The Grind Don't Stop (29 page)

Stack sprung up and slapped the table so hard that it knocked Rose's drink into her lap. “Man, you sitting there like it's aight.”

Chopper leaned back in his seat puzzled. “What you talking about, man?”

That look on his face made Stack even more frustrated as he leaned forward, arms spread wide on the table and yelled, “Come on, dude, don't fucking sit there and act like you ain't noticed that Joker didn't give you your money! This nigga Don has to know about that shit, too.”

Not only had this young punk spilled the drink on her without so much as “excuse me,” but he was shitting on her baby, too. Oh, hell naw. Rose sprung up from the table, like a jack-in-the box and stretched her arm across the table.

Stack froze, mouth gaped in astonishment, when he felt the tip of the stiletto, which magically appeared from thin air, pressed against his Adam's apple. He damn near shit himself when he looked into the eyes of the madwoman. He had never even imagined her in that way and quickly lowered his eyes in submission.

When she felt his courage evaporate, there was no need to say anything. She looked through him for a moment, before the blade disappeared back into her sleeve. Without her expression changing one iota, she picked up her purse off of the table and walked out of the door.

Chopper, who had sat there stunned, staring wide-eyed during the whole thing, swallowed a difficult lump down his trembling throat. “Damn, man, I know you wasn't expecting no shit like that,” he said hoarsely. “I know that you felt that killer heat from that old bitch because I sure enough did. Whew!”

Stack thudded heavily back into his chair, crossed his arms and looked over Chopper's head blankly at nothing.

Chopper continued, “What da fuck? I felt like she could've drove
that thing in your neck and walked out of the door the same way she just did, not feeling a damn thing. Shiiittt,” he mumbled with a biscuit poised at his mouth, the same way it was when Stack first slapped down on the table. “Hell, Stack, there's a lot more to sweet Auntie Rose than she's let on.”

Stack licked his parched lips and wheezed. “Uh-huh, you damn right there is. Shit, I can see now why Don's bad ass be acting all humble and shit when she's around him. Old bitch is a she-devil.”

Chopper turned down his mouth, hunched his shoulders and walked into the living room. He picked up the Nintendo control from off the top of the television. Clicking on to some Mike Tyson, he stared at Stack, who gave him a “what-the-hell” look and joined him. They needed to kill time while they waited on Don.

Meanwhile, as Rose neared the corner of Main Street, she changed her mind about going to the store. Instead of making a right that would've taken her to Jonesboro, she made the left and headed toward Atlanta. Maybe Bertha could help her figure out what the hell was going on. Her gut feeling kept telling her that something was wrong.

Roughly ten minutes later as she was passing the MARTA station across from the lounge, she thought she saw Bertha running across the intersection to the Krispy Kreme shop. The rumblings in her stomach helped to make up her mind to follow her. She'd left the half-eaten bag of goodies on the table when she'd blown her cool with that youngun. That and the womanly weakness for a good Danish had her parking in front of the shop. She pulled up in time to see Bertha walking to a booth in the rear of the shop.

From the moment she stepped out of the car, she could see that something was bothering her girl. As she approached her booth, she noticed the puffiness around her eyes. It seemed like Bertha had been crying. Hell, she was still crying. Rose picked up a
couple of napkins from the counter and held them up to her face when she reached the table. Bertha looked up and was certainly surprised to see Rose and smiled. “Thank you, girl, I didn't see you come in.” She accepted the offering and dabbed at her eyes.

Rose sat across from her, reached into her box and got a lemon- filled croissant. The creamy filling oozed out of the side of her mouth as she made a crazy face and gnawed into the tasty treat. As expected that drew a smile from Bertha. “Girl, you nuts, you know that?” Rose dabbed at her mouth with one of the napkins, smacked her lips and reached across the table to grasp Bertha's hand. “Now tell me about it.”

Bertha sniffled, sighed heavily and moaned, “Rose, I just got a call that baby brother got shot out there on I-20 a while ago.”

“What, why, girl?” she managed to express with sincerity written all over her face.
Oh shit, that was her brother. Damn, I didn't even know that she had a brother.

Bertha shook her head and purred, “I don't know but they got him at Grady's pulling bullets outta his big ass.”

“You don't know how bad he hurt, girl? Want me to go over there with you?”

“Naw, but thanks, girl. I'm waiting on one of his boys to come get me now.”

Rose was about to say something else encouraging when she spotted that bitch Lt. Woo leaning against a car in the mall parking lot across the street. The way she was standing there, it surely looked like she was waiting for someone. She then saw one of the dancers from the club sprinting toward her. They talked for a brief moment before getting into Woo's car and pulling into the street.
So that's how that little bitch been getting all the ups at the club?
she thought when she heard Bertha speak. “Whatcha say, honey? My mind was somewhere else.”
I got to find out what that bitch is up to.

“I said, Johnny should be here any minute now,” Bertha repeated while she continued to dab at her eyes.

Rose had found out what she wanted to know without even asking Bertha. She wanted to console her girl a little while longer but now she had to get behind Woo before she got too far away. “Looka here, sweetie, if there's anything you need, let me know, okay? I gotta go check on some things at the store. You gonna be aight?” she said in as sincere a tone as she could muster. She barely heard Bertha's reply because she was fast-stepping out of the door to get to her car.

Damn, she was acting sorta strange
. “What the hell; my sorrows are my sorrows. I can't expect everybody to get into misery's boat with me,” Bertha muttered and bit into a pastry.

Rose managed to get to the corner of Lee Street in time to see Woo's car disappear around the curved road. She made a quick right and pushed the pedal to the floor. As she came out of the bend, she saw Woo's car two traffic lights in front of her. She blinked with excitement as she closed the distance between them. Then the damned phone started ringing. Her first impulse was not to answer it, but she saw Don's number on the caller ID. “Yo, what's up, baby?” She really didn't want to be disturbed.

“Just thought I'd let you know that I was on my way. I should be there in about ten, fifteen minutes or so,” he said as he zipped the last ounce of rock in a sandwich bag.

“Okay, you know where I'll be.” She locked the phone under her chin so she could downshift for the upcoming light.

“So you at Al's, right?”

He pulled the phone away and frowned at it. “Yeah, I thought you knew that.” He could feel that something was bugging her, but he didn't want to discuss it in front of Al.

Since she was in a awkward situation, she decided to end the
conversation. “Yeah, yeah, I did. Uh, baby, this traffic out here is bad as hell. I'll call ya when I get to the store.”

He was about to hang up anyway because Al had started to look a little irritated, so he got ready to clip off when he thought of something. “Hey.”

“Yeah?” She was getting irritated, too.

“How about grabbing me some of that beef fried rice from that Chinese joint. You know the one that I like. Oh, yeah, and get them to throw some shrimps off in that bad boy, too.”

She didn't respond immediately and he found himself fighting a tingling moment of panic, so with a slight squeak in his voice, he started to repeat. “Hey, did you hear...”

Rose had opened her mouth to respond when she saw Woo's car make a sudden left turn on Second Street. She made a swerve around the few cars ahead of her and pushed the pedal to the floor, speeding right through a red light. The cars at the intersection had already started across and she barely avoided being hit by them. The concentration of the near collisions caused a momentary lapse of her pursuit and she bypassed the street Woo had turned down. She made a quick U-turn through a gas station, but by the time she arrived to the street, the traffic was too crowded for her to enter. She didn't hesitate to jump out of the car and sprint to the corner, but by then Woo's car was out of sight.

Frustrated she went back to her car and laid her head on the headrest. Only then did she notice the voice screaming on the phone. She had laid it on the other seat when she'd left the car. Now she remembered that she had been talking to Don. She wiped the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. “Damn, baby, I'm sorry. Some fool ran a red light and nearly crashed into me. The muthafucka didn't even honk his horn or nothing.”

“Okay, cool down. You aight, though? Damn, woman, you had
me worried to death for a minute there,” he said with a heavy sigh as he watched Al watching him.

“Uh-huh, I'm aight, the bastard...aw fuck it. You said fried rice, beef and shrimp right, gotcha.”

“So you heard me then?” He pinched his nose.

“Yeah, I heard ya. See ya later.” Rose hung up and considered if she should ride down Second Avenue to see if she could spot the scheming little bitch. But she knew that it was useless with all the traffic and distance between them by now. Her eyes squinted with curiosity as she finally was able to get back on the street. She headed for the store in Jonesboro.

On the other side of town, Don was sitting and staring at the phone, feeling that his auntie wasn't being totally truthful with him when he heard Al clear his throat across the table.

“Hey, you aight, man? For a minute there you was really looking kind of fucked up.” Al crossed his arms on the table eyeing him suspiciously.

“Taint nuthen, dog; my auntie was tripping, had me tripping right along with her but everything's cool.”

“So she aight?”

That's what I just told you nigga,
he thought. “Yeah, she aight.” He started placing the last bags into his saddle bag.

“That's good, that's good,” Al replied. Then he looked at the clock on the far wall and realized he had to check in with JR. It was way past the time to finish furnishing those condos with that furniture he'd had hijacked. Surely the money should've started rolling by now. He prayed that greedy bastard wasn't playing games with him.

Don was tightening the straps on the bag, when Mona stuck her head into the room and let them know that the food was ready. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't shake the feeling that Rose wasn't telling him what was happening.

Al read how he was acting the wrong way. Lately, he started feeling that something wasn't right. He could feel it in his bones. He wondered if it had anything to do with the missing section of tape he'd noticed the last time that he viewed it. There must have been some way that he had accidentally erased a portion of it, but he certainly couldn't recall doing that and nobody else knew about it. Or did they? Maybe it was the pressure from the big move he knew was getting ready to go down or just plain old paranoia caused by a combination of things.

He shook himself out of the mini trance he had fallen into. “Be there in a second, sweetie.” Al turned to Don. “You chowing down with us, partner? There's certainly enough to go around.”

“Naw, dude, my aunt's getting me some Chinese food.” He headed for the door.

As he watched him leave, Al imagined blowing the back of his head off. “Damn, that's the second time that I've thought that. Man, what's happening to me? I'm really starting to enjoy this psychopathic shit,” he mumbled to himself. The sound of Mona's voice calling out to him again drew his attention away from Don and his ugly thoughts. “I'm on my way now.”

He looked up and saw her standing in the kitchen doorway with her hands on her hips. When he walked past, she rolled her eyes. And since the curtains had been left opened, she was able to see Don getting into his car. Her mind started sparkling at the thought of welcoming him back between her legs with that pussy- shocking, gigantic dick of his. “I've got to figure out a way to get some more of that.” She hadn't even realized that she was rubbing her pussy until Al called for her. “Coming, big daddy,” she purred with a shiver as she sniffed at her finger and thought of how much Don could make her pussy flow.

V
iolet was squirming on the cushion to keep her butt off of the concrete of the stoop when she saw Duke's ride turn into the parking lot of the apartments. A smile crept to the corners of her mouth as she wondered how good the package he wanted tested would be. He wasn't a user, so he really valued her opinion. And she usually enjoyed the bombs he'd come up with. What addict wouldn't love a free high that would knock them for a loop?

She knew that he'd expect her to have all her gear ready so she stood up, picked up her pillow and headed for the door. Her head jerked back in shock when Sparkle and Joyce got out of the car.
What the fuck, where the hell is my car?
She hugged the pillow to her stomach and arched her brow as they approached.

Sparkle carried the grocery bag in one hand and Duke's saddle bag in the other. He had a downtrodden expression on his face as he nodded for her to go inside. With her mouth turned down, she waited until both of them had walked past her, with neither of them saying a word, before she followed.

An exhausted Sparkle walked straight to the couch, dropped both bags on the floor between his feet and flopped heavily on the cushion with a loud and long
aaaah
. Joyce, also exhausted, walked to the refrigerator, yanked the door open and grabbed a couple of Colt 45s. She tossed him one, which thudded off his
chest onto the floor. She used the other one to wipe around her face and she flopped down in the love seat across from him.