by Anna J.
He held the needle up before her face and pressed on the plunger, watching as the liquid squirted out of the sharp tip. The pinch of the needle caused her dream to switch back to her teens. She was sitting in Gershwin Park with Dawn, watching a basketball game between a Brownsville and an East New York team. They were cheering for their neighborhood team when a voice from behind startled her.
“Take the necklace and watch off. Don’t turn around, or I’ll clap you.”
Mecca felt the gun against her back. From the corner of her eye she saw Dawn reach over to her and remove the earrings and necklace. Confusion spread in her mind as to why Dawn was helping them rob her.
“You always thought you was all that,” she said with a smile.
Then Mecca heard a shot. She ducked as the crowd scrambled and screams could be heard everywhere. When she got up, Lou stood in front of her with a spent casing in his hand. He looked at the bullet and simply said, “A few more inches to the left and it would have pierced your brain. Don’t play with death, Mecca.”
Mecca awoke with Ruby shaking her arm.
“Mecca, get up, girl. You got to see the doctor today.”
“What time is it?” Wiping the cold from her eyes, she yawned and responded in her groggy morning voice. Ruby took a quick glimpse at her watch.
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning. C’mon. Your appointment is at nine thirty. Whoever this guy Lou is you’re dreaming about must got some good sex,” Ruby continued as she walked out of the room.
Mecca was shocked.
The very same morning, Karmen opened up the store, and he walked in. He wore a black, sleeveless Sean John sweater over a white, short-sleeved, collared shirt. Karmen stared at his black jeans from behind, admiring his physique. He was one of the finest men she had seen in a long time. His creamy complexion was smooth and flawless; his jet-black hair was silky and curly, with a sharp line up from his forehead to his five o’clock shadow. His eyes were a pretty brown, and when he approached the glass partition, his voice was harmoniously deep and sexy.
“Do you have any eggnog?” Miguel Sanchez asked. Karmen snapped out of her infatuated daze and answered.
“Yeah, all the way in the back. I’ll show you.”
She quickly came from behind the glass and walked Miguel to the freezer, making sure she walked in front of him so he could get a glimpse of her voluptuous measurements. It didn’t take long for him to assess Karmen’s goods. Her blue denim jeans hugged her frame like a leotard on a ballet dancer.
Opening the freezer, she grabbed the eggnog and turned to hand it to him. She almost bumped into him as they came face-to-face. She could smell his cologne, and Karmen felt herself become wet between her thighs. His six feet made his chest come almost near her face, and she could see he was in good shape.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping back and taking the eggnog.
“It’s nothing.” She blushed.
She knew she had to say something to him. She would kick herself in the ass if she let him get away. That was her motto in life. “Don’t let a good opportunity pass, because you will regret it.” The last time a man made her wet just by the way he looked was a long time ago, and he was no longer alive. She had to have this one.
“Are you from around here?” she asked as she was walking back toward the door that led behind the counter.
“Yes, I am. I just returned from overseas, playing basketball,” he replied. “By the way, my name is Miguel.”
“I’m Karmen.”
She was satisfied, she had accomplished her goal. She got him to stay awhile and talk. She learned that he was originally from the Bronx. He was of Panamanian descent, and he lived by himself in an apartment around the corner from the store.
“I heard a lot about this store,” he said, giving her a grin.
“Yeah? What have you heard?” Karmen asked curiously. She hoped that he wasn’t one of those guys who looked down on a woman for hustling to get a dollar by any means except for degrading herself by selling her body. Though, Karmen didn’t knock the hustle.
Miguel’s smile grew wider. “I heard good things, and I’m wondering if I can get a sample.” His dimples made her melt. She gave him a jar of the best weed they had in the store. “When do you get off of work?”
“Later tonight,” she answered.
“Cool. Here’s my address... .”
Later that night the two of them couldn’t wait to rip each other’s clothes off in Miguel’s simply decorated apartment. They didn’t even make it to his bed when they kissed each other passionately, removing their clothing at the same time, stopping only to pull shirts over their heads. Karmen rubbed his ripped abdomen and felt the harness of his athletic body. He picked her up off her feet, kissing her while she guided his thick manhood inside her creamy walls.
“Ay, Poppy!” she moaned as he put her back against a small closet door and slowly moved his hips, feeling the warmth of her insides grip his shaft. The tightness made him grit his teeth. He walked over to a couch, still holding her, and then laid her on her back, pushing himself deeper in her middle.
“Shit, Miguel! I’m coming, baby!” Her juices soaked his pole and pubic hairs. She scratched his back as orgasm after orgasm pulsed through her body.
In every position from doggy style to her riding him, she felt as if she no longer owned her body. It was his to do as he pleased. To spice up the sex, Karmen even let him give her anal pleasure, which she hollered all the way through. After three ejaculations from him and countless orgasms from her, they finally rested in each other’s arms on the carpeted living-room floor, with Miguel staring at the ceiling fan .
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Karmen asked while catching her breath.
“No. Why?”
Karmen smiled. “You do now.”
Chapter Five
With her enticing speech she caused him to yield, with her flattering lips she seduced him.
—Proverbs 7:21
“Has that ever happened before, Daphne?”
“Not since I been home. The thing is, if it were a random robbery, I would take the loss. But these people knew exactly where the stuff was at,” Daphne replied angrily as she and Ruby sat at Ruby’s kitchen table, discussing the holdup. Daphne was convinced it wasn’t Andrea who had set it up, because when she arrived at the restaurant, Andrea was too shaken for it to be an act. Plus she trusted her. Andrea was extremely loyal to Daphne due to Daphne’s loyalty to her brother and family. After seeing Andrea like that, Daphne told her to take off as long as she needed, while she got to the bottom of things.
Immediately word went out around Crown Heights that whoever had information on who pulled the heist would get a hefty reward. The loss was nothing to Daphne; however, it was a matter of principle. A lesson had to be taught.
“Can you think of anybody who would do this? A past enemy or jealous hater that would take it there?” Ruby asked, sipping a hot cup of coffee. Her question reminded Daphne of a lesson Marley had always reminded her of when he said, “There are no friends in the game, baby. Matters of the heart have no place with matters of greed.” Once again, Daphne had a feeling that his words would prove prophetic.
“None that I can think of.”
Mecca walked in, sliding her slippers across the tiled kitchen floor, wearing a black silk two-piece pajama set and scarf on her head. Instantly, both Ruby and Daphne stopped discussing the robbery.
“Wassup, Mecca?” Daphne asked, happy to see her. “What you doing tonight, girl? You got to go out on the town and hit a club with me! You with it?”
Mecca thought about her invite while looking in the cupboard for a box of cereal. Then, as if someone had cut a light on in Mecca’s head, she turned and smiled. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
That night, while Mecca and Daphne went to the club, Ruby drove over to Crown Heights to drop off a package to Karmen at the store. Listening to Heather Headley’s voice bang through the car’s sound system, Ruby was in deep thought ab
out the robbery of Daphne’s restaurant. The whole thing reminded her of the time her spots in Brownsville were being robbed daily. At one time, she thought it was just random, but she found out it was the old cat named Stone. A hustler turned addict she had employed as a lookout and to give out packages to the workers. He was allowing the spots to get robbed by a crew he feared. Tah Gunz’s crew.
The last thing Ruby wanted to think was that Daphne could be behind the setup. Ruby knew you couldn’t control the way someone might think, but if you took control of the situation, then you could persuade people to see things your way. She knew that she had to find out who was behind the robbery, for her sake and Daphne’s. If Daphne started showing any signs of mistrust toward Ruby, she would act first before Daphne made a move. Damn! It was never a smooth ride in the game.
Ruby walked in the store with a plastic shopping bag containing the package of weed Karmen called for. The store was unusually empty, and Karmen stood behind the glass partition with a strange look on her face. Her sisters weren’t chatting in front of the store with a group of guys, as was their normal routine, nor were they standing around inside the store, watching the small TV they had installed behind the cold-meat counter.
The sound of a gun being cocked was all she heard, followed by, “You want to drop the bag and put your hands up, and don’t try to be a superhero, or you’ll end up super dead.”
Ruby did as she was told.
“Turn around,” the voice commanded.
Slowly, Ruby turned around, and she saw Karmen being led out from behind the counter by a man in a black mask, leather peacoat, holding a shotgun to her back. Out the side of her eye, she saw Karmen’s two sisters being brought out from the back of the store by another masked man, holding what looked like an AK-47.
“Boss lady, you gonna open up the safe in the back and give us what we came for,” the guy holding the gun to Ruby said in a low growl.
Listening carefully, she tried to recognize the voice, but after thirteen years of being off the streets, how could she? Knowing where the safe was hidden was an indication that these guys knew either her, Karmen, or her sisters. They had to know them, because only they knew there was a safe hidden inside one of the freezers, covered by juices and milk. Ruby didn’t believe in coincidences. First, Daphne’s restaurant, then the store. She ruled out Karmen because she knew nothing about Daphne’s restaurant. Who are these people? she wondered as she walked to the safe.
As Ruby walked, she mumbled to the guy, “I’ll pay you double the amount you’re getting out of this if you tell me who sent you.”
The guy chuckled and then put the gun to her ear. “Listen, bitch, live or die. That’s the only options round here right now.”
Since Ruby just got out of jail, she was nervous about carrying guns. Added with the ever-present sight of the NYPD everywhere you went in New York City as a result of Mayor Giuliani’s crusade against the city’s criminal world, she wished she had hers on her now. These guys didn’t even bother searching her. Just another indication that this was an inside job.
When it was over, the guys made out of the store with ten thousand dollars’ worth of weed that Ruby had in her bag and thirty thousand in cash from the safe. Not to mention the thousand in the cash register from the sale of groceries. Karmen and her sisters were crying and shaken up, just as Andrea was. Ruby was infuriated.
“Ya’ll stop bitching! You’re alive! Go home and sleep it off. I’ll call you tomorrow, Karmen.”
Walking out of the store, Ruby hopped into her whip and sped off. She didn’t know where she was driving to; she just drove in deep thought. She guessed it was a natural instinct of hers from the time she ruled the rugged streets she grew up on, but her aimless driving had her wind up in her native Brownsville.
When she looked at the street signs that read Rockaway Avenue and Livonia Avenue , she asked herself, What am I doing here? She knew she would need to buy an arsenal, and what better place to get something hot than Brownsville? Someone referred her to an apartment in the Brownsville Houses where a person could buy any kind of gun they wanted. That someone was Mecca.
Being back in Brownsville brought back so many memories for her. The thugs on the corners, the loud young girls on project benches, the kids in playgrounds, and the sight of police cruisers speeding down avenues reminded her of the good ole days.
When she entered the building, a blunt-smoking crew of young, do-rag- and oversized-clothes-wearing guys paused from their animated conversations about the hottest rapper out to stare lustfully, skeptically, and questionably at the thick, sexy Ruby in a pair of form-hugging jeans and a black and blue North Face. The Halle Berry haircut fit her facial features, but to some of the young cats, it spelled dike.
Ruby knocked on the door. The sound of music blasted from apartments. The familiar project hallway smelled of customary old urine, paint from a freshly painted elevator door, and burning garbage from the incinerator. Yes, the good ole days. A frail, shirtless teenager answered the door. Looking at him, Ruby thought he was probably five years old when I got locked up.
“What’s good, Ma?” the rotten-toothed kid asked, sticking his nappy head out of the door and looking around skeptically.
“I need some steel,” Ruby stated.
“You police?” the kid asked.
Ruby smirked. “If I was, I would have been ran up in there. No, I’m not police. Ask an older person in that crib about Ruby from Langston Hughes.”
Upon hearing the name, the kid’s eyes lit up. Everyone in Brownsville had heard of the notorious female gangster Ruby, and everyone had heard she was back on the streets. He stepped back, holding the door open to invite her in. Entering the small apartment, she quickly inhaled the always present aroma of weed smoke. The house was so smoky, she thought she would be stoned out of her mind by the time she left. There was barely any furniture in the apartment, nothing but a couch that was so dirty, you couldn’t tell its original color, a glass coffee table littered with ashtrays and stains from both food and ashes, and a stereo system. Two guys sat on the filthy couch; one was asleep with his mouth open, and the other was smoking a blunt. When he looked at Ruby, his eyes were squinted and as red as a blood-soaked gauze.
“Yo, Mo!” the teen who answered the door yelled.
“Yo, what’s up!” A tall, lanky guy entered the living room, looked at Ruby. He immediately recognized her from back in the days when he ran with Tah’s stickup crew. He remembered they would stick up her spots, until Tah Gunz fell in love with her niece. She was a legend, but only in the eighties. Those days were gone. Mo Blood wondered what she was doing here. Did she know who he was?
“What you looking for, Ma?” Mo asked, hiding his nervousness with a cocky appearance.
“I’m looking for some guns. I was told this is the spot.”
Mo lit up a cigarette. Inhaled and then spoke. “And who told you that?”
“That’s not here or there. Y’all got what I need or not?” Ruby replied with a cocky tone of her own. She knew she could have gone to Daphne to get guns, but her pride wouldn’t let her depend on Daphne for everything. She was used to being independent and in charge. So she decided to get what she needed on her own accord.
“Any kind in particular?” Mo asked.
When the purchase was final, Ruby, with the help of Mo Blood and two other goons, carried two duffel bags down to her Benz. Mo Blood admired the car enviously and realized that she didn’t waste any time doing her thing. Niggas been hustling for years and couldn’t even cop a decent set of wheels. Ruby spent ten thousand in cash on two AK-47s, an AR-15, three .50-caliber Desert Eagles, and a .40-caliber handgun.
“If you’re with it, I can get you the best weed in Brooklyn. My prices are good,” Ruby told Mo before she got in the car.
“We’ll talk. You got a way I can reach you?”
Ruby reached in the glove compartment, removed a pen, and wrote her cell phone number down. As she was handing the number to Mo, a man i
n a second-floor apartment had a camcorder aimed at both of them. Their every movement was captured and recorded on tape. He even caught her speeding off.
“I ain’t never been that scared in my life, I swear,” Karmen said as she sat in Ruby’s living room, telling Mecca the details of the robbery, while Miguel sat beside her on a brown suede couch.
Mecca simply acted like she was listening enthusiastically, but she couldn’t get how good-looking Miguel was out of her mind. Being in a coma and recovering from it had definitely put a dent in her sex life. And with so much on her mind, she hadn’t had the time to think of a man’s company. Yet seeing Miguel made all those feelings of wanting to be held and made love to by a strong man surface.
Even though she was lusting over Karmen’s new boyfriend, Mecca didn’t feel guilty. Images of Karmen and Shamel sleeping together kept entering her mind, and that made lusting over Miguel all the more justifiable. Now she was thinking of the challenge of getting him in bed.
Her glares didn’t go unnoticed by Miguel, either. When he first laid eyes on her, he found it hard to believe that she had just come out of a coma after being shot in the head. She was absolutely beautiful. Yes, Karmen was, too, but in an “around-the-way girl” way. Mecca, on the other hand, had an aura of sexy classiness. When she looked at a person, it was as if she were staring into the person’s soul. He admired her ability to listen more than she talked. He couldn’t say that about Karmen: she babbled all day long about things that didn’t interest him. Sure, the sex was good, but her personality became boring. She wasn’t a challenge.
Mecca, on the other hand, reminded him of his mother. Same golden complexion, same sexy eyes. The graceful manner in which she walked and talked. At the same time, she wasn’t a pushover. A man had to tread carefully with her. She reeked of independence.
“It’s all part of the game, Karmen,” Mecca said.
Karmen excused herself to go to the bathroom, while Mecca and Miguel remained in the living room. She pulled out a deck of cards from her pants pocket and looked at him. “Do you play tunk?”
