by L. E. Newell
He looked over her shoulder and saw the tail end of a car pulling away from the curb as the door was closing behind her. His intuition told him that something was amiss. He couldn’t put his finger on it though.
Yolanda, being the strong woman that she was, couldn’t understand why Beverly was so afraid to see Sparkle. Damn, my girl is really messed up about seeing dude, she thought as she turned to face him. “Hey, man, a bitch can’t be feeling all fucked up with woman problems or something?”
She wasn’t about to tell him that it was Beverly who had sped off. She’d let her deal with their situation when she felt up to it. After all, that’s what friends were for.
Sparkle frowned and hunched his shoulders. Woman. He turned to Rainbow. “Yo, dog, why we hanging around this hole for anyways? Things be popping against us from every which way. We need to get out this bitch and find out who do all this fucked-up shit to you, to us.”
Rainbow turned his mouth down as he frowned in concentration for a few seconds. “Yeah, dog, you right, let’s roll.”
They pushed past Yolanda without muttering a word.
She grunted, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Rainbow sneered over his shoulder on the way out the door. “Hell, you’ll be whatever, bitch.” He slammed the door behind him, not giving her a chance to respond. They jumped in his car and sped down DeKalb Avenue. Things had to be answered. Some- body was gonna supply those answers.
Several hours later, they were leaving Princess’s room at the Motel 6 when his cell phone buzzed at his side. Rainbow looked down at the blinking light and then at his boy. “Damn, man, that’s Duke right there. I wonder what took him so long to call?”
“Hell, I don’t know, man; whatcha gonna do, answer it or what?”
Rainbow debated for a moment and finally, he pressed the button.
“Yeah, big fella, what’s up? When? Where? Well, we’re heading that way now. Okay, see ya in a few then.” He hung up and stared out of the window.
Sparkle let him drive aimlessly for awhile before he spoke. “Okay, nigga, what he have to say?”
Rainbow didn’t take his eyes off of the road as he continued to drive in silence. Finally, he pinched his nose. “Wants us to meet him at the Lounge, dog. For some fucked-up reason, he didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. Shit don’t sound too kosher to me; ya feel me, partner?”
Sparkle, knowing that they were in the middle of re-upping his crew, merely nodded. “So whatcha gonna do about Clara and Sissy?”
“Whatcha mean?” Rainbow replied, hunching his shoulders.
Sparkle ran his tongue across his lips. “I mean they just got robbed, my nigga. And beat up on top of that. You gonna leave them dealing in the same hole, partner?”
Stuck in his icy-chilled pimping role, he replied in a frosty tone, “Why the hell not? Them bitches are used to the rough shit that goes with this turf. Besides, that’s where their customers come to score. Shit, partner, this ain’t the first time some of my whores done got their asses kicked, know what I’m saying. Shit, that’s why I allow them to stay in the clique. The hoes got heart, dog; the hoes got heart.”
Knowing his boy’s coldhearted attitude toward hoes that had fallen into his love trap, Sparkle hunched his shoulders, laid his head back on the rest and remained silent for the rest of the ride.
Duke’s ride was nowhere to be seen when they pulled into the club’s parking lot. But they did see three girls raising holy hell in ‘B’‘s New Yorker. Sparkle leaned toward Rainbow’s side of the car. “Man, who are those loud-ass hoes making all that racket in our boy’s ride?”
Rainbow shook a cigarette out of the pack on the dashboard and lit it up before he answered through a haze of blue smoke and between long drags. “Bro, them bitches is Yolanda’s sisters; your girl Violet’s crazy-ass nieces.”
Sparkle leaned back in the seat and folded his arms across his chest. “Man, you mean you telling me that Violet’s got some crazy-ass nieces to boot? Come to think of it, that little red one, the one that looks like that honey Dawn Robinson who sings with En Vogue, was with her that night I met her at Dee’s the day I got out. Uh-huh, that saucy little thing has got one jazzy-ass mouth, dog.”
Rainbow tilted his head to the side. “Hmmphed, my nigga, all them hoes there has a jazzy-ass mouth. Shit must be deep in the genes or something, especially that dark-skinned one. Man, oh man, that bitch Nita Bug, my nigga, that ho there’s got the nastiest mouth I’ve ever heard on a bitch. And you know that I done known my share of bitches, partner.”
Sparkle turned his head back toward the arguing trio. “Damn, that ho must be really foul, for sure then.”
“She is dog, she certainly is.”
The girls walked away from the car and headed toward the club’s entrance ahead of them, still raising holy hell.
As soon as they walked through the door, they spotted ‘B’ in a conversation with Big Bertha, Junior, Laurie and Pinkie. The three sisters strode right up to his table still spitting some dumb female nonsense.
‘B’ must’ve been into some serious kicking it because no sooner had they reached him, he gritted on them and slammed the beer mug on the table to get their attention. “What the fuck y’all hoes think this is? Bringing y’all asses to my table with all that clucking bullshit up in my ear like I need to hear that shit, for real.”
The two redbones shut up, but Nita Bug, true to her nature, had to speak. “Nigga, we…” That’s all she got out before ‘B’ dashed the mug of beer in her face, followed quickly by a backhand upside her head.
Nita Bug, the true warrior princess that she was, stumbled back a few feet, yelling, “Muthafucka, who the...” He cut her short when he stood up like he’d been shot out of a cannon and hit her with an elbow straight in the nose, grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her head first into the side of the stage.
“See there, bitch, always running your stanky mouth when you know that nigga there, stupid.”
Baybay, the older and thicker of the three, hollered at her baby sister in a much too gravelly voice for a girl. She was about to add something a little nastier before Rainbow came up from behind and slapped her upside the head, grabbed her by the back of her neck and yelled in her ear, “Biatch, that goes for your stank ass, too; shut the fuck up.”
Baybay was not only the oldest; she was the most timid and got the message real quick, put on the chill and slunk over to a nearby table and sat down. She knew from past experience of being one of Rainbow’s hoes that he would break her down real fast. She’d said enough. Nita Bug was definitely on her own as far as she was concerned.
Joyce, the cutest and smartest with the most sense and courage, went over to the stage to help Nita Bug up, who was dizzy and quiet as a church mouse. Warbling to her feet, she reached over the shoulder of one of the male patrons, picked up a napkin off the table and began dabbing at the blood pouring out of her nose.
Joyce grunted with the effort it took to lift and carry her groggy sister to the table with Baybay. When she was straightening up, she bumped into Sparkle’s chin, causing him to bite his tongue.
He groaned and leaned back holding his mouth and mumbled, “Godayum, girl, shit, watch where the fuck you going, damnit.” He touched his tongue gingerly with the tip of his finger several times to make sure it wasn’t bleeding.
Joyce, who had bent forward from the impact, spat angrily, “Damn, man, why the fuck you standing right behind me for?” He rubbed the back of her head vigorously. She turned around and gritted on him something terrible. Those brilliant green eyes of hers froze him to the spot.
Sparkle arched his brow and grimaced, but before he could think of something nasty to retort, he heard Duke’s booming voice roaring from the entrance. “Whatz up, y’all? Big Duke’s in the muthafucking house.”
He was smiling brightly as he twirled his huge hands wildly over his head. All three amigos could tell something was bothering him. By the time he reached the counter, his girl Cynt, hips
swaying with rip the runway model swagger, came busting through the door clutching her ever-present gigantic purse. Damn thing was nearly bigger than her. She was a really cute little pixie who reminded most people of Jada Pinkett. Actually a lot of her friends called her “Little Jada” because of the resemblance and stature. She couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, with real bushy eyebrows and big dark brown eyes that looked even bigger behind a pair of round granny glasses that stayed perched midway down the bridge of her nose. What most people remembered most about her was her pouty red lips that always looked glossy and fit perfectly with her spunky attitude—one which made her the perfect little sparkplug to keep Big Duke grounded. And grounded was how she definitely kept his usually obnoxious ass.
She came up to the counter as Duke was sitting down and placed her multi-bejeweled hand on his shoulder. He looked at her dangling hand and frowned before he forced a weak smile and turned back to his boys. He took a deep breath and somehow lowered his big voice to a mere whisper as he started explaining how he’d gotten fucked around at the 617 Club on Auburn Avenue. His voice was so surprisingly low that all three of his boys were forced to lean so close that their foreheads were mashed against one another.
“Man, I know I had won at least seven or eight grand before this fight broke out between two of them niggas. One of them fools had claimed that he had barred the curve. Man, how in the fuck do you expect a nigga to respect a punk talking about he bar the curve? And then he started talking some dumb shit about he wanted his money back. Can you believe that shit there? Come on, man, we all know that if you can’t keep the cheat off your ass in Georgia Skin, you be just a whipped muthafucka.”
All his boys nodded in agreement. He continued with the boost of confidence. “Well, anyway, these niggas get in a scuffle and when everything settles down, my motherfucking money is gone.”
The trio leaned back ready for whatever was coming next. Cynt stuck her face between them. “And he had a great big knot of money just like he said to y’all.”
Big Duke smiled and patted her arm on his shoulder. “Anyway, to make a long story short.”
“Please do.” Rainbow couldn’t hold back from jibbing.
Duke wrinkled his nose. “Fuck you, Bow; anyway me and one of the workers had some hard words. Man, I was ready to pull my shit on his ass and would’ve too if it wasn’t for Cynt grabbing my arm. And that nigga Don sided against me. Even had Red Tony going along with that bullshit. And y’all know that I been looking out for that nigga for years.” He leaned back in the seat and looked at them one by one. “I’ve got to get those muthafuckas back for that, yo.”
Cynt moved his arm and sat down on his lap. “How you want to handle it, baby?” Everybody at the counter knew she was dead serious, for despite her small stature, she didn’t hold back in the least when it came to protecting big dude.
Duke leaned back smiling proudly, feeling good about knowing his little soldierette was down for whatever. “Sweet stuff, I’ve been working on something all the way over here; trust that there.”
He pinched his nose and looked undereyed at Sparkle. Sparkle knew he’d already come up with some really devious. He cranked his neck from side to side, pinched his own nose and looked undereyed right back at him.
When Duke started scratching his chin with his baby finger and cocked one brow, they all knew they had to get ready for one helluva time. Some real drastic stuff was about to go down and all of them would have to be involved regardless of how dangerous it may get.
He stared directly at Sparkle. “Baby boy, you remember that time back in the white elephant that we got old man Moore to steal all the cards out of the commissary and Googie’s slick ass helped us fix ’em up over the weekend and put them back in the store?”
The words had barely left his lips when Rainbow’s face brightened up. “Oh, hell yeah, man, we kept the whole joint broke for the whole fucking summer. Niggas couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on.”
‘B’ slammed his thighs so hard that it made everybody jump and he burst out laughing. “Uh-huh, shit, we’d still be living high off the hog off that lick there if we hadn’t gotten out.”
Sparkle jumped in, “Come to think of it, nigga, you never did give me the money for those fifty dozen billfolds I sent out in your name from that game we had on the yard for the Fourth of July. Let me see, that’s like fifty dozen times fifteen dollars a dozen plus. What’s it been now—ten, fifteen years, uh-huh, fifteen years of interest, it would come to.”
He started counting his fingers. They all yelled, including the three girls, in unison, “Nigga, shut the fuck up.”
Big Duke was smiling cheerfully right along with everybody else and then coughed into his fist. “Man, on the serious side, I feel like we can pull some of that same shit off on those niggas at the 617.”
‘B’ looked around at all the girls who had gathered around listening to the conversation. That didn’t fit well with him at all. He took a long gulp of his drink and cleared his throat. “Y’all hoes need to find something to do.” When they didn’t react quick enough for his satisfaction, he stood up and shouted, “Y’all bitches, all of y’all get the fuck to the muthafucking car right muthafucking now.”
They sprinted out like the place was on fire. The last one, Cynt, who was still sitting on Duke’s lap eyeing him shyly, started pouting and then left when he nodded for her to follow the rest. ‘B’ sat back down. But not before he stared down every patron in the joint until they turned away from his evil eyes.
Rainbow folded his arms across the counter and stared at Duke. “Man, you must really be pissed off about this shit. How in the fuck are we supposed to pull something like that off? We don’t even know where them niggas buy their cards from.”
Duke folded his arms across his big stomach. “I ain’t said a damn thing about buying no cards.”
Sparkle quickly put his two cents worth in. “Then how in the fuck?”
Duke cut him off, “We get into that damn safe in his office where he keeps them and his dope and his money and all kinds of shit.”
“What?” Rainbow frowned.
“What?” Sparkle growled.
“What?” Johnny mumbled.
“We get into his...” Rainbow started and then bowed his head and ran his hand down the bridge of his nose before he frowned at big boy. “Man, we heard what you said, but how are we supposed to get in that big-ass safe, dude? Shit, as big as that bitch is, we’d need a fucking forklift.”
Duke leaned forward over the counter and shook his head. “There you go again, underestimating the power of the scheming mind. And you call yourself a con man. Boys, Loretta would turn over in her grave if she was hearing this shit I’m hearing from y’all so-called players.”
Rainbow rolled his eyes and picked up his drink and took a long slug.
Duke picked up ‘B’’s drink and drained it in one big gulp. Then he hollered for Bertha to give all of them a refill before he got up from the counter and headed for one of the tables in the back of the club. “Come on, y’all half-hustling-ass niggas,” Duke said over his shoulder. He sat down and crossed his legs on the table and nodded for all of them to sit down.
He addressed Rainbow in a no-nonsense tone. “On the real now, Bow, you’re the one that turned that bitch Mary Anne out years ago. Nigga, ain’t no need for you to be looking all stunned and shit. You know damn well you remember her fine ass. The way you babied that ho, you had to know every time that bitch changed her cum-stained drawers.”
That comment drew a few snickers from the other two as they nodded in agreement. Rainbow lifted his head and started massaging his neck. “Yeah, yeah, I did show that little whore some special favors but that shit was long ago when my ass was green to the game. Then again what does that have to do with this shit you about to get us into?”
Duke waved away his snooty reply to his pimping ability. “And that nigga Don hadn’t even dreamed of being in the ATL way back then when
you had that ho on the tracks.”
‘B’ picked up Duke’s drink and returned the favor of draining his. “Hey, dog, I’ve got to agree with my dog here; what the fuck do that have to do with what you want us to get into here? This a real serious move you talking about making, partner. The repercussions could be really rough; you feel me.”
Duke took his legs off the table, threw up his hands in the air feigning discuss. “Come on, man, use your empty-ass head here for just a moment.” He paused to tap the side of his own head. “Can you think of any ho Rainbow has had that don’t secretly still love his dirty ass?”
‘B’ pyramided his hands on the table, closed his eyes and buried his head into them contemplating for a few moments. Then he leaned back in the seat and folded his arms. “Now that you think about it, none; so what.”
He looked at Rainbow, then at Sparkle before he addressed “B.” “So our nigga here can get that ho to get the combination to the safe.”
Rainbow leaned across the table astounded by what he had just heard. “Whoa, pardner, you know damn well that Red Tony ain’t gonna go for that ho kicking it with me, especially with the history we got. Come on, dog, get real, will ya? And then for his ass to get ripped off like that; shit, he’d figure that shit out in no time at all.”
Duke shot back immediately, “True that, playa, but he ain’t got to know that you been with her.”
Rainbow looked at him like he had lost his fucking mind. “So how we do that there?”
Duke waved for them to come closer and whispered, “That bitch Crystal, hell, maybe even Joyce. Yeah, the bitch a player, for real, yo. Anyway that bitch Crystal be eating that ho on the regular and I hear that Joyce has got the best head in the fucking girl-to-girl business. Hold up for a minute, yo. Hear me out; this some good shit here, dog. On top of that, Red goes for that kinda shit in the worst way. As long as it ain’t another nigga, he don’t give a flying fuck, know what I’m saying. So you get that bitch Crystal or Joyce, whichever one of them hoes you decide to use, to pull her to you. From there you use that old pimping magic you claim that don’t ever get old.” He leaned back in the seat with a shiteater grin plastered on his face and spread his arms triumphantly.
