Larceny (7 page)

“I've gotta go do something. Look, I brought Mal-Mal some fireworks, and I don't know if I'ma make it back in time to light 'em up with him. If I don't get back in time, can you do it?” I said to Ms. Cookie.

“Yeah, baby, I'll do that. I'm on my way to Gloria's anyway.”

“Okay then, Ms. Cookie. See you later.”

“Jovan, hold up for a minute.”

“What's up?”

“Baby, you got ten dollars so I can get Mal-Mal something to eat from the carryout?” Ms. Cookie said.

“Yeah, hold up,” I said, reaching into my back pocket where I kept a knot of ones and peeled off twenty dollars. I knew if I gave Ms. Cookie only ten, she'd just go cop a dime of blow, but with twenty she could get Mal-Mal something from the carryout and do whatever with the rest.

As I got on the highway to Bowie, all I could think about was my money. I had fifty thousand dollars over this bitch's house. My mind was racing. Who the fuck did this? I never brought anybody over there, and when I came home, I'd circle the parking lot a couple of times before I got out. I was always cautious not to put my bank in any danger. The more I thought about it, the madder I got and the harder my foot pressed on the gas.

As I turned off the highway onto the ramp, I reached under my seat and pulled out my black Beretta 9 mm. I always kept my pistol with me, especially when I was in Southeast, cause on that south side niggas ain't have no picks; they were always trying to kidnap and rob anybody who was getting some money.

Although the city was in an uproar around this time, I never had to use my Beretta. No one had given me a reason to. No one violated me like that dope fiend did back in '85, but tonight I felt violated, and whoever did this surely deserved two to the head. I'd killed before, and I would certainly kill again.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I didn't circle the block. I felt there was no need for my routine. I jumped out of my car holding my Beretta, hoping and wishing that the perpetrators were still around, Damn, all I could think about was my fifty thousand dollars. That was all I had: fifty thousand and my car. With that fifty thousand, I was going to cop two bricks and flip them over so this bitch and me could go to the nearest Benz dealer to cop my 300CE.

When I opened the door to the apartment, I saw that the place was a complete mess, and I knew my fifty thousand was gone. I ran toward the bedroom where I kept my money.

“Dee-Dee! Dee-Dee! I'm here. You a'ight?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. They just fucked my house up,” Dee-Dee said.

When I went into the bedroom to check the vent where my money was, I saw that it was busted open. I knew my shit wasn't there, but I still reached my hands in to make sure. As I took my hands out of the vent, my whole fucking world was crushed, and I instantly developed a supreme hatred for all cruddy niggas in the game. From this point on, I was going to make it my business to find out all the niggas in the city known for robbing and kidnapping. I was also going to make it my business to know where they hung out and who was down with their crew.

Around 8:15 p.m., I got a page, and when I looked at it and saw that it was Mal-Mal, I remembered I had promised him I would light the fireworks with him. Even though I was fucked up and my money was gone, I still had to keep my loyalty to Bilal. I promised him that I'd take care of Mal-Mal, so I figured I'd go light the fireworks and sit over Gloria's for a minute and get my thoughts together. I didn't call Mal-Mal back. I figured I'd just pull up and surprise him.

“Dee-Dee,” I said.

“What?” she said in a snappy way.

“Here's fifty dollars. Take a taxi over to your grandmother's house,” I said.

“For what? Where you goin'?” she asked.

“I've got something to do.”

“Jovan, how the fuck you just gonna leave after something like this?” Dee-Dee asked.

“Just do what the fuck I said! Damn, your ass is always trippin' and getting on my fuckin' nerves!” I said.

“Well, if I get on your nerves that bad, you can just move the fuck on and don't ever come back!” Dee-Dee yelled.

That was all I needed to hear. My fifty thousand was gone, the apartment had gotten broken into, and my 300CE was nowhere in the near future. I realized I didn't need this naggin'-ass bitch no more. After all, I was only eighteen and she was talking about settling down. Shit, I hadn't even begun to live my own life yet. Plus, I was broke again, and I had to get back out there and grind on the corner. The last thing a nigga who was trying to get his grind on needed was a broad who didn't understand. So, I did what any nigga in my position would do: I packed my shit and left.

As I walked out the door, Dee-Dee called me a million no-good-ass mu'fuckas. “You ain't shit, Jovan. You too weak to have a strong woman like me! Fuck you, nigga. I hope you have bad luck all your life, you no-good, dirty bitch!”

As I got into my car and pulled off, I had a smile on my face. Although I was mad about my fifty thousand, I was happy as hell to get Dee-Dee outta my life.

On my way to see Mal-Mal, all I could do was think about how I was going to get back on. For one, I didn't want anybody to know that my bank had gotten taken. Also, I didn't want to get fronted nothin'. I liked to pay for my own shit. I wondered if I would have to sell my car and jewelry, because if I did, then niggas would put it out in the street that I was broke. Shit, I didn't know what to do. I needed some time to sit back and think.

As I pulled up onto Twelfth Street, I saw a bunch of flashing lights and a lot of people standing around. Some were crying, and others were just being nosey. The crowd was so thick that I couldn't make my turn onto Wyle Street, so I got out of my car and walked up the street. It was obvious something was wrong. When I hit the corner, all I saw were fire engines and ambulances. Aunt Gloria's house was going up in a blaze of flames. I was determined to know what had happened.

I saw Ms. Cookie on the ground, crying her heart out, screaming, “My baby, my baby!”

Instantly, I knew Mal-Mal was in that fire. Man, what the fuck had happened?

“What happened, Ms. Cookie? Ms. Cookie, what happened?” I said as my heart pounded inside my chest.

No one could hold me back. I was mad—mad at the world, mad at Ms. Cookie, and mad at myself.

Later, I found out that Ms. Cookie never went back to Gloria's when I gave her the twenty dollars. She went around Orleans Place to cop her some blow, and Gloria had to go to work and left Mal-Mal and his cousin, Gwenee, at home by themselves.

Mal-Mal wasn't but eleven years old, and Gwenee was only twelve. Anybody in their right mind would know you can't leave an eleven- and twelve-year-old home by themselves with a bunch of fireworks on the Fourth of July.

When the fire marshals finally put out the fire, they went into the house to investigate what had happened and to see if anyone was alive in there. Ms. Cookie was still crying, trying to pry her way through the police and firemen, but they held her back with all their strength.

“Get the fuck off me! My baby's in there! Oh my God, Mal-Mal! My baby, my baby! Please, God, not my baby!” Ms. Cookie screamed.

That's all I could hear was Ms. Cookie screaming. As for myself, I just stood in the middle of Wyle Street with no expression on my face. I had no feeling in my body. I don't even remember if I was thinking or not. I was in a complete daze, and my whole system had shut down.

The first body they brought out was Gwenee. The fire marshal had her in his arms, and her body was limp. She didn't have any burn marks on her or anything, so she must have died from smoke inhalation. Li'l Gwenee was Gloria's only child, and when Gloria arrived on the scene and saw the fireman holding her dead child in his arms, she went off.

“Give me my child! Give me my child!” she screamed, fighting with the police and fire marshal who were trying to hold her back. She cried in pain for her child, and then her cry became angry blame.

“Cookie, what the fuck did you do to my baby? What the fuck did you do?” She fell to the ground, scratching and kicking the police, screaming, “Get the fuck off me!”

The fire marshal then brought Mal-Mal out. The only way that I knew it was him was from the new Jordans he had on, because I had gotten them for him last week. His body was burned from head to toe. I was so fucked up at what I saw that all I could do was fall to my knees right there in the middle of the street and cry the loudest pain that I ever felt in my life.

Ms. Cookie fell unconscious and had to be hospitalized for a few days. All I could think about was Bilal and how he would take it.

 

 

I paid for Mal-Mal's funeral and wake because I had a little money from the niggas who still owed me in the street. I sold my 300ZX but kept my Rolex, and I had about twenty thousand to work with after the funeral and everything.

After we buried Mal-Mal, Ms. Cookie went into rehab, and I continued trying to get some money. I always felt in my heart that my life was indebted to Bilal for taking my murder rap, and I also felt somehow responsible for Mal-Mal's death. If I had only been there to help light those fireworks, Mal-Mal would never have tried to do it himself.

 

 

 

“Okay now, Mr. Lawyer, tell me where you're from,” I said.

Jovan started smiling, and for a minute I thought he was blushing.

“Well, I grew up all over Southeast. When I was young we used to live in the Farms.”

“You mean Barry Farms?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

“That's a rough neighborhood, isn't it?” I said.

“Yeah, it's rough, but it was cool coming up, because that's where I learned how to fight, how to pick and choose real friends, how to survive and peep the game. It's also where I learned how to express certain talents.”

“Like what type of talents?” I asked.

“Music. I'm one of the original members of the Junk Yard Band. I used to play the buckets.”

I immediately started laughing. “For real?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, I was the man on the buckets back in the day.”

“Did you ever graduate to real instruments?”

“Yeah, I took up trumpet and piano in school.”

“Damn, I never met a guy who knew how to play the piano,” I said, impressed.

“There are a lot of things I know how to do that might surprise you,” Jovan said, smiling.

“Stop being fresh. Remember this is our first date.”

“So, you're calling this a date? That must mean I got a shot at seeing you again, huh?”

“No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant this is our first meeting, and if this goes well, who knows what may happen?” I said, smiling back at him.

“Now you're the one being fresh,” Jovan said, laughing.

“So, where else did you live?” I asked.

“Oh, we moved from the Farms to the Valley.”

“You mean Valley Green?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

I wished he'd stop calling me that, because it was turning me on.

“Living in Valley Green was real rough, but somehow my mother found a way to keep me outta trouble. She sent me to the Number Eleven Boys' Club after school. That's where I played basketball, football, and took up boxing. On the weekends, she sent me over Northeast to my grandmother's house, and I liked going over there, 'cause that's where my best friend lived.”

“Law offices of Rohon and Robinson. May I help you?” Cindy said.

“Hey, Cindy, this is Mark. Is Jovan there yet?” Mark asked her.

“Yes. He's in your office, waiting for your call.”

“Good. Plug me in,” Mark said.

“Jovan?” Cindy said.

“Yeah, Cindy, what's up?” Jovan said.

“Mark's on line one.”

“Okay, thank you,” Jovan said, pushing line one. “Hey, Mark, what's the deal?”

“Well, it took you long enough to get there. I've been calling all morning,” Mark said.

“C'mon, Mark, you called me at home at nine o'clock and it's now nine thirty-five. I came as fast as I could,” Jovan said.

“Damn. Hope you brushed your teeth,” Mark said, laughing.

“Good joke, Mark.”

“Okay, enough of the funny stuff. Let's get down to business.”

Jovan liked that in Mark; he knew when to joke and when to take care of business. Jovan guessed that was why they connected so well.

“Look, I need you to find me some cases on conflicts of interest, ineffective association of counsel, and illegal search and seizure.”

“Are these the issues your client is putting forth?” Jovan asked Mark.

“Yeah, but not right now. I just need the cases beforehand in case the government wants to argue; then I'll already have my guns loaded.”

Mark always stayed two steps ahead of the government, because whenever they presented something in the cut, he hit 'em right back with it.

 

 

After Jovan got off the phone with Mark, he went into Mark's private law library and looked up the cases that would fit his argument to a tee. The fact that this new client was his best friend made him work even harder. He Shepardized case after case, updated them, and faxed them straight to Mark.

Mark called back again.

“Law offices of Rohon and Robinson. May I help you?” Cindy said.

“Cindy, plug me into Jovan again,” Mark said.

“Jovan, line one. Mark again,” Cindy said.

This time Jovan didn't pick up the receiver; instead he sat back in Mark's chair, placed his feet up on his desk, and pressed the intercom button.

“Yeah, Mark, what's up?” Jovan said.

“First of all, get your ass outta my chair. When you legally become a lawyer, you'll get your own desk and chair,” Mark said.

“Yeah, right, besides yours, huh?” Jovan said, laughing.

“I don't know 'bout that one, buddy,” Mark said.

“Hey, were those cases any good?”

“Yeah, they were damn good. The government's mad as hell,” Mark said with a chuckle.

“What's next?” Jovan asked Mark.

“Well, my client only has one hang-up.”

“What's that?”

“The government still has the statement from a witness during the grand jury testimony, and they're saying that this witness is still willing to testify,” Mark said.

Damn, Bilal's shit was looking fucked up, so Jovan asked, “Did the judge grant a new trial?”

“No, not yet, but we do have some good news.”

“Yeah, what's that?”

“Come to find out the officers who arrested my client never had a legitimate warrant for his arrest. They just had a personal vendetta against him, so they got some information from an informant and put together a bogus warrant and illegally searched his home.”

“So, does he now have a good argument to drop all the charges?” Jovan asked hopefully.

“Yeah, but there is still one thing that fucks it up.”

“What's that?”

“If the charges get dropped, the government is gonna reindict my client for conspiracy, and they will use the witness that was an informant for the police to testify against him and his grand jury statement, which I'm reading right now.”

“Is his statement bad?” Jovan asked, needing to know because his best friend's life was on the line.

“Yeah, it's very bad. It says here that my client sold him at least five kilos of coke a week.”

“Damn, they got him in a bind, huh?” Jovan asked.

“Yeah, this will fuck him up for good.”

Bilal was Jovan's best friend, and he had to do something; he had to find some way to get him out of this bind.

“Mark, how much time do we have to work on this case?”

“I'm gonna ask the judge for an extension of time. I'll call you back and let you know how it goes,” Mark said.

When Jovan got off the phone with Mark, he was in a state of confusion. How in the hell was he gonna get his man outta this situation?

 

 

 

After Mal-Mal's death, I chilled out for a while, but I eventually got back into the swing of things. By the summer of '91, I was coping at least four bricks a week. My connect was from New York, and sometimes he would bring it down to me, but most times I had to go get it myself.

After a few months of dealing with my connect, we became real cool. He put me down on a lot of things in the drug game, and he taught me how to whip up bricks. I would take two bricks and cook them up with B1 vitamins and baking soda, and it would make three bricks out of two bricks. The coke would never come back Grade A, but on a scale from one to ten, I'd say it was a six.

I wouldn't sell these bricks to the niggas I fucked with regularly; I always kept them with good coke so they could make their money fast and buy more bricks from me. What I would do was serve it to them Virginia Bammas because they would buy anything as long as it was coke.

Virginia was pumping like that. Them Bammas would cop, like, two bricks a week from me, straight money not a dollar short. That was what scared me about those niggas. So when I served them, I made sure they brought their asses across the bridge to Washington, D.C. because if any funny business was to happen as far as the police was concerned, I'd have a better chance of getting away.

My connect also told me about the hydraulic stash spots, that James Bond shit. So what I did was go to the nearest Mazda dealer and buy myself a brand new MVP van. Then I sent it up to New York, and my connect had his man make me a spot that could hold at least eight bricks. That shit cost me ten thousand dollars, but it was worth it. I also bought a new silver 535 BMW with chrome BBS wheels.

At the time, I was renting a townhouse out in Clinton, Maryland, ten minutes outside the city, and everything was going good for me. I was anticipating my man, Bilal, coming home, and whatever I had was going to be broken down 50-50. Half of this shit was his. We'd both be getting money together, doing all the shit we dreamed about; but for right now, I was the man of the hour. I traded my old Rolex in for a new one, an 18K Presidential with a diamond bezel and diamonds flowing through the middle of the band. Bitches would go crazy when they saw me rocking that joint. I also had a three-carat earring that I rocked on occasion, and a plain Rolex band bracelet.

My style of clothes also changed. It was no longer Polo. I had switched to Gianni Versace, Gucci, MCM, and Ferragamo. I was getting too much money to be dressing like I was still some corner hustler. The more money I made, the less sweat suits and tennis shoes I wore. I started going to all the main events: fights, lavish parties, and social functions, and I was fucking the baddest broads in the city. I had more clientele than I could handle. I was holdin' around a hundred thou plus assets.

At the time, I was involved with the prettiest up and coming youngin' in the city. Her name was Barvette. She was brown-skinned with a milky complexion, nice hair, a nice body, and a walk that made her look sexier than she really was. The pussy was on one thousand. It was Barvette that hipped me to all the finer restaurants in the city. She also hipped me to all the boutiques on Wisconsin Avenue: Neiman Marcus, Gianfranco Feree, Versace, Gucci, and Everett Hall. In fact, I think the first time I ate at the Cheesecake Factory was with her—or was it with freaky Tracey? I don't know, 'cause I was fucking both of 'em at the same time.

We also went on trips together to Negril, Vegas, Cancun, and a couple of other places. Although she wasn't officially my girl, we were still cool as shit, so if there was anything I could do to help her out, I didn't have a problem with it—until she started asking for that Chanel shit. Now, that shit was costly. They wanted three thousand for a pocketbook, so instead of breaking her off a nice bank for that Chanel shit, I broke off the relationship. I hustled too hard to be giving up that much bank to a broad who wasn't officially my girl.

Damn, I wished Bilal would hurry up and come home. All I kept thinking about was how comfortable it was gonna be for him when he got there. I was Bilal's only family besides Aunt Gloria, and she was at the St. Elizabeth Mental Hospital. After Li'l Gweene died, Gloria wasn't the same, and Ms. Cookie had passed away a year ago.

When Ms. Cookie went into rehab, she discovered she had full-blown AIDS from shooting dope. I saw Ms. Cookie after she got out of rehab. She looked bad because the disease was killing her. I used to take her to the doctor and to the pharmacy to pick up her medicine, and sometimes I'd take her to lunch and we'd talk about Bilal and Mal-Mal.

Before Ms. Cookie died, she finally, for the first time, went to visit Bilal. I don't know how that visit went because right after that, Ms. Cookie was hospitalized and she went into a coma, and then two weeks later she died. I paid for the funeral and had her buried right next to Mal-Mal.