Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue (3 page)

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Authors: NOIRE

BOOK: Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue
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CHAPTER 4
 
I
knew I had been fucked the moment I opened my eyes. My cell phone was ringing like crazy. I reached out wildly tryna find the noise and kill it, and I damn-near fell outta the bed because that bad boy was on the floor.
I pressed the TALK button, then rolled over back on the bed.
“H-h-hello?”
“Bitch, wake up!” a loud-ass voice screamed in my ear.
It was Bowlegged Bunni Baines, my best friend and partner-in-grime.
Tangled in the old cotton sheets, I was butt-naked with my head resting on a flat, unfamiliar pillow. My aching legs were stretched wide-open, and my neatly trimmed triangle was still moist and sore from last night’s stunts.
I opened one crusty, bloodshot eye and peered at the clock on the ancient nightstand. It was after ten o’clock in the morning and I had been out cold the whole night. My hand shot to the top of my head and I patted around for my strawberry-blond Glama-Glo wig. It was gone. And so were my diamond earrings and my matching braided-diamond bracelet too.
“Girl, did you hear what I said? Wake your ass up!”
“W-w-what?” I croaked. My voice came out ripped and rusty, like I’d been humping some nigga’s good wood all night and screaming out his name.
“Gurlfriend ... ,” Bunni said in her classic hood drawl, “I’ma need you to open your eyes and pull yourself together, okay? You ain’t gonna believe this shit, but guess where me and Peaches just seent your picture at?”
I swallowed a mouthful of sleep dust then blurted out, “On a wanted poster?”
Bunni cracked up. “Nah, baby. I seent your mug on the back of a
milk carton
!”
I groaned and rolled over in the lumpy king-sized bed.
“Stop playing, Bunni. It’s too early in the morning for all that bullshit.”
“Oh, ’scuse me, my bad.” She had the nerve to cop a little attitude. Bunni was ghetto-dipped in shiesty sauce, but she had one of the slickest con games in Harlem. We’d been best friends since the fifth grade, and even though we butted heads sometimes, she was exactly the kind of chick I liked having on my team.
“Where the hell are you anyway? You was supposed to get that twenty large and come straight back last night!”
Twenty grand.
Suddenly I was wide-awake. I had a vivid flashback of getting nasty-knocked by some young dude I’d been trying to vic, and my stomach flipped over. Dropping the phone, I swept my foot around under the sheets and came up cold.
Cursing, I sat straight up. My eyes darted all around the big, run-down suite and reality slammed into me like a big, black cannon.
My mark had dipped.
His name flashed in my head.
Dajuan Latrell Sullivan.
“Oh, shit!” I leaped from the bed and dashed across the room. My pink-and-blond wig was draped over a lampshade, and my oversized Fendi bag was laying on a large coffee table.
I turned it over and shook it. Two mints, a tampon, my makeup bag, and my ID fell out.
Other than that, it was empty.
“A www w,
shit
!” I ran over to the crusty, linoleum-tiled bathroom and flung open the door. Empty.
I jetted back across the room and peeked inside the large walk-in closet. Other than a rickety ironing board, some crooked clothes hangers, and two empty plastic bags, that shit was empty too.
Back at the table, I picked up my bag again and saw the expensive-looking business card laying underneath it. The letters on it read
D. L. S
. in bright-red, extra-large script. I squinted hard to read the tiny print below the initials, then I blinked a few times until I could make out the horrifying words and a telephone number.
D.L.S. aka Daddy Long Stroke. 1-900-FUK-A-LOT.
I stared at the tangled bed where just hours earlier that nigga had had me moaning like a punk and getting my back blown out. The last thing I remembered was being dug out deliciously from behind, and then everything faded straight into fuzzy after that.
My ass had been stole! I’d been got real good!
And now, the only thing that was left to remind me of the long-legged Philly balla who had dropped something in my drink and lured me up to his penthouse suite, the so-called mark that I had been planning to gank for his watch, his ring, and every dime he had in his knotty-ass pockets, was a dent in the pillow where his head had lain!
 
Hater-bitches ran real thick in Harlem, and every time I went around Bunni’s way some stupid chicks wanted to fight me. Well, I was ready for them chickens today. The street where Bunni lived was hot and funky. Somebody’s dog had busted into some garbage bags that were lined up on the curb, and they overflowed with beer bottles and dirty pampers. Little kids wore crushed soda cans on their feet and slid across the pavement like they had on skates.
The porch monkeys were sitting on the front stoop puffin’ yay when I got off the number three train. I took off my shoes and walked up on them bitches like I was ready to throw down. Heffas musta sensed my heat ’cause none of them so much as looked my way. They just sat on them little plastic chairs smokin’ blunts and twirling that cheap-ass hair weave they bought from the ninety-nine-cent store.
“Yeah,” I straight busted on them outta nowhere. “Check this out. The next time one of y’all hallway-hoes got something to say about me, say that shit to my face!”
They looked at me like I was crazy, but I wasn’t fooled. One of these saggy-titty bitches had gone and blabbed to Punchie Collins that I was undercutting his drug sales by intercepting his customers before they could get upstairs to his dope house. Everything they’d said was true, but I dared one of these chicks to spit something clever out they mouths today because I was already steaming. That bandit-nigga Dajuan had jacked me for my dough, my earrings, my tennis bracelet, and my hot-pink thong too. I’d had to take the train home and sneak up under the turnstile with no drawers on just to get back uptown! Oh,
yeahhhh
. I would fuck a bitch up today!
With my mug set in a hard grill, I ran up the steps holding my breath and dodging mad piss puddles. Bunni lived on the third floor, and when I got to the top of the stairs I hesitated for a second, wondering if I should tell my best friends a boldfaced lie. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was step up in that crib and admit how bad I’d fucked up with our cash.
The three of us had needed that twenty grand, and me losing it was gonna put everybody in a bind. Peaches and Bunni were three months behind on their rent, and not only was I due in court on Monday to face a summons for writing bad checks, but Gutta, my thug nigga and gangsta boo, was getting sprung from the bing in less than a month, and I had lost his apartment and tricked up almost every dime of the twenty-five grand in cash that he had left me holding for him until he got out.
We had targeted that pillow-biting principal for a gank because Peaches had seen him out flossin’ and figured he had big loot. The take was supposed to be a three-way split, and since Bunni and Peaches had done all the real work, all I had to do was go make the pick up and bring home the cream. But now that I had lost it all, what the hell was I supposed to tell them?
Think, bitch, think!
I screamed inside as I tried to figure out my next move. I pushed through the stairwell door, and I was so busy concentrating on coming up with a lie that I forgot to look out for Punchie Collins.
I gasped as the weight of cold steel was pressed against my neck and I was shoved right back through the door. I stepped dead in the piss puddle that I had just dodged, and I flinched as Punchie hurled me up against the concrete wall.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, but that was nothing compared to the hot fire that detonated in my back when he flung my ass down hard on the stairs.
I shoulda known better than to fuck with Punchie Collins. That psycho nigga was medication-certified, and if I hadn’t been so scared of Gutta coming home and cutting my throat I woulda never violated Punchie’s little trap game the way I did.
“Where my fuckin’ money at, Mink, huh? Nah, don’t get up. Stay ya ass down on the grimy steps where you belong. This ya office, right? This where you been conducting all my business without paying me my taxes?”
Punchie was a big, shiny-black drug slanga who had a screw or two loose. He lived in apartment 3F, which was one of the busiest drug holes on the block. The crib belonged to Punchie’s grandmother, and him and his street crew sold crack, yay, and wet from the joint twenty-four-seven, around the clock.
He stood over me smoking a Newport and grilling me like he wanted to X me out. He wore a doo-rag tied over his long cornrows, and a scary-looking SIG automatic was stuck down in his waistband.
“Look”—I stared into his crazy eyes as my knees shook and I worked up a lie—“I wasn’t tryna fuck with your product, Punchie! For real. I swear I didn’t even know this was you. The only one I was tryna fuck with was ya boy, Moolah. Me and that dude go way back to third grade, man! His whole family is grimy! I didn’t know he was puttin’ in work for you, cause if I did I never woulda messed with him.”
That fool swung on me so hard my head whipped over my shoulder and grit from the dirty tenement stairs filled my mouth. My ass was shook. I hadn’t been slapped real good in a minute and I didn’t know how to take it.
“Bitch don’t you
ever
fuck with my money!” Punchie screamed.
I was so shocked I felt frozen. I slid down two steps and my ass went
bump, bump
. I pressed my fingers to my lip and realized it was bleeding.
“But I thought I was fuckin’ with Moolah!” I cried out my bullshit.
Oh, this nigga had some screws loose, all right. Shit, them screws was rolling around inside his head like colorful little marbles.
“What? You think somebody stupid, Mink? I know you was tryna jack me, bitch! Catchin’ my cash on the stairs like you got some weight behind you or something! You and that grimy bitch across the hall was eatin’ off me like fuckin’ staircase rats! I oughta break ya fuckin’…”
Suddenly shit changed. Punchie took a deep pull on his cigarette as his beady eyes raped me from my ankles all the way up to the hem in my skirt. He eyeballed me like he had X-ray vision and could see my naked pussy beneath my clothes.
“Yo... you wanna square up with me, Mink?”
I played dumb. Punchie had access to plenty of freaks. Crackheads out the ass woulda lined up to suck his dick down to the bone if he wanted them to, but he didn’t. That psycho fool wanted what I had between my legs.
“Um, I can try to tear you off some change when I get a few dollars, Punchie. But that’s all I can do.”
“Nah, nah.” He waved me off. “I don’t want your money… all that pink you got on make a nigga wanna get up in them guts. Let’s step inside my crib for a few minutes so we can both get straight.”
I smirked. Punchie was feeling himself. Playing dirty. Ever since Gutta got knocked all kinds of shiesty niggas had been tryna play me. Punchie was coming up real nice on the streets, and he was making enough cash to keep me laced in glitter and shine. All I had to do was pull up my skirt and let him lick my sore pussy out, and he woulda forgiven me for violating his bizz, and handed me enough paper to replace what I had just lost, no questions asked.
But I wasn’t going out like that. I was greasy, not sleazy. I was grimy, hell I wasn’t slimy. I was an opportunist, but I damn sure wasn’t no fuckin’ idiot. If Gutta found out Punchie was trampling on his gushy and boning me out, that beast was likely to come home and go on a killing spree.
“C’mon, Miss Body.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a fat roll of bills. He grinned as he started peeling them off. “I’m feening for a hit of that dick-bricking ass you got, ma. I’m ready to get up in them guts and dig into that gushy right now, girl. How much is a slice of that sweet pussy gonna set me back?”
“Nigga don’t even play me like that!” I based. Just because he had knocked me on my ass didn’t mean it was up for sale. “You might be moving weight and all, but that don’t mean shit to me. It’s all about Team Gutta in this camp, and my gorilla ain’t gonna be locked up in the zoo forever! You better chill with all that noise before he comes home and twists your doo-rag back!”
“Fuck that bitch-ass nigga Gutta! That fool ain’t nobody slick!”
“I bet you won’t be talkin’ none of that shit when his ass rolls back on the block!”
“Bitch!” Punchie snatched his tool outta his pants and brought it up like he was gonna backhand me with it, but then somebody kicked the exit door open and cold smashed that fool’s head in with a Glock.
“I wish yo fuckin’ ass would,” Peaches spit and
click-clacked
a round in the head of his gat. He had on a red teddy top and a pair of flame-colored booty shorts. His size-fifteen feet wobbled in the three-inch heels he had ordered from the online drag queen store, and he stared down at Punchie’s dropped ass with one arched eyebrow raised up high on his forehead.

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