Greed (3 page)

Truth drove furiously, darting down the city streets and cutting off traffic as he struggled to keep up with the cop car that was transporting Juicy.

Monique was in a panic as she watched her two hundred grand speeding up ahead of her and getting the hell away. This had been a major fuckin’ operation and she couldn’t believe how bad Rita had just fucked it up. They’d set up a dragnet and put a nice-ass bounty on Juicy’s head, and there were shit-loads of youngstas riding behind her right now who were just itchin’ to collect it.

Monique didn’t understand it. Where the fuck did those cops come from? There had been ten carloads of slangers circling the airport terminals on the hunt for Juicy. They had been so close! So fuckin’ close! And now her big opportunity was about to slip through her fingers.

“I told y’all how to do this shit!” she fumed. Her breath hitched in her throat and her whole body felt hot. “But nooooo. Y’all just had to fuck it up! Y’all just had to!”

Bilal, a dreadlocked corner boy with a killer’s heart, kept quiet in the backseat, and Twan, a come-up with a reputation for being hotheaded wore a mean-mug as he stared out the window, but Truth was sick of Monique’s shit and he popped right off.

“How the fuck did we fuck it up, Mo? Huh? Tell me how? Rita turned around and busted your greedy-ass game! So how the fuck is that all on us?”

“Because y’all stupid asses was walkin’ all up on her ass, that’s how! Y’all idiot niggahs got too fuckin’ close! Just like you getting too close to that cop car right now! Learn how to back the fuck off, stupid ass!”

Monique knew she had to do something to make this shit right, and she had to do it quick.

“Stay with they asses!” she ordered as a minivan turned the corner and cut in front of Truth.

“I thought you just said to back off?”

Monique reached over and slapped the dog shit outta him.

“Don’t play with me muthafucka!” she spit in a rage. She didn’t know if the rest of their caravan was still following her, but she knew she couldn’t lose sight of Juicy. “Stay close enough where we can follow them, but not so close that they can peep us. I gotta know where them cops are taking her. Get closer! Go around that raggedy-ass minivan! Don’t let them muthafuckas shake you!”

Truth was burning with fury but Monique didn’t give a rat’s ass. Her mind was everywhere at once as she tried to figure out exactly what the hell had just gone down.

Deep inside she knew Truth was right, and that Rita had peeped her at the most fucked-up moment possible. But what the hell was that crazy chick thinking, getting Juicy knocked like that? If Juicy went down then the money went down as evidence right along with her. That meant everybody was fucked. Juicy was fucked with the law, Monique and Salida were fucked outta their big plans, and Rita was fucked outta getting her sister back!

“We gotta get to her…” Monique whispered through clenched teeth. “We gotta get that goddamn money!”

They followed the cop car for just a couple of miles through Queens. It was a borough that Monique wasn’t all that familiar with. But when the cruiser turned to go over a bridge that stretched out over a murky river, she was damn sure familiar with the sign that repped for New York’s Boldest! It read, City of New York Correction Department.

Rikers Island.

Monique knew the joint well. She had done a couple of bids on The Rock back in the day. She had been busted on charges that ranged from prostitution to larceny, and Monique had sworn a long time ago that Rikers had seen the last of her ass.

“Go straight!” she screamed on Truth, just in time for him to avoid following the cop car as it turned onto the bridge.

“Oh hell, no, don’t get on that bridge,” Monique muttered as Truth swung the steering wheel and continued going straight across the intersection. “We don’t even wanna get on that goddamn bridge!”

Two minutes later, Truth had found the highway and the BMW X5 was heading in the opposite direction.

“Where now?” he asked. His voice was filled with rage and bitterness.

Monique was about to answer him when the cell phone she’d been gripping vibrated and shook her so bad she almost dropped it down the side crevice of her seat.

Catching it, she stared at the caller ID and cursed. The last person in the world she wanted to talk to right now was Salida. Monique had no desire to be stuttering and stumbling all over her words tryna justify shit to that over-baked piece of chicken! Because on the real, no matter how she looked at it, and no matter how she attempted to snazz that shit up, there was just no good way to explain that their prized little fishy had just jumped off the fuckin’ hook and was about to swim across a channel in New York’s East River.

CHAPTER 4

We pulled up in the back of a wide, red-brick building. Taking my Gucci bag full of money with them, both cops got out of the car without saying a word, and when their doors slammed shut the only thing I was left with was cold silence to keep me company.

The red sports car that Rita had ridden in was parked up ahead. I sat in the backseat of the cruiser trying my best to catch a glimpse of her, but it was hard to see through that grimy Plexiglas partition. 

But what I did see was the Black detective who had flashed me his badge standing outside with the two cops that had busted me. Two correction officers in uniform had joined them. A white guy, and a real tall sistah. The five of them seemed to be having a heated-ass conversation about something very important.

Me.

There was a bunch of back and forth hand moving and head shaking. The DT was hyped. He patted my Gucci bag, then pointed at each one of the officers in turn and counted off on his fingers. He leaned in close to the COs, and nodded rapidly, like he was trying to get everybody to feel what he was saying.

I guess they finally did because suddenly the detective wiped his forehead and nodded slowly. He shook hands with the cops, hugged the female correction officer, and dapped the male correction officer out. Then they all walked through a doorway and disappeared inside the building.

All I could do was sit there and wait. I’d had to pee real bad when I got off the airplane but I’d forgotten all about it when they slapped the cuffs on me. But the urge was back now. Real strong. I was so damn uncomfortable. If I leaned back in my seat the handcuffs cut into my wrists. If I leaned forward my bladder screamed from holding my pee. So, I leaned to the right against the car door and tried to find a neutral position in my misery.

They left me sitting in that car for so long that I nodded off. Yeah, I was shook, and yeah I knew I was going to jail, but I was in shock too, and my body just shut down on me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, even in the face of getting locked up.

I don’t know how much time passed, but the next thing I knew the door I was leaning against was snatched open and I almost fell straight out of the car.

“Let’s go.” The white male correction officer who had been standing outside earlier grabbed my arm and helped me out of the car. As soon as I stood up I looked around for Rita, but the little red car that my best friend had been riding in was now gone. I looked up at the cold stone building they were about to take me in. I was so hurt and mad that I didn’t care if I never saw Rita’s treacherous ass again, yet still…a part of me had never felt so alone.

$$$$$

“Yo, you fuckin’ with me, right?” Rabbit barked into his cell phone. He paused holding the blunt he was rolling in his hands. It was first thing Saturday morning and he hadn’t had his wake up smoke yet, and these niggahs was already making noise in his ear.

“Y’all niggahs had ya eyes on her and neither one of y’all didn’t see the bitch when she dipped?”

“I’m telling you man,” Izzy reported through the line. “We sat outside her crib the whole fuckin’ night just like we was supposed to. Nobody went inside, and she didn’t come out neither. At least not until around eight o’clock this morning.”

Rabb gripped the cell phone between his shoulder and his ear while he packed the seedless weed inside a cigar leaf. “That’s impossible, niggah. Ace said she was taking two hundred g’s to New York. That shit wasn’t stashed up in her pussy, yo. Either somebody dropped it off or she went and picked it up from somewhere.”

“We was on watch all night long, man. Nobody went in, and nobody came out. When she left this morning we followed her. She stopped at a Walgreen’s for a minute, and then she went straight to the airport and parked her ride. She took the beemer. The green convertible.”

“Did y’all go inside and check her crib?”

“Yeah, we went back and tossed it the best we could. Security musta seen us going in, though. Some old white dude came banging on the door so we had to dip out the window real quick. But from what we could see wasn’t nothing in there.”

Rabb cursed. After all these months this bitch was still a problem. The streets had cooled off after the mob smoked that midget from Compton, so when Ace called and gave them another crack at getting at that doe, Rabb had jumped on it.

“Yo,” he told Izzy. “Go back to that fuckin’ airport, man. Get up in her whip and let me know what you find. Go over that shit with a magnifying glass, you hear? Search every inch of it. I got a feeling that chick got something hiding up in that bitch.”

Rabb clicked off his cell and went back to rolling his spliff. His cousin had promised him a nice piece of change if he could figure out where the girl was holding that money, and with the economy tanking and good licks getting hard to come by on the streets, Rabb wanted that paper.

$$$$$

Salvatore McCain stared out the window at the green BMW convertible that was parked in his mother’s backyard. The phone call he had gotten from Juicy the night before still lingered on his mind. It had been pretty late when her home number flashed across his cell phone. He had just finished jacking his dick, and he was kicked back enjoying a Philly blunt packed with prime Columbian Gold and her call had caught him by surprise.

 “Hey Sallie,” Juicy had said. “I need a favor.”

“Then you got one,” he’d answered. Sallie had hung out with Gino and Juicy a lot before they took that hit on their wedding day, but now with Gino dead, the Juicy he had known seemed gone too.

“You know you’re good for anything,” he told her, playing the big-brother role. “Just tell me what you need me to do and it’s done.”

“I gotta make a quick run,” she’d said. “I’m only gonna be gone for about a day, but I want you to look out for me just in case I need something.”

Sallie had immediately grown suspicious.

“Something like what?”

“Something like that safe Gino left with you when we first came out here.”

His heart had pounded. “Right. I’d forgotten about that safe,” he lied. “But hell yeah. Absolutely. It’s right where Gino left it. If you need it just give me a call and I’ll bring it to you. But is everything cool, Juicy? You wanna tell me where you’re going?”

Juicy had hesitated, and when she spoke again her words sounded real shady.

“I need to go check on a friend. It’s all good. I won’t be gone long.”

“Does Renata know you’re going?” Sallie pressed.

“Nah. You know how she can be. I didn’t tell her because I don’t want her to worry. Besides, I’m coming right back. She’ll never even know I left.”

Sallie had nodded as his mind worked to put all the pieces together. “Cool. No problem. Your secret is safe with me. Do you want me to check on your crib and bring in the mail, or maybe you need a ride to the airport or something?”