Lust (8 page)

My ass dialed real slow and careful on the next try. I took my time and deliberately pressed every number real hard, pausing between each one to make sure I got it right. And I did. This time the phone was picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

The background noise was so loud that I could barely make out his voice. It sounded like he was in a wind tunnel or shouting into a fan the way me and Jimmy used to do when we was kids.

“Sallie!” I shouted and stuck one finger in my ear. “Sallie are you there?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s Juicy,” I said. “It’s Juicy!”

“Yeah? What’s up, Juicy?”

“Look. I know it’s been a minute, but remember that favor we talked about?” I let out a big sigh. “I’m gonna need you to do it and do it real fast.”

“I can’t hear you, Juicy. Lemme roll up the window.”

All I heard was the wind in my ear as he paused for a few seconds. And then he spoke again.

“A’ight. Now what favor?”

“You know,” I reminded him, still yelling even though the noise in the background had died down. “The
favor
,” I lowered my voice and glanced around and tried to whisper. “The favor I told you I might need you to do with that money Gino left with you!”

“Gino who?” Sallie said. He sounded like he wanted to make sure his words came through real loud and real damn clear.  

I half-chuckled even though my situation was far from funny. “Look, I’m dead serious,” I told him. “If you knew what kind of shit I’ve been going through you wouldn’t even be playing.”

“Who’s playing?” He sounded dead serious too.

“Oh, so it’s like that? All right then. I’ll just call your aunt and uncle and tell ’em you’re trying to fuck over me, Sallie.”

“Call ’em,” he said calmly. “Yeah, go ’head and do that. Since the Feds are on your ass, why don’t you lead them straight to Renata and get her and Big Frank thrown in jail too.”

“What?” I damn near screamed. “The Feds? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You fucked up, Juicy. They know you stole all that drug money, and they know you blew up your own car and skipped town too.”

“I didn’t blow up no damn car!” I shrieked.

“Whatever. Tell it to the Feds. All I know is that you left The Organization in a bag, sweetie. I tried to tell Frank you weren’t shit from the very beginning, but I’m not Italian so he wouldn’t listen to me.

“And now look at what’s happened. You brought trouble to their door and our entire family is about to go down because of you. Some kind of friend you turned out to be. Yeah, call Uncle Frankie and call Renata too. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear from you while they’re throwing her ass in jail.”

I felt like a train had just run over me. What in the hell was going on? My mouth went dry with fear. Gino had stressed out hard over the Feds tracking us down. Did I leave a trail for them to sniff me out? Was I gonna go back to jail?

My head was spinning. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I refused to believe that shit!

“Yo, Sallie!” I barked. Mrs. Singletary was looking at me like I was crazy but I didn’t care. “Sallie…” I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. “I don’t know nothing about no Feds, but I’m telling you, mothafucka! I’m gonna need you to send me some of
my
goddamn money, outta
my
fuckin’
safe!
”

“
What
fuckin’ money?” Slick Sallie’s voice was colder and slicker than shit as he hung up in my face. “
What
fuckin’ safe?”

$$$$$

At first I felt so ass-out that I just wanted to kill myself. Of course I clicked over to a dial tone and punched in Renata’s number right away, but as soon as it started ringing I hung up again. I knew Sallie was gonna try to keep all my money, but what if he was right about the Feds? What if they had Renata’s phone tapped and they were just waiting for me to call, waiting to draw a solid line between me and her so they could take her down too? I couldn’t risk doing that to her. As fucked up as my situation was and as much as I needed some help, I just couldn’t do it.

For the next two days straight all I did was cry and blow up Sallie’s cell over and over again. He never even answered that shit. His phone just kept rolling straight to voicemail, and by the fourth day it was full and wouldn’t even take no more messages.

My soul felt stripped and bare. No matter how I looked at things in my head, I was fucked. And not only was I fucked, I was also broke, hunted, and living in a homeless shelter way in Brooklyn with nowhere else to turn.

Mrs. Singletary had put me in a room with some other homeless chick, but I didn’t talk to her and she didn’t talk to me neither. Matter fact, she barely even looked at me, and I figured she probably thought I was laying there crying over some niggah who had beat my ass and kicked me out on the streets, but of course she was dead wrong.

The shelter was full of people coming and going, but I kept to myself and stayed mostly in my bed for those first few days. I felt so beaten down and depressed that I just didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to California, and I couldn’t go back to Harlem neither. I didn’t have a phone, and I damn sure didn’t have a plan.

It took me a minute, but I finally broke down and called Rita. I ran down all the shit that Flex had done to me and told her where I was staying, and she cursed me out for not calling her right away so she could come get me.

“You can stay with me, Juicy. Nooni’s bedroom is empty,
chica,
and it’s all yours. Every damn thing I have is yours if you need it.”

“No, Rita, no,” I begged her. Even with Nooni gone she still had her little sister Chub to worry about. “I’m not coming back to Harlem. I’m way too scared. Plus, I wouldn’t feel right putting you in no bag.”

She started crying.

“I’m just so fuckin’ sorry, Juicy,” she apologized through her sobs. “I’m the one who put you in this situation in the first place! All of this shit is my fault. I shoulda never let you come back here. If you wanna go back to California I’ll come up with the money and buy you a plane ticket back, okay?”

Both of us knew that wasn’t gonna work. Hell, I could have called Renata and asked her to get me a plane ticket back to the West coast, but what the hell was I gonna do when I got there? Where was I gonna hide? The Feds were after me and somebody had blown up my fuckin’ car! My ass wasn’t no safer out there than I was right here.

Grandmother popped into my mind. I felt her presence within me so deep that it made my bones ache. I could see every line on her wise old face. Every crease in her overworked hands. She was in my bones, but she was also in my ear too. I could hear her telling me to just be still. To trust God and to be still.

And what choice did I really have? I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. So I decided to give myself a couple of days until my ankle healed and I could walk without limping. I would just hide out in the shelter and chill for a minute and try to catch my breath. For once in my life I’d be obedient to my grandmother. I’d think and pray and try to see where I was being led, and wherever God’s grace took me, then that’s where I would go.

CHAPTER 11

Sal had covered about fifteen hundred miles and he was itching to get his ass to New York City. He pulled over for gas and food, and slept during the day at cheap motels so he could do most of his driving at night.

Tonight he was sitting in a booth at a truck stop diner as he feasted on a T-bone steak and a large order of French fries. He had pulled off the road to get some gas, and the smell of greasy burgers and fried onions had lured him inside the joint.

The food was good, he had to admit as he cut into his medium-rare steak and watched the juices run onto the plate, but that wasn’t what was keeping him there. The diner was full of truckers and travelers, and four pretty blonde waitresses scuttled around serving every man in the house with bright eyes and big, phony smiles.

Sal noted the beauty of the waitresses, who looked so much alike that they had to be sisters, but not one of the four had caught his eye.

Nah, Sallie was staring at somebody who looked totally different, and the more he sat and watched her, the hungrier he got.

She was eating by herself at the counter, and her ass looked like it was molesting her stool. She was slim up top with long, straight hair, but her hips looked nice and wide, and he could tell she had a plump booty packed into her tight jeans. Her frame put him in the mind of Juicy, who was one moolie bitch he’d fucked without ever taking his dick outta his pants.

Sallie watched the girl at the counter as she lowered her full lips onto the straw that stuck out of her glass of lemonade. He caught a glimpse of her pink tongue as she inserted the straw deep into her mouth, and instantly his pants rocked up with a strong desire for her.

She was just what he was looking for. Her small hand gripped the frosted glass, and her earrings dangled seductively from her earlobes. She had smooth, mocha skin, and when she spoke to the cashier at the counter Sallie melted as he saw a deep dimple flash in her left cheek.

The girl must have felt him staring at her because every now and then she glanced in his direction with a shy look in her eyes, and then looked away.

She’s flirting with me, Sallie thought. She was reading him and he was reading her too. The next time she snuck a peek at him Sallie nodded at her and winked. Her face seemed innocent and beautiful when she broke out in a bashful smile, and Sallie shot her his sexiest grin in return.

She was no local girl, Sallie could tell, and she wasn’t the kind of cheap hooker he usually snatched up off the track either. His curiosity was quenched when she slid down from her stool and jangled a large set of keys in her hand. Waving goodbye to the cashier, she took one last look at him and then her hips swayed like a melody as she walked out of the diner and headed toward one of the large trucks that was parked right outside.

Sallie couldn’t believe it. A chick like her was pushing a rig. He dug into his pocket and peeled off a fifty-dollar bill, and tossed it onto the table as he rushed outside behind her.

The trucker’s name was Meesha and her and Sal were in the back of her cab smoking a little reefer and having a real good time. Sal told her he worked as an aide to a big-time Los Angeles politician, and that he was driving to New York for a vacation. Meesha broke out a bottle of gin and told him she was from Oklahoma and that she got off on a creating a little adventure during her long, lonely road trips.

The moment she slammed the truck’s doors Sallie was all over her black ass. He knew her type very well. She was one of those black chicks who just loved to ride white cock. Well, Sallie had plenty of cock for her, but it didn’t matter how white she tried to talk he saw straight through her. She was still a nigger.

It had been a minute since Sallie had gotten a taste of some good black tail, and he started out by asking Meesha if she wanted to play a little game.

“You’re gonna love it,” he promised as he watched her strip out of her jeans and shirt and then wriggle out of her underwear. Her body was fuckin’ stunning. Her stomach was sweet and flat, and her hips looked like an artist had sketched them to perfection.

Sallie urged her to turn around, and he was damn-near slobbering by the time he saw her naked ass. It gave him a jolt. It was high and firm, perfectly round, and her thighs were tight and slender.

“Bend over and grab your ankles,” he instructed her as he swept his hand over her thick black booty. Meesha giggled and did what she was told, and Sallie used two tie-down cords that were on the floor to secure her wrists to her ankles.