Riding Dirty on I-95

by Nikki Turner

  “Once the shipment get here, your president of defense is here at your convenience,” Cook'em-up said as he flashed a big smile.

  The rest of the night seemed to fly by for Cleezy as he enjoyed the pleasure that Paula poured onto him. Ms. Lolly had been blowing Paula's phone up with messages, but she never did turn her phone back on that night. The next morning Paula went to work late. Cleezy dropped her off and then went to his mom's.

  His mom wasn't there when he got in. The first thing Cleezy did was go to the place in the closet where Paula told him his money was. He immediately put the money on the bed and started counting it. According to Paula's calculations, there should be around one hundred and seven thousand dollars. To his surprise, there was only forty thousand dollars. A wave of fire flushed through Cleezy's being. He took a couple of deep breaths and then recounted the money. Once again, he counted only forty thousand dollars.

  “What the fuck!” he shouted as he threw the money. Bills fluttered down all over the room. “Ain't this a bitch,” he yelled as he punched his fist down on the bed. “That bitch!”

  Cleezy couldn't even think straight. Never in a million years did he ever imagine that he would slip up bad enough to the point where a bitch would stick him for his paper. Just when he had serious thoughts about making Paula his wifey his paper comes up short. Not only had she taken his money but on top of that she didn't even bother to let him know that Jus had been trying to holler at her. After seeing over half of his money vanish into thin air, now he was wondering if indeed she had really fucked Jus and maybe they were just trying to get him out of the picture. Cleezy angrily paced the floor, contemplating his next move. How was he going to stay up on his feet with thousands missing? Now his plan had been completely messed up.

  I knew this bitch was a fucking fraud, he thought. And to actually think that I loved this ho. Damn, I knew from day motherfucking one that you just can't under any circumstances turn no ho into no motherfucking housewife.

  Paula saw Cleezy pull up as she was finishing locking up the shop. A huge smile covered her face. She had been all day waiting to be with him, like they were new lovers. It was just something about Cleezy that made her feel brand-new, like she didn't have a past because he loved her for who she was now. Paula walked out of the shop and locked the door behind her. When she turned around, Cleezy was standing there leaning against the building.

  “Hey you startled me,” she said. She hadn't noticed that he had gotten out of the car.

  “I startled you, huh?” He moved in closer.

  She nodded her head, knowing that something was wrong. “Yeah, you surprised me. I didn't see you standing there like that.”

  “And you surprised me, too,” he said in a bitter tone.

  “What are you talking about, Cleezy?”

  “You stole my fucking money.” Cleezy looked at her dead in her eyes. His eyes watered with tears of anger.

  “What?” Paula shot him a look that could have killed him. The stare was filled with hurt, confusion, and anger.

  “Yup, you just told me not even a month ago that I had one hundred seven thousand dollars, and now I only got forty. What? Was you hoping the prosecutor's star witness would keep my ass behind bars so you could spend up the rest of my shit?”

  “Yo, don't even come at me like that,” Paula said, walking off.

  “Fuck you going, bitch?”

  “You know what, Cleezy, fuck you!” she screamed. “I'm so tired of this fucking bullshit. Tryin to prove my love to you. Over and over again. It's all bullshit. I do everything, and it ain't ever enough.”

  “Look, Paula, I would have given you whatever you wanted. Anything, but you ain't ever ask for shit, and now my money is gone. The whole time you masquerading like you hit the number, and you got all these new clients and that's how you going to Gucci and Louis Vuitton. But the whole time you jerking my money off.”

  “Think whatever. I don't owe you an explanation. Fuck you, motherfucker. I done did all I can to show you where we at. As a matter of fact, I would've been better off hollering at your boy when he was at me hard while you were fighting your case. But I ain't even want to tell you about how that nigga was some shit and how he was straight begging to pay me to eat my pussy. I ain't even want to bring that shit to you while you were locked up. You had enough shit to worry about.” Cleezy never responded because he wanted to believe what she was saying, but then out of anger, she hit him with the ultimate blow. “And from what I hear, that nigga had a way bigger dick than yours,” she added, just to insult his manhood so that he would feel less than a man the same way he was making her feel less than a woman.

  Cleezy's heart broke at that moment, and he snapped. He pulled out his pistol and without even taking a deep breath he pulled the trigger and put three to her heart.

  CHAPTER 24

  Nobody's Snitch Bitch

  “Your Honor, the prosecution and the defendant have agreed on a plea,” the prosecutor on Mercys assault case said as the bitch-ass hotel clerk sat at the defense table and sniffled.

  Mercy was relieved that the hotel clerk had pled guilty, because she didn't want to take the stand on anybody. Not even her worst enemy. She just wasn't raised to be nobody's snitch bitch, not even against the person who had the gun to her head and left her for dead. Being a snitch bitch was not in her genes.

  The court-appointed lawyer got up out of his seat, buttoned his jacket, and began to speak. “The defendant, Andrew Long, has agreed that the facts supporting his guilty plea are as follows: that he, along with his alleged accomplice, Mr. Samuels, forcefully entered into Ms. Jiles's hotel room with the intent to rob her. They assaulted her with a deadly weapon, that weapon being a stolen gun. They held her against her will, resulting in the charges of attempted murder, abduction, and aggravated assault. Mr. Long understands that the victim in this case, Mercy Jiles, suffered serious injury. As a part of the plea agreement, my client promises to pay restitution as well as cooperate with the authorities to provide information about other serious criminal acts.”

  A lame motherfucker, Mercy thought as she sat in the courtroom. He ain't no big man now. He could beat me up and play Mr. Bad-Ass when it came to me, but now this motherfucker wanna be a prostitute and turn snitch and puppet to the police.

  The judge sat up in his chair and looked at the former hotel clerk. “Mr. Long, is this correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Andrew replied, with his head down.

  “Has anyone forced you to enter into this plea?” the judge asked.

  “No, sir,” he answered.

  The judge wrote something on the case file sitting before him before speaking. “Mr. Long, your plea of guilty has been entered and is accepted by the court. Sentencing will be set for a later date.”

  Mercy listened as the attorney and prosecutor went through their calendars to come up with a date. Once the date was set, court was adjourned and Mercy and Chrissie, who had been there for support, strolled out of court not believing that ol' dude had just rolled over on his man.

  “That stupid motherfucker was the one who dropped his ID,” Mercy said. “They didn't know nothing about his man being there until he said something. How he just gonna snitch on his man like that?”

  “That nigga is weak,” Chrissie added.

  “Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that they got both of them coward-ass rat bastards.”

  “Me too, but Mer, if we ever did some ol' wild shit, you gon' hold yours, right?”

  “You know I would.”

  “Damn, Mer, you were just worrying about having to take the stand on a motherfucker who damn near killed you.”

  “I mean, even though I had been subpoenaed, I still felt bad. But hey, that nigga made it so I wouldn't have to.”

  “Girl, you really are a real mothafuckin gangsta bitch and straight up true to the game,” Chrissie said as they exited the courthouse and prepared to hail a taxi.

  Mercy was distracted with her cell phone. “I wonder who this i
s calling me from up top,” she said as she looked down at the phone and saw that someone with a 646 area code had called a couple of times under her missed calls.

  “Girl, it ain't no tellin like Pete told Helen,” Chrissie joked as she flagged down a cabbie. The girls got into the taxi, instructing the cabbie where to take them.

  In the taxi, Mercy tried calling the 646 number but only got a voice mail. Once the cab dropped her and Chrissie off at their hotel, they stopped into the hotel restaurant to get something to eat and then headed up to their room. Mercy's cell phone rang as they entered the hotel room. She looked down at the caller ID and saw that it was the mysterious 646 number again.

  “Hello,” Mercy answered.

  “Hello to you, too,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Heeeeyyyy Baaayyyybeeee.” Mercy was all smiles, happy to hear Hyena's voice.

  “Congrats are in order. Both on the outcome of the trial and your new projects.”

  “Thank you!”

  “I saw the video, and I must say you are very talented. I am proud of you.”

  “Thank you so much!”

  “I see everything is good for you.”

  “You know what, Hy?” Mercy said as her voice declined. “I'ma keep it real. I'm doing dirt-ball bad. I need some help bad. That deal with that company was no good.”

  “Don't worry,” Hyena said in a consoling tone. He must have missed her as much as she had missed him. “I need some help like you. I'm going to wire you some money, and I need you to bring your bathing suits. Is it cool for me to have Uncle Chris pick you up at Granny Smith's tomorrow?”

  Mercy knew that he was talking in code. He was asking if he could send the money in Chrissie's name and that he needed her to meet him in the Big Apple. She chuckled a bit and then replied, “Yeah, that's cool.”

  “All right. So I'ma knock that out, and then we're headed to the beach for the family reunion when you get to Grandma's.”

  Hyena's call was right on time. Although a part of Mercy told her to hang in there, try to stay legit, and let things work themselves out, Mercy now had a little bit of hope. She could see a flickering light at the end of the tunnel—she just hoped it wasn't the train headed straight for her. This time, just like the last, she told herself it would be her final run. She slept well that night before she and Chrissie headed back home the next morning.

  When Mercy got home, she was greeted by a warrant in debt, a court notice that she had not paid her rent. Yeah, Hyena's call was definitely on time. At first she was reluctant about making the run for him, but once the reality set in, the call from Hyena was a godsend, and one job was what she needed to catch up on her bills. So she prepared herself mentally to do the damn thing. Everything went as planned as Mercy arrived in New York. She hopped in the rig with Farmer John just as she had done before, and this time headed to Miami.

  CHAPTER 25

  Get Yo' Mind Right

  Since Paula's death, Cleezy had gone on with his life as if the time he'd spent with Paula never existed. At least he tried to pretend that it hadn't. He stayed focused on stacking as much paper as he could. As he got ready for his biweekly trip to Miami, he stopped by his mother's house to get the new Triple A card that she had been worrying him to come and get for the past three weeks. It would be his luck that just as soon as he didn't go by there and get it, he would end up needing it.

  As he went through the mail on the new dining table, he couldn't find the card anywhere. He went into his mother's office and began looking in the drawers of her new cherrywood desk. Cleezy just happened to stumble upon his mother's bank statements. Ordinarily, he wouldn't care less about what his moms was holding, but for some reason, this little voice inside his head kept nagging him to take a look at them.

  Cleezy couldn't believe his eyes as he flipped through the past bank statements only to find that each month the balance was growing increasingly larger. He knew that her factory job wasn't kicking out for that kind of money. No way could his mom just have that kind of money at her fingertips. If that was the case, Cleezy should have been joining her at Bingo a long time ago. Cleezy did a double take when he saw plain as day that there was over forty thousand dollars in his mother's account. He stood there stunned.

  “Ain't this a motherfucking bitch?” he screamed. He thought about Paula, and a rush of rage came over him. He threw the bank statements across the room, kicked the desk chair into the wall, and knocked the computer on the floor.

  Why was he surprised that his mother had played him just like she had played every other man that she'd ever had in her life? The writing had been on the wall for many years, especially the past few months since he had come home from jail. The new living room suite, the nice Cartier watch, the fine jewelry, clothes, the expensive trips, and all of the things that she claimed she got from working overtime, winning at Bingo, and using her good credit to finance. Never had the thought crossed Cleezy's mind that his mother would have robbed him of his riches, an act that he blamed Paula for and made her pay for with her life. It was a low blow, and he could not understand why his own mother would steal from him. He had given her everything that she wanted, spoiled her better than any of the women that he had ever fucked.

  Cleezy made his way downstairs in a zombielike daze. His limp body collapsed in the new sectional furniture in the den. Almost robotic, he turned on the stereo. Listening to the surround sound of Jay-Z's tune “Song Cry,” he thought about Paula and he cried like a baby. For the next couple of hours, he drank one Heineken after another as he waited for his mother to arrive home. By the time she did, Cleezy was all cried out. He heard the automatic garage door open and Lolly's car pull up into the garage.

  “Cllllleeeeezzzzyyyy,” she called out, after spotting his car parked out front. “Hey, baby,” she shouted. As she was bringing in her shopping bags, he appeared and just stood across the room. “Boy, you better help yo' momma with these bags.”

  “For what? It looks like you done helped yo'self,” he said dryly.

  “Baby, what's wrong? You look like some woman done broke your heart,” his mother said as she got closer.

  “Yeah.” He nodded with tears in his eyes.

  “Come here and tell Momma all about it.” Lolly reached out to him as if she wanted to embrace him with a hug, but he refused her gesture.

  “Momma, stop faking,” Cleezy said as he pushed her away.

  “What?”

  “Why the fuck you take my motherfuckin' scratch?” he yelled, blatantly accusing her.

  Lolly looked like she had seen a ghost and then quickly pulled herself together. “You better get out of here with that nonsense,” Lolly said.

  “You know it ain't no nonsense,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out her latest bank statement. “Where the fuck you get this kind of money from? That bullshit-ass assembly-line job ain't paying like this, even with overtime. And I'm sure if yo' ass had hit the jackpot at Bingo, you would have told me by now. If you ain't pinch off my loot then explain this shit. Explain this shit right here!” Cleezy screamed, as saliva flew with every word. Cleezy reached down and felt the cold steel of his gun brush up against his side.

  Lolly swallowed, still sticking to her guns. “I work,” she answered, but not meeting his eyes.

  “It ain't that much work in the motherfuckin world.” Cleezy then reached in his front pocket and pulled out her pay stub and moved in closer to her, backing her into the corner. “Ma, you don't make shit. And I don't see no goddamn overtime.” Lolly shook as Cleezy continued. “You don't make but ten dollars a motherfucking hour but yet you got sixty thousand g's in your account. Sixty fucking thousand dollars?”

  Lolly had tears in her eyes. For the first time in her life, one of her underhanded scandals hadn't played out the way she thought it would. She was cold busted. She looked into her son's eyes and saw a side of him that she had never seen before. Hurt, pain, and confusion crossed his face. He was turning into a monster right in fr
ont of her eyes. He was no longer the son that she had nurtured and raised from a boy to a man. Never thinking that she would see the day that she would fear her own son, Lolly stood there petrified.

  Cleezy looked capable of doing the unthinkable. He put his fingers in her face as he continued to roar in anger. “Just fucking admit it! That's all I want you to do is fucking confess,” he screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he just lost it; his mind was in another place.

  “Cleezy, stop, baby. I love you,” she said, looking into her son's eyes, trying to reach him somehow. “I love you, baby.”

  In Cleezy's mind he was in a place that he'd never thought he'd return to again: Paula's murder scene. Though he saw his mother's lips saying she loved him, it was Paula's voice that came out. It was Paula's voice that he heard echoing through his head. At that moment he saw Paula's almost lifeless body on the ground, and as he was taking her life, her last words were, “I love you, Cleezy, till death do us part.”

  Never had he regretted taking a life or sparing one, but his heart was heavy with Paula's laughs, smiles, and cries. No amount of money could ever take it away. There had only been two people on the face of the earth that could surprise Cleezy by crossing him: his mother and Paula. His mother had crossed him. He was dealing with a double-edged sword because he had killed the only woman who had ever been genuine and loved him wholeheartedly. In this case, blood was not thicker than water.

  “I want you to know that the sixty g's got blood all over it,” Cleezy said as he backed up off of his mother to let her out of the corner.

  Silent tears rolled down her face. “Cleezy, please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I do love you. Please, I'll give you all the money back tomorrow just as soon as the bank opens.”