Pride (10 page)

Pluto, on the other hand was like, fuck no.

“He put her in a
nut-house
, my nig! That chick is prolly crazy as shit. Yo, we gotta trust G. That niggah knew exactly what the fuck he was doing when he banished her ass from the Empire! He stashed her out there in no-man’s-land for a
reason
, slime.”

Pluto shook his head. “I’m down to go spring her ass outta that hospital joint and all, but I’m cool on the rest of that shit. She’s got mad family out in Brooklyn, right? Well then she should stay out there and leave Harlem the fuck alone. Let them Puerto Rican muh’fuckas take her in and set her up. She’s they blood, not ours.”

Manipulation was Monique’s middle name so she had been sure to keep quiet during this part of the discussion and let the two big men duke it out. She waited until each of them had feverishly argued their case, and then she calmly suggested a compromise that she believed would satisfy them both.

“Y’all know Salida’s been stuck out there in that crazy-house by herself for a minute now,” she said quietly. “She might not wanna be on her own just yet. Maybe we can take her to her sister’s crib in Brooklyn so she can be around her family and they can look out for her, but then send somebody to bring her to the Spot every night if she wants to come out here.”

Both men had chewed on her suggestion for a few moments, and then nodded their approval. Yeah, Monique gave herself a little pat on the back. It was a decent compromise, but in all honesty Monique didn’t give a damn what Ace or Pluto wanted.

Ace talked that all bullshit about putting Salida up out of loyalty to his manz, but Monique scoffed at that shit. Why be loyal to somebody who wasn’t here to do you a solid or to be loyal back to you? Monique didn’t feel she owed G shit. If anything that niggah owed
her.
Getting her all souped up and then dying! G had promised to send her and Pluto down to Baltimore to spark up the G-Spot 2, where she was gonna be the head boss-bitch sitting on a throne and running things. And then that niggah goes and gets himself shot!

Of course Monique wanted them to find G’s money, but she wanted something else too. She wanted to get a bitch back. She wanted a piece of that bitch Juicy.

So while Ace and Pluto thought she was sitting around with an empty little head, she was busy scheming and planning. Just a’ planning and scheming. Damn straight. No more sitting up in that grimy-ass Spot feeling sorry for herself. It was time to take the bull by the horns and ride him until he fell the hell out.

Matter fact, it was past time.

$$$$$

Monique opened the door to G’s office and blew a big fat bubble. “Y’all ready?” she asked, smacking her pink Bazooka and working it around in her mouth. Her hair was spiraled-curled tight and bouncy, and her perfume floated above her in an invisible sugar cloud.

Pluto looked up from the money he was counting and grilled her, but Monique didn’t give a damn. His stank ass wasn’t gonna ruin her mood today. They were about to go for a real long car ride and she was hyped like hell. She’d only been out of New York City twice in her entire life, and she’d never been out of the country at all.

She had on some stylish but comfortable traveling gear, and had packed a bag full of snacks for the road. Pluto could buck his eyeballs all he wanted to. Monique was ready to roll.

“Are y’all ready?” she grinned at him and asked again.

“We ready when I say we ready!” he barked from his fat face. And then he switched it up and whined, “I’m hungry, Mo-Mo. Didn’t I tell you to make me something to eat?”

Monique grinned again and reached into her travel bag. Six o’clock on a Monday morning was not the right time to be cramming your face with tacos, but it was what her man had a taste for, so it was what Monique had fixed.

She pulled out six stuffed beef and chicken soft tacos wrapped in aluminum foil. They were still nice and hot, and she passed them to Pluto as she popped her bubblegum and sang a little tune under her breath.

“What you so happy for?” he barked, snatching the food. “You wanna be singing all early in the fuckin’ morning? How about we drop you off at a studio so you can sing all fuckin’ day!”

Monique ignored him and kept right on carrying her tune. She even snapped her fingers a couple of times and gyrated her juicy ass. Pluto’s noise-talking was bouncing all off of her today. He could say whatever the fuck he wanted to say. She was in no danger of being left behind, and they both knew it.

“I got my photo ID and my driver’s license in my purse, Daddy,” she said just to remind him of how important she was to the success of their plans. Both Pluto and Ace had multiple felonies on their records, and neither could cross the border into Canada without getting detained.

“Don’t worry, Daddy,” Monique sighed and cooed. “I remember everything you told me, and I’m gonna hop over there and pick up our package, then hop right back out, okay?”

Pluto was steady getting busy on his tacos. He nodded a few times and said happily, “This shit good, Mo-Mo. “Real good.”

Monique smiled. She knew she could burn. Her man loved damn near everything she cooked, and when it came to food he wasn’t shy about giving up the compliments.

Thirty minutes later Ace was pushing G’s custom-designed Mercedes north toward Canada. He was in a bad mood and he hadn’t been sleeping right since getting that letter from the sanitarium. He’d been up the last few nights steaming over all the shit that had happened over the past six months. He’d gone back and forth between feeling like a weak bitch for losing all the doe his niggah G had stashed away, and being pissed off at the thought of Gino and Juicy laid up on some tropical fuckin’ island living large and spending that shit.

Ace had been one of the closest people in the world to G. Not as close as Moonie, nah he couldn’t front and say that, but he had definitely come in second place on G’s trusted capo list.

Him, Moonie, Pluto, and G had been a four-man crew when all that cash got stashed in a mausoleum out in Woodlawn Cemetery after Juicy’s grandmother died. In fact, he had helped G haul the old lady’s dead body outta the coffin and stuff her into the trunk of his whip. Later that night, he’d ridden with G and Pacho out to the landfill and tossed the dead bitch off on top of a mound of rotting trash.

But Harlem had exploded in a fireball after G got shot, and Ace and Pluto had both gotten knocked in a flash. The cops had raided Pluto’s crib and caught him with his pants down, but Ace had gotten done even worse. He’d gotten busted going to check on his sick Grandma. And when the bullets started flying, it had been Grandma who ended up slumped over in her rocker with a metal slug through her forehead.

Hot rage ran through Ace as he thought about how he’d had to cool it on Rikers for a month before his lawyer finally got him out. But by that time it was too late. He had rushed over to his boss’s crib straight outta lock up and busted opened the wall safe. He had known there wasn’t gonna be a whole lotta doe in G’s home stash, but he had expected to find some decent pocket change. Most of all, he had expected to find a very special key, and when that shit wasn’t there, he had rushed out to Woodlawn Cemetery and used a sledgehammer to break into a crypt. Ace had known he was fucked by the weight of the metal drawer when he pulled it out. It was too light to hold a body, and it was damn sure too light to hold over half a million dollars in cold hard cash.

He shook with rage as he remembered staring up at the ceiling in the mausoleum. He’d flung a vase of dead flowers against the wall, then snatched up a folding chair and started swinging it like a bat. He’d cursed and screamed and beat the shit outta the walls and the floor until there was no more strength left in him.

There was no question in Ace’s mind about who had pulled a grand larceny on G’s hard earned stash. If he coulda gotten hold of Gino’s dirty ass he would have snapped his fuckin’ neck. But Gino had dipped. That marked niggah had grabbed Juicy and fled the city just like a little bitch.

I shoulda popped him when I had a chance, Ace thought bitterly. Right before his murder, G had given Ace an order to take Gino to the airport and put him on a plane. And when Ace had asked his boss what he should do if Gino bucked and didn’t wanna go, G’s eyes had been colder than ice when he’d said, “Then kill him.”

“And that’s what I shoulda did,” Ace said out loud. If he had sunk a hot one in Gino when he had him in his sights, the money woulda still been sitting in the crypt when he got outta jail, and him and Pluto would be rolling in it right now. “Yeah,” Ace muttered under his breath, his voice thick with rage and regret. “That’s exactly what the fuck I shoulda did.”

CHAPTER 11

Pulling up to the Canadian checkpoint, Monique eyeballed her reflection in the rearview mirror. Not only did she look cooler than ice, she looked young, sexy, and absolutely stunning. The line of cars waiting to cross the border had been mad long, but she wasn’t nervous and she wasn’t stressed. She had no reason to be. Her ID was in order, the paperwork on the whip was in order, and most important, the vehicle was totally clean. No drugs had ever come close to it because that had been one of G’s strictest rules.

Monique flashed the skinny white border agent a ‘fuck-me’ smile and he sent her one right back. She had dropped Ace and Pluto off at a mall in a small town nearby, and then followed the directions on her GPS until she came to the border crossing.

She handed over her paperwork, and when the agent directed her to get out so the car could be inspected, she climbed out cooperatively and stood there crunching on a Chick-o-Stick she had stashed in her bag.

Less than ten minutes later she had cleared customs and was on her way. According to the GPS the sanitarium was twenty-five miles north, so Monique sat back in the plush leather seats and purred. Handling the luxury whip was like riding a nice fat dick, and she enjoyed the feel of the powerful car as it moved at her command.

Sunny Hills was on a large, fenced-in compound. Monique had to show the letter they’d sent G, along with her photo ID, before they would let her pass through its heavy, well-guarded gates.

When she pulled onto the grounds she was shocked by what she saw. A huge, modern estate situated on what looked like miles of rolling green grass. Employees dressed in fancy uniforms walked around looking like butlers and maids. There was a slick swimming pool with bright blue water, several cabanas, and shaded tables where patients were laid out getting back rubs and hip massages.

This ain’t no regular nut-house!
Monique thought, taking it all in. Hospital, hell. G musta been dropping a gwap every year to keep his wife stashed away at a slamming resort like this. Escorted by an attendant, Monique breezed into the administrative office and filled out a stack of discharge paperwork for Salida McKay.

When she was done, they assigned her another attendant who escorted her down to the area where Salida was being housed. This attendant was a Black woman who looked to be about sixty.

“I’m so glad you came to get Mrs. McKay out of here,” the hefty woman said, her short legs moving fast. “Are you her daughter?”

“Oh no,” Monique said quickly and then lied, “I’m her niece, Monique. She was married to my uncle.”

“Mr. McKay? Oh, what a fine man! He used to come around here all the time, just loaded down with shopping bags and boxes full of expensive clothes jewelry. He made sure he kept his wife looking good and living in style, too. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him though. A lot of family members seem to just up and stop coming to visit sometimes.”

“Well, he upped and died,” Monique said flatly. “That’s why he stopped coming.”

The attendant frowned.

“Did he get sick? It happens. Our patients outlive their family members all the time. Most of them have healthy bodies. It’s their mental state that keeps them here.” They crossed the street and headed up a grass-lined walkway. Monique waited as the attendant used a key-card to unlock the side door of a small, ancient-looking building.

“We’re here,” the older woman said brightly, and led her into a stifling hot lobby. “This part ain’t as nice as what you saw out front. This is where they keep the ones who can’t pay their bill no more.”