Envy (13 page)

“What’s going on?” Salida pressed.

Nooni shook her head.

“You’d feel so much better if you let it all out and told somebody,” Salida urged.

The girl looked damn near comatose. She was shivering uncontrollably, and the tips of her nails were stumped and bloody because she’d gnawed them all the way down to the meat.

Salida switched tactics.

“I see you and Truth are pretty close. I think he really cares about you.”

Silence.

“Are y’all still staying in that lil ass apartment with Pluto and Monique?”

A small nod.

“You and Truth need to work harder so y’all can get your own place. Monique is cool, but two women can’t live up under the same roof. Believe me, I know.”

Silence.

“Are you homesick or something, Nooni? Do you miss your family?”

The girl trembled visibly.

“I bet your people are probably really worried about you.”

A small tear slipped from Nooni’s eye.

“You want me to ask Monique if you can go home and see your sister?”

Nooni shook her head quickly. “She already said I can’t. The cops are looking for me.”

More tears came then. An ocean of them.

Salida pressed the girl to her breast in a motherly embrace. She whispered soothing words as the dumb-ass who was about to become her little in-house tester wept in her arms.

“There, there, there,” Salida cooed and rocked. “You don’t have to cry. You’re safe here with us. We’ll protect you. And things will get better for you, Nooni. I promise they will. In fact, I can help you start feeling better right now. Do you trust me?” she asked, smoothing down Nooni’s wild tangle of hair. “Do you trust me, Nooni?”

The girl nodded. Just once.

That was all Salida needed to see.

She reached into her top drawer and pulled out a small vial. The words Divine Nine were stamped on the outside. Shaking out two pills, she spoke gently to the crying girl.

“Open your mouth,” she said softly.

Nooni obeyed.

Salida placed the two pills on Nooni’s tongue, and when the young girl swallowed, Salida smiled.

CHAPTER 21

Slick Sallie was thinking fast and moving even faster.

He’d driven Mick’s car home after the bungled heist, but there was no time to grieve for his cousin and there was no time to wait around for the money that would come in after the microchips were sold to a company in Vietnam either.

Sallie had parked Mick’s car several blocks away, and let himself into his mother’s house. He’d showered and drank half a bottle of whisky, and after sleeping for a few fitful hours he’d gotten up with the sun and driven north for several hours.

After ditching Mick’s car on some railroad tracks, he’d hitched a lift back to the city from a truck driver who was hauling paper goods. He hopped out about a thirty-minute walk away from his mother’s house, and he was almost there when his cell phone rang.

“Uncle Frank,” he said. “
Come stai?
”

“Where the fuck are you, Salvatore?”

His uncle’s tone was cold and unforgiving, and Sallie sensed the danger right away.

“Uhhh,” he said, stalling, “I’m actually on my way to your house,” he lied. “Yeah, I should be there in a bit.”

“Good,” Frank said coldly. “Come quickly. I have something for you.”

Sal stuck the phone down in his pants and ran the rest of the way home. There was no time to waste now. His uncle’s voice had said it all. They knew about the bomb, they knew about the heist, they knew about Mick. There was gonna be fuckin’ hell to pay.

Back downstairs in his mother’s wine cellar, Sal once again dragged the heavy safe from its hiding space behind the dusty barrels.

“Stupid fuckin’ Mick,” he muttered. A tear slipped from his eye as he mourned briefly for his favorite cousin. “Retarded ass-wipe bastard.”

Steeling himself for the task at hand, Sallie plugged in his brand-new hacksaw, put on a pair of goggles, and went to work. 

An hour later Gino’s safe sat gutted open in the middle of the floor. Without stopping to wipe the sweat from his face, Sallie plundered right in, pulling out stack after stack of money and tossing it to the floor at his feet. Quarter of a mil, his ass. There had to be hundreds of thousands crammed inside that baby, he realized. The money smelled dank, and slightly moldy, but it was definitely still spendable.

Only when the safe was finally empty did Sal use the end of his shirt to mop his dripping face and chin. He wanted to jump up and down at the sight of all the legal tender that was strewn out around him. There was more than enough there to set up an arms deal that a young drug lord in Harlem had asked him about, and to get into some other income-producing projects as well.

With one eye on the pile of dough at his feet, Sal took his cell phone off his belt and punched in a number.

“Three Brothers Funeral Home.” A female voice with a strong east coast accent greeted him from the other end of the line.

Sal grinned broadly, and then asked to speak to the slick New York City drug dealer who was going to help make him a millionaire. 

CHAPTER 22

Lenox Avenue was live and on fire when Trey got back from dropping Mr. Howell off at his apartment. He parked his whip in front of a Spanish bodega that was owned by one of his homeboys in the Talented Ten coalition, and then walked around the corner without a bit of urgency in his stride.

The slanga he was looking for was holding his spot down real lovely in front of the dilapidated building. Customers were walking up on him from all directions, and the deadly tan goods he sold were flowing from his hands like city water.

“Yo whatchu want, whatchu want, whatchu want,” the young hustler chanted as Trey approached him. He eyed Trey’s hands in search of that mean green, and he was definitely ready to conduct some bizz.

Trey never slowed his stride as he snatched the trap boy up in his collar and muscled him over to the stoop of the drug den.

“Yo, what the fuck is you doin’ niggah?” the slanga struggled to get outta Trey’s killer grip. He swung a wild right hook, and Trey capped him in the grill, and then head-butted him hard on the bridge of his nose.

He pounded the young’un up the stairs and flung him through the rickety front door. They tussled as Trey dragged him, kicking and fighting, all the way up to the fifth floor.

The young man looked up from his knees, then twisted and bucked on the landing when he realized he was being dragging out on the roof. He tried to leap to his feet, and Trey crushed his grill with the heel of his boot, and sent a thick stream of blood flying from his mouth.

“Yo! Who da fuck is
you?
” the young man screamed around his busted teeth. “What I do, man? What the fuck did I
do
?”

He struggled some more as Trey flung him outside on the building’s roof. He got up on his hands and knees and tried to crawl away. Trey planted his foot in his ass and sent him crashing face-first into the asphalt.

Grabbing dude by the back of his shirt, Trey dragged him a couple of feet over to the edge of the roof. He lifted dude’s long, skinny ass easily to his feet, and held him upright while he wobbled and panted in confusion.

“What?” The dope slanga hollered, straight bewildered. “
What?
You got some bad shit? Well just ask for another package, my niggah! You ain’t gotta do all this here!”

“You like selling dope to pregnant girls and little kids, huh, muh’fucka?” Trey spit, addressing the trap boy for the very first time. “You killed a little girl, man, and her baby is prolly gonna die too. You ain’t got no problem with that grimy shit huh?”

Dude shook his head. “What the fuck I look like to you, niggah? A fuckin’ baby sitter? Ay! I sell my shit to whoever got money, yo! Now do I go
lookin’
for knocked up bitches and snotty-nosed kids? Nah, man, nah. But if they roll up on this block tryna conduct a transaction J-Ugly is gonna handle his!”

“Gimme what you got on you,” Trey said quietly. Heat was coming outta his eyes and he was damn close to losing his grip. “All of it. Whatever you got in ya muh’fuckin’ pockets, give that shit up right now.”

The trap boy bucked. “Niggah is you
crazy?
Yo ass ain’t
about
to stick me up without no burner, ya heard? Do you know who the fuck I rep for? Whose product you tryna gank? Man, Flex is my rowdy. I’m rolling with them Divine Nine niggahs, and you ain’t
about
to get my shit!”

“A’ight,” Trey said calmly. He reached behind dude’s knees and scooped his long ass straight up off his feet. He cradled dude in his arms like a baby, and tipped him backwards over the ledge of the roof.

“What the fuck is you
doin’
man?” the dope slanga screeched and tried to wrap his arms around Trey’s thick neck and rocked up shoulders. “Man, if you drop me off this bitch my crew is gonna
kill
your ass!”

“Oh, them niggahs can get some too,” Trey said as he head-butted dude in the nose again, and flung him straight over the edge. He stepped over to the door without a backwards glance, and it slammed shut behind him right after dude’s body went splat on the ground.

“Hell yeah,” Trey muttered as he walked back down the stairs without an ounce of regret. “Them niggahs can get some too.”

CHAPTER 23

The dark blue Ford sat idling in the darkness at the corner. Its headlights were off, and a lone figure was slouched down out of sight in the driver’s seat.

In the alley behind the G-Spot, Truth sat at the wheel of a BMW as he waited for his boss lady to come out so he could give her a ride home.

It was after 4:30am and the Spot was winding down for the night. The bar had closed, and the strippers were about to leave too. Ace and Pluto were in G’s office counting money and arguing over the night’s pitiful earnings. Pluto was still blaming his boy for the loss of Juicy and G’s cash, and Ace was tryna convince him that they still had eyes out there, and they could still find her and get paid big-time.

Truth turned on his iPod and pushed his earplugs deep in his ears as he waited. His eyes were on the door, and when it finally swung open Salida walked out carrying the bag of drug samples that she had picked up from her broker at Three Brothers Funeral Home. Truth saw her turn around and wave goodbye to Honey Dew, who had come outta the dressing room to lock the door.

As Salida strutted toward the whip in her dainty heels and sexy white dress, Truth got out so he could take her bags and open the door for her. But before he could make it around the car’s front fender, a burst of blue death roared outta nowhere.

A dark sedan screeched straight down the sidewalk, clipping parked cars and knocking over garbage cans as it zoomed toward the older woman at a heart-stopping speed.