by Noire
“Hell yeah,” I waved him off. “Give that shit up, dude! You ain’t really lose me anyway.”
“Oh, I lost you,” he said, and I couldn’t believe the way his eyes got all sad. “But I’m glad I found you too. I really dug being your big brother back in the day when we were little kids, Mink. And I’m gonna do my best to learn how to start digging you—and looking at you—as a sister again. Just a sister .”
Life with the Dominions was turning out to be all that, and I was starting to feel Dallas a lil bit more, but every now and then I missed the fast pace of New York City. I didn’t miss it enough to take my ass back to Harlem and risk running into that fool Gutta, but it was good to have the Dominion Diva waiting right outside, because me, Dane, and Bunni zipped to Miami, Atlanta, and even Los Angeles to party on the regular.
The one thing that had been bugging the shit outta me and Bunni both though, was Peaches. He was living in our old apartment all by himself, and even though I broke him off some real nice ends and sent them to him through Western Union every two weeks, Harlem was a cut-throat town and that nigga Gutta had Peaches bobbin’ and duckin’ and lookin’ over his shoulder left and right because of me.
Bunni got fed up with all that shit, and she just broke down one day and poured her heart out to Viceroy.
“Hey now, Daddy-O,” she told him as he sat in the parlor after work sipping on a stiff one. “I needs me a little hook-up, okay? My brother Paul is up in New York and I miss him a whole lot. This is a real big house. You think he could stay with us for a lil while until I get on my feet and find me a place?”
“Your brother?” Viceroy looked kinda faded. “You want him to come stay here?”
Bunni nodded.
Viceroy picked up his drink and chugged it. “I don’t know, Bunni. We just got rid of a lotta drama up in here you know.”
“Uh-uh!” Bunni blurted. “My brother ain’t about no drama! He’s a man’s man, Papa Doo! For real though! He’s one of the chillest cats I know. C’mon, Pops. Just let him come stay for a little while?”
Viceroy had barely nodded his head good when Bunni plopped her ass down on his lap, grabbed his chin, and put two wet smack-smacks on his cheek.
“Thanks, Papa-Doo! I don’t care what kinda yang your stank daughter Mink be talking about you! You is one cool-ass dude to me!” She hopped off his lap and jetted across the room.
“Just wait till you meet my brother!” she gushed, grinning like hell. “I swear to God you’re gonna love him!”’
Bunni snatched the front door open and hollered, “Yo, Peaches! It’s all good, baby! Papa Viceroy said you can stay! Come on in!”
I almost fell outta my chair when Peaches pranced through the door styling pussy-pink from the top of his Glama-Glo wig all the way down to his big twisted toenails! At six feet five and clocking two-fitty, he stood wobbling in a pair of bright pink drag-queen pumps and his pink satin Fendi dress looked like it had been sewn together from two extra-large tents!
“What the hell?” Viceroy caught a look at him and jumped up off the couch so fast he spilled his drink all over his hand. “This is your goddamn brother?”
“Errm-herrm,” Peaches said, flinging his weave back as he pranced through the door dragging his suitcases and batting his fake eyelashes in a cloud of sweet perfume.
“Your brother?” Viceroy hollered again, and then squinched his eyes closed real tight and hollered, “Damn, damn, damn!”
AND THEN . . .
Viceroy Dominion sat at his desk shuffling through a huge stack of papers. A lot of shit had transpired while he was stretched out in a coma, but he wasn’t the trusting type so no matter how long it took him he was gonna read through every single business document that his company had generated while he was gone.
He glanced around his large, luxurious office. He was a task-master who demanded maximum effort from his staff at all times, and he was surprised to see so many of them were actually happy to have him back.
He looked down at the mess on his desk. There were stacks of get-well cards that he hadn’t gotten a chance to open yet, bouquets of flowers, and boxes of candy from his account holders and business associates. Even the inbox on his e-mail account was jam-packed with virtual good wishes from all over the country.
Viceroy clicked a button and scanned his personal incoming e-mail folder. There were tons of unread messages in his box, but the “from” address on one stood out boldly.
Moving his mouse, he clicked on the e-mail and opened it up. Viceroy frowned as he stared at a photo of a virtual box of limited edition Gurkha Black Dragon cigars that his arch-enemy and major business rival, Rodney Ruddman, had sent him.
“That cheap bastard,” he muttered. A box of the real ones came soaked in cognac and cost over a hundred grand. The seven cigars shown were stacked like a pyramid, with three on each side, and one in the middle.
Suddenly Viceroy leaned toward the computer screen and peered closely at the cigar in the middle. He felt his heart thump. He knew he wasn’t seeing what the fuck he thought he was seeing! He couldn’t have been seeing what he thought he was seeing. He better fuckin’ not be seeing what he thought he was seeing!
He clicked on the “view” tab at the top of his screen and then zoomed in on the picture and magnified it by fifty percent.
And there it was. Selah’s very first engagement ring. The one he had bought her right after he stole his first million dollars. The ring that she claimed she had lost after that trip to New York City. Yep, there it was. Glittering like a muthafucka! Slid halfway down the base of the top cigar like it was still on her goddamn finger!
A look of rage crossed Viceroy’s face when the cold reality that Rodney Ruddman had his wife’s ring hit him and shook him all the way to his bones.
“No the fuck she didn’t!” Viceroy hollered as his blood boiled over. He pushed away from his desk and jumped up so fast that his chair toppled over and fell to the floor behind him.
“I’ma kill that bitch!” he roared as he pictured that fat fuck Ruddman holding Selah’s legs up in the air. Blinded, Viceroy swung his arm in a wide arc and smacked his computer screen right off the desk. The monitor crashed down to the floor and so did his telephone, all his framed photos, about twenty gold-plated pens, and over a thousand sheets of company paper.
Just watch, Selah had once said. I’m gonna pay you back with your worst fucking enemy!
“That dirty rotten liar! I’ma fuck her ass up!” Viceroy screeched, diving off the deep end of fury as he started tossing his whole damn office up. The sound of footsteps storming toward his office rose in the air as his panicked staff rushed in to see what the hell was going on.
“I swear to God I’m gonna kill that bitch!” Viceroy hollered. He stomped his foot and crunched the shit outta him and Selah’s wedding photo as his administrative staff burst through the door and swarmed all around him.
“Y’all better hold me back!” he hollered. “I swear to God y’all better hold me back! ’Cause when I get next to that bitch I’m gonna kill her! I’m gonna fuckin’ kill her!”
A READING GROUP GUIDE
DIRTY ROTTEN LIAR
Noire
About This Guide
The discussion questions that follow are included to
enhance your group’s reading of the book.
Discussion Questions
1. Con-mami Mink LaRue has been on one helluva misadventure. Why in the hell was her “mother” Jude Jackson so bent on Big Moe LaRue? How different do you think Mink’s life would have been if her father had lived?
2. Jude Jackson was the mother of all liars. Was it understandable that she saw a baby who looked like the man she loved and then “snatched her up” so she could give Big Moe something no other woman could give him?
3. How did you feel when you found out that Mink was in that car when Jude drove it off the dock? What kind of woman makes desperate moves just to keep a playa in her pocket?
4. At the age of thirte
en Mink was traumatized and nearly killed by the one person who was supposed to love and protect her above all others. Does that horrible experience explain her “gotta get minez” mentality?
5. Aunt Bibby might have been a trip and a half, but when it came down to Jude’s foolishness, she knew what she was talking about. Was Mink’s aunt just another hatin’-ass LaRue, or was she down for whatever when it came to Mink? Do you think Bibby did the right thing by telling Mink the truth about her birth mother and her twin? Is it possible to love a family member without really liking them all that much?
6. Barron lusted after two things: Mink and money. Was he crazy for dumping Carla and falling for Pilar? And even though he and Pilar weren’t blood related, did the fact that they were breaking down beds throw up flags for you?
7. Pilar was the type of spoiled, conniving diva who thought the world owed her everything. Tell the truth. Were you hollering, “Good for your ass!” when she landed in that wet puddle and found out about Dy-Nasty and Ray?
8. Bunni Baines is a true ride-or-die. She’s Mink’s ace in the hole and her straight-up rowdy. Now that Mink is rich and rolling in cheese, what do you think she should do for Bunni? Tear her off half of her inheritance? Set her up with her own crib and her own business? Bunni definitely earned her stripes. What should she get out of this crazy misadventure?
9. Selah was an elegant and classy socialite. How did you feel when you realized she had a little freak in her and was getting her illegal swerve on? Should she have accepted Rodney’s offer and kicked Viceroy to the curb? Was her fling with Rodney just a physical thing? Do you want to see her and Viceroy get past their little bedroom issue and get to tearing up some sheets?
10. You could tell that Viceroy had bumped his head from the minute he woke up, and it seems like he got up just in time too. What kind of changes do you think he should make at Dominion Oil? He’s been kind of moody lately and it seems like he’s reverted back to his good old hood days. Since the Dominions are stupid rich and they’ll never run out of money, is it time for Viceroy to step out of the way and let somebody else take over so he can chase his wife and count his cash?
11. Smoove Uncle Suge is a real bronco-buster. Mink is really feeling this dude and he’s damn sure feeling her too. Now that Mink is family, is their little love thang out the window? When did it go from being just sex to “a whole lot more” between the two of them, and should a little DNA test stand in the way of true love?
12. Dy-Nasty got totally busted in all her little schemes, and when she was declared to be Sable, she gave everybody, especially Mink, her ass to kiss. True, she was a fraudster, a grifter, and a dirty rotten liar, but she wasn’t no worse than Mink! What do you want to see happen to Dy-Nasty now that the feds have knocked her? Should somebody in the family feel sorry for her and help pull her ass out of a hole, or should she catch the maximum charge possible and get flushed straight down the pipes?
13. At the end of this misadventure, Mink finds herself paid out the ass and living the good life. No more stripping, no more capers, no more scandalous double-crossing schemes are required. How do you think living in luxury and having endless loot will affect her? Will con-mami Mink LaRue change her ways and elevate up out of the trenches, or will her mind-set—and her hustle—stay grimy forever?
What happens when beautiful, twenty-year-old petty thief
and ex-stripper Mink LaRue finds out she’s a dead ringer
for the age-progressed photo of the missing oil heiress
Sable Dominion?
Find out in
Natural Born Liar
by Noire
Turn the page for an excerpt from Natural Born Liar. . . .
CHAPTER 1
The Rip-Off
Pussy sold for pennies on the dollar on Friday nights in Harlem, and if you were looking for a couple of hot whirly-whirlies, then Club Wood was damn sure the place to be. Located on a busy corner off 125th Street, Wood stayed packed out with coochie-sniffin’ niggas who were deep on the prowl, and some of the baddest bitches in the city of New York stripped, danced, and hosted private fuck-fests in the club’s back rooms.
I had twirled around the strip poles earlier in the day, but I was taking the night off so I could collect some dough from a mark that me and my best friends, Peaches and Bunni, had recently ganked.
We’d schemed up a plan to lure a switch-hittin’ old head into a motel room, then we snapped a bunch of shots of him sporting a sexy red bra and taking some real thick pipe up his ass.
Dude was a high-profile principal at a private boys’ school and he didn’t want no trouble. He didn’t want no publicity neither, and in less than five minutes he had agreed to give up twenty g’s to stop a picture of his hairy balls from being posted to his teenaged daughter’s Facebook page.
The lick had gone down perfectly, and I was chillin’ at the bar sipping slut juice and congratulating myself for a job well done when outta nowhere I caught a funny vibe.
Something wasn’t right.
I got the feeling I was being watched. I had a bag full of blackmail dough slung over my shoulder, and something in my gut told me to get the fuck up outta Dodge.
I slid down from the barstool and broke for the door, but Hova’s latest banga came on, and every pole freak in the house broke out in a mass stanky stroll. The strippers jumped down from the stage and hit the floor rolling hard, booties twerkin’, hips grindin’, stroking their pussies and sending a wave of horny niggas rushing down the aisles straight toward me.
WHO GON’ STOP ME? WHO GON’ STOP ME, HUH?
I crashed into about thirty sweaty niggas as I pushed through the crowd and tried to fight my way outside. I was shaking fools offa me left and right as their horny asses pulled me in all directions and tried to feel me up. A few of my regular customers offered to get me toasted, some wanted me to slide over in the corner so we could smoke some yay, and even more begged me to go in the back room and hit ’em with my patented-move, double-hump lap dance.
Somehow I made it past them, and I was this close to getting my ass outta there when a strong hand clamped down on my shoulder and a deep voice boomed, “Excuse me, ma’am.”
I almost shit. I didn’t know if I should turn around swinging or make another break for the door, but I knew I was busted. The twenty racks I had just hustled from that principal felt like a ton of bricks weighing down my bag. This was supposed to be an easy little gank, and I couldn’t believe that greasy old dick-rider had called the cops on me!
Getting arrested was gonna be a real big problem for me. I was already on probation for writing bad checks, and a thousand lies flew through my head as I thought about the bus ride to Rikers I was about to take.
“I said, excuse me, ma’am,” the voice boomed behind me again, “but is your name Nicki Minaj?”
I spun around so fast my pink-and-blond Chinese bangs swished across my forehead. I eyeballed the hand that was still gripping my shoulder. It sported a five-thousand-dollar platinum Versace ring on the pinkie finger, and I’d seen that fourteen-thousand-dollar Rolex Prince Cellini on sale at a jewelry store on Broadway.
“Oh! My bad.” Dude busted a grin as he checked me out. I was styling pussy-pink from the top of my Glama-Glo wig all the way down to my toenails, and it was real obvious that he was feeling my flow. “You look just like Mizz Minaj from the back, but you’re even finer than she is in the face.”
I stunted on him. I was a con-mami, a pole dancer, and under the right circumstances I could be a big-ass thief. A chick like me had ninety-nine hustles but a rap star wasn’t one of ’ em.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I checked him out right back. Dude was handling his. He had pretty brown skin and real white teeth. His dome was freshly-lined and he stood at least six-five.
My eyes rolled over his gear as I added up his digits. Chocolate-brown Polo shirt, baggy jeans, Cool Grey Jordans. Uh-huh. He was thuggin’ it and I was lovin’ it. Papa was stackin’ some real mean paper and he wasn�
��t shy about flossin’ it. I could almost see the fat money knots swelling up in his pockets and the hard piece of wood that was starting to rock up in his drawers too.
“I’m serious.” He grinned again and hit me with his dimples. “I didn’t mean no disrespect, shawty. You just look so damn fly, so damn . . . New York. For real. My bad.”
His mistake was understandable because my shit was put together super-tight. I was rocking Fendi from my diamond-trimmed pink shades down to my tight pink miniskirt. My jewelry was pink mother-of-pearls from Tiffany’s, and my pink-polished toenails looked nice and suckable in my peep-toe heels.
“No problem.” I grinned and played it sexy-classy. “Men take me for Nicki Minaj all the time.”
“Hell, yeah, with that kinda body I bet the fuck they do,” he growled. His voice was full of mad appreciation as he introduced himself. “My name is Dajuan,” he said. “Dajuan Latrell Sullivan. What’s yours?”
“They call me Tasha,” I lied, sliding my shades off so he could peep my hazel eyes. “Tasha Pierce.”
“Look, I don’t mean to come at you, Tasha, but I’m just visiting here tonight. Me and my brother own a club in Philly and we’re thinking about opening up a joint around here pretty soon too. You look like you know this city. Can I buy you a drink so we can kick it for a while?”
A businessman? A club owner? I was definitely down for that!
“Nah, I don’t think so,” I fronted. “I don’t drink with strange dudes. For all I know you could be the Harlem River Strangler.”
He laughed and pulled out a business card. “I’m a balla, not a killer,” he said, passing it to me. “That’s real talk. Look, I ain’t tryna push up on you, I just want some good conversation, that’s all. I ain’t askin’ you for no lap dance or nothing like that. I got a nice little spot over in the VIP joint, and we can have a few drinks together and then I’ll have my driver drop you off anywhere you wanna go. You feelin’ that?”
