The Grind Don't Stop (32 page)

Rose propped her elbow on the counter and rested her chin on the back of her hand, as her eyes rolled to the ceiling contemplating her options. She licked and popped her lips. “You got any pimp juice up under those panties that you could pour me up right quick?” She bit down on her bottom lip and squinted her eyes up real sexy. “Naw, home girl, go ahead and pour me up one of them Heinekens. Uh, it's on the house, right?”

Bertha wiggled her head around real silly-like. “Duh, of course on the house. Shit, it's your house.” She snickered. “I might as well let you know now that Max and Junior are back there in the office.”

The expression on her face changed with the quickness. “Damn, I sure
ain't in the mood to be hearing their bitching and crying about Don this and Don that. Girl, hurry up and pour up. Aw, fuck it, give me the bottle.”

Bertha reached under the counter and into the cooler to get the beer. As she was snapping the top off, the telephone started ringing. They stared at each other for a moment before Bertha sighed and picked it up. “Yeah, this here Bertha,” she said into the mouthpiece. Then a grimace of concern etched its way across her face and she snatched her tinted shades off and said breathlessly, “What!!!” She lowered her forehead into her hand and started massaging her temples. “Where have they taken him? Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can.” Sighing deeply, she ended the conversation as a single tear rolled down her cheek as she stared at nothing, stunned.

Rose felt a tingling start at the base of her neck as she watched Bertha's chest rise in discomfort. Her eyes blinked with uncertainty while a feeling of dread bumped at her heart. She struggled to find her voice, mouth agape, mind spinning, female intuition causing stars to spiral before her eyes, knowing something bad had happened. She closed her eyes, squeezing so tight that her corners ached, trying to will away the thoughts running through her mind. Finally she thumbed the dampness off of her eyelashes and found her voice. “What happened?” She wheezed as she tried to control her composure.

Bertha lowered her eyes, not really wanting to witness her reaction and mumbled, “He got beat up really bad out near the Farmers Market. Some kids saw him crawling out of the woods. He's on his way to Grady's now.” The rest of whatever she said sounded like a lot of mumbo-jumbo, as a combination of fear and anger consumed her thoughts as she headed for the door.

Al fought back the impulse to slap the emergency room attendant for not giving him the information he sought. The attendant took a step back when he saw the thick veins pop out of his neck and lowered his hand to his beeper to signal for security. Al noticed the motion and checked himself. There was no need to draw unwanted attention. So he forced a smile that caused the attendant to take his hand away from the beeper. He walked away eyeing him over his shoulder toward the elevator. Al pinched his nose and snorted as he maintained his smile until he disappeared.

As the door was closing, he started looking up and down the corridor, trying to spot somebody else in authority who could help him find out where his boy was. The whole time he wondered who could have done this. But he was really more concerned about his portion of the coke package that he was supposed to be bringing him.

This was the first time that he had used some of the money that he owed RJ to re-up with. What really made him feel extra fucked up, was that his gut instincts had told him not to chance it. But his greed had taken over, figuring he could double up on his profit and be able to invest more into their venture. He'd already provided the furniture through the hijacked truck. Man, if they could pull off this project of high-priced furnished condos, there was no telling how much money they could reap in doing this all around DeKalb and Fulton counties.

If nothing else, he had to find out where the coke was. Even he couldn't afford to lose that many bricks of raw. Especially when using other folks' money to get it, damn. After all those years of grinding in the red light district, he finally had a connection that could get him fully legit. The chance to get in with the big boys.
And most of it was based on his word; how much they knew he could be trusted to come through when he said that he could.

He was really spaced out in his near panicking thoughts when he heard the sound of a familiar voice from the elevators. He recognized Bertha's voice immediately and started toward her, totally ignoring the protest from the attendant who had reappeared. He even let out a short laugh when the doors started closing.

“What room he in?” he asked when he turned to face her. She didn't say anything as she punched the button for the fifth floor, as he was reaching to grab her arm. As the elevator started upward, he repeated the question, more harshly this time.

Bertha looked down at the hand gripping her arm with disdain. She certainly wasn't used to people manhandling her and wasn't about to start now. She jerked her arm away and said with a grudge, “Man, I don't know what kind of women you're used to being around, and handling, but I ain't one of them.”

The grit on her face let him know that she meant what she said. Even though a stroke of anger glazed across his eyes, he didn't want to draw any more attention to himself. He laid off the gorilla tactics. For now anyway, he'd deal with her smart-mouthed ass later; that was for sure. He turned away from her and started tapping his foot to help control the rage that was boiling up in his gut. Bertha frowned for the entire ride up and
tssked
at him when she got out of the elevator, then headed down the corridor without saying another word.

He growled under his breath as his eyes followed her to the last room. At least she had left the door ajar. That cooled him down a tad. When he entered the room, she was nowhere in sight.
Bitch must've gone to the bathroom or something,
he thought right before the toilet flushed. He looked from the bathroom to the other side of the room where he saw Rose standing at the window, staring
into the horizon. He'd started toward her when his peripheral vision was drawn to the figure lying in the bed. Damn, the figure was kind of small, much too small to be Don. He was in a bit of a daze as he walked to the bed and then cocked his head toward Rose with a puzzled look on his face.

“Who in the hell is that, Rose?” he asked after he pulled the cover back and saw the face.

Rose hadn't heard him come in. She looked at him over her shoulder and squinted her eyes, momentarily astonished by his question.

“Whatcha mean who is that? You mean to tell me...” She caught herself before she could finish. Her eyes squinted when it dawned on her that there was a possibility that Al didn't even know JJ. “Damn, I assumed it was Don myself from the way Bertha reacted to that phone call.” Al probably wasn't even aware that JJ had been paid to try that sneak attack on Rainbow. She wondered where that nigga Percy was, his buddy on that lick.

Why am I even thinking about that punk?
Quickly shaking that thought away, her mind drifted to how she knew that she was under the radar as far as Don's business went with this nigga. She preferred to keep it that way.

“Excuse me, but you don't know this dude?” she inquired as she pointed to the bed.

He cocked a brow at her. “Of course I know JJ. I didn't recognize him at first but to tell you the truth, I thought you was talking about Don when you called. I wouldn't have...” He paused to take a deep breath. “Hell, I wouldn't have rushed all the way over here for that nigga there. He ain't nothing but a burned-out crackhead.” He turned away and muttered something to himself. She tilted her back and asked him what he had said.

He snorted before he turned back around. “I said I was thinking that Don had gotten fucked up and had fucked my money up and how I'd hate to fuck him up about my ends,” he said disgustedly as he spun away from her and left the room.

Luckily, he had left when he did, because he hadn't seen the stiletto that had slid into her hand. He had closed the door too fast on his exit. The stiletto had disappeared as quickly when Bertha came out of the bathroom and went to sit on the bed.

Rose watched her for a second and walked over to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don't worry about it, girlfriend. We'll get to the bottom of this before long. That Al's one coldhearted bastard.”

Bertha could only nod her head as the tears started rolling down her cheeks.
Damn, that's
both of her brothers getting fucked up in that
short a time,
Rose thought as she stood up and got ready to leave. She stroked Bertha's head gently. “You sure you're going to be all right, because I've got to handle some things.” She waited for her to nod that she'd be okay before she walked out of the room.

Rose intended to catch the elevator but it was taking too long, so she fast-stepped to the exit door and sprinted down the stairs. She really wanted to catch Al without anybody around to teach that nigga a lesson. Who did he think he was threatening to harm her baby? She'd show his ass what he could and couldn't do. By the time she got to the emergency room door, she saw his car leaving the parking area. She proceeded to her car plotting on how she was going to get him. She jumped into her car and sped out of the parking lot. As she pulled onto the street and headed for Peachtree, she began smiling as a plan started formulating in her mind.

The traffic was bumper to bumper along I-20 as Turner Field came into view. Rainbow checked on his boy ‘B' in the mirror. He was gnawing at what was left of his fingernails. Actually he was chewing on the meat under the skin that was under the skin. He had the bad habit of doing that whenever he was nervous about something—a habit that aggravated the hell out of Rainbow. “Damn, dude, when are you going to realize that you ain't had no nails on those rough-ass claws for centuries?” Rainbow said with a sneer.

‘B' ignored his ribbing and turned his finger around, trying to find any piece of skin hanging loose. There was none but he kept nibbling away anyhow.

“Come on, man, stop dat shit.” Rainbow shivered in disgust.

‘B''s eyes brightened mischievously knowing he was bugging the hell out of him. “Nigga, if you had been paying attention to what you was doing, you would've seen that you could've gotten off this busy bitch way back yonder.”

“Yeah, but I didn't, because I was trying to think about the best way to work that nigga Don into a position where we can handle his ass,” Rainbow snapped back at him.

A smiling ‘B' tapped Sparkle on the shoulder. “You hear that fool? Now he got some ESP shit going on.”

Sparkle rubbed a finger under his nose, gave a short snort of a laugh and cocked an eye across the seat at Rainbow. “Uh-huh, check him out, the great Hodinbow, magician at large.” He turned his attention to “B.” “Ain't that a bitch? Looks like he ready to do some hocus pocus on that nigga right now, but we need to just whack this fool any way we can.”

‘B' groaned, stuck his head out of the window and stretched his neck to see if he could see a crack in the traffic flow.

“That's the same thing I been telling this curly-head pretty boy all along,”
Sparkle added as he dipped his glass shooter into the bag of coke for the fourth time since they had left the Checker Club skin game in Ben Hill.

Not really giving a fuck how their silly asses were thinking, Rainbow caught ‘B''s eye in the mirror and then looked over at Sparkle, shook his head and retorted, “Because I don't wanna be hollering at y'all from down the tier on death row a year from now. You know, wondering how we could've done it without a hundred witnesses. That is if y'all two overhyped niggas don't mind.”

“Yeah, well, I tell ya what I mind. I mind that those girls are taking so long to pin that nigga down at a spot we can take his punk ass out. Makes me think that nigga flipping game on them hoes.” Sparkle clearly was not trying to hide his frustration.

‘B' snorted and shoved Rainbow's shoulder. “Listen to this nigga, dog, sounds like he got some player hating going on here, all jealous and shit. Yo reckon that's because Joyce said that nigga's shit be hanging to his knees got anything to do with it?”

Sparkled started to turn around to go off on him, but Rainbow jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right, causing him to lose his balance and slam into the door. He proceeded to veer to the right emergency lane and accelerated down the road despite the loud honking horn of several cars in protest. It included a police cruiser that was jammed between a SUV and a mobile home. And to add insult to ignorance, ‘B' and Sparkle waved at the astonished officer, whose head swirled all around anxiously when they zoomed by.

‘B' got all excited and started jumping around in the back seat as he screamed, “Dat's what I'm talking about, nigga! Sho some gangsta with yo sorry law-abiding ass.”

“Aw, fuck you, man, I'm tired of hearing your bitching,” Rainbow yelled back at him as he jetted to the East Lake Meadows exit and
streaked to Memorial Drive and then on to Candler Road. As they neared the intersection, Sparkle told him to pull over at the BP gas station. Rainbow waited until he had pulled in front of one of the pumps before he turned to face him while he was about to open the door. “Man, why you want to pull up here all of a sudden?”

“Ain't that the twins' Nissan over there at Joyce's and 'ems beauty shop?” Sparkle grunted as his eyes strained across the street.

Rainbow cocked his head to the side and strained at the car he was talking about before he nodded in agreement. “I believe that is their whip. Uh-huh, yeaah, that's they shit with them teddy bears in the back window.”

“Thought they was supposed to be pulling that nigga Don for the ambush,” ‘B' said as he leaned over the seat to get a better look himself.

“Hell, I thought they were, too. Then again they may be working together with that ho Joyce and they just touching bases. Then again they may be getting they wigs hooked up; you know how those women are about their hair, man,” Rainbow shot back and started rubbing his chin as he concentrated on the possibilities. He sat up straight in the seat and rolled his shoulders. He reached for the door handle. “In that case, we really need to holla at 'em because I don't like no bitch working beyond my instructions without letting me know about it.” He raised his knee to shove the door open, but Sparkle reached across the seat to grab his shoulder.