Return of the Cartier Cartel (13 page)

“I know you didn’t just say what I heard?” Li’l Momma swung her face around toward the backseat to face Bam. “And you have? Bam, please spare me. You had one dude who, while having a gun pointed at his head, made a remark that he was gonna make it official, and all of a sudden you’re wifey material?”

“I know what we had!”

“What the fuck y’all have?” Li’l Momma said, getting hyped. “No, what you should have said is, you know what he had. He had a bullet put into his muthafuckin’ brain, and you had an opportunity to spend his money, you low-down, grimy bitch!”

Bam burst into tears, unable to face the truth.

Cartier didn’t even bother to referee the argument. She was still replaying her own issues in her marriage.

Li’l Momma continued, “That nigga wasn’t ever gonna wife you. You were just a recreational fuck, hopping out of your bed two and three o’clock in the morning to go and get slayed. We call that a booty call on my side of town.”

“At least I get booty calls, ho! Who the fuck ringing your phone?”

“Bam, please don’t make me sling this pussy on one of your next beats, please. You know I keep a sponsor locked down, so fuck all that dumbness you talking.”

“You’re really feeling yourself for some strange reason,” Bam yelled through tears. “But check this. Anyone that’s checking for me will dodge your contaminated pussy, so you can sling your shit all you want. You won’t be getting nowhere with the caliber of men I fuck with.”

Li’l Momma erupted into an uncontrollable laughter.

Finally, Cartier had to ask, “What’s so funny?”

“This chick is really slow. Like Donnie’s beat-down really did make her a retard. Bam, I wouldn’t crush you like this, but you asked for it. I already fucked one of your beats. Big Mike, sweetie. I slung, and he”—Li’l Momma popped her collar—“played catch!”

The news hit Bam and Cartier like a Mack truck. Only, Bam reacted. As she reached in her handbag to grab her gat, Li’l Momma peeped her reaching for something out of her peripheral vision. Swiftly, Li’l Momma unclasped her seatbelt and lunged toward the backseat, and both girls began tussling as Cartier continued to drive. Fists were flying everywhere, some landing on top of Cartier’s head.

“Y’all better stop before we get killed!” Cartier screamed as she tried to find a safe place to park. She couldn’t see out of any of her mirrors, and the sharp kicks into the back of her chair weren’t helping things any. Next, she felt a clump of her hair being pulled, “Owww!” Cartier screamed as the car jerked and headed dangerously into another lane. “Let go of my fucking hair!”

Bam had Cartier’s hair, accidentally, but refused to let go. They were fighting to the finish. It seemed as if Cartier would never get the car to safety, but she did. Immediately, she hopped out and opened the back door, and Bam came tumbling out onto the hot pavement.

Cartier reached for Bam’s bag and held it snugly, quickly moving out of the way as the two women ravaged each other. Cartier was somewhat amused, watching the two go at it. After the harsh transference of words, she knew they needed to get it out of their system.

“You tried to pull out on me?” Li’l Momma kept yelling as she continued to hit Bam with a flurry of blows.

Bam had handled herself well, but in the end, Li’l Momma got the better of her. When they both tired out, Li’l Momma turned to see Cartier perched on the side of the car.

“Why you didn’t jump in and help ya girl?” Li’l Momma said, making light of the situation.

“I was waiting for the cops to roll up and take y’all to jail.” Cartier shook her head. “We all need to go to anger management.”

Both girls began to chuckle.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Cartier hopped back in the front seat to take everyone home.

Bam blurted out, “Fuck y’all bitches! Cartier, give me my bag!”

“Bam, come on and get in the car. It’s over. Let me take you home.”

“I said, give me my bag!”

Cartier looked up to see fresh purple bruises beginning to form on Bam’s milk-chocolate skin. Her eyes were wild and shifty. Cartier opened up her bag, removed the gun and placed it on her lap, and then tossed Bam’s bag out of the window. It hit the pavement like a bag of potatoes.

“Come on, Li’l Momma, let’s bounce.”

Once they drove off, Cartier turned to Li’l Momma. “Now why did you torture that girl like that? You know you didn’t fuck no Big Mike.”

“Of course, I didn’t. Since when we get down like that? But if her psycho self was silly enough to believe it, then so be it.”

“But, damn, what made you go there? You know Big Mike is a touchy subject.”

“I don’t care. She was taking shots at me, making me feel like I was a third-class citizen, that you and her belonged to some exclusive wifey club.”

“Well, later I think you should call her and apologize, and I’ll do the same. You know it’s been rough on her.”

Li’l Momma was silent for a while. “How long are we supposed to kiss her butt?”

“I guess, as long as it takes. And, really, I don’t think you should be the one kissing her butt. That should come from me. But I do think you could rein in your temper somewhat, just for the sake of peace. And, believe me, I know how hard that could be. Bam has a way off getting under anyone’s skin, and before you know it, you’ve already snapped.”

“You know what?” Li’l Momma turned to face Cartier. “What do you think she would have done, had I not stopped her from getting into her purse?”

Both ladies didn’t want to speculate.

“I think, when you call her, you should ask her.”

****

The sharp pain in her side was an indication of what was to come. Cartier tried to turn over and sleep through the pain, but it was too intense. She didn’t even have enough time to get angry about waking up to an empty bed. Jason had spent yet another night out. Almost crawling to the bathroom, she was eager to relieve her full bladder, until her urine came flowing out like fire.

“Oouucchhh!” she screamed, her eyes welling up with tears. “That muthafucka!”

Cartier didn’t need a doctor to know that Jason had given her an STD. She needed her girls, calling Bam and then Li’l Momma, and demanding, “Please, meet me at Trina’s house in an hour!”

Any morsel of love she felt for Jason was dead. Finally she felt ready to implement the plan that had been swirling around in her head for weeks. She just needed to know that her girls would be down for whatever.

****

Jalissa didn’t know who burnt who, because Jason wasn’t the only guy she was seeing. Nor did she know who the father of her unborn child was, for that same reason. But she did know how she would go about handling both those issues.

Screaming into the telephone, she let out a flurry of Spanish words, throwing in disease and then pregnant.

Jason knew he was busted. He’d already been to the clinic a week ago, so he knew that more than a few chicks would be calling to curse him out. Even his doctor gave him a tongue-lashing for having unprotected sex at his age. But Jason just didn’t get the same feeling putting on a condom. For him, it was like getting in a hot tub with rubber boots on.

Jalissa’s outburst was the least of his worries. She wasn’t his wife. He knew Cartier would surely act violent, but so far, she hadn’t said a word. Foolishly, he thought he hadn’t contaminated her. The next issue was Jalissa’s pregnancy.

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I no keep,” she cried into the phone.

Jason was sure she would have wanted to keep his baby. Her response made him challenge her. “What do you mean, you’re not going to keep my baby? I thought you were a good girl. You believe in abortion?”

“I no keep. I no want your wife to leave.”

After everything he’d put her through, burning her and getting her pregnant, she still had the kindest heart to think of his situation with Cartier, sacrificing her own morals and happiness. Jason was certainly smitten with this one.

“Look, don’t worry about my wife. You keeping my baby, and I don’t want to hear you talk about no abortion.”

“But it cost mucho dinero for baby.”

“Jalissa!”

“Yes, papi.”

“Don’t worry about that. I got you.”

Chapter 15

Expiration Date

“Bitch, you already know what this is. Don’t say a word, and you won’t get hurt.”

“Yo, what the fuck you doing?” Jalissa asked, looking down at the barrel of the .45 pointed directly at her abdomen. Once she saw the seriousness in Cartier’s expression, her ‘I no speaka English’ act was dead.

The hard whack on the back of her head with the butt of the gun buckled her knees and instantly dazed her. Woozy and temporarily blinded, she was unable to think straight, as fear shot straight through her veins. Her hands trembled as she tried to massage the back of her head at the point of impact.

“Didn’t I tell you not to say a muthafuckin’ word?” Cartier’s voice was stern as she growled instructions. “Now get the fuck in the car. Move!”

Fearfully, Jalissa crawled into the backseat of Jason’s Benz, where once again Bam was at the driver’s seat and Li’l Momma was riding shotgun. Cartier scooted in the back with the crying hostage to better control the situation.

“Don’t cry now,” Bam taunted. “Your ass should have known better than to fuck with The Cartel.”

“Remember me, bitch?” Li’l Momma’s icy glare cut through Jalissa’s heart. “You was all up in my grill a few months ago, and all the time you knew Ryan killed our friends. You slimy bitch!”

As Carter’s friends mocked Jalissa, Cartier remained quiet, readying her mind for what would come next. At this point the outcome hung in Jason’s hands; except, he didn’t know it.

Bam drove to the motel where Cartier had a crackhead rent a room only hours earlier. Cartier dragged Jalissa out and instructed Bam to park across the street in the KFC parking lot and try to remain out of sight.

“When I’m done here, I’ll come to you. But keep your eyes open for anything that could go wrong. Anything suspicious, y’all better come in there blazing.”

“Well, what about her? You can handle her by yourself? You want me to come in with you?” Li’l Momma asked, because her friend was obviously not telling them the whole story.

“Can I handle her?” Cartier asked, a smirk plastered on her face, before walking away and dragging Jalissa with her.

As soon as the motel room slammed shut, Cartier tucked her gun inside her waist and commenced to whipping Jalissa’s ass, her Brooklyn trademark Timberland boot smashing repeatedly into Jalissa’s fragile body parts.

“Keep fighting back!” Cartier taunted, as Jalissa threw feeble punches that couldn’t do damage to a ten-year-old. She was no match for the angry, betrayed, skillful fighter. “That’s right. You think you’re a tough bitch, right? You and your sister, huh, bitch!”

With the uppercuts to the chin and gut, headlocks, and barrage of punches to her face and head, the pain was so unbearable, Jalissa was ready to close her eyes and accept death.

When Cartier’s arms finally got tired, and Jalissa stopped putting up a fight, she was duct-taped and propped in a cheap, flimsy chair to await her fate.

At that point, Cartier called Jason. “Where you at?”

“I’m laying on that nigga Ryan, but he ain’t coming through.”

“Ryan? You got a locale on him?”

“Didn’t you just hear me say he ain’t coming through?” Jason replied, agitated.

Cartier tossed her eyes in the air. “Yo, meet me at Surfside Motel right before you drive through Far Rockaway. I got the 4-1-1 on Ryan, and my information is the real deal. So you better get over here, not now but right now!”

****

Cartier wiped down the motel room before walking casually across the boulevard to where Bam and Li’l Momma were waiting. She eased into the backseat. “Drive!”

Bam hesitated. “What happened in there? We saw Jason pull up. You left him in there with Jalissa?”

Cartier collapsed into tears. “I’m not going to say it again. Now drive!”

The tone in her voice was filled with angst. Bam panicked and sped out of the parking lot, tires screeching, doing nearly eighty miles an hour.

Li’l Momma screamed, “Bam, slow down! You know we’re in here riding dirty. You want us all to go to jail?”

“I’m just trying to get away—”

“From what? Cartier ain’t even told us what happened. You trying to outrun an affair? ’Cause, right now, that’s all that could happen, leaving Jason and his mistress alone.”

For some reason Li’l Momma’s sarcasm made everyone in the vehicle erupt in laughter. Even the miserable, quite shaken up Cartier let out a hearty laugh.

When they reached Bam’s house, Cartier had composed herself enough to tell her friends, “Bam was right for jetting. We just left the scene of a double homicide.”

Chapter 16

Dead Men Tell No Tales

“Ma, Jason’s not coming home.”

“What? He got knocked?” Trina sat up in her bed, still woozy from hanging out the previous night at Club Rendezvous, in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

“Nah, he ain’t get knocked,” Cartier said sternly, trying not to let her emotions get the better of her. “He got himself murdered.”

Trina didn’t know how to handle the news. Sure, it was a risk and always the highest possibility each time Jason walked out the front door, but Trina was in denial.

“Oh, Cartier, baby, I’m so sorry,” Trina began. Visions of the children growing up without a father flashed before her. What were they going to do now that the breadwinner was gone? How long would Cartier hold down the monthly expenses? Cartier would have to go back out there and do what she knew how to do best.

Straightaway Trina’s eyes began to well up with tears. Then she looked at her daughter, who was emotionless. Surely she was in shock.

“Cartier, come in here and sit down. Tell me what happened. Who called you? Are they sure it was Jason? Did you try to call him? Do you think that Spanish bitch set him up?”

Cartier swallowed hard. “I gave him a chance to come clean, to make a choice, and he chose her, so I had to do what I had to do.”