“El-Jihad,” Lanai said. “I can explain. This is—”
“My name is Honey,” Honey interrupted.
She stepped forward to face him, trying not to look at the two burly men holding the guns. By the way the others were acting, it was apparent that the he was the head honcho. The way his eyes bore into her caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.
“Good. You speak for yourself. Now that I know who you are, tell me why you’re here.”
“I needed some money, and my friend said she could put me on to some.”
El-Jihad’s laugh came as a shock, and it almost caused her to jump. It was a sinister laugh, and Honey didn’t think he even found anything funny. He stopped laughing abruptly and frowned. He snatched the Uzi from the hands of the man on his right and advanced on Honey. From the corner of his eye he saw Dank holding Lanai back, and he made a mental note to handle her later. Placing the nose of the gun to Honey’s temple, he placed his lips close to her ear and applied pleasure to the trigger.
“I don’t like unfamiliar faces, Honey,” El-Jihad breathed in her ear. “They make me uncomfortable. I’m the only one who can put anybody on to some money, and today? Well, let’s just say I’m feeling generous. I’m going to give you three seconds instead of one to tell me why I should open my doors to you.”
Honey caught her breath and felt her body go rigid. She felt the cold gun on the side of her head and tried to think of a good answer. When Lanai said she could get her the money, she would have never guessed that an hour later she would have to barter for her own life.
“One,” El-Jihad’s counting started too fast. She wasn’t done thinking.
What the fuck can you offer this man, Honey? Think. Think.
“Two.”
Oh my God, I’m about to die.
“Thre—”
“I’m hungry,” Honey blurted out just in time. Her heart was pounding so loud that she could hear it. When she realized that she was still alive, but the gun was still connected to her head, she figured there was no better time to be completely honest. “I-I don’t have anything else to dedicate my time to. I’m tired of living like a mole and having to borrow my homegirl’s clothes. I want my own shit. I don’t want to have to go home to my foster mother so her boyfriend can fuck me and get away with it.”
She paused, hoping that was good enough.
“And?” El-Jihad jerked his neck slightly like he was annoyed. “You said you was hungry, but all I’m hearing is a sob story.”
She inhaled and decided to go all the way in. What she was about to say she never told anyone, not even Lanai. It was like a fantasy of hers, something that she never felt would happen.
“I be seeing niggas hitting the block from the window in my bedroom,” she confessed, closing her eyes, thinking about the young hustlers in her neighborhood. “I know how dangerous it is and shit. At any moment, somebody could come rob them or lock them up or whatever, but it don’t matter. Every time I see them, from my window or up close, they look happy. Because they have money. I’m smarter than most people my age, but I ain’t no scholar. I don’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer, none of that. But I want money, and a lot of it. I’ve been cooped up so long around fucked-up people that I’ve had time to think about what I want.”
“And what is that?”
“I want to live good,” she replied and nodded back toward Lanai and the others. “Around loyal people. I don’t really know all of them like that, but from what I see, I fit in with them.”
El-Jihad let her words soak in, and he found himself chuckling. Removing the gun from her head, he stepped back to study her. He didn’t trust her quite yet, but he’d heard the sincerity in her voice. She was green, but street, and he liked that.
“OK,” he said and handed the gun back to its owner. “This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you a job. One job to prove to me that you’re about what you’re talking. If you succeed, I’ll let you get down with the best team in my operation. But—” His eyes lowered, and Honey held her breath. “If you fail, I’ma let my goons tie a brick to each ankle and throw you in the ocean alive. You feel that?”
“Y-yeah,” Honey nodded her head.
“And you,” El-Jihad addressed Lanai with a look so venomous that it was a surprise that he didn’t strike. “Give her a phone. I’ll be calling later with details on the job. Let this be the last time you bring a fresh face into my facility.”
He didn’t wait to hear a response because he turned and walked away, taking his goons and cold aura with him. Nobody spoke until they heard the footsteps leave and the front door to the house slam shut. After that, it was like everyone in the room sighed with relief.
“I thought for sure he was gon’ kill all of us,” Ron Ron said, leaning up against one of the weapons walls.
“Hell, yea! You see how he was looking at her?” Snow said referring to Honey.
“We’re his best team,” Lanai spoke up, trying to shake the goose bumps on the backs of her arms. “OK, back to business. When do we leave for this hit?”
“Nah,” Dank said, shaking his head. “Y’all get back to school. This is just an easy pickup anyways. You need to, for real, talk to your homegirl about what she just signed up for straight up.”
“Did you just hear what she said?” Lanai argued. “She knows what this shit is about.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Dank shook his head. “We gon’ see.”
“I’m still standing right here, you know,” Honey butted in on their quarrel.
“I see you.” Dank’s voice sounded angry, but his eyes told a different tale. There was a file cabinet in the room that had a couple of burner phones in it. He grabbed a flip phone out of it and handed it to Honey after sending a text message. “Here. It’s active, and he got your number now. If I were you, I’d do my best to not miss that call. You on your own now, ma. Willie, give her that gun y’all was showing her with a couple of clips.” He eyed Honey’s tight jeans and shook his head again. “You gon’ need some baggier pants too. Try some cargos or something. Easier to conceal something like that.”
Honey tried to ignore the fire in her chest and the fact that everyone in the room was looking at her as if she’d just signed her death warrant. She wanted to ask them what they thought he was going to have her do, but then decided that she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to get scared because, in all honesty, it was too late for that.
“Come on, Honey,” Lanai told her after Willie gave her the strap. “Let’s go back to school.”
“Wait.” Honey had started behind her but stopped. “The reason we came here was because I needed some money like right now.”
“How much you need, ma?” Dank asked.
“One hundred dollars for my graduation fees.”
“Here.” He reached in the pocket of his Levi jeans and pulled out a roll of cash. He not only peeled off a one hundred-dollar bill, but five more after that. “Now be easy and don’t miss that phone call.”
Honey nodded and followed after Lanai, leaving the others in the basement to their own thoughts.
“Damn, G,” Ron Ron said when he heard the front door slam. “She sold her soul to the devil for one Ben?”
Dank had been thinking the same thing. He had been watching Honey since she came in, and it was obvious that she was naïve to a lot of things; however, she wasn’t afraid, either. It made him wonder what kind of demons she was hiding because she signed her life over way too easy.
“Some people use this lifestyle as a quick come up, and then get out,” he said locking the file cabinet up again. “And others? Others just succumb to the life the hood spits at them.”
“This nigga tryin’a sound like Ghandi or some shit,” Ron Ron laughed.
“Ole Nelson Mandela-ass, nigga!” Willie threw in, joining his cousin’s laughter.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dank laughed a little bit too. “Fuck both of you niggas. Come on, let’s get to this drop.”
* * *
The sound of running water filled the air, and Honey relished in the feel of the hotness filling the tub she was relaxing in. Her head was thrown back, and she wished she could stay there in that moment forever. The school day was over, and although she paid for her cap and gown, she was beginning to wonder if it was worth what she paid. The volume to the flip phone had been turned up as loud as it could possibly get since she got it and was sitting on the toilet seat next to the tub. She and Lanai had gone straight to Lanai’s house, and neither girl had barely said a thing to the other.
Knock! Knock!
Honey jumped slightly in the water when she heard the knob on the bathroom door turn. When Lanai entered, Honey realized just how on edge she was.
“My bad,” Lanai apologized. She set the towel and pair of pajamas she had in her hands down on the counter by the sink. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s cool, thank you.”
“You a’ight?” Lanai asked, picking up the phone so that she could pop a squat on the closed toilet seat.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” Honey said, washing her body. “What did you have to do, Lanai?”
“What?” Lanai asked, playing dumb.
“You know what I mean,” Honey said, rolling her eyes. “Bitch, what did you have to do to get put on?”
“Honey—”
“Don’t ‘Honey’ me, Ny.” Honey finished her bath and stepped out to dry her body.
“I’m not tryin’a scare you.”
“It’s too late to think like that.” Honey popped the tags on the underwear and bra so she could put them on. “Tell me.”
Lanai left the bathroom without telling her a thing. Honey followed her to the master bedroom as soon as she was dressed in the baby blue cotton shorts and white T-shirt she’d been brought.
“Tell me,” Honey repeated climbing on the queen-sized bed and nestling herself in Lanai’s beige comforter.
“What I had to do doesn’t matter,” Lanai said from where she sat on the edge of the bed. “What matters is that you listen to what I’m about to tell you. My plan was to break you in with a small job and sneak you in through the back door. You know, ease you into this shit.”
“Now what?”
“I feel you’ve been tossed in a pool of sharks before you were ready to swim. Listen, El-Jihad ain’t no joke, and he don’t like when people he doesn’t know is in his mix.”
“If you knew you wasn’t supposed to bring me, why did you? Now you got me in his sights. I’ve seen what niggas like him do to people. Enough bodies have been tossed out on my block.”
“I know, Honey, and I’m sorry. I ain’t expect him to pop up like that, and you can curse me out if you want to, but what is that going to do? Now, I can tell you on how to survive a night with El-Jihad so you can get some money, or you can die broke and with nothing.” When Honey was quiet, she continued. “Step one, don’t put your trust in people, put your trust in situations. If some shit don’t feel right, it ain’t right. Step two, always know what you’re doing, and if you don’t know, look like you know. And step three, if you pull your fire out—”
Bzzzz! Bzzzz!
“you better shoot,” Lanai finished with wide eyes as the flip phone vibrated loudly in Honey’s hand.
Honey answered the phone before it could ring again and put the receiver to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Wilson’s Place. One hour. A car will be outside for you in fifteen minutes.”
Click!
The phone hadn’t even been pressed against her face for thirty seconds before she was disconnecting it. Honey jumped up from the bed and went to Lanai’s walk-in closet.
“What did he say?” Lanai asked.
“He said someone is coming to get me in fifteen minutes,” she said flicking the light on. “Do you have some cargo pants?”
She turned to face Lanai but saw that she was gone. Before she could call her name, Lanai was coming back in the room. Not only did she have the gun with the clips that Dank gave Honey, but she also had a bulletproof vest.
“Huh?” Lanai said handing Honey the vest. “Put this over your T-shirt. Move right quick.” She moved by Honey to get in the closet and snatched a few items. “These should fit you. Sit at my vanity when you’re done so I can braid you up.”
Within five minutes, Honey was dressed and ready to go. Lanai spent the last ten minutes making sure Honey knew how to reload and tuck her gun correctly.
“I wish I had enough time to show you how to aim,” she said, walking Honey to the front door. She hugged Honey and pulled back. “Just be as real as you can.”
Honey nodded, even though she didn’t understand what Lanai meant by that. There was no time to ask either. She turned away from Lanai’s apartment door and walked away before her nerves caught up to her head. The door shut behind her as soon as she hit the corner on the end of the well-lit hallway. She could see the headlights of a car parked right outside of the apartment building entrance and figured that was her ride. She made sure the hoodie covered the gun tucked in her cargo pants before she stepped foot outside of the building and approached the darkly tinted Mercedes-Benz. The door unlocked the moment she put her hand on the handle, and she got in the backseat. The leather seats were light in color and comfortable to sit on. The partition window between her and the driver rolled down when she shut the door, and a voice asked, “Honey Broadway?”
“Y-yeah,” Honey answered trying to hide the shock from coming to her face. She didn’t know how he could possibly know her name. “That’s me.”
He didn’t say anything else to her. The partition window just rolled back up and left Honey to stare at her reflection in the window. She felt the car pull off, and it suddenly hit her that she really didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into. She didn’t even see the driver’s face. He could be taking her anywhere. Honey closed her eyes tightly and told herself to get it together. It didn’t matter where he was taking her.... She was already in the car. All she could do was prepare for what would happen when she opened the door to the car once again.
Leaning back in the seat, she put her hood on. She looked around the luxury car and wondered how much it cost to buy. Being bounced from foster home to foster home, Honey always daydreamed about what it would be like to have nice things and be rich. She ran her fingers on the hard top of the armrest in the middle of the backseat and came across a button. Letting curiosity get the best of her, she pressed it, causing the armrest to click and the hard top to open upward like double doors. Inside was a .38 revolver and a small strap. She felt the car coming to a stop, so she hurried to strap the gun on her right leg. She had just pulled her pants leg down when the passenger’s side back door opened. A tall man wearing a suit got out of her way when she stepped out of the car. She was confused because she thought “Wilson’s Place” was some sort of restaurant, but there she was, standing in the parking lot of a closed auto body shop. There were a few client cars parked around her, but from what she could see, there was nobody in the building. No lights were on, and she couldn’t hear anything. Not only that, but it looked to be the only building for some miles. Honey turned around to ask the driver if he’d brought her to the correct place, but he was already driving off.
“Aye!” Honey yelled, but he didn’t stop driving. “Shit!”
Turning back to the building, she checked the time on the phone she had in her pocket and saw that she only had five minutes to get to wherever El-Jihad wanted her to be. She gave the location a once-over one more time before her eyes brushed against the sign on the building’s front window.
“Wilson’s Place,” she read to herself and slowly approached the front door.
She pulled the metal handle, and the door opened easily, giving her access to the place. The light being provided from the windows made it easy to see that she’d stepped into the lobby of the business. There was a high desk in front of her with two seats and two computers. Behind the des
k was the entrance to the big garage on the left of the building. To the right of her were six chairs around an oval wooden table facing where a TV was propped up over a coffee machine. Farther to the right was an open door that said “Employees Only,” and Honey saw that it was the entrance to a hallway. At the end of the hallway she could make out a light and, naturally, she gravitated to it. She walked into what looked like the break room for the business’s employees, and El-Jihad was there, waiting for her.
“Right on time,” he said and smiled, pleased at her ability to be punctual. He sat at the head of the long, rectangular table with his hands crossed. “Sit.”
Honey tried to ignore the fact that the air around her felt as cold as it did the first time she was around El-Jihad, and did as she was told. She sat at the other end of the table so she could face him and look him in his eyes. His were so dark in the weak lighting that she could have sworn she was looking into the face of a demon.
“What are we doing here?” she asked taking notice of the six men El-Jihad had lined up against the walls in the room. Three on the left and three on the right, all standing tall and dapper in their suits.
“Impatient, aren’t we, Honey Broadway? It takes patience to become rich. Has anybody told you that?”
“No,” she responded. “But then again, I ain’t never been around no rich people. How do you know my name?”
“I make it my business to know everyone I do business with.” He reached in his suit pocket and pulled out a cigar, a lighter, and his cell phone. Placing the phone in front of him on the table, he lit the cigar and took a long drag. “When I first met you, the blankness in your eyes intrigued me. You were . . . unreadable for a lack of a better term and only a few things make a person that way. It didn’t take long for me to figure out, it pays to have friends in high places.” He leaned back with the cigar resting between his fingers and cocked his head slightly. “I know that you turn eighteen soon and that you come from absolutely nothing. You were born to a woman who never told you who your father was. She was so hooked on pain pills that she was probably passed out high when they came to take you away. You were eight years old in the system, placed with families, some more cruel than others. You had to fight, sometimes you won, but sometimes you lost. Like that time your foster siblings jumped and stabbed you. After you got out of the hospital, instead of pressing charges, you were placed in a different home. And that brings us to the relevance of this entire spiel of mine. You see, I was going to have you run the streets of some of my youngins to see how much heart you had, but that was before I found out how useful you could be to me.”
Girls from Da Hood 12 Page 4
