by Zaire Crown
The place smelled of gun oil and steel. There was enough heat down here to get Face all day in federal prison. Whenever Tuesday came through that little trapdoor in his office, she always felt like a secret agent on some James Bond shit.
He leaned against a counter that held a dozen AR-15’s and SKS’s with the ammunition boxes stacked neatly to the side. “So what was you lookin’ for?”
Tuesday explained. “For looks the AK is cool because it’s recognizable and it intimidates, but for actually shooting it’s kinda heavy and it got too much kick for a woman. I need something that a girl can handle easy if it goes down and she find herself in the middle of it.”
Face listened to her with a slow nod. He reached behind him, pulled a gun off the pegboard that looked like a small Uzi and showed it to her. “I think the M11 is exactly what you lookin’ for. It’s small and light enough for a woman to handle, and while it ain’t got the power of a K, it damn sure gone get a nigga off you. Especially if it’s converted to fully.”
He passed it to Tuesday, who examined the weapon more closely. She maneuvered it as if she were fending off multiple attackers. She liked that it was short, lightweight and fit well in her small hands.
“You sure this ain’t got too much recoil? I don’t want this bitch jumping out my hands in the middle of a shootout.”
“Hell, naw. I’m feeling this for a chick so much that I make the wifey carry a M11. I custom-built a stash spot in the Rover wit one of these in it, even took her to the range a couple times. Maria smaller than you and she handle that bitch wit no problem.
“But if you want, we can go out back and tag a couple cars. You know, just so you can get the feel of it.”
Face took the M11, loaded it with ten rounds, then led her up through his office into the yard behind the garage. He gave the gun to Tuesday and watched her spray bullets into the side of an old Delta 88, shattering the passenger side windows, punching holes in the doors and rear quarter panel, and flattening a tire. Firing the gun charged her with a rush of adrenaline.
When the weapon was spent, she gave it back to him with a smile that said she approved. “That’s all right! You say wifey got the same one?”
“Only I switched hers from semi to fully automatic and I put a laser sighting on it to help her aim.”
“Good. I want you to hook me up five the same way.”
“Damn, five!” He squinted. “Y’all must be goin’ at somebody helluva! It ain’t me, is it?”
He tried to mask it with humor but beneath the smile Tuesday could see that the question was earnest. This was a reminder that while they did go back twenty years, they weren’t friends. Doing business had been mutually beneficial but with all the money that had changed hands, trust had never been purchased.
“Nigga, will you stop it, ain’t nobody lookin’ at you. Besides, you know how I feel about dark-skinned niggas!” She gave him an air kiss.
They returned to his office and he to his old recliner behind the table. “Five M11’s switched over with the beam.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Since it’s you, just gimme fifty-eight hun and they be ready in two days!”
Tuesday added, “Plus I wanna good pair of binoculars, some night vision goggles, and a silencer that’ll fit my Heckler.”
He gave her a strange look. “Damn, girl, you ’bout to become a Navy Seal or somethin’?”
“Just tell me what the ticket is, and show me some love since you already stuck dick to me on the Denali.”
“Again, since it’s you,” he said with the smile that always impressed Tuesday in how it could distract from his leathery skin, “I’ll do the whole package for seven racks, and that is love!”
Tuesday tried to use her own smile. “Let me get it for forty-five?”
Face shook his head. “Damn, baby, and you just said you wasn’t out to rob me.”
She came around to his side of the table and sat on it. “So me and my girl Tush at the mall the other day and I’m lookin’ at these fire red Prada joints wit a five-inch heel. I’m wondering, damn, do I already got somethin’ in my closet like these.”
Face looked away from her with his eyes closed. “See, you ’bout to get on that bullshit again. Let’s just do this business and keep it clean.”
“So after that we went for mani-pedis out at this new spot in Ypsilanti. They massage yo soles real good and soak yo feet in this oil that s’posed to make the skin extra soft. I got my nails did in this plum-red polish.”
She could see that Face was starting to breathe harder. He dropped his hand into his lap and she watched with a smile as it found its way to his crotch.
Face was a smart businessman, a dedicated hustler, and had plenty of game; but Tuesday had learned his one weakness a long time ago and knew how to exploit it. Face had a serious foot fetish. A pair of pretty feet in open-toed shoes did more for him than lingerie did for most niggas. He was so into feet that even conversations about pedicures and toenail polish were enough to take him out of his zone.
He struggled for control of himself. “You a dirty muthafucka, TK! I’ll do sixty-eight but anything less than that and you gettin’ down on me.”
Tuesday made a show of crossing her legs then seductively stroked the thigh-high Stuart Whiteman riding boots that she purposely wore for this meeting. “I already know you gettin’ this shit from a wholesaler for next to nothin’, Face. Tell me a better number and I’ll unzip these boots and show you what we both know you wanna see.”
Face was massaging his dick through the coveralls. He watched mesmerized as she teased him by toying with the zipper on her boot. “I’ll do it for sixty-six.”
She slowly tugged at the zipper but stopped about an inch below the knee.
He said, “I thought you was takin’ ’em off!”
“No, no, no,” she cooed softly. “You know how this game is played. The lower you go, the lower I go.”
He let out a frustrated groan. “Sixty-three, but I’m tellin’ you it’s the best I can do!”
Face watched with wide and excited eyes as the zipper slowly traveled south again but grumbled curses when it stopped right at her ankle.
“C’mon, Tuesday, you killin’ me!” he whined almost like a child. “Sixty-two fifty!”
She pulled the zipper halfway back up her calf.
“See, that’s some bullshit!”
She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t insult me then, nigga! Ain’t nothin’ fifty-dollar about me.”
“Did you forget I’m tryin’ to run a business here?”
She countered. “And did you forget how suckable my toes are?”
Tuesday inched over until she sat directly in front of him on the table. She dropped her left foot in his lap and, using the toe of her boot, she lightly stroked the length of his hard dick while he let out pleasure-filled groans.
“Sixty-one!” he said between heavy breaths.
“Make it an even six and I’ll let you taste ’em.”
Face agreed with a grunt and when she raised her right foot so that he could finally remove the boot, he stripped it off like a kid hastily unwrapping a Christmas gift.
At first he just stared at her flawless foot, appraising it the way a jeweler might do an exceptional diamond. Tuesday wore a four and a half in women’s, which was a little small for her height. She didn’t have bunions, corns, or calluses and the skin was a brighter shade since her feet didn’t see the sun as often. The toes weren’t bent, curled, longer, or shorter than they should be, perfect symmetry from the big toe down to the pinky, and she wore a gold toe ring on the second one. The nails were pedicured and painted in the plum-red polish that she had told him about. Tuesday had always taken care of her shit because her shoe game required that her feet be on point.
He took a long deep inhale as if ecstatic by the soapy scent then devoured her foot, kissing and sucking with a delight that only those with an identical fetish could appreciate.
Tuesday giggled as she felt his squirmy tongue wr
iggle between her toes. “Don’t forget, I got another foot too.”
When Tuesday pulled away from Face’s it was already a few minutes after two and she was heavy on the pedal because she had to be back out in Romulus by two thirty.
She left the gun dealer in his office feeling like a sucker but a satisfied one. She’d gotten the entire package for fifty-six hundred; he’d even thrown in a few extra boxes of ammo. She left with the silencer, shells, goggles, and binoculars with Face promising that the modified M11’s would be ready for pickup in two days.
To her, the funniest part was that she didn’t even have to fuck since Face’s bizarre fetish didn’t involve him wanting the pussy. Tuesday did feel weird having to jack the nigga off with her feet but for the price of a Wetnap she’d saved fourteen hundred dollars.
Tuesday didn’t take advantage of him every time they did business; she just really needed to save a few dollars. The club wasn’t doing very well and everything she bought today—the ID package, the apartment, and the guns—had taken a huge bite out of her savings. Plus it didn’t help that she gave up her share of the last lick.
She had to speed but was back out in Romulus and parked across the street from Bishop Burchram in time. The Audi swung through to collect the little girl and again the driver was alone.
Only when he pulled off this time, Tuesday followed. She performed an illegal U-turn down the block from the school and trailed them at a safe distance. She knew that the white Caddy wasn’t very discreet so she purposely kept a car or two between them.
Tuesday had enough experience with tailing a mark to know better than to copy every stop and turn. On the surface streets she took corners a block or two after him and on the freeway she fell back as much as half a mile.
She tailed them on the highway at about five car-lengths until they got off and led her into a residential area that was about three miles from the school. The streets were clean and besides the occasional DUI, crime was probably an anomaly. Behind manicured lawns and neatly trimmed hedges sat large houses that would easily fetch eight or nine hundred thousand in a fair real estate market.
When they made an unexpected stop at a Dairy Queen, Tuesday had to take a quick right turn into the parking lot of a bank that was a block behind them. She whipped into it with a squeak of rubber, narrowly avoided the sign and parked in a slot that gave her a view of the Audi. She grabbed the binoculars off the passenger seat and used them to study the driver as he got out to approach the service window.
He was about six foot one, dark-skinned with his hair cut so low it was close to bald. He had thin sideburns that stretched into a short trimmed beard and goatee. While his eyes were concealed behind dark sunglasses, Tuesday figured that he was reasonably handsome, at least fuckable, since the mission would most likely require that she have sex with him.
Tuesday didn’t know why she half expected him to have horns, huge bat wings, and a forked tail. Not only did this guy not look like Satan, he didn’t even look like a run-of-the-mill dope boy.
This was meant only in a sense that he wasn’t dressed flashily. He wore a plain white Lacoste golf shirt and dark jeans; the car blocked her view of his shoes. His sunglasses were stylish but probably less expensive than the YSL’s she had perched on her head. He didn’t wear any jewelry other than a watch and a platinum pinky ring on his right hand.
Tuesday was pleased to see that he didn’t have on a wedding band; but while that meant he wasn’t married, she knew that there was still a good chance he was involved with somebody.
Dresden had not given her a good picture but she had spent all the previous day and night studying it. Right then, watching him through a pair of high-powered military binoculars as the man paid for a small sundae and medium Blizzard then walked them back to the Audi, there was nothing about his look or swagger to suggest that this was the real Sebastian Caine or a phony. He looked as innocent as a bank manager or computer geek.
After the Dairy Queen, Tuesday followed them for six more blocks until he turned onto a short tree-lined street that ended in a cul-de-sac shaped like a horseshoe. The gray Audi pulled in at a large Bavarian-style house with stained-glass windows and a circular drive. The father got out holding his Blizzard and guided the buoyant youngster to the front door while she happily scooped heaping spoonfuls of ice cream into her mouth.
Parked at the corner of the block, Tuesday studied the house with her binoculars. It was impressive, sizable—she guessed four bedrooms and two and a half baths—and set in a decent neighborhood, but this was far below the level of someone like Sebastian Caine. The man who had quietly spent twenty years as the king of cocaine could afford something way more extravagant than this. For someone with his money and power Tuesday had expected a twenty-room mansion protected by privacy fences and cameras with armed goons in dark suits stationed at the front gate, not some nondescript house in middle-class suburbia surrounded by dentists, office managers, and anyone with a seventy grand a year income. Tuesday guessed with what she made off the club, minus doing sticks, she could afford the mortgage on a nicer place than he had.
“And what about security?” she wondered out loud. She didn’t see any henchmen, goons, gunmen, or even friends, for that matter. Tuesday was confused because at the Dairy Queen he didn’t even appear to have a pistol on him. Would the real Caine really be driving around with his daughter and no protection while living in a house without so much as a chain-link fence and two pit bulls in the yard? Would someone who was reportedly getting thousands upon thousands of bricks just walk around in the open like that and leave himself so naked?
There were a few children outside on the block and an elderly couple seated on their porch, and since Tuesday didn’t want to appear too suspicious by just sitting on the corner, she slowly pulled away from the curb.
She cruised past the quiet little house, did a 180 in the rounded cul-de-sac and cruised by it again. There was a large picture window in front and through it she could glimpse cartoons on a wall-mounted TV.
She was looking for anything that might help her make sense of this mystery but nothing about the plain little house or factory-standard Audi said seven-figure lick.
Tuesday turned off his block and found her way back to the freeway thinking that Dresden must’ve fucked up again.
Chapter Seven
It was around five o’clock when Tuesday returned to The Bounce and since she was in a better mood than last night, she flirted with old Mr. Scott and made his day.
She went inside and was greeted by a typical Tuesday afternoon crowd: fourteen customers on the floor, two more at the bar, and three girls on stage.
She went over to the bar and called over Ebony, who was being chatted up by a drinker on the first stool. She cut their conversation and joined Tuesday at the other end of the bar. “What’s up, Boss Lady?”
“Eb, I just wanna apologize for the way I came through here last night. I was goin’ through something but I don’t want you to think that I’m gone come in every night and try to drink up the bar.”
Ebony leaned over the bar on her elbows so she could be closer to her. “First off, I knew you had something on yo mind but I felt it wasn’t my place to try and pick yo brain for it. I’m a bitch who know her role: I pour liquor, it’s not my job to be yo therapist.
“But second, and most importantly, you don’t have to apologize for shit you do in this muthafucka! TK, this is yo shit and if you wanna drink up every bottle of tequila we got in stock, you can and not have to say sorry to me or any other bitch in here.”
Tuesday nodded. “I know. It’s just that I try to carry myself like a professional when I’m at work.” It was more than just about carrying herself like a professional; Tuesday always tried to appear in control, especially at work. The break with A.D. had put her in a bad place and she had allowed Ebony to peep her in a moment of weakness.
Ebony said: “Can’t nobody round here say you don’t handle yo business. Every now and then a bitch might
complain—you the boss, you gone get that—but all in all, you treat everybody in here right. From the dancers, to the waitresses, to the customers.”
“Ahh, girl!” Tuesday reached across the bar and gave her a one-armed hug. “I know it sound corny but I needed to hear something positive like that.”
Tuesday had a few more words with Ebony about the liquor supply then turned away from the bar, but just as she started for her office: whack! She flinched and spun around, only to see DelRay grinning at her.
“We at six!”
“Naw, nigga,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “That was yo last one!”
He didn’t understand. “By my math ten minus six equals four.”
“And what math did you use to figure that Tushie’s ass is worth more than mine? You ain’t think I was gone find out about the bet you made with her?”
DelRay could only give her that guilty smile of a nigga who’d just got busted with another chick’s phone number.
“You done already got down but now you go back to looking and admiring ’cause if you touch me again I’m gone shoot you in the dick.”
DelRay shook his head. “That’s some bullshit, Boss Lady. You reneging on our bet.”
“Don’t feel bad, Fatboy,” she said, patting on his big belly. “Like everybody else, you still get to enjoy the view.”
She turned around, made her ass bounce a couple times, then strutted off. DelRay called out over the music: “You wrong as hell for that, TK!”
When Tuesday reached her office, she was texting someone with her phone. She threw the door open but was so fucked up by what she saw that she froze and almost dropped it.
Baby Doll was sprawled out on her couch butt-ass naked and between her legs was this brown-skinned dancer that Tuesday had just hired. Crouched on all fours in nothing but boy shorts, the girl looked up at her boss, shocked, with wide eyes and lips greasy from eating Doll’s pussy.
