All About The Money

by Roy Glenn

  “You didn’t have to do that,” one said, but Bella had his attention.

  “But thank you,” the other said and practically snatched the bill out of my hand. He quickly rushed off and grabbed a waitress. “You take good care of my friends here.”

  Once they were gone, she popped the cork and poured each of us a glass. I raised my glass. “Well, ladies,” I said over the music, “here’s to us. The world is truly ours and tonight is just the beginning.”

  “Damn, this is the bomb,” Diane commented.

  “I told you guys to have faith in me. I know what I’m doing,” I said, relieved that it worked out that way.

  A man walked up to the table and asked Simone if she wanted to dance. He was nicely dressed and kind of cute, but I could tell that he had enough money in his wallet to buy somebody a few drinks. Maybe he could spring for breakfast after the club closed, but that would be a stretch. He wasn’t even on my radar. In the short time we had been there, I had already scoped out a few targets.

  Before she could answer, I spoke up. “No. She doesn’t want to dance with you,” I said with a smile.

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “What about you?” he asked, thinking he’d get a different result from Bella.

  “She doesn’t want to dance with you either.”

  He looked at Diane, she held up her hand. “Don’t even waste your time,” Diane told him and he went away.

  “Why does it seem like all the cuties are broke,” Bella asked.

  “I know what you mean. It wasn’t too long ago that I would’ve jumped up and been on the floor right now,” Simone said with a smile as she watched him walk away. “I might have even given him some.”

  Diane laughed. “Jada’s right. He’s the type of guy that will try to keep you on the dance floor so he ain’t gotta buy you no drink.”

  Finally, members of our prospective clientele started approaching us, and one at a time I allowed the ladies to dance. But we had a strict one-song limit. I put that rule in place for two reasons. First off, dancing was not what we were there for. Dancing makes you sweat. Sweat ruins your hair and suddenly your outfit doesn’t look perfect anymore. I wanted them to look perfect. Perfect objects for the pleasure of man. Two: you give a wolf a taste and then say, “Thank you,” and walk away leaving them with that you-know-you-want-me look in their eyes.

  We weren’t in the club for a good hour before I had spoken with several men, who I knew from their conversation, would become my clients. There was Alex the accountant. He couldn’t get enough of Bella. Then there was a guy who introduced himself to me as T-Love. His ballin’ ass was drippin’ money. I knew that with her experience in dealing with guys like him, that Diane would be the one he wanted.

  While the ladies were on the floor, I was giving bedroom eyes to some eye candy sitting across the room. I didn’t know what he did, but I knew he was rich. He was iced-out, from the large diamond nuggets that hung from his ears, to the large diamond studded bracelets on his wrist and the Rolex President watch. He was drippin’ money too, literally wearing his riches for us all to see.

  Simone and Diane had just returned to the table when the waitress came over and leaned down toward me. “Compliments of the gentlemen over there.” She placed the standing ice bucket with a bottle of Cristal on ice near our table. Once the waitress had filled my glass, I glanced in his direction and raised it in acknowledgment of his gesture, but he was on his way over to me.

  “So, whassup?” he asked.

  “You,” I said.

  He looked at Simone then back at me. “You ladies mind if I join you?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “I was just about to use the ladies room,” Diane said as she stood, Simone followed.

  “I like your style,” he said. “You know, the way you carry it.”

  “Is that right?”

  “So what’s up with you? I ain’t seen you here before,” he said.

  “Are you a regular or something? Keeping tabs on who comes and goes?” I inquired.

  “Nah, I just recognize a dime piece when I see one,” he countered.

  “I understand,” I said, but I wasn’t getting a good vibe from this one. The way he was talking just didn’t fit what he was wearing.

  “Would you like to dance?”

  “No. I don’t dance,” I replied coldly, as Bella came back and slid in next to me. He started to say something, but I cut him off. “I don’t mean to be rude, but, I need to speak with my friend. I really appreciate the Cristal, but if you’d excuse us.”

  “I really did wanna talk to you.”

  “Do you have a card?”

  He stood up and reached in his pocket, pulled out a solid gold cardholder and handed me one. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you,” he said and walked away.

  Once he was gone, Bella looked at me. “He was cute. What does he do?”

  I looked at his card. “Investment banker,” I told Bella. “But there’s something about him that doesn’t quite feel right. But I’ll check him out.”

  By the time we left the club, I had a collection of business cards and phone numbers that I was confident would turn into money.

  8

  Since we began going to the club business had picked up, and not a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. The club had become a mandatory event, unless you had an appointment, and had been every Friday night for the last three months, but it was starting to get old. Fact of the matter was, I was getting enough referral business from our clientele that we really didn’t need to go there, but the ladies loved it. It was the one night of the week they looked forward to. At first, I thought it was because it gave them a chance to be stars. “That’s not it, Jada,” Bella corrected. “It’s because it’s the only time that we all get together and hang out.”

  “Yeah,” Diane added, “just hangin’ together, you know, like we used to, shoppin’ or whatever. But we were always together.”

  “Like a family, Jada. Ain’t that what you used to call us? Well, that’s what we are.”

  The limo picked us up at my apartment, we made our usual entrance, and we were escorted to what had become our spot at Sensations. That night the club was packed. More packed than usual. But as packed as it was that night, our usual targets didn’t seem to be in the house. So I allowed everybody to cut loose a bit, which meant doing more dancing and drinking than usual.

  We had been there an hour and a half when I decided that nothing was up for the night and Simone advanced the idea that we go to another club. “You know, see what else is out there,” she suggested.

  “Yeah, I’m for that,” Diane added. “Have some fun. I ain’t got drunk and wild in a minute.”

  Bella laughed. “Now you know any time you start drinkin’, you start lookin’ for a woman to seduce.”

  We all laughed, but it was true. When she used to dance at Ecstasy she’d get with a woman, but only if the price was right. That was her policy until she ran up on this one client that turned her out. After that, anytime I ran up on a female client, she belonged to Diane. “Keep talkin’, Bella,” Diane threatened. “And I’ll be suckin’ on one of those fat, juicy nipples you got,” she said and playfully reached for Bella.

  “Back up off me. You know I’m in it strictly for the Benjamins.”

  “I am too. So for you, I’ll only charge you half price to suck on these titties.”

  Just then, a commotion started not too far from us. The next thing I knew there were shots fired and everybody started running for the exit. Not wanting to get caught up in the stampede, I ushered the ladies into the VIP room.

  When things quieted down, I found out from one of the security staff that a man had been shot. It seemed that his woman showed up at the club and caught him with another woman. He told me that the police were in the club, and that they wanted to ask everybody who was in or around the VIP room some q
uestions. “Questions? What kind of questions?”

  “Don’t worry, Ms. West. They wanna talk to everyone who was in the VIP room at the time. Since you were sitting right where it happened, they just want to know what you saw. No big deal,” he assured me. But I wasn’t feelin’ that at all. There was no way I wanted to talk to the cops about a murder or anything else, for that matter. I looked at the ladies. Diane was borderline drunk and Bella was just a little too easy to rattle. I knew I didn’t want them talking to the cops either.

  “You need to get us outta here,” I said, digging in my purse for some money to give him.

  He looked around. “Okay, okay. Let me think for a minute.”

  “Well, think fast,” Simone told him and touched his face. She knew that he liked her and would do anything for her.

  “I’ll make like I’m takin’ y’all to the bathroom and let you out the back door. But it would be better if you all didn’t go at once.” He grabbed Simone by the hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Bella, Diane, y’all go with him. You stay with me, Simone.”

  “Why?”

  “Not now, Simone.”

  “Okay, whatever. Whoever’s goin’, let’s go,” he said, and Diane and Bella followed him out.

  Once they were gone, Simone looked at me with angry eyes. “Why you do that?”

  “’Cause you are stronger than they are, Simone. If somebody gotta talk to the cops, I’d much rather it be you.”

  She looked at me and then her look softened. “You’re right. Diane is drunk and Bella is just Bella. The cops start sweatin’ them, there’s no tellin’ what they might say.”

  “I’m glad you understand. I need you to be a rock for me, Simone.”

  “I am,” she protested.

  “I know, but you gotta have faith in me and not question everything I say. Especially at times like this.”

  “My bad,” Simone said to me as the cops bum-rushed the VIP room.

  “When are we gonna be able to leave?” a woman asked in a whiny voice.

  I didn’t say a word. The last thing I wanted to do was give the cops a reason to toss attention my way.

  “We ain’t see shit; we been posted up in here all night,” this rapper I had met, but couldn’t name, offered up. They asked us a few questions, took our names, told us that they would be in touch if they needed us, and let us go.

  I felt relieved that that’s all it was, but the next day I got a call from the cops. They wanted to ask me some more questions and wanted me to come down to the station. My first thought was to ignore their request, but I knew that wasn’t the answer. They would probably think I was trying to hide something and start looking at me. Not that I was worried about the murder; I didn’t see anything. But I knew how cops were. My next thought was to show up with my lawyer, but I talked to Sasha and she didn’t think that would be a good idea either. “No, Jada. You walk in with a lawyer, it would be the same as saying, ‘Look at me, coppers, I got something to hide’.”

  So, I dressed down-no makeup and definitely no ice-and went down there. I thought that it was a little strange that Simone hadn’t gotten a similar call to come in, but I just figured that they would get to her in due time.

  After a short wait, I was taken to what they called an interview room and was introduced to Detective Albert Gineconna. “Thank you for coming in, Ms. West. I won’t take up a lot of time. I just need to ask you a few questions about what happened the night before at Sensations,” he said and placed a tape recorder on the table in between us. “I’ll be recording our conversation, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “So, tell me what you saw.”

  “I really didn’t see anything. I was there with a friend of mine,” I started, but the detective stopped me.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Simone Frazier.”

  “And it was just the two of you?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly.

  “Go on.”

  “We were just sitting there, when all of a sudden we saw a commotion in front of us. When we heard the shots and saw the people running, we ran in the VIP room.”

  “You say you heard shots.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it a single shot or more than one?”

  “Well, the music was playing so it’s hard to be sure, but I think I heard more than one shot.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “Nothing. We were told that we couldn’t leave until the police talked to us. After that I went home.”

  Then his questions got personal: Where I lived, what I did for a living, and how often I went to the club. I told him that I came to the club pretty regularly and gave him my correct address, ’cause he could check those things out if he wanted to know. I told him that I sold insurance, glad that Sasha got one of clients to get me a license without having to take the test. After that, he thanked me for coming in and told me that I was free to go.

  As I left the interview room was when I saw him. The eye candy I had the bad feeling about the first night we came to the club. He wasn’t iced-out or as well dressed as he was the last time I saw him, but it was definitely him. I knew right then that he was a cop.

  As quickly as I could, I put on my sunglasses and dropped my head. I walked out of there considering the possibility that he could just be there like I was, to give a statement about what happened the night before at the club. I didn’t know and didn’t care which one it was, I just got out of there and hoped he didn’t see me. Once I got to my car and was on my way out of the parking lot and thought about it, they’d only made the people that were in the VIP room stay and he wasn’t one of them. No. He was a cop; I was sure of it. And since that was the case, I had to consider the possibility that this wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe they brought me in for him to ID me. I made the decision right then and there: We needed to stay out of the clubs for a while.

  9

  After that incident, we laid off Sensations for a couple of months. During that time business had been very good. I no longer felt the need to make elaborate public displays in order to market the ladies. I had reached the point where I wanted to be in this business. Now that I had stronger contacts, I was always one of the invited guests at social gatherings. I was running my program exactly the way Sasha ran hers. Now, it was me carefully scrutinizing all of the men, making note of those who were their with dates. And before I left, I’d have leads on new clients. With all the new business, I was thinking about adding some new talent.

  I was sitting around the apartment relaxing with Diane one afternoon, and we were talking about our increase in business. I had just offered her, her choice of the last three appointments that had come in. “What times are they?”

  I ran my finger down the appointment schedule on my laptop. “Uh, seven, ten, and a late night will call.”

  “Jackson?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll take them all,” Diane said.

  “What?”

  “You were just sayin’ that business was so strong that you had to handle some new clients.”

  “And?”

  “I’m trying to keep you from havin’ to go out like that.” One thing I had to say about Diane, she was true to her word. She was a good ho. “If business is so good, why don’t you recruit somebody?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, Diane; I really have. And I’ve been looking at some women, sizing them up. I just haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

  “What about Creme? She’s been all over me to talk to you.”

  “Oh hell no! Creme likes to powder her nose too much.”

  “True that,” Diane agreed as Bella came in the apartment.

  “Hey, Bella,” we both said.

  “That is not the type of person we want to invite into our family,” I continued.

  “What type of person?” Bella asked.

  “You remember my
friend Creme?”

  “The one that used to work with y’all at the club?” Bella questioned.

  “That’s her,” Diane said.

  “What about her?”

  “Jada thinks she would be a bad influence on us because she sniffs.”

  “I don’t know about her being a bad influence; we’re all grown and capable of making our own decisions, but I agree with Jada.”

  “Why, Bella?” Diane asked.

  “I don’t know. I just never liked being around people that do that,” Bella said.

  “People that do what?” Simone asked as she came dragging out of the bedroom.

  “Well, good afternoon, sleepyhead,” I said. “Glad you’re still with us.”

  “Yeah, well, y’all are making so much noise out here I couldn’t sleep. So what y’all talking about?”

  “Diane wants us to start hanging out with her crackhead friend from Ecstasy,” Bella said.

  “She is not a crackhead,” Diane insisted. “And I only brought it up because Jada was talking about recruiting somebody new.”

  “Why?” Simone asked quickly. “I think we’re doing just fine. We don’t need anybody else,” she added.

  “Jada thinks we do,” Diane said like a pouting child.

  “I just said that business has picked up and I was thinking about it. But let’s talk about it.”

  “I say no,” Simone told us firmly. “It’s true we all have been working a lot and I am a little tired, but what I’m not, is ready to give up any of this money.”

  “I agree with Simone,” Bella said.

  “Well, when you put it that way”-Diane said and winked at me-“there’s just enough money for us.”

  “I guess that settles it,” I said. “But from what I’m hearing, we all could use a break.”

  “Maybe we could take a trip,” Bella suggested. “Go to one of those resorts in the islands and have West Indian men wait on us hand and foot.”

  “That’s sound like a great idea,” I said. “But I was thinking of something a little more immediate. It’s been a while since we went to the club.” I didn’t have to say another word. The ladies were all for the idea and we quickly agreed that we were ready to go back to Sensations.