The Plug's Wife (9 page)

“I promise you, I will,” Summer assured Cardinale while Mitch broodingly looked on.

“The cost of the lost shipment is two million.  I will take it in cash or you can adjust prices of the next consignment to make up for it.  Either way you chose to do it, I don’t care.  Just know that I need to be made whole.  That is how this business works.”

Before he hobbled off, Cardinale turned his watery gaze towards Mitch. 

“Teach her well and do right by her.  Maybe, one day, you’ll even be able to earn my trust.”

Chapter 7
Blood Brothers

It was eerily silent on the way back to Mitch’s car.  Mitch sucked in his bottom lip and shoved his hands deep into the pocket of his pants.  It was all he could do to keep himself from putting his hands around Summer’s neck and squeezing until she passed out. 

Summer’s insides quaked. 
Two million dollars! Frozen account! I couldn’t even pay my mortgage!

Summer knew her survival in this new endeavor as boss depended fully on Mitch’s mentoring.  She had to keep the lines of communication between her and Mitch open.  Summer didn’t know the first thing about drug shipments, kilos versus bricks, consignment, distribution and percentages.  Summer needed to get humble quick or she’d be in big trouble.  She was good at putting herself in a means-to-an-end mindset; right now, Mitch was her means-to-an-end. 

Swallowing hard and putting her usually stubborn pride aside, Summer reached out and grabbed Mitch’s arm.  He bladed his body towards her, his fists clenched at the ready.  Summer took a few steps back.

“Look, I didn’t expect things to go like that.  I had no control over how he wanted to proceed with JB’s business.  Mitch, trust me, we are in this together.  I need you now just as much as you need me.  You have my word,” Summer told him in her sincerest voice. 

Mitch’s jaw loosened and his eyes softened as the elevator doors dinged open.  He wanted to laugh out loud.  Mitch knew he held all the cards because if he told her to fuck off, she’d be screwed and so would Cardinale.  Mitch also knew that he would be screwed too, which made his decision to go along with the plan a bit easier. 

“Just never say I didn’t warn you before you jumped off the side of the building into this shark tank.  It ain’t no place for a man, much less a woman.  Once you’re in, you can’t ever get out, unless you go out the way JB did.” Mitch stalked towards the exit.  Summer followed closely behind.

Once inside the car, Summer reached down with a shaky hand and turned his music off.  Mitch’s eyebrows shot up. 

“You know, we’ve never really gotten a chance to know one another.  We will be stuck together like glue now, so I think now is that time,” Summer said softly.  She needed to butter him up a bit and if Jesse was his weak spot, she would exploit that.  There was something missing still and Summer had a feeling that Mitch had the answers to some of her unanswered questions.  Maybe even the answer to who killed Jesse.

Mitch rocked forward as he contemplated her request.  A part of him didn’t want to share anything with Summer.  His life was his business.  Another part of him wanted her to know who her man Jesse Banks really was since she had been duped like everyone else into thinking Jesse was born a drug kingpin.  With one hand on the steering wheel, Mitch thought about Jesse, his brother from another mother.

“We met as youngins in fifth grade.  We was total opposites.  Thinking back, maybe that’s why our friendship just worked from day one.  JB was always that cool, handsome, smooth dressing popular kid.  Everybody liked him and he always had the best of everything—clothes, sneakers, girls, clout.  We got close after he saved me from the worse ass whooping of my life.  After that, we became inseparable, like real blood brothers.  I could never forget the day.  It was hot as shit outside, towards the end of the school year.  This kid we called Bert the Beast fucked kids up on the daily.  Rumor was he had actually been held back three years in a row.  He towered over us kids and even some of the teachers.  Bert wasn’t just a typical bully—he was a fucking menace to society.  Teachers and the principal were scared of his ass.  So one Friday afternoon, JB found Bert and his crew fucking with me.  He and his crew had stolen my book bag and thrown it over a fence into a vacant lot.  One kid pushed me to the ground and Bert was moving in for the kill with this knuckle cover he made out of thick, silver electrical tape.  I was ready to shit my pants because the week before I had seen Bert bust another kid’s whole snot box with that homemade shit.  So there I was, cowering on the ground and waiting for my jaw to break when JB came out of nowhere. 

‘Why the fuck ya’ll don’t mess with dudes your own age and size?’  JB barked. 

I was surprised as shit.  JB had stepped up like a man to the whole crew of them.  Bert immediately turned his sights on JB. 

‘Fuck you talkin’ too nigga?’ Bert had growled.  I didn’t know it at the time, but JB hated when black kids called each other nigga.  He never said the word even in jokes.  When Bert moved in on him, JB pulled his arm from behind his back and WHAM!  He clocked that dude Bert with a big ass brick.  Bert’s fat ass dropped in less than 3 seconds. 

‘Who else want some?’ JB asked.  Nobody responded, of course.  Bert’s crew scattered like roaches.  They knew that they wasn’t shit without their leader.  I watched in shock and admiration as JB walked over to me, gave me a hand getting up off the ground.  Jesse had a lot of friends, but he was my only friend in elementary school. 

Kids always teased me about my big flat nose and hazel eyes. The chicks like all these features now, but not back then.  I was referred to evil eyes and devil eyes by the cruel kids at school.  I had really low self-esteem back then, but Jesse always made me feel good about myself,” Mitch reflected.  A small smile parted his lips as he went back in time.  It had been a while since he thought of his childhood. If only his life were that simple right now.

“Yo, you would never know it now, but I was broke as shit growing up.  Never had a hair cut.  My clothes were all raggedy.  Forget about sneakers and shoes. I wore my shits until the rubber soles were flapping my shits was talking.  You know my childhood was the same hood damn story.  JB had his mother. Me, I had nobody.  No father.  My mother was always running after dope.  She ain’t give a shit about me.  She had a high priced heroin habit that took her away from home more than she was there.  I have four sisters, but back then with no mother to guide them, they were out in the projects like squirrels trying to get a nut if you get what I’m saying,” Mitch looked over at Summer knowingly.  She nodded.  She could only imagine what he meant. 

“Ok, so you grew up with JB, but how did you end up in this business?” Summer egged him on. 

“JB was my best friend, but there was certain aspects of our lives that I just couldn’t fuck with him on. Nobody could even hold a match to JB in certain areas.  He was always smart—real book smart and street smart.  Me, I had survival skills, but I had basically dropped out of school in eighth grade.  I mean that’s when I stopped learning.  It was right when my moms habit changed from heroin to crack and stopped giving a shit about me.  I went to school everyday, but I could hardly read and write.  Year after year the teachers just passed me to the next grade.  I went to school to get the free breakfast and lunch until I was old enough to fend for myself on the streets.  That wasn’t the case with JB. He was always explaining stuff to dudes on the street real analytical-like.  JB read a lot of books, even them boring ass textbooks.  As we got older, JB went to school, got his education and played the middle.  He played the middle so well that he was able to have the best of both worlds.  JB lived like a lame by day and then turned around by night and lived like the most on-it street motherfucker out.  He worked on Wall Street with a suit and tie on, but would come home and hang on the block with us cats that wasn’t fuckin’ with the white man’s world. 

When we started dabbling in the business, most of us was on the corner.  Our customers were our own people—somebody’s mother or somebody’s deadbeat ass father.  We sold to our own with no qualms about it.  It was survival of the fittest out there.  That’s how it was for me, but not for JB.  JB started out from the gate as the dealer to the rich.  I mean that dude would make a grip daily just off two or three of his Wall Street customers.  I couldn’t believe it when he told me those suit and tie wearing motherfuckers was getting lit just as much as the fiends around the way.  People see neighborhood fiends as the poster children for drug addicts. Let me tell you, that shit be hitting them rich white folks just as bad.  It’s a little different, but really all the same.  The only difference between us and them was they had way more money to spend, which also meant; JB had way more money to make.  For us on the hood corners, our biggest paydays came on welfare and SSI check day.  JB ain’t have to wait for the first and fifteenth of the month to make his paper.  He was making it daily, round the clock, and those white motherfuckers ain’t even have to leave their desks.  JB was hitting them off with that eighty-percent pure white at the time.  He only cut it enough that those stupid motherfuckers wouldn’t OD right at their desks.  It was the top of the line shit, and they were taking hits right at work.  They had their dealer on hand all day, then they would get them a package to take home so they could deal with their annoying ass wives who sat home getting fat while they worked their asses off. 

JB told me how word of mouth about him spread down Wall Street like a fucking plague.  Them white boys loved him.  He charged top dollar and for the convenience of having their dealer deliver, they paid whatever JB asked.  If they ain’t have the money, JB made deals.  Big deals.  I remember one time while we were all on the corner selling nicks and dimes, JB rolled around the way in a top of the line silver Jaguar convertible.  That shit was sweet as pure sugar.  A young dude driving a car like that around where we came from was like having Jesus Christ in the middle of the hood with a fist full of dollars.  JB was like a celebrity, except he was still down to earth. 

Later on, JB told me that he had traded some blow for the car.  That’s how good his product was, those suits gave away their cars, Rolex watches, access to expense accounts and even platinum wedding bands, to get some of what JB was holding.

“So how did he get a hold of the blow to begin with? Who was his supplier?” Summer asked, intrigued by this other side of Jesse.

JB never talked about where he got his product from and I never asked.  He would hit me off with enough of the pure to cook up my rocks.  His product was so good that it only took a little to make what I was putting out there.  Even with me breaking it all the way down and cutting it with anything I could find, people loved my shit.  My customers couldn’t afford JB’s product.  But for one small hit at a time, but they always came back.  I was happy with JB’s prices and I was making money. 

After a few years, JB told me those cats down there at some investment firm he serviced had taken ten thousand of his dirty money, invested it in some stocks and JB was holding three hundred thousand before he knew it.  He asked me if I wanted in.  JB called it the white boy flip.  He said it was the same as somebody giving one of us a few bucks to flip for them on the street.  Dumbass me, I said no.  I was still on that stash my money in shoeboxes mentality.  I didn’t know shit about no stock market, and I didn’t trust no white boy with my money and plus, I was happy living hood rich.  I was making close to a stack a day and that was good enough for the child of a dope fiend who never had shit in his life.  No longer was I the nappy headed, flat nosed kid.  I had respect from dudes and chicks at the same damn time.  Shit, I had more chicks than I knew what to do with. 

Even as I saw JB making more money with that stock market flip, I still didn’t latch on.  I wanted to build my own shit.  I got a few little dudes to work for me and I was in charge of my own destiny.  I was a boss in my own right.  He told me it was a mistake to trust those young kids to work for me, but I told him to fuck off.  ‘Stick to smiling in those white boy’s faces like sambo the drug dealing slave.  Let me stick to this street shit you ain’t got a clue about,’ I said to JB during one of our arguments.  He never asked me to invest with him after that.” Mitch’s voice was full of regret. 

His mood swung like a pendulum from happy to sad to angry as he recalled the two very separate paths his and Jesse’s lives had taken. 

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, or so they say.”  Summer almost felt sorry for Mitch.

“Did I regret not fucking with JB on the white boy flip?  Hell yeah, but it wasn’t until years later. I can admit, I was pig headed and didn’t follow his advice.  When he was banking in that Wall Street money at twenty-two years old, I was just buying my first car—a gold Lexus, all kitted out.  JB said I should invest and buy the car later, but I wanted my flashy car and clothes.”

Mitch was so engrossed in his story he almost ran a red light.  Summer screeched just in time to get him to stop.  Summer felt like a therapist listening to a patient. Mitch apparently had a lot to get off his chest.

“JB’s first business was a sports bar called Brooklyn Grill and Sports right there on Myrtle Avenue.  The first night of business everybody ate and drank for free.  I couldn’t believe how much money was going out the door.  But that method in the hood worked like a fuckin’ charm.  From that day forward, JB had loyal customers.  The place was always packed even on the nights there were no big sports events.  That same month things went to shit for me.  I got caught up in a sweep on the street.  Even though I had eased off the hand-to-hand sales, I had a few kids still working for me.  I had customers all the way from the Bronx and upstate buying weight from me.  JB was still giving me the good wholesale prices so I was making it work for me.  I even had bitches riding dirty down I-95 on some transport shit.  Down south, I could charge double for a few ounces.  Money was coming in like rain. 

But, you know Murphy’s Law—what can go wrong, will go wrong.  My reign at the top of the street game didn’t last long.  One of my workers got knocked and started singing to the narcos like his fucking name was Billie Holiday.  He told them all about me pushing weight, about the re-up spots, and about the blocks I was holding down.  A few days after he disappeared, I ended up walking right into a narco trap.  I got snatched up like a fucking insect in a spider web.  JB was the only person I reached out to at the time.  I was up shits creek with no ass paddle.  JB never visited me but he sent a top-notch team of lawyers to work on my case.  I was on the inside going crazy thinking that JB had turned his back on me until them fucking lawyers showed up, sharp as shit ready to get me out of there.