Cartier Cartel (3 page)

Cartier watched as Dip grabbed one item each of the new Gucci summer
white line in Bergdorf Goodman's. Dip loved to take Cartier into the large,
ornate store because Cartier had the most heart. She was fearless and would
run, fight, and maneuver her way out of the store with the merchandise if need
be. Bergdorf was the type of establishment that relied on their surveillance
cameras. You had to be swift and stoic in order to evade the security system
or guards. The security guards who worked the exits were diehard enthusiasts
who loved busting thieves.

Inside the store, Cartier and Dip pretended to be strangers. Cartier's role
was to peruse the aisles and not touch anything that would cause the sales
associates to take notice of her. A skilled booster had to be unassuming and
invisible while standing in front of a store employee. Your biggest job was to
go undetected.

Cartier walked past a dress that she had seen the week prior. The price tag
was $2,299. Then, Dip had promised to put it in the bag for Cartier. She didn't
do it. And it appeared to Cartier that Dip wasn't going to steal the dress this
week either. For some reason, Dip only wanted the girls to dress in jeans and sportswear, while she dressed in the high-end fashions. Cartier and her crew
were inundated with Guess, BCBG, Juicy Couture, DKNY, and bebe, while
Dip gravitated toward Cavalli, von Furstenburg, Moschino, and Gucci.

Cartier observed Dip go to a table and pick up three pairs of Versace
jeans. Cartier knew she and her crew would be given those as consolation
for today's work. She was furious. The Cartel had more Versace jeans in all
flavors than they could wear. What the fuck was Dip thinking? Cartier gave
Dip a signal and pointed toward the dress. Dip grimaced in disapproval. She
frowned and her forehead creased. Cartier watched in horror as Dip stuffed
a large shopping bag minus the dress Cartier so desperately wanted. At first,
when Dip placed the bag underneath a rack of clothes and gave Cartier the
head nod to go and retrieve it, she hesitated. Cartier wanted to tell Dip to
take the fucking bag and shove it up her ass, but she held her tongue. She
watched as Dip headed down the escalator, making her way out the store.

Cartier looked around and all was quiet. Slowly, she walked over to the
clothes rack and peered down at the neatly packed, large shopping bag. Her
eyes darted around the area and all was quiet. Cartier gripped the heavy bag
and made her way toward the elevators. When the doors flung open, there was
an undercover detective inside and she clearly heard his conversation over
the radio. The male's voice on the other end excitedly shot off a description
of a black female known for stealing. Cartier knew the description was Dip's.
The voice informed the undercover detective of Dip's location on the second
floor, in the shoe department. The commanding voice also emphasized to his
fellow detective to be on high alert. The detective never glanced at Cartier,
whose heart was in her throat by now.

As Cartier was getting off the elevator, making her way toward the exit,
she knew what she had to do. But the decision she'd make would solely
depend on whether Dip was a team player or not.

Back at the car, she hipped the girls to her plan. At first, they resisted, but
since Cartier was the leader of the Cartel, they knew they had to follow her lead. In the close quarters of the SUV, the girls waited patiently for Dip to
come back so they could continue shopping.

When the undercover detectives spotted Shorty Dip, her hands were
buried deeply in her coat pockets as she walked briskly down the block toward
the car. Dip was on point, continually looking over her shoulder to see if she
were being followed. It wasn't uncommon for store-employed detectives to
follow known boosters from the store to their cars. Sometimes they would
get lucky and catch the boosters with merchandise from numerous stores.

To be safe, Dip usually parked blocks from the store they would hit.

As Dip got closer to the SUV, her eyes searched the car to see if Cartier
was safely inside. When she spotted Cartier, she exhaled.

"Girl, it was so hot in there," Dip began. "I didn't know if you got
knocked."

"Nah, I was straight. But they were looking for you."

"Yeah, they found me, but there wasn't shit they could do but escort me
out because I didn't have shit"

"They walked you to the door?"

"They sure did"

"That's embarrassing," Monya commented. "I hate when they do that
stupid shit:'

"I don't give a fuck," Dip replied. "They can walk me from here to
Brooklyn as long as I got their shit. We G'd off in that motherfucker."

Unable to contain the excitement she felt about getting the new Gucci
line, Dip grabbed the bag and began pulling out the garments. Although she
didn't say anything, in fear the girls would start to finally wise up and realize
she kept all the good quality clothes for herself, the expression on her face
was priceless.

Cartier began, "Did you get me that dress I wanted?"

"What dress?" Dip was a bad actor Cartier surmised.

"The dress that I pointed to inside the store?"

Dip shrugged. "Oh my God, I didn't know you wanted that dress. Why
didn't you say something? It would have taken two seconds to put it in the
bag."

"What do you mean why didn't I say something? You knew I wanted that
dress last week and I reminded you again today!"

"All I had on my mind was getting y'all these fly-ass jeans." Dip pulled out
the three pairs of Versace jeans. It was beyond her that four girls were in the
SUV. "I should have gotten myself a pair too. Y'all gonna be some fly bitches.
Don't nobody have these."

"That's'cause nobodywants them!" Cartier blurted out and then reminded
herself that she needed to chill in order for the plan to go accordingly. She
had recently made it a point to be a better leader, definitely a better leader
than Dip.

"Look, calm down with all that fucking yelling!" Dip responded. "I
always get y'all what the fuck you ask for. In that store it's different. You see
how they be on my ass up in there. My time is limited and I don't have time to
linger. If I sleep, then, we get nothing. I only have a matter of minutes in any
department before they call the Ds on me, so I don't have time to decipher
hand and head movements. Next we about to go to Macy's, and I won't get
shit. I'll pick out a whole bag for just you girls"

Cartier couldn't believe how selfish and greedy Dip was. Macy's had
the bullshit and she knew it. Cartier knew that in Macy's they'd be walking
out with Guess and Mudd jeans. Instead of flipping out, she said, "Are you
serious? You're gonna dedicate a whole bag just for us?"

"Yeah, I'm serious," Dip replied. "That's because I'm not a selfish bitch.
This shit don't mean nothing to me. I'm the flyest bitch in Brooklyn. I don't
have shit to prove to these hoes. They all know what time it is. I got so much
shit in my closets I can't even close the doors. I'm not greedy at all."

"Well, who's going to go in with you?" Cartier asked.

Dip thought for a moment. "I think I'll take in Bam. She has the perfect look for Macy's " Dip always mentioned that Bam was really of no use other
than a low end store like Macy's. No matter how you tried to clean her up,
there was something deceptive looking about her. She was dusty looking and
only good for crowded, affordable department stores.

"That's what's up," Bam acknowledged.

"You know what?" Cartier began. "I think you should go up first and let
Bam wait around ten minutes, and then meet you up there. That way if the
Ds are on to you, Bam won't get knocked. Macy's Ds are a lot smarter than
Bergdorf's, and they are on to the whole decoy thing. What do you think?"

Dip hesitated for a moment. She was torn between cursing out Cartier
for trying to dictate the next move and also thinking about the household
goods she was going to steal for her new apartment. Dip didn't have any
intentions of packing one bag of shit for them. She was going to have Bam's
stupid ass walk out with two stuffed shopping bags, most of which would
contain bed sheets, towels, and dishes. The latter prevailed and Dip realized
she needed time to find everything and prepare the bags before Bairn could
leave with them.

"OK, you're right, Cartier. Bam meet me in exactly twenty minutes in
the Cellar."

"The Cellar?" Bam asked in a confused state.

"Look, I got this. Just meet me in the Cellar." Macy's Cellar was the
bottom level that held all the household goods.

Despite Dip thinking the girls were stupid, they weren't. She never
thought the girls were smart enough to figure out her scheme, or strong
enough to stand up against her.

"OK, sure. Twenty minutes and I'll be there," Bam replied.

The crew waited five minutes before they hopped out of Dip's truck.
Cartier's plan consisted of them leaving the SUV in the no-parking zone,
taking all the merchandise that was stolen that day, and hopping on the
3-train back to Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Their take for the day was over twenty-five thousand dollars of stolen
merchandise. The only thing that stopped the crew from having a big
celebration was the infamous reputation of the woman they'd just crossed.
Shorty Dip wasn't going to take what they'd done to her lightly.

or two days, the girls didn't walk the blocks alone. They were all too
familiar with the code of the streets and knew that their actions would
beget an action from Dip. No one had to tell them that they now had beef
with Dip. Not only did Dip's truck get ticketed and towed, but they heard
that the tow-truck driver fucked up her rims as well.

It was only a matter of time before Dip and her crew from Flatbush,
Brooklyn ran up on the Cartel. Dip couldn't be disrespected. She had a
reputation to uphold, and if she didn't respond appropriately, then she would
be opening up a can of worms for other motherfuckers to try and play her.

Shorty Dip didn't work a nine to five. Her job was boosting. Boosting paid
her rent, paid her car note, put food in her refrigerator, sent her daughter to a
private school, and paid for a host of other things. The common thread that
afforded her lifestyle were vics-a steady stream of young girls with heartwilling, ready, and enthusiastic about walking out of department stores with
stolen merchandise. And the so-called Cartier Cartel was the best. She had
never run across girls as ruthless and full of heart as Cartier and her crew.

Barn was the first to notice the black Lincoln Navigator creep up the
block, as the Cartier Cartel sat on the stoop. Lil Momma, Bam, Shanine, and
Monya looked toward one another and then bolted down the block. Only
Cartier hesitated, eventually deciding not to run. She thought back to when she was eight years old and had gotten jumped by two neighborhood girls.
Cartier ran inside her house crying for her mother. Trina told her that she
better go back outside and give those girls the fight of their lives.