Betrayal (15 page)

“Yeah,” she said boldly. “I’m down.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Monique grinned with excitement. “You’s a real soldier, Nooni-baby. You the kind of hood chick who can make an old bitch real proud. Thanks to you, the G-Spot is gonna get saved and every last one of us is about to be paid. Now listen up, cutie-booty. This is what we need you to do…”

CHAPTER 16

Rita had been on the West Coast with Juicy for over two weeks and she had been worried about her sisters the entire time. She called Mrs. Moreno every couple of days to check on the girls, but she could only seem to reach Nooni by text message, and even that was sometimey.

Every single night after Juicy fell asleep Rita would get on the phone and talk to Dutchy for hours. She didn’t tell him none of Juicy’s personal business or nothing, but she did talk to him about how bad she felt for her friend, and about how worried she was about Nooni.

“She’s been texting you from her own phone, right?” Dutchy asked.

“Yeah,” Rita said. “But that’s not the same as speaking to her. Every time I call her it goes straight to her voicemail. Then she’ll text me hours later and say her battery died, or she wasn’t near her phone, or some bullshit like that.”

Dutchy said, “I’ve been by there a few times myself, but I can never catch up with her either. But you know how teenagers can be, Rita. They don’t like to talk on the phone, but they’ll text them little fingers down to nubs.”

Rita knew Dutchy was joking so she could stop worrying so much. But it wasn’t working. Rita had been a parent to her sisters for so long that she’d developed a mother’s instinct. And it was only two days later that she got the phone call that she had been dreading.

It was six o’clock in the morning L.A. time when Rita rolled over in Juicy’s guest bedroom and reached for her cell phone. Mrs. Moreno was babbling on the line, and she was crying so hard that Rita almost didn’t understand what the old lady was trying to say.

“What do you mean Nooni went away?” she asked sleepily.

“She gone! She been gone for days!” the old Hispanic woman fretted. “Nubia, she no listen to nobody, Marguerita! That girl, she just no
listen!
I tell her to stay inside, and poof! she disappear! And just now on the tellyvision it say the police find a dead girl in the trunk of a car! I afraid, Marguerita. I afraid for you sister! I have young children here. I cannot look for her. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Rita said. Her heart banged in her chest and she was scared as hell too. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Moreno.” Rita found herself breathing fast and her mouth was bone dry. “I’m on my way home. I’ll be back in New York before the end of the day.”

Rita felt bad for leaving Juicy so suddenly, but she had to go. Juicy offered to fly back to New York with her and help her look for Nooni, but Rita told her that would be like going on a suicide mission.

“I feel really bad about leaving you here all by yourself, Juicy. I swear I do. Promise me you’ll try to think positive and relax, okay?” Rita pleaded. “I’ll be in touch. And as soon as I find Nooni and put my foot up her little ass, I’ll come back and see you again.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Juicy said with a small smile. “You know I love me some Nooni. She ain’t a bad kid, Rita. She’s just like I was when I was her age. Dumb in the head and hot in the tail.”

“That girl is wild,” Rita said, exasperated. “Crazy wild.”

Juicy offered to drive her to the airport, but Rita had already put her bags near the front door and called a cab. “Nooni is trying to grow up way too fast. I’m sure she’s just hanging out at one of her friend’s houses, but I gotta go home and see what’s really going on. As soon as I get Nooni straight and I’ll come back and stay with you for a few more weeks, okay?”

Juicy was trying real hard not to cry when the taxi pulled up outside, but Rita saw her tears anyway.

“Thanks for always being there for me,” Juicy whispered, hugging her tightly. “You’re my best friend in the world, Rita. The only person I know that I can truly trust. I love you, girl.”

Rita tried to sniff back her own tears, but it didn’t work. “I love you too, Juicy. And I swear I’ll be back. I promise. As soon as I get everything straight with my sister, I’m coming back to California to see you.”

Rita rushed out to the cab, wiping her eyes. She’d meant every word she’d said to Juicy, but little did she know the promise she had just made was straight empty. It would never come true. Rita would never return to California to see Juicy again.

$$$$$

Back in Harlem, Rita went on a manhunt. She’d wigged out up at the precinct when she went to report Nooni missing, and Dutchy had to smooth shit down so his boys wouldn’t put the cuffs on her. The problem was, Nooni had been in trouble so many times that the cops were treating her disappearance like a typical runaway case, and they refused to list her as a missing or endangered minor. There was so much criminal shit going on in Harlem they weren’t about to put no whole lotta energy into looking for some fast-ass teenager who probably didn’t wanna be found anyway.

But Rita knew different. Nooni had her troubles, but she wouldn’t just run off to parts unknown while Rita was all the way across the country. No, something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Rita could feel it deep down in her bones.

With Dutchy’s help, she searched high and low for Nooni. They hit all the local strip clubs, the drug houses, the back alleys, and the late-night bars. Under the cloak of darkness Rita walked up and down the track, praying that some old predatory pimp hadn’t snatched Nooni up and turned her out on the streets.

During the day she went up to Nooni’s high school and talked to some of her friends, but they were no help. Dutchy had even flashed his badge a few times and threatened to haul some asses down to the precinct, but nobody cracked. Either they knew where Nooni was and they weren’t gonna snitch on her, or they were telling the truth and Nooni had just disappeared.

Either way, Rita was devastated and way past desperate when she ran into an old ghost from her past.

“Hey!” she yelled, sliding to her feet. After searching Harlem for hours, she had bought a slice of pizza and was sitting on the hood of a parked car eating it when she noticed the chick.

It wasn’t hard to spot her because with her fly hair, stylish gear, and the ‘for sale’ sign in her strut, she stood out in the afternoon crowd.

Rita abandoned the dusty old Toyota she’d been sitting on and hurried to catch up to the girl. The chick was dressed in shimmery shades of gold from her sunglasses all the way down to her designer sandals, and she walked like she was laying down in the bed fucking.

Rita couldn’t stand the bitch, but she had to give it to her. She was ice-cold from the tips of her glittery fingernails to the smooth satin of her designer mini-skirt, which flapped like a flag under the mound of her stacked hips and gyrating ass.

“Hey
Monique!
” Rita yelled, catching up to her until they were walking side by side.

Monique gave Rita a shitty look out the corner of her eye and kept on working it down the block.

Rita swallowed her pride and walked faster. Here was a bitch who had her nose to the ground. If anybody knew the seedy underbelly world of Harlem, it was Monique. But Rita had to be careful. Monique was a well-trained dog. Just one sniff of desperation would make her snap and bite. Ordinarily Rita wouldn’t give this twisted chick no energy, but wasn’t nothing ordinary about her seventeen-year-old sister getting swallowed up in the sewers of Harlem and vanishing without a trace.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” Rita said calmly, “but I’m looking for my sister. Her name is Nooni. She used to mess with your brother, Maurice, remember? Have you seen her around?”

Monique strutted sexily and pretended not to hear Rita, but inside she was squealing with glee. Salida had been right! All she had to do was show up in the vicinity and this bitch had come running straight to her! Monique didn’t show it, but she was so happy she wanted to jump in the air and click her heels together.

Instead, she kept her eyes aimed on forward as she maintained her evil aura and her funky strut.

“Monique, please,” Rita begged. “I know you don’t like me and that’s cool. But Nooni is a child. She’s a child and she’s
missing!
Can you just tell me whether you’ve seen her or not?”

Despite the plea ringing in Rita’s voice, the coldness of Monique’s chill flowed off her in waves. She only had two sentences for Rita, and they offered no help at all.

“I’m an old hoe, Rita,” Monique sniffed, aiming her nose way up in the air. “And it ain’t my job to be keeping track of none of these young ones.”

$$$$$

It was Friday night and Rita had just put Chub to bed when she got a call that came up blocked on her cell phone. She clicked the talk button quickly, praying it was Nooni, but the caller shocked her by laying down a line from an old Wu Tang Clan rap.

“Hello?”

“It’s ten o’clock, hoe! Where the fuck is ya sister at?”

“What? Who’s this?”

“I said where the fuck is ya sister at?”

“My sister? Who is this?”

Rita heard the sound of flesh being slapped, and then a girl screeched and cried out in pain.

“Don’t worry about who the fuck I am. Just know I got somebody here that you really wanna get back.”

A commotion sounded in the background, like somebody’s ass was getting kicked. A girl shrieked loudly again. But this time she called out a name.

“
Margueritaaaaa! Help!”

Rita went cold inside.

It was Nooni. There was no mistaking her voice.

“Oh my God,” she whispered as she envisioned her sister tied up in somebody’s basement being beaten and tortured and abused.

“Please,” she begged, tears springing to her eyes. “Don’t hurt her. Please don’t hurt my sister!”

“That’s up to you,” the male voice said coolly. “I can slump this bitch right now, or you can have her back for two hundred grand. You got 24 hours to get it.”

Rita screamed, “Two hundred grand? Are you fuckin’ crazy? How am I supposed to come up with that kind of money?”

“I don’t give a damn how you get it. But if it was my sister I’d be looking for some help from my friends. Whatever you do, don’t call the cops, because if you do I’ll pop this bitch and leave her dead ass burning in a garbage can. The next time you see her she’ll be so fuckin’ crispy you’ll wanna pour barbeque sauce on her. Now, listen close and pay attention ’cause here’s what I want you to do…”

$$$$$

By the time dude finished running shit down Rita was in a panic. Before he hung up there was another slapping sound and Nooni screamed again, and then the line went dead.

Rita’s first thought was to dial 911, but then she checked herself.

Call the cops and I’ll pop this bitch.