phantom. The car was only a shade darker than the custom tailored Hartmarx suits that all of them were wearing.
“When that semi-trailor made it to us”, Salvador said through a mouthful of blood, “those kilos were already missing. You know I wouldn’t steal from you, Papi. Do you honestly believe I’d steal from the fucking Costilla cartel? I’d try ripping off the Sinaloas AND the Zetas before I’d steal from the Costillas. I’ve sold thousands of kilos for your family! If it wasn’t for me, Santiago would have never rubbed shoulders with that Big Meech guy in Atlanta. He’d have never met Reesie Cup in Chicago, or those gangster rappers in—”
Salvador’s aching pleas ceased abruptly, and he gasped as Jenny pulled a gold-plated revolver from inside her suit jacket and aimed it at his blood-soaked Gucci shirt. The mask of horror he wore was illuminated by the headlights of Papi’s eighteen-year-old daughter’s ocean blue Mercedes; she was leaning forward in the driver’s seat, her chin resting atop the steering wheel, her dreamy green eyes stretched wide with shock, her dog-eared Nika Michelle novel open and left unattended on the dashboard.
In Spanish, Jenny said, “You fucking roach! Nobody steals from the Costilla cartel!”
She squeezed the trigger, and a ribbon of fire blew from the barrel of her .44 Magnum. The bullet tore through Salvador’s chest, knocking the chair over backwards.
Papi looked back at his daughter. “Go inside and make sure Rita’s still asleep. Don’t let her come out here. Tell her I accidentally fired my gun.”
Alexus pushed open her door and stepped out of the Benz, looking like Onika Maraj from the waist up and Tahiry Jose from the waist down. She had on a fuchsia-colored Valentino dress that accentuated her enormous derrière, and her diamond-encrusted five-inch heels had been custom designed by Christian Louboutin.
“I’ll keep Momma inside”, she said, grabbing the Nika Michelle novel off the dash and a Straight Stuntin magazine that had been lying on the passenger seat.
“Let her stay and watch,” said Jenny. “Show her how we deal with thieves in Mexico. It’s about time she learned the ins and outs of this business.”
Papi briefly considered honoring his sister’s suggestion, but when he glanced at Alexus, she was already leaving the garage.
He looked at his Audemars Piguet watch: 11:58 pm. She’ll learn”, he said, picking up his 24-karat gold-plated machete from the hood of his ex-wife Rita’s Porsche SUV.
He walked over to where Salvador lay, moving rather swiftly for a man in his early sixties. Salvador was gargling up blood, and his eyes were like saucers—wide, round, and glossy.
“Why couldn’t you remain loyal?” Papi asked, raising the machete. “You would have lasted, Salv. Loyalty is everything.”
He swung the machete in a downward arc, and it’s razor-sharp blade sliced through Salvador’s neck, instantly separating his head from his shoulders.
***
“We’re moving to Indiana”, Rita said as soon as Alexus pushed open her parents’ bedroom door.
Dark and lovely-faced, Rita was the epitome of “strong black woman”. She was sitting up in bed reading the Bible. The dim light from her bedside lamp revealed her troubled expression.
“I take it you heard the gunshot”, said Alexus.
“How could I not have heard it? Sounded like a cannon going off.”
“Papi accidentally—”
“I don’t care, Alexus. I really don’t care. I’m getting us out of here. We’re leaving Texas for good. Your uncle Dennis and his kids are doing good in Indiana. I’m getting us a house up there. “
“I’m not moving to Indiana, Momma. I’d rather move to Mexico with Granny Costilla. Hell, I’ll get my own place. Or I’ll stay here with Papi.”
“Watch your mouth”, Rita said. She set her Bible aside and turned to Alexus. “Your father’s family is full of criminals. People are getting killed left and right down there in Matamoros, Mexico, and I’m about ninety-nine percent sure that those mentally unstable Costillas are responsible for most of those murders. God don’t like ugly, and neither do I. That’s why Papi and I are divorced now…”
Alexus looked down at her impeccably manicured fingernails, tuning her mother out. Papi was to Mexico what Pablo Escobar had been to Colombia, and Alexus wanted to be just like him.
CHAPTER 1
“Excuse me.” Rita Mae Bishop stopped the U-Haul truck beside a boisterous foursome of young Black man who was standing next to a gray Chevy Caprice. “Would you gentlemen be so kind as to help me and my daughter gets some of this heavy stuff inside? I’ll give you all a few dollars for the help.” Her sweet, southern voice was gentle and benevolent, the voice of an older, loving mother.
“Where to?” asked a hideous-faced boy, the Ugly Duckling of the group. He stepped closer to Rita’s door and peered past her, studying her beautiful daughter with the reddish-brown complexion.
Rita Mae Bishop’s new home was three houses down from where the four boys were standing. It was a yellow, three bedroom house that sits next to a vacant lot on the corner of Eighth Street and Willard Avenue.
But the four guys wouldn’t have cared if Rita had lived fifteen states away. After getting a look at her eighteen-year-old daughter, they would have lugged every item in back of the U-Haul from Indiana to California.
Rita’s daughter was Alexus Costilla, a thick and proportionate, young woman who was mixed with Mexican and African-American, and was often compared to the rap artist Nicki Minaj. Her supersized derriere and meaty thighs had made her the most sought after girl in Brownsville, Texas. But her strict Mexican Father hadn’t allowed her to date.
“Wait until you’re twenty-one,” he once said from his seat at the dining room table, where he had always repackaged the drugs that he had smuggled in, before hitting the streets to sell them.
But Alexus didn’t want to wait. So, whenever the opportunity had presented itself, she’d crept around, meeting and seducing and sexing boys and girls at her school, then dropping them abruptly and moving on to the next. It had been fun, explo
ring her sexuality, learning what she’d liked and disliked.
Now things were different, she told herself.
Because Papi was away in prison.
Clad in a cherry-colored Fendi jacket—one of the few things the Feds had not seized, over a snug-fitting pair of Apple Bottom jeans and red-and-black Jordan sneakers, with enough layers of MAC lip gloss on her succulent lips to thoroughly coat ten sets of kissers, Alexus Costilla stood quietly as the sidewalk in front of the new house, keeping a close watch on the boys as they carried the last of her and Rita’s boxes up the concrete stairs and through the front door.
Two of the boys had already introduced themselves –a skinny, light-skinned teenaged boy said his name was Young D, and a similar-looking young thug had introduced himself as Lil Mike—but Alexus had only nodded solemnly and turned her head, setting her pretty green eyes on a passing city bus.
A short and chubby, handsome faced boy who had been the recipient of brief, clandestine stares from Alexus as he lifted the heaviest boxes with ease, walked up to her and said, “You missing some teeth or something?”
“Hell no!” Alexus felt insulted. She looked the fat fool up and down, searching for something to degrade him about. But his black-and-gray Coogi sweater, his baggy black Coogi jeans, and his jet black Timberland boots were flawless.
“I’m Blake,” he said, smiling. “Didn’t mean nothing by that teeth comment. I just couldn’t understand why you weren’t talking.” He turned to glance at his three comrades, who were standing just inside the front door of the house, taking orders from Rita. Then his eyes moved back to Alexus, and for a moment he gazed at her wet lips. “You know who you look like?” he asked finally.
Alexus crossed her arms. “Who?” She looked at him as if her eyes were daggers and she was ready to stab him directly in the heart.
Raising his hands in surrender, Blake said, “Hold up, baby, I apologize. You’re the last person on Earth I want upset with me. I’m just tryna be nice, welcome you to the neighborhood, get to know you.”
“I’d like to meet the person who taught you how to start a conversation,” Alexus said snidely.
“Can I get your name?” asked Blake.
“Bad Bitch. Any more questions, officer?”
“Aw yeah?” Blake’s thick eyebrows rose, and an ingratiating smile grew on his face. “I like you already.”
“I’m sure you do,” replied Alexus. She took a thick ponytail holder from her left wrist and pulling her long and curly black hair back, said, “I need some weed, and not just any weed. I’d prefer Kush or Haze.”
“Ain’t none of that out here. My bruh Streets got some dro, that blueberry shit. I know a nigga in Chicago who sell Kush, though. But that’s a forty-five minute drive from here.”
“Can you get a few pounds?” Asked Alexus.
Blake’s eyes went wide, A few pounds of Kush? He wondered if she was joking.
“Prob’ly,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘probably’? Call and find out!” Alexus nasty attitude was out of habit, but her prudent mind was swarming with monetary thoughts, and she knew that she would need a thug’s sucker to survive in the drug game without her father. Especially in a new area. Hustling was in her blood, and she had a family reputation to uphold and protect.
While Blake was on his cell phone talking, and staring at the crotch of Alexus’s tight jeans, Alexus inhaled deeply, loving the scent of his cologne. She looked him up and down and concluded that she liked him, although he was in serious need of a haircut. She figured he was a small time drug-dealer, judging from the rust-laden Caprice he and his crew had been crowded around.
Blake ended the call and slipped his Blackberry to the waistline of the jeans. “Forty-five hundred for a pound,” he said. “My nigga got seven left.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Alexus said, “Okay, I need you to take me to him sometime today.” Then, out of the blue, she palmed and squeezed the crotch of Blake’s jeans.
He froze in complete shock…
“Hmm.” Alexus smiled. “Impressive. I might need a taste of that, too.” Her hand dropped. “Leave your number in the mailbox. I’ll call you in a bit.”
She sashayed away from Blake, shaking her thick, round ass harder than usual. She was certain it would hold his attention. No man could resist her biracial features, her unblemished, perfect face, and her perfectly shaped, too-large-to-be-true “ghetto booty,” that’s what her schoolmates had called it.
As Alexus started up her front stairs and she took a peek over her shoulder and saw that Blake had his phone aimed at her round backside.
Grinning, Blake recorded video of Alexus’ ass until she disappeared inside the yellow house.
CHAPTER 2
Rita Mae Bishop was a pleasant, and polite Southern woman with deep brown skin and an intransigent sense of morality. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she had encountered evils of all shapes and sizes and managed somehow to remain a fairly decent human being. For Rita, all who knew her would do anything, because she was the ideal woman. A trustworthy, honest, God-fearing lady who listened to their problems without judgment, and who held a conversation without being a gossip. She graciously shared with man and woman alike and expected nothing in return.
As gratitude, Rita gave the boys who had helped unload the U-Haul a hundred dollars each before sending them on their way. Afterward she searched through the house and found Alexus in an upstairs bedroom. Looking through a box marked “A.C.”, which looked to be full of expensive designer bags that Juan Costilla had purchased for his only child.
“I thought you lost that,” said Rita, referring to the large leather Louis Vuitton shoulder bag that Alexus was lifting from the box. “We looked everywhere for that bag.”
“It was at Aunt Jenny’s house.” Alexus set the bag on the fresh tan carpet and instinctively contemplated calling her aunt Jennifer Costilla. ”Papi had left it there by accident. I went over and got it after he and Uncle Flako were arrested. After those punk ass FBI tore our house up.”
“Watch your mouth.” Rita crossed the room to the window. As she looked out at the neighboring house, images of the raid on the Spanish-style mini-mansion that she had shared with her ex-husband flashed through her mind.
They had seized nearly everything. Juan’s silver Bentley coupe. Rita’s pearly white Porsche Cayenne. The brand-new Mercedes-Benz E350 that Juan had purchased as Alexus’s birthday gift six months ago. Most of their clothes, all of their paintings, jewelry and furniture were gone. A kind-hearted DEA agent named Dewitt Larkson had allowed Rita and Alexus to pack an assortment of clothes and shoes into boxes shortly after the raid. “You’re an educated, and strong Black woman,” the agent had said. “I don’t know how you ended up in a relationship with Costilla, and honestly I don’t care to know. Just get away from here and stay away.” Larkson had went on to say that Rita’s bank account had not been frozen, which meant that Rita Mae Bishop had just under ninety thousand dollars to restart her life with. Eighteen grand had already been spent on the twenty percent down-payment for her new home.
“Why couldn’t we stay in Texas?” Alexus inquired. “It’s too cold here.”
The sound of her daughter’s voice shook Rita from her thoughts. She turned and sat on the window sill.
“Your cousins Bookie and Kenya live here,” said Rita. “I haven’t spent any time with your uncle Dennis since eighty-nine. He’s the only brother I have…. I miss him.”
Alexus knew that her mother was still profoundly saddened by the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It had claimed the lives of both Rita’s parents and her younger sister.
“Is Uncle Dennis coming over?” Alexus asked. She was seated Indian-style on the carpet, poring over the newspaper article that declared her father the “Costilla Cartel leader.”
“He’ll be here in” Rita pushed the sleeve of her New Orleans Saints sweatshirt and checked her rose gold Cartier watch “about three hours. He gets off work at three o’clock.
”
Planting her hands in the carpet behind her, Alexus leaned back and stared up at Rita
“The newspaper says federal agents seized over two hundred kilograms of cocaine and seven million dollars in cash from Papi’s condo in Houston,” Alexus said.
“I know.”
“That’s a whole lot of money.”
“Yes, it is. Papi’s been rich for a long time. A very long time. When I met him at the Mardi gras back in ’91, I had just received my master’s degree from Harvard. The girls and I were out celebrating on the strip, looking awkward and out-of-place among all those half-naked girls, when your uncle Flake stumbled up to us, in a drunken stupor—“
“A what?”
“He was pissy drunk,” Rita said.
“Oh.” Alexus giggled.
“And he began feeling on my butt, making nasty little comments, with his breath smelling like sour salami.”
Alexus fell over in a fit of laughter
Struggling to suppress her own laughter, Rita continued: “I showed him how a real Baton Rouge girl can kick some tail. Didn’t even need my girls. I had him on the ground, kickin’ his head when your father pushed through the crowd with about ten big Mexican’s behind him. Once I explained to Papi what had happened, he had his goons help Flake to a silver Rolls-Royce that was parked up the street. Then he asked me to follow him and his ‘familia’ to the Marriott Hotel.”
