Candy Licker (19 page)

Caramel went buck wild. She started rotating her hips like she was doing the hula hoop while her ass was steady vibrating and humping the air.
Ka-thunk-a-thunk-thunk! Ka-thunk-a-thunk-thunk!
Then she got it to quivering and jiggling, and niggahs went crazy and started jumping over the railing, rushing the pit. Vince barely had time to pull her up on the stage before they could swarm her, and right then and there he held Caramel's hand up in the air and declared her the winner.

I didn't even wanna see the look on Vonnie's face 'cause I knew it would be twisted. It was hard enough for her being second to me onstage. Taking second place in an ass-shaking contest, an area she specialized in, just wasn't supposed to happen. Yeah, I thought, following Dom's example and turning my head away. Vonzelle could be real minor sometimes. She needed to be the queen bitch at all times, and having Caramel come in and knock her off her throne wasn't something she was just gonna take and roll over.

H
urricane was one of those rare brothers who was into watching baseball. The next weekend he rented a five-thousand-dollar Hall of Fame suite at Yankee Stadium and invited his regular crew to the opening game of the season. All of his top niggahs went and left their housewives at home. Long Jon and Butter
were out there flashing their bling and frontin’ like important artists as they tried to cop white pussy all day long.

The suite was phat, but I wasn't interested in no damn baseball. I was busy trying to keep my eye on my hot-ass sister, who I had tried to make stay home.

“What?”
she'd said, looking at me like I was stupid when I told her she needed to stay out at the mansion. “This ain't your party. Hurricane already said I could go, so that's where I plan on being.”

I couldn't believe Caramel. It was like she was brainwashed or something. Where before she'd been shot she had looked up to me, these days my little sister acted like everything about me was ill. There were times when I wanted to put my foot in her ass or knock the shit out of her, but I kept reminding myself of all she'd gone through.

I barely said a word the whole day. Wasn't nobody to talk to anyway, except Caramel, and the way I was feeling I mighta smacked her teeth out if she got smart with me again. I was glad when the game was over and it was time to roll. I'd been sitting down for so long I had a cramp in my ass, and Hurricane had only let me get up to use the bathroom once. We were leaving the suite through the VIP entrance when one of the younger rappers on Hurricane's label stepped to him all serious.

“Yo, Cane,” the kid said, “I need to holla at you for a minute, ak. It's about my contract, ya know?”

Right away I knew his ass was in trouble. He wasn't all that smart, but I respected him for having the heart to approach a killer like Hurricane like that, especially with all his niggahs around.

Hurricane had been saying something to Butter. On the
word “contract” he stopped and swung his head toward the young boy, and something cold and dark jetted from his eyes. “Lil muthafucka, you talking to me?”

That kid was either psycho or more man than any I'd ever met. Hurricane used fear to control his people, but I didn't see a drop of it in that kid when he nodded and said, “Hell yeah, man. You the one write the contracts and sign the checks, right?”

Hurricane snatched his little ass up by the neck and pressed a big black gat to his head. “Little niggah, do you know how many bodies I got on this piece? You questioning me about my muthafuckin’
contract?”

And then out of nowhere, that niggah let him go and snatched
me!

“See this bitch right here? This my moneymakin’ artist and my number one bitch. If
she
opens her fuckin’ mouth with some beef about the way I write my contracts, I'll put a hot one in her too.” He let me go and I stumbled, falling against Butter's soft ass. “Now get the fuck outta here before you make me mad. If I catch your black ass back down at my studio again you gonna become another Harlem statistic.”

I was so mad I could have fried his ass. Here I'd sat around like a statue all day not doing nothing, not saying nothing, and this maniac sticks a gun up to my head like it's nothing. Like
I'm
nothing. Hurricane was out of control. There was no other way to explain him.

We started walking toward the limo and I reached out to touch Caramel's arm. Tears were running down my face I was just that mad.

“Whaaat?”
She shrugged me off like she was aggravated at
the sight of me. “Damn, Candy!” she said, and rolled her eyes. “You ain't got
no
fuckin’ heart.”

I didn't say a word as Caramel ran up a few steps and grabbed Hurricane's arm. They walked toward the whip together and never looked back.

I
t was Sunday afternoon and we were having ourselves a braid-a-thon. Hurricane was still out with his baseball posse from the night before, and I didn't give a fuck if he never came back. Fa-tima had popped two bottles of Hypnotiq, and Peaches had broken out with some chronic she had gotten from Tonk. I left all of that get-high shit alone and concentrated on the chicken wings Sissy had fried and the deviled eggs with sweet relish and paprika she'd fixed to go with them.

We were taking turns doing each other's hair, and it shocked me to learn that everybody's hair was real and that none of these chicks had a weave. Sissy had already hooked me up with some medium-sized box-braids that looked really fly. She had greased my scalp with some Bergamot Lite and brushed a little gel into the soft “baby hair” along my edges, then lined it down with the tip of the comb like Mama used to do when I was little.

I was returning the solid by throwing some tight, skinny cornrows in her hair, while Peaches was straight jacking Fa-tima's hair up with some fat cornrows and crooked parts going every which way she pleased.

“So what went down at the game last night?” Teema wanted to know.

I shrugged, playing it off. “Hold your head still,” I said to
Sissy, trying to make sure I parted her hair straight. She ignored me and swung her whole damn head around.

“Nah, hooker. Don't be holdin’ out on us. If something went down just give it up. We in the same boat you in, girl. Hell, what you know might save one of our asses.”

“Let Teema tell it,” I said, pulling Sissy's head back around where I needed it. “She brought it up.”

“Well from what I heard,” Fatima said, her head to the side as Peaches caught the fine hairs around her edges and pulled them tightly into the cornrow, “somebody pulled out his gun and stuck that shit to your head.”

Sissy hollered, “What! That niggah pressed his shit to you?”

“Whut?” Peaches said real nasty-like, turning her lip down at Sissy. “Whut? Like a motherfucker ain't never put the barrel on you? Remember, bitch, I was here when Vince dragged your skinny tail through the door way back when. You probably got barrel burns on both sides of your ass!”

I was waiting for Sissy to go off and show her ass on Peaches, but instead she surprised me.

“Yeah. You right. Vince used to do stupid stuff like that to me all the time. But I was young then. I didn't know no better.”

Teema sighed. It was so deep it sounded like she pulled it up out her toes. “Yeah, all of us was young when we hooked up with these fools and came out here. All of us had stupid dreams of living the high life too. That's what the bling do to you. It lures you in.”

“And spits your ass right back out,” Sissy agreed.

Peaches shook her head and gave Teema another jacked-up part. “That's if you let it. Tell the truth and shame your big daddy. Every one of us wanted this life. Ain't nothing turned us
out but our own greed. We got high on status. We let the dollars and the dick turn us out. We let the whips and the jewels turn us out. Some of us even wanted it so bad we got turned out on the ass-whippings and head bangings. Y'all might say I'm fucked up in the skull and crazy like a mug, but you gotta agree with that.”

Heads got to nodding like they were in church. Mine was nodding right along with them too.

“I used to wanna be a chef,” Sissy laughed. “Ain't that some stupidness? I even went to school for it when I lived over in Philly but Vince made me quit before I could graduate. He said he was too tight in the game to have his wife knocking somebody else's pots. So he brought me out here to the mansion and had them put in two damn ovens. He told me to have at it. Said I could burn the whole damn kitchen up if I wanted to. As long as he was getting his joint sucked right, he was cool.”

Peaches had Fatima bent over at the neck, but I heard her anyway. “That's how Joog did me. He said fuck a Fashion Institute and brought me a sewing machine and told me to set that bad boy up and stitch together my own rags.”

“Whatever,” Peaches said, her fingers swirling as she took a braid all the way to the end. “I forgot all my little dreams a long time ago.”

My fingers stopped braiding in the middle of a row. “But what about your daughter, though? What's gonna happen to Asia and her dreams?”

Peaches turned to me, and for the first time since I'd met her she looked all the way fuckin’ sane. “I want Queen Asia the fuck out of here,” she said coldly. “I don't give a damn what Hurricane
says. Asia ain't no singer and he ain't no dream maker, Candy. That motherfucker is a straight-up dream slayer. He's supposed to be settin’ her up with a contract, but in my heart I think his evil ass is just settin’ her up, period.”

Sissy nodded as I picked up my braid again. “I don't doubt it,” she said. “She won't be the first one he set up either.”

When Sissy said that I stopped braiding for real. I had been dying to know, so now I asked. “Why was y'all acting so surprised when I first got here? Where are all the other females Hurricane used to roll with before me?”

“All what females?” Teema asked. “For a minute Cane had me wondering if he even liked pussy. Cherry was the only female I ever seen him bring home. And he wore her tight ass out so quick it wasn't funny.”

Peaches laughed. “You still a baby in this camp, Fatima. I been here almost five years. That girl Cherry wasn't shit. She didn't last a good month. Last time I saw her she had a drop-lip and her nose was crooked. Aside from her and Candy, only one other female has ever lived in the middle. Her name was Lani-qua.”

“So what happened to her? When did she leave?”

Peaches shrugged. “Who, Laniqua? Didn't Teema just tell you Cane wears his bitches out? Laniqua was live too. She used to be a model. She got messed up, though. One night she was here swimming in the pool with Hurricane, and the next morning he was dragging her shit up to the attic saying she drowned. She had a tight funeral, though. Every rapper in the universe turned out to show off they shine.”

“What's up there?” I stared at Peaches, damn near whispering.

Sissy broke free of my fingers and swung her head around. Teema turned in her seat until she could see me too. “Damn, Candy” Sissy said. “You's one of them hardheaded heffahs, ain't you? We already told you don't be worrying about that attic. That niggah of yours is into keeping freaky-ass animals, so he probably got him a killer crocodile up there or some shit.”

I gave her a look.

“Don't be rolling your eyes, girl 'cause you better than me living in the middle like it's a damn zoo. Don't you watch the news? Crazy shit happens all the time and plenty of nuts like Hurricane keep wild animals in they house. Like that stupid-ass brother in Manhattan who got caught keeping a tiger and a alligator up in his little-ass apartment last year. Fucked his neighbors up when they saw him up there on CNN talking about how he wanted to make his own Garden of Eden.”

“Forget them animals,” Teema said. “I heard it was bodies up there. Probably some big-ass freezer where Hurricane keeps all his bodies.”

Sissy got back in the game. “That's stupid. Cane is too smart for that. Keeping bodies at the crib? That's just keeping evidence of your crimes. He ain't stupid like that.”

“Oh that niggah got bodies,” Teema smirked. “Plenty bodies. His ass went on trial with Irv and his brother, didn't he? I knew the drug dealer the cops said they beat to death. A guy named Cooter. Stutterin’ motherfucker. Used to work the bar over at the G-Spot. And remember when that little boy got kidnapped over on 135th Street in a beef behind some contract money? Them cold motherfuckers cut that baby's finger off and sent it to his father. That was Hurricane's shit too.”