The Grind Don't Stop (15 page)

Visions of wild stray dogs, rabid rabbits or even worse, a slimy snake, all crept into her thoughts as she looked wildly around herself. After a moment, all she could hear was the sound of crickets and what she hoped were other harmless night crawlers and the rustling of air through the foliage. Anxiously, she wiped her brow with her sleeve and took a deep breath to release the built-up tension in her chest. She flicked the lighter back on and started looking around again.

She was already on pins and needles and the flickering flame made it that much more eerie.

“Oh my God.”
She nearly screamed when the ground seemed to move, slithering. She fell back on her butt.
A fucking snake.
She was too scared to speak. Her eyes were bucked wide open with terror as she watched it crawl away. She trembled uncontrollably, when its path went right over the walkie-talkie. Chill bumps ran all along her shivering arms. Once the slimy bastard disappeared into the bush, she slowly reached down to pick up the walkie-talkie.

Ah fuck, he's probably way up the road by now.
She cautiously stepped through the woods. She finally reached the car and had cut it on before she realized that she couldn't have the lights on. Reluctantly, she distinguished them and started forward until she felt the branches scraping the side of the car and remembered going off the road earlier. She slapped the side of her head and quickly shifted the car into reverse and slowly started backing up.

“Damn, woman, where the fuck are you, damn?” the staticky voice screamed over the airwaves, crashing the otherwise silent surroundings and caused her to jump nervously in the seat. She was concentrating so hard on backing up in the darkness, that she didn't even make an effort to answer him. She let him continue to squawk until she had cleared the path.

CeeDee had repeated himself three times, voice full of anxiety, by the time she finally acknowledged him. Wheezing with tension, she reached on the dashboard and retrieved the walkie-talkie. “I'm here, I'm here, man. Hold your godayum horses. I was busy backing out of that fucking cave you put me in, nigga. I couldn't stop, damnit, okay, oh fucking kayeeee. Fuck that, where you at?”

He let her know very harshly that he was waiting for her at the turnoff into the woods and that she had to hurry up. But she didn't even hear the last part because she was already gunning down the narrow dirt road before he had a chance to finish talking.

Within a minute, she was waving at him as she turned onto the
interstate. All he could do was shake his head and crank the truck back up and follow her.

What he didn't notice was the car that pulled out of the woods after he had gotten about a half-mile down the road. Lt. Woo had parked in the woods when they had veered onto the dirt road. She couldn't even explain it, but her instincts had told her that they had reached their destination. With her suspicious nature running in overdrive, she had jumped out of the car and run down the dirt road after them. She had arrived in time to see the woman get out of the car to follow him into the woods. She had worked her way through the dense foliage as he was backing the rig away from the building.

Having seen enough she headed back to the car to wait for the girl to come out. In her haste to leave she stepped on a branch and froze because of the loud sound it made and the sudden intake of the woman's breath through the bushes. Knowing that she was only a few feet from the woman's location, she proceeded cautiously through the remaining woods to the dirt road.

Lt. Woo realized that she was heading in the wrong direction when she rammed her shin into their car. The woman scrounging about in the foliage muffled her loud humph. She quickly righted herself, spun around and headed the other way. She didn't even realize that she had been holding her breath until she had gotten back to the highway. She bent over to catch her breath and composure before she broke into a sprint for her car.

She was about to pull onto the interstate when she saw the headlights of the tractor-trailer in her rearview mirror. She was far enough away that she was able to pull off onto another dirt road and cut off her lights undetected by the driver. He pulled up on the side of the road, evidently waiting for the woman to join him, so she waited.

She remained crouched down in the seat, eyeing them through the rearview mirror, until both the car and the truck passed before she backed out of the woods and fell in behind them. She stayed a safe enough distance behind to be undetected and to keep the trailer's taillights in view. The woman had pulled far enough ahead to be running interference for him.

She followed them all the way to Forest Park's Farmers Market. This made all the sense in the world since there were no fewer than fifty other trailers there at all times. She parked on the side of one of the many warehouses and walked among the many rigs until she saw the car. From there she got on her hands and knees and crept under the remaining rigs until she got to the stolen one.

“Oh shit, whaddafuck we got here,” she mumbled and frowned from shock when she got where she could see inside the cab. The driver was no other than the deputy chief, RJ, sitting in the cab going over the invoices. After minutes of what seemed like tense negotiations, RJ finally picked up his cell phone, then punched some numbers. “Okay, buddy boy, we got an inventory of…”

That's when one of the other trucks started cranking up, killing the rest of the conversation for her. She backed from under the rig and headed for the front so she could at least try to read their lips. But by the time she made it there and the noise of the other rig had moderated, there was another driver in the rig with RJ and they were preparing to pull out. She sprinted back to the other end of the truck in time to see the car rolling away. Lt. Woo took a deep breath, wheezed and sprinted for her own car, wondering which one she should follow.
Damn
.

W
hen Aunt Rose pulled up at the red light at the intersection of Dunlap and Main Streets, she had a change of mind about going to open the store. She had just left the apartment at Dunlap II, one which no one, not even Don, knew about. Unlike the young hustlers of today, who lived in the same joints they trapped out of, she knew that she needed a hideaway all to herself. There was no telling when or if those gangsters in Miami would figure out her location.

Not only was stealing all those drugs and money from that pimp who had killed her pimp profitable, it was suicidal because dude had some far-reaching tentacles that had touched a lot of people she knew. The same day that she had walked away with all of dude's goodies was the same day she had signed her own death warrant. The only link of them hunting her down was her nephew Don, who at the time, was a petty hustler and green to the drug game.

Now that she thought back on it, bringing his truly naïve ass to Atlanta had been a stroke of genius. After all she couldn't have gotten on the streets and sold all that dope without drawing attention to herself even if she had the heart of a lioness. She'd given him a little at a time to let him prove himself, which he'd definitely accomplished. And now she was extremely proud of the way he had grown in the ranks of Atlanta's top players with
her as the real brains behind the scene. There was one thing she could say about the youngun: He listened to and obeyed her every wish. Of course his rewards were plentiful.

Then there was the role she had played to get the greedy, old junkie of a boyfriend of two months to buy in to and let her run the convenience store in Jonesboro. Her acting skills of playing the needy naïve widow with money to burn deserved the kind of award one only earned in Hollywood.

The precious fool he turned out to be was much like the regular tricks she had kept on a string when she was high-stepping her donkey butt on the ho strip. And like those stupid tricks, he actually was crazy enough to think that she was in love with him.

She could still see the look of confidence on his scheming face the day she had come home with the money she claimed to have inherited from a dead uncle in South Carolina. He could've cared less where the money had come from as long as he saw himself in a bed of roses. Getting him to make that deal to buy the store from the old Jew couple was one of the easiest scams she'd ever pulled off. That fool even thought that it had been his idea. Men could be so naïve themselves sometimes, for he had forgotten all about the day a month earlier when she had slipped the owner a knot of bills to say that he was looking for a buyer. So if he was tripping off the speed ball she'd induced him to do that morning, any hustler worthy of the street wars he claimed to have conquered would've recognized that it was more than a mere happening.

He had been an even bigger fool when she convinced him that it would probably be better to put the ownership in her phony name since he was in and out of jail all the time. That damn fool had been so caught up in his own ego trip that he was actually smiling in the mirror at her, thinking she was playing a prank on him when with the sweetest smile, she glided the super-sharp barber's
razor across his throat. Why not? He had served his purpose and usefulness, especially after he let her know that he had no known relatives. He wouldn't be missed by anyone, sealing his doom for sure.

She was still reliving those sadistic thoughts when she noticed that Main had turned to Lee Street. Her mind instantly turned to the reason she' d decided to come that way in the first place. She needed to talk to Bertha at the strip club that Don partially owned.

Now that was a real stroke of genius the way she had maneuvered Don from the petty hustler to first peddling dime rocks in the projects to co-ownership of the strip lounge and later, the 617 gambling spot on Auburn. She often wondered what those niggas Mack and Junior would really think if they knew that she was one of the shooters that night years ago. Or that she'd provided the police with the info that flushed the other gunmen, knowing that those gung-ho clowns would fight to the death. They did when Mack and Junior's buddies gunned them down before the police got there.

Except for that bitch-ass nigga Wyatt Earp who somehow managed to duck their permanent resting place overlooking the King Memorial. It still felt good to know that he had yet to figure out that she was the one that wired the drug squad to his having all the dope he had scored from her, as well as the whereabouts of several guns he had used in some unsolved murders. Was he ever the fool, like all the others who had served
her purposes and had fallen on bad times and the graveyards.

Enough reminiscing; she needed to holler at her girl and she was never that fond of trusting the telephone. It was always better and safer to read someone face to face. Besides, she hadn't been with her girl in a few months now and really needed some of that female attention.

Ten minutes later, she entered the sparsely occupied club and since Bertha had her back to her washing some glasses, she headed straight for the office in the rear. She went to the mini bar in the far corner to fix herself a vodka and orange juice. After a few sips, she took a seat on the couch to go over mentally what she was going to say to Bertha. One of the things she admired most about her was that she was nobody's fool, so she had to pick her words carefully. After all, she had the same ex-street walker's mentality as she had.

Rose wrapped up her short think session and walked over to pull the picture of Hank Aaron's #715 homer to the side to get to the wall safe. Removing a blue metal box, she took it to the desk, took out several stacks of money and wrote Don a short note. She replaced the box in the safe and returned to the desk and called Bertha.

“Whatcha doing, girl?” she asked in a very sweet tone.

Bertha checked the caller ID and realizing that she was using the office phone, acted a little surprised anyway. “Is that you, Rose? Girl, you are full of surprises, aren't ya? I didn't even see you come in.”

So how in the hell you know I'm her bitch?
she thought with a momentary streak of anger before she decided to let it slide and said cheerfully, “Yeah, I know, can you come back here for a moment?”

Bertha held the phone away frowning for a second. “Okay, give me a few minutes.” She hung before Rose could respond. Of course she had seen her come in through the mirror, but had figured she'd want some time to herself like she usually did when she made one of her unexpected visits.

When she stepped into the room, Rose gave her a brief smile before she walked
over to the window to peek out of the blinds. She stood there long enough for Bertha to start to feel a little uncomfortable in the middle of the room before she turned around and went back to the desk.

Rose flexed her shoulders, folded her arms across her chest and relaxed against the back of the chair admiring the heavyset redbone. Bertha's cute cherubic face, humongous breasts, pert little nose and full, lavender-coated lips were well worth admiring. Rose often wondered if most people found it as hard as she did when it came to resisting her sexuality. Because of her size others had to be as amused when it came to matching Bertha's little girl voice with her body, which to her was an aphrodisiac all by itself.

The ever-conscious Bertha waited until she had unfolded her arms to rest them on the desk before she sat down in the chair facing her.

Rose waited while Bertha wiggled around in the chair to get comfortable before she reached into her purse to get a Virginia Slim cigarette. Staring at her intensely, she lit up and took a few drags before she finally spoke. “I need you to pump some info out of these dancers for me.”

Bertha didn't like the beginning of the conversation because she didn't trust any of the girls as far as she could throw them. But her curiosity had been pumped so she sat there and waited patiently for her to fill in the blanks.

Rose felt she could trust her to some extent, not with everything. Hell, she couldn't think of anyone who had gotten on that level with her, but with the matter at hand, she was definitely the only one that she could. Suddenly she had the urge to get her buzz on. She took a key out of her bra to open the bottom drawer. Just before she twisted the lock, she looked at Bertha undereyed for a second before lowering her gaze to make sure that the clear tape she always placed there hadn't been disturbed. Reassured that it hadn't, she removed a shaving kit of brown suede and Ziploc baggies filled with reefer and cocaine. After receiving a brief nod from Bertha, she used a cigar leaf to wrap up a blunt with a mixture of the two drugs. She took two long tokes and passed it across the desk to Bertha, who took a few long ones herself and passed it back. They repeated that ritual until it got close to being a duck and then Rose, staring gently into her eyes, reached over to caress her hands.