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Sha-Sha thought it over for a few seconds, stuffing more cookies down his mouth—looked like he was swallowing them whole—then went, “Max huh? And you say the nigga don’t got no back-up?”

“Ain’t you listenin’ to me?” Felicia said. “It’s just him, he’s alone. Oh, yeah, and some white boy from Alabama. Name Kyle or some shit. Max and Kyle. That sounds like two scary-ass motherfuckers, right?”

Felicia laughed.

Sha-Sha wasn’t laughing, went, “What about them Colombians?”

“What about ’em?”

“You say this is twenty thousand dollar, right? Shit, ain’t no high-level deal for no twenty thousand dollars, know what I’m sayin’? Sound like some street-level bullshit to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. So? That makes the whole thing even more easy. How hard’s it gonna be for you and whoever else you got backin’ you up, do whatever you gotta do. Shit gonna be stupid easy, you ask me.”

“Yeah, I guess maybe I can get my boy Troit in on it with me,” Sha-Sha said. “We split up the rock together and shit.”

“That’s right,” Felicia said, “and I get the money. That’s all I want—the twenty grand. I don’t care if they got a hundred grand worth of rock there. All I want is the cash.”

She liked the deal, but she didn’t like the sound of Troit. If he was in with Sha-Sha, he was probably some sick-ass, that was for damn sure.

Sha-Sha was quiet a few seconds, like he was thinking real hard, then said, “You know I might gotta cap this Max motherfucker, right?”

“Shit, you wanna cap him, go ’head,” Felicia said. “You be doin’ me a favor, wanna know the truth. Cap his ass in the head, serve him right for the way he been treatin’ me. Walking around with my titties showin’ all the time, makin’ me do him whenever he get a hard-on, which is like what, five, six, seven times a day? Man’s little dick be hard all the time with all the Vi-agra he be takin’.”

“A’ight, I’m in, yo,” Sha-Sha said. “Let’s bust this Max nigga hard.” Then he pushed the Chips Ahoys aside, said, “Man, I’m getting’ sick off these cookies. Man need some real dessert, know what I’m sayin’?”

Felicia smiled, like she didn’t know what Sha-Sha was saying, and said, “Yo, I should be gettin’ back. I don’t want Max getting’ suspicious or nothin’. I told him I was gonna get a haircut but it ain’t gonna be no shorter when I get back. Not like his cracked-up ass would notice.”

As Felicia headed toward the door Sha-Sha said, “You think I’m playin’ with you?”

Felicia stopped, looked back at him. He had his legs spread and he was undoing the buckle on his belt.

“Come on, Sha-Sha, don’t be doing that shit. We cousins.”

“You want me to do shit for you, you better do some shit for me. Know what I’m saying?”

Felicia knew she had no choice. Shit would end fast anyway. Besides, had to be better than Max, right?

When she had her panties down and was climbing on she went, “You better be quick. And you tell our mommas about this shit, I’ll kill you.”

When Felicia was done screwin’ Sha-Sha she took the train back to Manhattan. Man, it was a relief being back in Manhattan, being back in
the city
. She was through with all that being in Brooklyn, back in the projects bullshit. She had class now and she wasn’t gonna be poor ever again. All she needed was the time and place of the meeting with the Colombians and Sha-Sha would take care of all the rest. She’d have her money, be able to open her salon in St. Louis, her life would be all set up.

That night, when she was in bed with Max, she figured there was no use not getting right to it and she said, “When’s the drug meeting with the Colombians at?”

She figured Max would just come out and tell her. Why’d he have to keep it a secret?

But either he thought something was up or he was just being an asshole, cause he said, “Why the fuck do you care?”

Shit, why’d she have to be so straight up with him? She shoulda tried to work it out of him, or waited till they were in the swimming pool at the QT and he was in a good mood and shit.

“No reason,” Felicia said, twirling her finger in his sweaty gray chest hair, acting all lovey dovey with the damn asshole. “I just wanna know where my man’s gonna be at, that’s all.”

“Hey, let’s not forget your role in this relationship,” Max said. “I’m not your man, I’m your boss. You got that?”

Damn, she wanted to bitch slap his ass.

“Yeah, I got it,” she said. “But ain’t I gonna come with you to meet the Colombians?”

Max laughed then said, “Honey, this is business, complicated stuff. Your role is to be waiting for me when I get back. I’m gonna be very worked up after that meeting and I’m gonna to need my bee-atch to relax me. Now make yourself useful and roll me a joint, will ya?”

She knew it was because he’d caught—well, almost caught—her going into the safe. Now he wasn’t gonna trust her with nothing.

In the morning she was ready to give up, say fuck you to the whole busting in on the drug deal idea. She was gonna call Detective Miscali and give him whatever he wanted and then she was gonna get her ass outa, what’d he call it? Oh, yeah,
FisherLand.

But then the next morning Max’s boy Kyle arrived up from Alabama. One look at that white boy and Felicia knew she was back in action. When she first saw him she even said out loud, “Damn, that boy be white.”

Serious, if there ever was a white boy, it was Kyle. Damn, nigga put the white in white boy. She didn’t know how he was from the South because his skin looked like he was one of them albinos, like he hadn’t been out in the sun his whole hillbilly life. Probably because he spent all his time in church, that’s why. The boy be carrying around his bible all the time, talking to Max about crack—how fucked up is that? Max had told her something about how he was gonna set Kyle up with some ho’s when he came to the city, wanted to know if Felicia had any “references,” but Felicia knew the only ho on that boy’s body was gonna be her.

And she could tell the boy was hard up, looked like a dog that wasn’t getting none. Whenever he looked at her his mouth hung open, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She kept him in heat, brushing her titties up against his arm, touching his ass with her index finger, and all the time she kept thinking, “She-itt, this boy be white.”

And the way he talked, like some southern gent and calling her “Ma’am.” Ain’t nobody ever called Felicia ma’am and she had to be real careful not to laugh in his damn fool face.

But, shit, she kind of liked the way he was worshipping her, treating her with her respect. Aretha said it right—ain’t no girl on the planet gonna turn down some r-e-s-p-e-c-t. And, hell, being called ma’am was better than being called bee-atch, right?

One time, in the kitchen, she moved up close to him, her titties right up against his chest, and tried getting the drug deal info from him but he clammed way up, stuttering, “I-I-I don’t think the The M.A.X. w-w-would like me talking ’bout that, m-m-m-a’am.”

Stuttering and shit, he was so nervous. She wanted to slap him upside his head, get some sense in his dumb Southern boy ass, but then she needed that information. There was only one way she knew she could get it out of him—fuckin’. There wasn’t a man alive didn’t talk like a jackrabbit when he got some pussy with the promise of more to come. Besides, she was screwing her own damn cousin, what was one more little white boy?

Later that day, Max went out to sell some of his crack to somebody and Katsu was out buying fish in Chinatown. Felicia put on some of the lingerie Max had got her and went out into the living room. Kyle was sitting on the couch and when he looked up at her he almost dropped his damn bible. She didn’t say nothing, just looked him up and down and then went to the stereo and put on some Mary J. Blige. Then she got a bottle of bourbon, two glasses, piled some ice in there and then splashed lots of booze in each. Holding the glasses in one hand, like she’d seen in a movie, she strolled across the room to where Kyle was now sitting straight up, like he was an army man, and went, “Girl sure does hate to drink alone, suga.”

He took the glass, his hand shaking, and she eased down next to him. He gulped the bourbon straight down, swallowed the ice too, like he needed it to cool off.

Squeezing up nice and close to him, she went, “What you readin’?”

Kyle could barely speak, he wanted it so bad. He went, “E-E-Ezekiel eigh-eighteen twenty-seven.”

“Ooh, that sounds nice,” Felicia said, puckering up her lips. “What it say?”

“N-nothing much, ma’am,” Kyle said. “Just that, um, uh, ‘When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.’ ”

“Oh, yeah, that sounds real pretty,” Felicia rubbed his leg—damn, he had a tent in his sweatpants already—then went, “You know, I go to church all the time too?”

“Really?”

She wanted to laugh in his face, but she had to keep this shit going.

“Yeah, I always sit up close, in the first row, so I can hear what the reverend say loud and clear. You know, I’m related to Dr. Martin Luther King?”

Damn, she wished she could take that shit back. Boy was from the south, might be some kind of racist or something.

But, nope, turned out it was the perfect way to go because he went, “Wow, Dr. King, that’s real impressive, ma’am. I’m a big, big fan. How’re you and the Reverend related?”

Shit—questions. She wasn’t expecting that.

“He was my mom’s cousin twice removed on my sister’s side. But he and my mom was real close—like brothers. I mean brother and sister.” Figuring she had to get off this subject real quick, she went, “You know what I like about you?” She was tickling his leg a little, happy to see that big tent coming up already in his pants—yeah, boy was ready to go campin’ all right. “You real polite, that’s what. Callin’ me ma’am all the time. I like that shit. Wanna know something else? You real pretty too.”

She almost said
purty,
but figured they were past that.

She grabbed the bible from him, tossed it onto the floor, and climbed on his body.

“Don’t worry none about your bible, honey chile. We can have our own, private bible class. I be Eve, you be Adam, and our asses are stuck in the Garden of Eden.”

“O-okay, ma’am,” he said. He could barely talk. Shit, he could barely breathe.

She grinded up against him, putting his face right between her titties, then said, “Ain’t there a snake in the garden of Eden?” and undid the snap on his Levi’s.

“H-hold up a second, ma’am,” Kyle said. “Ain’t you Max’s...I mean The M.A.X.’s girl?”

“Honey, I ain’t nobody’s girl,” Felicia said.

She got his pants down, then pulled his shirt up over his head. Then she took his Y-fronts down and she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

She went, “Damn, boy, you are
hung
.”

And she wasn’t lying neither, like when she told all them pencil dicks that they got the biggest cocks she ever seen just to boost their egos and shit. Sometimes she even told Max he had a big one. Meanwhile, sometimes she couldn’t even feel the shit. He’d roll off her and go, “I’m done,” and she didn’t even know they was started yet.

But, Kyle, man, he was the real deal. She’d been with half the Knicks and most of the brothers in Canarsie and, shit, none of them had nothing on this white boy.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

“Naw, thank
you
,” she said, and they got at it. She didn’t want him to shoot too soon, because those southern boys—even the gents like Kyle—turned real mean when that happened.

Felicia was letting loose, coming like the goddamn D-train, shrieking like a crack ho who’d had her shit taken away.

Meanwhile, Kyle was going, “Am I hurting you, ma’am?”

She just screamed at him, “You da man, you da man, you da man!”

When she finished up she turned over and let Kyle do his thing. When he blew he didn’t make a sound. Boy was too polite to make noise.

Sitting up on the couch after, Felicia went, “I ain’t been fucked like that in a long, long time, suga.”

Then she saw he was crying, big-ass tears going down his cheeks.

“What’s the matter, baby?”

He could hardly talk, he was crying so bad.

Then he went, “I’ve betrayed The M.A.X. What am I gonna do now?”

Boy was so messed up he didn’t even remember to call her ma’am.

She caressed his cheek, went, “Ain’t no power on earth can stop love, honey.”

“You really mean that? You...l-l-love me?”

“Why you think I’m here with you right now, baby? I ain’t usually the type of girl who gets with a man real quick, know what I’m sayin’?”

Lucky she wasn’t Pinnochio or her nose’d be blowing a hole through the door, past the elevators, out the damn building and shit.

Kyle said, “But The M.A.X. said that you’re a...a... a ho.”

“That’s bullshit,” Felicia said. “Don’t listen to anything Max be saying to you cause that man got his head inside his ass, know what I’m sayin’? I ain’t no ho. I’m just a woman, a lonely woman lookin’ for love, and now I found it.”

She saw his eyes well up and let him kiss her, trying not to laugh, then said, “You love me, too, don’t you? I can see you do. I can see it. And listen, baby, if you love somebody, you tell them everything. There ain’t no secrets. So why don’t you tell me where that drug deal’s gonna be at?”

“Can I ask why you want to know?”

She wanted to go, “No, you can’t,” but went with, “Cause I just like to know where my man be at, that’s all....You are my man, ain’t you?”

She saw the way he was looking at her and that was it, piece of cake. He told her everything she wanted to know about the drug deal—the time, the place, who was gonna be there, everything.

Then he said, all scared and shit, “You sure you won’t tell The M.A.X., ma’am? I mean, I know it’s no big deal and all, but I don’t think The M.A.X. would appreciate it if he knew I told you something I wasn’t supposed to.”

Yeah, Kyle had a big dick but Felicia had never seen a pussy like him her whole damn life. Never saw a sucker like him neither.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Be our own little secret.” Then she climbed back on him and she said, “You like Britney?” Kyle said yeah and she said, “Then what you waitin’ for? Hit me one more time, baby.”