The Grind Don't Stop (24 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Stacy watched her getting more and more agitated by the minute. Peeking at his diamond-studded Longines, he silently cursed the hour since they hadn't heard from his uncle or any customers.

“Damn, man, you on brain lock or something? Whatcha gonna do, use the card, dish it, pluck or whatever. You holding us up here,” Mercedes squealed.

Clara, who was on a steady pout waiting for her turn to play, threw her two cents' worth in. “Yeah, dude, your mind must've gotten all froze up on that ganja gangsta weed you stole form yourself when you was play shitting in the bathroom a little while ago.” She batted her long lashes to egg him on.

Stacy turned his attention away from Violet, removed the Swisher Sweet cigar from between his clenched teeth, snorted his disapproval of them rushing him and flipped a card on the table. “Hold y'all damn smelly thongs in place.” He paused to snatch up the book they'd won. “Have any of y'all been paying attention to Violet lately? Damn, she antsy for a mug over there,” he said in a whisper and nodded toward her on the couch. All four heads turned in the direction simultaneously.

Mercedes reached across the table to pat Yolanda's hand daintily and rubbed the corner of her open mouth with her baby finger, then rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Uh-huh, looks like old Queenie there really needs something to do, don't she?”

Clara was ready to get anything started herself as she cleared her throat. “Yep, what y'all figure we should do about it?”

Stacy cranked his neck, started rotating and rubbing it, revelling in the tension-relieving kinks he felt go snap. “Yolanda, do that ring-back thang with the phone. I got us a plan.”

“Uh-huh, mmph, one of ya schemes again, huh?” Mercedes sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

“Ah, kill the 'tude, Kung Fu shortie. Let's see what he's come up with. I'm tired of sitting around this bitch, too. Of course unless you wanna keep sitting here all night pitching pennies around the table,” Clara snapped and poked her eyes out.

As expected, Mercedes's reaction befitted her impish attitude. She sat back in her chair with her arms folded across her chest and her lips set in a deep pout.

Stacy muttered under his breath, “Damn brat.”

Her head snapped immediately in his direction. “I heard that you, you..”

He
pssted
her off and walked around the table on his way to the bathroom. He was about to twist the knob when the phone started to ring.
Damn, she quick,
he thought as he made a quick U-turn and dashed to pick up the phone. He made it just ahead of Violet.

She mugged up and down his body, making it hard not to laugh as he went into his pantomime. “Yeah, who this? Where you at? Damn, that's all you want. Shit, you expect me to come all the way out there for that?” He cocked a sneaky eye at Violet to see how she was reacting to his animated conversation. Her facial expression said she wasn't paying him any attention, but her eyes and the way her knees had stopped banging together let him know that she was honing in on the conversation.

He angled away from her to hide the smile that was threatening to show as he continued. “Okay, man, we'll be there in a few and yo ass had better have the exact cheddar, too. Don't bug about who I am, you want it or not? Okay, I'll hit you back when we're about to get there. Okay, in a bit, soldier.”

He hung up, expelled a gust of hot air and stood with his hands on his hips. “Aight, ladies, who ready to ride with a nigga?”

Mercedes couldn't help digging in his ribs, if only for a little bit. “I know good and well you ain't talking about all of us going. Sho didn't sound like no helluva buy to me. I'll stay here.”

Stacy realized right off the bat what her little ass was trying to do.
Uh-uh, baby girl, ain't gonna work.
He braced his shoulders, walked to her and reached down to pull her chin up to face him. “Looka here, china doll, Jap doll, Vietnamese doll, whatever the fuck you are, everybody in this crew was down with that robbery scam on your evil little ass. Hell, Rainbow and them tested each and every one of us, so you can quit with that personal pout.” He stared her down until she lowered her gritty gaze. Then he sighed and turned to Violet. “Queen Bee, we got a buyer out there on Wesley Chapel. All he wants is a fifty slab. Whatcha wanna do?”

Violet ogled at him over the rim of her granny glasses perched on the tip of her nose. “What!! What I wanna do? Hell, I wanna get out of this damn house; that's what I want to do. Give me a second to throw something on.” She sprung up from that couch like a hyped-up Slinky toy and nearly trotted to the bedroom. Snatching a jacket off the chair beside the bed and a package of ready rock out of the shoe box in the closet, she was ready to roll.

When she returned, they were whispering to themselves. The way that they stopped when she came back in caused her gaming antennae to shoot up. It dawned on her that some game was going on but she didn't give a fuck. She needed to do anything to keep her mind off her man, so she led the way out of the door. They felt the tension ease as they crowded into Violet's Mustang. It really felt good to get out of the house, as evident by the way the girls were clucking. Lady and Yolanda got into a argument of why Lady wouldn't show her any of her card-cheating scams. Clara bitched about how no one wanted to give her the ups on
paper hanging. And Violet was schooling Stacy on the do's and don'ts of shoplifting. Their babbling went back and forth and around in circles all the way to Snap Finger Road.

They were all so caught up in their kicking it that no one noticed when the dark sedan pulled alongside of them on the narrow twisting thoroughfare. They didn't feel the presence of danger until after they were forced off the road. The terror didn't stop there as the little coupe bumped along for thirty yards in a ditch full of water until they crashed into a thick row of hedges. It jarred them to a nerve-jolting stop.

Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt; stunned and bruised for sure, but thankful to still be alive. Stacy was the first to shake off the shock. He kicked the door open and staggered up the ditch to the road in time to see the car speeding around a bend in the road and out of sight. He strained his eyes into the distance, but was only able to see part of the license. Even though still in a little bit of a shock, he was able to lock that portion into his memory.

He felt like he had seen the car somewhere before. For the life him he couldn't remember where.

He turned his attention to the girls and was relieved that at first glance, they all appeared to be okay. They looked a little bit woozy, which certainly had to be expected. He looked up and down the road for anybody that may be able to assist them and also to ensure that the car wasn't coming back to finish the job. Seeing neither, he opened the front passenger door and bent down to pick Violet's handbag off the floor. He leaned into the car and asked them if they were all okay.

It seemed like they all responded at the same time, as he tried to hone in on calling Sparkle to let him know what had happened. It rang about five times before he decided to redial, with the
same results. He placed the phone back in the bag, puzzled, angry and swearing to almighty God that somebody was gonna pay for this. Oh, how somebody would pay.

After wearing thin with all the whining from the girls, who were still in shock, he began pacing back and forth along the road in an attempt to cool down. After a couple of trips he reached back into the car to get the cell phone again. Clicking in his sister Kim's number, he told her boyfriend, Jerome, Yolanda's son, about what had happened and where they were. He promised that he'd be there in a jiffy to get them out of the ditch. He sat down on the hood and wheezed. Boy, was somebody ever going to pay.

T
he persistent ringing of the bedside phone had roused Sparkle out of a deep sleep he had desperately needed. He reached over a snoring Violet to pick it up, sighing in relief that she and the rest of them had come out of the crash all right. He didn't want to split up with Rainbow but they both knew the girls needed additional protection now more than ever. They'd been roaming around the city uneventfully for damn near three days nonstop. As hyped up as he was to get to the bottom of who those predators were, even he had to admit that they needed some rest.

Cursing under his breath at the midnight disturbance, he answered the phone in a sleep-hazed growl as he rubbed the crust out of his eyes. “Yeah, who dis be?” He groveled as he peeked at the digital clock radio on the dresser. It read 3:15 a.m.

He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to believe that someone would be calling that time of the night. He was also very irritable from getting high on coke to stay awake and alert for those three days. He told himself for what had to be the thousandth time that he had to give up this lifestyle. When the caller didn't respond immediately, he asked in an even more agitated voice, “Godamnit, you gonna answer me or what? Fuck it, fuck you.”

He removed the phone from his ear preparing to hang it up when a female voice purred, “Fuck, man, you got to answer the
phone so damn nasty?” He couldn't pinpoint who the caller. He cleared his throat to say something exceptionally filthy but the voice said impatiently, “Nigga, is my Aunt Violet there because you acting stupid as hell.”

Sparkle wanted to blast the bitch with a roll of expletives but he held them in and said irritably, “Is this Joyce?” He wished he could reach through the line to wring her scrawny neck.

“Yeah, it's me, who the fuck do it sound like, fool?” she spat sarcastically.

He wanted to slam the phone down as hard as he could, but held on to his composure. “Sorry, bitch, it's that you woke me up at three in the muthafucking morning and it's been one of those hard-ass days, so what's up?”

He could feel the tension ease out her voice as she replied sweetly, “Whatcha doing, Sparkle? I was sorta hoping that Auntie could come pick me up.”

Her sudden change of attitude raised his antennae, because he'd never heard her sound so sweet. Despite his leeriness, he still put some concern in his voice anyway. “Violet's snoring like a bear. Where you at?” He wondered why she was calling so late.

Her voice got even sweeter. “At the Marriott.”

“Taint no biggie, I'm up now. Give me a minute to get myself together. I'll be there in about ten, fifteen minutes or so. What room you in?” he said as he sat up in the bed and tried to stretch the tightness out of his neck.

He was totally taken by surprise when she answered in her normally sassy manner, “Not unless you got a rocket strapped to your narrow ass.”

Boy, oh boy, did that bitch know how to dig into his last nerve. “Unless I got a rocket,” he repeated with a snort.

“Yeah, nigga, strapped to your narrow ass, because I'm out here in Marietta.”

Fighting the urge to slam the phone again, he grunted and then nearly shouted, “Godayum, woman, what the fuck you doing way out there this time of night?” He knew he'd struck a nerve right back at her sassy ass with that one. He felt her anger and held the phone away from his ear waiting for a loud verbal lashing.

He'd done right as she screamed, “Muthafucka, what damn difference does it make; you coming or what?”

He could almost feel his fingers squeezing tightly around her scrawny little neck and felt the urge to tell her so but he pushed that impulse to the back of his mind. He smiled at the thought of saying stuff that would make the big vein in her neck to pulse in anger. He wasn't about to leave her stranded all the way in Marietta, so he sighed heavily. “Okay, okay, you can stop pissing your thong. Give me fifteen minutes to get on the road and start counting, damn crazy-ass ho,” he mumbled.

“Whaddafuck you mumbling for? I thought you said ten minutes?” she continued with her usual sassiness.

“Nothing, see ya in a few,” he said and hung up while she was still smart-mouthing. As he was easing out of the bed, trying not to disturb Violet, who was still calling the hogs with her mouth wide open, he cursed himself for neglecting his body chasing that damned coke high. He grunted through the aches and pains in his back and knees as he struggled to a standing position. After stretching some of the kinks out, he put his clothes on and tiptoed out of the house.

Some ten blocks from the apartment he spotted an all-night BP station and remembered that he'd left his cigarettes on the nightstand. So he pulled over to pick up a pack and a six-pack of Heineken. When he walked in, the first person he saw was JJ, his baby sister's ex-boyfriend. He wondered why homeboy was way out in this part of the city this time of night; especially since he knew he now stayed in Lithonia with a geek monster, way on the
other side of the county. Buddy looked like he'd been on a month- long coke binge. Damn, he was raggedy as all out, hair uncombed, big bags under his eyes, and clothes looking stank for a mug.

It didn't surprise Sparkle when he pocketed a pack of generic cigarettes off the counter when the teller turned his head.
Damn, buddy must be scraping the bottom for sure,
Sparkle thought as he watched him scoop up a couple of more packs and stuff them in- side his raggedy coat. He looked up and saw him approaching the counter.

Sparkle recognized a look of fear and shock on his face when they made eye contact. But he shrugged it off as him being just as surprised to see him. He swallowed hard and greeted him in a croaky voice. “Hey, hey, Sparkle, what's going on, my nigga?”

Sparkle couldn't help thinking of how this down-and-out hustler used to be at the top of the drug game only a short while ago. Slick suits, Gucci loafers and designer outfits were his standard attire. It was the same dude that gave him his start when he'd gotten out of the joint. Looking at him now, made him think about what Googie had told him a long time ago:
Never outplay yourself where you become a product of your own product.