The Glamorous Life (14 page)

Lynx looked around the club at all the broads and players, and suddenly he saw someone that made him stop and stare.

Lynx asked his homeboys. “Anybody knows who dat is?”

“Who, man?”

“Honey over there, the dark-skinned one with the big ole ass.”

Cook’em-up, who looked liked a dwarf compared to Lynx, threw his hand up.

“Oh, man, that’s Bambi, and that bitch—” he hesitated and shook his head—“that bitch ain’t no earthly good. That bitch done damn near milked this whole town dry.”

“Fo real, who she fuck with?” Lynx asked.

“Man, that chick just be straight catching cats out there. She be fucking with the niggas on the corners selling twenties all the way up to the niggas serving birds.” Lynx listened as his man exaggerated. He could look at Bambi and tell she was about money, but his man souped it up. “Straight up, she is poison. Believe that, man.”

The whole time Lynx listened to Cook’em-up give his synopsis of Bambi, he never took his eyes off her. “Do you know why she poison?”

“Man, that chick is straight-up wicked. Dope boys, stick-up kids, gamblers, gunslingers, NBA players, it don’t make no difference—the bitch straight up don’t have mercy on nobody’s pocket. I’m telling you, man, that ho is wicked.”

Lynx smiled as he watched Bambi mingling with the party-goers.

“Nah, man, I don’t believe that. I think if she’s like that, it’s
because she never had a real nigga tame her. That’s why all dem cornball dudes is coming at her with their fake, weak game and she just play them like she do. I don’t fault her. Shit, if I had a pussy, I’d get dem too,” he said with a laugh.

“The only thing she got going for herself is the broad can throw a hell of a party and got a lot of game.”

“Man, you can lay flat and bet, honey gon’ be mines.”

“Damn, man, is that you or the liquor talking?”

“It’s me.” He gulped down his drink and headed across the club.

When Lynx got up, his crew all got up and did the same thing. They acted as his security, and any one of them would kill for Lynx. Lynx himself was no wuss and had a few bodies under his belt.

Tonight Lynx turned to his crew and said, “I’m good. I need to do this myself.”

Lynx strolled over smoothly heading toward Bambi. Having lost his dad at a young age, Lynx had gathered his decorous mannerism from watching actors like Superfly, Dolemite, Humphrey Bogart, and Victor Newman from the TV soap opera
The Young and the Restless,
as his mother sat him in front the television with her. As he made his way through the hot, musty, smoke-filled room, every person he passed, male and female, seemed to be checking his threads. He never noticed because his mind and eyes had locked onto one thing: Bambi.

“Would you like to dance?” he whispered in her ear. When he leaned over to whisper the invitation, he could smell the Laura Biagiotti perfume.

“Nope,” she replied coldly, and turned her back to him.

He looked her over and simply said, “Well, if you ever do before the night’s out, just holla at me.” Playing it cool, he strolled back into the crowd. He was trying to figure out what he was
doing. He didn’t even like to dance, yet to get next to Bambi, he would have done the funky chicken, the robot, or the DC whop all night long for the privilege of her company.

Back at his table, he watched Bambi interact with the people around her. She never made any eye contact with him. She acted like she had the upper hand after she’d used her eyes to make him notice, her willing him over to ask her for a dance.

The DJ came on the mic and said, “All the real live niggas throw your hands up, throw your hands up, throw your hands up.”

The whole party got hype, as did Bambi and her three girlfriends. They all started dancing. Lynx gazed at her as she moved rhythmically to the beat of the music. Cook’em-up saw Lynx studying Bambi’s every move and said, “Don’t you think it’s funny that she ain’t danced all night and as soon as ‘All about the Benjamins’ comes on, that money-hungry ho dancing like it’s her theme song.”

“Man, watch yo mouth.”

“Look, man, I am just warning you. She ain’t from the streets, and if something happen and the police come, that ho is the first one to start singing like a bird.”

“Man, I ain’t got her doing that. I got her holding strong, straight holding a gangsta down.”

He looked over at her one more time and saw the black beauty moving so methodically, throwing her rump from side to side, moving her hair from over her eyes as she danced.

“Lordy, Lordy, look at shorty,” was all he could say as he shook his head.

CHAPTER 13

Back in da Club

B
ambi couldn’t help but notice a man sitting at a table with his crew surrounded by buckets of Moët and Dom. Damn, who was this dude? Mr. Sexy was fine, with copper skin, teeth white as snow, with an open-faced-crown gold tooth on the side of his mouth. He was a little chunky. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about him intrigued. She couldn’t help herself. As much as she’d tried not to, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. She’d almost stared a hole in him. Amy had noticed.

“Girl … I see you looking at him. Ain’t he fine?” she’d said.

“Yup, is he even from here? I don’t remember seeing him around,” Bambi had said. Amy leaned in close to her and spilled out his story.

“Chil’ let me tell you.” Amy took a sip from her drink and shook her head. “That’s Lynx, and he ain’t nothing to be played with, you hear me? Girl, I’ve been knowing him since I was a li’l girl and I know his whole family.”

“What you mean?” Bambi had asked, and had motioned with her hands for Amy to bring it on.

“Lynx’s dead daddy was a gangsta named Wild Cat. His momma, Lolly, is off the chain. She raised him and his brother up to be stone-cold gangsters, too. She’s one of them mommas that pretends she is forewarning her sons against gold diggers and sac chasers, though it’s all for her own selfish reasons. She knew her sons both would be rich one day, and she wasn’t talking ’bout ‘’hood rich’ either.”

“For real?” Bambi had asked, wanting to hear more.

“To her the sole reason he was born anyway was to be heir to his father’s throne on the streets, and as far as she was concerned, a son represented a sure meal ticket for her old age. And I’ll tell you this, she isn’t going to let any woman stand between her and her sons, and definitely not allow any skank ho take food out of her mouth.”

“His momma ain’t no joke, huh?”

“Girl, you betta know she don’t play,” Amy had assured Bambi.

“So how come I never saw him before?”

“He’s been in California or Mexico, setting up deals. Wheeling-dealing from coast to coast.”

People talk about big-mouth Amy, but I swear I am glad she is cool with me.

Later, when he had walked toward her to ask her to dance, she’d been mesmerized. She had tried to be coy and play off his effect on her, but she didn’t have much success. When he’d come up into her space, she couldn’t help but notice how fierce he was dressed. He definitely outclassed the partygoers, dressed as he was. He was wearing a bone-color cashmere suit with a purple raw silk shirt and tie and a matching hankie. And even
though purple wasn’t a color the average man could wear with any degree of style, this man pulled it off. That alone let her know that he wasn’t an average dude.

When she’d looked down at his shoes, all she could say to herself was, “Damn, Hammer, please don’t hurt ’em.” His footwear were the Rolls Royce of cowboy boots: genuine Lucchese hornback gator boots. They were top of the line, and this confirmed what she felt from the first moment she looked into his eyes. She knew she had met her match. The clarity of the diamonds in his iced-out platinum bracelet, along with the Rolex he wore, broadcast that he was strapped in the money department, yet for some reason money wasn’t the issue here. And that’s precisely why she had turned him down cold. She damn sure couldn’t afford to get her heart broken by this man.

The DJ got the crowd so hyped that four or five Southside dudes started throwing punches, chairs, and bottles, so Disco told the DJ to shut down. The lights came up, and the bouncers told everyone to get going. Bambi tried to sneak a peek at Mr. Sexy without him noticing. He walked out with his crew following him.

“You got a check for me, Miss Bambi?” the DJ came over and asked her. He had finished packing up his gear, and Bambi was almost done with the rest of her paperwork for the evening. The DJ left, and Bambi shut off the lights and locked the door behind her.

Once outside, she saw a flat tire on the rear of her new Mercedes. She’d had to get rid of the Corvette after dealing with Smooth because he would be looking out for that car. She must have run over something, because these were some good tires.
Damn, now what in the hell am I going to do? I don’t know how to change a flat tire. Let me see if I can call roadside assistance.
Bambi checked in her purse and said under her breath,
Shit, I changed pocketbooks, so I don’t even have my wallet to try to locate any damn info.

Just as those thoughts entered her mind, a black Lincoln Navigator pulled up. A man asked, “You need some help?”

“It sure looks like it,” she answered, then looked up to see Lynx’s face.

He hopped out of the truck. “Pop the trunk.” He opened the trunk to get out the spare.

“Thanks so much for helping me. I’ve never changed a tire before,” she said in an attempt at casual conversation. When he got close to her, she could smell the sexy aroma of his Jean Paul Gaultier cologne. It sent shivers up her spine.

“Me either,” he said, looking around for the jack. They continued to make small talk, and before she knew it, the tire was on and she was ready to be on her way.

“I know this dude at Merchant Tire who looks out for me. If you call me tomorrow, I’ll take you up there to get a tire,” Lynx said, wiping the grease off his hands.

“Oh, okay, thank you,” she said modestly. “I’ll give you my number and you can call me when you’re ready.”

She wrote her number down and handed it to him along with a fifty-dollar bill.

He gave the money back to her and said, “Baby, don’t insult me. I’m not going to take away from you. If I can’t add to your life, then you don’t need me.”

He took the number and hopped in his truck and pulled off.

Damn, he’s smooth as hell,
she thought. She could stand to be corrected when she was wrong, but she doubted very seriously if she was in this case.
That cashmere suit cost a good $1,500 and he got oil, grease, dirt or whatever that black stuff is all over it changing that tire for me even though I was rude as hell with him earlier. Hell, I wouldn’t even dance with him,
she thought.
I really hope he calls me.
And just then her cell phone rang.

“Hello,” she answered, not even looking at the caller ID, wanting so badly for it to be Lynx although she knew better. He was too smooth to call a female on the first night. Once she heard the voice, she could have spit blood.

“Hey, baby, where you at?”

“Motherfucker, what the fuck you calling me for? And where did you get my number?”

“Bambi, always remember I got my ways. Did you forget a nigga is still getting money? And with money I got niggas and bitches that work places and can get me whatever I want or need,” Reggie said calmly.

“Nigga, eat shit and die,” she screamed into the phone and hung up on him.

He called right back; she never answered until the tenth time he called. “What?”

“Somebody told me you had a flat tire. Do you need me to come and help you?”

“Fuck
no
!” she yelled.
This sorry nigga must have got outta jail on bond, but he isn’t staying out,
she thought.

“But I need to see you.”

“And you will on Friday in court when they sentence yo sorry ass.”

Bambi started up her car, and as she sped off, something clicked.
I bet Reggie was the one who broke the mirror on my Corvette and the one who probably flattened my tire thinking that I would call on him for help. But hell no, it damn sure ain’t going down like that. I hope they lay his ass out to dry for that bitch-ass shit he did to my momma. I hope when he go to jail they gang-rape him time and time again maliciously with broom handles and everything else after what he did to my momma. He deserves whatever he gets.

CHAPTER 14

Bagging Up