“Hold up, man. Something big like what?”

  “He has a big shipment coming in. Very big, that’s all we can tell you.”

  “That’s all you can tell me? But I’m supposed to tell you some shit. Fuck outta here. I’ll take my chances right up in this bitch. I’m dead in here and on the streets anyway. You can’t help me.”

  “You know, Anton, I thought you was a lot smarter than this. You don’t even want to know what we’re offering for your cooperation?” Bobby asked.

  “I could give a shit less. I’m OPT all day. I don’t say shit.”

  “What are you, some kind of fucking dummy, Anton?” Jeff yelled. “Cocaine tried to have you killed and you’re still being loyal? Where’s your main man Mack? He been here to see you yet? Any of your boys visit you yet? Nobody gives a shit about you, homie. Your own goddamned mother ain’t even been up here to see you. Matter of fact, I spoke with her earlier this week. She told me she doesn’t have a son anymore. Hate to be the bearer of bad news. That’s some fucked-up shit, right, Bobby? No homies. No mother. We’re the only ones who got your back, pal.” Jeff pointed down in my face. “You really don’t have a choice.”

  It took this for me to realize how stupid I’d been my entire life? Cuffed to a bed facing life in prison. Cocaine had taken me on a dirty ride down into the cesspool of regrettable consequences. And I gladly followed him as a child and still looked up to him in my fucking adulthood. The fucked-up shit about it is, here I was trying to prove my loyalty to this nigga by killing the boys, then he go and put the word out to have me killed.

  “What you offering, man? Can you get me out of doing life?”

  “You killed three officers. That’s not going to happen. The most we can offer is maybe having you transferred to another state with a reduction in your sentence,” Bobby said.

  “A reduction like what?”

  Jeff snapped, “Twenty-five years with no chance of parole.”

  “Naw. I want out and in the witness protection program.”

  “You must have something real big to tell us asking for all of that,” Jeff said.

  I looked over and out of the barred window. A slight breeze circulated throughout the room from the crack in the top corner of its broken glass.

  “Come on, man, we don’t have all day.” Jeff pulled a yellow pad from his briefcase. “You sign your name right here on this line.” He pointed at a line with an X next to it.

  “What am I signing?”

  “That you agree to cooperate with us totally and fully in exchange for a reduced sentence. If a conviction is made for two or more people and the shipment that’s coming in proves to be accurate then you’s just might be a free brother, instead of being here on the African chain gang.” He laughed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  MACK

  “I’m going to be gone longer than I thought I was,” Cocaine began as he faced all the bitches and wolves. “I know a lot of you is going to have a problem with my selection in who I chose to be in charge. But, fuck it, this is my shit and what I say goes. Come on up here, Mack.” He placed his hand on my shoulder as we stood in the basement of Phenomenon. “This the nigga right here. That’s the way it’s gonna be until I get back. Somebody got a problem with that, speak up now.” He looked at them all. “That’s what I thought. Now as you all know, that bitch-ass Ton is locked up. Who know what the fuck song he singing up in there? Probably, ‘let’s make a deal’ or some shit. But I got word out up where he at. He ain’t gonna be singing for much longer. It can happen to any one of you. We all took an oath to be forever down with each other. That means you shut the fuck up when you get arrested. When I get back, things is going to be different. There’ll be enough money floating around to buy your retirement home early.”

  Gordy ran down the steps and whispered in Cocaine’s ear.

  “Shit,” he said, pushing Gordy back. “Shit. That muthafucka. Where’s he at now?”

  “P.C.”

  “I don’t care if one of them niggaz got to put a guard on the payroll. Somebody make that shit happen or we all go down. Go now,” He roared to Gordy. “You see that simple-ass nigga,” he said of Gordy, “I would never leave him in charge to run shit. He don’t pay attention. “All right, y’all, time to get to work. Mack, upstairs,” he said, opening the back door of the basement that led to the upper office.

  “What’s up, man?” I said, sitting on the couch.

  “Is you up for this, nigga? I don’t wanna hear no bullshit when I get back. You see how it works. All you gotta do is collect the paper and send them bitches out on the stroll. If anybody get outta line,” he said, reaching for his waist and pulling out a Beretta, “you put some of this in them.” He cocked it.

  “That a’ight. I got my own shit.”

  “No. This my signature right here. The streets gotta know that even when I’m not here I’m still here.”

  “Whatever,” I said, taking it in hand. “So what’s this big shipment? I mean, you ain’t told me nothing about that.”

  “Mack, trust me, if this shit go down the way I’m planning it’ll go down, we’re going to come off. Then you, my nigga, will really be the nigga you always wanted to be. All the bitches you can fuck, all the street cred. Pimp-of-the-year type nigga. I’m ready to be up out this shit when the time is right. And it’s about to be right time.”

  “I can handle it. I was born to do this shit.” I patted the glass overlooking the floor.

  “That’s all I need to hear. I love you, Mack. You’re my only son. Please, don’t give our family a bad name.”

  “I’m going to make you proud.”

  We hugged like father and son, like an episode from whatever heartfelt honky movie you could think of. Shit, at the end of the day he was the only father-figure I had. I respected him and loved him as if he was part of me. He raised me mentally and taught me how to stop just fucking a bitch and to make money off her fucking other niggaz. Sade was my ho at one time, but I broke the hustler’s rule and fell in love with her ass. She wasn’t shit before I cleaned her up, got the bitch a regular job and everything. Then she want to go and kill her mother. Now where she at? Locked the fuck up. My moms used to get locked up a lot while out there selling her ass for that b-rock. Now where she at? Locked the fuck in a casket.

  “I know you will, Pimping,” he said, patting my back. “I’m about to breeze on down these steps here. The boys is having me a little going-away party in the VIP. You coming down?” he said, opening the door.

  “Yeah, what the hell? I could use a drink.”

  I followed him, and we walked through the corridor’s maze into a melodic collision featuring Frankie Beverly’s joyful tales of “sunshine and rain.”

  “Yo, what’s up, nigga this, and nigga that,” spread throughout the dance floor and across the stage. Cocaine and me walked to the VIP. Champagne bottles stood firmly planted in buckets full of ice. Cakes stood up at the table holding a cake with a burning candle in it. She smiled as we approached along with several of the wolves. Cocaine pounded hands with the young thugs as I then stood in front of Cakes with a look of anger. Her smile reduced itself into a slightly, straightened, expression of questionable regret. He then smiled and kissed her as if she meant everything in the world to him. She kissed him back so passionately, it looked as if she’d forgiven him for all the fucked-up shit he’d done to her. For that brief moment it was just the two of them.

  And I really love you

  You should know

  I want to make sure I’m right, girl

  The crowd shouted over the music, “Before I let goooooooooooooo . . .”

  “Y’all hold onto your ladies now. We about to take it up a notch,” the deejay shouted, while scratching the record.

  We all sat and began popping them bottles. Glasses were filled, and purple marijuana smoke that momentarily subdued our souls left us sitting with our eyes wide shut. We cruised across the cloudy vanilla sky, and we all stared and laughed long and hard. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw duke so happy. He was smiling, being affectionate with Cakes, in public no less, shit he told me to never, ever do.

  “I wanna make a toast to my top employee,” Cocaine said, standing up. “Stand on up here, girl.” He pulled her up out the chair. “You been with me from day one. You always been a good bitch to me. You know that, right?” He lifted up her chin.

  “Yes.”

  “I know I embarrass you sometimes in front of people, but I’m trying to help you. One day I’m not going to be here for you and you gonna have to know how to conduct yourself around other players. Or even if you just be out on your own, you gonna have to learn to always be a ho. You speak when spoken to and only talk when you’re asked a question.”

  “I know, daddy,” she said, kissing his cheek.

  “I love you more than any bitch I ever known. That means a lot coming from me,” he said, swaying back and forth from the bump of soda he’d just drank.

  He really had me looking at him sideways all of a sudden. I mean, I know how he get when he loose and shit, but now he was just acting plain vulnerable, niggaz at the table looking at him and laughing like the shit don’t mean nothing. I was going to change all that once his ass left. It was time for a younger, more official nigga to run shit. First thing I’d do is make Gordy my top dawg. Know why? Because he’s just a dirty, black, heartless-ass nigga who don’t care. He’s reckless and will do anything for money.

  “A’ight, boo. Let’s sit. You’re gonna fall,” she said, pulling him down in the chair beside her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  MACK

  “Big Pimping spending cheese,” I sang on my way home in a brand-new black-and-silver Lexus truck.

  Every week I had four to six more new girls wanting to work under me. Cocaine was going to be longer than the original two weeks expected. That gave me more time to continue making money outside of the family and more money for the family. I had chicks working for me that had absolutely nothing to do with Phenomenon or OPT. They was my hoes. Gordy handled all the initiations and doubled the girls’ already expensive rate of one-fifty an hour to two an hour. Three hundred for two hours would get you everything the girl could offer—head, ass, and whatever fantasy she could to fulfill to enhance the missing excitement in the lives of these married or otherwise-involved men.

  I really had to give Joi credit for finding most of the girls. For once, everyone was happy. Everybody was getting paid what they deserved. Even the pigs. Niggaz stopped bitching about me being in charge and wondering why I never had to do initiation. The first thing I had them do was put the word out to stop looking for Joi. She belonged to me. Naturally, it was assumed by this time in the street that I had been the one to murder Stan, but nobody made a move because they was paid to walk away. When they found out his grandmom’s house had been robbed they was paid to turn their head. Life couldn’t have been better. What took Cocaine almost twenty years to do, I did in six months.

  I bought a new house in Elmhurst, Queens with a three-car garage and swimming pool in the backyard. I took Joi off the payroll and made her my better half. I bought her a red Excursion equipped with an expensive system that rocked the block like the crack epidemic in its prime.

  When I pulled into the driveway Cakes and Joi was out cleaning their Vs. I beeped the horn as I pulled in.

  “Yo,” I answered looking down as the hands-free display screen blink

  “It’s Gordy, man. I just spoke with my brother. He said to be on the lookout. The jakes is watching us.”

  “Long as this money keep rolling in, I don’t give a shit if a nigga named Movado is watching us. We got paper, yo. Speak to whoever you gotta and pay them not to watch. Get it done, nigga.” I disconnected the call. “What up, y’all. Daddy is in the building. Come give ’im some love,” I said, getting out with open arms.

  “Yeah, right,” Cakes said. “You know better. Coke don’t like nobody touching me.”

  “Okay.” Joi rolled her eyes at me.

  “I’m just fucking around. Where y’all fien’in’ to go tonight, cars all looking shiny and shit? Somebody got a date.” I smacked Joi’s ass.

  Cakes said, “What? We can’t just look fresh ’cuz we some fly bitches? Why we gotta be going somewhere?”

  “I know women. Only occasions y’all get dressed for is funerals, weddings, jump-offs, and after the jump-off.” I laughed.

  Cakes and Joi looked at each other and winked. They aimed their hoses at me.

  “Y’all better stop playing.” I backed away with my hands up. “I’m serious, y’all. This a expensive outfit,” I said, pulling at the collar of my short-sleeve yellow linen shirt.

  “What is that? Banana Republic?” Cakes laughed and let off a blast of water into my chest.

  Joi’s came next, soaking the crotch of my pants.

  “See what y’all did,” I yelled.

  Cakes sprayed me again then Joi next. I ran around my truck, and Joi cut me off.

  “A’ight, a’ight, I give up,” I said with my hands up. “Y’all got it.”

  “You gonna take us out to eat tonight?” Joi asked.

  “We got a freezer full of food, two women in the house that can cook. What we need to go out for? Go up on in that bitch and make me a liver burger.” I laughed again.

  Joi said to Cakes, “Oh, he think we playing with him.”

  “I think he do.” Cakes raised the hose again.

  “A’ight, we can go out to dinner, y’all. Just chill.” I turned my back to make sure the door was locked on the truck and was shot with a quick blast of water to the back of my head. When I spun around, Joi and Cakes nonchalantly looked up and around and started whistling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  MACK

  The next day, while scrambling some green peppers, onions, and diced ham into a bowl of eggs, Cakes said, “Mack, Joi said to tell you she was going shopping then getting her hair done.”

  She was wearing a silk Japanese robe, her hair was wrapped in a bun and her deep cleavage was visible through the folds of the robe. I couldn’t help but stare.

  “What are you looking at?” She smiled and looked up at me while stirring.

  “Yo, Cakes, man, I ain’t trying to be disrespectful or nothing, ma, but you look good as shit. I don’t know why you fucks with Coke.”

  She put the bowl down and placed it down on the counter. She put her hand around her hip and pulled the top part of her robe closed with the other hand.

  “You ain’t trying to be disrespectful? Nigga, I know you not sitting up here trying to cutthroat?”

  “I’m just keeping it one hundred with you. Coke is old and played out. He had a good run, but the race is over, know what I’m saying? Coke ain’t it no more.”

  “Ain’t he supposed to be like your father role or some shit like that? And you just downing him behind his back. You ain’t say that to his face when he was here.”

  “That’s because I don’t wanna have to hurt the nigga.”

  “Yeah? I think you bullshitting.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hell yeah, I think you are. You might have the rest of these muthafuckas fooled, but I know shit about you. So you just keep that in mind the next time you decide to come at me sideways.”

  “What you making with them eggs?” I said, totally ignoring her threat.

  “What you want?” She released her grip around her robe and continued her stirring.

  Just then Joi closed the front door and chuckled. “Yeah, what you want?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  SADE

  The prison bus ride back into New York City was a slow one. The bus was only moving at sixty-five miles per hour. It was five a.m., and the red sun was beginning to rise from behind dark green pastures. Only through the partially opened window with the steel mesh gate over it could I hear the roosters praising the social alarm clock that rang every morning at the same time.

  It was crazy how on my way down here I didn’t realize how very familiar all this scenery was to me. Now on my way back it was like I was leaving a piece of me down here with those forgotten memories. Wow. Even my old church. Chesapeake First Baptist. The first place I ever had sex outside of my older friend. I think Jehovah forever embedded that shit in my head as a memory of how messed up that was. I’m paying for it now.

  I always wanted to be a dancer when I was a little girl. I wanted a better life. I wanted to be great at something, but nobody was there to push me. Nobody believed in me, nobody wanted me, but now somebody did. Yeah, the state penitentiary. I guess I finally got my wish.

  As we exited the state of Virginia, I looked back at what would probably be my last visit. Tears freely flowed down my face as I put my head against the window’s gate.

  “Bye, Mom,” I whispered.

  Detective Jeff put me into the back seat of his car at the bus depot. He asked, “Long ride?”

  “I slept.”

  “I gotta drive over to thirty-fifth and East. Bobby over there waiting for me. You’re not in a rush or anything, are ya?” He looked at me in the rearview mirror and laughed.

  “Why you always got something slick to say?”

  He looked back up into the mirror and kept driving. Bobby flagged us down on the corner of thirty-second street, and Jeff leaned across the front seat and opened the passenger door.

  Bobby stepped inside. “Sade, you made it. Glad to see you.”

  “I bet you are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That I got something you want, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You sure got that right, sister,” Jeff said. “We got somebody you’re going to be happy to see.” Jeff smiled in the rearview and slowly nodded his head.

  I sat in the interrogation room with Bobby, waiting for this so-called surprise. The door opened, and in walked Anton accompanied by Jeff.