by L. E. Newell
CHAPTER TWELVE
Enjoying the Spoils
Violet was squirming on the cushion to keep her butt off of the concrete of the stoop when she saw Duke’s ride turn into the parking lot of the apartments. A smile crept to the corners of her mouth as she wondered how good the package he wanted tested would be. He wasn’t a user, so he really valued her opinion. And she usually enjoyed the bombs he’d come up with. What addict wouldn’t love a free high that would knock them for a loop?
She knew that he’d expect her to have all her gear ready so she stood up, picked up her pillow and headed for the door. Her head jerked back in shock when Sparkle and Joyce got out of the car. What the fuck, where the hell is my car? She hugged the pillow to her stomach and arched her brow as they approached.
Sparkle carried the grocery bag in one hand and Duke’s saddle bag in the other. He had a downtrodden expression on his face as he nodded for her to go inside. With her mouth turned down, she waited until both of them had walked past her, with neither of them saying a word, before she followed.
An exhausted Sparkle walked straight to the couch, dropped both bags on the floor between his feet and flopped heavily on the cushion with a loud and long aaaah. Joyce, also exhausted, walked to the refrigerator, yanked the door open and grabbed a couple of Colt 45s. She tossed him one, which thudded off his chest onto the floor. She used the other one to wipe around her face and she flopped down in the love seat across from him.
Violet used the heel of her shoe to kick the door closed. She marched right in front of them, dropped the cushion on the floor and wrapped her right arm around her waist to use it as a prop for her left arm. She cupped her mouth, shifting her eyes between the two of them. She was too awestruck to really think clear. “And?”
Fifteen minutes and the rest of the six-pack of beer later, Sparkle and Joyce explained the past few hours to Violet; all except their sexual episode, of course. By the time they finished, the only thing she was thinking about was the cocaine’s money value and getting high. She knew that Duke would use his wits as far as the car and the police were concerned.
All was kosher as they ended up in the bedroom laughing about all kinds of dumb shit that had happened in the past few days. They were well into their second eight ball when Sparkle got a call from Rainbow.
The urgency in his boy’s voice put him on the edge. It was unlike him to act so nervous about anything; even going back to when they were in the same unit in the war. His mind drifted back to the days of those deadly excursions into the jungle to gather up all the dead soldiers. They were always high on whatever they could get their hands on; whether it be cocaine, heroin, reefer, acid, liquor, beer or any combination of them. Hell, it was whatever it took to help them deal with the possibility of the enemy springing out of the trees, bushes or straight out of the ground with guns blazing serious lead.
He still suffered through the occasional nightmare and waking up in a cold sweat with images of soldiers’ whole bodies getting blown away from stepping on mines or being bombed to death from grenades strapped around little children walking into a crowd. Every now and then, those nightmares would dissolve into street battles over drug turf right there at home. There was only one constant and that was waking up in those cold sweats.
The tone in Rainbow’s voice had him revisiting those recurrences, especially with what had just happened to Duke. Which also reminded him that he had to call Grady to check out big boy’s condition. He had to walk down the street to the pay phone because of the possibility of the police monitoring calls.
A verbal cat fight between Violet and Joyce snapped him out of his revelry. He couldn’t help but to smile as they argued about which side of town they were going to first with the kilos of coke that Joyce had ripped off of the Jamaicans.
However, the two dilemmas facing him were far more difficult. He was suffering from the dual anxieties of riding with his boys, thus, having to deal with Beverly and her crew of police monsters along with Don’s army and the possible violence that occurred. He also was trying to figure out a way to bust Joyce’s head and pussy as often as he could without Violet finding out. Whew!
Might as well watch old girl work her magic, he thought as he laid his head back on the bed post with his hands crossed behind his head, forming a somewhat comfortable cradle. With the coke caressing his brain, everything became entertainment. So he went into chill mode to enjoy the show.
Violet leaned a shoulder against the headboard with a look of determination cemented on her face. She went into her spiel. “Girl, I’m telling you for the hundredth time that it’s better to roll with the suburbs with dis cher.” She flipped a bag of rocks from one hand to the other. “Where we can dump a load at one house at a time? I’m telling you, girl, that my white folk out there be calling all their friends and everything. And they be smoking up the same stuff they done just scored with you. Godayum, what the fuck more can you ask for?” She stood up and threw her hands exuberantly in the air and then flexed her arms across her body to emphasize the easy job. “Mo money, mo money, mo money, fer sho.” She ended with a flair of spreading her arms out while rotating her head around the room.
Not to be outdone so easily, Joyce reared back and hit her with a snake roll on every other word. “And I’m telling you about all my buddies out there in East Point and College Park. We can pull just as much money over der.” She ended with a series of finger pops in high-arching circles.
Sparkle knew better but he was unable to resist throwing in his two cents’ worth. “Why don’t y’all hussies just go y’all separate ways and get it over with?”
As he had expected, they simultaneously whirled on him and Violet yelled, “Nigga, stay your ass out of this.”
Joyce added sarcastically, “Damn, a bitch can’t even do a damn thang unless dis heah bastard gotta have something to say.”
He flinched, a little pissed for a second, until he realized that she was keeping up with the normal bullshit between them to throw off what had happened at the hotel. Even though he quickly realized what she was doing, the little bitch had a way of scraping on his last nerve. He couldn’t help but to give her something back. “At least you got the bitch part right,” he mumbled.
“Whatcha mumbling for, nigga?” Joyce gritted.
“You heard me, ho.”
“Whatever.” Joyce skirted him a palms up to freeze whatever comeback he had on that and turned to Violet. He decided to keep his mouth out of it. The longer they argued, the worse things would be but he wanted them out of there before his boy Rainbow arrived. They continued to argue back and forth. So he adjusted his tactics, with the hope that he made good sense to them.
He wanted to show Violet her due respect. “Yo, V, check this out, sweetheart. Uh, and you too, Joyce.” He paused to make sure that he had their full attention. “Okay now, because I’ve worked both areas y’all talking about, I got the feeling that with this new package, there are going to be bumps in the road. I feel that since y’all are introducing a new kind of coke...” He picked one of the packages up and hefted it in his hands. “And we know they ain’t had nothing this good before, hell, taint no telling how dey gonna react behind dis here. That’s why it’ll be better to start with the more civilized folk out dere in the burbs.”
He saw out of the corner of his eye that Joyce was about to interrupt him, so he threw a palm in the front of her face to chill her. “Not that you won’t make some generous ends at the Point and the Park but the monies a lot easier in the burbs. Especially if y’all start out there in Lithonia; ain’t nothing but comfortable money out dat way. And most important of all, is that whoever these hunters are that’s gonna be after our asses, they won’t be out there on the prowl. Y’all feel me?”
He could tell by the tension-relieving deflation of Joyce’s shoulders, that the last part of his statement had really caught her attention. She propped a finger up to her nose and sniffled before she replied, “Okay, okay.” She opened with a dainty w
ave of her hand. “I see whatcha saying.” She peeked a look at Violet, who had stubbornly crossed her arms across her chest. “But sometime during the night, or at least tomorrow, we gonna holla at my crew or leave a number or something.”
Smiling her approval, Violet got up off of the bed and started gathering the three ounces they had cut up into dimes, twenties, and fifty blocks. Without a word she strutted out of the room. Joyce had been stuffing a huge piece of rock into her shooter while Sparkle was talking “Godayum, Auntie, chill yo ass for a sec. I know you saw me packing this bitch!” Joyce yelled.
Violet kept on walking as she yelled over her shoulder. “Bitch, you best to burn that shit on the way because I’m out of here.”
Realizing that she was dead serious, Joyce barely got a short puff in before she snatched up her purse and sprinted out the door behind her.
Sparkle sighed a breath of relief as they departed. After a few more blasts, he decided to take a quick shower before Rainbow got there. He wasn’t sure when he would get another chance. There was no telling what tonight or the next couple of days, for that matter, would lead to. He also was still counting his blessings because Violet hadn’t pulled one of her dick-sniffing acts on him. He could still feel and smell the scent of Joyce’s body mesmerizing his nose. Thank God for her greedy ass seeing all that coke.
Damn, that cold water was revitalizing. He was drying off when the doorbell rang. He gave a snorted grunt because he knew that Violet had locked the security gate again. Funny how she never wanted it locked while she was there. Like a nigga want to stop whatever he was doing to walk all the way down the steps to open the door.
He knew it was his boy though, so he sped to the intercom beside the bed and shouted out that he’d be down there in sec. He grunted and smiled when he heard him mutter some fucked-up shit as he headed back to the bathroom to finish drying off and to put on his robe. When he finally made it to the door, he was greeted with an impatient grit. He didn’t let it phase him though as he turned around and went back into the apartment.
“Damn, nigga, you knew that I was on the way. You’re supposed to be ready to roll.”
From the tone of his voice, Sparkle could tell that he was irritated. But there was nothing else to say; put his clothes on and get his piece ready for whatever action that was called for. He knew that Rainbow wanted to run his mouth to release some of the tension that had been building up for the past weeks. Especially now that his boy Duke had gotten all shot up. That went right along with Beverly’s revelations of thinking that Don was behind it all.
Rainbow was pacing back and forth in front of the television while Sparkle was putting on his clothes. “Dog, how in the hell did that black muthafucka find out about the scam man?” Sparkle looked up while he was sliding into his boots. “Yo, man, how you know all this shit is about that there? Are you sure about that? Stuff was happening before we did the 617 thang.”
Rainbow stopped pacing and peered at him over the rims of his shades. “Man, it has to be that and besides, ain‘t nobody seen that ho Mary Anne for days. Shit, there’s even a rumor going around that he done had her done in.”
That caught Sparkle by surprise. Maybe he wasn’t in the loop as he thought he was or cared to be; he hadn’t heard about it. Surely Joyce would’ve mentioned something like that. Then again she was probably too deep in her scam to hear about it. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You for real, dude?”
“Hell, yeah, I’m for real. What other reason would I be telling you for?”
Sparkle used the palm of his hand to rub his eyelids while his weary mind worked on the latest revelation. The violence was certainly getting too close for comfort. The steadily building tension led to his breathing a heavy sigh. “Okay, dog, where you want to take it from here?”
Rainbow snatched off his shades and looked off into space for a moment, before he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Man, give me a blast of that shit, then we gonna ride to collect some digits while I let this plan in my mind come all the way together.”
Aw shit, here we go with that all-of-a-sudden commando shit again. Sparkle turned his mouth down nodding in agreement and walked over to the closet. He bent down and lifted the floorboard to get to the shoe box that held his personal stash. Sitting beside his boy on the bed, he removed the Ziploc bag that had been recently filled with some of the coke he’d gotten from Joyce and flipped it to him.
Rainbow reached into his shirt to get his white gold spoon with the Mercedes-Benz symbol and took a couple of tokes. While he was drifting off to Scottyville, Sparkle was busy rocking up a fifty slab in a test tube. He didn’t even wait for it to dry before he was blasting away as well.
“Hmm, dog, dis here be some new shit, ain’t it?” Rainbow harrumphed.
“Yeah, man, it’s some stuff Joyce took off some Jamaicans over there in College Park or East Point one,” Sparkle replied after taking a hit.
Rainbow stood up and started dusting some imaginary lent off of his raw silk pants and started picking in his ear. “Damn, man, I knew I should’ve trapped her red ass a long time ago.”
Sparkle shook his head, knowing that he had to be tripping on the coke really hard. He knew first-hand that he’d been trying to put his mack game down on Joyce every since he’d first seen her. He’d never gotten anywhere. He wondered what Rainbow would say if he let him know how fantastic that bitch was. He decided to let him jabber on, not really paying him any attention while he finished getting dressed.
Afterward, they checked and rechecked their guns to make sure that they were in good working condition. Their gut instincts were telling them that it was getting real close to killing time; if not tonight, then really soon.
As they were heading out of the door, Sparkle looked over his shoulder. “Okay, what first, go pick up ‘B’ or go for the green?”
Rainbow pinched his nose and sniffled. “Ah, man, I knew there was something I was meaning to tell you. ‘B’’s out there in the N.O. hustling at the Mardi Gras. He called me about an hour ago and told me to meet him at Hartsfield tomorrow at noon.”
Sparkle leaned back sideways and gritted on him. “Why you take so long to tell me that?”
Rainbow spread his hands out. “Hell, man, was you not listening to me or what? I just said…”
“I heard what you said,” Sparkle cut him off.
“Well, then, oh yeah, little Mercedes is rolling with Lady and Clara. Damn, let me call them before we jet,” Rainbow replied as he shouldered by him on the way to the car.
As Sparkle watched his back, for the first time in a lot of years, he felt the sting of negative vibes of fear and doubt coming off his boy. He took a deep breath and gave a silent prayer for the things to come. A bad omen, a bad omen indeed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Hunters and the Hunted
After a paranoia-filled night of smoking blunt, speed balling, playing cards, other table top games and taking turn peeking out of the hotel blinds, they gathered the girls right before dawn to move them to the La Quinta in Lithonia. Settling them into a pair of suites in the middle of the second floor turned out to be quite a circus. Imagine eight streetwise female slicksters, each taking secret stabs trying to convince them to take them along. Not one of them wanted to be stuck in no connecting room with a bunch of paranoid clucking hens.
Rainbow and Sparkle were able to untangle themselves from their tentacles around ten-thirty. They wanted to have at least a half-hour or so to do a little recon at the airport before ‘B’ arrived. Sparkle was on his second strawberry milkshake at the ice cream parlor, when he spotted ‘B’ and Miriam strolling down the terminal’s aisle about fifty yards away. He directed his gaze to encompass the entire surroundings to see if anyone was trailing the pair. Or paying him any overdue attention. When they got close enough to make eye contact, Sparkle shifted his eyes toward the Hertz parking lot.
‘B’ and Miriam walked outside and immediately spotted Rainbow waving to them from a car in the seco
nd row of rentals. He reached into the back to pull up the latches as the pair crossed in front of the car. ‘B’ reached across the seat with his palm up and Rainbow gave him a fisted dap.
‘B’ snatched his hand back. “Naw, nigga, give me the trunk keys. What am I supposed to do with these here bags, dog?”
“Shit, looks like enough room back there to me, partner,” Rainbow said as he turned from him.
“What?” ‘B’ and Miriam yelled in unison.
“Just kidding, dog, just kidding.” He smiled as he tossed the keys over his shoulder.
“Ow!” Miriam shouted when the keys clunked off of her forehead.
“Damn, my bad, come on, dude, I’ll help you with those bags.” Rainbow twisted his mouth up and hunched his shoulder as he was getting out of the car before she could say anything.
Rainbow waited until ‘B’ had opened the trunk before he put a fist to his mouth to stifle a laugh while putting his other fist out for some dap. ‘B’ grunted and waved him off as he bent over to put the bags in the trunk. When he straightened up, there was a smile on his face and they embraced, pounding each other on the back.
‘B’ held him by the shoulders at arm’s length, blinked a few times before he pinched his nose, then snorted. “What it be, playa, you sounded really stressed over the phone or was it all the static coming over the line? Damn, those Orleans folk be getting some kind of hyped up in the French Quarter. Shit, you can barely hear yourself think. Man, you’d think that after Katrina, things would be a little toned down. Shiiit, those country muthafuckas were all the way live; hell, even more than before.” He shook his head as he recalled all the ruckus.
