Anything for Profit 2: Nothing to Lose (28 page)

The little girls’ father, Elliot Mitchell, was proud and choked up by his big voiced babies. He sat in the third pew clapping along with the rest of the congregation. Elliot was a goodhearted gentleman who was a big dreamer. He had huge ideas of making his daughters stars. God had blessed him with those girls. He had the makings of a successful gospel group. He wanted his girls to sing for God. He also wanted to capitalize off their talent. He didn’t see anything wrong with wanting to make a better way for his family.

Elliot glanced over at his wife, Ellen, who was signaling their daughters to cut the song. Their big voiced eight-year-old, little Miss Elaine Twyla, was singing lead. When she got into the groove she hated to turn the microphone loose. Elliot caught his wife’s eye, and they smiled at each other. Their girls were born to sing.

Elliot was the type of man who was driven by his ideas and unafraid to put them into effect. That was why his family had something. At just twenty-eight years of age, he owned the 4-story building his family resided in, as well as a business on the same street.

He and Ellen were in love and they were a match made in heaven. Both were from the same small town in North Carolina. Elliot courted Ellen at age fourteen, and they remained high school sweethearts who later got married the year they turned eighteen. Ellen was a southern bell who had the class and style of Jackie Onassis. She believed in her man and followed him to New York City, where he promised to take care of her like she was the First Lady. They purchased their first house at nineteen, and she gave birth to their first daughter, Etta, at twenty.

Elliot adored Ellen. He owed her his life because to some extent, she had saved him. He was from a family of hustlers. They were about money so education wasn’t necessarily a priority. His mother, Sadie, sold bootleg liquor all night to support them when his father went out and got drunk and spent all the money earned from their puck
wood business on other women. So she slept late some mornings. If he and his brothers hadn’t gotten themselves up for school some days, they would have never gotten there on time.

As Elliot got older, he got wrapped up in the nightlife and hustle and bustle of his family’s activities. There were juke joints and liquor houses along the roadside in his community. They were owned by his aunts and uncles, who had reputations so feared folks dubbed their community Little Korea, comparing it to The Korean War fought in the early 1950’s. But they couldn’t get enough of it. Folks came from afar to indulge in the mischief Little Korea had to offer, so there was action going on all night.

Elliot often kept late hours and had the luxury of deciding whether or not he wanted to attend school. But Ellen was so pretty and sweet, he went as much as he could. He’d been smitten with her ever since seventh grade. She was the main reason he went to school everyday. And his fear of being rejected by her and labeled a dummy made him study hard to impress her with his intelligence. She was smart and seemed to get good grades effortlessly. Trying to impress her had motivated him to finish school.

They graduated from high school in May, 1968 and got married that December - on Christmas Eve. A few months later, they picked up and moved to New York City. They tried living in Queens, but later settled in the borough of Brooklyn.

After Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, angry Blacks were determined to tear down the establishment so they vandalized, looted, and burned cities across the country. Brooklyn was no exception. Some of its neighborhoods suffered vastly. As a result, Whites began to relocate. Property values declined drastically, allowing Elliot to purchase his first house for a little more than a dollar and a dream.

Now all these years later, he and his wife were well respected pillars in their community. Ellen played the piano in church and directed the choir. She was his better half and she was a great mom to his daughters.

They had three girls but Elliot vowed that they would all be like him. He grew up with six brothers so he didn’t really know how to be gentle. He often made his girls wrestle and tussle like boys. And he had big plans for them. He envisioned that they would all be women of power and head their own empires one day. They would be in charge, no matter what society said about women being unequal. The year was 1981, and times were changing.

Chapter 1

1991

Ten years later…

As Twyla dipped through the Manhattan bound traffic on the FDR Drive, she glimpsed over at the hundreds of cars in the oncoming traffic on the southbound side. Relieved that her side was flowing well, she looked over at her younger sister in the passenger seat. Elle’s barely sixteen-year-old eyes were lit up with excitement. She thought she was pretty hot shit right about then.

She was on her way to do her very first run. Acting as a traveling student, Elle would be boarding an Amtrak train from New York City to Baltimore with a suitcase filled with heroin and everything necessary to prepare it for street distribution. The drug paraphernalia she carried ranged from bags to cutting agents. Elle was what the law would call a “drug mule” in the making.

Drug trafficking was commonplace for Elle and Twyla’s demographic. It was quite a popular occupation. Lots of young African American women in their neighborhood made a living carrying work out of town for drug dealers aspiring for wealth and power. The reason the job paid so well was because the police usually suspected that inner-city, young, Black men were up to no-good. They were frequently harassed and subjected to random searches. So using females to transport the product was the safest way for those migrating to rural parts of America attempting to lock down townships with high demand for New York City narcotics. A lot of dudes got jammed up trying to move shit. It was just easier to pay a girl to take it on the bus or train.

Full of big sisterly concern, Twyla sighed. “Girl, I hope you know what you doing. Yo’ ass better be careful. You playin’ some real big girl games now, baby sis. That nigga Knight got you doing all this crazy shit all of a sudden. Lady and Pop gon’ kick yo’ ass.”

Elle grinned at her sister, who was almost three years her senior. If the two were the same shade of brown they would have probably been mirror images. Elle’s milk chocolate complexion was a few shades darker than Twyla’s caramel, and she was a few inches taller and a little thicker. But their facial features were almost identical. Their oldest sister Etta was light skinned, taller, and slimmer, but she looked just like them too. They all had paisley shaped eyes and perfect noses with full luscious lips and hair that came pass their shoulders. They were all very pretty, and were often the target of envy from other neighborhood girls. The fact that their family owned a house and a business didn’t help. The sisters had to fight a lot growing up.

Elle knew their parents would be upset about her endeavors. They had split up about three years before but they still shared the parenting process equally. “Elaine Twyla Mitchell, will you please quit?”

Twyla frowned at Elle. She hated to be called by her whole name.

Elle laughed, and continued. “Sis, I can only get in trouble if Pop and Lady find out. I’m okay! Don’t worry, I’ll be back in like two days. Just cover for me. I lied and said I was staying the weekend at Madison’s.”

Twyla nodded slowly. Her baby sister was growing up. She thought about forbidding Elle to go but she didn’t want to be a hypocrite. Her respect for the game wouldn’t allow her to. She was Elle’s age when she started doing runs for her daughter’s father, Bilal. Back then, Elle used to see her coming home from out of town with expensive designer gear and money. Twyla used to take her and their baby brother, Junior, shopping with that money. She had spoiled Elle, so it was partially her fault. She wanted to be like her. Her little sister looked up to her.

The crazy part of it was that Elle was an honor student. She was enrolled in a specialized high school you had to pass a citywide test to get into. When it came to books, she was the smartest sister of the three of them. Twyla and Etta both proudly acknowledged that. Their baby sister had been a bookworm most of her life but she was hot in the ass now. Girlfriend was having sex and you couldn’t tell her anything. She had hooked up with Knight, this gangsta ass nigga who was everything she should’ve avoided. He was a well-known hustler who Twyla knew for a fact was a murderer. And Elle was smitten with him.

Knight’s right-hand man was a guy named Rude. Rude was another bad boy boss who Twyla happened to have a little history with. He grew up across the street from them, so they played together when they were small. He asked her to be his girlfriend when they were eleven. It didn’t stand the test of time but she still cared about him. She also knew how ruthless he was. Knight was the same way, so Twyla wasn’t thrilled that he had hooked up with her little sister. She didn’t really approve, but what could she say? Her boyfriends were cut from the same cloth. She had always dated drug dealers and killers. She guessed her baby sister had looked up to that too.

Elle was a good girl so she knew better than to associate with the likes. So did Twyla. They had been raised in the church by devout Christian parents. Their mother played the piano and directed the choir they were brought up singing in
.

Twyla sighed again. Elle had grown up too fast. It seemed like just yesterday she was running behind her threatening to tell that she was sneaking out of the house. Twyla had been kind of fast when she was younger. She had a baby at sixteen and grew up quick.

When they got to Penn Station, Twyla thought about forbidding Elle to go again. In actuality, she could pull rank if she wanted to. She was older, and had always had the leverage of their parents’ permission to discipline Elle when she got out of line. Twyla could be a bitch when she wanted to, but she held her tongue.

Elle kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her bags. Twyla ignored the little voice in her head and prayed she wasn’t making a mistake. Elle promised her she’d be careful, and stuck the paperback she’d been reading in the side of her tote. She hopped out and hurried inside Penn Station. Twyla whispered another prayer for her safety and pulled off.

Elle already had her ticket so she headed straight for her train. On her way, she saw two cops ahead of her. Her heart rate tripled at first. They didn’t seem to be paying her any mind so she kept on going. Elle had her hair pulled back in a bun and she was wearing black spectacles. In the blazer and high heels she donned she looked like a young college woman.

She boarded the train just in time. In the process she almost tripped over the foot of a handsome, long legged passenger. He sat up and apologized like a gentleman. Their eyes locked for a moment. Elle just blushed and kept it moving. The brother had nice sideburns and a memorable face.

After she settled in a seat, she relaxed and thought about her boo, Knight. At 21, he was six years older than she was. He was intelligent, handsome, and hardcore. The combination of those elements was the sexiest thing she had ever encountered. She was completely gone over him.

One of the things she loved about him the most was the way he was always encouraging her to get an education. He said he wanted her to become a lawyer so she could defend him if he ever got into trouble. Elle took that as his way of saying he was in it for the long run. She was young at the time so she figured it didn’t get any better. He was thorough and he had money and brains. And she knew he was authentic because she had seen him at work. She thought back to an incident that happened when she was just twelve years old.

One lovely day in late spring, Elle was sitting out in front of her house talking to her friend Monifah. They were just coming from downtown Brooklyn, where they had gone to purchase the new Polo sandals everyone was raving about that season. The girls were feeling themselves and discussing what outfits they would wear to school the following day.

A shiny, brand new, black Mercedes turned the corner of their block thumping loud music. The visibly expensive car was trimmed in gold; its hood ornament, door handles, rims and all. The driver of the black and gold Benz slowed down and stopped across the street in front of Monifah’s building.

This dude named Malcolm, better known as Rude, lived in that building too. Rude was a young hustler on the come up. The driver of the Benz was clearly an acquaintance of his because he came downstairs to have a word with him. Rude was dressed in an Italian smoker’s jacket over a pair of designer jeans and expensive slippers. He had a cigar in his mouth, and looked like a real mafia gangster.

He and the driver, a Puerto Rican dude named Tito, exchanged daps and smiled at one another. Jovially shaking hands, they appeared to be comrades to the naked eye. As Elle and Monifah watched the young men conversing, they whispered to each other about the rumors they had heard. Monifah knew a lot of stuff because her family lived right next door to Rude’s. She said she could even hear his telephone conversations through the walls sometimes.

Just then, these two cute guys turned the corner and started walking down the block towards them. Elle recognized one of them. He was a guy who went to school with her older sister Etta. He winked at Elle when they passed them, indicating that he recognized her. She grinned from ear to ear, overwhelmed at the notion of an older guy noticing her. She was only twelve, and he had to be like seventeen. That made Elle’s day. It even topped getting those Polo sandals. He was so cute! And he and his friend were wearing these big gold chains just like the ones rappers sported in their videos. Elle was awestruck. Her underage curiosity peaked.