Against the Grain (16 page)

17

Virginia Beach

Sunday, July 2, 2000, 1:00 a.m. Everyone was ready to go. They were about twenty-five-deep including security, waiting at Crazy Johns on Baltimore Street for Kay to get there. Mike’s burgundy Saleen 57 was parked in the center of the parking lot. Everyone was standing around it getting good looks and taking pictures. They all took turns sitting in the driver’s seat to see how it felt. Everything on the inside was white leather trimmed in burgundy. Even the carpet, steering wheel, and dash were white. It was the 2000 model and it cost Mike $375,000. It could do zero to sixty in under four seconds with a top speed of over two hundred mph. There was a tiny video camera mounted to the rear of the car for the live video rearview mirror. This was how they did it every year. It became the talk of the town so much that each year more and more spectators showed up with their cameras and video cameras to see the outcome of the contest before they left for Virginia. Even the Feds were watching.

The family had already begun to celebrate. They just knew that Mike had won again this year. Mike looked at his Rolex. “Damn, where is this nigga at? Yo, Dre, call Kay and see where he’s at,” Mike said.

Dre took out his cell phone and started dialing Kay’s number when he noticed the way everyone was looking toward the street. Then he saw what everyone was looking at in awe. Kay pulled into the Crazy Johns parking lot next to Mike’s Saleen 57. “Oh shit! What the fuck is that?” someone yelled from the crowd. It was over. Mike and everyone else knew that Kay had won. Kay and Lil ‘C’ got out and left the doors open.

“You got me this year, nigga,” Mike said with a smile. They hugged each other. Tank was the first one to jump in the driver’s seat. “Yo, this shit is like that. What is it?”

“A Bentley Hunaudieres,” Kay said. The car was black and chrome, 623-hp engine with sixteen cylinders. The interior was done in engine-turned aluminum and Connolly leather. It could go 230 mph easily.

“I saw it at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance car show when I went with Shu-Shu. She had to pull a lot of strings for me to get it. She ordered it from London. I spent about 1.2 mil altogether. It’s the only one on US soil right now. So I’m going to party off ya’ll niggaz money this trip,” Kay said.

Mike and Kay walked over to the Eldorados Lounge to check out the strippers while people took pictures of their cars. They came out twenty minutes later ready to go. It was about two in the morning. Everyone loaded up. Tank rode with Mike. Dre rode with Scatter. Gee had one of his workers riding with him. Mike had a three-man security team in a black Yukon. There were ten vehicles all together. Big Duke had P-Nut riding with him. The rest of the team consisted of lieutenants and a few workers.

“I want to ride with Pop-Pop,” Lil ‘C’ told his father. That’s what he called Scatter.

Kay blew the horn to get Scatter’s attention.“Lil ‘C’ wants to ride with you. Dre can ride with me.”

“Tell the lil’ nigga to come on,” Scatter said. This was ‘C’s first trip with them to Virginia Beach. He and Dre switched seats. Mike had already pulled off, leading the convoy toward I-95 South. Kay took up the rear. Everyone tailgated and raced each other all the way there. They always had the best radar detectors. They would communicate with each other via cell phones and two-way pagers. They made only one stop on the three-hour journey and that was for gas and the bathroom break.

It was 5:45 a.m. when they pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on the strip in Virginia Beach. While they looked for parking spaces, the first thing they noticed was the huge Ryder moving truck in the far corner. All the motorcycles had been unloaded and lined up next to the truck. They took up most of that side of the parking lot. After parking the cars, they all went over to inspect their bikes, to make sure they hadn’t fallen down during the trip. Kay called his man that drove the truck for him, and he came down with all the room keys. They had booked about twelve rooms all on the fourth floor for the lieutenants and workers. Kay rented a two-story beach house for everyone else, the same house that they used every year. It belonged to this rich dude who was one of Shu-Shu’s customers. He rented it to them each year for a few ounces of coke. The house was right off Atlantic Ave., a couple of miles from the hotel. It had five bedrooms, a spiral staircase, and an elevator, and it was fully furnished. Two big patios: one upstairs, one downstairs, both overlooking the beach. You could walk out the back door and onto the beach. Once they got in the house and settled in, niggaz was knocked out twenty minutes later.

By the time everyone got up, showered, and changed clothes, it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Niggaz was hungry so they decided to kill two birds with one stone. They linked up with everyone at the hotel and rode their bikes to the Military Circle Mall in Norfolk. They ate at Piccadilly’s and hung out for a while. Kay made it a habit of going into the Cavalier Men’s Shop because that’s where all the prettiest women worked. He, Mike, and Dre had met three bad-ass shorties from there last year. Kay met Alzina, Mike met Kim, and Dre met Chastity. They hadn’t talked to the girls in a while. Alzina saw them as soon as they walked in the store. Her eyes lit up, because she really liked Kay. He treated her nice, even though it was only for a few days. Plus she knew these niggaz was ready to buy something that meant commission for her.

“What’s up, nigga, why haven’t you called me?” she asked Kay as she kissed him on the cheek. She playfully greeted everyone else. “How long ya’ll going to be here?”

“A few days,” Kay answered. “This is my son, Lil ‘C’.”

“Hey, Lil ‘C’, wit yo fine self.” Lil ‘C’ just smiled and spoke back.

“Yo, Alzina, where’s your friend?” Mike asked.

“Oh, she had the day off. I’ll call her in a minute for you.” Chastity was just coming off break when she walked in the store and saw all them niggaz standing around.

“Damn!” she said out loud, not recognizing anyone until she saw Dre. She smiled and walked over to him.

“What’s up, Boo? I got your message but you didn’t say what day you would be here.”

“I got here this morning,” Dre said in his normal voice, not showing any excitement about seeing her. That’s what she liked about him; that’s what most women liked about Dre. He was mysterious. They couldn’t figure him out. Shit! Nobody could. She pulled Dre over in a corner to talk to him. Everyone else was spread about the store looking for clothes.

“Ya’ll know I got to make it look good for my boss, so buy something. A T-shirt or something,” Alzina told them. She pretended to help everyone while she talked. Alzina would talk your head off if you let her. Nobody really needed anything but they bought shit anyway. Lil ‘C’ picked out a Nautica sweatsuit that he hadn’t seen in B-More. Niggaz gave Alzina and Chastity tips before they bounced. Kay told her about the party they were throwing again this year on the fifth.

“What’s up for tonight, can I come by?” she asked.

“Yeah, come through around eleven o’clock. I got something for you.”

“I ain’t doing nothing with you. You haven’t called me in a few months and think that I’m going to give you some just ’cause you pop up at my job. Nigga, you trippin’,” she said with a smile.

“I ain’t talking about that. Who said I was going to give you some anyway? You ain’t call me either.”

“So you ain’t going to give me none?” she asked with a smile.

“You got some money?”

“Only my school money.”

“That will do. Bring it with you,” Kay said as he picked up his helmet and walked out to catch up with everyone else. The mall was getting packed. The tourists were making their way to town. The mall was the hot spot right now. People from all over were walking around. Kay and his crew stood out because they were twenty-five-deep and all carried helmets. So whatever store they dropped in they drew attention. They were all getting phone numbers from different women, while they just walked around the mall, flossin’.

Mike looked at his Rolex. “Yo, it’s six thirty, let’s hit the strip before it gets too dark.”

As they left the mall and got on their bikes, a white Lexus coupe and a burgundy Lexus ES 300 stopped. They were full of women. “What’s up, ya’ll? Where ya’ll going?” the driver of the coupe asked.

“Back to the hotel on the beach. Why, what’s up, ya’ll tryin’ to go?” Kevin, one of Mike’s workers, asked.

“We might come down that way later on. Give us a number where ya’ll going to be at. We’ll swing through,” she told him.

“Yo, get out the car, shorty, so we can see ya’ll,” someone else from the crew yelled.

“Hold up, let us park.” She whipped the coupe into an empty parking space and the driver of the ES did the same. Three women got out the coupe and four got out the ES. They were all fine and sexy.

“My name is Charmaine, this is Tonya, Shawny, Monique, Audrey, Reeva, and Toya. Where ya’ll from?” she asked.

“We’re from Baltimore, shorty. Where ya’ll from?” Frankie, another worker, said to them.

“Norfolk,” Audrey said. They stood there and talked for a few minutes, then some of the guys, mostly security and the workers, exchanged phone numbers with them. Tonya was checking out Kay but he didn’t give her any play besides telling her that he would be there later when they came through. After a few more minutes of small talk, the guys put on their helmets and everybody went their separate ways.

By the time the fellaz got back to the strip it was almost dark. They walked up and down the strip once, hollering at a few shorties and taking pictures for their niggaz in prison. They ended up back at the hotel partying and wildin’ out. They had weed and liquor everywhere. Girls were running from room to room freakin’. They took more pictures and videotaped everything. Niggaz were runnin’ trains on women. Women were runnin’ trains on niggaz. Shit was ridiculous. But this is how it went down every year.

Mike and Kay decided to play a trick on Big Duke. They knew he was in a room with a big-booty broad named Sheena. Since they had an extra key to the room, the plan was to creep in the room on him and videotape what he was doing so that they would have something to show at the club. When they eased in on Big Duke, he and Sheena were both butt naked, but they were fighting. Big Duke had Sheena in the air above his head. He body-slammed her. She jumped right back up and punched him in the face. They were going at it so hard, they hadn’t even noticed Mike and Kay standing there taping them. Big Duke slapped the shit out of shorty with his open hand. The force of the blow swung her around and she fell face-first onto the bed. By the time she hit the bed good, Duke was on her. Shorty was dazed. Her body lay lifeless. Duke pulled her by her hair, raising her head and shoulders off the bed; blood was coming from her nose.

“C’mere, bitch. I know what you want,” he said to her. He took his free hand and stuck his dick in her ass. Sheena positioned herself on her hands and knees and threw it back to him. It was definitely what she wanted. She reached back with her right hand and felt for Big Duke. She dug her fingernails into the side of his right butt cheek, causing a trickle of blood to run down his thigh.

“Yeah, bitch! That’s what I’m talking about,” Big Duke yelled. Kay stopped taping them and looked at Mike. They both looked at each other like that was a little too much for them. They backed out the room quietly and let the door shut.

“Yo, did you see that shit?” Kay asked.

“That nigga Duke need some help yo. I ain’t never in my life seen no shit like that,” Mike said.

“That bitch is just as crazy as that nigga.”

“Yo, watch that nigga from now on, he’ll take something.”

“Let’s not say nothing until we get back home, aiiight?”

“Aiight, just make sure I get a copy of that tape,” Mike said as they laughed.

They went to another room where Lil ‘C’ was playing Sega with one of the girls. Scatter was lying across the bed in his boxers, smoking a blunt, with a girl sitting on his back giving him a massage. She was in her bra and panties.

“Yo, Scatter, we just seen the craziest shit in the world. We’ll tell you about it later,” Mike said as Scatter passed him the blunt. Kay went to the dresser and poured a cup of Hennessy. He looked over at Scatter. Scatter looked at him at the same time then tooted his lips in Lil ‘C’s direction. Kay looked at the young lady sitting on the foot of the bed playing Sega with his son. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen. That would make her three years older than Lil ‘C’. Kay knew exactly what Scatter meant. He lost his virginity at age thirteen. That’s why they brought him with them. It was time to make him a man.

“Shorty, what’s your name?” Kay asked the girl. She turned to face Kay. She was much prettier than Kay first thought, and she was killin’ the Halle Berry haircut.

“Erica. What’s yours?” she asked.

“I’m Kay, c’mere for a minute, let me holla at you.”

She got up and walked toward Kay. She wore a Manuel Canovas green fruit-print swimsuit with matching wrap. Kay could see that she had a nice body and a phat ass. For a second he thought about keeping her for himself. She followed him into the bathroom. Mike came in behind her. “Hold up, I don’t get down like that.”

“Try it, shorty, you might like it,” Mike told her as he grabbed her ass. She made up her mind that she didn’t like Mike already.

“Nah, it ain’t like that, shorty. Look, that’s my son in there and I want you to break him in,” Kay told her. Scatter came in.

“You’re joking, right?” she asked him. They just stared at her.

“How old is that boy anyway?”

“He’s thirteen,” Kay said.

“Shit! I’m twenty-five years old. My son is seven. How would that shit look?”

“Damn, I thought you was like sixteen or seventeen, shorty,” Kay said.

She smiled and said, “Thank you.”

“I’ll tell you what, Erica, if you do this for us, I’ll make it worth your time. I ain’t got no problem paying for what I want,” Scatter told her. His experience with women told him that they all had a price.

“How much you trying to pay?” she asked.

They knew they had her now. “It don’t matter, how much you chargin’?” Mike said to her.