Numbers (24 page)

They all agreed. He knew they wouldn’t like that part of his plan, but if they wanted to make money, they had to make sacrifices.

Numbers made a call to Sanchez to let him know he would be coming up top to see him the following week. The first purchase he made was one brick at the cost of $40,000. The more he purchased, the lower the price went. A key of dope could fetch them anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 on the streets. The challenge was getting the drugs from New York to Virginia. Numbers learned from Coney to only handle the product one time—when he picked it up from his supplier. After that, it would be moved by the mule.

That’s where Wynter came in. He drove her and her daughter up with him in the middle of the night. He loved this part of the trip because she was always eager to give him
head in the whip. She wasn’t Rosa or Waketta, but she fit quite nicely in his stable. As soon as her daughter drifted to sleep in her car seat, Wynter was ready.

“She’s asleep, Numby, you ready for me?” she asked seductively, smelling like fresh tropical fruit. She unstrapped herself from her seat belt and drew close to Numbers before taking another quick glance at her offspring sleeping snugly in the back.

“And you know it.” Numbers started to rise in anticipation of her lollipop aptitude. The head she gave was savory and sensuous. She would suck on the dick all night long like it was a Willie Wonka jawbreaker. If Numbers wanted, she would put in work all the way to the Holland Tunnel. She unfastened his seat belt, then his belt, then his zipper. Numbers raised himself a little, so she could shimmy his Sean John pants down around his hips. By the time Wynter put her fingertips on his wood, it was petrified timber. She greeted the protruding Cyclops with a wet kiss.

“Hi, baby, I miss you.” She spoke to it like it had a brain and personality of its own—and maybe it did—before wrapping her tongue and lips around its length; then she layered it with slobber until it was wet and slippery. Wynter had a talent for making the dick seem as though it melted in her mouth. To heighten the pleasure, she suckled, hummed, and moaned until Numbers thought he was going to lose his mind. The first time she sucked him off on the road, he almost veered into a ditch on the side of the highway. He hadn’t expect it to be so good. Now, every time he was ready to cum, he pulled over on the shoulder. Better safe than sorry.

Wynter took pleasure in pleasing Numbers with her oral acrobatics because she’d never met anyone like him before. He had a way about him that made her want to do anything for him, including transport drugs across state lines with her baby. This was the fifth time she had made the trip with Numbers. The first time had been a mind-blowing experience she would never forget.

•   •   •

She loved the way Numbers moved. He was definitely a class act. On the initial run Numbers put her up at the W Hotel and took her and the baby shopping on Fifth Avenue. They hit the Chanel, Louie, Gucci, BCBG, and La Perla stores. For baby Wynter, who she called Winnie, Numbers hooked her up with Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Prada, and OshKosh B’Gosh. Wynter was far from a naïve little country chick. Her baby’s daddy was serving time for selling drugs. She knew her position and why she was in the city with Numbers. But his generosity was above and beyond what was necessary to compensate her for her services. He wined her, dined her, and made her feel like a princess. Even after all the money he’d spent on Wynter and her baby, Numbers returned to the suite later that evening with matching sterling silver bracelets from Tiffany’s for her and Winnie. Wynter was overwhelmed; she felt as though she was living a fairy tale that she never wanted to end.

“Numby, you know you didn’t have to do this. I would have looked out for you for nothing. I mean it.” Tears of gratitude formed in the corners of her eyes.

Numbers was pleased by her reaction. He wasn’t particularly moved because of the tears, but he could see the truth in her eyes. That’s why he wanted to reward her for being a down-ass broad. Although he knew he would never let her get as close to him as Rosa was or Waketta had been, he wanted to show her he appreciated her. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Like it? I love it!” She beamed, picking up the baby. “Don’t you love it, Winnie? Yes, I know you do, my beautiful little mommy,” she cooed.

“Wynter,” he said, “make yourself comfortable, order whatever you need from room service. Here’s some cash.” He put five hundred dollars on the coffee table. “I’ll be back in a little while. I gotta make a run.”

Numbers made his move to Washington Heights and was back
at the hotel in less than two hours. He needed to drive back down in the morning and wanted to make sure he got enough rest; he had a long day ahead of him.

When he returned, Wynter was getting Winnie ready for bed. She took the little one to the living room of the suite and pulled out the sofa bed, placing her in the middle of a barricade of pillows. Baby Winnie was fast on her way to sleep. The Benadryl Wynter gave her would guarantee she would sleep like the baby she was throughout the night, leaving the adults to their own devices, undisturbed.

“Numby, keep an eye out for Winnie for a minute while I take a shower. She won’t be waking up no time soon, but just in case.”

Before Wynter had gathered her things and headed into the bathroom to shower, Numbers stopped her. “Hold up. First help me with this.” He pulled a rectangular block of high-grade heroin out of a Louis Vuitton shopping bag. “Get me the diapers from the baby’s bag.” He methodically divided the block into three smaller rectangles, about three inches wide, and rewrapped them in plastic. “Take one of the diapers out and open it.” Wynter extended a Pampers, and Numbers placed one of the rewrapped pieces inside it. After all of the drugs were put away in the diapers, Numbers instructed her, “Make sure you use the diapers from the right package, or we gonna have a problem, you dig?” Wynter nodded.

After helping him conceal the drugs and taking her shower, Wynter came sashaying out of the bathroom with nothing on but a pair of orange La Perla boy shorts, her bare petite boobs glistening with moisture. “Are you ready for me, baby?”

Numbers watched her sexy ass as she made her way over to the bed. He was throbbing with anticipation because Wynter’s pussy always stayed moist, like a sponge dipped in warm K-Y jelly. She climbed onto the king-sized bed, stood over him, and began
dancing to music that was only playing in her head. She gyrated and swayed like a seasoned stripper. Numbers grew to even greater heights, stretching the front of his boxers.

“That’s it, work that ass, you fine bitch,” Numbers encouraged.

And she did. Slowly and seductively she slid out of the expensive bottoms. Once she was butt-naked, Numbers could see the moisture dripping from her slit. Dancing her way down to her knees, she removed his boxers. Without further ado, she began to swallow it. She took it further and further until it made her gag. Numbers moaned with pleasure; he could stay that way all night, but Wynter had other plans. As much as she loved sucking him off, she loved riding him even more. If he still had the energy, she would swallow his anaconda again after she got hers.

Before mounting, she opened the Magnum condom that was lying on the nightstand, rolled it on, then rode him like the mechanical bull in that movie
Urban Cowboy.
Her sweet spot sloshed and squirted all over his balls. Numbers grabbed her by the waist and extended himself up into her until she exploded in ecstasy.

Numbers’s sperm could no longer be contained. It was time to pull over to the side of the road or risk becoming acquainted with the ditch. He had to admit this was the best part of his trip, other than the money he stood to make. And Wynter couldn’t wait to get to whatever lavish hotel they would be staying at this time so they could finish getting and giving each other what they deserved.

The next morning, Numbers took Wynter and Winnie to Penn Station and put them on the express Amtrak train to Norfolk. No one would ever suspect a beautiful mother and her gorgeous toddler would be carrying enough drugs to amass a small fortune. Her instructions from him were the same as they were the first time she made the trip and every time afterward.
Keep the diaper bag in your possession at all times.

•   •   •

Numbers set up a safe house outside of the hood in a ranch house on the outskirts of Norfolk. The property sat on five acres of land. It was perfect for a stash house because it was away from prying eyes and ears. The closest neighbor was a quarter of a mile or more in any direction. All the drugs were brought there first to be packaged for distribution. The money was then brought back there and placed in the safe. Unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, Numbers would move most the loot off the premises immediately. If the stash house got hit, he rationalized, they’d get drugs or the cash, but not both.

By packaging the heroin in emptied-out vitamin capsules, Numbers created his own brand. Matt, Mel, John-John, and Numbers sat at a big wooden dining table inside the safe house filling the empty capsules with
death.
Neither the Norfolk dealers nor the police were ready for the way Numbers was putting his thing down. They had Park Place on lockdown.

For the first year or so, business moved like clockwork. The crew Numbers put together, with the help of his cousins, was bringing in a significant tally of cash, and managed to stay under the radar while doing it. M and M made a few more contacts outside of Park Place and were now supplying the hood known as Norview as well. But the brothers weren’t content with the money that was pouring in like an open fire hydrant on a sweltering summer day in Brooklyn. They wanted more. They wanted to control all of Norfolk and possibly Suffolk, too.

Numbers followed a lot of what he learned from Coney, minus the greed. He made sure to share the profits with his soldiers generously. M and M didn’t agree with him about this; they reminded Numbers of Jarvis when the money started rolling in. The more paper the brothers made, the more they wanted.

Their incessant greed and bullying style generated enemies in more than a few neighborhoods. When local dealers had beef
with Matt and Mel it was quickly squashed, and the brothers’ reputation for destruction grew equally as fast. Most of the drug peddlers became clients by either fear or default—fear that they would be crushed by the psychopathic brothers; default because there was no one else to get grade-A product from at the cheap price they were moving it at. One of the only hustlers who didn’t concede to their threats and demands was a cat from up top who went by the name Cashmere. Cash, as he was called, wasn’t the type to let another person call shots on his moves.

Numbers was against the take-over-the-world attitude and warned them time and time again to slow their roll.

The temperature had fallen dramatically by November. Numbers felt the stiff evening chill as he went to put out the garbage for the Monday-morning pickup. When he came back into the house, Rosa was on the phone. Whoever was on the other end of the line had ticked her off.

“It’s for you,” Rosa snapped, holding out the receiver to Numbers.

He took the phone. “Yeah? … Yo! Why you calling my crib? … How you get this number? … You know not to call my crib. It’s Sunday. That’s why my cell is off,” Numbers barked into the receiver. Everyone in the crew knew Numbers took Sundays off. It was his designated day to spend quality time with his family—no business, no exceptions. But that was about to change.

“Go see him for what? … What the fuck? Those niggers are hardheaded as shit. Aiight. Where they at? … Next time I could give less than a damn; don’t be calling the crib, duke.” He hung up abruptly.

Rosa stood nearby, staring in Numbers’s mouth so hard she could see his larynx working. “What the hell was that all about, Dupree?” she asked with a tinge of jealousy.

“Nothing but business,” Numbers replied, avoiding her eyes.

“What business does some chick have calling my house on
Sunday? Don’t they know the rules? So what’s really good, Dupree? Why is she calling our house?”

“Nothing. I mean, it’s something going on, but not with her. That was Wynter.”

“I know who it was, but what is she doing calling here, and why does she have our home number?”

“She told me I needed to go see her brother John-John; something ’bout my cousins bugging out again. They at the ranch house.” Rosa knew all about the ranch house. She’d used her real estate license to buy the property. Along with the Colonial house they lived in, the ranch house was set up under a dummy corporation.

“So you going out, too?” Already knowing the answer to her question, Rosa got even more peeved.

“Come on, Rosa, stop acting like that.”

“Keep thinking I’m stupid, Dupree,” Rosa warned. Her arms were crossed and she was standing in the foyer with a don’t-play-yourself look on her face. Her Latino fire made her complexion look almost cherry red. Rosa knew Numbers wasn’t a saint, and Numbers knew she knew.

“Baby, I’ll be right back. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” He moved in and pecked her on the lips. Her lips were pursed tight; there would be no reciprocation of his affection.