The California Saga (18 page)

 

 

Jewel kept her word and finally hit my man Poppo off with all of my dough in thirty days, right before Thanksgiving. Originally she said that she would pay me half in thirty days and that she would give me the other half thirty days after that. So with her suddenly coming up with my money so quickly, I had instructed Poppo to make sure that he kept his eyes on both Jewel and Touch.

News came back to me that Touch, who had completely fallen off the radar for like a month and a half, had suddenly reappeared back on the scene. I knew something was up. I didn't know exactly what, but I knew that what Poppo was telling me was true.

“Calico, on the real, Christmas ain't until next week, but I'm telling you Christmas done came early for this nigga Touch. The muthafucka got one of his homies driving him and Jewel around in a brand new Maybach, and I heard they just purchased this big-ass crib out in the Heritage Park section in Virginia Beach. Jewel and Touch be pulling up to spots like they muthafuckin' Jay-Z and Beyoncé and shit. Yo, one of Touch's man is getting out and opening up the door for them like a gotdamn chauffeur.”

I didn't say anything in response. All I did was chuckle into the phone.

“Last night Jewel was rocking a brand new chinchilla coat. It's crazy. They got money from somewhere.”

“Yeah, and that sounds like new money,” I said.

“They the ones cutting our nuts and giving muthafuckas better prices than we can give 'em,” Poppo said, confirming what I had already told him earlier.

I couldn't exactly prove the shit because when niggas like Touch get a new connect and that connect is giving them better prices, they hoard that shit and guard that information with their life. And the fucked-up shit is that a muthafucka like Touch, who I was supplying with product, will turn around and start asking my ass if I need his product because the cost was so low.

When I reached out to Touch to see what was up and why he hadn't re-upped in a while with me, he gave me some bullshit excuse about shit being slow and him going to jail for a moment over some baby momma drama bullshit. Yet I had Poppo telling me him and Jewel was driving around, pushing brand new half a million dollar whips and shit.

“I'm gonna be out there for New Year's Eve. I had to lay low and stay off the radar for a minute, but I'ma be back. We gotta get up with each other and break bread when I touch down,” I said to Touch over the phone. I made sure not to make any mention of the new money I knew he was getting.

“Yeah, yeah, no doubt. We gonna get up,” he said.

“Yo, so what's up with Jewel?”

“Jewel?”

“Yeah, what's up with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is she good?”

“Oh, yeah, she good. Jewel is on some whole new get money shit, and she getting it too. She ain't the same Jewel from a few months back.”

“Oh yeah?” I replied on the other end of the phone with a half smile. “So she doing it like that?”

“Yeah, she gettin that ghostwriting money. But you know Jewel is always gonna stay fly.”

I took a sip of the gin and orange juice that I had been drinking. “Wow! Okay, so I guess I gotta break that bitch off some more dick.” I started laughing into the phone. “For real, nigga, I don't how you ain't never hit that shit. She got the tightest and wettest pussy that I ever fucked. And I done had my share of pussy, you know what I mean?”

Touch didn't respond. I had to look at my phone to make sure we were still connected. I thought I had dropped the call or something.

“Touch, you there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. So just hit me up when you get back in town.”

“A'ight, fool.” Just before I hung up I said, “Touch, keep it real with me—You fucking Jewel?”

“Me and Jewel go way back, you know that.”

“But, I'm just saying, you sound like you caught feelings when I was talking about hitting that. And, I mean, a nigga will definitely back off and let you have my leftovers, you feel me?”

“Calico, this is the thing. Fuck this money that we getting, fuck breaking bread together and all that shit. If you gonna speak about Jewel, you make muthafuckin' sure that you don't speak disrespectful about her, a'ight.”

I couldn't help but laugh at Touch and his clown-ass. He was taking shit personal, like the little bitch he was.

“Oh, so that's your boo now?” I said. “It's all good. So, Encore, that's the spot for New Year's Eve?”

Touch didn't answer me.

“Keep your head up, fool,” I said, still chumping his ass.

I could tell that Touch had a problem with me. I could sense the shit for some time, and I knew it had been brewing inside of him for a while and was about to come to a head. But it was all good, because now the nigga had cut into my money. I could give a fuck about Jewel 'cause, like a real nigga, I was always on some ol' money-over-bitches shit. But apparently Touch wasn't, and that was a prime example of why he wasn't built for this street shit like I was.

As far as I was concerned it was always about my money, and it will always be about my money. And that was why on New Year's Eve I was gonna see Touch. Yeah, I was definitely gonna see that nigga. He posed a threat to my money, and I had to do what I had to do in order to eliminate that threat.

 

 

Thankfully for me my lawyer and the Commonwealth attorney had worked out a deal where I would plead guilty to the lowest degree assault charge possible and avoid doing any jail time. The judge would grant me time served for the month and a half that I had already spent in jail awaiting my trial, and I would also receive a sentence of five years probation.

I took that deal in a heartbeat. Yeah, I didn't want to deal with no probation and all that came with it, but at least I had my everyday freedom and wasn't locked behind no prison walls. Besides, without the barrier of prison walls, me and Jewel could focus on getting that money.

And leading up to New Year's Eve, getting money was exactly what me and Jewel did. With Jewel's TMF connect, all of my hustler dreams and ambition were being fulfilled. Me and Jewel were like the hood version of Kimora Lee and Russell Simmons. In a matter of a few short weeks, we were doing it up big and, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

I said to Jewel as I opened up the row of black garbage bags that contained one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one-dollar bills. “You ain't never seen no shit like this before in your life, have you?”

“Niggas in them strip clubs be talking about making it rain, but I'm gonna make it rain up in Club Encore on New Year's Eve. As soon as that ball drops, I'm gonna have all this money drop from the ceiling and rain down on the crowd. Everybody's gonna know that ain't nobody doing it bigger than me and my girl.” I scooped Jewel up and hoisted her into the air and kissed her.

“Yeah, but, baby, I don't know if that's a good thing, though.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“'Cause we don't need everybody knowing that we doing it up like that. This is all brand new money, and we just started getting it like this. So I think we should keep a low profile, stack our money, and muthafuckas won't know shit, but we'll be rich as hell.”

“Keep a low profile?” I laughed. “That shit went out the window when you leased that Maybach and purchased a $750,000 house.”

Jewel and I both started laughing.

“Yeah, you right about that. But, I'm just saying, from a jealousy standpoint, it's like when people see that kind of money just being wasted, then they'll know we getting money. And as soon as niggas get locked up and the detectives start pressing they ass for information, guess whose name is gonna come up even if we ain't have shit to do with anything? Yep, ours.”

I knew that Jewel was right. Shit, everything I was doing was going against everything I believed in. I'd made promises after my first bid that I was gonna stay humble, well, as humble as possible, and play the game right this go'round. I knew a certain level of flossing always came at a price, and we definitely didn't need to give the feds a reason to start investigating us. And dropping one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash into a crowd was definitely a reason to get an investigation going. The authorities would want to know where in the hell were we getting all this money to just blow.

“Jewel, fuck it though. I'ma keep it real with you. I'm gonna do that shit just to send a message to Calico. I want that nigga to know that, yeah, we getting money, and I that I got you on top of it, as icing on the cake.”

“Touch, please. You got me, we got each other. Just fucking ignore Calico and his weak ass.”

Jewel again was speaking logically and making sense, but I was determined to be hard-headed on this one. See, as far as I was concerned, yeah, it was always money over bitches, but I wanted to let Calico and the whole world know that not only did I have the money, but now I also had the top bitch. I wanted it all.

With my hands in the air like a king before his dynasty, I yelled to Jewel, “Like those TMF cats you so fond of say, ‘The world is ours.' ”

 

 

Things had been going as well for me as I had ever envisioned. I had money in the bank, I wasn't waking up to no bullshit nine-to-five, nor was I shaking my ass in nobody's strip club. I had my apartment, I had my new furniture, I had my new Honda Accord, and most importantly, I had my man Rick with me.

So with things going well heading close to Christmas, I had decided to go to Bottoms Up just to chill and hang out and say what's up to some of the girls that I hadn't seen since I'd quit. When I walked into the club, I was greeted warmly by a bunch of the dancers. Everyone thought that I was coming back to work. It felt so good to just let them know that, nah, I was just there to have some drinks and be a spectator.

“What's up, baby girl?” some dude said to me as he came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes.

My first reaction was to think that it was one of the patrons who had recognized me from when I used to dance in there.

“Diablo! Hey, baby!” I said after he removed his hands from my eyes and I was able to turn around and see his face.

“What's up? Where the hell you been? You just vanished on everybody.”

“I just been doing me,” I explained.

Diablo ordered a drink, and the two of us drank at the bar and talked about a bunch of shit. And, of course, he was hitting on me the whole time, but I never gave in to any of his advances.

“So what's up with you and Jewel?”

“Fuck that bitch!”

“Damn! What's up? What happened between y'all two? I mean, she told me some shit, but I don't get it.”

“Diablo, you don't need to get it. Like I said, fuck that bitch!”

“Damn! Okay, so I guess you ain't going to her and Touch's New Year's Eve party at Encore.”

“Hell no!” I said with an attitude and a look of disgust on my face.

“They doing it real big up there in VA right now. I don't know, Sasha, you might wanna change your mind about not going.” Diablo handed me his phone and told me to look at it.

I took hold of the phone and looked at a picture that Diablo had of him, Touch, and Jewel standing in front of a Maybach.

“Yeah, so?”

“Like I said, they doing it big up there. Jewel got the Maybach. She's killing 'em. That party is gonna be crazy.”

“Can we please talk about something else? Anything but Jewel and Touch . . . please,” I said to Diablo as I finished my drink.

“Okay, so I got another story for you.” Diablo looked around from side to side as if he was being watched. “Word around town says that you off-loaded some of the kingpin's money.”

“What are you talking about now?” I said, trying to mask my sudden nervousness.
Where did he get this information from
?

“Well, about a couple of days after you came back into town, Jewel gave me a call. She told me how she couldn't get in touch with you, and asked me had I seen you. I told her, ‘Nah,' but wondered what happened to that deal I was supposed to work wit' y'all. She told me that she had to find you to find out what happened. Fast forward to the present, and one of my mans an' dem is telling me that Calico is looking for you, and he wants you dead or alive. I just thought that you might wanna reach back out to your homegirl and see if she can try to extinguish the smoking gun that's about to come your way.”

Diablo's words chilled me to the bone. With all my thoughts about getting over on Jewel, I forgot that she had that nigga Calico in her back pocket, and I didn't. Fear and anxiety was now showing on my face.

“You know what? I gotta go. I'll speak to you soon.” I gave Diablo a kiss on the cheek and darted out the club.

Why, God? Why? Why me?
I screamed in my head as I started up my car and peeled off, tears streaming down my face as I pressed my gas pedal to the floor.
I know that bitch worked out a deal with Calico,
I thought to myself.

I knew in my heart and in my mind that couldn't be true. There was no way that Jewel could overcome the six-figure blow that I had dealt to her and recover so quickly and get a fucking Maybach without help from Calico or Touch. No way in hell. That bitch wasn't Superwoman, and her pussy wasn't all that. I know because I had the shit.
Fuck!
I thought to myself as I really began to hyperventilate.

As I pulled up to my apartment still in tears, I realized that Jewel really must have thought that she was hot shit. As far as I knew, the bitch had never even tried to seriously track me down for the hundred thousand dollars.
Who the fuck does she think she is?

I tried my best to gather my composure before exiting my car and going inside. I couldn't believe how much pain I was once again suddenly feeling because of Jewel. I was so tired of her always being one up on me, I just couldn't take it.

Yeah, I was gonna be at her and
her man's
little fucking party, but I wasn't gonna be there to party. I was gonna personally make sure that she felt some of the pain I was feeling at that moment. Yeah, my pain was more emotional than anything, but Jewel's pain was definitely gonna be physical.