Trickery (17 page)

The streets of Harlem were alive with flavor. Little girls were jumping rope on the sidewalk outside of their stoops, and a bunch of grown-ass teenaged mothers pushed their babies up and down the block in expensive strollers.

Chiney looked around for her new hook-up, Fitted.

“Yo, whattup?” Chiney said, lifting her chin as she approached him to make a quick transaction. “I’m feelin’ icy today my dude.”

They walked a few steps together, and when Chiney slid him enough cash for two vials, Fitted slid her twice that amount in meth.

Grinning, she headed back down the street and toward the Spanish store where her old sex-boo was coming out carrying her two-year-old daughter and a bag of Pampers. 

“So whattup?” Chiney asked in a low, deep voice. “You still gonna treat me right or what?” She stood wide-legged and eyed Lincy’s thick, sexy frame as her swollen clit throbbed double-time in her boxers.

Lincy grinned and shifted her two-year-old daughter on her hip. “Not if your bitch Venus is gonna get all stupid like she did the last time we hooked up. I’m telling you Chiney. Next time that chick roll on me I’ma hurt her ass.”

Chiney grinned. She loved it when bitches fought over her.

“Don’t worry about Venus,” she said, knowing how much her girl hated the sight of Lincy. “Me and her got an understanding. So you gonna treat me right or what?”

Lincy grinned. “That depends. You gonna treat
me
right?”

“Always,” Chiney said, thinking about the four nice vials of meth she had just copped for the price of two. “Why you askin’ stupid questions, girl? You know your Daddy
always
treats you right.”

CHAPTER 20

The early morning meeting of the Divine Nine was just about to come to a close.

Without mentioning Boog or Rome or the robbery that had recently gone down, Flex had reviewed the sales performance of every territory, and praised those who deserved it and gave a verbal ass-whipping to those teams that had been slacking on their grind and coming up short. It was all about productivity and expansion, and he reminded his niggahs of that. If their operation wasn’t constantly growing then that meant their shit was slowly dying, and Flex told them he would smack his burner on every niggah in the room before he let that happen.

“Yo, man, speaking of burners,” Stamp, the fourth man, spoke up from the back of the room. Flex shot him a look. Stamp was one of the main niggahs whose crew was lookin’ weak. For the last couple of weeks their take had either dropped, or they’d turned in the same amount at each count.

But like every other dude sitting before him, Flex trusted Stamp explicitly or he woulda never made him a member of the Divine Nine. He knew his soldier wasn’t stealing, but if that niggah didn’t start showing some progress soon he might have a problem.

“Whattup?” Flex asked, giving Stamp permission to speak.

“Nah, I’m just saying… you know, my man here,” Stamp turned around and nodded at Maleek, who as the ninth man and the most recent member of the team, was sitting at the back of the room, furthest away from Flex. “Leek is a hardbody niggah and all that, but um, to my knowledge, this cat ain’t never played our game, man.”

A hush fell over the room, but a murmur of agreement soon rose in the air.

Flex moved to shut it down.

“Nah, nah, nah,” he held his hand up high. “Maleek was a special appointment. He popped his intro niggah in broad daylight, just like the rest of y’all niggahs so he’s good, my dude. He’s proven himself.”

“Willing to kill, willing to die,” Stamp reminded him of their secret motto. “Yeah, Leek popped his intro man, but that niggah didn’t
play.
”

Flex pushed back. He had a feeling Stamp was tryna work some trickery into the mix. “Yo, hold the fuck up. The main reason Leek got on—besides the fact that as a young’un he’s got more heart than most grown men I know,” Flex looked hard at a couple of cats so there was no doubt in their minds that he was referring to them, “is because that niggah Cee-Low lost his head. Now, I’m the number one man up in here. I make the decisions and I make the appointments. Anybody got a problem with that,” Flex barked, grilling his posse as he looked around the room, “open ya goddamn trap. Speak the fuck up and let a niggah like me know.”

Most of his dudes clammed up tight. They knew all about Flex’s quick temper and his even quicker draw. The sight of Cee-Low’s dead body sliding down the wall was still fresh in their minds.

But Stamp wasn’t finished yet.

“I respect you, Flex,” he said calmly. “And I ain’t got no problem with your authority or your decisions, man. I just don’t think it’s right that we all get to walk around out here on these streets gettin’ our proper respect and Maleek don’t get him none. It’s a respect thing. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

Flex opened his mouth to say something, but Maleek beat him to it.

“Yo, Stamp is right, man,” he said, rising to his feet. Weaving through the other click members, Maleek walked to the front of the room. “Yeah, I popped my intro niggah,” he agreed with Flex, “but I’m just a kid so you know I like me some games. Hell yeah. I want my respect
and
I wanna play.”

Flex nodded. Maleek had become even more valuable to him since the meeting he’d had with Trey. In fact, he had that niggah Trey by the balls. Now that Trey had agreed to put him on with Moonie, Maleek’s worth was suddenly a million times steeper than the gold standard, and Flex wasn’t about to let nothing fuck that up.

But rules were rules. And besides, Flex controlled the game. He wasn’t soft, and neither was Maleek. He watched as the youngsta walked over and sat down at the table like it wasn’t no thing. Maleek had absolutely no fear in him as Flex took out his six-shooter and loaded it with a hollow-point round. The room was mad quiet as Flex spun the cylinder on the revolver.

Taking a seat across from Maleek, he extended him the burner.

Maleek took the tool without so much as a tremor in his hand.

“These are the rules,” Flex grilled Maleek in the eyes and said the same words to him that he had previously said to the other seven members of the Divine Nine.

“You press the barrel to your right temple, and when I give you the word you pull the trigger. I’ll tell you when, so don’t get ahead of me. But the game ain’t over until I say it is, ya heard? If you bitch up and your gut can’t take it, you’re out.”

Maleek nodded his understanding with steady nerves and a demeanor that was cooler than a whole bucket of ice. He pressed the barrel against his temple and waited for the word.

“Pull,” Flex said simply.

Maleek squeezed the trigger.

Click.

The sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber was the only sound in the room.

“Pull,” Flex said again, twirling his onyx ring.

Click.

Maleek didn’t even blink. His eyes were locked tight on Flex’s.

Flex took a deep breath. He usually made ’em go to four, but this would be the last squeeze for Maleek. Fuck what these other niggahs said. Flex wasn’t about to jeopardize the goose that was gonna lay his golden egg.

“Pull,” Flex said for the third time.

Maleek squeezed the trigger.

Pop!

Maleek’s upper body slumped and his forehead cracked hard against the tabletop just moments after a plume of hot brains and gore shot outta the left side of his head.

“Ahh,
shit
!” Stamp screamed as blood and bits of flesh splattered all over him, gooing up his face as it blinded him and dripped from his lips.

Flex almost blacked out.

Jumping to his feet, he snatched the six-shooter from Maleek’s dead fingers and aimed it down into Stamp’s bloody face. Ignoring the warning cries of his other seven soldiers, Flex pulled the trigger, squeezing it over and over as it clicked harmlessly on the empty cylinders.

“Chill out, man,” Dre said, grabbing Flex and prying the revolver from his fingers. Flex fought hard against Dre as he swung the gun at Stamp, and almost every other man in the room had to rush over and help Dre hold the hysterical Flex down.

It was now clearly obvious to them all that the Divine Nine was once again back down to eight, but what they didn’t realize is that the expansion of Flex’s empire, in fact the key to fulfilling all of his dreams, had been severely compromised.

Because with Maleek dead, Trey had no reason to give up Moonie’s whereabouts. And if there was no Moonie, there was no connect. And no connect meant no progress. And if there was one thing Flex insisted on above all else, it was progress.

$$$$$

Dre watched as two staff members from the funeral home upstairs lifted Maleek’s body onto a stretcher zipped him into a waiting body bag. Flex had instructed him to run upstairs and have one of the morticians send a crew downstairs to clean up the mess and to put young Maleek in the meat cooler.

Dre had watched his boss lose it before, but Flex had been well-justified this time because the stakes were sky fuckin’ high.

“So how you wanna handle this shit?” Dre had asked cautiously. Flex had ordered everybody else outta the meeting and just Dre and Doc, his number two and three men, his war council, remained.

Flex sat there fuming, the fingers on his left hand moving in a blur as he twirled his onyx ring.

“We gonna do just like we planned to do,” Flex spit. “Don’t nothing change. The minute Trey hooks up with Moonie we should get a call. When Moonie calls, we set up a meeting. Ain’t nothing gonna change.”

“And what about Maleek?” Dre ventured.

Flex grilled him coldly. “What about that niggah? He’s dead! We bury him! Didn’t that fat-ass, short eyes preacher Reverend Flashlight up the street just clock the fuck out? I think they having his funeral today, right? Go tell Mr. Santiago to throw Maleek in the coffin with that preacher. Maybe Leek can shine a light and show that fraud-ass Bible-thumper how to get his child-molesting ass to Heaven.”

CHAPTER 21

I didn’t know how to feel as I climbed in the car next to Trey and we got ready to head out on our trip to see Moonie. Trey wouldn’t tell me exactly where we were going, he just said we were probably gonna be gone for one night, at the tops two, so there was no need for me to bring a whole lot of stuff.

I threw two pairs of jeans and two shirts in a small backpack along with a bunch of underwear and my toothbrush and all that, and then I stuffed a sweater, my comb and brush, and a few other items into a stylish Marc Jacobs shoulder bag that Chiney’s girlfriend Venus had boosted for me.

My body was still tingling from a hot, erotic encounter that me and Trey had shared earlier in his shower, and that shit had been so sexy and felt so good I couldn’t stop replaying it in my mind over and over again.

Chiney looked happy as hell to see us leaving, and of course Trey noticed that. He had a million last-minute rules to dish on her, and I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t hearing none of them. Especially his rule about bringing Venus up in the crib. I had a feeling Chiney was gonna have herself a five-chick orgy while we were gone, and I just hoped she didn’t let none of her little friends go in my room and do the nasty in my damn bed.

Trey said he needed to stop at the Crossover Center and take care of a few things before we hit the highway, and as he drove us over there I was nervous, sad, and amped all at the same time. Even though I tried hard not to think about it, I couldn’t help remembering the first time I had gone on a trip with a dude I was feeling. It was back when my brother Jimmy had disappeared while making a drug run for G, and me and Gino had been sent down South to look for him.

Back then I had been real young and dumb as hell. I had been scared for my brother, but rebellious against G and turned out on Gino at the same time. The end result of that trip had been a disaster and it had changed the course of my life forever. And now, as I sat in the car waiting for Trey to take care of his business inside the Center, I didn’t know how this trip was gonna play out either.

Because on the one hand my goal was a hundred percent for getting Nooni up outta the G-Spot, but I wasn’t blind to this game the way I used to be, and I knew exactly why Pluto wanted to get hooked up with Moonie. Yeah, of course I wanted Moonie to do whatever it took to help me get Nooni back, but I damn sure didn’t want him helping Pluto build up his grimy drug empire either. My feelings were kinda twisted on all that because I didn’t wanna be responsible for helping those fools put no more drugs on the streets of Harlem.

Put your trust in God,
I could hear Grandmother whispering in my ear.
He will never leave you or lead you astray.

So, as I sat in the car outside of the Crossover Center waiting for Trey, I prayed real hard and asked God to make this situation play out in a way that all the innocent souls like Nooni were set free, and all the guilty ones were made to pay in full for their sins.

And then, just to take my mind off the deadly dilemma that I knew lay ahead of us, I reached deep inside my Marc Jacobs bag and pulled out my Juicy Journal and a pen and started to write.

Dear Juicy Journal,

This morning I did some crazy shit that I just couldn’t resist!

 I was supposed to be packing my bags for our trip outta town, but instead I was listening to the shower running next door in Trey’s bathroom, and trying my damnest to ignore the bursts of heat that kept sparking up between my thighs.

For some reason I was extra-hot in the ass and my imagination was working overtime. I kept picturing how Trey must have looked naked in the shower as jets of water sprayed down on his dark chocolate body. I imagined every last one of those delicious muscles that bulged on his shoulders, arms, and chest. Letting my eyes fall “down there” I stared at the white trail of suds that cut a line through his six-pack and slid down into the curly black forest of his pubic hair.