Crave All Lose All (15 page)

I spent three weeks, shacking up with Cashmere in her one bedroom apartment in south Philly, near Tasker Street. I kept a low-profile. Cashmere loved having me over and we fucked everyday. We couldn’t get enough of each other. I helped pay her bills, her rent and took her shopping at the Gallery mall on Market St. I treated her like a queen, thinking she was wifey and spent over eight grand on her.

I was in contact with Tyriq. We talked nothing about the murders. But I couldn’t stop having nightmares about the two lives I took. There were nights when I’d wake up in cold sweat, short of breath, ready to flip. Cashmere would be there, comforting me, massaging my shoulders then giving me brains.

The night I drove from New York, I moved thirty kilos in a secret compartment of a Ford Taurus. I met with Tyriq’s connect at a bar in West Philly. We exchanged cars and then both went on our way. An hour later, I met up with one of Tyriq’s people from New York, exchanging cars again. He took the green Acura I picked up with the money and I got into a cream Lexus GS, fully loaded. It was my ride while I was in town.

I was missing home and my son. I told my moms the reason I was leaving town for a few weeks, was to train for my CDL in a different state. I told her that my job was putting me through the course so I could advance to becoming a driver at work. She looked at me skeptically. Once I got back to Queens, it would be time to move out. I needed to get my own place.

I got to know Cashmere better. In the club she knew how to work the
crowd, her sex appeal was crazy strong. I knew she even began to trust me. We left the club one night with her saying, “Baby, I want you to meet my cousin, Inf. I’ve been telling him about you,” she said.

“Telling him what about me?” I asked. I didn’t know her cousin and didn’t want to know her cousin. I was only in Philly for a short while and I wasn’t trying to get with niggas down here.

“I told him you cool peoples. He just came home and trying to get shit poppin for him,” she mentioned.

“What he want wit’ me?” I asked.

“He just wants to meet and talk to you. Inf is cool peoples, Vince. He’s real and he’ ain’t no joke when it comes to the street.”

“What he about?”

“Just meet and talk to my cousin, Vince. I’m telling you, he got some shit brewing and you need to get down with it. Trust me, ain’t shit gonna happen to you, I know you don’t know him, but take my word, he’s cool, and he’s about that paper.”

While driving south on Broad street, I thought about the meeting.

“Ok, I’ll meet wit’ him.”

“I’ll set it up.”

Two days later, I met with Inf. He wanted to rule the projects again with drugs and fear. I walked into the heavy, crime ridden Tasker homes of South Philly with Cashmere and a .45 in my waistband. The battered dilapidated row houses and buildings looked like they were about to crumble. The corners were drug infested. Abandon cars lined the streets and graffiti marred the walls. The streets were littered with empty crack vials and nickel bags. Wide-eyed, skeleton-like zombies peddled their mother’s television, camera and VCR or whatever else they could come up with to pay for their next hit. I didn’t feel comfortable parking the Lexus out front.

Cashmere led me into a run-down building with shady looking niggas out front. They glared at me like I’d fucked their mothers.

“Yo, this nigga with you, Cashmere?” one asked with a screw face.

“We here to see, Inf.”

“He up there…who this?” he asked.

“This my, boo, Joker. He gonna get y’all paid out here,” she said.

“Oh word, what you a connect?”

“I’m here to talk,” I said.

“Where you from…?” Joker asked.

“Up top,” I said.

“Fuck New York…y’all couldn’t even protect them towers up there. We hold our own down here, nigga,” Joker laughed. He lifted his stained T-shirt revealing a Glock in his waistband.

“C’mon, we ain’t got time for him,” Cashmere said pulling me into the building.

We got to the seond floor and walked down a narrow littered hallway. Cashmere knocked on an apartment door that had loud thunderous music coming from it. She smiled at me.

No knowing what I was walking into made me nervous. It could be a set-up. I’d known Cashmere for a few months. I was a better friend than a foe to her but I learned never to trust a bitch. That was the reason for the .45.

The door opened and a tall, stocky nigga with dozens of tats on his arms, emerged.

“What’s good Cashmere?” he smiled.

“I’m good, Shakes. My cousin in…?”

“Yeah,” Shakes said.

He gave me the screw face and looked like Joker had downstairs.

“Who’s this nigga?” Shakes asked in an unfriendly tone.

“Chill, Shakes. I already told Inf ‘bout him,” Cashmere said.

Shakes continued the screw face even after Cashmere told him about me. I knew I had out-of-town written all over me. My Yankees’ fitted, jewelry, fresh white-on-white uptowns and my up-top swagger, I didn’t let the angry stares get to me, though.

We walked into the apartment and excessively strong weed smoke filled the air, loud rap music was playing, and half dozen goons loitered in the apartment. They all knew Cashmere and showed much love but I was standing in the middle of a lions den.

Inf was seated on a tattered brown sofa twisting a blunt. He was wearing a tight wife-beater, had a shaved head and rocked a thick groomed beard. He was a stocky beast with bulky arms and large stomach. He had
juice in Philly and did ten years for drugs and attempted murder. Before his incarceration, he controlled drugs and gang movements from Morris and Tasker streets and Schuylkill Expressway to Lanier Park and 29
^th
. He was thirty-four and ready to reclaim his throne on the streets and needed my help.

“What’s up, cuz?” Inf hollered raising up off the couch and moving toward Cashmere.

“Inf,” Cashmere answered giving her cousin a hug.

“I already told you about Vince. Vince this Inf, my cousin…”

“What up?” Inf greeted me with a dap.

“What up,” I said, halfheartedly.

Inf looked at me with cold, hard eyes and said, “Yo, hold on,” he looked at his boys and shouted, “Yo, turn that fuckin’ shit down. I’m tryin’ to talk.”

His boys turned down the loud rap and then Inf focused his attention on me. “I know you don’t know me, and I don’t know you but my little cousin speak very highly of you. She says you be doing your thang in New York. I can respect that. Check this, I just came home from doing a long bid. I need to get my money up and I need a connect that’s gonna supply me some heavyweight. Are you the man to talk to? If not, don’t waste my time. I only deal with real muthafuckas, and if you ain’t real, you gonna find yourself leaving in a trash bag.”

“I’m the one.”

“Let’s talk.”

I took a seat on the couch next to Inf. Cashmere sat next to me. Inf continued to roll a blunt and asked if I wanted a smoke, or a drink. I declined.

Inf informed me that he had the territory, the soldiers and the juice to move up to thirty kilos in his hood. It was a gold mine for him. His old connect caught a federal charge. He didn’t want the streets to dry up and needed a line on quality shit.

“Tell your peoples to ask around about me. These streets will tell you I’m good money,” Inf boasted.

“I’m gonna get back at you, and let you know what’s up,” I said.

“You do that.”

I stood up and we shook hands. Inf’s eyes told me he was hard to the bone and was ready to murder to control money, power, and respect.

When we left the apartment I was feeling like I had a ghetto pass in south Philly. Inf assured me that nobody would fuck with me. I wasn’t worried I had protection in my waistband.

Out on the street, I saw Joker and his goons out front. He looked at me and said, “Everything good?”

“Yeah we, good,” I replied.

“It’s gettin’ late, dog, you don’t wanna get caught out here after dark. That’s when the wolves come out,” Joker laughed.

“Joker, shut-up,” Cashmere said.

“Just tryin’ to give your boy some advice…”

“Yeah, whateva…” I said.

We exchanged stares. I was hoping he wasn’t going to be a problem. I could tell he was a knucklehead.

I got back to the Lexus. It was untouched. Cashmere was happy she’d made the connection. She wanted something out the deal. The bitch was money-hungry but was definitely about her business. She saw an opportunity and went for it knowing that her roughneck cousin had her back.

When I got back to her apartment, I put in a call to Tyriq and Spoon. Spoon was the first to call me back.

“What up?” he asked.

I didn’t want to say too much over the phone so I said, “Yo, I got a line out here in S.P…some big fish came at me, and is ready for sump’n.”

“Yo, we sent you out there to keep low and you doing business. What you think this thang is? Yo, I’ll get at you when you get back up top.” Spoon hung up leaving me baffled.

“Baby, what your boy say?” Cashmere asked.

“I’ll talk to him when I get back to New York,” I told her.

“That’s what’s up,” she said excitedly.

That same night, I sweated out the bedroom sheets, stretching that pussy out like I had no sense. It got my mind off shit. I twisted and turned that bitch into several positions and busted a nut in her. The second nut I let loose on her back. Afterwards, I collapsed next to her and stared up at the ceiling. Cashmere nestled against me, sucking my nipples and tickling my skin with
her soft touch.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m good.”

“What’s on your mind?” she asked massaging my chest gently and toying with my nipples.

“I need to get back to New York and handle this thing.”

“When are you trying to leave?”

“Tomorrow…”

“So soon…? I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’ll be back to deal with your cousin.”

I felt her enticing touch move down under the sheets. She gripped my flaccid dick and began stroking it thick.

“Besides money, I’m gonna give you another reason why you need to bring your ass back to Philly.”

She moved her head south under the sheets and wrapped her lips around my shaft. Her tongue coiled around the tip and she began sucking me.

“Damn…hmm, oh shit,” I moaned holding onto the sheets for dear life. Cashmere bobbed her head, sucking my dick for twenty minutes. I busted off in her mouth and she swallowed my kids. She wiped her mouth and said, “You better not forget me, baby.”

“I definitely got you,” I said spent.

She smiled and nestled again. I held her in my arms and closed my eyes.

The next day I crossed the Verrazano and it felt like I never left. I hit up Tyriq and Spoon to let them know that I was back. Tyriq wanted to meet with me right away. I wanted to stop off at my place first to see how my moms and aunt were doing.

I pulled up to my crib around nine pm. There were lights on in the house. I was in the cream GS staring at the front porch. I got out, walked into the place and shouted, “Mom, Aunt Linda, I’m home. I heard nothing. My room looked like someone had gone through my shit. I went to my drawers and looked for the ten grand I had stashed but it wasn’t there.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” my mother asked standing in the doorway, glaring at me and holding a bundle of hundred dollar bills.

“Where’d you get that?” I asked.

“Boy, don’t play stupid. Where did you get all this money from?” she asked angrily.

“Working,” I replied.

“I called the job. They never heard of you. You’ve been lying to me, Vincent. Is this what you went out of town to do? Are you selling drugs?”

“C’ mon mom,” I said.

“Then explain this, Vincent,” she shouted.

“Why are you in my business?”

“Boy, what’s wrong with you? Talking to your mother like that,” my aunt Linda said walking into the room. My aunt was in my face. “Vincent, you need to get out this damn house if you wanna sell that shit. I’m not having that here.”

“Whateva…!” I shouted.

My mother rushed up to me and slapped the shit out of me. “Vincent, how dare you come into our home and defy everything me and your father believed in and worked so hard for?” She began ripping the money to shred.

It was sad to see her crying.

“If you needed money, you could’ve come to your mother and me,” my aunt stated.

“We trusted you,” my mother said.

“I did what I had to do, ma. It was only temporary, and besides, you can’t say I didn’t try. I bust my ass going to school and holding down a job to support a family. What I got in return? A job that don’t give a fuck about me and the unemployment line...”

“You watch your mouth in my house,” my aunt shouted.