Thugs And The Women Who Love Them

by Wahida Clark

  “How long are you going to be my baby girl?” he asked her, looking into her eyes.

  “How long are you going to want me to?”

  “Forever,” he said. “Regardless of what happens.”

  “How long are you going to be my man?”

  “How long would you want me to be your man?”

  “Forever,” she said.

  “Let’s go upstairs so that we can finish this off right.”

  Chapter 16

  Kyra was sprung, and so was Marvin. He left all of his other girlfriends alone. He had to reserve all of his energy for Kyra. She would not let him go a day without dicking her down. His other girlfriends were mad that they got kicked out the picture by a 14-year-old, but Kyra didn’t care. Marvin gave her everything she wanted.

  In a little over a year, Kyra and Marvin both were strung out on heroin. They went from snorting it, to skin popping to straight shooting up. Kyra quit school and her mother kicked her out. She moved in with Marvin. She no longer stayed in touch with Angel, Roz, or Jaz. Her world was heroin and Marvin. His business was still going strong, if not stronger. He just got hooked on his own product. They both would have been goners if the following string of events didn’t happen.

  Marvin had set up a meeting with his new contact to buy 20 kilos of heroin. They were supposed to meet at the Round. Marvin had Kyra, Rock, and Snail with him. The sellers were from Connecticut. Two dudes, Shaheim and Twist. Twist was Snail’s cousin, so that put Marvin at ease enough to let his baby girl hang out with them.

  When they got to the Round, Marvin scanned the parking lot for any unusual activity. He didn’t see any undercovers or would-be jackets, but he did see a Ford Bronco with Connecticut tags.

  “Yo! There’s my cousin’s ride,” hollered Snail.

  “Good,” said Marvin. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on Kyra’s thigh. He parked his car on the side and checked out the parking lot. Everything looked okay so far. Nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, he didn’t notice anything suspicious about the gray Ford minivan parked in the back with Tyler, Mark, Cochise, and Tone all crouched down, waiting for them to pass by. All four of them were strapped and ready to handle their business.

  Ty had been waiting too long to get his revenge on Marvin. Even after all this time, he still couldn’t get over the fact that this fuckin’ junkie drug dealer had stolen his girl. When his boy Mark told him that he’d seen Marvin and Kyra a few times at the Round, Ty started forming a plan. He’d been watching them for months, having his boys follow them. Once he figured out that the Round was where Marvin did most of his business, he knew it was only a matter of time before he could get him in the parking lot. Ty and his boys had been parking there for the past four nights, waiting for Marvin to show. Tonight was the night his plan would go into action, and judging from the briefcase Marvin was carrying, Ty thought they might even get away with a little loot when everything was said and done.

  “Y’all just make sure Kyra don’t get hurt,” he reminded his boys.

  “Yeah, whatever, Ty. Just chill,” said Mark as he sat back to wait until everything would go down.

  When Marvin and his crew stepped into the restaurant, they found Twist and Shaheim, already seated and eating up everything. Twist looked up with a mouth full of fries.

  “What up, dawg?” he said to his cousin as he stood up, grabbed his napkin and wiped his mouth. “Come sit down. You’ll have to excuse us. We was hungry as hell!” Twist was about 6 feet 4 inches and skinny as a rail. He looked like a bean pole wearing a designer suit.

  After everybody got seated, was introduced and had ordered, the negotiating started.

  “Yo, man. First let me say what a fine young sister you got with you tonight,” Twist told Marvin as he looked at Kyra. Kyra smiled like she knew she was the bomb. She had on a tan Chanel, two-piece, short-sleeve pantsuit with hip hugging pants and a double chain, wrapped belt. She had on tan Valentino ankle strap sandals and her nails were manicured, her feet neatly pedicured. She visited the hairdresser twice a week to keep her short bob looking good. Even though they were both junkies, Marvin made sure that they didn’t look like it.

  “Yeah, my girl’s all that,” Marvin answered. “But we ain’t here to talk about her. Let’s get down to business.” He may have stayed high most of the time, but Marvin still was sharp as a tack when it came to buying and selling dope.

  “Of course y’all understand that I want to try your product before I give up any loot,” he told Twist and Shaheim.

  “No problem,” Shaheim answered as Twist slid two small bags across the table. “That there is straight from the main stash.”

  Kyra was squirming in her seat because she couldn’t wait to get her hands on some of that dope. Marvin handed her a bag. She kissed him on the cheek.

  “I’ll be right back, baby,” she said. “I gotta go to the car for my cosmetics bag.”

  “Why? You look fine, baby girl,” Marvin told her.

  “I have to get my works,” she whispered into his ear as she got up from the table. As she left to go to the car, Marvin was right behind her, headed to the men’s room with his little bag of dope.

  Tyler and his boys were still outside in the van, watching the door of the restaurant. When Tyler saw Kyra come out, his heart went to pounding and his chest felt heavy. He was still in love with her. He’d never gotten over the fact that she just walked out of his life without any explanation. He hadn’t even had a serious girlfriend in the year and a half since Kyra left him. They watched in silence as Kyra shuffled around in the front of Marvin’s car, then went back to the restaurant looking agitated.

  “Damn, Ty!” Cochise hollered after she went back inside. “I see why you going all out to get that back. She look like she taste good!”

  “Hell, yeah. She’s all that,” Tone agreed.

  “Ty wasn’t hittin’ it deep enough.” Mark was joking. He didn’t know how close to the truth he was.

  Ty ignored his boys. He was too busy thinking about Kyra. Seeing her brought back a lot of old feelings. It’s just something about her that turns a nigga all the way out, he thought. He wanted her back, and he knew what he would have to do to get her. That’s what he was doing in the parking lot with his boys, and now he was anxious to get this shit over with.

  “Them niggas will be out shortly. Don’t fuck up!” he warned them.

  “We straight!” yelled Cochise.

  “Yeah, we got this,” said Tone. He was agitated because Ty kept going over the fucking plan with them. Mark was sitting in the back, pulling on a blunt. He just nodded his head.

  Everyone was silent as Ty started the engine and slowly drove the van around front. He left the engine running and they all put on their ski masks and waited.

  Back in the restaurant, Snail and Rock were still sitting at the table with the dudes from Connecticut, waiting for Marvin to get back.

  “Damn, that must be some good shit. That nigga ain’t back yet,” Snail joked.

  “My shit is always Grade A. That’s the only way to keep the East Coast on lock,” Shaheim boasted.

  “Where’s Marvin?” Kyra came back to the table looking mad.

  “He still in the bathroom, baby girl,” Rock told her. “Why don’t you have a seat till he come back?”

  Kyra was pacing nervously, and everyone at the table knew what her problem was.

  “Yo, Kyra,” Twist grabbed her arm. “You a’ight? Anything we can do to help you, baby girl?”

  “Not unless you got my cosmetics bag with you,” she snarled at him, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “I thought that shit was in the car, but it ain’t there.”

  “Can’t help you there,” said Rock. He hated to see Kyra so strung out, but he could never say anything to Marvin about it unless he wanted to get his ass kicked.

  Kyra waited, pacing the whole time, for what felt like hours. Really, it was only five minutes, but she couldn’t take it anymore.

&nbs
p; “Damn!” she muttered. “Tell Marvin I’ll meet him back at the house. I gotta go get something.” Without waiting for an answer, she went outside and walked to the cab stand down the block. She couldn’t wait to get home and get some of the “H” into her veins.

  From the parking lot, Ty could see her rushing to a cab and he was relieved. He didn’t know why she was leaving, but he was glad Kyra wouldn’t be around when the bullets started flying. Later tonight he’d go find her where she stayed with Marvin and take her back to his place. Then they could start over.

  Twist was getting impatient inside the restaurant. Marvin was taking way too long in the bathroom.

  “Let me go check on a nigga. We need to be wrapping this shit up,” he told everyone else at the table. He went to pay the bill and then go find Marvin.

  “Excuse me, miss,” he said as he approached the hostess and pulled out his wallet. “Do you take Visa Platinum?”

  She looked down at his wallet and gave him a big smile, her gold tooth glittering. He took that as an invitation.

  “What time do you get off tonight, Latifah?” he asked, reading her name tag.

  “You don’t want none of this!” she told him as she took his credit card.

  “How do you know what I don’t want?” he asked her. She handed him back his card and a receipt to sign.

  “Trust me,” she said.

  “Why don’t you come with me in the bathroom?”

  “Fuck you!” she spat.

  “Oh, you is a feisty ho, huh?” He grabbed his dick.

  Latifah gave him the finger and walked away. Twist shrugged and grabbed some peppermints out of the glass bowl on the counter. He headed for the restroom. As soon as he opened the door, the smell of old air freshener hit him in the face. He didn’t step inside, just stuck his head in and yelled for Marvin.

  “Yo, man, you a’ight? We waitin’ on you!”

  “Yeah. Here I come, man.” Marvin’s slurred voice bounced off the walls. “Where’s Kyra?”

  “She said to tell you meet her back at the house. Somethin’ about her cosmetics bag,” Twist hollered and closed the bathroom door.

  Marvin finally got back to the table. He gave Rock a nod, and Rock gave Shaheim the briefcase with the cash in it. Shaheim opened it up, went through it, and slammed it shut. He nodded at his partner.

  “Why don’t y’all bring your car around so we can do this transaction?” Twist said. Everyone got up from the table and headed outside. Snail went to get Marvin’s car, and Marvin and Rock went with Twist and Shaheim to their Bronco. Ty saw them head to the car with the Connecticut plates and he started inching his way closer until he was right next to the Bronco.

  “Yo, it’s on!” Tone sounded like he couldn’t wait to start shooting.

  As soon as Twist unlocked the Bronco and opened the trunk, Ty and his boys threw open the doors to the van. Marvin, Twist, Shaheim and Rock turned to see 3 tech-9s and a Desert Eagle staring them in the face. Rock went for his gun, but Ty wasted no time putting a couple through his chest. Rock’s body jerked up and down and then hit the ground. For a second, everyone froze except for Tone. He dragged Rock’s limp body to the back of the Bronco. Ty grabbed the briefcase with the cash and threw it in the van.

  “Get in the fuckin’ car!” he yelled at Marvin, Twist and Shaheim. None of them moved as they watched Mark and Cochise in wide-eyed horror. They were unloading the dope from the Bronco and throwing it into the back of the van. As high as he was, Marvin was feeling weak. He was watching twenty kilos of dope and all his fuckin’ cash being taken right before his eyes. Not to mention Rock’s blood was spattered all over his designer clothes.

  Snail pulled Marvin’s car around from the back and saw what was going down. He saw Rock’s bloody body sprawled on the ground and knew it was too late to do anything. He just kept right on driving, leaving tire tracks as he sped out of the parking lot.

  Tyler forced Twist and Shaheim into the front seats, and then ordered Marvin to put Rock’s body in the trunk of the Bronco. Marvin cringed, but he couldn’t leave his boy there. He would put the body in the car and deal with these punk-ass niggas another time. He figured that once he put the word out, these dudes would be dead anyway. He lifted Rock into the Bronco and turned to face Ty. He was gonna warn him to watch his back, ’cause this shit was definitely not over.

  Ty didn’t give him time to say anything. “This is for taking what’s mine, nigga!” Ty lifted the mask off his face so his face would be the last thing Marvin saw before he died. He shot Marvin three times in the chest. Marvin’s body fell back against the open trunk of the Bronco, and Ty shoved it the rest of the way in, slamming the door.

  “Now take your asses back to Connecticut and don’t ever fucking come back!” Ty told Shaheim.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do with two bodies?”

  “Look, nigga I ain’t got no beef with you. You can either join them or take ’em with you. What’s it gonna be, partna?” Tyler asked, cocking his piece. Shaheim started up the Bronco and pulled off. The whole thing had taken less than ten minutes to go down.

  Tyler and his crew jumped in the van, took off their ski masks and put away the guns. They took off out of the Round parking lot, whooping and hollering about all the loot and dope they’d just scored.

  “Damn, Ty! That shit was off the hook. We got mad loot off them fools.” Mark laughed from the backseat.

  “Yo, did you see that punk-ass Marvin before you shot him? Nigga looked so stoned he couldn’t hardly see straight!” Cochise joined in the laughter. Tone was opening the briefcase to start counting the money.

  Ty looked in the rearview mirror at his boys and shook his head. Yeah, he was happy about the way things went down, but it wasn’t the money or the dope that he was interested in at the moment.

  “Yo. I got to find Kyra before she hears what happened,” Ty said.

  “That’s cool, man,” said Tone. “But don’t sweat it. Ain’t like no one could tell her who did her man. The only eyewitnesses are taking their punk asses back to Connecticut as we speak. All you gots to do is swoop in and hold Kyra while she boo-hoos about her man. I guarantee you will get some of that pussy before the week is over.”

  Ty drove the van back to Tone’s crib, where he dropped off Tone and Mark. He told them to sit tight and stash the loot until he and Cochise came back. He just had to make sure Kyra was straight, then they’d figure out how to start moving this dope on the streets.

  Cochise and Ty dumped the stolen van in a deserted alley and then went to get Ty’s car. Ty knew where Marvin and Kyra were staying because he’d been following them for a few weeks, so that was the first place they went to look for her. He was relieved when he pulled up and saw all the lights were on. She was probably in there wondering why Marvin hadn’t brought his sorry ass home yet. Ty would be the one to break the sad news to her. He could play like his boys had seen it all go down and then he rushed over there to check on her as soon as he heard about it. She’d never figure out he had something to do with Marvin’s death. He could worry about the rest of the details later. Right now he just couldn’t wait to get in there and see Kyra.

  Cochise waited in the car while Ty ran up to the front door and started banging. He could hear the music playing inside, but no one came to the door. He banged again, calling Kyra’s name. When he still didn’t get an answer, he peeked through the front window, and that’s when he saw her.

  “Oh, shit! No!” he screamed. Cochise heard him and came running just as Ty slammed his body against the door and broke the lock. The door swung in and slammed against the wall. They looked down and saw Kyra, lying on the floor with a needle stuck in her arm and white foam oozing out the sides of her mouth.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” hissed Tyler as he bent down to feel her neck. He was relieved that she still had a faint pulse.

  “Go get me a glass of salt water and a bucket of ice,” he ordered Cochise. “And call 911.”

  Tyler’s brother Bone
had been a heroin addict for years, so he knew exactly what to do. It made him sick to his stomach whenever his brother OD’d. Sometimes, instead of trying to save him he was tempted to let him die. This time, there was no way he was gonna let Kyra die.

  Cochise came back with the salt water and ice. “Get the fuck outta here before 5-0 shows. I’ll handle this,” Tyler told his boy. Cochise bolted out the door.

  Tyler removed the syringe that was hanging out of Kyra’s arm. She looked like a ghost lying there on the floor. A ghost dressed in designer clothes. He couldn’t believe she had sunk this low. A junkie. He squirted out the little bit of dope in the syringe and then filled it with salt water. He was glad that he could easily find a vein on her small arms. As soon as a vein popped up he pumped in the solution.

  “Come on, Kyra!” He smacked her and gave her mouth-to-mouth. He put the ice cubes around her neck and on her chest.

  “Come on, baby. Stay with me,” he kept repeating until the paramedics finally arrived.

  Chapter 17

  When Kyra woke up in the hospital, she didn’t remember anything after the moment she put the needle in her veins. All she knew was she felt like shit and wasn’t quite sure where she was. She struggled to focus her eyes and look around the room. That’s when she saw Ty, asleep in a chair by her bed. He hadn’t left her side the entire time she was in that hospital.

  “Ty?” Kyra said in a weak voice. “Is that you? Where the fuck am I?”