by Noire
He took the blunt Suge was offering him and took a deep pull and then exhaled. “A’ight. What the fuck I gotta do, Uncle Suge?”
His uncle grinned and grabbed the outside door handle of the Lincoln and yanked it open wide.
“Scoot over, lil dude, and I’ll tell you.”
CHAPTER 23
The lab Dane took me to was nothing like Exclusively DNA. For one thing, there were a bunch of clear females running the joint, and for two, it was big as shit and everything they did seemed like it was part of a long-ass process.
Me and Bunni cased the joint with our eyes and ears, and we both agreed that there was no way we coulda got in good with enough of these white chicks to pull off a successful gank. And as one nurse rubbed a Q-tip around inside my mouth, and then another nurse stuck me with a needle and filled up a big vial of blood from my arm, I knew my lil con game had been fried up extra crispy.
They couldn’t give me an exact date on when my results would be back, but when we got back to the mansion I started packing my gear so I could be ready whenever Selah and Barron decided to toss my ass out the gates.
“Uh-uh!” Bunni protested as I pulled my suitcase outta the closet. “Girl put that shit back! We ain’t going nowhere!”
“I don’t see why not,” I told her miserably. “They gonna throw us out in a minute anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” Bunni nodded. “Oh, they damn sure gonna throw us out. But they ain’t gonna do it today. Don’t be stupid, Mink, be greedy. Just pretend like we at one of them real fancy resorts and somebody else is picking up the damn tab. Let’s run that baby up! Let’s get as much as we can of every fuckin’ thing they got until they asses get hip. And then we’ll leave. Plus, how you know for sure what’s gonna happen? You got you one of them crystal balls stuck up in ya coochie or something? Hell, don’t count us out yet, girl. It’s gonna be a minute before your results come back. Who knows. We might think us up a good one by then.”
We had decided to put on our bikinis and go hang out by the pool, and me and Bunni had one of the young servants runnin’ back and forth bringing us mad drinks on the regular. Bunni had borrowed Fallon’s iPod and hooked it up to the outside speakers, and we were rolling our hips and shaking our tipsy asses to a cut called “Spend It” by 2 Chainz, and a brand-new track called “Strugglin’ Man” by Reem Raw that was laid over a nice beat by that hot producer dude named Ken Will.
I looked up and what I saw damn near blew my buzz. I didn’t even know Dy-Nasty was back at the crib, and I damn sure didn’t know who told her to bring her ass outside fuckin’ with me and Bunni, but she did.
“Aw, y’all ain’t doin’ shit,” she said, busting up on the scene in a pair of stank yellow boy shorts and a bright green ribbon tied over her nipples. “This how we do it on the norf side a’ Philly, baby!”
She started working her hips and doing some simple Stripper 101 shit.
Bunni wasn’t impressed. “That’s how y’all do it?” She shimmied her booty and rolled her stomach at the same time. “Well this how we get it in Harlem, baby!” Bunni made her butt quiver. “What you know about that, huh? What you know about that?”
Dy-Nasty rolled her eyes. She gapped her legs open and squatted halfway down to the ground and started swinging her hips like she was riding a horse. She swept them shits back and forth in long, nasty strokes, and the whole time she was cupping her titties and licking her lips too.
“Y’all bitches ain’t got shit,” she bragged as she clenched and unclenched her ass cheeks. I knew that move she was doing and I had to admit it was a damn good one. I used to do it too, only I got down a whole lot lower to the ground and I had even picked up a bottle and swung it back and forth using just the muscles in my ass.
When Dy-Nasty got through showing her shit, she picked up my drink off the ground and tipped that shit back, killing it. “Now! Fuck with that, you New York hoes! Fuck with that!”
I was gonna fuck with her ass, all right! I was damn sure gonna fuck with her!
“Now, watch carefully, bitch!” I told her. “And take some notes.”
I strutted over to the speaker pole and posted up on that shit. Grabbing it up high, I slid down to the ground and arched my back until it looked like a C, and then I reversed the move and twerked it all the way back up the pole. I wrapped my leg around it and bounced up and down real slow, like I was waxing it with my pussy. And then I lowered my leg and turned around. I leaned back until wasn’t nothing touching the pole except my head and my rump. I pushed a little and let the pole split my thick ass cheeks, and then I made ’em jump. Up and down, one cheek at a time, causing the kind of visual banga and physical friction that would made any man’s dick shoot off a big load of steam.
But it wasn’t any man’s voice I heard booming from the side door of the house as I showed off my stage skills and performed my extra-nasty booty dance up against that pole.
It was Uncle Suge’s.
“Mink! Dy-Nasty! Cut that shit out! Get your asses in the pool house right now, goddamn it! Both of y’all! Now!”
Uncle Suge was on one as he tossed me and Dy-Nasty in the pool house together. He chastised us and said he was gonna kick both our yellow asses off the estate unless we got smart enough to work together and help him and Dane come up with a plan to outsmart Barron.
“I don’t know which one of y’all is really Sable and trust me, I don’t give a damn,” he told us. “But I can tell you right now, Bump is gonna make sure neither one of ya’ll get a dime of that money, you hear me?”
I nodded ’cause I believed him, but Dy-Nasty twisted up her lips like she already knew she was paid and in there.
“Uh-huh,” Suge told her. “That goes for you too, DyNasty. Bump mighta told you he was gonna make sure you got paid, but believe me, that’s a lie. He’s using you, baby. And you just about greedy enough and stupid enough to let him.”
Dy-Nasty looked like she wanted to snap off with the mouth, but Uncle Suge grilled her like a killer for a few long seconds, and when she backed down and looked away he continued.
“Selah saw what y’all was out there doing just now, you know. She stood right in the kitchen window and saw every damn move y’all made.”
“But I wasn’t—” both us tried to lie, but he gave us a look that straight killed our noise.
“Come off that bullshit!” He shook his head with disappointment, and all me and Da-Stripper could do was stare down at our hands as he chewed us out. “I don’t get it. How can two chicks so slick be so goddamn stupid? Both of y’all are about to miss out on a guaranteed fortune, and for what? Because y’all can’t stop scratching at each other’s faces long enough to think straight. Now I’ma need both of y’all to reach down and pluck ya brains out ya asses! Ain’t nobody getting paid if Bump can help it. Nobody! Now let’s go to work and get on top of this money, you got it?”
Me and Dy-Nasty cut our eyes at each other. I waited for a few seconds until I saw her nod, and then I nodded too.
“Here,” he said, dropping a thick beige folder down on the coffee table. Dy-Nasty’s name was written on it real big in black magic marker. “This is a copy of what Barron is planning on showing to the board right after the vote. It don’t matter what the hell your DNA test says, Dy-Nasty. If them white folks get a look at all this criminal shit you been doing you ain’t getting a dime of that money, you understand?”
Good for her stank ass! I thought as my eyes shot over to that thick-ass folder. I couldn’t wait to see what was in it!
“Where’d you get that?” I asked Suge.
“From Jock. He stole it from Barron and made a copy. Don’t worry. He stole a thick one on you too.”
Damn!
“Here’s the deal,” Uncle Suge continued. “Everybody with half a brain knows if Sable is really still alive, then one of you is lying.”
I gasped and opened my mouth to protest, and Dy-Nasty did too.
“Swallow that shit!” Uncle Suge raised his big hand up and shut
both of us down. “I don’t care which one of y’all is the liar and which one is the thief. All I know is you two can fuck it up for each other, and even worse, you can fuck it up for the rest of us too, you get me?”
We nodded again.
“So this is what y’all are gonna have to do.” He gave us both a real hard no-bullshit look. “Y’all are gonna have to split the damn money.”
Me and Dy-Nasty started bitching before the words were outta his mouth good, but he wasn’t tryna hear none of it.
“A hundred and fifty grand a year is more than either one of y’all is ever gonna pull in from stripping, and it’s free money too! I done already told y’all and I meant that shit. Either you come together on this right now or get thrown off the goddamn property. Both of y’all! Tonight. With nothing but the rags you wore up in here.”
As it turned out, me and Dy-Nasty had a lot more in common than just our good looks. Yeah, we was both hustlers and con artists from the hood, and hell yeah, we were both real big liars who spoke the language of the streets, but we were both smart enough to recognize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when it was about to slip away too.
“Cool.” I went ahead and said it first. Hell, I knew damn well I wasn’t Sable so all this shit was just another hustle to me. If I walked outta here with a yard in my pocket it would be way more than I walked in with. Besides, Dy-Nasty mighta been a liar, but I was definitely a thief. I knew my mama’s name and it damn sure wasn’t Selah Dominion. I thought about losing all three hundred grand, and splitting the money in half every year became a real no-brainer. “Yeah, I’m cool with that,” I said. “I’ll do it if she do it.”
Dy-Nasty looked greedy as shit as her head bobbed up and down and she nodded real fast. “Me too. I’ll do it if she do it too.”
Sometimes there had to be honor and cooperation between thieves, and twenty-four hours later me and Dy-Nasty had clicked up enough to form us a lil temporary hood partnership.
“A’ight, listen up, everybody. Here’s how all this shit is gonna go down.”
We were having a meeting at Uncle Suge’s place and he was laying out the plan. We’d all come to an agreement that the best way to fight grime was by flinging back even more grime, and since Barron was tryna shit on me and Dy-Nasty and chop both of us off the family tree, then we were gonna have to dig up some deep roots and shit on him too.
Dane was sitting in an armchair, while me, Dy-Nasty, and Bunni were sitting on the sofa. Uncle Suge had our attention from the middle of the floor. The only person who was missing was Jock. He had already promised to throw his vote in with ours, but we was about to do some seriously shitty arm-twisting, and Uncle Suge didn’t think Jock had the stomach for it.
“We all know Lil Bump is gonna try to cut all of us off from the family trust fund,” Uncle Suge said. “He ain’t even trying to hide that. Since Mink was already declared Sable and she got that inheritance money, we need Mink’s vote to keep Bump from fucking us in the ass, and he’s gonna do everything he can to make sure we don’t get it.”
Everybody nodded their understanding.
“Now, Mink, you already know that boy done went to New York and got himself a file on you, and a thick one too. The bad thing is, he’s got one on Dy-Nasty too, and hers is even thicker. I know power players like Bump and I know how they think. That boy is betting a thousand that your second DNA test is gonna come back negative and that DyNasty’s is gonna come back positive. That way, he gets to get rid of two Sables with just one stone. Mink, you’ll be eliminated based on your second DNA test, and Dy-Nasty, if your second test comes back positive, then Barron still wins. Because once he gets you to vote for him he’s gonna pull out your folder and flick you off like a booger too. Now there ain’t much we can do about that, but here’s what we can do. We can put our feet on his neck and make him do what we want him to do. We gotta force him to hold that board meeting before the new DNA results have a chance to come in.”
“And how we gonna do that?” Dane asked.
“By getting us a nice pile of dirt on him too. And if he don’t wanna act right then we’ll just take that shit to the board!”
Dane shook his head. “You looking for some dirt on Mr. Clean?” He chuckled. “Good luck, Unc. I been living with B my whole life, man. That nigga is the cleanest cat I know.”
“Oh yeah? Well I found me a girl,” Uncle Suge said slickly. “A young white chick I know from Houston. She used to be mentored by the Dominion Diamonds, but she dropped outta the program when she got pregnant and then she never came back.”
“And?” Dane asked. “What’s she got to do with Barron?”
“Nothing yet,” Uncle Suge said, grinning. “But she will, Nephew. She will.”
Dane shook his head. “Bump is clean, I’m telling you. That boy is squeaky clean.”
“Yeah, that nigga might drink bleach for breakfast, but Mink and Dy-Nasty done already came up with a plan of their own,” Uncle Suge said, looking at us. “Y’all ladies wanna run it down?”
Me and Dy-Nasty opened our mouths, and out slithered our identical forked tongues. We gave them all the details that we had schemed and connived and collaborated on, and our shit flowed so smooth that heads kept swinging left and right as we laid out our cross-con like it had come from one brain. We were so in sync with our hustle that before it was all over we were actually finishing each other’s sentences. Our plan was so fuckin’ sugary sweet that I felt cavities popping up in all my teeth. Uh-uh. Uncle Suge was right. Jock’s young ass didn’t need to be up in the bizz like that. His wimpy lil dro-head ass woulda straight-up collapsed in the ring tryna fuck with us heavyweights.
“I really think this could work, but we’re gonna need you to get up with ya boy Kelvin Merchant again,” I told Bunni. “Tell ya little pain slut we’ll pay him triple if he hooks us up this go ’round.”
“So,” Bunni said, smiling proudly at me and Dy-Nasty like we were two brilliantly beautiful geniuses. “Y’all gonna get the white chick to go on television and say Viceroy was diggin’ her out when she was a sixteen-year-old honey at his little tutoring academy? She’s gonna stand up in front of a camera and lie and say she had a baby by him and she’s got the DNA results to prove her son is a Domino?”
“Yeah.” Uncle Suge nodded. “You got that shit right. That’s exactly what she’s gonna say.”
“Well, damn!” Bunni hollered. “Y’all really gonna run up hard and dry in Viceroy and Barron’s ass-cracks like that?”
“Whoa, hold the fuck up,” Dane protested, shaking his head. Forget about Jock. From where I was sitting Dane was looking kinda weak in the chin too. “Y’all wanna throw some shit on Pop’s name too? And y’all think Bump is gonna go for that?”
“Hell naw he ain’t gonna go for it,” Uncle Suge said. “That’s the whole point. That nigga’s gonna buck. And when he does, that’s when we stick his ass. Hard. Deep. Right in the heart. With a fuckin’ ice pick.”
“Goddamn!” Bunni hollered. “You don’t fuck around, do you, Uncle Suge? You sure know how to kick a muh’fucka around when he’s down!”
Suge didn’t blink. “Damn right. I’ll stomp him out. Stomp his muthafuckin’ ass out!”
Bunni rolled! “Shiiit . . . remind me not to get caught on your dirty side, okayyy?”
Suge winked at her and tongued his toothpick sexily in his mouth.
“I’m a gully muh’fucka, baby. This is what I do.”
CHAPTER 24
If all the recent craziness with Mink and Dy-Nasty wasn’t enough to frazzle her nerves and bring back old memories, now there was this. Selah’s heart pounded as she studied the words and the picture that had just been texted to her cell phone.
I STILL HAVE IT.
The object on the screen glittered and sparkled, and back in the day it had been worth over a million dollars. Eighteen years had passed since the last time she’d seen it, and the memory of how and where she’d lost it was still fresh in her mind. She glanced down at the we
dding ring she wore on her finger now. This one was nothing compared to the one in the picture. It didn’t mean half as much to her as the original one had meant, but then again she wasn’t half the wife today that she was back then either.
She sighed as she replied to the text message with a few short words.
I WANT IT BACK.
That fucker. That short, fat, gruesome troll. After all these years she could still feel his pudgy hands on her. Feel the way the sweaty sheets had been wrenched off the mattress by their pounding, desperate bodies. It was a weakness of hers, this knack powerful men had for turning her on.
He texted her back almost right away.
MEET ME. WEDNESDAY AT NOON. AT OUR OLD PLACE. I’LL GIVE IT TO YOU THEN.
Just reading the words on the screen sent shivers running down Selah’s spine. She was excited and disgusted at the same time. And there was an element of shame in there too. But shame mixed with the sweet satisfaction of revenge.
I’m gonna pay him back with his worst fucking enemy.
The words she’d muttered all those years ago came back as a burning echo in her mind as she deleted the cryptic messages from her iPhone. She thought about her husband laying comatose in his hospital bed. She’d paid his ass back, all right. She had damn sure done that. And on Wednesday at twelve she’d find out exactly what that payback was going to cost her.
“Them fools up at the college are trying to act like they don’t wanna let me back in class,” Dane told us as we chilled in his little crib over the garage. Me and Bunni had gone up there looking to get lifted, but for once Dane was stone sober when he opened the door.
“Classes start in a minute and I shoulda been gone by now. Back in the dorm. But I can’t even reserve a room until I get some money and they lift the charges off me.”
