Dollar Bill (16 page)

“It's Wine,” Tommy corrected Dollar through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, whatever. I need to holla at you real quick,” Dollar replied.

“Is this yo' man or somethin'?” the dude said to Tommy with a crooked face.

“Naw,” Tommy replied. “We just friends.”

“Then your friend needs to step. You workin',” the dude said, pushing Tommy on into the room.

“Mafucka, you don't know nothing about this here,” Dollar said, pointing to Tommy and then to himself.

Smelling that some shit was about to go down any minute, Tommy put her hand on Bear the bouncer's chest to calm him as he began to flex.

“Look, let me talk to my homie for a minute. You go in there and wait for me,” Tommy said to the dude. “When I get back, I'll play an extra song for you, baby. I promise you it will be worth the wait.”

Dollar wanted to puke, but he laughed instead. This scene was unreal.

“It's cool, Bear,” Tommy said.

The dude followed Tommy's instructions, and once he was out of sight, Tommy turned toward Dollar with devil eyes and said, “Follow me!”

Tommy escorted Dollar out to the parking lot of the club. She was steaming mad. She couldn't wait to get his ass outside so she could let him have it.

“Do I come up on your job and interrupt what the fuck you doing?” Tommy scolded as her breath created a fog from the cold.

“Look, my bad,” Dollar said. “You right. I don't even know what got into me. I just couldn't sit out there and wait for you while you went in that room to do God knows what.”

Tommy was silent. She looked at Dollar in disgust. “Is that what you think of me? You think I was about to fuck ol' dude just because I was going into the Champagne Room with him? Why, because you fucked Storm?”

The look on Dollar's face gave Tommy the answer she was looking for.

“You triflin' ass,” Tommy said. She shook her head and looked down at the ground. “Well, I'm not like Storm. I get paid to dance and that's what I do. That's all I do and I'm offended you would think otherwise. Yeah, like I said, I sell a little bud on the side to some of these cats, but that's it.”

“T, I'm sorry,” Dollar said with his head down like a puppy dog.

“Sorry for what, fucking Storm or thinking I'm a slut?”

“Whoa,” Dollar said. “I don't have to apologize to you for who I fuck, do I?”

“I didn't mean it like that so don't flatter yourself. Besides, Storm's a dyke anyway.”

“You said that like a true hater. Is Tommy jealous?” Dollar said, cooing at Tommy like she was a little girl.

“Hell no, I ain't jealous. What do I have to be jealous of? Storm really is a dyke.”

“She might be bi, but she sho ain't no dyke,” Dollar said, grabbing himself as to insinuate that he had beat that pussy up.

“Remember when we checked Ral into Short Stay and I was talking to those two chicks? Well, Storm was one of them. The other one was her wife, girlfriend or whatever. Her name is Thunder. They been together for four years. Storm does dick on the side for money only. Thunder is straight pussy. And them bitches is raw.”

“I knew I recognized her face from somewhere. They live at that hotel?” Dollar asked.

“No. They work up out of there. They got a nice-ass crib out there in Merrillville. Storm got two daughters who go to private school. The girls call both Storm and Thunder Mommy.”

“But I thought you said ol' girl was a strict vegetarian, no meat,” Dollar said.

“She is. Thunder don't get down with men. Them kids are Storms. When the two of them put in work, they exin' a nigga,” Tommy replied.

“What?”

“They gettin' a cat high off that liquid ecstasy and robbin' his dumb ass. Storm does what she needs to do and Thunder strips him for his goodies. Don't let them find out the muthafucka married.” Tommy laughed. “They will blackmail his ass 'til Kingdom come.”

“Hell no. Them bitches got hustle like that?” Dollar was impressed.

“As quiet as it's kept, they done put a couple of fools to sleep on that ex. They don't even look like the type, especially when you see them out with their daughters. They be lookin' like the perfect little mothers. Up in here, we call them Murder Mommies, also known as hit hoes.” Tommy was referencing one of Biggie's songs with the nicknames.

Tommy could see the wheels in Dollar's head churning. “What you thinking?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing. I'm just storing this info for future reference. You never know when a couple of hit hoes might come in handy.” Dollar winked. “Damn!” Dollar said, turning his attention to a girl getting out the passenger side of a yellow Hummer in a full-length mahogany mink coat. “Who's that lookin' like Lil' Kim?”

Tommy turned to look. “That's Becka. Her brother, Wayne, the guy dropping her off, he sells them coats. She's his walking advertisement,” Tommy answered.

“Oh yeah, legit?” Dollar asked.

“Actually, he does sell them legit. Their dad has a store in Chicago. He gets them for next to nothing. You know how they do it in Chi-Town with the furs. I hear they're nice. Tiwana, the barmaid, her boyfriend is getting a load of them. He's going to try to push them up North for double what he pays for them here.”

“When's he supposed to be coppin' them?” Dollar asked.

“I don't know.”

“You need to find that shit out so we can just happen to be around when the transaction takes place.”
Game on!

It was midweek, about 7:45 p.m. Dollar wasn't comfortable with an early evening stickup his first go-round since '95, but hell, he was confident with his skills. He would have preferred a midnight or early a.m. stickup, but who runs around selling furs at midnight? Legit ones, anyway.

Dollar's big, buff self was crammed in Ral's little hooptie. He felt like a clown at the circus in one of them li'l buggy cars. He had just dropped Ral off around the corner. All the pieces to the game were in place with the exception of the queen, which was Tommy. Dollar was awaiting her call on his cell.

“Damn,” Dollar said, fiddling with the radio dial. “This bitch ain't even got a tape deck in it. What was I thinking hooking my boy up with some shit like this?”

As Dollar tapped his fingernails on the dashboard, he noticed how dull and rigid they were. “My nails are fucked up,” he said out loud as he began to gnaw on them. “I'm trippin'.” He laughed. “Since when do I give a fuck about my fingernails? I'm acting like a ho. Just relax, Dollar. Just relax.”

Dollar continued to tap his nails on the dashboard. For some reason, even though he was wearing a ridiculously overpriced Phat Farm denim hookup and some clean AND1s, and was sporting a nice, fresh cut, which left him with a shiny, bald head, his nails were messing up his total look.

“Niggaz get they nails done too,” Dollar said, trying to convince himself. “Fuck it! I'm gettin' these shitz did.”

Just then Dollar's cell phone rang and he answered it.

“He just dropped Becka off, so it's on,” Tommy said.

“Good lookin' out. Peace,” Dollar said, closing the flap on his cell phone.

A few minutes went by before Dollar saw the bright yellow Hummer H2 pull up across the street from him and park. Dollar sat at attention.

“Dis mafucka rollin' an H2 in the heart of the hood,” Dollar said, laughing as he used his cell phone to call Ral's pager and key in the code. “This cat deserves to get got.”

On cue, Ral cleared the corner. He was wearing an olive green down coat with feathers poking out, some dirty jeans, and a funky baseball cap. He was looking like the recovering addict he was. He killed time by digging in garbage cans, collecting cans and whatnot. In the meantime, Wayne had gotten out of his Hummer and knocked on the door of Tiwana and her boyfriend's apartment. Once assured that Tiwana's boyfriend was home, Wayne returned to his truck. With three coats in arm multiplied by a total of four trips, he hauled the dozen minks into the apartment.

Back in the day, Dollar would have probably pretended to be a customer looking to buy some furs. Once Wayne showed up, Dollar would have robbed him for whatever he had on him. But according to Romeo, that was one of Dollar's mistakes. There wasn't a need to befriend a mark and play pretend. Just sneak up from behind and handle them. All that other miscellaneous crap took up too much time and left room for error. Romeo brought up the point that if Cartel and his boys hadn't been shot dead, they would have known exactly who to retaliate against. Now, with the situation at hand, if anything, Wayne would feel as though he had been set up by Tiwana's boyfriend and that's who he would look to seek revenge on.

After Wayne's fourth and final trip, Tiwana's boyfriend closed the door behind him. That was Dollar and Ral's sign that money was about to exchange hands. After ten minutes the apartment door opened and Wayne exited.

As soon as he opened the door to the Hummer, Ral caught him off guard. “You got some change?” Ral asked. “Driving a fine automobile such as this, I know you got some change.”

“Man, kick mud,” Wayne said. “I ain't got shit for you.”

“Then maybe you got something for me,” Dollar said, coming up behind Wayne and placing the gun he'd copped from Tommy into his back.

“Oh, shit,” Wayne said, being caught off guard.

“Yeah, oh shit is right, nigga,” Dollar said, cocking the gun.

“Here's my keys,” Wayne said. “Take it. Fuck it. Just don't kill me.”

“Look, we don't want to kill you and we don't want your truck,” Dollar said. “Just empty your pockets.”

“Empty my pockets?” Wayne repeated.

“Yeah, pull 'em out, nigga. Turn 'em inside out.”

Wayne nervously put his hands down in his pockets and said, “Don't shoot. I'm just doin' what you said. I'm going in my pockets.”

Wayne pulled his pant pockets inside out and gave Dollar the contents, which was only a few thousand dollars.

“Empty those pockets too,” Dollar said, pointing to Wayne's jacket pockets.

“These pockets too?” Wayne repeated.

“What the fuck are you, an echo?” Ral added. “Yes, them pockets too.”

Wayne emptied his inside jacket pockets that made the proceeds of the stickup around $30,000 in all hundred dollar bills. Meanwhile, Ral had raided the truck and retrieved a woman's long black mink coat.

Dollar forced Wayne to get into the back of his Hummer and ball up in a fetal position on the floor.

“Count to one hundred Mississippis before getting up,” Ral ordered Wayne. “If you get up, our other partner who's watchin' all this go down is going to blow your muthafuckin' head off. You got that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wayne said nervously and then started to count. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.”

As Wayne continued counting, Dollar and Ral headed for Ral's car. Ral had trouble lugging the huge mink that was secured inside a clear clothing bag. Since Ral was frail, weighing in at about a buck twenty-five, the weight of the coat slowed Ral down. He even tripped and fell running with it and had a hard time getting the car door closed because he kept shutting the coat in the door. This bootleg scene from a
Three Stooges
episode was starting to piss Dollar off.

“Why the fuck you always gotta do some extra shit?” Dollar asked. “We got the money. You need to learn how to keep your eye on the prize. That's what fucked us up eight years ago. We doin' things different now, Ral.”

Dollar steered the car with one hand while fondling the coat on Ral's lap with the other. “That's a bitch's coat anyway. What the fuck you gon' do with a woman's coat?”

“Do you know how much pussy this can get me, amigo?” Ral replied.

“Man, Ral, don't fuck with me.” Dollar gave Ral the side eye, letting him know this wasn't the time for his clownin'.

“Seriously, how much loot we get away with from ol' dude?”

“I don't know. It looks like it's about thirty, thirty-five thousand,” Dollar said handing the neatly stacked wads of crisp hundred dollar bills to Ral to count.

“So that means dude bought a dozen of these bitches for around three thousand each. Shit, I know I can get between four and five Gs for one.”

“I swear to God, Ral, if I find out you swapped that coat for a hit . . .”

“Come on, man,” Ral said. “Give me a little bit more credit than that. I ain't did no drugs, man. No hard shit anyway. Yeah, I might have blazed on a couple of those fat ones, but that's it. You can ask your li'l bro. He checks my piss every time I go to the clinic. He done already warned me about the bud leading me back to more glamorous pharmaceuticals. But I'm straight. Ask him, man.”

“I'll take your word for it,” Dollar said.

“What's the deal with you and your bro, anyway, man?”

“I ain't trying to talk about my brother,” Dollar said, becoming a little uneasy. “I'm trying to talk about money.”

Inside, Dollar wanted to talk about his brother. He wanted to ask Ral if he had asked about him. He hated the fact that he would probably never have the kind of relationship he longed for with Klein. But Dollar couldn't let that weigh on his mind. It was impossible for him to turn back the hands of time. So for now, he decided to keep his mind on money.

 

 

“So, what's our next move?” Ral said as he studied the food menu at Jimmy's Coney Island as he, Dollar, and Tommy prepared to talk shop.

“These cats from T town—” Tommy started.

“Toledo, Ohio,” Ral confirmed.

“Yeah, they rolled through the bar last night. They were ballers on their way to cop some of them thangs,” Tommy said, taking a sip of her ice water.

“What the hell some dudes from Toledo stopping off in Gary for?”

“Making a li'l pit stop,” Tommy answered.

“So did all that pussy up in the spot get them cats to telling they business?” Ral asked.

“Well, I know that some dude named Ant over in T town is expecting about twenty Gs via FedEx,” Tommy said in a bragging manner, being she was the one responsible for the lead.

“Okay, keep the info coming,” Dollar said as he listened intensely. The talk of money made Dollar's dick hard. Contrary to popular opinion, fuck dogs; money is man's best friend.

“I know dude stays by a park on Hollywood and is expecting the loot next Friday,” Tommy said. “Ol' dude was making it a point to let me know that throwing twenty at his boy wasn't nothin' but a thang.”

“Showoff niggaz,” Dollar said. “These young bloods don't know shit about the game.”

“Oh well,” Ral said. “That's where we benefit.”

“Y'all know what y'all want yet?” the waitress approached their table and asked with pen and pad in hand.

The three proceeded to order their soul food entrees and discussed their next move as they waited on their meals to be prepared. Like a game of chess, Dollar was meticulous about the moves that were to be made. He didn't want to do too much too fast. Actually, he didn't want to do too much at all. He wanted to hit the jackpot; some big-type stickup that would put them on easy street for a long spell. He would then turn around and invest his money in something that would pay off well enough to take care of him for life. But no amount sounded remotely enough to take care of Dollar for life. Nah, he wanted too much. He wanted to live like one of the Good Fellas, although Romeo had warned him that that type of attitude leads to downfall. But, of course, Dollar's attitude was fuck it. He wasn't like these Similac-drinkin' wankstas. He would take heed of the words of the elders. He would be the exception to the game. He would win.

Just as the waitress brought the food out to their table, through the restaurant window Dollar noticed a familiar face walking by. He never forgot a face, especially one belonging to such a beautiful body. Obviously she recognized him too, because as she entered she told the girl who she was with to grab a table while she hollered at Dollar for a minute. Dollar acted like he didn't see her coming his way as he took a bite of his collard greens.

“Excuse me, sir, do you have the time?” the soft-spoken voice said over Dollar's shoulder.

Dollar looked up, replied, “It's time for you to get a new watch,” and continued eating his food.

“I see you holdin' a grudge,” she said, smiling.

“Naw, Miss Lady,” Dollar said, cracking a smile: the “I'm that nigga” smile. “I'm just messing with you. Hennessey, right?”

“Umm, you're good. Yes, Hennessey Monroe,” she said, turning her attention to Tommy and Ral who were sitting across from Dollar.

Tommy was eyeballing Hennessey from head to toe, checking out her Donna Karan casual pantsuit, Donna Karan purse, and Donna Karan casual-like flip-flops.

“Ahem,” Tommy cleared her throat.

“Oh,” Dollar said, “forgive me for being rude. Hennessey, this is Ral and Tommy.”

Hennessey stuck her hand out to shake their hands. The diamonds from the five-karat tennis bracelet that appeared to be making love to her wrist nearly blinded them. Tommy really wasn't feeling Hennessey's presence, so she left her hand hangin' and gave her a “what up?” nod instead. Ral's hand was greasy from the fried chicken, but that didn't keep him from giving Hennessey a courteous handshake.

“Oh my,” Hennessey said as she looked disgustingly down at her greasy hand. Tommy couldn't help but giggle.

Dollar was embarrassed and handed her a napkin to wipe her hands. “Uhh, yeah. These are my boys,” Dollar said as Tommy kicked him underneath the table. “Well, this is Tommy, he's a girl. I mean, she's a girl. We're all just friends.” Dollar was attempting to make it clear to Hennessey that Tommy was not his girlfriend.

“Oh, very nice,” Hennessey said. “Well, I'm here with my cousin, Trini. She lives around these parts.”

“And what part do you live around, Miss Lady?” Dollar inquired.

“I'm over in the windy city,” Hennessey replied. “Well, I just wanted to say hey. I better go join Trini now.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you, bye-bye,” Tommy said, rushing Hennessey off with a wave.

“Uhh, let me walk you over to your table,” Dollar said, excusing himself and, at the same time, giving Tommy an evil look.

“Oh, well, thank you,” Hennessey said as she turned to Tommy and Ral. “It was nice meeting both you fellas.” She put her hand over her mouth. “Ooops, I mean lady and gentleman. Take care.” She gave Tommy the same wave she'd given her.

“Tah, tah,” Tommy said sarcastically under her breath as Dollar and Hennessey walked away. After taking a bite of macaroni and cheese she said, “I don't like that bitch.”

“You don't even know that bitch,” Ral said, sucking the grease off of his fingers.

“I know her all right. I know her kind and I don't like her kind.”

“What's her kind?” Ral asked.