Riding Dirty on I-95 (6 page)

“C-Note, huh? Ah …,” Hassim said, nodding his head as if something was on his mind.

A guy walked by and acknowledged Hassim. “Peace,” the dude said.

Hassim acknowledged him back with a nod, and C-Note laughed.

“Let me in?” Hassim asked, wondering what C-Note found to be so funny.

“Thinking 'bout the greeting ‘peace.’ That's all. Funny how people quick to say ‘peace,’ but a nigga can't really have peace.

Every time I try to have peace of mind, a nigga is trying to get a piece of mines.”

“It's like that from time to time,” Hassim said nonchalantly. “So, what you going to do about them guys that got your chain? You gonna give them beef?”

“Naw, man. My name is C-Note, and I'm about money. I can't get money and fight a war at the same time.”

There was a long silence between the two men before Hassim looked into C-Note's eyes and said, “Look, man, I like your style. I saw that bullshit go down, and I liked how you handled yourself. You put your mind before your ego.” He nodded, never breaking eye contact. “My friend, you have a good head on your shoulders, and I know I can help you get a thousand more of them chains.”

C-Note looked over Hassim's clothes, trying to figure exactly how a man in some dirty white Adidas and a Marlboro T-shirt was going to help him. Then it popped in his mind that a book could never be judged by its cover. He took into consideration Hassim's swagger and the way he talked so authoritatively, and C-Note knew what was up and asked, “What's it going to cost me—I mean your help?”

“Loyalty.”

Is this motherfucker bullshitting or what?
C-Note thought at the time, but from that day forward, Hassim had been dishing out bricks at rock-bottom prices, and like a gymnast, C-Note was flipping them with ease. So far, so good. Neither one of them never put any bullshit in the game.

“
H
ey, Don Corleone, you out there? Breaker-breaker, Don Cor-leone. Come on in,” C-note heard as he snapped back to the present. He was swiftly brought back to reality when he heard a
trucker over his CB radio. Riding down the highways and byways, C-Note had always thought that he didn't need anybody or anything except for his faithful Ford LTD work vehicle. He quickly learned that the truckers were the true rulers of the highway, and especially of I-95. No four wheels were able to compete with their eighteen wheels. Since they were the governors and the chiefs, it paid to be in their union.

C-note quickly grabbed the mouthpiece to his CB and pushed the button to reply. “Go ahead, Lil' Lost Chicken,” he said.

“Keep your eyes open and look over your shoulder, because two full-grown bears are coming up fast through your back door,” Lil' Lost Chicken said from an eighteen-wheeler that was riding about three miles behind C-Note.

“I'm on it,” C-Note said. Then he heard the trucker make a long whistle before he heard the voice of another trucker come over the radio.

“Shaggy Dog, what bones you got?” C-note asked the animated trucker who was about five miles ahead of him.

“I'm up here. Just blazed exit sixty-nine at the cigar plants, and the Bandit is in the cut,” Shaggy Dog replied.

“Is he rolling or taking pictures?” C-Note asked. He realized Shaggy Dog had just passed the Phillip Morris buildings.

“He a sitting bear, taking plenty of snapshots.” Shaggy Dog informed him that the trooper was lying in the cut with his radar on.

“A'ight, keep the front door open for me, Shaggy Dog,” C-Note said.

“You ain't got nothing to worry about. I'm up here three exits ahead with my eyes wide open. I'll keep the doghouse dry for you.” He ended with a long dramatic whistle and then said, “This Shaggy Dog on the run to the end of the stretch,” letting his fellow truckers know that he was going to Canada.

C-Note checked his speed and his car's secret compartments
and smiled at the heads-up from his trusty newfound trucker friends. As much as C-Note wished he had someone who could ride along to keep him company or share the driving, there was no one he felt he could trust. There was no way he was going to risk giving his connect up to a soul. Who would blame him, as sweet as his prices were? He was getting keys at thirteen g's a pop when the going rate was anywhere from eighteen to twenty g's. On top of that, Paula—his right-hand, get-money ride-or-die bitch— had a priceless “whip” game. She cooked coke so good that she could easily take ten keys of this 93-percent raw and turn them into twenty. So not only were his prices low, but his product was the best in town. C-Note's money flowed like the Jordan River. By no means would he jeopardize that bringing along some local clown playing cutthroat with him, or even worse, being able to sing like the damn Pips if Smokey got lucky for the ride.

Damn, I wish my brother was here so we could do this shit together
, C-Note thought. His brother, Lynx, had introduced him to the game and was now in prison doing a five-year bit.

C-Note arrived into Richmond at approximately eleven o'clock in the morning on the fifteenth of the April. He knew he couldn't drag his feet on dumping the work, because he planned on taking another trip down to Miami before the first of the month. Dressed in the same matching brown khaki Dickies work uniform with the same wheat-color Timberland boots he wore every single time he made his trip, he stopped first at a mini-mart to get a Red Bull. Just as C-Note got back in his car, his cell phone rang. He looked down at the caller ID and then answered it.

“Yo, I'll be there in thirty minutes,” C-Note said into the receiver.

“Cool,” Paula cooed. “I'll be waiting.”

C-Note hung up the phone and smiled. That's what he liked
about having Paula on his team. There was never any useless small talk. If he said he was on his way, no questions were asked.

Thirty minutes later he was at Paula's, and while she had his coke brewing, he made phone calls to a few worker bees to get the show going. While talking on the phone, he couldn't help but notice how phat Paula still was as she moved about the kitchen in some old green sweatpants. He didn't want her to know he was watching her, because the minute she thought he was admiring her, she would be all over him.

It's too bad that she's a straight ex ol' ho
, C-Note thought, shaking his head.
Or else I would have her ass.

He thought about Paula's travels displayed in pictures on her octagon mirror stand: to heavyweight boxing matches, on cruises and to Cancún.

Paula was a washed-up, watered-down, burnt-out ho from way back in the day, when hustlers were really getting real money. Paula was still beautiful in her own right, but she could never be made into a housewife. Her reputation of chasing if not every baller but damn near every hustler that ever walked the streets in Richmond from 1986 to 1993 was too much to overlook. For a while she was the best gold digger for as long as anybody could remember. Known best for her lockjaw pussy, she was given the name “Sweet Pussy Paula.”

Sometimes mistaken for an Indian, Paula had long, black, wavy, thick hair that she wore in a neatly maintained ponytail. As thick as her hair was, it demanded a serious Revlon perm, but she wasn't trading in her naturally wavy hair for bone-straight hair. Besides, her fierce sex game just sealed the deal.

Sweet Pussy Paula had a good run. She ran through ballers' cash and stash like Marion Jones in a two-hundred-meter sprint. Everybody wanted a piece of Sweet Pussy Paula. If a hustler hadn't either sexed or turned down the opportunity to hit Paula, he
hadn't arrived in the game yet. But before she knew it, her stock fell extremely low and she found herself being propositioned to do things that were way out of character.

Since she had a reputation, and not for doing good hair, Paula couldn't get a steady clientele in the beauty salon she owned. It wasn't that other chicks thought she was a moral disgrace. No, broads were funny like that. They were lightweight jealous of the rumors of just how good Paula's pussy was, making them second-guess what they were workin' with up under their own thongs. It didn't help her at all that her hair game was only okay, and when it came to doing hair in the VA, okay was just not good enough. The only stylists she had in her shop were either chicks with unsteady clientele or ones who had been kicked out of damn near every shop in Richmond. But together they somehow made it.

Besides stripping, Paula tried it all: nails, massage therapy, and selling drugs. However, when it came to dealing drugs, she could never keep the re-up money straight, spending it as quickly as she made it. While trying to stretch her product out so that she could make as much money as possible off her drugs, she learned that she had a hell of a “whip game,” something she acquired from watching some of the best ballers to ever do it cook their own stuff up because they didn't trust anyone to cook their shit, not even a naked bitch in pumps.

At first she became Lynx's best-kept secret, but he passed her on to his lil' brother because her loyalty had never been questioned. Because Lynx or C-Note never sexed Sweet Pussy Paula, somehow she was convinced that they really cared about her.

By the time Paula had finished up her entree, C-Note's phone started blowin up. The word was out that he was back in town and the shop was wide-open.

After Paula served him all of his coke on a platter, C-Note peeled off several bills from a stack of hundreds like he always did.

“Are you sure?” Paula asked, looking at the money. “I know you just got back in town. I can wait till you dump some of that work. I don't have anything that dire to be paid. My bills are on point from when you came through and gave me that money two weeks ago.”

“Naw, I'm good,” C-Note said, shaking his head from side to side. He was impressed by Paula's lack of greed. The way she was lookin' out for a brotha's pockets instead of her own was a bonus. But still in his eyes, once a ho always a ho. He replied, “I was going to go and get you something nice, for all the work you be puttin in for me, but I ain't have the time. So go ahead and hold on to that.”

“Thank you!” she said, pocketing the money. “You ain't gotta say it more than once. Is it anything you need me to do? Because you know today is Monday, and I'm off work from now to Wednesday.”

“I might need you to come by my house and take my clothes to the cleaners. And see if you can take my watch to the jeweler to get a link taken out for me.”

“A'ight, you know I got you.” She smiled.

C-Note's phone rang again. He looked down at the caller ID screen to see who was calling him. “Damn, I swear I don't feel like fucking with this larceny-hearted-ass nigga, let me go. I'ma hit you up later,” he said to Paula as he gave her a brotherly hug, then grabbed his duffel bag and answered the phone.

“Yo,” he said as he walked out the door.

“Nigga, where you at? Why I gotta call you a hundred times to get you to answer?”

“Stop tripping,” C-Note said, sucking his teeth.

“Look, man, I need to get some of that. I'm doing bad as a bitch,” he heard his brother's right-hand triggerman, Cook'em-up, say.

“You know this ain't even your MO.” C-Note knew that Cook'em-up wasn't a hustler. He would rather kill a nigga and take his instead of going out to get his own.

“When the chips is low, a nigga gotta do whatever. So help a nigga out,” Cook'em-up reasoned.

C-Note took a deep breath and said, “Look, holla at me on Friday and I'm going to look out for you real decent.”

“Friday? What you mean Friday when shit is fresh out the oven today? I need to have shit today!” Cook'em-up said in his attempt to try to strong-arm C-Note.

Damn, I know this nigga ain't going to fuckin' pay me. He never does
, C-Note thought. Cook'em-up already owed him five g's from last month and was still asking for more work. Cook'em-up wasn't somebody that C-Note could just give a half ounce to in order to get him out of his face. He knew Cook'em-up would want at least a big eight or better. But it wasn't happening today.

“Look, man,” C-Note said with a sigh. “I can only throw an OZ
y
o' way, straight up.”

“An OZ?” Cook'em-up spat. “Man, come on. This me, baby. This is Cook'em-up.”

And that's why
, C-note said to himself. Finally Cook'em-up saw that he wasn't going to do any better, so he and C-Note hooked up and Cook'em-up copped the ounce of coke. Just as C-Note called it, on Friday Cook'em-up called for more, and just like always, he had no money to pay for what he had gotten before. C-Note talked a little junk to Cook'em-up but always looked out, because he knew that if push ever came to shove, it would be Cook'em-up who would gladly, at the drop of a dime, be the muscle behind his organization. Cook'em-up had been working with the family a long time, even before C-Note's father was killed, so C-Note had to do right by him even if it was a losing proposition.