Candy Licker (12 page)

My room wasn't bigger than a minute, and it didn't take them long to find me. One of them flipped the whole damn bed over while the other one dragged me by my feet across the floor. They started giving me man-blows. I got punched in the
face and I felt my nose explode. Blood went everywhere, choking me as it gurgled in my throat.

I tried to scream but only managed to cough. They were kicking me like a football, back and forth between them, banging my ribs and stomping their feet up in my lower back. One of them grabbed me by the neck and flung me into the dresser so hard I cracked my face on the wood and howled, holding my jaw.
Yeah
, I thought, fighting to stay alive through the punches and the pain.
These are Nicky's boys all right.
I could tell by the way they beat me and the shit they talked. This ass-kicking wasn't business. It was strictly personal, and all I could do was close my eyes, roll up in the fetal position, and pray I'd die fast.

They beat my ass unconscious, and when I opened my eyes again I was surrounded by darkness and my arms were throbbing with pain. My hands were tied behind me and I was under a blanket or something. I was moving too. In a small tight space, the trunk of a car. I tried to scream but realized there was tape across my mouth. Kicking a taillight out wasn't gonna happen. I couldn't see shit, and plus my feet felt like they were tied together at the ankles.

I couldn't even think I was so scared and in so much pain. I started praying, talking to God, Mama, and Caramel all at the same time. Minutes later the car lurched hard to the right like it was skidding off the road. I slid with the momentum and cracked my head up against something hard. The car slowed down and I braced myself as we rolled to a quick stop.

Doors opened and then slammed shut, and a moment later I heard loud voices. Men talking. Arguing. And then the trunk popped opened and cool air rushed in. Somebody pulled the
blanket off me, and if my mouth wasn't taped shut it would have fell the hell open.

“This you?” I stared at the Italian guy standing over me. His fat behind was the one who had kicked me all up my ass, and if my feet wasn't tied together I'da punted him straight in his dick.

The man he was talking to nodded. “That's right, Victor. This is
me.
You heard what the fuck Nicky said on the phone just now. I'm pulling in a favor from an old friend.”

“Okay.” Victor shrugged. “You can have the bitch. But remember, if you ever take your hands off her, she's ours again.”

Seconds later the tape was ripped off my mouth, and my arms and legs were freed. I was helped out of the trunk, and I hobbled into the sports car that looked like it had forced the Italians off the road. My aching ass felt like it was being cradled in warm cotton as I sank back into the plush leather seats.

“Thanks,” I whispered as tears filled my swollen eyes.

Hurricane Jackson just looked over at me and nodded.

H
urricane took me to his place and let me heal for about a week. He had a condo in La Brea, and I chilled and laid low there while he handled his West Coast business with them same Italians who had almost killed me. Every morning he brought me doughnuts or scrambled me some eggs, then had one of his boys drop me off at the hospital where I stayed next to Caramel's bed until late at night. He didn't try to sex me once. In fact, he didn't even stay in the same room with me. He said I needed time to heal and he didn't want to mess with that.

I looked ten times worse than my sister did and couldn't sit down without a pillow, and when the cop who was guarding her saw all my bruises he called his sergeant and blabbed his damn mouth. The cops were back in my face in less than an hour. They wanted to know who kicked my ass, where I was living, and if I would come down to the station and look at some mug shots.

You know what I told them. I was in the wrong place at the
wrong time and got jumped by a gang of bitches who were banging. They stole me from behind, so I never saw their faces. Mug shots? Like I said, I never saw who hit me so there wasn't no need in wasting their time.

Caramel's doctors said her condition was stable. She'd gotten away with just a deep graze, and they said the only thing she might suffer was some short-term memory loss. She'd told them she didn't even remember getting shot, and she was mad at me 'cause the whole thing had gone down in the first place. She was gonna be discharged from the hospital in a few days, but I didn't have anywhere to take her when she was released. Going back to my place was totally out, and Mama's place was still a crime scene.

Hurricane was pressed to get back to Harlem to meet with some producers for an upcoming video shoot, and he said I had to roll out with him. “You heard what the man said, Candy. I gotta keep you close, girl. If they find out you walking with no protection, they'll kill you.”

The only way he could get me to agree to leave my sister was to hire a nurse to fly back to New York with Caramel as soon as she was discharged and cleared by the doctor.

“Don't stress nothing,” he told me. “Your sister can stay with us. We got plenty of room where I rest.”

I hated to leave Caramel alone, even for a few days, but she seemed to understand what was up and I really didn't have no other choice. It was either do things the way Hurricane said or die a hardhead's death.

I did what I had to do.

T
he next morning we caught a flight back to New York. Hurricane had a white Jaguar waiting at the airport that was driven by some guy Vonnie was fucking named Quadir. The whip was phat as hell, and any other time I would have been memorizing every detail so I could brag on it to Dom, but so much had happened over the last two weeks that I couldn't relax enough to enjoy it at all. The only thing that mattered to me was that in a few days my baby sister would be coming back to Harlem to live large with Hurricane and me.

Even though my short-term problems—like Caramel, a crib, and some pocket change—had been solved, all kinds of other issues were running through my head as we drove through Queens and out to Long Island. It was a relief to be safe from the Gabrianos, and I wanted to prove to Hurricane that his decision to snatch me and Caramel out of L.A. was the right one. We'd talked on the airplane and he told me how Vonnie had run my whole situation down to him.

“It's fucked up what happened to your people,” he said. I was looking out the window and thinking that out of all the trips I'd taken as a mule, this was my first time traveling in first class. Hurricane was drinking his ass off and had them ditzy little flight attendants running back and forth and getting him ice, crackers, you name it.

“But that's how it goes in this hustle,” he was saying. “You was a little girl playing stupid games with a lot of big boys, Candy. That was a lot of money your mother tried to hustle off. You lucky Nicky's my nuccah and I got to him in time. You was almost out.”

“Well, thanks for looking out for me and Caramel,” I said,
not knowing what else to say. “I just don't know what I can do to pay you back on that kind of solid.”

“Oh, you gone pay me back,” he laughed, shrugging his big shoulders and snapping his fingers so they could bring him another drink. “Believe that.” Then he looked at me and laughed again. “Them Italians add mad interest to their debts, little girl. There ain't no ceiling on what they can ask for, and they asked a whole lot for you. But it's all good. You mine now, and me and you gone do a lot of shit for each other, ya know? You, sexy Candy, are gonna ring me up a whole lotta money. And I”—he took a big swallow of cognac—“am gonna take care of you and make you a hot new star.”

I didn't have no complaints about being a star or about being his. Big Money Cane was talking just the kind of noise that I wanted to hear, and any way he wanted things to roll was good with me. Mama had taught me to think on the move, and I was impressed by getting claimed by a baller like him. Hurricane Jackson could have had any female he wanted. Three and four of them at a time if he wanted them that way. Knowing that he'd hopped on a plane because he wanted to help me and my sister out and then hearing him make a promise to launch and back my singing career let me know my future was set.

We got to Long Island and slid up in front of a house that was bigger than some of the office buildings I'd seen in the city. The crib was a mansion for real, all on one level and with three different wings and an intercom system that ran throughout the whole thing. The bushes and shrubs were trimmed so tight I thought somebody had gotten out there with a nail scissor. There was an inground swimming pool off to one side and a basketball court and two tennis courts on the other. Mad expensive
cars were lined up near the garage, and a huge onyx sculpture of a dragon stood guarding the doorway.

Hurricane took me inside to introduce me to his posse, the crew that was closest to him and had his utmost trust. Five of his most loyal soldiers lived with him in the house, and four of them had girlfriends who were known in the industry as “housewives.”

The mansion had fireplaces and smoked marble floors and every imaginable comfort you could want. There were mad corridors, and it felt like we walked at least a mile before Hurricane opened a door on one of the family rooms and introduced me to a pretty, light-skinned sister with long curly hair who was bent over a sewing machine. I couldn't tell what she was making, but she was wearing designer everything. Crazy jewels dripped from her neck and her fingers were rocked out.

“Candy, Fatima. Fatima, Candy.” Then he turned to me. “I got some business to see about. Teema'll take you around to meet everybody and help get you set up straight.”

I saw surprise in her eyes as she looked me over real quick. I wondered if I passed her little test because she still looked shocked as she turned to Hurricane and said, “Where you want me to put her, Cane? In that empty room on the right?”

Hurricane laughed, then reached out and touched my hair. “Nah, baby. This me. Her sister's shit can go on the right when it gets here, but put her fine red ass dead in the middle.”

T
eema waited until Hurricane walked out then got up in my face and said, “So what did you do?” “What?”

She waved her hand like,
Bitch, please. You know what I'm talking about.

“What you say your name was again?”

“Candy”

“Oh, okay, Candy. So how'd you hook Cane?”

I just looked at her, wondering what her game was and why she was here. She had a big ass and a tight waist, but she seemed too together-looking to be a video ho. “I didn't know he was hooked. Thanks for the 411.”

She bust out laughing. “Girl you good. I'm just tripping. It's been a long time since we put somebody in the middle. Wait till I tell Sissy. I hope you last longer than the other one did, though, 'cause that stuck-up bitch couldn't hang for more than a month.”

She took me through the front of the house into a huge kitchen that had two stoves and one of those industrial-looking refrigerators. “This right here”—she opened it up and all I saw was Colt 45s, frozen pizza, buffalo wings, and Bulls—“is ours. That one over there”—she pointed toward a smaller fridge, and when she opened it there was fresh fruit, vegetables, bottled water, yogurt, and milk—“belongs to Cane. I was gonna say don't touch his shit, but since he said to put you in the middle maybe you got it like that.”

I found out later that there were two maids who cleaned the mansion and shopped for food and a Mexican guy who took care of the big-ass lawn and maintained the pool. I also found out that the middle of the house was the part of the mansion that Hurricane had all to himself. There was his big-ass bedroom, two guest rooms, three bathrooms, a weight room, and a small kitchenette. The left side of the house was where Teema and I had just come from. Over there I had seen three big suites
that were laid out like separate apartments. Teema stayed in one of the larger suites with her man, Joog, and Butter, the brother in charge of Hurricane's gambling operation, lived on that end with his woman too. Butter's woman had recently had a baby and he'd sent her to Detroit to stay with her mama 'cause he said she wasn't acting right. Some guy named Vince stayed in the last suite with his housewife, Sissy, who Teema said was busy watching a movie.