Get It Girls (29 page)

Vonda gestured for Jessica to come over and talk to her and backed out of the small section to give her some space. Tiny’s sunken eyes batted rapidly when she saw her friend Jessica approach, and she outreached her trembling hands as if she was asking her to save her. Jessica quickly took her hands in to hers and tried to smile, but could not manage one.

No words needed to be said and both of them knew her time was near. As if all the weight of the world had come down upon her, Jessica suddenly collapsed to her knees and cried as if there was no tomorrow. Kenny reacted and attempted to assist his fallen woman, but Vonda stopped him because she knew this was two friends’ final moment together and they needed to be alone. Vonda closed the curtain to assure their privacy and she and Kenny walked away to let them have their final moments together.

Jessica cried uncontrollably as she continued to grasp Tiny’s hand at her bedside.

Through glassy eyes, Tiny managed a tremulous smile and removed the oxygen mask on her face and whispered, “Jessica . . .”

Jessica looked up and wiped the tears and hair out of her eyes and regained her bearings. She rose from the floor, feeling ashamed for breaking down in front of Tiny when she needed her to be strong. “Yes, Tiny?”

Tiny seemed to fight for every breath as her frail chest and lungs siphoned enough air to continue speaking in short bursts. “I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . I . . . I let you down. I messed you over my . . . my whole life. ”

Jessica was crushed to think she was more concerned about her situation then her own and quickly refuted her, “Oh, Tiny, you didn’t let me down.”

Tiny shook her head, “No, Jessica, I did a lot of evil things to you because I was jealous of you. And . . . and if it wasn’t . . . for me . . . we would never had went to jail . . . in the first place.”

Jessica rubbed Tiny’s face affectionately and smiled. “Don’t worry about that, Tiny; I never blamed you for anything. You came through more times for us than anybody, and I love you for that. We are going to take care of you until you get better and . . .”

Tiny closed her eyes and shook head. “No, Jessica . . . no . . . I’m gonna die, so . . . don’t do that to yourself.”

Jessica was taken aback by her bluntness and hadn’t a word to say. She put her hand to her mouth and began to break down again.

Fighting past the pain, Tiny gritted her teeth and said, “Jessica! Look at me!”

Jessica focused her eyes on Tiny again, but her tears refused to let up.

Tiny put the oxygen mask to her mouth to get some fresh air into her lungs and continued, “You . . . got to be strong or you ain’t gonna make it.”

At that point, Jessica’s world was a haze, and she could no longer keep it together. “I’m scared, Tiny, I’m just so fucking scared. Too much is happening too fast, and I just can’t take it anymore. First Lynn, and now you . . . shit!”

Tiny only stared at her because she’d never seen Jessica fall to pieces like that. “It’s ok to be afraid, Jessica, and every . . . everything . . . is gonna work out.”

Jessica caught herself and apologized, “I’m sorry, Tiny. I’m supposed to be here for you, and here you are comforting me.” Jessica wiped the tears from her puffy eyes and chuckled as she rubbed her growing stomach. Jessica gazed up toward the ceiling and admitted more to herself, “I got a strange feeling I’m not going to come out of this alive. I just wish I could’ve given my baby a chance.”

For the first time Tiny noticed that Jessica’s stomach was round and hard and realized all at once that she was pregnant.

Jessica chuckled and said, “It don’t matter none because I missed my appointment with my P.O. and he probably already issued the warrant for my arrest by now.”

Tiny suddenly began to wheeze violently, unable to get air into her lungs. Jessica snapped out of her trance and immediately asked her what was wrong. Tiny began to gasp louder as her eyes began to roll to the back of her head. Jessica didn’t know what to do and screamed for help. Within seconds a squadron of doctors and nursing staff swarmed around Tiny’s bed to resuscitate her convulsing body.

**********

After they stabilized Tiny, they moved her upstairs to the I.C.U. Since she was inside the intensive care unit, commonly called ‘death watch’ by the staff, she was allowed to have visitors 24 hours a day until she would expire. Tiny was now unconscious and hooked up to a ventilating machine to breathe for her. Jessica couldn’t help but feel responsible because Tiny took off her oxygen mask to talk to her.

They spent the next ten hours standing vigil. Jessica, Kenny, and Vonda was all saddened to see their friend so helpless and vulnerable and didn’t want her to die alone, but they knew that time was running out and they had to leave because their lives depended on it. Vonda signaled to Jessica by tapping on her watch. She acknowledged her with a nod. Jessica asked Kenny could she speak to him and they proceeded out the room.

“Kenny, me and Vonda have to take care of something real important, and we need your help.”

“Anything, baby, you know that.”

“We don’t want to leave Tiny here by herself and want to know if you could stay with her for a couple of hours in case she . . . you know . . .”

Kenny saved her the angst and quickly told her he would. She thanked him with a hug and a kiss.

He held on to her longer than usual and said, “Whatever it is you doing, I want you to be careful.”

Jessica knew Kenny wasn’t a fool and decided not to lie to him and simply nodded. They pulled away and Jessica went back in the room to get Vonda. They both stared down at Tiny with sadness and each gave her a kiss on her forehead and cheek and walked away.

Just as they were about to leave, Jessica remembered, “Oh, Kenny, I forgot to call my mother, do you think you can find a payphone and tell her about Tiny?”

Kenny smiled, reached inside his pocket, and pulled out his mobile phone. “Why would I need a find a payphone when I got my own right here?”

Jessica had forgotten all about the portable phone he showed her earlier and thanked him again and walked toward the elevator.

Kenny watched them leave and then dialed the number to her mother’s house and explained to her Ms. Jones Tiny’s grave condition. When Kenny finished speaking to Ms. Jones he went back into the room and walked over to Tiny. He stared at her and shook his head, still not believing how much damage she’d done to herself. He continued to stare at her until he dozed off for a while.

His mobile phone suddenly rang and he pulled it out his pocket and answered it.

“Hello?” He listened intently into the phone and then frowned once he heard the voice. “Oh, hey, Uncle . . .” Kenny had totally forgotten that his uncle was coming into town that day and that he was supposed to be picking him up from the airport. Kenny took a seat in a chair that was by Tiny’s bed and he spoke to his uncle. Kenny talked business to his uncle for several minutes and hung up. He stood up to stretch and then looked at his watch and then at Tiny, who was in the same condition that she’d been in an hour ago. Kenny made one more phone call and decided that he had to leave and exited the room.

Seconds later, Tiny miraculously opened up her eyes and immediately ripped the oxygen tube from her throat and gagged loudly. The pain was excruciating as she held her throat and rubbed it. She then looked at her arms that had been riddled with I.V.’s and took a deep breath and removed each one from her arms.

She slowly got out of bed and limped over to the closet to search for her clothes. Since the machines that she was on were monitored with activating alarms, a nurse rushed in her room to check on her. When nurse saw Tiny out of the bed she was highly surprised because most patients in her unit never walked out of there alive. She quickly tried to assist her in case she was delusional and warned, “Ma’am, you can’t be out of bed. You are extremely ill and have to get back into bed.”

Tiny didn’t even turn around to acknowledge her as she found her clothes and began to dress slowly. The nurse approached her and gave her a sterner warning.

“Ma’am, if you don’t get back in bed I will be forced to put you back in myself.”

Tiny turned toward the nurse and with her deep, dead eyes said, “Get the fuck out of my face, bitch!”

The nurse knew to heed the small, but frightening girl’s warning and ran out to get help, but it would be too late. Tiny was already out the door and stepping into the elevator. When Tiny got outside, the first thing she did was bum a cigarette from a man passing by and then fished inside her pocket and found a lighter and lit it. She looked around and spotted a payphone and walked over to it and placed a call.

“Hello, yeah, is this the Division of Parole Office? Listen. I got information about a fugitive who has a warrant out for their arrest and I’m looking at her right now. Yeah, her name is Jessica Jones, a convicted murderer and she’s inside building 141 West 142nd Street. All you have to do is wait for her to come out.”

Tiny hung up the phone and took another toke from the cigarette and tossed it aside. She coughed harshly then smiled and made her way downtown to her next stop.

**********

Jessica and Vonda arrived at the scheduled meeting just as everyone else began to arrive. Johnson and Doc had just pulled up in a battered old Ford. Shooter pulled up shortly after in a blue van and parked right behind them. Chubby, ever so paranoid, parked his car two blocks away and had just walked up wearing all black everything. They greeted each other and stepped inside the building and knocked on Cleveland’s door and he let them in.

Cleveland greeted everyone and looked at his watch and said, “Ok, glad that everyone is here on time. We ain’t got too much time left, so we got go over everything to pull this off.”

It suddenly occurred to Cleveland that somebody was missing. “Where’s your other friend?”

Jessica and Vonda put their heads down and began to explain. “I’m sorry to tell all of you, but Tiny’s not going to be working with us because she’s in the hospital,” Vonda said sadly.

“Well, is she going to be ok?”asked Cleveland.

Vonda shook her head. “No. The doctors say she doesn’t have much time left.”

All the men were genuinely saddened by the news. No words were exchanged until Chubby broke the silence.

“Let’s do this for Lynn and Tiny.”

They all nodded and Cleveland instantly took lead. “Now Chubby, where do we stand with man on the inside?”

Chubby, who seemed to always have a permanent grim mask on his face, gave a rare smile.“We got everything arranged on the inside. I gave him some guns and weapons he stashed for when we get on the inside. We got detailed maps of every important room we need to concern ourselves about.” Chubby pulled out the map and unfolded it for all to see. “Right here is the entrance to the building, and they have three armed dudes positioned right here, here, and here. They have another one posted by the staircase on the second floor one flight up, whose job is to warn the people on the third floor of something like a bust and then release a bunch of attack dogs to buy them time to make it to the safe apartments upstairs. They have over eighty-six apartments in the entire building, so they would never get caught because the police can’t obtain warrants for every apartment.”

“What about the explosives?” asked Cleveland.

Chubby looked over at Johnson, who explained, “Chubby’s man gave me some good details of the locations and kind of explosives that we dealing with. The ones they have rigged on the first and second floor apartment windows, back and side doors in the lobby are lightweight stuff. I already met him and gave him instructions on how to neutralize the explosives in the lobby and back door so we can slip in easy. We have nothing to worry about, as far as the windows go so as long as we don’t go messing with them. But, I have yet to figure out one problem.” Johnson rubbed his beard. “From what he told me, the explosives that are supposed to be on the roof are some heavy stuff. When he described to me how it looked, it was pretty consistent with C-4.”

“So, why should we be worried about the roof if we don’t have to go there?” asked Cleveland.

Chubby spoke next. “Because that will be our safest exit out.”

Cleveland seemed confused. “How is a roof exit filled with high explosive the safest way out the building?”

Chubby and Johnson looked at each other and Johnson explained, “Thanks to Chubby’s inside man and what we didn’t know, was that they have men scattered all over that block whose sole purpose is to shoot and kill anyone who comes out of the building in case they are robbed. They have men with AK-47’s and two-way radios set up in assorted apartments across the street from the building’s entrance to cut down anyone as they come out. We would’ve been slaughtered.”

Cleveland was at loss for words and didn’t have any answers.

“Like I said,” Johnson continued, “the safest way out would be through the roof. If I had enough time I could deactivate the detonator on it. It’s not too hard to do; you just need to know what it looks like, but it could be rigged anywhere, on the steps, the door, or even a line wire. I just don’t know how many they may have scattered around up there, so I may need some time because it’s a slow process.”

“How much time you talking about?” asked Cleveland.

Johnson shrugged and said, “I don’t know, at least twenty to twenty-five minutes.”

Doc finally spoke up and reminded them, “That’s impossible because we have to be in and out of that building in less than ten minutes, fifteen at the most, before half the police precinct shows up.”

“He’s right,” added Shooter. “If we got any chance of making it out that building safely we got to be out of there quickly. Shit, we still didn’t figure out a way how we all can get in the building in the first place.”

There was a momentary period of silence, and everyone knew he was right.

Vonda finally suggested, “I know a way to get you in the building.”

They turned their attention toward Vonda.

“Tiny said before that the only people they let in the buildings are tenants and smokers. Well, since Tiny’s not here that means we got to have someone inside before we do anything, right? If I get there early and dress like a crackhead and cop some drugs, can’t you get your friend to sneak me upstairs, Chubby?”