The Lipstick Clique (14 page)

A few minutes after the news segment on her went off, 5’s cell phone began to vibrate. He’d left it on the bed when he went to the store up the street to grab some Tylenol for her slight headache. She glanced over at the caller ID and saw
Grimmer’s
name pop up. Her and Grimmer were cool, so she answered 5’s phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey Treasure… where’s my man at?” Grimmer asked while trying to hide the small inkling of concern that was in his voice.

Immediately, Treasure thought for a second that Grimmer had seen the news segment. “He’s at the store. You want to leave a message for him?”

Grimmer was silent after she asked the question, instantly making her nervous. She knew how bad she wanted to be with 5, and knew that any conflict with his brother would simply prohibit that from happening. She couldn’t afford to be on anyone’s bad side at all!

After a short silence, Grimmer laughed slightly. “Well… I just wanted to tell you two that you are my favorite couple in the world. I also wanted to find out when the two of you are going to get married. With a love like what you two share, I really do expect for it to happen in the next few months. You have my blessings love, and I hope this happens.”

Treasure smiled from ear to ear. She was truly blessed to have a man that loved her and a family that respected her even more. For a minute, she had gotten scared and thought that Grimmer was calling her about what had just been spread on the evening news, but that was not the case. She should have known that he was more stand-up than that, and given him more credit.

“Thank you Grim.” She said as she hung 5’s phone up. As soon as she hung up, another call came in. It was Danielle.

Treasure answered it without a second thought. Right before she could open her mouth Danielle was on the phone screaming. “5!! Did you see the news??”

Immediately Treasure hung the phone up and ran to grab her shit. She had to get the fuck out of dodge immediately, with or without 5. She would only wait another 2 or 3 minutes for him to return, and if he wasn’t willing to just get up and leave with her without any explanation, then so fuckin’ be it. There was no possible way that she was just going to sit around and wait for his family to send her to prison for the remainder of her life.

Fuck that! She thought as she grabbed a duffel bag that she kept stored and locked away. Inside of it were 3 guns, and a few hundred thousand dollars in cash. She had it put up for a rainy day, and on that day, it was a fuckin downpour. As much as she loved 5, she just knew that she wasn’t about to go through the bullshit – at all!

She took her duffel bag and cell phone charger to the living room and looked around the room one last time. She knew that she’d had quite a blast just lounging around and being happy with her man, but she also knew that for a girl of her caliber and lifestyle, living a life like that was not realistic. She had taken a break for half a year and knew that even though 5 and the Dirt Mob had continued working, she had still fired way more shots than all of them combined.

She shot pistols like a maniac when she was with Milan and Skye, and she had become a street legend parallel and akin to that of her good friend Malcolm Powers. When she stated that she would do it as big as the Bankroll Squad, she had no clue that the extent of her consequences could possibly match the severity of theirs. The only flipside was that she felt she had to be stronger than Malcolm in order to survive.

She had to be stronger because Malcolm had an entire crew helping him out, as well as a stand-alone ride or die chick who would cross hell or high water for him. Treasure only had herself, her cleverness, and a set of pistols. She already had it in her mind that she would not lose. She would hide, run, and swim until she was again anonymous and living her life. She was not planning to run overseas, she was planning on living right where the fuck she was at!

She checked the time on 5’s phone and saw that a minute and a half had already passed. She glanced out the window and saw nothing, then heard the phone rang again. This time she saw Meatloaf’s number on the caller ID. She exhaled and thought about not answering it at first, but she really wanted to see where he was at. She answered it without speaking.

“Damn bitch! You painted the whole got damn Wal-Mart parking lot red!!” Lena screamed to
Tarra
as they mashed the gas, flying down the expressway. Their vehicle was going 90 miles per hour, in and out of lanes, dodging minor bumps, and one pothole away from skidding out of control and ending their lives. But they were too happy to slow down.

“You know how we do that shit Lena!!! Lipstick Cliqued that whole shit! I sprayed my fake ass Dad, sprayed his wack ass bitch, sprayed the security guards, and just randomly sprayed some shit just on GP! Fuck that shit, we ain’t taking no bullshit no more!”

“
Whooooooooooo
!
Whoooooo
!
Whoooooooo
!” Lena screamed as they rounded the curve going 94 miles per hour. They had both been holding on for dear life as they made their getaway. “Damn
Tarra
!! You know we didn’t even get a chance to rob nothing girl! We didn’t get no got damn money! That’s some wild ass outlaw shit you just did girl!”

“
Wheeeeewwwwww
! I don’t give a fuck! I can’t believe he did that shit to me and my mother, then had the nerve to be French kissing that white bitch in public. Man, this on everything! I knew I wasn’t about to let that nigga breathe another second! Lipstick Clique
bitchhhhh
!”

Lena let her window down and repeated the mantra. “Lipstick Clique
bitchhhhh
! Not
nann
ho in the city want it with us. Not
nann
nigga want it either. Folks in these streets always acting like they hard; singing rap songs about what they
gon
do with a pistol. Rapping about how an AK works. I wish they would
sooooo
stop with all that flexing
Tarra
.”

Tarra
looked over at her and smirked. “If they stop flexing, then what would be our entertainment? Let them
sucka
bitches keep
flexxxinggg
!”

__________

Lena and
Tarra
had been amped to the max that night when they sprayed the Wal-Mart parking lot. Now, days later, they had been getting so much news coverage that they were afraid to walk by a window. They had switched apartments since then, and only a handful of people in the streets knew where they stayed. If Lena would have had it her way, nobody would have known, but she had to trust someone in order to make sure that she had someone to sign the lease for the apartment.

She didn’t have a job and was afraid to show her face in public, so the person who was helping them came right on time. It was someone that her homegirl
Tarra
had known for over five years, and someone who
Tarra
also swore up and down would never tell the authorities where they were, no matter what. Many times Lena had wondered how she could be so sure that her friend was so solid, but didn’t feel like getting into an argument about something that didn’t matter.

“Shit! I’m hungry as hell Lena,”
Tarra
said as she stood in the refrigerator door looking at a potential echo effect. They had consumed everything out of there except for a half gallon of milk and a few slices of cheese. They had eaten the last few ham sandwiches that morning and had been purposely trying to avoid having the current conversation.

Lena exhaled. “Man…
Tarra
, you see what those people are saying about us on the news! They got us looking like we’re part of that prison escapee’s shit; the Treasure girl. And that’s some bullshit, because
shittt
… we don’t need to be charged with her dirt too! We do enough shit on our own! I need them to separate us from her like ASAP!”

Tarra
was deep in thought while Lena spoke. She knew that deep down, the only reason Lena was pissed about it was because she wanted all of the destruction credit for herself. She didn’t want to share the spotlight with anyone, in any form. Even when
Tarra
herself had done something destructive, Lena would come right behind her and try to outdo her. The one time she’d left it alone was when she sprayed the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“Lena… you know what? I think that there is potentially an upside to having us affiliated with Treasure Brown’s name. The main one being that, if we get caught, there will be less pressure on us. We can just act like she was forcing us to do all of this shit. And oh… what was the news talking about you being a minor???”

Lena frowned at
Tarra
. “Bitch, miss me with that shit! They got they information fucked up the same way they think we’re with Treasure.”

Tarra
nodded her ahead in agreement. “Yea… they stay fucking up the facts, but I guess they just want a juicy story. That’s
whassup
though.”

Lena and
Tarra
sat in the dark living room in silence for a while. Then Lena spoke. “Hey… you’re going to have to call your homegirl and trust her to drop us some food off.”

Tarra
laughed. “So now you want to trust my homey? After all of this going back and forth about why we shouldn’t… now we should?”

Lena rolled her eyes. “O.K.
Tarra
, are we going to ask her or what?”

When the FBI released Milan from prison to work for them, they gave her a “rumor packet,” and it basically contained various hypothetical situations for her to go off of. A few of them she knew for a fact to be completely wrong, but several of the myths she knew just had no other option, but to be true. The agent had given her one “free week” in order to get herself together without them interfering, but it had only taken her a couple of hours.

In no time, she’d hit a strip club, scoped out a medium sized
dopeboy
, and ran up in his house like she forgot her keys. She had hit a lick for $60,000 on the first night. The next day, she proceeded to get her wardrobe up to par. She’d also purchased a used car. That was a strange experience for her. Out of all of the cars she’d ever owned in her life, from the new ones to the old ones, this was the first one she had ever gotten without stealing. She was proud of it, her first real car; a used Ford Mustang GT. She needed the extra speed so she could ride how she needed to.

Knowing that she had a free week, she couldn’t resist going by Gigi’s spot and buying some PCP and weed. She’d sought out
GiGi
the very moment that she arrived in Columbus GA and had been purchasing weed, coke, and PCP from her ever since. Right off the bat, when they first met, she let her know the deal.

“Bitch look… I’m a robber, but I’ll never rob you because I need good weed, coke and wet. Can you make that happen as long as I got the money?”

And she did. She supplied Milan with everything she asked for, as long as it was within reason and as long as she could afford it. Being honest and truthful with Gigi had proven to be a power move for Milan, who ended up needing way more help than she expected. That day, she had an entire list, and needed info.

“Gigi… I got some questions baby.”

Gigi was about 300 pounds and dark-skinned, but there was no denying that she was a beautiful woman. Her heart shined through her exterior and her hustle spoke for every area that her shine couldn’t reach. She was once a homeless teenager herself, but now she was living in a home valued at a half million dollars. It was all paid for from street revenue.

Gigi sat down on her comfortable leather couch and stared at Milan head on. “Come on with it. You know how I operate. If you got some money, I got some answers.”