“I’m working, and you doing your thing. We good. Why you letting this nigga Cocaine pimp you? Don’t take that the wrong way, but he playing you for a fool. I only met him once, and I know he not looking out for you.”

  “Cocaine a good dude.”

  “Why he always so good to you? You special or something? Shit, Mack, you don’t find it odd you the only nigga down that ain’t been initiated yet? He got you brainwashed or something?”

  “Nobody got me brainwashed, Sade. It don’t take a genius to figure out that no matter how much money you got or how much you make it’s never enough.”

  “You must think you talking to one of them bum-ass tricks up in that bar. Only a dumb bitch would let her man pimp some bitches and think he not going to be fucking them.”

  “Come on now, baby. You know how I get down. When it comes to business, that’s what it strictly is. I’d never let no other bitch come between what we got.”

  “And what we got, Mack? Huh? What we got? You acting like I don’t know you fuck other bitches. You don’t know how to hide shit. You know how I know you be lying about shit? Because when you start telling me bullshit your eyes start blinking mad fast and you stutter.”

  “You beefing? You ain’t answered your phone but one time since you was away. Who’s to say you and Glen didn’t fuck and make up for ol’ times’ sake?”

  I never saw the slap coming. All I felt was the impression left by her hand stinging on the side of my face.

  “Fuck you, Mack. That was low, and you know it.” She stormed out the kitchen back into the bedroom.

  “So what happened then? Why you wasn’t answering the phone?” I said, trying to psychologically revert the conversation in my favor.

  “Don’t even try that shit. We not even talking about that right now. That ain’t even come out your mouth until you got backed into a corner. You can be real and truthful with your OPT homies, but you can’t be that for me. What the fuck is the matter with that picture?”

  “Know what, baby,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders, “you had a long weekend and bus ride home.” I kissed her forehead. “Why don’t we get some sleep and talk about this later tomorrow?

  “Whatever. My response is not going to change.”

  “All right, ma.” I pulled back the sheets on her side of the bed. “I know. Come on and lay down. You mad excited right now.”

  I sat on the side of the bed and ran my hand up and down her back, and she dozed off instantly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MACK

  Me and Ton was out shooting the rock inside a park in Hollis, Queens. Joi stood by the chain-link fence drinking bottled water, her legs shimmering under the baking sun. She wore a white sports bra under her black wife-beater, and open-toed black sandals. And every once in a while she’d take off her tan straw hat to fan herself.

  Ton fell on the red-and-green asphalt. “That’s a foul,” nigga.”

  “Get up and cut out the theatrics.” I laughed and pulled him from the ground.

  “I’m shooting three.” He frowned, wiping sweat from his forehead.

  “You shooting your mouth. What you talking about three? Your foot was inside the line.”

  “What? Nigga, I was fading away.”

  “Just like that lie. It’s just faaaaading away,” I said, slowing waving my hand. “Shoot two.” I bounced the ball to him behind the foul line.

  “What’s up, Joi? You want some of this?” I said, stealing on Ton then dribbling the ball between my legs. “I’m taking you to Jersey.” I spun on him then teardropped it into the net. “You can’t fuck with me, dude. Call me when you’re older, kid. Game over.” I slapped his ass.

  “Fruitcake.” He walked over to his bag to pour himself a drink.

  “You don’t think it’s a little too hot to be drinking?” Joi asked.

  “I like hot.” Ton gulped down the shot of Christian Elijah vodka.

  My man Ton. I didn’t give a shit what Cocaine was talking. I was going to let Ton know what the deal was. At least he’d have a heads-up. Besides, I ain’t no killer. I might be a flirt and a pimp and a good liar when necessary, but surely not a killer.

  “Yo, Ton, I need to talk to you. First, let’s raise the fuck up out this park. You really bugging, man. You out here fucking around and you a wanted man. Is you trying to get caught? They’re going to kill you.”

  “Not as long as I got my main man, Mack Rock, next to me. I know you got my back, right?” He took another shot and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

  “Mad early and this dude getting twisted already.” I grabbed the ball and tossed it into the back of my Suburban.

  “I’m-a drop this cat off at his crib then me and you got business to talk about,” I said to Joi.

  “The apartment you got me is tight. I’ve never had my own place before. I mean, a room here and there for rent, but that shit got everything,” she explained from the back seat.

  “Hey, I’m glad you like it. That’s a hook-up from my man. You don’t got to pay shit. All you got to do is come to the bar every night and rake in the customers. I’m taking you places, ma. You believe me?”

  “Whatever. Just remember how you getting there. I ain’t never going to tell nobody. I don’t need that shit coming back on me, so that’s your credit right there when it come down.”

  “Ton. Ton, man,” I said, shaking him awake. “You home, bruth. Get your drunk ass in the house.” I pushed him out the car. “Get in the front, Joi. Think you riding in a limo or something?”

  “Bye, Ton,” she said as he stumbled up the steps to his mother’s home, where he stayed in the basement. “Why you be acting like that to him? Ain’t he your man?”

  “He know I just be playing with him. Yo, don’t do that no more.”

  “Do what?”

  “That shit right there—questioning me. We not about to get this shit off on the wrong foot. I’m running the show.”

  “Okay, I got you.” She looked out the window.

  “So you going to invite me to your new place or what?”

  “Oh, you finally coming to test the product? That’s what’s up.”

  “That’s right, that’s what’s up.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ANTON

  Mack this, Mack that. Mack can suck my dick. That’s what I think about him. He a cool cat and all, but he a wannabe. He always saying we menz, but I met him through Cocaine way before I met his ass. When I was coming up, Cocaine’s name really was out there, and he was looking out for a young nigga. My moms and pops didn’t take well to a lil’ nigga like me hanging out with the neighborhood pimp, but they couldn’t control me though. I was fourteen years old and did what I wanted. At that time I was what the kids of today is trying to be—emulators. I wanted to be the hustler of hustlers. I wanted to have bitches falling all over me, be able to pay the pigs off any time I wanted them to turn their heads and look the other way. Instead I did a three-year stretch in prison behind drug and robbery charges.

  When I got released I was kicked down into the basement of my mother’s house next to a washing machine, where I slept on a fucking air mattress. All the street dreams I had of becoming something made a nigga succumb to absolutely nothing. Cocaine knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to play big brother. He preyed on niggaz that thought no one at home cared. From there he’d have you doing all kind of shit for him and have you looking at him like he daddy, like he got love for you and shit just because he flashed some money.

  As a young nigga the only thing you thinking about is how many pairs of sneakers you going to buy to impress the bitches. And this nigga thinking how many one-dollar bills he gotta spend to keep impressing you. Not many. Because just like a ho, you caught up in the midst of an illusion. And it don’t take no magician to show your silly rabbit ass that you just another dumb-ass nigga pulled from his hat, just like the rest of his tricks.

  After me and Cocaine started drifting apart, me and his younger brother Gordy became cool. Gordy was an evil, black muthafucka who hated on everybody and everything a nigga had or did better than him. He was another dude put a step under because of Mack. He hated that and swore one day he’d murder that nigga, if it was the last thing he did in life. Why his brother, his own flesh and blood, didn’t love him the way he loved Mack? What part of the game is that? There was just more niggaz that deserved his stripes.

  I answered my cell, “Hello.”

  “Nigga, this Coke. Come out. I’m in front of the house.”

  I wobbled out the back door and to the passenger door. “What’s up, man?”

  “You drunk, man? Get your ass in the car. We got a problem.” He locked the door after I got in. “Where’s Mack?”

  “He with that bitch, Joi. Why? What’s up?”

  “Stan is dead. Somebody shot him in his own house the other night. The bitch he had up in there is gone. She might have something to do with it. We need to find her before she have them fucking pigs swarming the block.”

  Only thing that was keeping me alive was the fact that this fool didn’t know Joi was the missing bitch. He tried chirping Mack again, but he got no answer.

  “We need to go for a ride, Ton.”

  With the tone in his voice I already was regretting not bringing my jump-off out the door with me. “Where we going?”

  “For a ride, nigga. What? You got a reason to be nervous about something?”

  “Naw. I just promised my moms I’d do some shit around the rest.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be back in time.”

  We drove for about an hour in complete silence. I looked out my window the entire time. We pulled in front of a house in the Bronx. The lawn had blades of grass leaning over, and the streets was littered with pothole gravel, empty soda cans, and pages from the New York Post. The garbage cans overflowed with old diapers and black plastic bags. Old sneakers hanging by their strings swung back and forth on the almost-stripped telephone lines. A white pit bull with black and brown patches viciously snapped his jaws through the spaces between the rusty, white iron gate.

  “Who live here?” I said getting out.

  “This where I keep Cakes when I need a break from her.”

  I looked up and down the street and didn’t see anything that remotely resembled a setup, so I followed in his footsteps, just as I’d always done, and waited as he searched his ring for the right key to the door.

  “Cakes, it’s me.” He banged. “Open the door.”

  “This not even how you move, man. What’s going on?” I took a step back.

  “Why you acting so suspicious? What you done did?”

  “I ain’t did shit.” I continued to back toward the sidewalk.

  The front door opened, and Cakes stepped out. “I didn’t hear the door at first,” she said, moving out his way.

  “Come on, nigga.” He said waiting for me.

  Skeptical as I was, I slowly crept inside anyway. I walked to the middle of the sparsely decorated living room. “What’s good, Cakes?”

  “Hey. What’s good with you?” she answered, with a warning in her eyes.

  I didn’t realize how much of an asshole decision it was to come up in here until I felt the blunt force of a hard object strike the back of my head. I heard Cakes scream and then six sets of feet began stomping and kicking me in the stomach and face. It was members of OPT, orchestrated by Cocaine to beat the opera out of me.

  One of them put a knee to my neck, and Cocaine knelt beside my face. He said to me, “Tell me why I’m not trusting you right now, boy. You kill two pigs, and you still walking the streets without a care in the world. Why is that?” He snapped his fingers, and this dude applied extra pressure to the back of my neck with his knee.

  “Why you trippin’ on me for? I ain’t did shit. All I do is move the work and collect the bitches, man. I’d never turn on you.”

  “I don’t know why I’m not believing you.”

  “If I was snitching, do you think I woulda taken the ride all the way out here with you?” I gasped in pain.

  “I don’t know, but just in case you get any ideas of snitching to get an easier sentence, this is your first and last warning.” He slapped me in the face. “Let ’im up,” he said to the dude. “I don’t wanna have to kill you, Anton. I love you like a son.” Cocaine held the side of my face like a father would his own son’s when having a man-to-man. “We been in this for a while together. Don’t let me have to bury you.”

  That’s when I knew it was going to be either me or him. And if he knew like I knew, instead of messing around, he’d play like Roy Rogers and sloooow down. Maybe he thought because the team was strong that I’d pussy up. I’d play the part for now though.

  He opened the front door. “I’ll see you tonight at the club.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SADE

  Working for the bank made it a whole lot easier unloading all that money into my account. Over the next couple of months I just added a little more to it each week. I never dressed any different and didn’t spend a dime.

  I was in the back office eating lunch with a co-worker, when my supervisor walked in with two detectives. “Sade,” he said, “these two gentlemen would like to speak with you.” He nodded his head at my co-worker to leave.

  I stopped eating my bag of chips. “Who are they?”

  “Can we have a moment of your time, miss?” The tall red-headed detective looked down at his black leather-padded memo book. “Sade Watkins—Is that you?”

  “Sir,” the second detective said to my supervisor, “this is a private matter.”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said and quickly closed the door.

  “I’m afraid we have some very bad news for you, Miss Watkins,” the tall redhead said. “Your mother’s been murdered. You’re the only living relative we’ve been able to contact.”

  “Oh my God.” I covered my mouth and put on a tear show. “Wh-wh-what happened?”

  “Break-in. She must’ve startled them,” the other shorter detective said. “They beat her, then smothered her when she didn’t die.”

  “I was just about to go and see her next weekend,” I cried, my head buried deep inside my folded arms.

  “Well, the funny thing about it, Sade, is that you were there a couple of months back. It was slick of you to use a different location and credit card, but the one thing you didn’t count on was the camera in the taxi. You want to discuss this back at the station? Detectives from Virginia are there waiting for you,” continued the short officer.

  “Taxi? Cameras? Naw. My mother is dead and you’re accusing me of doing it?

  “The film is dated, Sade, and there’s even more proof.”

  I stood up. “I want to see my lawyer.”

  The short detective said, “Please place your hands behind your back.”

  “You have the right—”

  “I know all that. Can I at least make a phone call?”

  The redhead anchored me along by the chain of my cuffs. “When we get there.”

  “Can you please put my jacket over my hands? I don’t need to be anymore embarrassed than I am right now.”

  “No, you don’t get an option. Please follow the detective, miss,” the redhead said.

  “Sandra, call Mack for me and tell him I got arrested,” I said to my co-worker.

  “Excuse me, detective,” my supervisor intervened, “can I ask what she’s being charged with?”

  Commotion erupted in the office as the bank tellers all turned to me as I left with my head down.

  “Murder.”

  I sat in a holding cell waiting to be handed over to the Virginia authorities. I was taken out and brought into the interrogation room. My lawyer was there, but there wasn’t much he could do for me. But he did have a good lawyer friend in VA to defend me.

  “Are you all right, Sade?” he asked.

  “No, I’m really not. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. They’re talking about some tape and an extra surprise. What the fuck, Donald? I hope your friend can help me.”

  He adjusted the rubber band around his ponytail and wiped perspiration from his brow. “What happened, Sade? Can you even account for your whereabouts on the dates in question . . . because this isn’t looking good for you at all. I can tell you right now that if you’re found guilty you could face up to twenty-five years to life. You don’t want that for yourself, nor do I.” He reached out for my hand.

  “I can’t remember.”

  “That’s definitely not a good thing because the evidence against you appears to be airtight. You have to tell me exactly what happened to your mother,” he said, removing his eyeglasses and cleaning them off with a napkin.

  “Did you see a tape?” I asked.

  “No. Actually, I didn’t. They’re trying to use reverse psychology on you to fess up. I don’t even think Virginia taxi cabs have cameras installed in their cars, so you do have that in your favor. The bus ticket and your whereabouts is an entirely different story. I’ll ask you again—Do you know anything about your mother’s murder?”

  With a straight face, I said, “No.”

  “Okay. I believe you. We’re going to get through this. My friend is very good at what he does. Have you spoken with your boyfriend yet?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “I think it’d be best if you call him now before they extradite you back to Richmond.”

  “Do you think you can get them to loosen these cuffs some? Where they think I’m going to run to?”

  As usual I couldn’t get in contact with Mack. I chirped him, rang the line, left four messages, and still nothing.

  The arresting detectives arrived in from VA and read me my rights all over again. All I could think about as the detectives slowly walked down the aisle of the chain-link fence was jail time and how my man was nowhere to be found. His mind probably wasn’t on me anyway. All he ever thought about was that Rolls Royce money.