Piece Keeper (17 page)

Teresa sat at her table reading the letter over and
over again. Black stood at the entrance watching her. Behind him in
the hall Whip stood watching Black.

“Why would he do this Black?” Teresa asked more
upset than sad.

Black didn’t have an answer for her. Not one that
would appease her or make her feel better so he remained
silent.

She sobbed. “A coward.”

“Excuse me?” He didn’t understand her meaning.

“A coward! He wasn’t even man enough to tell me face
to face that he had wanted to end this. A letter? Break it off in a
letter?”

“More personal than a text message.”

She felt ashamed. She was complaining about what was
done to her to the very person she’d done the same thing to. “I
guess I am calling the pot black right?”

Black laughed. “The pot is Black.” Truth was he felt
good about the situation. She had been through a lot and telling
her about James would only make this horrible mess even worse. She
continued to talk but Black barely listened. He was too busy
thinking about what Whip had told him.

***

James trembled in fear as he tried desperately to
steer the vehicle with a hole in the windshield. He was deaf in his
left ear. He felt the blood running from his ear to the side of his
face. He was alive. The woman in the back seat hadn’t killed him.
She’d just fired a shot to scare him. He wiped the blood from the
side of his face.

With the gun still to the back of his head she
whispered in his good ear. “Let the blood run. You take your hands
off the wheel again I’m putting one in the back of your head.”

He nodded letting her know that he understood. He
drove as he was directed to an old house on the other side of town.
When he arrived he was ordered out of the car and taken into a
basement where three other women he’d never seen before waited. It
was like a scene out of a movie. The basement had knives, plastic
bags, and a table with leather restraints. He gave up the
information right away before they cleaned him up, as Whip put
it.

***

The more he thought about it the more he smiled.
Black was surprised the level of precision that James and
Witherspoon had as far as getting rid of criminals. He never found
out who was over Witherspoon. James either held that information
out over fear or he simply didn’t know himself. Black had gotten
the blood analysis report back and found out it was James’ blood on
the asthma pump that Brown had given him. James still didn’t admit
he was in on the actual rape but Black knew better. Before Whip and
her team killed James they made him write a letter to Teresa saying
he was going away and not to look for him because it was over. Whip
was against it but she did it for her brother.

When the smoke cleared and Waeltz was on top he made
Black promise not to release the information about James in order
to spare Teresa. After contacting Seshat she had found out that the
money was coming from a dummy corporation out of New York. She
could dig deeper but he told her to forget it. The factors in the
situation were depleted. She froze the accounts, took half of the
money from Witherspoon and James, and gave the other half to Black
via an offshore account which he in turn gave to Whip and her team.
Black smiled. Bad money was going to good use.

“Glad to see you’re happy, Black,” Teresa said
snapping him back to the here and now.

“Oh, no….not smiling for that. Smiling because I
know you are a strong woman and will come through this stronger
than ever.”

“Hmm.”

He looked down at the table and saw two engagement
rings.

“Here, Black.”

“What’s this?”

“Your rings.”

He looked at her neck and saw another engagement
ring dangling from a chain around her neck. “You have three
engagement rings?”

She held the ring around her neck. “James gave me
this one.”

He wanted to tell her then and there that she was
wearing the ring of a man that had been hired to kill and bury her.
He picked up the two rings. “One is the one I gave you and the
other is…”

“The one you gave Morena.”

“What?”

“She didn’t have the heart to face you. She asked me
to.”

Black was upset and embarrassed.

Teresa continued. “With everything that went on
here, she said it was too much. She left a few hours ago.”

“For the best I suppose,” he said as he dropped the
two rings into his jacket pocket.

“I suppose.”

There was a moment of silence.

“How’s Sparkle?” Teresa asked with a solemn
smile.

“She’s okay. Probably the only girl I can hold on
to.”

Teresa laughed. “Unless she leaves you for,
Dad.”

Black smiled, bent down and kissed her on the
forehead, and then on the lips. “You take care, Teresa.”

She smiled.

He turned to leave.

“Black?”

With his back still to her he paused. “Yeah?”

“I lied….I’ll always be your Baby Love.”

He didn’t respond. He continued to the door
following his sister out of the apartment and out of Teresa’s
life.

The End

Excerpt of Dope Fiction

Prologue

Early 90’s

Whip sat behind the wheel of her 91 Cutlass, Danesha
sat next to her in the passenger seat rolling a blunt. Nicole and
Carlene both sat in the back seat.

“How long we have to wait on her to get here?”
Carlene asked referring to Cheyenne. She was the final member of
their five girl crew.

“You know we can’t leave without here.” Whip
snapped, turning down the volume on the radio.

“Shit, why not she can stay here and we can take
Nick.” Carlene spat back.

“Nah, Nick ain’t cut out for that.”

Carlene laughed. “And she’s ready to start copping
alone right?”

“I made the decision Carlene were not discussing
it.” Whip was the leader. Not necessarily because she was the
toughest but more because she had elements of all of them within
her psyche. She was a true hustler like Danesha, loyal like Nicole,
a killer like Cheyenne, and a gangster like Carlene. Carlene often
bumped heads with Whip, nothing personal just always testing her to
see if she would bend or break.

“You’ll do fine Nick.” Whip said looking at her in
the backseat through the rearview mirror. Nicole remained silent,
nodding at Whip with an assured stature about herself.

“Yeah as long as she can stay off the bottle until
it’s done.” Danesha added as she lit the blunt and took a pull.
Nicole rolled her eyes.

“You can stay here and I can go to Illinois, if you
think you can do better.” Nicole snapped back. She was the youngest
of the group only 19 years old. She found herself always having to
fight for respect of the group. It was true she had a drinking
problem she would never admit that to her girls especially not to
Danesha or Carlene.

“You ain’t never killed nothing.” Danesha said
handing the blunt to Whip.

“What that mean I’m supposed to be scared? The shit
ain’t hard.”

“We done talking about this shit Danesha and Carlene
leave the girl alone damn, you bitches is worrisome as hell
sometimes. Nick get the shit put it up, wait till we get back.”

“Alright.” She responded folding her arms across her
chest.

“Cool, now get your ass out my car Cheyenne just
pulled up.”

Nicole did as she was told climbing out as Cheyenne
climbed in and sat in her place. Nicole stood watching as the car
crept away leaving her standing alone.

***

The wind whistled and howled as Nicole pulled at the
straps of her quarter length butter soft leather coat. A matching
leather bag was draped over her shoulder. She stuck her hands in
her pockets as she rushed into the neighborhood lounge. Pausing to
give the security guard a kiss on the cheek she slipped three
nicely folded one-hundred dollar bills into his hand. For the three
bills he skipped the pat down and she walked right in with her .38
snub. With a wink and a nod she was off to her favorite booth in
the corner of the bar. Nicole was a hustler in a crew of female
hustlers. They earned a certain degree of respect that was equal if
not above the handful of top Black male hustlers in the city. They
earned well and knew how to keep their mouth shut so it wasn’t
unheard of for the local Costa Nostra to hire them to do certain
favors from time to time. Everyone had a position to play and
Nicole played hers well. She could play all the parts that needed
to be filled when they needed to be filled. She could fight and
could sell it all from girl, coke, and weed to stolen cars,
clothes, and information. She could turn coke to crack pretty well,
though not as well as Whip, but if need be she got the job
done.

She was riding solo tonight because the other girls
had to drive to Chicago for a job they were doing for Whip’s
brother. Even though she didn’t go she would still get a split.
That’s just how they rolled. If one made money they all made money.
Besides someone had to stay home and take care of business. She’d
just come from copping three kilos. She knew she should have gone
straight to the stash house but figured she would stop off for
drinks first. Nicole sat at her favorite table drinking shot after
shot and turning down offers to dance by her many admirers. She was
very nice to look at. At 19 years old and barely five feet her
beautiful brown skin glowed no matter what the lighting in the room
was like. With dark brown bedroom eyes she illuminated beauty where
ever she went. She was accustomed to all eyes being on her just as
they were tonight.

Ickie was no exception. He’d spotted her the moment
she entered the room. He sent over a bottle of champagne to let her
know he was scoping her. Ickie was an associate of her crew. He ran
different scams here and there and had been trying to get with
Nicole for a quite a while. He wasn’t a bad looking man. Most of
the women in the hood wanted him but he just wasn’t Nicole’s type.
Ickie was determined to change her viewpoint. He made his way to
her table as the waitress popped the cork on the five hundred
dollar bottle of liquor. Before she could pour a glass he retrieved
the bottle from the waitress and shooed her off.

“How long you been working here?” Nicole asked
jokingly as she picked up the glass and held it for him to pour the
champagne.

Ickie poured the drink and the champagne bubbled
running over the glass and spilling onto Nicole’s hand. Setting the
bottle on the table he quickly took her wet hand and slowly licked
the champagne from her fingers.

Nicole pulled from his grasp as she wiped the excess
alcohol from her hand with a cloth napkin. “Thank you, for the
drink…and the foreplay,” she said sarcastically.

“My pleasure, Nick. Where the rest of your girls
at?”

Nicole placed a cigarette in her mouth, lit it, took
a puff and blew the smoke in Ickie’s direction. “Why?”

“Cause I asked.”

Nicole turned her head away from Ickie. No longer
paying him any attention she began nodding her head to the music.
Ickie silently eased away from her table as he watched a man slide
into the booth next to Nicole and pour himself a glass of the
champagne he had just bought. He stared at the two. He felt himself
getting angrier with each shot he watched her take. She played him
and she would pay. She’ll be too drunk to even know what hit her,
he thought as he formed a plan in his head. The night progressed
slowly from then on as he watched guy after guy get shot down by
Nicole. The alcohol was starting to take its effect on her and the
vultures were circling as they watched her stumble towards the
door. Ickie slithered in her direction opening his suit jacket
flashing the butt of his gun at a brother looking a little too
overprotective beside her. Upon seeing the gun the guy quickly
backed down. Ickie then took Nicole by the arm.

She looked up ready to scold him then stopped once
she realized who it was. “Oh, Ickie, thank you. These brothers in
here like…like...”

“Dogs in heat.”

Nicole laughed. “Yeah, they found the wrong bitch
tonight though.”

Ickie chuckled.

She continued to slur. “You are so sweet,
Ickie.”

Sweet? he thought. Fuck sweet. He guided her towards
her car and blocking out whatever it was that she was rambling on
about. He paid extra attention to her clutching tight to the
leather bag. The gesture piqued his interest. “Where your keys at?”
he asked as he reached for her bag.

She pulled back from his grasp. “Back up, Ickie.”
She quickly dug into her bag and pulled out the .38. “Bang, bang!”
She mimicked the sound of a quick round before laughing. Seeing
that Ickie was unfazed she waved the gun once more, still laughing,
then dropped the weapon back in her purse before grabbing her car
keys.

“Girl, you silly as hell.” Ickie looked at her
cautiously.

She fumbled with the key chain before managing to
unlock the door, open it and climb in behind the wheel. She closed
the door, put the key in the ignition, and turned the engine.

Ickie stood outside the car tapping on her car
window. Nicole hit the down button and as the window rolled down he
peered inside. “You shouldn’t be driving.”

“I’m fine.”

“At least let me call someone.”

“Thanks but...”

“Let me ride home with you and I can catch a cab
from…”

Nicole rolled her eyes and grunted in frustration.
“Get in man, damn.”

Ickie rushed around to the passenger’s seat before
she could change her mind, opened the door, and got in. Quickly
Nicole pulled off into traffic before he could close the door.

***

Nicole woke up in a hotel room fully clothed lying
in bed. Her head was spinning. Slowly she sat up in bed as she
tried to figure out where she was and how she had gotten there. She
was alone as far as she could tell. Bits and pieces of the night
came back to her in a blur. She thought about Ickie. Had he gotten
the room for her? Did he try to do anything to her? She looked down
and checked her clothes. Other than her missing shoes nothing on
her was out of place, not even a button undone. Her mouth felt dry
and her stomach was growling. Sliding from the bed she observed the
room. She felt panic sweep over her as she moved about desperately
looking for her leather bag. How could I have been so stupid? She
thought as she burst into the bathroom. Stopping in her tracks she
stood with her mouth agape as her eyes fell upon Ickie laid out in
the tub with her gun on top of him and the leather bag thrown
carelessly on the tiled floor.