“Goddamn, y’all really were busy last night.”
Charlie bobs his head. “Problem is we found him alive, but he took a bullet during a battle. I think he’s going to be all right.”
“What?”
“Nigga Python showed up and the kid got caught up in the middle.”
“Fuuuuuuck. You know Skeet is gonna go on a warpath over that shit.”
“Long as it’s directed at those GD roaches, I don’t give a shit.”
Charlie walks back over to the baby. “Hey, lil man. What are you fussin’ about, huh?” He grins and then tweaks the baby’s nose.
To my shock and surprise, the volume of the baby’s cries dials down.
“I gotta tell you,” Charlie whispers. “If I had my sister for a babysitter, I’d be hollering, too.” He glances around. “Where are the diapers?”
Hell, if he wants to change him, I ain’t gonna stop him. “By the closet,” I tell him, nodding toward the grocery store bags I picked up coming home last night.
Charlie snatches up the bags and then spots the pile of bloody clothes I took off last night. “What the fuck?”
I rush over to kick them out of the way, but it’s too late.
He picks up my blood-soaked shirt and then stabs me with a hard look. “What the fuck were you doing last night?” His gaze slices back over to the drawer. “And whose baby is that?”
8
Lucifer
Drugs are a wonderful thing.
Back at my crib, I don’t know what the fuck Dr. Cleveland gave me, but it has my ass high as hell. The best part is that I don’t feel a thing. Not a damn thing. Frankly, that’s exactly how I like it. Now if he just had something in his magic bag that would help me forget. It feels like I’ve been propped up in the bed forever, the memory of that car accident playing over and over in my head.
“How she doin’, doc?” Bishop’s gravelly voice floats above me.
“Remarkably well.”The doc sighs. “She’s a lucky girl.”
“Humph. Better hope that she doesn’t hear you calling her that.”
“Lucky?”
“No—a girl.”
I attempt to push up a smile at my brother’s bad joke, but can’t. I doubt if I’ll ever be able to smile again.
“A broken leg, a broken arm, and a couple of cracked ribs . . .” The doctor sighs. “. . . but she’ll live.” He snaps his bag closed.
“Good deal.” Relief floods Bishop’s voice.
“As for you,” the doctor adds. “You look like hell. When was the last time you slept?”
“Sleep is not an option right now.”
“I can give you a sleeping aid if you’re having trouble.”
“Nah. That legal shit is worse than what we sling on the streets. I’m a’ight.”
“You may be right about that.” Cleveland chuckles. “But uh—”
“Yeah. Yeah. My man Tyrese got that brick for you in the other room,” Bishop tells him. “You know we’re always gonna hook you up.”
The doctor laughs as he drifts toward the door. “It’s good doin’ business with you.”
“Same here.” Bishop follows, slapping a hand across Cleveland’s back for a job well done. “I’ll be in touch.” He ushers him out and then shuts the door.
“All right. You can stop pretending that you’re asleep,” he tells me, reaching inside his jacket and removing a pre-rolled blunt and lighting up.
“How did you know?” I ask, opening my eyes.
“’Cuz nobody knows you better than I do.” He draws in a deep drag and then holds the shit in his lungs.
With Mason gone, he’s right. I drop my gaze.
Bishop releases his toke and shakes his head. “Yo, man. All this shit feels fuckin’ surreal. Big man gone . . . I just . . . fuck!” He runs a hand through his low-shaved head. “It ain’t supposed to be like this.”
“It is what it is,” I say, tryna hide behind a brave face.
“Don’t do that shit,” Bishop warns. “Not now. Not about our boy.”
My gaze cuts back up at him. “Let me guess.You rather we sit around in this muthafucka and throw ourselves a pity party while Python and his roaches are out there preparing Armageddon. C’mon, Juvon. We ain’t got time for tears.”
Bishop’s gaze rakes me. I probably look a sight with two casts and my chest wrapped like a fuckin’ mummy.
“You’re cold, Willow. Always have been.” He takes another long drag.
“I’ma gangsta bitch.”
“So you keep reminding me,” he says, looking disappointed. “I thought that after you and Mason hooked up—”
“Don’t.” I want to shut this shit down now. “My business is my business. I thought that was something you understood a long time ago.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Mason told me about your cock-blockin’.”
“Sheeeeiiit.” Bishop exhales another long stream of smoke. “You’re going to blame all that shit on me? Hell, I tried to stop your ass from doing a whole lot of shit. I don’t recall none of that stopping you from doing whatever fucked up shit that crosses your mind. Don’t put that bullshit on me.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah. Whatever.” He takes a couple of more tokes. “Since you want to discuss business, I sent Tombstone and Red to the hospital to pick up Profit. We need everybody close to home. NahwhatImean?”
“What—you’re giving out orders now?” I force myself to sit up in the bed, grateful that the drugs continue to dull my pain.
Bishop tosses up his hands. “Here we go.”
“What? I’m just asking a question.”
“No. You’re ego trippin’. Ain’t nobody tryna cross your toes.You weren’t up to making decisions at the time and the shit needed to be done. End of story.”
I stare him down.
“What?”
I shake my head. “You forget. Just like you claim to know me, I know you.” That shuts him up while we engage in another staring contest.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Come in,” I bark.
Red opens the door and pokes his head inside. “Yo, man. We’re back.”
“You got Profit with you?”
Red nods.
Despite my gangster act, my heart drops clear down to my knees. Am I ready to deal with this emotional shit with Mason’s little brother? No.
“Bring him in,” Bishop says.
I cut him another look.
“If that’s all right with you,” he adds.
“We’ll continue this conversation later,” I promise Bishop and then shift my attention back to Red who was waiting for my say-so. “Bring him in.”
Red disappears behind the door and then, a second later, he rolls Profit and his wheelchair into the room.
The tension in the room vanishes and is replaced with a sad awkwardness. I have a hard time meeting Profit’s large, caramel-brown eyes, but when I do, I see that he already heard the news.
“Bishop, give us a few minutes.”
Instead of moving, my brother twists up his face.
This shit is confirmation that my ass ain’t paranoid. Bishop is calculating how he’s going to make a play for the throne. Fuck. I can hear the wheels squeaking in his head. “Are you waiting for me to ask you again?”
Clamping his jaw tight, Bishop shuffles toward the door but stops for a few seconds to squeeze one of Profit’s large shoulders in solidarity.
My brows stretch while I wonder whether he has a hearing problem.
“I’ll be outside,” he says, and then takes his time strolling toward the door.
I nearly gnaw my tongue off waiting for my brother to complete his long walk out of the room.When the door closes behind him, my gaze shifts to Profit. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen him. The last time, he was laid up in the hospital after surviving sixteen rounds. He and Mason had that Superman shit down pat.
“You look like hell,” Profit croaks, looking me over.
>
“You’re one to talk,” I tell him, since it looks like he’s lost thirty pounds on what was already a lean six-three frame. It’s easy to see why he’s turned all the Flowers’ heads. He’s a pretty boy, complete with a butterscotch complexion, silky-wavy hair, and dimples.
He looks nothing like Mason.
Most know that the two weren’t really brothers, since the junkie who’d raised them was as white as the fresh driven snow and Mason was one shade lighter than crude oil. But the two were raised together and that made them brothers—and the love between them was stronger than blood.
During my own investigation, I’d learned Mason’s real mother was an even worse junkie who’d put Mason in an oven when he was a baby. Her dealer, Cousin Smokestack, found him there and took him away from her while she was wasted on the couch. He and his girlfriend, Dribbles, laid claim and raised him as their own. But I have strong reason to believe that Mason’s real father is Smokestack’s brother, Cousin Skeet, who is none other than the Captain of the Memphis Police Department. That big secret complicates shit because it means that prior to falling into my bed, Mason had been fucking his own sister. I hope I’m wrong about that shit.
“I want Python dead,” Profit says.
I nod. “He’s a dead man walking and don’t even know it. Trust and believe.”
“Y’all keep talking that fat shit and nothing ever fuckin’ happens,” Profit snaps back.
“Look, Profit—”
“Nah.You look. Y’all been gunning for this nigga for years and every fuckin’ time, he slithers away. We look like a joke to that pussy muthafucka! Hell. Him and his bitch has come at me TWICE and they’re still walking the streets. Now they done stole my brother’s body and you want to spit more promises,” he roars. “I ain’t tryna hear that shit. I want him—NOW. Don’t tell me what the fuck you’re gonna do, do the shit.”
The more he barks, the more heated I get. “Check your tone,” I warn.
“How about you go fuck yourself?” he charges back, and then wheels his chair around with his long arms.
“Profit . . .”
He ignores me and snatches open the door.
“Profit, we need to finish talking.”
“I’m finished talking,” he growls. “Since y’all muthafuckas can’t do shit, I’ll handle this nigga myself.” He rolls out of the door.
“That went well,” I mumble under my breath.
Tyrese knocks on the open door and rushes in before I answer. “Yo, man.You need to check this shit out.” He rushes to the television set in the corner and turns it on to the news.
“What’s going on?” Bishop asks, returning to the room.
Seeking to calm the citizens of Memphis rattled by a wave of crime last night, Mayor Wharton and his new police chief, Yvette Brown, ramped up the tough talk saying that they are going to flood the streets with police during a full-court press to combat crime.
The city’s leaders gathered at City Hall in the wake of a violent and chaotic twenty-four-hour period in which an unprecedented fifty-two people were killed by gunfire.
“We want to make it clear that we are taking to the streets. We are going after these criminals with an intensity that has not been seen in some time. This violence will not be tolerated.”
The footage on the screen switches to a nighttime recording of a car chase on the old Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.
Caught on camera is a car chase turned deadly. One of the vehicles seen here is believed to belong to FBI-wanted felon, Terrell Carver. He is most recently wanted in connection with the shooting death of police officer Melanie Johnson and the kidnapping of her son, Christopher. The son was found last night in West Memphis through an anonymous tip.
I block out the rest of what the reporter is saying and stare in shock at the shaky footage. Python’s Monte Carlo is being chased by Dougie’s SUV. Sparks of gunfire are even seen on the tape. They both zoom over the bridge when suddenly Dougie clips the tail, spinning Python around. Then footage gets confusing and there’s a lot of flipping. A third car is hit, and then an explosion and all three cars tumble off the bridge into the Mississippi River below.
“Oh. Fuck!” Mason.
“Holy shit!” Bishop says from behind me.
“Turn it off,” I order, feeling myself getting sick.
Tyrese shuts it off and then we all stare at each other.
Mason and now Dougie.
“Get out.”
Tyrese and Bishop stare at me.
“I said GET THE FUCK OUT!” I grab the water pitcher next to the bed with my good arm and throw it at them.
They duck and then scramble out, closing the door behind them. A second later, a tear skips down my face.
9
Alice
“Yes! Yes! Fuck me, you nasty muthafucka. Oh, fuuuuck meeeeee!” My eyes roll around in my head. This nigga’s dick got my pussy creaming. The last thing my old ass needs is a young buck that wants to lay up in some pussy all day, but after this muthafucka proved his ass wasn’t all talk and helped me with the job last night, I’m going to feed his ass all the pussy he can handle.
“Aw. Sheeeiiit, baby. I’m comin’,” he announces, rotating his hips.
My pussy squirts while I start talking in tongues—which tickles me because I’ve never been inside nobody’s church.
“You love this dick, baby? Hmmm?”
“You know it.” I throw everything I got back at him. I watch as his handsome face twists in ecstasy. A second later, he pulls out his glazed dick and candy-coats my pink pussy.
Afterwards, he crawls down the bed and laps all that good shit up. Turns out, the nigga’s dick action ain’t got shit on his head game. Oh. My. God. “Oooh, sheeeiiiit.” I cream and squirt. But my new man gobbles it up until we get stuck on an endless cycle. Exhausted, I beg him to stop so I can catch my breath.
At long last, he takes pity on me and climbs back up my body.
“Kiss me,” he orders, and then shares our essence with me. I ain’t gonna lie. We’re sweet as hell.
After a nap and a shower, I make my way to the living room to see if there’s anything on television about the job we pulled last night. I click the TV on and a blast from the past, Captain Melvin Johnson, fills the screen with a reporter trying to shove a microphone under his mouth. How this crooked muthafucka still got a job is beyond me. It’s no secret that he’s a stick-up nigga with a badge and a VL through and through. He gets his people the best shit because he robs all the good connects.
Supercop my ass.
Caught on camera is a car chase turned deadly. One of the vehicles seen here is believed to belong to FBI-wanted felon, Terrell Carver. He is most recently wanted in connection with the shooting death of police officer Melanie Johnson and the kidnapping of her son, Christopher. The son was found last night in West Memphis through an anonymous tip. He suffered a bullet to the shoulder and is expected to pull through.
“What the fuck?”
The cameras cut to the image of an older black woman sitting out on her porch with a head full of hair rollers.
“Everybody knows the truth of what’s goin’ on out here—and it’s time somebody put a stop to it. People can’t even step out of their front door no more in fear of these kids out here shootin’ all the time. I’m sick of it. We got buildings blowing up, car chases and bullets flying into people’s house. Somebody got to do somethin’ about this.” She shakes her head as her mouth curls in disgust. “You can’t tell me we ain’t living in the last days. People have just gone damn crazy.”
The camera returns to the news reporter and Captain Johnson’s picture is replaced with a face I know very well. My son,Terrell. I turn up the volume.
We have yet to confirm that Terrell Carver is the driver of this ’77 Monte Carlo. The Federal Bureau of Investigation remains on a citywide manhunt for him. If you have information about Mr. Carver’s whereabouts, please call . . .
I shut off the television and try to make sense of wh
at I’d just heard. Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t one of those clueless mommas who think her baby is some kind of angel—but kidnapping and shooting some little boy? What the fuck did Maybelline teach his ass? I block out my own failings as a mother to my other little boy, Mason. They say I sold him for a few rocks, but I don’t buy that. I would never be that fucked up to do something like that. Never. Maybelline was behind that shit, I know it. Her trifling ass couldn’t stand the fact that I could have babies and she couldn’t. That’s why all her niggas found their way to my bed.
I shut off the television and try to digest the news, but it’s all too much. I got questions—a lot of questions, but after escaping the crazy house, I can’t just stroll my ass into a police station for a one-on-one with Melvin’s crooked ass.
“The FBI,” my boo says, coming up behind me and shaking his head. “I hate to say it, but Python is always in the middle of some shit.”
I give him the shut-the-fuck-up look.
“What?” He shrugs. “What did I say?”
“That’s my baby you’re talking about.” I mean-mug his ass and mush his face. “Have some fuckin’ respect.” Just because this nigga can throw some good dick around don’t mean that he can talk out the side of his neck.
He smirks but tosses up his hands. “A’ight. Whatever.”
I catch an attitude. “What are you trying to say?”
“I didn’t say shit. I just came out here to see what you were cooking for breakfast.”
“Cooking?” I look him up and down. “Is there something wrong with your hands? I don’t fuck and feed niggas. If you’re hungry then go and fix you something to eat.”
He stares at me like I’d slapped the shit out of him. When he sees that my shit is for real, he backs up. “Damn. It’s like that?”
My expression doesn’t change. What the fuck do I look like?
Shaking his head, he turns and walks away, but not without adding, “That shit’s foul. You could at least make a nigga a sandwich . . . or some flapjacks.”
Flapjacks? “What the fuck did you just say?”
He keeps marching toward the kitchen.
“Nigga, you hear me.” I rush after him into the kitchen and get in his face. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?” Boo stares at me, looking stupid. “All right then, roll your mute ass up out of here.”
Gangsta Divas Page 5
