Cheaper to Keep Her part 2 (The Saga Continues)

by Kiki Swinson presents Unique

  Now I knew this was horrible to say but if Diamond had died in that fire, I figured it was good for her. For the past couple of years, she had one foot in the club and the other one in the grave. It was only a matter of time before she would meet her maker anyway. I remembered saving her from getting her head blown off twice. One time she was caught trying to steal money from this nigga while she was sucking his dick back in the champagne room. When he realized what she was trying to do, he damn neared beat her to death with his pistol. I was furious when I found out what had happened. The only thing I could do for her was take her to the emergency room to get treated. The doctor and nurse who saw her wanted to know who beat her like that, and all she did was lie to them. I was stunned. But hey, what could I do?

  The other time I saved her dumbass was when her ex-boyfriend fucked her up after he found out she was fucking with another nigga behind his back. Their altercation lasted for at least thirty minutes. When the police finally got to our apartment, that nigga had gotten away. Diamond’s silly ass laid there on the floor, crying her poor little heart out, saying how tired she was with her life and that she didn’t want to live anymore. Quiet as it was kept, that bitch played like she wanted to commit suicide. But I knew damn well she wasn’t about to kill herself. She was a drama queen to the tenth power. And all she wanted was somebody to feel sorry for her because of all the fucked up decisions she made in her life.

  I listened to her bullshit from time to time. But when I was tired, I tuned her ass out and focused on more important things. All and all, Diamond was a basket case. She was also a hoe with a lot of bark and no bite. So, if her body was found underneath all the rumble inside Magic City, then she finally got what she deserved.

  A part of me still wish I was the one to put her monkey ass under.

  Cheaper to Keep Her part 2 Unique

  Sneaking Around Town-Chapter Nine

  Diamond and I shared an apartment in the ’hood.

  The apartment complex wasn’t low-income housing or Section Eight property, but it wasn’t far from it. As usual a couple of the streetlights were blown out, so certain parts of the complex were left in the dark. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be out here by myself. This apartment complex had a reputation for a lot of burglaries, old ladies getting their purses snatched and guys selling dope from at least one apartment in each building. But tonight I had to do things differently. I figured if I stayed in the truck with the doors locked I’d be okay. So that’s exactly what I did.

  I parked the SUV in the parking lot directly across the street from Diamond’s apartment. I backed the truck into a parking space so I could see everything in front of me. For the first fifteen minutes I watched at least one hundred cars coming in and out of the complex. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that something illegal was going on. If I were a cop, I would be knee deep in paperwork after arresting all of these hustling ass niggas. And what was so crazy about it was that none of these guys tried to hide it. They literally held the drugs in their hands in plain view and did hand-to-hand transactions. They were off the chain. As much as I wanted to call them complacent, I couldn’t. They knew the only way a cop was coming this way was if some fool had been shot and killed.

  When I wasn’t counting the transactions those niggas were making, I periodically glanced over at Diamond’s bedroom window to see if there was any movement. Like Katrina’s house, all of Diamond’s lights were turned off. So there was no question in my mind that she wasn’t home. After sitting there for over an hour I grew tired and decided to carry my ass back to the hotel. The key to the truck was already in the ignition. When I started the engine this guy came out of nowhere and startled the hell out of me. He approached the truck from the driver side door and tapped on the window lightly. I damn near jumped out of my skin. “Yo’ shorty, you need something?” he asked.

  When I turned my head completely around in his direction, I instantly recognized him. I let out a sigh of relief and then I pressed down on the control button to roll down the window. He smiled once he realized who I was. “What’s up sis? Whatcha’ doing out here? I thought you was locked up?” he said.

  “Who told you I was locked up?” I asked him. I wanted to know what he knew about me before I volunteered any information. You see, T.J. was this seventeen-year-old, small time weed pusher from the neighborhood who hung out all times of the night, so he basically knew something about everything that happened around here. He lived with his aunt and she had an apartment in the next building over from Diamond’s place.

  “I was out here the night the police took you to jail. But everybody around here was talking about how you got a couple of bodies and that you wasn’t gon’ ever see daylight again.”

  “Well, whoever told you that don’t know what the hell they talking about. I caught another charge and when they couldn’t prove that I did it, they had to let me go.”

  T.J. looked at me in a suspicious manner. “You sure you ain't working for the police? A lot of bitches and niggas are doing it these days.”

  “For your information, I am not one of those bitches. I got locked up for some shit I didn’t even do. So the judge had no other alternative but to let me go.”

  “So what are you doing around here? Why are you parked across the street from where you used to live at? Whatcha doing squatting on that stripper bitch you used to live with?”

  I have to admit, TJ caught me off guard with that question. And even though I’m sure he wasn't the smartest kid in school, he had plenty of street sense. So I am sure he would smell my lie before I’d uttered one word. I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell him what I was really doing, but at the same token, I had to tell him something that would seem plausible. Without blinking an eye I came up with a good explanation about why I was posted up in someone else’s truck, watching Diamond’s apartment from across the street.

  First, I told him Diamond owed me some money and that every time I called her she wouldn’t answer her phone. I even lied and told him that I had been by here a few times and she wouldn’t open the door, because she knew what type of car I was driving. So I finished off my lie and told him that the only way I will be able to catch her was by staking her apartment out in someone else’s vehicle. After I laid out my fabricated story he gave me a nod of approval and cracked a smile.

  “If it’s like that, then I can’t fault you,” he said. “It’s gotten so bad out here that niggas would do just about anything to get out of paying you your dough. Shit, I wish a nigga would try to buck on me and not pay me my paper. It would look like fireworks out here after I spit out all these lead pellets in this muthafucking burner.” T.J. lifted his shirt to show me his gun as he talked his shit.

  I burst into laughter. “You better put your shirt down boy before you fuck around and hurt yourself,” I told him.

  “Oh, trust me, I know how to handle this pistol. Ask any of these niggas 'round here. They'll tell you how I would blast a nigga in his ass real quick.”

  “Look, T.J., you need to calm your ass down.”

  “I’m calm.”

  “Well, if you call that calm, then I would hate to see you when you get pissed off.”

  While T.J. and I went back and forth about how mucho he was, his attention drifted away from me, so I followed his eyes. Before I could zoom in on the moving target, he said, “There goes your girl right there.”

  My heart dropped. Seeing Duke’s silver Porsche pull up outside of Diamond’s apartment felt somewhat surreal. I had just gotten the answer I had been waiting for all night. Diamond was not inside of Magic City when it went up in smoke. But why not? Her shift always started at seven o’clock in the evening.

  I knew one thing, this whole thing was becoming scarier and more sinister by the minute. Shit, it was starting to have a physical effect on me. My legs felt like they were about to become numb from dealing with this shit. And as I watched Diamond get her trifling ass out the passenger side of Duke’s Porsche, it felt as
if I had an anxiety attack coming on. I took a couple of deep breaths and then I exhaled.

  One of the things fucking with me was this muthafucka’s wife had just died in the fire and explosion that he probably was behind, and instead of playing the role of the grieving husband, he was hanging around with this worthless bitch. I didn’t know whether to admire the set of balls on Duke, or be appalled. Regardless, I still wanted his bitch ass dead and six feet under.

  “That nigga gotta be selling drugs because you can’t cop a whip like that with a regular job.” T.J. commented as we both witnessed Diamond close the passenger side door of Duke’s car. “Every time that nigga pick her up or drop her off niggas around here be gritting on him. He don’t ever get out of the car when he come out here, so don’t nobody knows how he look. That nigga, Craig, from building four said if he ever catch homeboy outside his whip, he gon’ rob his ass and take his car for a joy ride.”

  “How often does he come out here?” I wanted to know.

  “He comes out here almost every day. If he ain’t picking her up, he’s dropping her off.”

  “Did you see him pick her up today?” I continued to question T.J. If he tells me that Duke did in fact pick her up today, then she had to be in the car with him when he rode by the club tonight.

  “Nah, I been out here all day and this is my first time seeing that car today,” he replied.

  Instead of drilling T.J. with more questions, I turned off the ignition and stepped out of the truck. When I planted both of my feet on the ground I immediately became nervous. T.J. looked at me like I was crazy. “Whatcha getting ready to step to her?” he asked.

  The fact that T.J. had reminded me about what I was about to do, made me want to stop and think of another way to approach this situation. Don’t get me wrong, Diamond wasn’t your typical Laila Ali. She wouldn’t step on a sour grape in a fruit fight. She was one of those bitches that would talk shit to you but when you step to her she’d back down every single time. So I wasn’t worried about her throwing her fists up. I was more worried that she’d call him and tell Duke where I was. I was sure with his connections he knew I was out of jail. His ass had everyone from bail bondsmen, prosecutors and city councilmen on his payroll. But what he didn’t know was where I was.

  T.J. chuckled. “Don’t beat her ass too bad,” he said. I looked back at him with uncertainty, even though I knew she was no match for me. I tried to come up with a quick plan on how I would approach her. She had about two hundred feet from the parking lot to her apartment. If I wanted to get to her before she had time to get into her apartment and close the door, then I needed to sprint across the street right now. But when I tried to lift one foot up from the ground, it seemed impossible. I don’t know if I was in shock or what. But I knew that something wasn’t quite right with me.

  “Why you just standing there? I thought you wanted to run up on her, so you can get your dough?”

  I wanted to answer T.J. but my heart was beating louder than I thought.

  “You better get over there before she get to her apartment,” he warned me. It was like TJ was coaching me into doing something I knew wouldn’t have a good outcome. With all the feelings I had harboring in my heart for Diamond, I knew if I came within two feet of her, I would seriously do some damage to her. Who knows, I’d probably catch a murder charge when it was all said and done. And then I will be right back in jail and I wouldn’t be getting out.

  “Screw her. She ain’t worth it. I’ll catch up with her grimy ass later,” I finally said and then I realized I was able to move my feet again. I chuckled to myself. “God has a funny way of working things out,” I uttered quietly.

  “Whatcha say?” T.J. blurted out.

  “I'm talking to myself,” I told him and then I turned around and got back into the truck.

  When I started the truck up and revved the engine, T.J. leaned towards the driver side window and said, “Want me to shout her ass out whenever I see her coming outside again and tell her that you were looking for?”

  “No. Don't tell that bitch shit!”

  “Good. ’Cause I really don't like the bitch anyway. She got smart with me a couple of months ago and she think I forgot all about it.”

  “That’s just how she is. She doesn’t fuck with anyone who she can’t benefit from. But trust me, her fucking days are numbered. I just wish I would’ve known you didn’t fuck with her like that, because I wouldve gotten you and one of your homeboys to run up in her spot to get all my shit I left in there before I got bagged up by the police. That is, if the bitch hasn’t gotten rid of it herself.”

  “Boy, I would’ve loved to break into her shit. Me and my boys haven’t done that shit in a long time. So it would have been funny as hell,” T.J. expressed as he smiled.

  I let out a long sigh. “Glad to know. So I guess I’ll hit you up later. As a matter of fact, give me a number.”

  “You got something to write with?” HE asked me.

  “Wait, hold up,” I told him as I searched in the armrest of the truck for an ink pen. When I found one I also grabbed a business card Bishop must’ve taken from someone prior to him coming to Virginia. The business card was from a chick by the name of Karen Wheeler, who happened to be a mortgage broker from Newark, New Jersey. From the looks of her photograph, she was a very attractive woman. Too bad she wouldn’t be talking to him anymore.

  Immediately after I scanned the front of the business card, I flipped it over and began to write down T.J.’s cell phone number. After I was done I assured him that I would be giving him a call.

  “Take care of your business Ma.”

  “I will.”

  T.J. walked away from the truck and then I slowly exited the parking lot. Before I drove away, I noticed she turned on the light in the living room and then three seconds later the bedroom light came on. I shook my head because I realized that nothing about her had changed. Not even her movement throughout her apartment. Like clockwork, she’d always turn on the living room light as soon as she walked into the apartment, followed by her going straight to her bedroom and turning on the light as well. She was afraid of the dark. She would never sleep without some kind of light around her. Her TV ran all night long most of the time. I’ve heard people say that when a person is afraid of the dark, that’s because they are the devil. I never believed it until now.

  It was only a matter of time before the fires of hell rain down on her stupid, scary ass.

  Cheaper to Keep Her part 2 Unique

  Where the Fuck Am I Going Now?- Chapter Ten

  I wished like hell I could’ve gotten a chance to beat Diamond’s snitching ass up.

  Luckily for her, I changed my mind and decided to come at her another way. I realized I do a lot of things on impulse. I never really thought things out, which was why things around me always seemed to fall apart.

  As I drove away from the old neighborhood it dawned on me that I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go back to the hotel for fear that my life could be in danger. So where in the hell was I going to lay my head tonight? One part of me wanted to stick my pride in my pocket and call my ex-boyfriend Devin. Sure he was a self-centered asshole who couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Besides the issues with his cheating he was a big liar. I couldn’t count the times that sorry ass nigga got caught in a whole bunch of lies. After a couple of years of his bullshit I finally threw in the towel. Don’t get me wrong, Devin was a handsome ass guy. He even had a body to die for, and did I mention how good his fuck game was? He had my dumb ass open. I couldn’t see the forest from the trees. Anything he said was always written in stone. Self-esteem issues were a huge factor in that relationship.

  So today, I was so glad I could call him tonight and ask him to let me sleep over and not feel the pressures of fucking him to do so. After all, the bastard owed me. And I intended to collect. I mean, all I wanted was a warm bed to sleep in tonight and in the morning I would be gone.

  I wasn’t sure if he had the same number but nothing
beats a failure but a try. I pulled over to a service station off Military Highway, because I noticed they had a pay phone outside. Bishop had a lot of change in the armrest, so I dug in and grabbed two quarters. It felt foreign for me to be using a pay phone. I mean, who done that these days? Everyone I’ve run into had a cell phone, so I couldn’t believe that pay phones still existed. Not to mention, who'd think I would need to use one? I felt really weird.

  After I dialed Devin’s cell phone number I crossed my fingers and hoped that he’d answer my call even though he didn’t recognize the number. He was big on not taking calls when he didn’t recognize the number. I just hoped that this time it would be different. The phone rang four times on my end and when it sounded as if it was about to go to his voicemail, I hurried up and disconnected the line. When the money fell down into the change tray, I retrieved it and pushed it back into the change slot and began to dial his number again.

  “Devin, answer this time,” I said to myself. To no avail, he didn’t pick up the second time. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason, which only meant that it wasn’t meant for me to get in touch with him. Instead of calling him again, I hung up the phone again and got my ass back into the truck.

  I sat there for a moment and tried to figure out what I was going to do next. I thought about sleeping in the backseat of the truck. But either God or my gut told me to go back to Katrina’s house. I knew this sounded really insane on my part but I figured if I played on that bitch’s intelligence and acted like a distraught chicken with my head cut off, then she may have a little bit of sympathy for me. Trust me, I knew how to play the victim role. I even knew how to act like a dumb blonde. Then hoes like Katrina would think that you’re naïve and would feel secure around you. My motive right now was to get in good with this chick without making her feel suspicious. At the end of the day, I needed to get out of the streets and even though I had reservations, I had to help the cops out. And if it took getting close to this cutthroat bitch, then so be it.