Hell's Diva (11 page)

Mecca laughed. “You damn right it was necessary.”

Lou shook his head. “You don’t have to use that language, Mecca.”

Mecca sucked her teeth and replied. “Does it matter? I’m going to hell anyway! I beat that bitch ass,” Mecca teased and chuckled. Then she pointed a finger at Lou like a parent or teacher scolding a child. “Plus, I know who you are. I read the Bible and I even read the Qur’an. You the uh…” Mecca snapped her fingers. “You’re Satan! That’s who you are! I figured it out when you said you don’t know why God created people who were going to cause bloodshed among each other, and you wanted to prove Him wrong. I read that in those books!”

Lou began to clap his hands. “Hurray for Mecca, she finally got something right! You thought for a second, instead of just reacting!” Lou stopped clapping, then continued, “If you would have figured things out when you had the chance you would have had a better life.”

Mecca sucked her teeth. “You make it seem like I was stupid or something.”

“No, not stupid. You just made stupid decisions. Listen, Mecca, I’ve walked the planet since its creation and you’re not the worst person I’ve seen or met. Wow! I’ve met people like Hitler, Idi Amin, some of the pharaohs of Egypt. Liars like Columbus and others involved in the most treacherous treatment of human beings, the enslavement of your ancestors. All I did was watch.”

“What does this have to do with me?” she asked, cutting Lou off from reminiscing.

Lou folded his arms and rubbed his chin.” Well, Mecca, for some reason I kind of felt sorry for you, and you were one of the few people who didn’t blame me for the things you did. Honestly, I don’t know why you did the things you did.” Lou shrugged his shoulders. “Things happen that we have no control over. But a job is a job, so let us continue.”

“My appeal looks good. I’ll probably get offered a deal instead of going back to trial,” Ruby said to Mecca in the visiting room at the Federal Correctional Center for Women in Ohio.

Ruby put on a few pounds since she’d been down. Her face was puffy around the cheeks with the beginning of a double chin forming on her neck. She tried to conceal the weight gain by wearing a large, beige, prison-issued shirt and pants. Her hair was pulled in a tight ponytail, but the wrinkles developing on her forehead and eyes told of Ruby getting stressed and older.

Mecca listened attentively to her, despite the noise in the crowded visiting room. There were kids running around while their parents, mostly black and Hispanic, engaged in sexual acts performed while guards turned their backs. The visiting room smelled like popcorn and cheap perfume.

“Hopefully everything goes good for you,” Mecca replied.

“Yeah, this crooked mu’fucka convicted me on some bullshit. They had no evidence against me for no murders except for the Spanish cat because the police was right there, but there were witnesses that seen him come up behind me with a gun. I got an affidavit from one of the witnesses, some lady from Long Island. There’s another witness from uptown, a black dude, but he act like who don’t wanna help a bitch. I got his address. I’ll send it to you to see what you can do!”

Mecca nodded while unintentionally seeing a black inmate getting oral sex from a fat white girl two tables away from where Mecca and Ruby sat. Mecca thought,
People in jail will deal with any person willing to deal with a person behind bars.
The person could be fat, ugly, a whore, an old lady; it didn’t matter as long as they had some ties to the outside world. Men and women in prison were the same.

Looking at Ruby saddened Mecca regardless of how many times she came to visit her, which was usually once a month, depending on where Ruby was located. The Feds usually transfer inmates to different prisons throughout the country so an inmate won’t get too familiar with the prison and area around it. Ruby looked powerless, which was something Mecca wasn’t used to, nor Ruby. She conducted herself as if she were still running the show on the streets, though, because Mecca made her feel that way even though Mecca ran things and Ruby’s name was forgotten.

Mecca made sure Ruby’s commissary account stayed above $5,000. Money that Ruby had when she got locked up, she was spending on high-priced lawyers. She currently had three expensive lawyers working on her appeal. The cost was a little over $1 million.

Mecca kept Ruby updated often on what was going on in the streets. She told her about Dawn, and Ruby only replied, “People get what their hand calls for.” Mecca spoke of Shamel so much and so highly that Ruby figured it out.

“You feeling Shamel, ain’t you?” Mecca blushed. “Yeah, you feeling him,” Ruby replied, already knowing the answer.

To Mecca’s surprise, Ruby just smiled and said, “He’s a good nigga, Mecca. Better than that Tah cat. I don’t trust him. You know how niggas from the ville is. The grimiest they come.”

Mecca told Ruby about the incident with Tamika.

“You should have cut her face again. What kind of nigga doesn’t do anything to somebody who snitched on them? He a sucker-ass nigga! Leave his punk ass!” Ruby said sternly.

“I’m about done with this nigga.” Mecca snorted.

After four hours, the visit ended with Mecca promising Ruby that she would see her next month and find the witness who didn’t want to cooperate, and Ruby sending her love to Shamel. Before Ruby hugged Mecca she left her with a last piece of advice. Ruby held her face between her palms like Mecca was still a little girl. Mecca felt a little embarrassed but she just listened.

“Leave that clown, Tah. He going to fuck around and be your downfall.”

On her flight home, Mecca thought about everything she and Ruby had talked about. Before she got to the airport she called Shamel and told him to pick her up in two hours at JFK. Mecca smiled at the thought of Ruby finally giving her a blessing when it came to Mecca dealing with boys. She had to admit to herself that she was falling in love with Shamel. She didn’t have the heart to tell him because she didn’t know if he felt the same way. He showed signs that he was in love, but with guys you never know. Some of them just want steady pussy; a chick they could always run to when other chicks front on them. A chick who would do things sexually with them that another chick wouldn’t, and Mecca and Shamel’s sexual rendezvous had no limits.

When Mecca got to JFK Shamel was there waiting in his Land Cruiser. When she got in the Jeep, Shamel gave her a kiss on the lips and handed her a rose with a card. The card was a Hallmark card with a brown teddy bear on the front that had a red letter “I” on a white T-shirt. When Mecca opened it, the inside said “Love You.” Mecca had butterflies in her stomach and she felt the blood rush to her face. She hugged Shamel tightly and replied, “I love you too, Shamel. No lie.” She smiled from ear to ear and playfully slapped Shamel on his shoulder.

“You act like I was gone for a long time, surprising me like this.”

Shamel drove, looking at the road ahead. “Five minutes away from you is like a lifetime.”

Mecca knew right then and there that she had to leave Tah and commit herself to Shamel. During the ride to Brooklyn, Mecca told him about her visit with Ruby. Shamel smiled when she said that Ruby gave her blessing with dealing with him.

“Next time you go see her, I’m going,” Shamel said.

“She’ll be feeling that,” Mecca replied. When Mecca relayed to him what Ruby had said about her appeal and the witness from Harlem, Shamel became angry at the witness and promised Mecca that he was gonna make sure this nigga do the right thing. Even if they had to pay him whatever.

“Matter of fact, we gonna make that a priority,” Shamel said, already putting a plan into action. Mecca nodded in agreement.

Two nights later, as Shamel was exiting his Land Cruiser at a weed spot on Pitkin and Miller Avenue, two cars screeched to a halt and eight men jumped out. Shamel didn’t have his gun on him this night and he cursed himself for it when he realized the masked men were not cops. Before he could run or try to fight, he felt something heavy and hard hit him on the back of his head, and everything went black.

When he came to, his vision was blurred for a few seconds and his head hurt like hell. When he was able to focus, he saw that the room he was in looked like hell. He could tell he was in an abandoned tenement by the smell of rotted wood mixed with human waste and whatever animals used the place as shelter. The windows were boarded up and the walls were covered with graffiti, chipped paint, and once-plastered holes. The wooden floor that also had holes was littered with syringes, empty crack vials, and garbage. The two men who stood in front of him had the black ski masks still covering their faces. Shamel looked around for the other men who had kidnapped him, but he couldn’t see or hear the presence of any other people in the building.

“What’s the deal, son, you all right?” one of the masked men chuckled.

“Fuck y’all niggas want? I ain’t got no money like that,” Shamel said wearily. Both men started laughing.

“And we’re Spiderman and Superman, mu’fucka. We know you got money and the bitch you deal with got mad paper. We gonna see how loyal y’all li’l team is,” the other masked man barked.

“Leave her outta this, son. How much you want?” Shamel said, angry.

“Damn, kid. That hit a nerve, huh? This nigga must be in love or something, son,” one of the men said to the other.

The other one didn’t laugh or join in with the other about Shamel loving Mecca. “I thought you ain’t have money like that. Soon as we bring the bitch up you ready to peel, huh? Too late, we called her and told her fifty thousand or your ass is out.”

The masked man who didn’t laugh at the love joke leaned closer to Shamel. “She got a half hour to drop the money off where we told her or you a body, son.”

Shamel recognized the voice. He knew if he let him know that he knew who he was he would definitely leave the building in a bag. There was a time and place for everything, especially revenge.

The other masked man took a cigarette out of a pack of Newports he pulled out of his black fatigue pants, and lifted his mask over his mouth, revealing his mouth. Shamel saw the gold teeth the guy had on his bottom teeth. The word ‘Born’ was engraved on them.

When Mecca received the call she immediately went to her safe she had hidden in an apartment she rented in Bushwick. No one knew about this apartment except her. She rented it just in case she needed to hide out and no one would be able to tell cops or her enemies where she was. The caller told her, “We got Shamel. If you think we lying, go pick his truck up on Pitkin and Miller where we picked him up from. If you want to see him alive, we need fifty thousand. Drop it off in the garbage bin on the corner of New Lots in a half hour.” The phone clicked off.

Mecca drove to Pitkin and Miller with one of Shamel’s soldiers and tears welled up in her eyes when she saw his truck. She knew something was wrong when he never returned from the weed spot. She told Shamel’s soldier to take the truck back to Sutter Gardens and “get ready for war.”

Mecca dropped the fifty thousand where she was told, then drove off. Back in the tenement, a third man wearing a mask appeared in the room and whispered in the other masked man’s ear. The man whose voice Shamel recognized nodded his head, then bent over, putting his face close to Shamel. Shamel could smell the alcohol on the guy’s breath through the wool mask.

“I guess that bitch love you or something ’cause she paid for your freedom and life’ nigga. Next time, have your heat on you, stupid!”

All the while, Shamel was trying to get his hands loose from the duct tape around his wrist and ankles. His hands were taped behind his back and he was sitting on a crate with his back against the dirty wall. One of the masked men pulled out an orange box cutter and it made a clicking noise as the blade was pushed out.

“Let’s see if she’ll be attracted to you or pay for your plastic surgery after this.”

Shamel started struggling to get his hands loose. He knew what was next. Unfortunately, the tape was too strong and thick for him to break loose. The masked man without the box cutter began punching Shamel in his face and body with fast punches. He felt his eye begin to swell and blood flowed out of his nose. He could taste the blood in his mouth as the guy kept punching.

Fortunately, he was in shape, so the body punches didn’t affect him, but the blows to the face were making him dizzy and the pain was excruciating. Then the worst happened.

“Hold his face, son, I’ma eat this nigga food!” the one with the box cutter yelled.

One of them held his face as Shamel tried to turn away. He felt a pinch, then a burning sensation. The masked men then put duct tape around his eyes. They picked him up under his arms and dragged him off the crate, down some stairs, which seemed like they went on forever, banging against his butt and legs.

“Open the door, son!”

The cold night air rushed in as the door opened. Shamel felt the air cooling the blood on his face, which was numb. In the distance, he heard cars driving by and police sirens. Then the men let him go, and his head hit the ground. Lying still, he wondered what the men were doing until he heard them open a car door.

“Cut the tape from his wrist, son!” one of them yelled. Hearing the sound of the box cutter open made his body tense.

“Turn around, mu’fucka!” someone said, tugging on his arm. With the strength he had, Shamel turned over on his side and let the guy cut the duct tape off his wrist. When his hand was freed, he pulled the tape off of his face at the same time he heard a car door slam and tires screeching.

By the time he got the tape off his eyes and pulled it from his ankles, his kidnappers were gone. Shamel looked around the neighborhood to see where he was. The block was filled with tenements; some abandoned, some not. The sidewalk was filled with piles of black industrial garbage bags and littered with garbage, baby diapers, and drug paraphernalia. He touched his face and felt the deep gash and the swelling. He looked at his hands and saw that they were covered in blood.

The block looked familiar; he knew he was in Brooklyn, but was unsure where. He looked at a street sign as the elevated train at the corner rode by, making a screeching sound. Shamel could see the sparks of electricity from under the train as he read the sign: Hull Street and Broadway. He knew he was in Brownsville. Shamel walked to a pay phone on Broadway and dialed Mecca’s cell phone. She picked up on the first ring.

“Hello!”

Shamel never felt happier to hear someone’s voice. “Mecca, it’s me.”

“Shamel, where you at?” Mecca screamed into the phone, sounding relieved.

“Come get me. I’m on Hull and Broadway. I know who did this.”

“Don’t move, I’ll be right there. I’m sorry, Shamel,” Mecca cried.

“Don’t sweat it, Mecca. This ain’t your fault. These niggas going to pay. Hurry up, though. Niggas ate my food, I’m leaking.”