Trickery (2 page)

“It was a kick-door,” Trey muttered as he dipped in and out of traffic, “but it wasn’t no robbery, Juicy. Them cats didn’t go there looking to pull no simple lick. They went there to clean the whole house out, baby. That was their intention from the gate. To lay everybody down. That’s why they shot the whole place up.”

My mind was whirling in a tunnel of grief, and without even realizing it I slipped my hands under my shirt and pressed my fingers to the twisted scar that stood out on my lower belly. Poor Rita, I cried inside. Guns scared the hell out of me because I knew what it was like to get blasted. Clutching my stomach, I moaned as I thought about how gun violence had fucked up my entire life. Cara, Aunt Rea, Jimmy, Gino, me . . . and my unborn son. Every last one of us had taken a heat round from the tip of somebody’s burner. And now so had my best friend in the whole world, Rita.

I opened my mouth and cried even harder. I couldn’t believe this shit was happening! I just couldn’t believe it! Chiney leaned over my seat and passed me a tissue, but there was no stopping the tears from falling from my eyes.

By the time we walked into the hospital I was totally shook. My old memories had sucked me deep into a heartbreaking pit of fear. Chiney waited in the car as me and Trey walked inside and headed down a long hallway. I was wobbling so bad on my feet that Trey looked down at me with a frown, and then he took my hand in his and steadied me. He pressed his thumb into my palm and massaged it in gentle circles, and then he wrapped his whole hand around mine and held me firmly as we got on an elevator and headed upstairs to the intensive care unit.

I was trying hard to keep myself together but just the smell of the hospital was giving me crazy flashbacks. My whole body broke out in a cold sweat as I followed Trey off the elevator. Every step I took toward the nurse’s station made my heart pound harder and harder in my chest. I remembered being back in Cali and being wheeled down a hall toward Gino’s room. There had been mad doctors and nurses running around looking crazy-panicked. I remembered how heavy my stomach had felt with my unborn baby still nestled inside me. Both of us had gotten ripped up by the bullet that had passed through Gino and straight into me. I started crying again. My feet felt so damn heavy, and my mouth was so damn dry.

“You gonna be okay?” Trey asked as he looked down at me. He stopped and waited while I gulped air and tried to get my shit together. His intense brown eyes were full of concern. He reached out and smoothed my hair back, and then he rested his strong hand lightly on the back of my neck.

After a minute I nodded and bit down on my lower lip. “Yeah.” I took a deep breath and forced my feet to move the last few steps. “I’m straight.”

The NYPD had posted a young cop outside of Rita’s door, just like the Cali cops had posted one on me and Gino after we got shot. A big black gun was sticking out of the holster on his hip, and I couldn’t help shuddering at the sight of it. Strapped cop or no strapped cop, I knew Rita was ass-out if somebody really wanted to get at her. Hell, this was New York. Almost every thug-ass cop in Harlem was notorious for being paid on the take and deep in some kingpin’s pocket. I’d seen mad proof of their greediness and griminess back when I was still rolling around town as G’s little on-the-stool bitch.

Dutchy was talking to somebody at the nurse’s station when we walked up, and when he saw me and Trey he reached out to hug me and gave Trey some heavy dap.

“Yo, this shit is fucked up, Juicy,” Dutchy told me with tears in his eyes. “It’s all fucked up! It’s bad enough that Rita got served like that up in there, but the two little kids she was watching got murked last night too, you know. Yeah,” he said, nodding when he saw the look of shock and horror come across my face. “They got blasted. Rita was babysitting when the shit popped off, and Chub’s two little friends didn’t make it.”

Dutchy had a few words with the police officer who was guarding the door and told him it was okay for both me and Trey to go inside and see Rita. Trey stepped into Rita’s room ahead of me, and as bad as I wanted to comfort my girl and let her know I was there and praying for her, I was straight-up terrified of what I was going to see on the other side of that door. 

Instead of walking in, I let go of Trey’s hand and hung back a little bit, dragging my feet again. All kinds of shit was running through my head. What if Rita had tubes coming outta her everywhere? What if she was all swollen and messed up like Gino had been?

I wasn’t ready to see all that. I just couldn’t handle it. I had been through way too much in my young life, and my heart just couldn’t take it. My instincts were screaming at me, telling me to turn my ass right back around and run down that hall. I felt new tears rushing to my eyes, and there was no way I could stop them.

“Yo, you up for this baby?” Dutchy asked. He had come up behind me and he put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him. “Listen, they fucked her up pretty bad, Juicy,” he said gravely. “I ain’t gonna lie to you. They beat Rita until they thought she was dead. Hell, her heart stopped in the ambulance and the paramedics thought she was dead for a minute too. But my baby is mad strong, ya dig? They shocked her and brought her back and she’s still alive now, Juicy. She’s in a bad way, but at least she’s still alive.”

I swallowed hard and braced myself for what I was about to see. I knew Rita needed me right now. And no matter how scared I was there was no way I could justify closing my eyes and running away and not being there for my friend.

I nodded and sighed. “I’m good,” I whispered to Dutchy. And when Trey held out his big hand again, inviting me to draw strength from him and follow him inside Rita’s room, that’s exactly what I did.

$$$$$

I did my best not to freak out when I saw what them mothafuckas had done to my girl, but trust me it was damn near impossible.

“Oh my
God
!” I moaned as my heart banged in my chest and my knees buckled. I almost hit the ground. Catching myself, I covered my mouth with one hand and then leaned heavily on the raised metal railing of the hospital bed as pain wracked through my body. My eyes were full of water as I gazed down at Rita, and then looked over at Dutchy.

“Oh my God!” I repeated. “What in the hell did they
do
to her?”

Rita was totally fucked up. Straight brutalized. Her whole face looked like it had been kicked in by five niggahs wearing spiked metal boots. Her gorgeous brown skin was black and torn. Her eyeballs were the size of two hardboiled eggs, and her upper lids had been taped closed with white hospital tape. There was a fat tube coming out of her mouth, and a skinnier one coming out of her right nostril. Her nose didn’t even look like a nose. It was twisted and pointing way to the side, and it was almost as swollen as her eyes. The rest of her was either wrapped in gauze or in some kind of plaster cast. I wanted to touch her and let her know I was there, but there was no place safe to lay my hand. Even her damn elbows were all wrapped up.

Trey came over and stood beside me. I was shaking so bad I almost fell into his arms. He held me tight and kept me up on my feet as I cried. I felt Rita’s pain. God knows I felt it in my heart and in my
bones
, and all I could do was hide my face in his chest as Dutchy broke the situation down for me.

“I’m sorry you gotta see her like this. I told you they fucked her up, Juicy. She’s holding on, but it ain’t looking all that good. Her doctor said she’s got a slight chance of pulling through but her brain is so swollen that she could come outta this with a lotta mental damage too, nah’mean? Right now they’re watching her real close, and if the swelling gets any worse they’re gonna go ’head and take her in the operating room and open up her skull and give her brain some room to move. Otherwise, she could die for real.”

I couldn’t stop crying. I tried real hard, but I swear I couldn’t stop.

“W-w-where did she get shot at?” I asked as my eyes scanned her battered body. The way she was all wrapped up she could have had a bullet hole almost anywhere.

Dutchy sighed with sorrow. “They shot her in her head, Juicy. Execution-style. They put a bullet right above her ear. Like I said, the doctors told me it’s a miracle that she’s still alive, and even if she makes it they don’t know what her mind is gonna be like, nah’m saying?”

Dutchy’s words cut deep into my heart, and Trey had to hold me up on my feet as I shuddered and remembered how the bullet that killed Gino had passed right through his body and into mine. I hated guns, and if I never heard about another senseless shooting for the rest of my life it would be too damn soon.

I wiped at my eyes as I managed to whisper, “D-d-did they catch anybody yet? Do the cops know who did this shit?”

Dutchy shook his head, and a cold, steely look came down on his face.

“Nah, them fools is still stumbling around in the dark, but trust, baby. Whoever it was, them niggahs is gone get found out. Found out and dealt with. You can believe that.”

I nodded and then he dropped another bombshell on me.

“And yo, check this out,” Dutchy said. His voice had gotten real quiet. “Nooni showed up at the crib last night.”

“
Nooni
?” My eyes bucked open wide as unexpected joy jumped into my heart. “Y’all found her? She came back home?”

Dutchy nodded and frowned. “Yeah. She came back alright. And all this fuckin’ time it was them G-Spot niggahs who was holding her! Rita said the girl looked like they had been getting her high and abusing the shit outta her. I didn’t get the whole story, but some kinda way Nooni broke up outta that joint last night and made it back home.”

“Oh my God,” was all I could say. Just hearing those words made me feel so bad for Nooni. Those horrible nights of being chained to a pole and raped down in The Dungeon flashed through my mind and all of a sudden my body got real cold. I knew exactly what kind of hell Nooni had been through in the G-Spot. The way Granite McKay had whipped my ass and stomped a mud hole in my face and pissed down on me in that nasty little rat hole . . . all them dirty-dicked niggahs who had fucked the shit out of me, chewing on my titties and violating every hole in my body coming and going . . .
shittt
, my black ass had expected to
die
down there.

“Yo,” Dutchy went on talking. He was hyped with rage and I could see the pain written all over his face. “I was supposed to be chillin’ up in the crib with Rita and Chub last night you know, but Rita told me not to come over. She didn’t want no man in the house since it was Nooni’s first night back, nah’m sayin? She said the girl was so shook she didn’t think she could handle having me or any other dude up in there, so I stayed home and went to sleep.”

He gazed down at Rita’s battered body and shook his head.

“She wanted me to swing by early this morning so she could fix me some breakfast, but as soon as I pulled up shit was mad chaotic. I saw all this crime scene tape across the door of the fuckin’ building. There were cops everywhere. I’m in law enforcement and I couldn’t even get up the stairs, man. The chick who lives next door told me they’d just taken Rita and some kids out in an ambulance, and the cops were bringing Chub out as I walked up.”

I pulled away from Trey and frowned.

“Little Chub? Oh, shit! Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” Dutchy nodded. “She looked okay. At least on the outside. The building manager said they found her hiding in a kitchen closet. Child Services took her into custody. They’re grillin’ her right now. Tryna find out who she saw and what she knows.”

My heart broke wide open for Chub. That baby had already been through so much trauma in her young life.

“So what happened to Nooni?” I asked with dread creeping all up in my chest. “Where is she now? Did Child Services take her into protective custody too?”

Dutchy frowned. A funny look flashed deep in his eyes as he pushed his hands down in his pockets and shook his head slowly.

“See, that’s what’s so fuckin’ crazy, Juicy,” he said. “When the paramedics took Rita and them little girls outta the house there wasn’t nobody left inside, and that tells just me one fucked up thing.”

My breath caught in my throat. “What’s that?”

“It tells me exactly why them niggahs rolled up like stompzillas in the first goddamn place.”

Dutchy grilled me hard, and his eyes were dark and grim.

“Nooni is the one them fools was gunning for, because Nooni is the one who’s missing!”

CHAPTER 2

The Dungeon in the basement of the G-Spot was just as nasty as it was the night Cooter Jackson had unlocked Juicy’s handcuffs and set her free.

Unfortunately for Nooni, with the recent busted pipes and clogged sewage issues at the G-Spot, the conditions down there were even wetter and filthier than ever before.

“Get ya ass on down them goddamn stairs!” Ace bitched as he twisted Nooni’s wrist painfully and jerked her arm high up the center of her back. Balling up his fist, he punched her in the back of the head and then booted her hard in the tailbone with his big fat knee. Laughing, he flung the crying girl forward with almost all his strength, forcing her to sail through the air and land flat on her face on the wet concrete down below.

Nooni screamed inside as she hit the ground and her face splashed in a nasty shit-tinged puddle. She tried to cry out in terror as she lay there, but her lips were so busted up and her jaw was so painful and swollen that her cries came out sounding like baby whispers. She stood up slowly, then tripped over her own feet as Ace shoved her roughly from behind. Her arms flailed and wind-milled as she frantically reached for something to catch her and break her fall.

Collapsing in a wet puddle again, Nooni peered through her terrified, fist-dotted eyes. Already they were ringed in black from the bruised blood that had accumulated under her battered skin, and pretty soon they’d be too puffed-up for her to see out of them at all.

But right now she could see enough. More than enough.

And what she saw sent icy fear rushing through her veins. She was in a shit hole. It was hot and dark down there. Wet as hell too. The pajamas her sister had dressed her in were completely soaked through by the dank water, and so were her panties. She peered into the darkness and pushed herself into a sitting position and trembled as she looked around.