“You treat that nigga Mack better than you treat me. You don’t talk to him sideways. You let him do anything he wants to do. I got my head beat in to join OPT. Why he get the special privilege of not getting his shit twisted back too?”

  “Why you so worried about that?” I said, pushing him back.

  “Because the shit is fucked-up. How you think everybody looking at a man?”

  “How it look, Gordy? What you trying to say?”

  “It makes it look like y’all got some special arrangement.”

  No sooner had the insinuation slip his mouth when I pushed it back down his throat with a straight right fist.

  He stumbled back and swung a wild fist that cupped my jaw. We latched on to one another then rolled around in the grass, throwing blow for blow after blow.

  I could see the impact of the punches above us in captions. Pow! Zing! Kapow!

  “You give up?” I asked in mid-roll.

  “You?” he responded out of breath.

  “You’re getting tired, all out of breath. Give up.” I gripped around his neck.

  “Fuck you. You give up first.”

  For just a minute it reminded me of when we was kids growing up in the foster care homes, happier times when it was just me and him against the world. But now we was living in a time where jealousy and hateful people made the world go ’round.

  A line of cars backed up to watch the event live in the middle of rush-hour. I got up first and stuck my hand out to pull him up. He stared at me then smiled.

  I hoisted him up. “Not bad for an old man, right?”

  “Not at all.” Gordy took another quick hit at my jaw.

  “What the fuck you do that for?” I said, rubbing my chin.

  “That’s for the sucker punch from earlier.” He limped back into the truck. “You better come on. I can hear sirens.”

  We hopped on the shoulder and got off two exits later.

  “I don’t want Mack to know I’m back home just yet. I want to see how he doing on his own. How Cakes?”

  “I couldn’t even begin to tell ya. Mack keeping her locked down like you told him to.”

  “That’s all he better be doing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  MACK

  “Yeah, let me get that ring right there,” I said to the jeweler in the Upper East Side jewelry store in Manhattan. Me and Gordy was out copping some new ice for the wrist and neck.

  The owner reached down under the counter and placed the expensive diamonds in front of us. The first chain she pulled off the tray was a seventeen-inch Rolex with a spinning diamond medallion with a red ruby in the middle.”

  “Come, you try on. This fit you well.” The Jewish woman placed it around my neck.

  “It’s cool, but I’m looking for something a lil’ more me,” I said, pulling the chain off. “I need to have a trademark, something that says pimp.” I looked in the mirror and winked at my reflection. “What else can you show me?”

  “Oh, we have new item that just come in yesterday. I go get it for you. You wait.” She disappeared into the back.

  “You better get your shine,” I said to Gordy. “We moving up.”

  “I’m going to get something, but this shit in here is garbage. These Jews be overpricing they shit. I wouldn’t buy nothing from here.”

  The woman returned with a Gucci chain made of diamonds, platinum, and hints of twenty-four karat gold.

  I bopped back and forth in a full-length mirror. “You can’t tell me this shit ain’t pimping, dude. Where the medallion for this?”

  “I make for you by two week.”

  “You make for me in two week? How about one week? And I’ll throw a lil’ something in extra for you.”

  She took the chain back and weighed it then steamed it. She punched keys on the register then did some figures on paper. She slid the paper across the counter to me. “No good,” she asked.

  “Seven thousand? No problem,” I said, pulling it out from my Louis Vuitton pouch. “Now about that medallion—”

  The store bell rang when the door swung open and three masked men rushed inside with guns. “Nice chain, bitch,” the tallest robber said. “Take it off.” He put the gun right to my head.

  “Please,” the owner pleaded, “take whatever.”

  “Shut up,” the fatter one of the bunch yelled to her. “Let’s clean this bitch out,” he said, passing through the gate in-between the counter.

  The smallest one held Gordy at bay with a sawed-off shotgun. Gordy stood quiet but alert. I know he wanted to reach for his gun, but he’d never get to it in time.

  The whole time along, the tall one kept his gun on me and looked into my eyes through his black ski mask. “Don’t think I don’t know you, nigga,” he said to me. “You lucky I don’t have orders to clap you, fake-ass, bitch-ass pimp. Should fucking shoot you just for the fuck of it, nigga.” He pushed my head to the side with the gun.

  “We gone,” shouted the fat one. “We don’t need everything. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

  The two started to run out but about-faced when they saw they man still standing in my face. We stared each other up and down, daring one another to look the other way.

  He stuck the gun in my face. “I could kill you right now, nigga.” He pushed it all the way to the back of my throat, and I gagged.

  “Let’s go, nigga,” the short one yelled, and ran out with a sack of stolen jewelry.

  He kissed my cheek and then slapped my ass. “We ain’t forgot about Stan. Ay, yo, son,” he said to Gordy, “take your man home and get ’im cleaned up. I think the baby pissed his pants.” He laughed and ran out facing us, keeping aim with his gun.

  Gordy looked at me in disgust as I stood in a puddle of my own piss.

  Joi asked me, “So you ready for your birthday party tonight, baby?”

  “I’m ready for the party, not the birthday. I feel like I’m getting old.”

  “You crazy. You not getting old. Shit, you know how many niggaz out there wish they was twenty-nine and have what you have? A lot. You got cars, a house, street cred. And you got me. Now how you feel like you getting old with all of that? You’re the man. You running the show.”

  “Sometimes it don’t feel like that. Not when it feels like the niggaz that’s supposed to be down with me is trying to set me up.”

  “So, baby, let’s bounce then.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Straight like that. We got the money to go anywhere we want.”

  “I can’t just leave. Everybody’s depending on me.”

  “Everybody like who? Coke? That nigga not worried about you. Why you the only one who don’t see that?”

  “I don’t. I wouldn’t have any of this if it wasn’t for him. I can’t bounce.”

  “And he wouldn’t have what he got if it wasn’t for the next man that put him on. You need to break loose from him before jealousy enters y’all lives.”

  “What you talking about jealousy?”

  “You might think that it’s all love right now, but when his spotlight shines completely on you, that’s when you’ll see a whole new performance. Ain’t enough room for two stars on the stage.”

  “You don’t know what you talking.”

  “But those detectives do. I love you. You saved my life, and I don’t wanna see anything happen to you.”

  “Ain’t nothing going to happen to me. I’m-a always be good.”

  “I know you are. Well, you better start getting your clothes together tonight for your party.”

  “Yeah, you right. I still gots to get my truck detailed and get the tires changed.” What up, Cakes?” I said as she walked in the house.

  “What’s up, birthday boy?” she said, kissing my cheek. “What’s good, ma?” she said to Joi.

  “Hey, where you coming from?”

  “I went to get those things you asked me about.”

  “Oh, no doubt. Take it in your room for me.”

  “What secrets you trying to hide?” I smiled and kissed Joi.

  Cakes laughed. “Oh God. Would y’all two please save it for the bedroom. Y’all been acting so lovey-dovey lately, y’all starting to look like each other. I’m jealous. I’m the only bitch living up in here with no dick.”

  “Don’t worry, bitch,” Joi told her. “Your daddy’ll be home soon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  COCAINE

  Gordy was sitting on the edge of my couch at my other house in Jackson Heights, Queens, explaining to me the robbery he’d set up the other day. He said, “Yeah, Coke, the nigga pissed his pants and ev’ythang. He was scared to death, man. I’m starting to think this nigga ain’t never killed nobody in his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bitch did it. I’m telling you, Coke. Put ’im to the test. Give him an official initiation. We only taking him seriously on the strength of you.”

  “How many times I have to tell you to stop hating on the boy? Everything I do is for a reason.”

  “I hope so, man, because the last time you thought a nigga was real, you ended up putting out a hit on him.”

  “He handling the day-to-day, right?”

  “I told you before he doing it.”

  “Then what’s the problem? I don’t wanna keep talking about this, Gordy.”

  “Ain’t no problem.”

  A knock at the door broke the conversation. “Anybody know you here?” I said to Gordy.

  “Naw, man,” he answered, reaching for his gun.

  I peeked out the blinds in the living room and saw nothing.

  “Solomon Ivory, it’s us. We know you’re in there, so just open the fucking door,” Jeff said.

  “Put that thing away,” I whispered to Gordy. I opened the door to see two smiling faces in front of me.

  “Why do we have to start playing this game?” Jeff said entering.

  “We had a deal,” Bobby said. “Everything was going fine until you stopped paying.”

  “They’re closing in on you, and without proper funding there might not be much we can do to help you.”

  “What you mean, closing in? We had an agreement.”

  “I told you a long time ago to slow down. We can’t cover every angle, so now we have to cover our own asses.” Jeff said to Gordy, “You got a staring problem or something?”

  “Naw, man.”

  “Then you better stop staring like you want one.”

  “Solomon, it’s like this. None of this would’ve ever happened if your boy Mack didn’t have a girl that killed her mother. She talked about you and Mack, and the entire OPT organization, information we can use against you when the time is right. We have Anton. He’s willing to testify in court that you ordered him to kill those two officers.”

  “Yeah, but you and I both know that you two paid me to have them killed.”

  “I see that memory of yours is still good for something. See if you can remember this,” Jeff said. “We talked to Mack too. He wants to make a deal.”

  “See, I told you,” Gordy blurted out, pointing at me.

  “Shut up. What you mean, he’s ready to make a deal?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby added. “We had a nice long talk with him and Joi.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “We have two written statements from them both swearing that you have underage girls working for you after twelve in the morning. The two bodies he helped you bury in the woods upstate. The coke being sold in your bar. What I can’t understand is why he doesn’t know about the shipment?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “What else could it be but your namesake, smart guy?” Bobby adjusted his gun holster.

  “Whatever you do in the dark will come to light, Solomon,” Jeff said. “We had to find out through intel that you got a secret shipment coming in, and you don’t let us know? What was you trying to do? Cut us out of our share?”

  “How much is it going to cost me?”

  “Cost you to do what?” Jeff asked.

  “To divert attention from my package.”

  “Well, Solomon, the way I see it is, you lied to us, you tried to hide profit, and that’s not right. We let you do what you wanted for years with no hassle. You get with this fucking Mack, who I’ve never liked, and everything turns upside down.”

  “So how much is it going to cost me?”

  “Fifteen percent increase.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “You’re trying to tell me how it’s going to go? You don’t tell me, I tell you, and I say fifteen, take it or leave it. No skin off my ass one way or the other.”

  “What I’m trying to say is I can only afford to do ten. Otherwise we don’t have a deal.”

  After secretly congregating with his partner, Jeff said, “If you fuck us on this, I’ll personally see to it that the system swallows the key to your cell.”

  Gordy couldn’t wait until they left to say, “I told ya so,” again and again. “What you think about your boy now?” he asked, a smirk of accomplishment on his face.

  “Shut up. I need a minute to think.”

  “He been planning this, yo. The whole shit sound funny to me. I say buck that nigga and let’s get back to how shit used to be.”

  “Naw, we not gonna kill him. Not yet anyway. Let him keep making that money for me right now. He think he the man, let him keep thinking that.”

  I was furious. I took that lil’ nigga under my wing, and he just straight clipped the shit while I was in mid-flight. I knew those pigs was telling the truth because it was only shit me and that nigga knew. They probably told him he’d be top dawg if the information he gave led to my arrest, and like a dummy he went for the bait.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  MACK

  Anton had finally reached out to me by phone from an undisclosed destination while I was driving to pick up my custom-tailored suit.

  “Yo,” I answered.

  “Yo, what up, man? Did you miss me? I mean it’s only been like four months.”

  “Ton?”

  “Who else?”

  “Why you calling me, man? You got a lot of people mad at you. Where you calling me from?”

  “That don’t matter. What do matter is that you got something of mine, and I want it.”

  “What, nigga? You fucking with them boys. I don’t know what you talking about.”

  “You gonna know. You a foul-ass dude. I thought we was friends.”

  “I ain’t nobody’s friend. I’m a businessman who likes making his paper.”

  “That’s fucked up too how you did Sade. But what goes around comes around. You gonna get yours.”

  “Think so? You dead anywhere you go, Ton. Coke want you dead, but I guess you already found that out.”

  “I’m still here.”

  “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”

  “What it matter? You and that Joi bitch both been running your mouths anyway. The boys told me everything. We’ll see who the dead man is real soon.”

  “Fuck you, nigga!” I ended the call. I said to myself out loud, “Nigga talking to me like I’m worried about something.”

  I changed into my suit at the store then drove straight to the bar. Gordy was just coming down the steps from the office when I walked in. He signaled me over to the VIP table.

  “Birthday nigga,” he shouted over the music. “Have a seat, nigga. This your night,” he said, drinking Cristal straight from the bottle.

  “You hear from your brother yet?” I asked.

  “He’ll be home Tuesday. I told him you doing your thang, making that money, that easy dollar.”

  “Yeah, well, you know me. Told your brother I could do it.”

  “No doubt. He got mad faith in you.”

  That wasn’t Gordy’s personality at all. Even though we’d learned to get along in the presence of Coke, it didn’t change the fact that dude hated me. But I let it slide because we was about to party, and what could go wrong in that?

  “Hey, birthday boy.” A dancer began to grind her ass on my lap, her waist moving like liquid. “What can Lexus do to make your birthday even more special, daddy?” she asked, wrapping both her arms behind my neck.

  I put my hands around her smooth, toned stomach. Her strawberry body spray persuaded me to lick it off her neck.

  She pressed her neck against my lips. “You like that, daddy?”

  “You taste good,” I said.

  Gordy poured me another drink. “Drink, nigga, drink,” he said, putting the glass to my lips to guzzle. “Wind that nigga harder, Lexus. He ain’t scared yet.” Gordy slapped her ass. “Ay, the rest of y’all, get on over here. Y’all know the birthday boy in the building. Fuck the matter with y’all?”

  A group of dancers walked over to me barefooted from the stage one by one, each one sexier than the next, their tits bouncing with each step of their sexually, aggressive strut. They surrounded me, and Lexus stood.

  Gordy pushed the tall forty-two double D girl in front of me. “This the new girl.”

  “What’s good, ma? You here to help me celebrate?” I said, sipping and smiling.

  “Shut up, nigga.” She stomped her foot. “Did I tell you that you could talk? Did . . . I . . . tell . . . you . . . to . . . talk?” she said, twisting her head as she spaced her words. “Lexus, this the birthday boy you was telling us about in the back?”

  “Uh-huh, that’s his ass.”

  “He don’t look like much. You sure this the one?”

  “Oh, that’s him, all right.”

  “Hmm. Baby, my name is Storm.” She rubbed her hands up and down the front of her thighs. “Get ’em girls,” she said as Kellz directed their actions through the powerful stereo system in the bar.

  Storm removed my blazer and unbuttoned my shirt down to the bottom. Lexus stood over her while she licked inside my navel from between Lexus’s legs. Lexus put her tit in my mouth and guided it around my thick lips. The other girls softly ran their long custom-designed nails sensuously up, down, and across my neck.

  Storm unbuttoned my pants and reached for the star. “Naw, fuck that. Take them shits off.” She pushed Lexus to the side.