Games Women Play

by Zaire Crown

  Baby Doll and Jaye could do nothing but look on stunned. They were either too shocked or too afraid to interfere. Tuesday continued to put down her Ike Turner while the two silently watched.

  Tuesday slapped her ten times then let go of her weave. The girl fell to her knees and cupped her face with her hands.

  “You stupid bitch!!” Tuesday roared at her as Brianna slowly crawled back into her seat. “Do you know what you just did? Do you know what type of heat you just put on us?”

  Baby Doll tried to defend her girl. “She did what she had to do!” she said in a tone that Tuesday didn’t appreciate. “That nigga came through here on some crazy stalker shit and tried to snatch me out tha club!”

  Tuesday turned on her and pointed. “You shut tha fuck up, bitch, ’cause I’ma get to you in a minute!”

  While Tuesday was focused on Baby Doll, Brianna went for the gun inside a Chanel bag she left on the sofa, but stopped short when she saw the mag from the corner of her eye. Jaye was on the other end of a .380 that was hovering only an inch away from her head.

  “If you draw, better be Picasso!” Jaye said, quoting an old Jay Z lyric. “Naw, Bree, it ain’t going down like that. You done did all the shooting you gone do tonight!”

  “Bitch, I should slap you up again!” Tuesday said. She grabbed the strap out her bag and dropped it in with the Heckler she was carrying in her Louis.

  As Jaye put away her gun, Tuesday shot her a glance that said, Good lookin’. She responded with a slight nod that said, I got yo back.

  Tuesday was back on Brianna again. “What the fuck was you thinkin’, bitch?! You do this shit in my place, and now? We got the most important mission we ever had on the floor right now! We don’t need this shit!”

  “What was I s’posed to do?” With no gun to reach for, Brianna was more willing to talk. “First the nigga followed her into the women’s bathroom then burst inside the changing room. Since you so fucking smart and just got so much game, what would you had done?”

  Tuesday looked at her with some combination of anger, pity, and disbelief. As pretty as Brianna was—and at times Tuesday somewhat envied her look—she honestly couldn’t believe the girl was as dumb as she was.

  Tuesday frowned at her. “Tank was by himself and the nigga didn’t have a strap on him. Why wouldn’t y’all just call DelRay to throw his ass up outta here? You know that big black muthafucka we got standing at the front door? That’s what he gets paid to do!”

  Brianna rolled her eyes, still giving attitude even though her cheeks were turning red from being slapped around. “Well, it’s easy to say what you would’ve did after the fact. When all the shit was going down, I didn’t think about that.”

  Tuesday wanted to go at her again but she didn’t have the energy, plus it wouldn’t do any good. The girl was so stupid that talking to her was tiring in a way that had nothing to do with the late hour or her lack of sleep. Tuesday went around the desk and flopped into her chair. She let out a deep sigh as if physically and mentally drained.

  “Doll, how do you think he found you?” she asked, reclining her chair with her eyes closed.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. He probably just saw me on the street and started following me.”

  Tuesday sat up, propped an elbow on the desk, and rested her head in her palm. “Simone’s phone. You never got rid of it, did you?”

  “So? Why throw away a perfectly good phone when all I gotta do is not answer it when he call?”

  Frustrated, Tuesday closed her eyes again. She was then certain that she would never be a good parent. She felt like she was dealing with children and knew that she lacked the patience to do this full-time.

  Tuesday spoke slowly and carefully as if she were actually talking to a five-year-old even though Doll seemed to have less sense than Danielle. “Baby Doll. I told you to lay low and to make sure you got rid of that phone. I stressed this to you because I knew what type of nigga he was. Insecure dudes like him will sneak and put GPS on your phone and car. That’s why we only fuck with rentals and never use our own phones.”

  Brianna jumped in. “You don’t know he found her by tracking her phone!”

  “We don’t know he didn’t, either. And he damn sure ain’t in no position to tell us!”

  Doll had an icy stare. “He’d still be alive if he wouldn’t have brought his ass through here like that! The ugly fat muthafucka should’ve got the hint when I stopped callin’ his ass!”

  Tuesday said, “The only thing Tank did wrong was fall in love with you and he didn’t deserve to die because of it.

  “Listen,” she said, addressing them all. “Regardless of how some of y’all might feel about me personally, please believe that I know what I’m doing and everything I tell y’all is for a reason. I’ve been doing this shit for a minute and ain’t never got caught up because I’m careful. I done ran into a few of my old marks on the street and got hugs; niggas never suspected I had anything to do with the loss they took. Some done even tried to hook up with me again!

  “We watch a nigga and go through all this Mission: Impossible shit because it’s about protecting us and them. We get the money and a dude might get his feelings hurt but that’s it. Believe it or not, I actually like men and didn’t come into this game to knock niggas’ heads off. Nobody needs to die in order for us to get what we want. What happened here tonight was wrong and it should not have went down.”

  She looked at Baby Doll. “That nigga’s death is on you as much as it is on Brianna. If you was more careful, he would’ve never followed you here.”

  “What about the one you on now?” Brianna asked with attitude. “You talkin’ all this high and mighty shit when the whole plan is to knock his head off! What makes you so much better than us?”

  Jaye and Doll looked at her as if to say it was a good question, and even Tuesday had to agree. She was coming off like a hypocrite considering that she was the main one stressing that Marcus would have to die after this.

  “The difference is that my mark is in a whole other league than a nigga like Tank. When we hit him, he gone know I had something to do with it. Plus other niggas ain’t connected to where they could have you whole family murdered, even from behind bars!”

  Tuesday saw from the expressions on their faces that she had made her point.

  “If we gone get through the rest of this shit, and stay the fuck outta jail, y’all need to start listening to me.”

  Just hearing the word “jail” deflated Brianna some. Apparently with all the things that could go wrong in committing a senseless unjustified murder, she never considered spending her life in prison to be one of them.

  Tuesday said, “First things first, we gotta get this body taken care of.”

  “How we gone do that?” asked Doll. “Go buy some shovels, take his ass out to the country and just bury him somewhere?”

  “Naw, I got a guy I know who handle this type of shit, but it’s gone be expensive, though.” She looked at Brianna. “It’s about to take a whole lotta money to clean up yo bullshit and whatever it cost is comin’ out your share!”

  She made a face. “How much he gone want?”

  Tuesday shook her head. “I don’t know. I never used him for this before, but whatever he ask we gone have to pay. It ain’t like we got a choice.”

  “We got another problem,” said Jaye. “There was a couple girls working who saw the shit happen. What we gone do about them?”

  Tuesday closed her eyes and massaged her temples as if developing a migraine. With everything else on her plate, she hadn’t considered the possibility of any witnesses going to the police.

  She breathed out a weary sigh. “Honestly, ain’t nothing much we can do. We locked in now. We really need to hit this lick so we can get the fuck on!”

  Tuesday let Ebony leave around three thirty but asked DelRay to stay through the night. When it was time to move Tank, she was going to need him to help with the heavy lifting and DelRay agreed with no complaints.
Tuesday didn’t have much money at the time but promised she was going to look out as soon as she could, for this and for keeping a cool head through the whole situation.

  Tuesday set Brianna and Baby Doll to work on cleaning up the blood, since she placed the blame on them equally. Jaye offered to help them scrub the walls and floor but her assistance was voluntary.

  DelRay helped Tuesday straighten up the front of the club, and as a joke, she told him that he’d earned a lifetime pass to smack her ass as much as he wanted.

  She tried to get in touch with Face but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer his phone at four o’clock in the morning. She left an urgent message on his voice mail that he should call her as soon as he got it, regardless of the hour.

  In all the confusion she almost missed that no one had heard from Tushie the entire night. Tuesday also left a message for her when the call was transferred automatically to voice mail.

  The girls were tired but still awake as the predawn hours slid into morning. They sat around the club with red, puffy eyes, waiting for Tuesday to receive the call she was expecting from Face.

  Big DelRay was the only one comfortable enough to sleep in the company of the dead. He was stretched awkwardly across the bench seat in one of the booths snoring loudly as if he were home in his own bed.

  While Jaye sat at the bar with Tuesday, Baby Doll and Brianna were at a table across the room. They were huddled in a whispered conversation that Tuesday watched from the corner of her eye.

  Even though Brianna was downplaying it, Tuesday knew she had to feel some type of way about getting slapped up and had kept on guard since it happened. The girl wasn’t as hard as she thought but did have pride, and Tuesday didn’t think for a minute that she was going to let that go. She wasn’t going to let Brianna rock her to sleep. Especially now that she’s proved that she could and would kill.

  Jaye was a few stools down from her texting somebody, and Tuesday couldn’t imagine who at five thirty in the morning. When she slid onto the stool next to hers, Jaye put the phone away and Tuesday leaned in to her ear.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” she whispered. “Keep an eye on them bitches for me until this shit is over with, because I think them hoes up to something. I’m gone be too busy with Marcus, and ever since Tush got this new nigga . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence because just saying the words felt like she was betraying her girl.

  Jaye smiled. “So you want me to go straight up Black Ops on these bitches? Hide some cameras in they crib, put a bug on her car and track ’em by satellite. If either of them hoes make any kinda move, I’m in they ass like a G-string.”

  Tuesday laughed. “Girl, just let me know if you see them doing anything shady.”

  Jaye gave a fake salute.

  Just then Tuesday’s phone rang. The number appeared as unavailable but when she answered Face was on the other end sounding as if he’d just rolled over from sleep.

  “TK, what tha fuck? I just got yo message.” His voice was low and raspy.

  “I know it’s kinda early, nigga, but I got a little problem. I got this junker I need you to come pick up!”

  There was a long, thoughtful pause before he spoke again. “Where at?” His voice was clear now as if he fully woke up in those ten seconds.

  “A nigga broke down at my club last night. I need to get that towed away like now, ya hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you, but you need to hear me. Towing ain’t cheap and we don’t just do that shit for any muthafuckin’ body!”

  “Nigga this me!” Tuesday snapped at him. “I ain’t just any muthafuckin’ body. And I’m damn sure not gone call at four in tha morning not wanting shit!”

  He was quiet for a moment then said, “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  When Tuesday put away her phone, even Brianna was smart enough to peep that she wasn’t actually talking about a junked car.

  Of the few people who knew that he dealt in stolen cars, and the fewer still who knew he was a major arms dealer, only a fraction knew that Face also operated a private cleaning business. He offered this special service only for his most trusted customers. If one found themselves jammed up with a body, Face could make their problem disappear. It wasn’t much of a stretch since those who bought his illegal guns were bound to use them. The same resources that allowed him to strip a new Benz for parts, or just make the whole car vanish, were able to do the same for human bodies. However, Face assumed tremendous risk in doing this and he expected to be paid well for it.

  The problem was that Tuesday couldn’t afford it and seriously doubted they could even if she and Brianna pooled their money. She was really counting on the last lick, and because she gave the girls her share, her money was really funny right then. Her only hope was that Face would agree to do this on consignment for a piece of what they took from Marcus. If not, they were going to be hauling Tank’s fat ass to the nearest Dumpster and praying for the best.

  Because the decomposing corpse was locked away in the changing room and they had spent the last few hours away from the sight and scent, it was easier to convince themselves that they were waiting for someone as innocent as the cable guy or a plumber coming to fix a leaky pipe. It might have been a way to combat the nervousness or some defense mechanism employed by the psyche to deal with the guilt; either way, they were sharing the delusion that the morning’s task was a mundane one, so when the subject of breakfast came up, everyone agreed that they could eat. Guilt didn’t even quell Brianna’s appetite: she claimed to be the hungriest of them all.

  Just the mention of food made big DelRay sit up and Tuesday nominated him for the errand. She didn’t trust Brianna not to disappear leaving them to clean up her mess, and Doll had no car. Plus she wanted Jaye to stay behind with her just to keep equal numbers with the two of them. Even though she had taken Brianna’s gun, Tuesday was still playing it cautious.

  She offered DelRay a fifty and the keys to her Cadillac then sent him to find the closest fast food restaurant open at a quarter to six. Mr. Scott didn’t open Bo’s until twelve so he would need to drive at least a mile to find something. She preferred that he take her car because it was more dependable. Tuesday was hungry and didn’t want his shitty Monte Carlo to break down before he got back with the food.

  Tuesday was behind the bar pouring herself a glass of cranberry juice that Ebony used to mix drinks when the knock at the door came. “That’s my nigga Face right there. Bree, go let ’em in.”

  Brianna was closest to the door but she just sat there defiantly staring at her. Tuesday was about to lay into her about all this being her fucking fault from the jump when Baby Doll got up to answer it.

  DelRay hadn’t been gone two minutes and Tuesday hoped he didn’t take forever, because she wanted him there for Face in case he needed help carrying Tank.

  Tuesday took three big gulps of cranberry juice when Doll sprinted back from up front. Her chest was heaving, her face was pale, and her hazel eyes were so wide open that she might’ve seen the Grim Reaper at the door with cloak and scythe coming to collect Tank’s soul before Face came for his body.

  Baby Doll was wheezing so hard that Tuesday was barely able to make out the word “Po-po!” She took a deep breath then forced out in a single gasp, “Oh, shit, TK, it’s the muthafuckin’ hook at the door! What the fuck we gone do?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Po-po. The Hook. One Time. Five-O. Them People. The Law. Heat. The Fuzz. Jake. Pigs. Blue Boys. Jump-out Boys. Heroes. Them Folks.

  Each generation has called them something different and the names change with every city you visit, but no matter what they might be called in your hood, there are two things that niggas of all ages and in every part of the country can agree on:

  1) It’s never good when they show up at your door at six in the morning.

  2) It’s worse when somebody’s stretched in one of your back rooms with their brains leaking.

  Tuesday slowly approached the door with the girls on
her heels: Jaye, Baby Doll, and Brianna, who wasn’t looking as nonchalant as she had been a minute ago when Tuesday asked her to answer it. She was so nervous that she bit down on three of her fingers, probably to keep her teeth from chattering.

  The world suddenly seemed eerily silent and Tuesday could hear nothing over the sound of her wildly beating heart. It was like she was listening to herself through a stethoscope.

  When they knocked again, it made all the girls jump. The second barrage was louder and more demanding.

  The door to the club had a small window of tinted glass that allowed her to see out without being seen, but when Tuesday looked outside, the rhythm of her heart took on a much more frantic pace. There were two men standing on the other side in suits with badges that hung from chains around their necks.

  One of them was Dresden.

  She turned around and fell against the door. “Oh, shit!” It was inconceivable that he should be there. He and Tuesday had an unspoken agreement that he was never to come by the club and up until now he had honored that. She couldn’t figure what his slimy ass was doing there and didn’t know if she was better or worse off for having him versus some cop she didn’t know.

  Tuesday opened the door for him and his partner, who was a black guy who looked to be around thirty-two. He was brown-skinned, clean-cut, wearing cheap frames, and her first impression of him was that he was a square. She was actually surprised to see Dres paired up with a black guy after having listened to so many of his racist rants.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, focusing on the brother and ignoring Dresden.

  Dresden spoke for him, refusing to be ignored. “I’m Lieutenant Dresden and this is Detective Bates.” He put emphasis on their titles as if to stress that he was the superior. “Someone reported there was a shooting that happened here late last night.”

  Apparently he wanted to play it like they didn’t know each other and Tuesday was cool with that. “I’m sorry, officer, but you’ve been misinformed,” she said. “There wasn’t no shooting here.”