She turned her head on me and proceeded walking away from me and toward Mack.

  “See, bruth, I told you. Your time is over.” Mack wrapped his arm around Cakes. “Cakes is about making her paper. You keep taking her shit. That ain’t good business.”

  “What in the hell you know about good business, huh?” I got up in his face. “Just what do you know? Nothing you is doing was done on your own. This is my shit! I’m not letting you fuck it up.”

  “Naw, this my shit, and that’s what it is.”

  “You don’t know what you getting yourself into, boy. You think that my people really got love for you? Yeah, you made some new friends and money while I was away, but it don’t mean shit. You know how long I been doing this for? These streets will eat your frail ass alive. You ain’t been through nothing. What the fuck you been through? Cakes, I’m not gonna try and stop you. You go ahead and leave with this nigga if you want to. Just tell me one thing—Is he gonna take care of you the way I have? Is he ever gonna love you officially the way I have?” I asked passionately as I walked toward her.

  “Go ’head on in the house,” Mack said to her. “And is he gonna care about you like a father?”

  She stood still looking back and forth at us. Trapped in a dilemma, tears began forming at the bottom of her lids. They sparkled under the bright street lights, hit the ground, then splashed.

  I held out my hand. “Cakes, come on back home. It’s not a request. You know who loves you. Look at that nigga. Do it look like he can protect anything?”

  Mack walked toward me. “You’re not going to keep disrespecting me, my man.”

  “And what the fuck you gonna do, huh? You don’t wanna fuck with me. But I dare ya,” I said, four feet of animus space between us two.

  Two seconds later we became one, dancing like wolves in a concrete forest of street lamps, expensive parked cars, and recyclable garbage cans.

  “Stop it, y’all,” Joi yelled from the porch. “Y’all gonna have the police out here.”

  “You lil’ shit,” I said, my arm locked around his neck, “you’re a fucking zero. Bitch! Your whole life is about to change.”

  He scooped me off my feet and stumbled backwards. We hit the ground hard and heavy. Fists swung in fury, nothing shielding our faces from the sharp blows we exchanged.

  “STOP IT,” Cakes yelled out, standing over us. “Just stop it! Coke, I’ll come home with you. I’ll come home.”

  Joi walked to the middle of the street and gave Cakes a hug as Mack and I stood facing one another eye to eye.

  “Let’s go inside, Mack.” Joi wiped the tears from Cakes’ face. “You gonna be all right, girl. We had fun together,” she said, hugging her.

  “Remember, nigga,” I said, pointing to Mack, “you started this.” I sat in the car and waited for Cakes to get in and screeched off down the road before she could strap her seat belt on.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  MACK

  Before Cakes could strap herself into her seat belt Coke had already slapped her in the face five times before screeching off down the road.

  “What was you thinking?” Joi said as we walked into the house. “You fighting for Cakes? His woman?”

  “She’s not his woman, she’s his personal punching bag.”

  “And what part of the game is it when you make that your business? What Cake getting her ass beat by her pimp got to do with you?”

  “I saved your ass from a life of ‘beats and production,’ didn’t I?”

  “What the fuck that gotta do with you out in the street fighting for another woman? Do you know how fucked up that looks?”

  “I wasn’t fighting for her. I was fighting for us. You and me. Cakes wanted to roll with me. My new team. I told her I’d put her on.”

  “Right under Cocaine’s nose, right? Don’t we got enough problems with him as it is? Then you wanna tell his woman to stay . . . with me standing right there. Why you trying to be something you not? You need to stop before this goes any further. The ride was fun. We got paid. We got the money from the house in Mount Vernon. Stan is dead. You been making all of Coke’s money while he been away. You proved yourself. All right, already. This pimping ain’t for you, Mack, trust me. I’ve seen a lot and done a lot with you and for you. It’s not in your blood. Let’s just take what we got and bounce, babe.”

  “I don’t even know why I cleaned your silly ass up. You not standing by my side.”

  “You damn right. Not when the dumb shit you doing can get me killed. Or a lifetime sentence in prison. You must think those Ds forgot all about us. Your lil’ girlfriend Sade and homeboy Anton is fien’in’ to be some free birds once they can prove something concrete. Why sit around waiting on chance? Let’s just leave.”

  “Know what”—I grabbed her by the arm—“Why don’t you just leave.” I shoved her out the door.

  “Oh, that’s fucked up.” She began crying. “You ain’t never threw Sade out.”

  “Sade was a real woman. You ain’t nothing but a money-hungry ho. The fuck outta here, trick,” I said, slamming the door shut in her face.

  She pounded on the door and yelled, “I want my money and clothes, Mack.”

  I jerked it open, pulled her in, and flung her to the floor. She rolled over into the coffee table and hit her head on the wooden leg.

  Joi was the only one left I thought I could trust. But she was just like the rest of them. Nobody wanted to see a nigga shine and be successful and shit.

  She looked up, holding the side of her head. “What you doing?”

  “I’m not a real pimp? I’m not a real pimp?” I smacked her repeatedly on the top of her head. “Who the hell takes care of you?” I ran over to the blinds and closed them as she tried crawling toward the staircase. I grabbed her by the leg and dragged her across the living room floor and into the kitchen.

  “Mack, stop.”

  “Mack, stop what,” I said, slapping her face. “Mack stop what.” I tapped her in the forehead with my ring finger. “You’re my bitch, and you’re not going to disrespect me, you understand?” I kicked her in the stomach. “You don’t question anything I ever do, or the next time you can just hop off that porch and run for your life because I ain’t playing games no more.”

  Joi lay on the floor covered up to protect herself from my assault.

  I mean, these bitches had to learn that when a pimp is talking, you’re not supposed to be. Play your position is what I’m saying. I left her right there on the kitchen floor, washed my ass, then went to bed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  MACK

  “Wake up, nigga!” a ski-masked dude yelled. He had four others next to him as I lay comfortably in bed.

  My eyes slowly opened to a gun pointed at my head.

  “Yeah, wake your fake ass up, stupid.”

  I raised my hands in the air and looked at the other masked men. They had Joi bound with duct tape around her mouth and wrists. Her left eye was blackened, and she had bloodstains on her white bra and panty set. She tried resisting one of them, only to be shaken and slammed into the wall where she dropped.

  “You see that shit, Pimping,” the masked dude holding the gun on me said. “That’s what happens to snitches. You should’ve left when you had the chance, acting like you running something. You’s about to be one dead pimp. Get this nigga up out the bed,” he said to his menz.

  Before jerking me off the bed, they put a pounding on me then took turns raping Joi into unconsciousness. They dragged her out the house while I was held at bay with the gun.

  “Cocaine said to come see him or this bitch is dead as you are.” He banged me in the head with the butt of his gun.

  Everything began to spin around, and I lost vision.

  When I awoke, my room was in shambles, Joi was gone, and police sirens flashed down below outside of my window. Red spinning lights flickered against the wall in my darkened bedroom. I used its guiding light to lead me down what felt like a story of steps. I fell against the front door before opening it. I turned the knob, opened it, and stumbled out down the four sets of stairs before me.

  An officer yelled from behind his squad car, “Stop where you are.”

  Three police vehicles was parked in the middle of the street, while two sat up on the curb of the sidewalk. Distorted signals of distress calls cried out through the squad car windows and squealed out from the pigs with radios attached to their belt clips, radios used more times than many to subdue a resisting victim with way too much melanin in his skin. I was fortunate enough to escape the frequencies of a transmitted ass-whupping and was just simply tased with the same amount of watts that shocked the shit out of Rodney King while the LAPD beat the West Coast out of his can’t-we-all-just-get-along ass.

  “I’m the victim, man,” I said, shaken.

  The burning tires of a dark blue Intrepid screeched up on to the curb. An early morning crowd of witnesses began gathering all along the street, sidewalk, and bay windows of startled residents who hadn’t seen this much action since O.J.’s high-profile, slow-speed police chase.

  The cocky officer aimed the taser at me. “Stop moving around before I zap you again.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said, struggling with the blood flow-blocking handcuffs tightly locked around my wrists.

  As I quietly lay on my stomach on the sidewalk in front of my house, two sets of feet walked up and stopped. Jeff kneeled down beside me. “My main man Mack, looks like your ass been tased, homeboy.”

  “What’s going on? I ain’t do nothing. I was assaulted in my own house and they took my girl,” I said, talking to him with the side of my face down on the ground.

  “Oh yeah? Well, we got an anonymous tip that you set it all up because your bitch was cheating on you.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “Hey, I don’t know shit, just like you don’t know shit. I told you you’d need me one day. You really should’ve talked when you had the chance. Now look at you. Say, officer,” he said to the rookie, “what’s the charge?”

  “Break-in and entry.”

  “Break-in and entry? That’s my fucking house. You can ask anyone standing out here. I live here. Tell ’em, detective,” I said to Jeff.

  “Tell ’em what?”

  “That this is my house. How the fuck am I going to break in my own house? What I’m going to do, rob myself?”

  Another officer pulled me up by the arm. “Stand up.”

  “Y’all been to my house before. You sat on my couch, both of you. Why y’all fronting?” I looked at Bobby and Jeff.

  “Fronting? Mack, what the fuck kinda language is you talking?” Jeff said. “Bobby, you know what he’s talking about?”

  “Nope. Can’t say I do. Thing I’m confused about is, why in the hell would you rob a house then strip down to your underwear?”

  “Because I live here,” I yelled.

  As the other officers argued with the nosy residents, one officer said, “All right. Is that all, detectives? We’re going to take him on in.”

  “No, that’s not all. We need to talk to this guy real fast. We’re going to take him over to our car. He’ll be right back. Come on, you.” Jeff walked me to his car. “So you still feeling like a pimp?”

  “I’m feeling like this is all one big set-up.”

  “Know what, asshole,” Jeff said, “you’re right. It is one big set-up. You set yourself up when you decided you wanted to be the man. Who did this to you?” He grabbed my chin and turned my head side to side as he examined my bruise.

  Bobby said, “Looks like somebody worked you over pretty good.”

  I turned my head. “Fuck you.”

  “Hey, look you. Jeff is the nice guy. You don’t want to be getting tough with me. Now we know who did this and we know you know who did this. Just give the name and we’ll go pick ’em up.”

  “Naw.” I shook my head back and forth. “I don’t know who did this.”

  “You wanna play stupid with us, Mack, that’s fine. Your time is almost up. We’re right on your ass. Fuck up once more and that’s it. I think you oughta take a ride with us,” Jeff said. “Officer, we’re going to take this dick in. Have your sergeant call me. Get in the car,” Jeff said, shoving me into the back seat before sitting beside me. “Hey, Mack, you know that guy waving at you across the street?”

  I saw some dude waving, but he was standing in the shadows of the long, hanging branches. He stepped into the light, waving with such a look of hate on his face.

  “Hey, Mack, ain’t that your main man Cocaine?” Bobby said, sniffing and rubbing his nose as he said it.

  Jeff laughed. “Well, I’ll be a sonofabitch. It is. Uh-oh, Mack. Oh, boy, does he look mad. Goddamn, boy, I thinks you is in some deep shit. Roll down that window, Bob. Hey, Cocaine, we’re coming for you next,” he said with his hand on my shoulder.

  Cocaine smiled and continued waving, and some of his wolves began to gather into a pack. They was ready to wild out and attack at his command, while the late-night moon still was full.

  “Go ’head on and drive off,” I said, keeping an eye on them all.

  “Why? You scared? Those your peoples, ain’t they?” Jeff said.

  “Drive, Bob. You know where to go.”

  I turned back after we drove off. Cocaine was still looking at me until we both lost sight of each other’s expression of MDK. There was about to be a demolition, man. And I wasn’t going to be the one at the bottom of it.

  I looked around nervously as we crossed over the GWB. “Where y’all taking me?”

  “We just saved your life. So, the way I see it, you owe us a favor.” Bobby looked back over his shoulder

  “Let me outta here. Y’all can’t do this.”

  “Shut up. You’re in some real shit. I’m going to let you know something right now—Your boy set you up. He called the police on you.”

  “What? He sent those dudes up in my house after me?”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “Why’d he send them after you?”

  “He’s mad. A hater and shit.”

  “Oh, come on, there’s gotta be a much more legit reason than that. You been stealing on his business is what I think. And when you steal on his business”—Jeff moved close to my ear—“you steal from our business.” He pointed to himself and Bobby.

  “How I’m stealing from you?”

  Jeff said, “Look at you . . . you still don’t know shit after all this time.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Think back to the first day you came into our office. We played you for a sucker, acting as if we didn’t know what you was into. We’ve been watching you ever since you met up with Cocaine in prison. He works for us. Why do you think he gets away with as much as he has? We make his problems disappear for twenty percent of everything he’s involved in. You’re probably making less, when it’s just you and him, so I can see why you’d want to venture off on your own. But you ventured a little too far off track. Enough for Internal Affairs to be watching us.”

  “And just enough to make Cocaine stop paying us and telling us about a bust here or there a couple of times out the month. So don’t think you’re the only one telling shit to save your own ass,” Bobby said.

  “Now how do you feel?” Jeff said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  MACK

  Hours later we arrived in Albany, New York at the Motel 6, a run-down piece of shit in the middle of nowhere. The sun was just coming up. We pulled into the parking lot, where another D.T. car was parked. Bobby honked the horn, and one D.T. walked out of one room and another one from the room next to it.

  “What’s this?” I said, staring at them as they yawned and stretched their aching backs in the doorways.

  “It’s your sanctuary,” Jeff said awakening. He had nodded off during the five-hour ride. “And your reunion.”

  “Reunion? What you talking about now?”

  “You’ll see.” Bobby stepped out the car and met with his comrades halfway. “How’s it going, fellas?” he said, shaking their hands. “You guys look like shit. Go get some coffee. We’ll take over from here. See ya next shift.”

  The fatigued men slowly walked to their car and honked as they drove off.

  “I’m going to take those cuffs off you,” Jeff said. “Try any funny business, and I won’t hesitate to shoot you in the head.”

  After taking the cuffs off, they both walked on opposite sides of me to room twelve on the second floor.

  As we entered, I fell face first onto the stiff mattress of the cheap bed. I turned over on my back and observed the rings around my wrists from the tight cuffs. “Y’all don’t think those cuffs was on too tight?”

  “Be happy I took them off,” Jeff said. “You hungry?”

  Bobby ran down to the local store and returned with coffee and warm buttered roll. “You better eat while you can,” he said. “You might not get another chance at it.”

  I stared down at the greasy wax paper holding the buttered roll.

  Bobby said, “Now I know you’ve got to be wondering why we brought you here.”

  “Uh, yeah. The thought did cross my mind once or twice.”

  Jeff cuffed me to the desk and placed my coffee next to my free hand.

  “What’s up, man? I thought we was done with the enslavement.” I tugged at the chain between the silver bracelets.

  “We’ll be back in a second. It’s just that we can’t risk you running off into the sunset before we get what we want out of you. I think you’ll be more willing to talk when we get back. Come on, Bob, let’s leave this guy to his bread and coffee.” Jeff laughed.

  The door closed behind them, and I immediately began pulling at the desk. I tugged, pulled, and jerked, but it was all in vain. The desk was bolted down onto the floor and would not give. I kept trying anyway until I was breathless and exhausted. I lay out across the floor with my arm up in the air.

  Half an hour later, I was alerted by a turn of the doorknob.