Coca Kola - The Baddest Chick (20 page)

“Muthafucka!” his friend shouted, removing himself from his kitchen cover.

Chico quickly took aim, and before the man could shoot, his body jerked with a slug penetrating his skull. He dropped face forward near his friend.

Chico exhaled with some relief. His adrenaline took over and made him shoot with accuracy. He stood in the center of the room and looked down at Chop, who was still cowering on the floor. “Get ya bitch ass up!” he exclaimed.

Chop looked up at Chico, panic showing in his eyes. “Chico, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean fo’ it ta go down like that.”

Chico wasn’t trying to hear out his former friend. He also knew he didn’t have too much time to spare. He had to leave the area before it was flooded with cops.

“They made me do it. I didn’t want to, man. I didn’t want to.”

Chico aimed the gun down at Chop. It was paining him to even think about it, but he had done worse. He’d barely made it through the gunfire alive, and now he was put in a predicament where it was him or Chop.

“Chico, c’mon, man, I’m sorry. I can make it up to you. Give me a chance, Chico. Please, give me a second—”

Blam! Blam! Blam!
He shot Chop three times and left him sprawled out across the dusty wood floor in a pool of blood.

Chico stuck the gun in his waistband and ran out the house. He hopped into his car, backed out of the driveway hastily, and sped off.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he screamed out as he raced toward the nearest highway. He had just murdered the one source that was probably able to unload the fifteen kilos he had in the trunk.

Chico knew he wasn’t staying in Greenville. He leaped onto I-85 and headed north. Time was running out for him.

Chapter 18

A
pple had the blackout curtains pulled together, causing the room to be dark. She peered at herself in the mirror. The stress was showing on her.

She had been so blinded by her facial features and yearning for revenge, she had forgotten about her other affairs. There was a third notice from the bank about their mortgage. They were three months behind, and Apple was unaware of it. Their home was about to go into foreclosure very soon, and she feared she was about to become homeless. She had little money to pay any of her bills, and her medical bills were starting to pile up. Chico always kept up with the bills, but everything was falling apart while he was out of town trying to make things right again.

Apple wanted to regain what she had lost focus of before Chico came into her life and the incident with the acid. She needed her loan-sharking business up and running again. Several people owed her unpaid debts, and she was determined to venture out and collect her money. She thought,
Out of sight, out of mind.
She had been out of sight from Harlem for too long—but now, she was ready to get back on her grind. She didn’t have a choice. She needed to become independent again. She needed cash.

She looked at the time. It was late. Midnight. She told herself that tomorrow would be a new day for her. Despite the way she looked, Harlem would once again know and respect her.

***

Twenty-four hours later, when the sun was down and the moon was up, Apple got dressed in all black—dark jeans, a dark hoodie with an angel-winged crystal design on the back, and a pair of black Nikes. She put on her mask, stepped out of her mansion-style home, and walked over to her McLaren parked outside the two-car garage. It had been a while since she had driven it.

She got in the dusty car and started it; the engine purred like a kitten. The soft leather seats felt nice against her skin, and having her hands around the steering wheel made her lust for the attention it stirred up. She remembered the looks she used to receive while driving it around in Harlem—priceless. She closed the vertical door and revved the engine. The needles on the RPM jumped. The McLaren was ready to go into motion with it still in park.

Apple put the car in drive and sped out of the driveway like a bat out of hell. She turned the first corner hard—a sharp right— and felt the power steering and the strong handling of the car. She continued speeding toward the highway. She didn’t care about cops or having an accident.

She arrived in Harlem an hour later. The clock on the dashboard read 9:25 p.m. The night was still young. She navigated the McLaren through the Harlem streets, stirring up the people, their eyes lingering on the flashy ride as she passed by, and her tinted windows making it hard for them to see inside.

She slowly drove down 145th Street in the direction of Riverside Drive. There was little bustling going on in the area where she slowed down and parked. She stopped her car in front of a small hole-in-the-wall lounge between two brick brownstones. The entrance to the place was below in the basement, and there was a long, black awning stretching over the front entrance of the slated brownstone that read, “Restaurant & Lounge.”

It was Peon’s place. Peon was a well-respected businessman operating in Harlem for years. In his early forties, he had dabbled in drugs during the eighties, done some jail time during the mid-nineties, and after the new millennium, turned his life around, opening up his restaurant and lounge five years ago. But he had a gambling problem and had acquired a mountain of debt in the past year. He’d heard about Apple’s loan-sharking business and had a sit-down meeting with her. Apple fronted him a ten-thousand-dollar loan with three points added to it, and Peon promised her that he would be able to pay it back within two months. That was six months ago. He was always trying to duck and dodge her.

Apple pulled the stylish black hoodie over her head and tied it tight around her facial disfigurement, the clear medical mask grasping her face, covering her scars. She tried to hide her wounds as best as possible. She looked at herself in the visor mirror and hated herself. It was obvious she was wearing a mask, and the hoodie over her head only protected the view of her partially.

She got out of the car and tried to keep her mind on business, not her appearance. She looked up and down the block. The area was calm and quiet like a sleeping cat. She stared at Peon’s place. Business seemed slow to her, but it was still early. She knew the lounges in Harlem didn’t start to get really busy until midnight or later. She didn’t want to be around a crowd of people and have everyone staring at her like she was a freak or some science experiment, so she arrived early to handle her business with Peon.

She stepped from around her car and walked toward the lounge like a bitch on a mission. She walked down the short concrete steps, opened the door that led into the small foyer, and passed through into the lounge, where Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” was playing. The inside was quaint and appealing with its laid-back, candlelit atmosphere. The red, brown, and beige combination worked well together to give the place a high-end feel. The bar stretched out from the doorway into the back, and the retro furnishings gave it an eclectic blend.

Apple stood by the doorway and looked around, her eyes scanning every inch of the room. The place was almost empty. An aging gentleman sat on a barstool at the bar with a drink in his hand. He glanced at her when she walked in. He then turned his attention back to the mounted flat-screen TV suspended in the far corner of the bar near the back. Then there was another gentleman seated at one of the tables to her right. He was drinking a beer and looked really rough, wearing a dark hoodie, a do-rag, and baggy jeans.

The male bartender stood behind the bar, polishing glasses and staring at Apple. “Can I help you with something?” he asked her.

Apple moved closer to him, keeping her hoodie over her head, and said, “Yeah, I’m looking for Peon.”

The rough-looking man seated at the table quickly averted his attention to Apple when she mentioned the name. He kept his eyes on her like a hawk.

“What you want with Peon?” the bartender asked.

“I need to talk to him. Tell him Apple is looking for him.”

The bartender continued to shine the glasses. He dryly replied, “Peon ain’t here. I don’t know where he’s at right now.”

Apple wasn’t buying it. “He needs to see me ASAP.”

The bartender shrugged it off.

“Nigga, you hear me talkin’ to you?”

“How old are you anyway?” the man inquired. “And what’s wrong with your face? Why you wearing that mask?”

“It’s none of your fuckin’ business!”

The man sitting at the table quickly stood up. Apple turned to look at him. He was a beastly-looking man, standing over six feet tall and stocky.

“What the fuck you gonna do?” she shouted at him.

“You need to leave,” the man said coolly.

“Fuck you!”

The man moved from behind the table and approached Apple, his eyes drilled into her with intensity, but Apple stood her ground. She locked eyes with him and swallowed hard. He towered over her by a foot and outweighed her by over a hundred pounds.

“Little girl, you need to leave right now. This ain’t a place for you,” he said in a stern tone.

Apple hated to be called a little girl. Still, she was too stubborn to back down from him. “I need to see Peon,” she insisted.

“He ain’t here,” the man said.

“Well, I can wait.”

“Not here, you won’t,” he exclaimed.

“You gonna kick me out?”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ toss you out.”

Apple slipped her hand in the front pocket of her hoodie and gripped the small, sharp, five-inch blade she had concealed. She was ready to extract it and put it to good use. As the man came forward, she grasped the blade tightly and was ready to defend herself by any means necessary.

Before he took another step toward her, someone shouted, “Yo, Devon, chill out.”

They both turned to see Peon standing behind them. He was average height, with a long perm and a high-yellow complexion. They used to call him “Light Bright” back in the eighties. He was wearing a snug T-shirt underneath a purple blazer, with a pair of black leather pants and a pair of black Hush Puppies. And he sported spiky hair and piercings on his nose, eyebrows, tongue, and lips. He was unique with his unorthodox style of dressing. Apple always thought he looked like the singer Prince.

She used to hear stories about how Peon was back in the day. He had street smarts, got money, and had lots of women chasing behind him. But his gambling addiction was his curse.

Peon betted on everything—sports, the racetrack, fights, and he’d lost a fortune playing poker. When he was on the verge of losing his business and was one step away from becoming homeless, he asked for Apple’s help when she was at her strongest. He swallowed his pride and took help from a woman, a teenager at that.

Apple glared at the bartender. “I thought he wasn’t here, you fuckin’ jerk!”

“It must have slipped my mind,” the bartender countered nonchalantly.

Peon looked at Apple with contempt. “Why are you here, Apple?” he asked evenly.

“To collect what you owe me.”

“And what is that?”

“Peon, don’t play stupid wit’ me. You know how much you owe me. Ten thousand.”

Peon chuckled. He looked at his bodyguard Devon. “You must be mistaken. My debts are paid.”

“Muthafucka! Don’t fuckin’ play me, you fuckin’ faggot!” she barked.

“Like I said, I owe you nothing. Now, I would appreciate if you would kindly leave my place. Your face is disturbing my customers.”

Apple lunged for Peon, rapidly pulling the blade from her hoodie pocket and raising it over her head, ready to cut him up. But before she could get close and swing it at Peon, his bodyguard charged at her, forcing her against the long bar, and snatching her by the wrist. He overpowered her quickly and twisted the knife from her hand.

Apple, no match for the 270-pound man, gasped from the hit and soon found herself on the floor on her back, with him smirking over her, his foot against her chest.

“You shoulda left kindly, you little fuckin’ bitch!” Devon said through clenched teeth.

Apple cut her eyes at him, squirming underneath his boot. “Get the fuck off me!”

Peon walked over. Smiling, he stared down at Apple. She was trapped like a rat in a trap, and he was the big, bad, hungry cat slowly walking over to devour his prize. He shook his head.

“Dumb bitch! What were you trying to do? Fuck my face up like someone did yours? I heard about the incident.” He laughed. “Yo, Devon, take off that bitch mask. I wanna see what she looks like.”

Devon was happy to oblige. The bartender came from behind the bar to help pin her down. The old man seated on the barstool continued to sip on his drink, oblivious to what was happening around him. It wasn’t his business.

Apple continued to squirm and fight but was once again overpowered. The bartender positioned himself behind her. He was on his knees and held her arms outstretched with his weight on them, so she wasn’t able to defend herself.

Devon replaced his foot with his knees against Apple’s chest. It felt like a truck was sitting on top of her. He was heavy, and she was barely able to breathe. He leaned closer, reaching to pull off her mask.

Apple turned her face to the side, trying to prevent it from being removed. But it was hopeless.