Riding Dirty on I-95

by Nikki Turner

  “No, my sandwich was made wrong, and not to mention that I had called it in to start with and had to wait when I got here. When I did get it, the sandwich was wrong. She goes in the back and wipes the dressing off and pulls the lettuce off and then tries to give it to me. I want a fresh sandwich, plain.”

  “No, you pay, you get new,” the man insisted.

  “I want what I paid for already,” Paula said. “Boo, let me call you right back.” She hung up, but a second later Cleezy's phone rang. He figured she had accidentally hit the redial. He got an earful of her conversation with the man. “Look, just give me my money back and I'll go somewhere else, because I've wasted thirty minutes in here and haven't even gotten my food.”

  “No, no money back. Take this and go,” he said.

  “I don't want that sandwich! I want my money back, and I'm not going anywhere until I get my money back,” Paula said, now damn near yelling.

  “Get out of my store. Get out now, bitch. Get out now!”

  “Motherfucker, have you lost your mind? Not until I get my fucking fo' dollars and thirty-nine cents back. Give me my shit and I'll leave.”

  “I call police,” he shouted.

  “Go ahead and call them. But before you do, you better make sure them illegal aliens is the fuck up out of here. Now give me my fucking money before I report yo' ass to immigration. You better have papers on all thirty of them motherfuckers living back there and upstairs and shit. Now, give me my damn money back before you get yo'self in trouble while trying to call them on me.”

  Cleezy could imagine Fun-chu Fooie pulling out that money so fast that it looked like a scene out of The Matrix. Then he heard the Chinese guy yell, “Bitch.”

  “You can throw the money all you want, but remember what the fuck I said,” Paula said.

  Cleezy was on the other end of the phone laughing his ass off. I got me a real gangsta chick on my hands, he thought.

  “Get out, you ape,” Cleezy heard the Chinese man scream at Paula. He laughed his butt off an hour later when he drove by and saw how the kinfolks of Fun-chu Fooie were vacating the premises with their belongings.

  When Paula got home, she realized that in the midst of all the drama she had forgotten to call Cleezy back. She pulled out her cell phone and called up Cleezy.

  “Hello,” Cleezy answered.

  “You ate?” Paula asked.

  “Naw, not yet,” Cleezy responded.

  “Well what you want?”

  “Whatever you feel like cooking. I'm on my way. I just gotta make one stop and handle one more thing. Then I'll be home in about thirty minutes,” Cleezy said. “Yo, what time is it?”

  “Time for you to come home and fuck the shit out of me,” she informed him, and then answered the question. “It's about 9:25.”

  “I got to hurry up because the person I gotta meet is leaving at about nine-thirty, so I'll hit you back when I get back in the car.”

  “All right then, baby. Peace,” Paula said, hanging up the phone.

  Cleezy hopped out of his car and ran through the alley. He circled the block two times with his black Russell hooded sweatshirt on his head and pants to match. Anybody passing by could have easily mistaken him for a jogger. The second time he circled the block, he noticed that Fun-chu Fooie was about to come out of his restaurant. Cleezy crossed the street, and as soon as Fun-chu Fooie was about to pull the metal gate down over the front of the restaurant, Cleezy was at his back with a gun. “Get back in, you chee chee chong motherfucker,” Cleezy said.

  Automatically, the man began begging. “Please, just take all the money. Don't kill me,” the Chinese man said as he went over to the cash register and hit the button to get the money out. “Here, take it all.” He jerked the money frantically out of the register. “Just take it all.” But Cleezy didn't move.

  “I don't want your money,” he told the man in an ice-cold tone.

  “What you want?” the man asked, confused.

  “I want your life, motherfucker.”

  Cleezy saw the look of terror on Fun-chu Fooie's face. Cleezy never looked down. He just smiled when he read the look. Fun-chu Fooie had shit in his pants. “You 'bout to die for a four dollars and thirty-nine cents sandwich. Fo' fucking dollars and thirty-nine cents. Fo' fucking dollars,” Cleezy said, repeating himself.

  Tears ran down the man's face.

  “Remember the black ape bitch that came in here today?” Cleezy asked. Fun-chu dropped his head. “Look at me when I speak to you, you piece of shit.” Cleezy jerked the man's head up by his chin. “Well, she belongs to me, and nobody disrespects what's mine. Nobody. See, you motherfuckers don't have shit when you get here, get a come-up over here in our world that we done fucking been raped of, beat, and slaved for.” Fun-chu dropped his head again. “Didn't I tell you to look at me?” At that point Fun-chu looked up. “You motherfuckers get these lil' corner stores and you come here, step on our toes in our neighborhood, treat us like we shit and we the ones who put food in yo' mouth so you can eat and pay yo' bills to keep this shit here running.” As if it was habit-forming, the man put his head down once again. “Didn't I tell you to look at me?”

  Fun-chu started saying some prayer in his native language.

  “Look, ain't no need in calling on Buddha. He can't help you, because the reaper spares no lives.”

  Fun-chu jumped at what he thought was the reaper in front of him with the black hood on his head, and when he did, Cleezy dumped three to his head and two to his heart. Cleezy pulled the gate down behind him and walked off like the avenger in an old Charles Bronson movie.

  The next morning Cleezy did not show an ounce of emotion as he sat and ate his bowl of Wheaties and watched the reporter on the news announce Fun-chu Fooie's death. However, he did smile when the reporter said, “There are no leads in the case.”

  He lifted up his bowl to his mouth to slurp up the milk as the reporter said, “Crimestoppers would like your help.” Cleezy put the cereal bowl down, stood up, and did a karate move. Then he went on about his day, knowing he was untouchable.

  CHAPTER 18

  A Pit Bull in a Skirt

  After the ordeal with Taymar, Mercy knew that the fairy-tale life just wasn't for her. Only bitches like Snow White and Cinderella are cut out for that shit. So now it was back on the grind to make shit happen for herself. But being back home only reminded her that she had to take care of some things so that she could sleep at night.

  Mercy took her bags up to her bedroom, sat down on her bed, and picked up the phone to check her messages. There were a few from Hyena sounding desperate. Leaving voice messages was something that Hyena just ordinarily didn't do. Mercy knew that Hyena needed her because she had been slacking since she started working on her script, and then she had run off in hopes of trying to establish a relationship with Taymar, which turned out not to be one of those whirlwind romances.

  On her plane ride back home, Mercy had sworn that she would turn over a new leaf, and although she was broke she would close that door of being a player in the drug trade behind her. So she called Hyena and let him know that she was on her way to see him. He sounded so relieved to hear her voice, as if his main worker bee had just returned to the hive. Once she arrived at Newark Airport, she was greeted as usual by luxury ground transportation and taken over to the XYZ hotel, where she was checked in by the same hotel clerk as usual.

  “It's been a long time since we have seen you here, Miss Jiles,” the handsome young clerk said to Mercy.

  “I know, been swamped, handling a lot of business,” Mercy replied.

  “Business must be good. I see you still looking good.” He complimented her just as he always did. “I like that new hairdo.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile.

  “How long will you be staying with us?” the clerk asked.

  “Just one night.”

  “Just one night this visit?”

  “Yup.”

  “How many keys?”

  �
��Just one.”

  He issued Mercy one key as requested. “It's room 201, Miss Jiles. Take the elevators to the second floor, go right off the elevators, and your room is all the way at the end of the hall. The very last room.”

  “Oh, okay, thank you,” Mercy said, taking the key and heading towards the elevators and up to her room.

  Mercy put her overnight Gucci bag in the room, headed back downstairs, and was off to see Hyena. Her driver took her to a car wash where Hyena sat inside, acting as if he was waiting for his car to be finished.

  When Mercy walked in, Hyena was reclining in a leather chair with a pit bull sitting next to him. He had a cigar in his mouth and wore dark shades, covering his eye patch. When Hyena looked up and saw Mercy, she could tell by the look on his face that he had missed her. He stood and hugged her tightly.

  “Gal, I missed you,” Hyena said as he continued hugging her for longer than normal. “Don't stay away like that ever again. Just leaving out of town and not calling a cat,” he said before he let her go. “What you Americans say? Never miss a good thing till it's gone.” He made a joke.

  Mercy was distracted by what seemed like a marble in a clear bowl of water on the table. Mercy didn't know if it was supposed to be some form of art or what, so she just came right out and asked.

  “What's that?” Mercy said, pointing to the marble. “A piece of art you picked up somewhere?”

  Hyena laughed and said with pride, “It's my eye.”

  “What?” Mercy asked. Her stomach began to turn.

  “Yeah, it's my eye.” He took his shades off and put them in his jacket pocket. He then walked over and picked up the bowl. He took his index finger and his thumb, lifted the eyeball out of the bowl, and popped that sucker into his socket like it was a contact lens. Mercy was stunned.

  “Well, put a fork in me, because I am outdone with the stun gun!”

  “See, we family. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that in front of just anybody, you know. You my family, Mercy.” Hyena walked back over to the chair and sat down while Mercy tried to keep down the peanuts she had eaten on the plane.

  “My eye got shot out,” Hyena started to explain. “I know you been wanting to ask me. I ain't ashamed of my one good eye. I'm blessed to have that. That's all a man need to be able to look in another man's eye and decipher whether he's friend or foe. You know what I mean?”

  At that moment Mercy felt as though her heart had stopped beating, but she knew it hadn't because she heard it thumping loud and clear. It sounded like the police knocking on a door. In no way did Mercy ever want Hyena to think that she was foe, so she figured she'd get right to the reason she was really there.

  “Hyena, I need to talk to you.” Mercy walked over to Hyena. God, I wish he'd put those damn sunglasses back on, Mercy thought as she tried not to cringe at the sight of his glass eye.

  “You know I look at you like you are my big brother, right?” Mercy said, closing her eyes, wishing that Hyena would close his.

  Hyena nodded. “Of course I know,” he said.

  “And you know I would do anything for you. I would climb the Golden Gate Bridge for you if your life depended on it. I would walk across the Sahara Desert in a mink coat if you needed me to. That's how much I care for you and appreciate how you brought me up on the come-up. I may be out of touch with you for a minute, but never ever would I or have I ever betrayed your trust in me.”

  “I know, my Mercy. If I ever thought that for one minute, you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me right now.” Hyena pulled his jacket back so his pistol could be seen. When he did that, Mercy didn't blink or bitch up. She had seen bigger guns than that.

  “Well, I've got to keep it real with you, because from day one you've always kept it real with me. When I told you what Raheem was paying me, you said that that wasn't even minimum wage, when you could have easily been selfish and continued paying me those pennies that he was.”

  “Right, right,” Hyena said, closing his eyes, rocking his head back and forth, agreeing with her.

  Finally, Mercy thought, a few seconds of not having to stare into that lifeless glass eye.

  “Well, I know you might find it hard to believe, but one of your so-called soldiers just deserted the army,” Mercy said, sighing. All of a sudden she felt as though she were in a catch-22. She didn't want to play snitch for Raheem, but now she was snitching on him, so to speak.

  “Who?” Hyena asked, looking like a kid who had just found out that the Grinch had stolen Christmas.

  She took a deep breath and replied, “Raheem.”

  Hyena was speechless. Had they been acting in a movie, that's when the opera music would have begun, because the twisted expression on Hyena's face was not a Kodak moment, that's for sure. He shook his head and only uttered one word, “Damn.”

  Mercy kept talking, although she knew that Hyena was stunned by the information she had just given him. “I know you love the work I do for you, and nobody can, has, or will do what I do better; but, baby, this is going to have to be our last time meeting.” He looked up with an expression on his face as if asking her why, so she continued. “They are probably watching me.”

  “They who?”

  “The Feds. They want me to help.” Although Hyena didn't budge, he listened attentively as Mercy went on. “But you know that ain't happening, because I'm a pit bull in a skirt.”

  Hyena let out a small chuckle when his pit bull barked after Mercy's comment.

  “You know why I keep me a pit bull around?” Hyena asked, stroking his rednose pit bull.

  She shook her head no as he proceeded to tell her. “Because once they bite, then they get in the do-or-die mentality, and they can stand the highest threshold of pain. So they won't turn on me under any circumstance. That's how they are trained.”

  “I know,” Mercy said as she decided to give Hyena her own insight on the treacherous breed. “See, originally, it wasn't Ray-Ray and them training no pit bulls in their backyard or alleys. That's some shit they just started recently. I read somewhere that pit bulls were used over in some foreign country, where they were overpopulated with rats. They specifically used pit bulls to kill them. That's how they were bred, to seek out rats and kill them.”

  “So I see you've done your homework,” Hyena said as he patted his dog's head. “You know I hate rats.”

  “Don't we all?”

  They both sat there for a moment in complete silence and let the dialogue they had just exchanged marinate. Then Hyena stood up and said, “Wait here. I'll be back in a few minutes.” He disappeared and returned with a Jimmy Jams plastic bag and passed it to Mercy. “Here, take this.”

  She accepted it and asked, “What's this?”

  “It's like twenty grand, so you can eat while you play the low until this shit blows over.”

  “Thank you, Hyena,” she said as she hugged him.

  Damn, twenty fucking grand, Mercy thought. That's all I get for risking my life, my freedom, putting up with the bullshit. Twenty grand is all the retirement money I can get. Twenty measly g's is all he feels his freedom is worth.

  Mercy felt like someone at a steel plant who had put in years of dedicated work at the plant only to arrive at work one day to find that the plant was closing down and all he would get out of the deal was some insulting pittance of severance pay. However, when she looked at the big picture, she realized that she could have walked away with nothing, nada, zip, zero, diddly-squat, and not a got-damn thing. So she gladly accepted the twenty g's, hugged Hyena, and thanked him. She gave him Ms. Pat's number in case he ever needed to get in touch with her. “You should get your number changed. Maybe get rid of your phone, period. Oh yeah, and don't leave any more messages.”

  “I think that's a good idea.” Hyena smiled as he embraced her tightly.

  Hyena got his driver to drop Mercy off back at the hotel. Mercy stuck the twenty grand into a secret compartment in her suitcase. Although it was still early in the evening, around eight o'clock, she
was tired from all the action of the day. Mercy went into her room and jumped directly in the shower. She thought about the events in her life, thought about her hopes for her script, and was enjoying a nice erotic massage with the water. Over the water and the shower radio, she couldn't hear anything else until suddenly the bathroom door was kicked open. She was so frightened she couldn't even scream.

  Just then a guy wearing a black hoodie and a George Bush Halloween mask yelled, “Bitch, you know what's up?” He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the shower butt-ass naked. The coldness of his voice put fear in her heart, especially when he threw her down on the floor and got on top of her. He put his hand around her throat and slowly tightened his grip. “Bitch, where is the fucking yeo at?” He was so close to her she could smell the Hennessy on his breath.

  “Give it up, the fucking shit. I need all of it,” he said in a tone that meant business.

  Mercy stared at him in shock and fear, but she didn't say a word.

  He smacked the cowboy shit out of her and then punched her in the face. “Bitch, don't fucking play with me. Tell me where the shit is at before I kill you.”

  “It ain't none.” Mercy gagged. “Nothing is here.”

  “Bitch, don't you know I will kill you?” he asked as his spit hit her in the face.

  Just then his partner, who was wearing a Richard Nixon Halloween mask, entered the bathroom and said, “Ain't shit out there.” He then focused in on his partner and Mercy. “Be easy, man,” he said. “She ain't gon' be able to tell us shit if you choke her to death.” He then addressed his words to Mercy. “Hey, hey, look, baby. Listen, get up and put this on.” He handed her the hotel's plush robe that was hanging on the back of the door. His voice was familiar to Mercy, but she couldn't place it. She put the robe on and tied the sash in a knot. The two men then escorted her into the hotel room and sat her down at the head of the bed.

  The guy with the Richard Nixon Halloween mask looked at Mercy and said, “Listen, I don't want to kill you. You're too beautiful to die, so just tell us where the shit is.”