Candy Licker (9 page)

“Yeah?” Mama had a ritual. As soon as she made it to work each day she called her house and let Caramel know first, and
then she called me. I think she was happy to have an actual job and thrilled to be able to call her kids and say she was there.

Caramel went on. “Well, lately Mama been calling you from right here in this house. She's not working anymore, Candy. Her and Greasy been staying out all night and they don't even go out looking for jobs during the day.”

The only thing that saved me from falling was the fact that I was already sitting down. Mama must didn't understand who she was fuckin’ with. Those Gabrianos wouldn't hesitate to deal with me and her both. All I could think about was Mama and the money. The money and my mama. Either she'd gotten knocked or she'd fucked it up. Either way, we were both in trouble.

“Hurry up, I gotta piss!” some drunk heffah banged on the bathroom door.

I took a deep breath and tried to think. “Okay, Caramel,” I said, trying to stay calm, “you gotta listen to me and do exactly what I say. Cool?”

She sniffed through her tears and it killed me that me and Mama had made her jump into this dangerous trick bag with us. “Okay.”

“Keep the door locked and stay by the phone. Don't let nobody in the house, not even Greasy. The minute Mama calls, I want you to call me. If anybody else calls, just act like they dialed the wrong number and hang up, okay? I don't wanna scare you, Mellie, but if for some reason shit gets hot, then you gotta call the cops, okay? You gotta dial 911.”

Caramel started crying harder and that bitch on the other side of the bathroom door started banging harder.

“What the fuck is your problem!” I screamed, kicking at the door. And then to my baby sister, “No, Caramel, not you. Just some crackhead trying to get in this bathroom. Please, I'm not trying to scare you. Don't be scared. I just want you to know how to handle shit if something comes up. Just remember what I said and everything'll be straight. Mama's on her way, okay? I love you, Caramel. Call me every thirty minutes until she gets there.”

I dashed out the bathroom and went looking for Dom. She was on the dance floor shaking her ass. I searched for Vonnie too, but she was nowhere to be found. All of a sudden the music was too loud for me and my heart was beating too fast. I walked back to our booth and made myself sit down and take a bunch of deep breaths. The party was still live and the mood was high, but I was so nervous and stressed out all I could do was sit there shaking and praying that Mama would call and say the drop had been a success.

“Whattup, wifey?” Hurricane joked all sexy-like the next time he rolled past our table surrounded by his crew. I was sitting there biting my fake nails and gripping my cell phone in my hand. Hurricane looked so good standing there, so big and strong and powerful that I wanted to jump back into his arms and hide from the storm I felt coming.

Instead, I gave him a cute look and made myself smile. “I'm cool, baby. I'm just watching the drinks until my girls get back. The music is live, though.”

He nodded, searching my eyes, then turned away as a rapper named Thug-a-licious, who was also a recent number one NBA draft pick, interrupted us and pulled him away to introduce him to a wannabe rapper trying to get signed.

I was glad when they walked away. I was so worried about Mama till I didn't know what to do. I had no way to get in touch with her and I cursed myself out for not getting her that cell phone she wanted. If I didn't think she was ready for something small like a cell phone, then what in the world had made me think she could be trusted with the Gabriano money? The House of Homicide, I realized. I sat there breathing hard and gripping my phone, praying it would all be worth it.

Fifteen minutes later Vonnie and Dom weren't back. I was still sitting in the booth praying my phone would vibrate and it would be Caramel telling me that Mama had made it home. Instead, some thugged-out-looking ruffneck stepped up to the table, then looked down at me and stared.

“Hurricane want'chu.”

I gave him a look. “Who you?”

“Omar.”

I'd seen psycho dudes like him all over Harlem. He looked high as hell. Buggy too.

“Where is he?”

“You asking too many damn questions. The man said he want'chu. Step wit me.”

I tried to spot Dominica on the dance floor but she was in too deep. I walked behind him feeling creeped out. Omar was tall and slim, but nowhere near bony. He looked just like every other young head walking around the streets of Harlem until you looked in his eyes. There was nothing good in them.

I followed him up a flight of stairs I hadn't even noticed before. He walked me down an archway that stretched like a bridge high above the pit. Directly over the center of the pit was a small vestibule area where a big king's chair with a footstool covered
in red crushed velvet sat between two smaller, less-royal-looking chairs. We continued down the archway, and he led me down a narrow hall that had a bunch of closed doors.

“Go 'head in. It's the door on the right. He's waitin’ for ya.”

I stepped into a big room where wall-to-wall playas were gambling, playing pool, and shooting cee-low. Drinks was being served by big-hipped sistahs wearing thongs and high heels, and more than one head was bent over a table inhaling thin, neat lines of cocaine. I was standing there trying to take it all in when some huge, high-yellow brother with three necks and girlie hips walked up to me.

“You got the wrong room,” he said, trying to sound hard. But then somebody hollered, “She good, Butter,” and I heard my name called. Hurricane was sitting at a card table with two other men and a sistah wearing a pair of dark shades who looked a little older than him. He waved me over. They were talking shit and playing Spades, and when he patted his leg for me to sit down, I settled my ass down on his muscle-hard thigh.

“All right, y'all,” he said, rubbing my hip and thigh so that everybody could see him. “I got my good-luck charm with me now! Ain't gonna be no rise and fly on this side of the table so get ready to lose all your damn money!”

His partner groaned.

Hurricane laughed. “While you moaning, niggah, get your ass up!”

He patted me on the ass two times real quick. “Get up, Candy. Go take that fool's seat.”

They were playing sandbags and passing three and under. Each hand was worth a bill, and Hurricane put me in. The rules
were easy. If you got set, you lost your money and the other team won the pot. If both teams made their bid, the pot stayed on the table. Blinds started at seven, and if you or your partner got caught reneging y'all gave up the pot and paid an extra two bills to the other team.

I sat across from Hurricane and jammed my cell phone between my legs. He introduced me to the chick on my left.

“This my sister, Jadeah,” he said, shuffling like a Vegas shark. “Jadeah, this Candy. She's gonna be my wife.”

Jadeah picked up her cards one by one. She turned to me. “Your wife, huh? Go 'head with it. I saw her in the pit. Making herself known.” Then she cracked a little smile. “Nice to meet you, Candy. You must be pretty hot 'cause my brother don't be taking too many wives.”

I recognized Jadeah's partner as a West Coast rapper named Mo’ Troubles. He'd been on the underground for a while and had just got his first legitimate single released.

“How many you got?” Hurricane asked, studying his hand.

I counted. “Three and a possible.”

“Can you pass?”

I shook my head. “Nah.”

“Damn!” he cursed. “We shoulda took a blind. Okay,” he told Jadeah, “give us a eight.”

I kept squeezing my cell phone between my thighs, waiting for Caramel to call, and when the phone finally did vibrate it scared me so bad I dropped half of my cards trying to get to it. Mama's number was on the caller ID, but before I could click it on, Hurricane lunged across the table and bitch-smacked the phone clear out my hand.

“No fuckin’ phones up here!”

I froze, then looked down at my cell laying on the floor. The entire faceplate had come off and it wasn't ringing no more.

“Well damn,” Jadeah said, still studying her cards. “The girl didn't know. Omar should've told her. C'mon, Junius. It's your play.”

Hurricane played the ace of diamonds and Mo’ Troubles leaned over and scooped the cell phone up off the floor. He clicked the faceplate over it and passed it back to me.

“Turn it off,” Hurricane demanded.

I did. I was so shook and distracted that I played out of turn once, slept a book twice, and almost reneged too. All that sweet shit Hurricane had been dropping on me went out the window. He got mad like we was playing for millions and started slamming his cards on the table all crazy. His sister gave him a chill-the-fuck-out look and he calmed down a little bit, but he didn't want me to be his partner no more.

“Yo, baby,” he told me, shaking his head. “You got to go.” He looked around the room then hollered, “Yo, Knowledge! C'mere!” Then to me: “Get up, shawty and let my man sit down. This here is money we working with. You gone need a little more practice before you get back at my table.”

I knew how to play Spades better than I had shown him, but I got up gladly. My mind just wasn't on no damn card game. It was way over on the West Coast in a city called L.A., worrying about my mother and waiting for my little sister to call.

The guy Knowledge came up and dapped Hurricane's fist, then sat in my seat. He had smooth chocolate skin and clear brown eyes. His gear was expensive and pressed, but nowhere near flashy.

“What's up?” He nodded at Mo’ Troubles. Then he leaned over and kissed Jadeah on the cheek and looked from her to me and asked, “How my sisters doing?”

Jadeah patted his back like he was her little brother. “Good, baby.”

“I'm good,” I said quietly.

Jadeah started shuffling the cards.

“Knowledge,” he said, holding out his hand to me. One of his fingers was missing.

I glanced at Hurricane then shook it for just a second. “Candy.”

“Cool,” he said, picking up his cards and setting up his hand. “Cool.”

W
e left the House of Homicide at 6:00
A.M.
and decided to go to Vonnie's place for the night since her sugar daddy was locked up and she had the most room. I'd seen all kinds of stuff transpiring at the House, and my head was swimming from the size of Hurricane's operation. I'd found out from nosey Vonnie that he washed West Coast money through legitimate businesses, but here on the East Coast he was a straight baller. He controlled his gambling and drug operations from the upstairs rooms, and there was porno filming, dick sucking, and all-night fucking going on downstairs.

My girls were amped about me and Hurricane hooking up. I told them all about the finger fuck he gave me on the dance floor. Dominica gave me a sick look and called me a cheap ho, but Vonnie gave me big props and said I should have slurped his dick down while I was at it so we all coulda got paid out the ass.

“Now, Candy,” Dominica said, talking to me like I was a little kid, “we do not let men treat us like chickenheads on the
first date, remember? They are
not
entitled to the poon-poon just because they have mad dollars. If we expect the hustlers and Hurricanes of the world to respect us and treat us like talented, independent sistahs, we can't be grinding our pussies all over their fingers in public.”

Vonnie laughed. “And why the hell not? Candy ain't no real baller catcher. Ain't no way I woulda let no playa get up in my na-na and make me lose it like that on the dance floor. I woulda had his dick so far down my throat he'da been calling for the fire department to come get it out. And then he woulda been paying me cash money to do it all over again!”

I loved my girls, but even their craziness didn't help me relax. Mama wasn't back yet and that didn't make sense to me. Caramel had called me four times in the past two hours. My phone had lit up and vibrated every thirty minutes just like I'd told her, the last time just as we got in the taxi to come to Von-nie's place. But now the calls had stopped. If I thought I was worried before, I was close to cracking up now.

Dom said she was hungry, and Vonnie went in the back to take off her skirt. I was sitting cross-legged on her living room floor hitting speed dial every fifteen seconds and trying not to flip the fuck out when Dominica came out the kitchen eating an apple.

She raised her eyebrow when she saw the look on my face. “What's wrong?” She frowned. “Don't tell me Hurricane's sticky fingers got you calling his ass for some more.”

I had taken off my shoes and shirt, but now I got up off the floor and started putting my shit back on.

“Something ain't right, Dom. I can't reach Caramel, and she's supposed to be waiting by the phone.” I went in the kitchen
and got the number for the White Diamond Cab Company off the refrigerator and dialed it. The dispatcher popped her gum all in my ear, then finally told me to be outside in ten minutes.

“But where's your mother?” Dominica asked, setting her apple down on the table and coming toward me with worry in her eyes. “She did you that solid, right? Everything went cool with the drop, didn't it?”

I was so shook I couldn't even talk about Mama. By now it was becoming probable that she'd dipped with the Gabriano cash, and somebody was gonna have to pay.

I slipped into my heels and made sure I had everything I needed in my purse. I'd get my ticket changed at the airport. Fuck my suitcase that was still at Dom's place, fuck last night's little hot hoochie ho shorts I still had on too. I needed to get back to L.A. and find out where Mama and Caramel were before Nicky got suspicious about the drop and put us all in the ground.

“I'm out, Dom,” I said, pushing past her on my way toward the door. “I'm going back to L.A. I'll call you when I get a minute.”

I was almost out the door when Vonzelle came out the bathroom wearing just her bra and a skimpy thong. “Where the hell you going, Candy?” she hollered.

I didn't even turn around.

She ran out in the hallway half naked and leaned over the banister as my shoes click-clicked down the steps. “Bitch, don't you walk outta here! Hurricane wants all three of us to be in that pit at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon!”