Real Wifeys: Get Money (15 page)

In the last six or seven months word had hit the street that our events were on point. We worked hard to build our reputation and our plan was to kick things up, pool our money, and get into bringing more big-name talent to the city. We wanted to leave these small venues behind and compete with the promoters packing Symphony Hall–type shit. Hell, NJPAC-type shit. Fuck it. Shoot big. Go hard or go the fuck home. Shit or get off the pot.

I walked into the club with a fuchsia patent leather tote in my hand. I paused to hug the owner, Maria, before I continued in to find Eve and Michel setting up the room. “Morning, y’all,” I said, holding up my finger as my cell phone vibrated in my hand.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Harriet, this your mother . . . in case you forgot.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Hi, Mama, I couldn’t ever forget you,” I said, reaching in my bag for the envelope I’d slipped inside of it as soon as I left the bank.

“We’re having a dinner here for Aunt Mack this Sunday. Your daddy and I want to see you there. Are you coming?” she asked, crossing every t and dotting every i in the way she talked.

“I sent over a couple of tickets to the comedy show tonight,” I said lightly, taking the stack of money from the bank envelope. “Are y’all coming?”

“No, I told you we have a church board meeting tonight.”

I swallowed my disappointment as I split the nearly five grand in cash into three piles. The weekend-long car show we had last week had did us well. Even after paying for the talent, the venue fee, the cost of advertising, and sticking to our agreement to bank twenty-five percent of our profits, we still had a little over a grand apiece. Good money and a good time. Who could ask for anything more?

I handed Eve and Michel their money and a folded copy of the bank statement. Everything was aboveboard. There wasn’t shit one of us knew that the other two didn’t know.

“I’ll see what can I do, Ma,” I said, folding my money and sliding it into my back pocket.

“See you Sunday, Harriet . . . and don’t you bring Eve,” she stressed before she hung up the phone.

I sat the cell phone onto the table as Michel and Eve shared a long look. I cut my eyes at them as I pulled out my iPad. “What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” they both said, turning to finish arranging the chairs and tables.

Whatever was on their mind was their business to tell or keep. Not my problem.

I logged onto the Internet and went straight to Goldie’s website . . . just like I did damn near every day. Besides my insider—who didn’t give a shit about the bitch anymore than I did—I stayed on top of this bitch’s movements like I was the Feds trying to bring down a cartel. Google alerts. A fake user account on her Goldie’s Girls website. A full report from one of those online search sites for background checks. I just was waiting for that bitch to slip.

Over the year, I had won little victories against her, but she always bounced back.

I turned her in for stripping in her King’s Court projects apartment and got the bitch heave-hoed out onto the street. She just gathered up her loot and whatever shit she wanted from the curb and moved to a New York luxury high-rise apartment.
Ugh!

I had shit in place to help Rick, the owner of Club Naughty and Goldie’s ex, to steal most of her dancers and the bitch stopped fucking with strippers and opened a booking firm for video vixens and full-size models.
Damn!

I even tried to get the bitch robbed and she ended up tasing the hell out of my boy and had him pissed at me.
That bitch!

I knew where she lived.

I knew her phone numbers.

I knew where she banked.

I knew her routine for her new life in New York.

I knew who she fucked, when, and for how long.

I knew a lot of her clients.

I was all over that bitch, ready to get her once and for all.

I used my fingertip to open the photo file labeled: PAYBACK! In it were clear as hell pictures of Goldie’s upper-Manhattan apartment. I had to admit the bitch had that shit laid the fuck out. It made my apartment in Twelve50 look like Section Eight.

I flipped through each photo, taking in everything and knowing I could walk around that bitch’s house with my eyes closed and not stub a toe. My insider delivered up the goods and I paid her well.

“Luscious . . . Luscious . . . Luscious!”

I tore my eyes away from a picture of Goldie standing in front of an oversize glass desk looking out at the New York landscape. “What?” I asked, turning the iPad over to shield it from Eve’s snooping eyes as she walked over to stand by where I sat.

“We need your help, boo,” Eve said, dressed in a lime-green strapless romper with a colorful silk scarf wrapped around her head.

“Coming,” I said, standing up to lock my iPad and slide it back into its case.

It was time to focus on Yummy Entertainment business, because I was determined to make it just as big as Goldie’s Girls, Inc. The time for Goldie topping me was over.

The comedy show was sold out between the tickets we presold and the money made at the door. Dressed in black sequined leggings, matching red-bottomed shoes, and a satin tank, I worked the entire club, making sure everyone was having a good time, there were no complaints, the catering was hot, and the drinks were cold. Eve stayed on top of the talent, making sure there were no ghetto-ass late performers or big gaps in the show. Michel handled the door.

The cocktail servers—one male and one female—both wore skintight shirts with our Yummy Entertainment logo on it. We had to make sure everybody had some eye candy, and the miniature cocktails we sold for a dollar kept the crowd good and loose for cheap. Double win.

I spotted Killer Cain at a corner table with a Keyshia Cole knock-off. He looked like he had indeed lined up that ass for the night. They were hugged up even as everyone laughed until they cried at the female comedian on stage.

My mind was already on our next event. I hadn’t talked to Michel and Eve about it yet, but I already had a big-name talent in mind. Someone from my past. Would he do it, though? I wanted to run it by him before I got them all excited and shit.

Another quick walk around the room and I made my way to the front of the club. Michel was counting the money in the till, looking Gaga in a blonde and green wig with colorful and glittery eye makeup.

“I’ll be outside. I have to make a call,” I told him.

Michel nodded, causing one end of his asymmetrical bob to float back and forth as he stayed focused on counting.

As soon as I stepped out the building, the summer heat surrounded me like a blanket. Even though the sun was long gone from the sky, the heat remained. It took about five seconds for me to feel like I was ready for a shower.

I rushed over to my car and unlocked it to grab my old BlackBerry from the glove compartment. After our big argument on the phone and me throwing his shit in Hefty bags onto his mama’s porch, Make$ had cut off any and everything in his name, including my cell phone.

The days after our breakup had been hard for me, but I made it through to the other side. My desire was to not fall once Make$ left, because I knew that’s what his mama and everyone else expected. I had to watch every fucking cent and even thought about giving up that apartment . . . or selling the Jag . . . or going back to stripping . . . crawling back to my parents . . . or
some
shit. But I didn’t.

“Humph . . . look at me now. I’m getting paper.” I sang the Chris Brown hook.

I powered on the BlackBerry and scrolled through my contacts to find the number for Tek-9. I knew I was taking a chance calling someone who was cool with Make$, but he had always given me that vibe that he was feeling me. I just never took him up on it. Well, Make$’s ass was busy in jail writing letters and sending pictures of himself in his cell, and in the last year Tek-9 had blew up, got the deal with Platinum, and took on star status. He stepped right in to fill the gap Make$ left.

The phone rang twice. “Yo, who this?” he asked.

There was loud background noise. Music playing. People talking. I knew his ass was in the studio or some club.

I smiled. “This Luscious. What’s up, Tek?” I asked, sitting down in the passenger seat.

“Luscious? Sexy black Luscious?” Tek-9 asked.

“There’s only one,” I teased, my eyes widening as I watched Michel step outside the club talking to a tall and skinny dude.

“You still had my number, huh?” he asked, sounding like he was showing every tooth in his head.

“Yup,” I said, watching Michel and the dude share a cigarette.

“So whassup?”

“Well, my friends and I have this party-promoting little hustle going on, and we’ve been doing good but I’m ready to kick things up and do bigger events with bigger venues and talent . . . like you,” I said, swallowing down any nerves I felt.

“I charge a minimum of twenty grand per show, Luscious.”

Damn.

“And that’s not including travel and hotel and a driver.”

“What’s your walk-through fee?” I asked, looking on as Michel and the dude started kissing like crazy up against the wall.

“Ten grand and unlimited bar.”

“And what’s the ‘Remember when you slept on my couch before you blew up’ discount?” I asked, as I looked down at the diamond tennis bracelet on my wrist. A gift from Make$ back when he gave a fuck.

“Not as high as the ‘you shoulda fucked me on that couch’ discount,” Tek-9 shot back at me, the background noise suddenly gone.

I laughed and shook my head. “You know I don’t get down like that. It was all about Make$ back then. And y’all friends so I’m not fucking with that.”

“And now? That nigga just copped to two years.”

“What?” I rose to my feet, my eyebrows dipping together in surprise.

“Make$ copped a plea deal and took two years for the shit went down after that rape last year,” Tek-9 said. “You didn’t know?”

My heart pounded like crazy. “No,” I admitted.

Make$ had another two years behind bars? He had to be regretting bringing Goldie’s ass on the road. He was behind bars and she was living it up in New York. Missy told me she heard Goldie stole a lot of his jewelry and money after the rape that went down in Make$’s suite. He never got the shit back.

“Well, I got it straight from the horse’s mouth, you heard me.”

“You saw him in jail?” I asked, trying to pace off the nervous energy I felt all up and through my body.

“Nah, that nigga finished the year he got for fucking up his probation this morning and then had to turn right around and go to court today for the rape shit. He out. He don’t go back for official sentencing until next week.”

Make$ was out.

I strode around my car on my heels and grabbed my iPad from the trunk. With my neon green fingernails I found an article on Make$:

Today, in entertainment news, platinum recording artist Terrence Gardner, better known as Make$, was spotted leaving a Philadelphia County courthouse in the case against him for aiding and abetting and also trying to bribe the unidentified victim of a sexual assault by two members of his entourage, who have already been found guilty of the assault and are awaiting sentencing. It is rumored that Terrence Gardner will accept a plea deal from the district attorney’s office—

“Stop playin’!”

My head whipped around just as Michel tried to push the dude’s hands from under his skirt.
Oh, shit!
Michel was laughing it off and steady slapping at the dude’s hands, but I knew that shit could get mad serious quick if his snake dropped from wherever Michel tucked it. “Listen I’ll call you back, a’ight,” I said, my eyes locked on Michel across the parking lot.

“Yo, straight up. Let me get some of that I been sniffing up on for years and I’ll do the fucking show for free, you feel me?”

“I’ll call you back,” I said again before I ended the call.

I dropped my iPad in the trunk.

“What the fuck?” the dude yelled.

“Don’t hit me!” Michel begged just before he hollered out in pain.

I just closed my eyes because I knew Michel’s “secret” was out. I grabbed my gun from the case and loaded the clip as I raced across the parking lot. My knees got weak to see the dude’s hands around Michel’s throat as he held his slender body up against the brick side of the building.

Michel’s eyes were bulging out of his head as he looked at me and barely got out the words, “Help me.”

The man used his hand around Michel’s throat to slam his head against the wall.
Hard.

I raised my gun and worked hard to fight my nerves. Shooting at a firing range and actually putting some heat into a motherfucker was two different things. “Let her down,” I said, swallowing over a lump in my throat.

The dude looked at me over his shoulder and I could tell from the crazy look in his eyes that the fact that he was just kissing up on a dude was enough to make him kill. “Her?” he asked, like he didn’t even see the gun in my hand or had no respect for it or me. “This look like motherfuckin’ pussy to you?”

The dude released one hand from around Michel’s throat to jack the hem of his skirt up. Michel’s lace bikini was torn and his dick was free and hanging.

I stepped up closer to him and made sure I kept my eyes locked on him. I had to let him know to stop this before I shot him. And I would. I would hurt him before I let him hurt Michel. “Put. Her. Down,” I said again, my voice so hard. As hard as I hoped he’d realize I could be.

It was him or Michel. Point-blank.

I took another step and pressed the gun to the back of his head. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to this bullshit and that’s the only reason I didn’t bust one off in the air. “Trust me. I got one with your name on it, motherfucker. Put her down,” I told him, my voice cold. My hand was steady. My gun was ready to shoot. My target practice was coming in handy.

Finally, he removed his hand and Michel slumped to the glass-covered blacktop. He coughed and gasped for air as he put one slender hand to his neck and used his other hand to pull his dress down to cover his dick. Even as he struggled to breathe life into his body he wanted to hide from who he really was.