Her Sweetest Revenge (Delphine Publications Presents) (6 page)

“
Nothing, just listening to the DJ.” I took another sip from my glass that was threatening to be empty. “I see you dropped outta school.” I started up a conversation with Phil, hoping to get rid of Luscious.

“
Yeah, I had to let that shit go. It wasn’t bringin’ in no dough. Gotta eat. You know how it go.” Phil polished off his drink and ordered another round. “You should be about to graduate though, right?”

“
No.” I paused for a minute. “I had to drop out too.”

Luscious, who was still standing next me, looked at me and Phil like we was wasting his time so he decided to butt back in the conversation. “Shit, you don’t need school anyway. I mean, what’s a beautiful girl like you need to spend half your day in a classroom for? You already equipped with wealth.”

Without responding to him I gave him a shut-the-fuck-up look with an insinuation of a smile on my face. “You know, I do hair over in the Brewster for a lot of our classmates. It used to be a hobby, but now it brings in cash.” I turned my attention back to Phil.

“
Aye, that’s what’s up. Gotta do what you gotta do.” Phil downed his shot.

Luscious, realizing that he was being ignored by me, grabbed his drink and gave me a once-over glance and walked away. His swag let me knew that he was pissed, but I could care less because he was slowing up my process.

Phil looked at me and smiled. “Don’t mind my nigga. He’s just feelin’ you. That’s why he trippin’. Shit, you can’t blame him for tryin’ to holla.”

“
Whatever. His ass is rude. The nigga just stood here and told me to give up my education and sell some pussy,” I spat out bluntly.

“
He didn’t mean that, Mya. I mean, but look at you.” For the first time since he approached the bar, Phil let his eyes slowly roam my curvaceous frame. “You fine as hell, fully stacked. Girl, you changed just this year alone,” Phil complimented me.

Tired of Phil’s ranting I gave him a way out. “A’ight. OK. I get it. I’ma fucking sex symbol. Please just let it go.” I pretended to be upset. Obviously it worked.

“
Damn, I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t help the situation with my compliment,” he tried to apologize. “Look, let me buy you a drink. You still my classmate, even though we both dropouts.”

He and I both started laughing at that comment.

“
Come on, let me buy you drink,” he continued to beg.

“
Only one.” I pretended to be giving in.

“
Aye, give her whatever she wants,” Phil yelled at the bartender.

“
Just refill my drink I had earlier.”

“
So this is my first time seeing you in the club. I’ve seen your girl Rochelle in here before, and she likes to shake her ass,” Phil joked.

“
She does like to get krunk,” I grinned. “But your observation about me is right though. This is my first night out. I like to keep a low profile.”

“
Well, let me show you how to have a good time. First, ain’t no standing at the bar all night. You have to hit the dance floor.”

Just as he said that, Hurricane Chris’s song “Halle Berry”
started blaring out of the speakers. I grabbed him by the hand and strutted my way to the dance floor. With a stunned look on his face, Phil stood back and watched me do my thang on the dance floor.

***

Three drinks and five dances later, Phil and I sat down at a table near the bar.

“
I guess you like to dance too, huh?” he asked me in a seemingly slurred voice. While I had been drinking light I was only feeling a little tipsy. Phil, on the other hand, had been taking vodka shots straight, and from the looks of it, that vodka was taking affect.

“
Yeah, my sister and I dance all the time at home,” I lied.

Sweat was starting to pour down Phil’s forehead, and I realized that he was drunk. Now his words were obviously slurred, and he was getting way too relaxed. I decided this was the perfect time to get him to talk about his crew.

“
You sure your crew don’t mind you kicking it over here with me all night? You did come out with them tonight,” I quickly threw that out to change the direction of the conversation.

“
Aw, shit, they don’t give a fuck,” Phil’s words slurred. “As long as the hoes surround them until they leave, they cool. All they gon’ do is pop bottles and smoke it up in here. I am missing out on the smoking though,” he grinned.

“
Well, I had fun dancing with you. And thanks for all the drinks, but you can go back with your crew. I don’t want you to miss blazing up on my account.”

Realizing he is being dismissed Phil started to protest. “Oh, but I’m cool. I can get you another drink. I can blaze anytime. Shit, I got pounds of that smoke, and then some.” He bragged like an idiot.

“
Look, I don’t want to come between you and your crew tonight. You guys might have a meeting or something. And the last thing you want to do is miss a meeting with your crew because you were hanging out with me.” I screwed with his head.

“
I told you, them niggas ain’t thinkin’ about my black ass. Besides, our meetings are on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I just sat in a two-hour meeting before I even got here, and I’m glad that shit is over. So unless someone gets shot or busted tonight, I don’t want to hear the word
meeting
until Tuesday.”

“
Wow, you guys have two-hour meetings? Sounds like a real business or something. I always thought crews were just a bunch of dope boys running together to make money and scare off other crews.”

“
That is what we do, but it’s also about business. Do you have any idea how much money passes through these crews in a week?”

Playing stupid I gave a weak number. “About ten thousand? It can’t be much more than that. I mean, after all, these crack fiends live in the projects.”

“
That may be true, but we work all over the city and out of the city. Shit, crews can bring in anywhere from one hundred to two hundred thousand a week.”

“
Damn, Phil, that’s dangerous work. Nobody makes that kind of money without a price.” Then I decided to take the conversation to common ground to ask specific questions to get specific answers.

“
Do you ever have to be responsible or do you have like leaders and shit?” Without hesitation, Phil started singing like a bird. Not sure anymore if it’s the liquor or just a case of the big mouth, I gave him my undivided attention without being obvious because I didn’t need to miss a word of his tell-all.

“
Squeeze and Luscious them niggas run this shit. They got this operation on lock. They’re some smart-ass niggas; they keep everything running smoothly. The rest of us niggas is the block. We push the dope and report to them. Luscious collects the ducketts from the crew and delivers it to Squeeze.”

“
What if someone is short in dope or money when Luscious come out to collect? ’Cause he look like he don’t play. I wonder all the time if he the reason for them dead bodies in the Brewster.” I gave a fake laugh suggesting that I’m joking and took a sip from my drink.

“
That shit don’t happen, Ma. Luscious meets with Squeeze every Wednesday. This happens to be the same day he collects from the crew. So if someone don’t have they money or dope, that nigga dead before Luscious even gets to Squeeze. If Luscious is short when he gets to Squeeze, he got some explaining to do. You feel me? Dead.” Phil’s eyes hardened on that last part, but they immediately softened, and without warning, he reached out and grabbed my right hand. “Mya, you got a beautiful smile.” He immediately realized that I wasn’t comfortable so he let go of my hand. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to grab your hand,” he apologized.

“
It’s cool. Thanks for the compliment,” I said while fighting the urge to get up, spit in his face, then slam his head on the table up and down until I see red. But out of nowhere he is saved by the fucking bell. I heard a voice that I recognized as Rochelle calling my name.

“
Mya!” Rochelle yelled again, this time catching my full attention.

“
What?” I turned around facing her. “Why are you yellin’?” I pretended like I’m annoyed.

“
What the hell is taking you so long? You said you would meet me in VIP in a minute, but according to my time, it’s been about an hour.” Rochelle continued to fuss a mile a minute before she noticed Phil sitting with me. She then shut up and stared at Phil like he just committed a criminal offense. Then she gave me a puzzled look before turning her attention back to Phil. “Hey, Phil.”

“
Yo, what’s up, Rochelle?” Phil replied while looking at me with a smirk on his face.

“
Well, um. I hate to interrupt, but, Mya, you have some people waiting to meet you in VIP.”

“
Oh yeah, I was about to come up,” I said, feeling relief. I had planned how I would pry info from Phil, but I didn’t plan how I would get away once I had enough info. Rochelle had saved me. I had to thank her later. I couldn’t help but think that Phil was a sucka-ass nigga.

“
Phil, it was nice talking to you, but I have to go party with my girls. You know how it is.”

“
No doubt. I guess I can go blaze with my crew. See you around.” Phil grabbed his drink and bounced.

As soon as he walked away Rochelle started with the million questions. “Mya, what are you doing sitting here with Phil? Was he trying to hook up with you? I know you ain’t feelin’ him, ’cause you know he a part of the Boone Squad. And you hate them, remember?” Rochelle reminded me.

“
Rochelle, calm down. I was only talking to him about school. Plus, he was buying me free drinks. Now let’s go to VIP and drink some more for free. The night is still young, and this DJ off the chain. I see what you were talking about. I already been shaking my butt on the dance floor,” I said as I followed her to VIP.

When we entered the VIP section I was blinded by bling. There was so much bling at first I couldn’t see anyone. When the bling finally cleared, I saw faces that I knew from this crew called the Height Squad. They were this other rival crew that sold dope in the Brewster and all over the Michigan area. This was the same crew that Charlene’s new man Pig ran with. As Rochelle started to introduce me to everyone I realized that I knew most of them. There was Li’l Lo, Pablo, Rob, and, of course, Pig. Then she introduced me to the one way in the back that I couldn’t see from the door where I was standing. Hood. Hood happened to be the guy that was staring at me earlier while he was at the bar. When Rochelle introduced Hood he never looked up. He was texting on his phone. The sight of him made me feel a little nervous and speechless. I was never speechless, especially over some guy, some thug. That simply wasn’t my style. So at that moment I chilled. Hood spoke up first.

“
Mya, that’s it, right?” he asked without looking up at me.

“
You got it,” I replied trying to sound cool while feeling like all eyes in the room were on me.

“
We have an open bar in here so help yourself. If you don’t see anything you want in here the waitress will be back in a minute. You can order whatever you want.”

“
Thanks,” I said as I followed Rochelle over to the bar.

“
Girl, did you see the way Hood looked at you when you entered the room? He likes you, Mya,” Rochelle babbled.

“
No, he don’t. He was not lookin’ at me. He don’t even know me. He was only trying to show off, and you know that don’t impress me,” I reminded her and rolled my eyes.

“
Mya, you can say what you want. Hood wants you. These hoes have been breaking this door down trying to get to Hood since we got here. They did the same thing last week, and when they do get in here, he don’t give them the time of day. But when you first stepped in here, he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Trust me, he wants you,” Rochelle beamed.

“
First off, when we first stepped in, the nigga was texting.”

“
Girl, that was a front because while I was introducing you to everyone, he was checking you out. I’m telling you, he wants you.”

“
Well, I don’t want him or any of these other niggas up in here. I got better shit to do with my time.” Rochelle handed me the drink she was mixing for me. Pretending not to give what she said another thought, I took a sip of my drink, threw my head back, and started relaxing to the beat.

Chapter 11

My plan for this morning seemed like it was already off track. I was supposed to get up and catch the bus to go meet my dad’s friend Big Nick at the crack of dawn. I called him last week to see if he could get me some clean guns, and he said he would take care of it. He told me when, where, and what time to show up, which happened to be first thing this morning, but this morning, I woke up late and with a little unwanted anxiety. Not that I was chickening out or anything, but just the reality of this robbery actually taking place slowed my pace a little bit, I think.