A Sticky Situation (31 page)

“Where are we going to take it?”

“Let’s park it at the airport’s parking garage and leave it there.”

“All right. Well, let’s do this,” Sam agreed.

As soon as we got to E-Z Autos
,
we were there and gone in seconds. The way Sam and I drove, we got to the Norfolk airport in no time. After I parked my car, I hopped out and met Sam at the exit gate. “Get over on the passenger side,” I instructed her when I approached the truck.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked, as she slid over to the other seat.

“I don’t know, but let me call Mike right now,” I said as I drove off.

“Whatchu calling him for?” Sam asked, sounding agitated.

“I just want to feel him out and see if anybody called and told him that the feds ran up in his spot.” I dialed his number and from the moment he picked up his line, I scrutinized every word that came out of his mouth.

“What’s up, son? You ready?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I’m gon’ be able to go now, man.”

“Why not? What’s wrong?” My heart was beating because I knew he was about to tell me about what happened to Melody, and that he was gon’ have to bail out of town on his own.

“My wife said she ain’t feeling too good, man, and I think she might be getting ready to go into labor.”

“You bullshitting!” I was mad as hell. I mean, this shit couldn’t be happening at a worse time. What the fuck was I going to do now? I knew the feds were moving in his direction, so I needed to get that paper before they got it.

“No, I’m not.”

“When is the baby due?”

“Next week. But, you know babies are gon’ come out when they’re ready.”

“A’ight. Well, I’ma tell you what; I’ma come by there and get my cousin on the phone so you can talk to him, and then you can decide whatchu gon’ do from there.”

“I’m telling you right now that I’m not gon’ leave my wife if she keeps having these pains.”

“Oh I understand that, but I’ma still come by there so you can talk to my cousin yourself.”

“A’ight, that’s cool,” Mike replied and then we hung up.

Frustrated, I slammed the phone down.

“What’s wrong now?” Sam asked.

“That nigga just told me that he thinks his wife is in labor.”

“So, whatchu gon’ do now?”

“I’m just gon’ have to run up in his crib and get him before the feds do.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to do that?”

“I ain’t got no choice.”

While I was in transit, Maxine called me. Samantha sat in the passenger seat, pissed off, but thank God, she didn’t say a word.

“Where are you?” she asked me.

“I’m taking care of business.” I was short with my reply.

“Is that guy Mike with you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason. I just asked.”

“Where are you?”

“I just got in the house, so I’ma take a quick nap and when I get up, I’ma cook our dinner. Is there something in particular you want to eat?”

“Nah, not really.”

“So, you wouldn’t care if I made cooked liver and onions?”

“That’s cool.”

“All right. Well, I am going to let you go.”

“A’ight.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” I told her and I hung up.

Before I could even put my phone back down, Samantha backhanded me right across my face. “Damn! What was that for?” I yelled.

“I am so sick of you and your bitches!” she snapped.

“Come on now, you know I had to play the role.”

“Yeah, whatever!” She turned to face the window.

I didn’t bother to say anything else to her for the rest of the drive to Mike’s house. As soon as we pulled up in the driveway, I told her to follow me into the house just in case I needed her to handle Lacy. We climbed out of the car and walked up to the front door. Mike greeted us at the door and escorted us back into the den area of the house. When we entered into the room, Lacy was lying back on the recliner with a blanket placed on top of her. I said hello and introduced Samantha to them. After all of the formalities were out of the way, I looked back at Lacy and asked her how she was feeling.

“I’m not too well,” she told me and then she moaned as if she was having excruciating pains. “I think I am going to have this little girl before the night is over.”

“For real!” I said, acting like I was excited for her.

“Y’all have a seat,” Mike said. Me and Sam sat down beside each other and then Mike said, “You wanna go ahead and call your cousin?”

Shocked by what he asked me to do, I hesitated for a second, but not long enough for him to notice that something was wrong. “A’ight,” I finally said and pulled my phone out.

Samantha sat there, speechless as I pretended to dial a number that supposedly to belong to my fictitious cousin that lived in Miami. While all this was happening, Mike sat across from us and acted like he was waiting patiently to get on the phone. “He answered yet?” he asked me.

My heart started beating uncontrollably. “Nah, his voicemail came on,” I told him.

“Why didn’t you leave him a voicemail?”

“Because he doesn’t listen to his messages,” I replied.

Mike stood up from his chair and at the same time his wife Lacy pulled back the blanket covering her. When I looked up and saw a sawed off shotgun, my eyes almost popped out of my head. I stood to my feet and asked them what the fuck was going on.

“Sit your motherfucking ass down, nigga!” Mike demanded. He pulled a 9 mm Ruger from the back of his pants and aimed it at me.

I looked back at Samantha to see her reaction and when I noticed how scared she looked, I felt helpless as hell. But what was I going to do?

“Didn’t he tell you to sit your bitch ass down?” Lacy got to her feet and when I saw how sticky this situation had gotten, I sat back down on their couch.

Meanwhile, Mike had a lot of shit to say. “You thought you were going to come in here and take my money, huh?”

“Whatchu talking about, Mike?”

He looked at Samantha and said, “Take his gun from him.”

When Sam grabbed my pistol, I almost lost it. “What the fuck is going on?”

Sam stood and aimed the pistol at me. “Nigga, did you really think I was gonna leave the country with you? Especially after all the shit I’ve been through with you? Nigga, you ain’t did nothing but cause me a lot of fucking pain. First, it started off with a couple bitches in the street, then you got real greasy and started fucking my sister. But it didn’t stop there because while I was locked up, I had to hear about you fucking your P.O., and then I had to fight the bitch. And while all of this is going on, I found out later that you were fucking the bitch Melody too!”

“What the fuck you talking about? That’s a lie!”

“Shut the fuck up, Seth!” she interjected. “Mike and Melody was setting your dumb ass up the whole time. But it’s all good because after today, I ain’t gonna have to worry about your trifling ass no more. Mike told me everything.”

I sat there in awe and Mike burst into laughter. “Damn, Seth, I thought you said you were loyal!”

I began to panic so I looked back at Samantha and said, “Look, Sam, you know me and you can work this thing out. We have been through too much to let it go down like this.”

“Work it out! Nigga, I ain’t working a motherfucking thing out with you! I’m done with your ass for good this time.”

“So, you set me up?”

“Yep, I got fed up with your bullshit! After all the shit happened between me, you, and Maxine, I felt like it was time to cut your ass off. I called Mike at the club and told him everything. Then after I spilled the beans on you, Mike turned around and told me everything about the little relationship you and Melody had. I know all about how you were spending all day at her crib, selling dope out her house and fucking her at your leisure.”

“It wasn’t even like that and he knows it,” I said to her but gritted my teeth while looking at Mike.

“You know what, Seth? I could care less how it was. You were fucking her just like you were fucking Maxine, end of story. And now I’m gon’ make you pay for it.” Sam pulled back on the chamber to load the first bullet.

Watching everything unfold before me, all I could do was think about my mother and how she would feel when she found out that I was dead. And what would be even sadder was when she found out that I had been dealing drugs all over again. “You know he’s going to kill you right after he kills me,” I warned her.

“Yeah, I know,” she said and turned the pistol and fired it at Mike. He fired back twice but he missed Sam by a couple of inches. When he fell to the floor, she kicked the gun away from him.

Lacy’s eyes grew two inches when Samantha unloaded my burner on her husband, so she aimed her shotgun at Samantha. Right before Lacy pulled the trigger, I jumped to my feet and knocked it out of her hands. When she tried to grab it off the floor, I got to it first and hit her in the face with the butt of it. It knocked her out cold. But before I could stand up straight, Samantha hit me in the back with one slug after the next.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
I collapsed helplessly on top of Lacy and pain shot through my body like an armored truck. I screamed at the top of my voice. “Uggghhhh, you fucking shot me!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Samantha told me and kicked the shotgun over by the wall. “You thought I was playing with you, huh? Well, I wasn’t, so die!” She pulled the trigger once more. When I saw the explosion from the barrel of the gun, I knew that in less than a second I was gone. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable. And just like that, I took my last breath.

SAMANTHA

Payback

I stood there and watched Seth take his last breath. Believe it or not, it didn’t affect me at all. I actually pushed him off Lacy as if he were an old rag doll. When he fell onto the floor, I helped Lacy up. When she regained consciousness, I had the barrel of my gun pointed right at her head.

“Now, we can do this two ways,” I said. “You can open up the safe and give me all the money and I can walk out of here, or you can die. Which one is it going to be?”

She started crying. “Please don’t kill me and my baby.”

“I won’t if you open up the safe.”

“OK.” I walked her over to the first door and waited for her to type in the password and when it clicked and unlocked, my face lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Now, you got one more door,” I said. After we entered the first room we walked up to the second door and just like the first time, she keyed in the password. We heard a clicking sound and then it unlocked. I walked into the room, saw all the money piled on top of a wooden pallet, and my heart skipped a beat. All I could think about was how in the hell I was going to get all this dough out the house. I also thought about what I was going to do with Lacy in the process. Seeing her pregnant gave me second thoughts about killing her. But then again, if I decided to let her go, she could point me out in a lineup. Then I’d be facing a life sentence in prison for murder, and that wasn’t how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Without further hesitation, I aimed the barrel of the gun straight at her chest.

She started crying. “Wait, I thought you weren’t going to kill me?”

“I lied,” I said and pulled the trigger.
Boom! Boom!
She collapsed onto the floor and I stepped right over her.

Before I grabbed the money out of the safe, I picked up the blanket Lacy was using earlier, wrapped the money inside, and carried it out to the truck. One after the other, I loaded each stack into the back of Seth’s truck. The shit was heavy as hell, but I got the job done in a flash. Afterward, I wiped down the sofa I was sitting on before everything went down. I also wiped my fingerprints off Seth’s gun and placed it in Mike’s hands, since Seth had two gunshots in his back. I wanted to make it look like Mike was the one who shot him. I grabbed Mike’s gun off the floor and placed it in Seth’s hands, since Mike had been shot a couple of times too. Then, after all that switching and moving shit, I closed both doors to the safe because I couldn’t afford to give the police the slightest inclination that there had been a robbery. Once I felt my mission was completed, I was gone.

On my way out of there, I drove right by four undercover cop cars. They were following each other, so I knew that they had to be heading to Mike’s house, and that scared the hell out of me. I remained calm, though, and continued to look forward until the last car rode by. When the cars were no longer in sight, I took a deep breath and pressed down on the accelerator and got the hell out of Dodge. I could only assume that one of the neighbors called them after they heard the gunshots. I just hoped they didn’t see me when I pulled out of there because if they had, it wasn’t gonna be long before I got picked up. I guessed I would find out soon enough.

Two days had passed and I hadn’t heard anything from anyone except Seth’s mother. The poor lady was bawling her eyes out over the phone when she called the halfway house to talk to me. I kept a straight face and pretended to cry too. She told me that the FBI went into a house to arrest Mike but found him dead, along with his wife and Seth. She also told me that the FBI found kilos of drugs in the house so she wanted to know what kind of people he was involved with. I told her I didn’t know shit and that she needed to contact Maxine. As soon as I mentioned her name, Mrs. Richardson told me that Maxine called her crying yesterday. She said that she had just gotten fired from her job because Seth sent her supervisor pictures and a video of them making love. I wanted to laugh my ass off, but I held my composure. After a few more words were exchanged with Seth’s mother, I ended the call. Right before I hung up, I told her I put in for a pass to come to his funeral but they denied it. She told me not to worry about it because Seth probably wouldn’t want me to remember him that way anyway. I didn’t put up a fuss about it. I said OK and told her to take care and we finally hung up.

A week later, I was walking inside MacArthur Mall to go to work and I ran into Maxine coming out. She gritted on me really hard, so I gritted right back on her. She stopped in her tracks and said, “You got something to say to me?”