Riding Dirty on I-95 (13 page)

I
swear to God, I don't want to catch no stinking-ass Greyhound with all this work on me
, Mercy thought as she headed for the bus station.
Last time that shit had me good and miserable the way it hit every single bump in the dag'on road.

She was catching the express bus to Richmond. She had one more run after this one, and she was hoping to get back in time to go to a big party on Friday night. She continued her thoughts as
she approached the Greyhound bus at the Port Authority in New York. She knew she had to play it safe. She couldn't drive with all the shit on her, and Hyena said that the car with the stash box was in the shop. She didn't have time to sit around New York and wait, so she decided to go ahead and leave the driving to Greyhound.

This was the third time that Mercy had ridden like this with the work taped down to her body under her clothes with a body girdle on top. Something had to give. When she'd been dealing with Raheem, the heroin was just taped and wrapped up like a dick, which she stuck up in her canal. But back then it had only been a hundred or two hundred grams. Dealing with Hyena, the game had been stepped up to a whole new level. More money brought more work. Work that couldn't be shoved up in her pussy.

Mercy was anxious to get her job done so she could get herself together to go to the party that everybody in town was going to. Since she traveled everywhere picking up money and delivering drugs, she was able to shop at any of those destinations. And she did, big-time. So her outfit was never the problem. The finishing touches—hair, nails, pedicures, and accessories—were the problem. She had to be home in plenty of time for all that.

As the bus rolled down the highway, Mercy drifted off to sleep as she thought about how much fun she would have at the party and what she had to do when she reached home and was done working. She had managed to get into a comfortable deep sleep when she was awakened by flashing blue lights as the bus started slowing down. Mercy didn't know what the hell was going on, but she immediately reached in her Prada tote bag and put her Air Max on. Once her sneakers were tied tight, she got up out of her seat.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” she said politely to the people whose
elbows or shoulders hung off a little into the aisle as she headed to the rear of the bus. She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Someone must've gave her up. She had to think quickly. She took the drugs off of her body full tilt and looked for a place to hide the packs, but couldn't find anywhere in the compact bathroom. When she felt the bus pull off the road and come to a complete stop, she had no choice but to flush the drugs down the toilet.

She threw some water on her face and was back in her seat before the police got on the bus. As the police officer slowly made his way down the aisle, checking IDs of the passengers on the bus, Mercy's heart began to beat faster and faster. Trying not to look worried, she buried her head in her book,
Whoreson
, just to keep from falling apart. She was sure that her name was the one that the police were looking for.

Damn, what ID should I show him? The real one or my fake one?
Mercy thought.
If he's looking for me, what name would he be looking for? I know this motherfucker is coming to get me. Somebody had to drop a dime on me. Shit, I knew I shouldn't have taken Greyhound. This shit is too risky.

“May I see your ID, ma'am?” the officer asked Mercy.

“Yes, sir,” Mercy answered, handing over her ID, wondering if she should play it cool.

The police barely glanced at her ID before handing it back to her. Mercy exhaled once he was two seats behind her. But he still had to check the restroom, and she'd been the last one to come out.

She prayed that the dope hadn't floated back to the top. Then all of a sudden another thought came across Mercy's mind. What was she going to tell Hyena? What if he didn't believe her? Was he going to kill her, or what? She definitely wasn't going to get paid. Her mind raced every which way.

The police finally exited the bus and she knew she was okay. It
was a close call, but at least she had her freedom. Once she reached Richmond, her brain began to operate more clearly. She had to get the dope out of the toilet to make sure that it got where it was supposed to be. She would do everything in her power to keep Hyena from knowing she had lost control of the situation. So she waited until the night crew came on and watched as an old man got on to clean the bus. Mercy followed behind him.

“Hey, how you doing?” Mercy asked.

“Fine,” the older black man said. He looked like he should have been retired and not cleaning anybody's buses.

Mercy didn't want to scare the man, because he was her only chance at getting the drugs. So she decided to turn on her sweet and innocent girlish charm.

“Sir, I really need your help,” she said, looking helpless. “I was taking my little niece to the bathroom, and she dropped some very important stuff in the toilet by mistake. Is it anyway possible you can get it out for me?”

“Stuff?” he questioned, with a peculiar look on his face.

“Yeah, uh, some important papers,” Mercy lied in the most convincing tone she could muster.

He looked her in the eyes as she continued to pour her heart out. “I'll pay you. I just really need your help.”

“Pay me?” he asked.

“Yeah, I'll pay you,” Mercy repeated.

“Just for getting some paper out the toilet for you?”

“Well, it's more like some packages,” Mercy said, batting her eyes. “The packages are important, but I'll pay you a hundred dollars.”

Upon hearing the dollar amount, the man agreed with no more questions asked. “Consider it done. You don't have to worry your pretty little self anymore. I'll take care of it. You just go on out there and wait.”

“It's five packages altogether,” Mercy informed him as she exited the bus.

In a matter of twenty minutes, the man came off the bus with five packages in a bucket covered with feces and piss. He then handed the bucket to Mercy. It was absolutely disgusting, but mixed in the feces and piss was something Mercy needed. She set the bucket down and then reached in her purse. She peeled off two hundred-dollar bills and handed them to him. His face lit up.

“Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am,” he said as he pocketed the money. “If your niece ever drops anything else down the toilet, my name is Ben, and I'll get it out for you.” He winked as he walked away, a happy old man.

Mercy hurried and took the bucket into the bathroom of the bus station. She dumped the contents of the pail into the toilet and got out her five packages. After rinsing off the goods in the bathroom sink, Mercy was on her way. Mercy made Ben one of her workers and put him on her payroll.

“What
you got planned for tonight and tomorrow?” Hyena asked Mercy as they sat in a restaurant in the heart of downtown Richmond and ate lunch. Hyena had never been to Richmond, but since he was driving down south, he'd decided to stop in Richmond to check Mercy out.

“Well, I just plan to relax and then get myself ready for this party that I am going to the day after tomorrow,” Mercy answered.

“Is this the same party you been talking about for a month now?” he asked. She nodded. “Well, I need you to come through for me again. You should be back tomorrow morning if you can jump into character right away.”

She would never say no to Hyena. She knew he depended on her, and she wanted to come through for him. She loved being a part of a team, and a team player she was.

“You promise I'm going to be back by noon? Because my hair appointment is at two,” Mercy said, patting her hair.

He put up his finger and said, “Hold on.” He picked his cell phone up and made a call. Before she knew it, he was speaking in
a language she could not understand. As he talked she gazed into his one eye.

What is under that patch?
she wondered.
Is it a wandering eyeball, or is this nigga just trying to look like Slick Rick or something?
Mercy's imagination took over, and she began concocting all kinds of different scenarios to explain what had happened to his eye.
Maybe he had been tortured, maybe stabbed in a fight.

Hyena's conversation only lasted a good two minutes before it was over. After he hung up the phone, Mercy had looked him over completely.
How could a nigga with so much money not have an eye?
she asked herself.
I wonder why he ain't ever get a new eye? Damn, I want to know the answer. When Raheem calls Ima ask him about that patch.

He put the glass up to his mouth. “You got my word. Everything is worked out. I just need you to make this happen. The work is easy,” Hyena said convincingly.

“You know I got you,” Mercy assured him. “Now, what do you need me to do?”

He leaned in closer and spoke in a soft tone. “I need you to catch the Greyhound and get off at the Baltimore Travel Plaza. Go across the street to the truck stop and look for a truck called Blue Thunder. Hop in the rig and keep the driver company until he gets to Columbia.”

“Keep him company?” she interrupted.

He chuckled, covering up his laughter. “Your mind is always in the gutter. Don't nobody want your little tight pussy,” he said jokingly, but she could tell by the way he looked at her that if it had been another time and place and under different circumstances, he would pursue her.

“As I said, keep him company on his ride down to Columbia, SC, where he's going to change rigs,” Hyena continued. “Once he changes rigs consider your job done. I'll have a car to pick you up,
pay you, and drop you at the airport to catch your flight home. There's a flight that leaves out at 9 a.m., so as long as everything goes as planned, you'll be able to get your hair done.”

“Shoot, sounds easy enough,” Mercy said, taking a sip of her water with lemon.

“You'll have to check in every hour on the hour to let us know everything is copacetic. No need to worry—someone will be following you anyway—but it's still important that you check in.”

After Mercy was given all the particulars by Hyena, she sprung into character and went to take care of business. Just like clockwork, everything went as planned when she arrived at the truck stop. As she waited for her ride to show up, she got firsthand knowledge that the whole truck stop had a world within itself. She silently watched the obvious drug dealing, using, and prostitution going on. After sitting there twenty minutes, she saw the rig and hopped up in Blue Thunder. She was surprised to find her driver was a fat, sloppy, dirty-looking white guy wearing dingy farmer johns and looking like Uncle Jesse from the
Dukes of Haz-zard.
When Mercy jumped in the truck, he simply tilted his dirty baseball cap at her and pulled off.

There wasn't much for Mercy to do on the ride to keep dingy Farmer John company. He seemed to have plenty of friends on his CB radio. So Mercy just pulled out her book and read it. However, she couldn't seem to focus because of the ruckus going on over the CB radio. She couldn't ask Farmer John to cut it off because it was his truck. When she was little and rode with her father, he would always say, “Passengers have no say-so on the entertainment. The driver is the DJ.”

So for a minute she just sat there and listened. Farmer John kept trying to encourage her to get on the CB and play around with a few fellas out truckin', but she didn't. She was more interested in being a spectator.

“Yeah, I got a black beauty with me that I picked up on the side of the road. She was hitching down to Miami,” Mr. Farmer John said, winking at Mercy for her to play along, “and oooweee, what a sight she is.”

“I'll take her off your hands,” some guy sounding exactly like Wolfman Jack responded.

“No, I can't do that. I promised her I'd get her there safe and sound.”

“Let the black beauty know if she needs a ride back from Miami, holla at Don Corleone,” Mercy heard a sexy voice jump in over the CB. There was something about his voice that made her want to get on the CB and take Don up on his offer, but she didn't.