No Room for Mercy (25 page)

“I’m gone like this place,” Desiree said as she
entered the private room and situated herself inside her booth with
her champagne.

Xiang followed the woman into the booth, watching her every move
until she was seated. “Anything else you need right now?”
she asked through a polite smile.

“I already want the New York strip steak and grilled shrimp
platter. Baked potato on the side with a salad with ranch dressing
and garlic bread.”

“A woman who knows what she wants,” Xiang remarked. “I’ll
send a waitress over to take your order.”

Xiang left the lavish room and tugged on Dougie’s t-shirt,
signaling him to follow her and the two walked over to the office
where they saw Asa Spade on the phone. They waited patiently until he
hung up.

“There’s a woman in room eleven asking about smoking
weed.” Xiang stated matter-of-factly as she ran her hands
through her long, black hair, awaiting Asa’s reply.

Asa raised his eyebrows. “Asking to smoke weed? What she think
we running a hooka hut?”

“I don’t know what she is thinking,” Xiang said as
she frowned and looked back towards the hall where the woman’s
booth sat. “She paid cash for a VIP booth and I have never seen
her in here before. She also knew the menu before I even presented it
to her. She just seems suspicious to me. I mean, who in the fuck asks
could they smoke blunts in a place like this? You either know or you
don’t know. And if you don’t know you don’t ask.”

“Room eleven, huh? Dee let’s go scope this broad out.”
Asa said as he grabbed a .45 automatic from his top desk drawer and
tucked it inside the waistband behind his dark grey silk suit jacket.

Asa and Dougie went and stood outside the room looking over the
balcony, all-the-while stealing peeks on the woman. She seemed to be
scoping the club out from her booth. She was subtle with it, but Asa
Spade wasn’t a fool by a long shot. He’d been around for
a while and was now running a legit business. The last thing he
wanted was to be set up by the authorities or somebody off the
streets trying to earn a quick dollar through an armed robbery
attempt. After three songs, Asa Spade walked into Desiree’s
room to put her up on his game.

“I hear you want to smoke herb in my building,” Asa said
as he walked through the sliding door.

“I only asked. The hostess said I could so long as I close the
partition.” Desiree remarked as she smiled at Asa.

“She spoke out of term on that. See? I don’t know you
from Eve. You walk in here dropping thousands like it ain’t
nothing and now you wanna smoke weed in my spot? I run a tight ship
over here and as far as I’m concerned, you can be part of a
stick-up crew or the feds.”

“Feds? Would I smoke cannabis if I were a federal agent?”

“Yeah, you would. And I’ve known agents to do much worse.
I’m gone ask you to pay and leave. You not welcomed here.
Whatever you selling, I ain’t buying.”

“I need to make a phone call,” Desiree said, hoping to be
able to call Carmella and have her arrive sooner than later.

“Let me explain what the deal is, bitch. You’re not
wanted up in here, ya’ got me? Now, as the saying goes, we can
do this the easy way, or the hard way.” Asa Spade remarked
coldly. “And as far you makin’ a call? That shit ain’t
gone happen until you pay your tab and hit the parking lot,” he
added as Dougie walked up behind him and pulled out a chrome .9mm
once he’d closed the partition.

“I paid twenty-five hundred dollars to come up here, mister.”

“Don’t mister me, bitch,” Asa Spade said as he and
Dougie flanked the mysterious woman inside the booth. “I don’t
give a fuck if you paid twenty-five thousand dollars to walk into my
shit. You looking ‘round like you scoping me out and I don’t
like it. I’m not hard up for cash so you can take your money
and spend that shit somewhere else. But you gone pay me before you
leave this room.”

Desiree now understood that she’d walked into a snake pit. The
people she were sent to eye were sharper than she’d given them
credit. They’d latched onto her scheme before she knew what
happened and she feared the potential outcome. Carmella had given her
specifics, but she’d failed to follow orders wanting to floor
show. She had no more cash on her as she’d spent her grip
getting into V.I.P. under the belief that she could get an up-close
view of the people who were running Shorter Arms to better aide
Carmella. She’d succeeded, but the men sitting on either side
of her seemed as if they would do more than just escort out of the
club if she refused to pay.

“I have a credit card.” Desiree said hesitantly.

“Cash, credit or blood is what we deal with. You got credit?
Let me see it,” Asa remarked.

Desiree handed Asa Spade a gold Master Card and he left the table,
leaving Dougie behind, who held his gun to her side as Asa closed the
partition.

*******

“If I hear one more thing about a fuckin’ Bigfoot I’m
gone drive this jeep into a brick wall inside this garage,”
Percy snapped as he wheeled his 2002 Navigator through the
underground garage of the condominium complex where the crew’s
stash house lay. He backed into a parking spot on the second level
and exited the vehicle with Ponita and Francesca, each toting duffel
bags of cash as they made their way towards the elevators. The three
were still mocking Francesca about her Bigfoot sighting when three
men in ski-masks dressed in all black emerged from behind two parked
cars with guns drawn.

Percy, Francesca and Ponita had no time to react and now found
themselves staring down the barrels of semi-automatic machine guns in
the still of the night. Two of the men snatched the two duffel bags
Ponita and Francesca held onto just as a black cargo van pulled up
with the side door open. The three were shoved into the van’s
cargo bay at gunpoint and the gunmen hopped in and sped off.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE CARD PARTY

Carmella had just turned onto 25
^th
Avenue in her Hummer
headed towards
The Royal Flush
when her phone rang. “Hola?”
she answered.

“No need to go inside the club,” Desiree said in
frustration.

“What? Why not?”

“A fight broke out and everybody scattered. It was a big mess.
Where you at?”

“I’m riding up to the club now,” Carmella said as
she cruised pass
The Royal Flush
. “People still waiting
to get in. How was it a fight happened?”

“They must’ve cleared it up or something.”

“You sure them people didn’t learn your ass was—hold
on I got another call. Hola?”

“Somebody gone come in let us in?” the male voice asked
happily.

“Hold on,” Carmella said as she clicked over. “Bitch,”
she said, “where you at now?”

“I’m north of Mile High Stadium.”

“Make your way over to the other spot. And if I find out you
lying to me about what happened inside that club tonight I’m
gone fuck you up!”

“I would never lie to you, you know that. Come on now, this
me!”

“Okay, ‘this me’! Start that way and I be there!”

Carmella drove until she was able to make a U-turn where she cruised
pass
The Royal Flush
again. She saw a group of people wearing
Broncos jerseys, young folk around her age who seemed to be having a
good time. She pulled up alongside the group and let the passenger
side window down and leaned over. “Excuse me,” she called
out. “I was about to go into the club, but somebody said they
had a fight. Were they fighting in there? Because if so I don’t
want any trouble.”

“Fighting? The only thing you had to fight in there was your
way to the bars!” a female, who was undoubtedly drunk, said
through laughter. “You have nothing to worry about at The Royal
Flush! The owners don’t play that shit!”

“Figured that!” Carmella said as she drove off.

Carmella drove in silence. She now believed Desiree had lied to her,
but she was unsure as to why. Maybe she grew nervous and left before
she arrived, or maybe there was much more to the story. Not one to
leave a door open, Carmella would be certain to get to the bottom of
the matter before she overreacted with her lover. She then grew happy
when she realized that the biggest portion of her plan had succeeded.
“Going to a card party,” she said as she bounced in her
seat and continued on her journey over to
Glitz
.

*******

Barely two hours ago, everything in Percy, Francesca and Ponita’s
lives was heavenly bliss. The three were cracking jokes the entire
ride over to their condo and were planning on kicking back with the
crew for a few days at the mansion in Boulder and fuck around with
Bigfoot while getting high. Now, the three found themselves
butt-naked and bound to chairs while staring at a large fish tank as
four unknown men and a woman milled about smoking weed and drinking
liquor.

Desiree had never seen the Somalis until she arrived at
Glitz
.
Carmella had described the men to her, but her descriptions didn’t
do the guys justice. Desiree was expecting to see a group of slovenly
dressed unattractive men when she pulled up to Glitz ton order to let
the men in with their captors.

To the contrary, the Somalis were perfect specimens of men with their
muscular physiques and thick heads of curly black hair. Black baggy
jeans and long sleeve white t-shirts and white tennis was the Somalis
attire. The guy who went by the name of Q-man was female eye candy
for Desiree. Muscular with smooth, tan skin and long braids, he stood
out from his counterparts, who all sported curly Afros. Q-man stood
over six feet tall with a set of pearl white teeth and a neatly
trimmed mustache. He was a man Desiree would readily do without
apprehension. “
Maybe,”
Desiree said to herself
before she escorted the Somalis to the back entrance of the club in
order to secure their captives.

“What happened at the club?” Q-man asked as he passed
Desiree a blunt, barely ten minutes after the crew had entered the
club and secured their captives.

“A fight broke out so I had to leave.”

“So your girl didn’t meet you there and scope the place
out like y’all had planned?”

“I had to leave before all that happened.”

Q-man eyed Desiree with a look of uncertainty. He was guessing she’d
gotten thrown out for whatever reason, but it wasn’t because of
a fight. That was a lame excuse in his mind. “I know your girl
ain’t gone like that shit. She a stickler for detail, you know?
I hope y’all work that shit out.”

“We’ll do fine,” Desiree sassed. “A good
round of pussy-eating will resolve this issue.”

“No wonder I can’t get in that ass, fellas,” Q-man
said as his boys laughed lightly.

The cage being raised on the first floor alerted everybody; Q-man and
one of his boys descended the stairs with guns in hand and greeted
Carmella while she was lowering the steel barricade once more.

“We got it all set up,” Q-man stated.

“Good. At least there’s someone in this town I can count
on.”

“We gone stick around for a while, but after that we jettin’
back to the Ap.”

“Did they have any money on them, Q-man?”

“About one seventy-five large.”

“Our deal for this kidnapping was one hundred grand. Keep all
of it,” Carmella said as she jogged up the stairs. “You
boys are well worth the price.”

“Nuff said,” Q-man replied as he followed Carmella up the
stairs.

Carmella was furious with Desiree for lying to her; but when she laid
eyes on her lover upon reaching the balcony, her heart softened. What
she’d planned on doing had melted away given her lover’s
pleading look of apology. Desiree was sorry, Carmella knew; she’d
made a mistake, nothing more in her eyes and she didn’t warrant
such a cruel fate. She’d done her best, and despite her failure
and knowing lie, Carmella found it within herself to forgive, because
she cared about Desiree just enough to do so. She decided to not
address what Desiree had done in front of the Somalis, the subject
would lay dormant until the two were alone under the covers.

Carmella then turned to the captives sitting off in the distance.
“What fun me and my Somali friends are going to have with you
guys tonight,” Carmella said as she walked over and stood
before her three captives. “But before we all get acquainted, I
would like to have me a drink. I will be back shortly,”
Carmella said through a smile as she backed away from the three.

To say that Ponita, Percy and Francesca were terrified would be an
understatement. Never before had either individual encountered such
callous attitudes. The plastic spread out on the floor was unnerving,
and the two menacing sharks inside the tank were seemingly growing
impatient by the minute. They kept circling the tank and surfacing
near the humans before dipping back below the surface of the hazy,
light green water.

Music was turned on and bottles of liquor was brought out from the
office to the rear of the balcony and Carmella and her gang sat at a
large table overlooking the tank and the entire club and drank and
smoked and got caught up on operations in various cities throughout
the Midwest, ignoring their guest, but knowing exactly what they were
going to do the whole time.

An hour or so later, Carmella jumped up all of a sudden. “How
rude we’ve been, people! We have guests over here and haven’t
offered them a thing!” she said, barely keeping her composure.
“At a party, people love to play cards. You three wanna play
cards?” Carmella asked with a wide smile on her face.

Percy, Francesca and Ponita refused to respond, they couldn’t
even if they wanted to given the duct tape around their mouths. The
whole time they were trying to free themselves of plastic ties that
bound their hands to the chairs they were sitting in, but neither was
successful.