Thirsty (25 page)

Justice finally looked up from her monitor and sighed deeply as she pushed away from the desk and sank back further into the leather Queen Anne. Purely out of habit, her toned arms went up over her head and her slender fingers intertwined before coming to rest atop her silky mane of jet-black hair.

“Toni, if I ain’t mistaking, you’re the manager here last time I checked,” her sarcasm was hard to miss.
She looked at Toni with a frustrated scowl. Sometimes dealing with Toni made Justice feel as if she was dealing with a child instead of a grown ass twenty-eight year old woman. Toni rolled her eyes at her boss and folded her arms across her ample bosom without replying.
“How many times have you had trouble with Virgin and that bitch Precious?” Justice asked, her jaw clenched tight and eyebrows knitted.
Toni hesitated as if she was actually trying to calculate the numerous times those two had caused problems at the club.
Without waiting for a response, Justice ejected, “Exactly. Too many times to count. Every time I bring in new girls from outta town to dance them two bitches start pmsin’. You know what...fire them bitches.” Fire rose in Justice’s tightly slanted eyes.
“Just like that?” Toni asked as if she couldn’t grasp the finality of Justice’s statement.
“Yeah,
just
like that. Tell them to keep their tips from tonight, gather their shit, and get off my prope…better yet, go get ’em. I’ll do it myself.”
Justice was fed up with Virgin and Precious. Those bitches were nothing but troublemakers.
Toni left Justice’s office with an “
ooooh, somebody’s ass is in trouble”
expression glued to her face. By the same token, she was also relieved that she didn’t have to be the one to give the girls the boot.
Justice removed her scrunchie and shook out her long tresses while exhaling a deep-rooted sigh. She rubbed at her temples to relieve the slight migraine that was gradually building. For the past two days Justice had been under tremendous stress because the anniversary of her brother’s death was fast approaching. Every time Justice thought about her brother it brought about a brain throbbing headache.
As she watched Toni’s thick frame sashay its way out the door, Justice mumbled, “I need to be firing
your
incompetent ass.” Then on second thought, Justice surmised that Toni had been there with her from the very beginning of her legitimate endeavor.
When Justice had first decided to invest some of the blood money she’d arrived back in Chicago with, Toni had been the one who had suggested she open the strip club. Initially, Justice had cringed at the idea because she’d never gotten along with other women, much less strippers with their asses on their shoulders. But to her astonishment, Justice discovered that dealing with the girls who had come through the doors of her establishment for auditions had been easier than she’d imagined. Mainly because of the fact that she realized most of the girls were just as fucked up in the head as she was. Each and every one of them had a story.
Justice had always prided herself on being a good judge of character, so with the girls who had come to her for an opportunity to work she looked beyond the surface. Beyond all of the D-cup titties, twenty-two inch waists, and porn star asses lay insecure opportunists willing to bear it all for a quick buck.
When Justice first opened Phire and Ice downtown on Michigan Avenue in the heart of Chicago, she had no idea it would become one of Chi-town’s premiere spots for nightlife. The elite adult entertainment club attracted ballers from all around, especially local rappers and professional athletes. It was not unusual to see Twista or Ben Wallace in the VIP area, sipping champagne and making it rain on a weeknight.
Most of the time Justice’s business ran smoothly, without any problems. But there were times when the estrogen level was at a boiling point and catfights were inevitable. Sometimes Justice felt like she had it all together, other times she felt as if she was running a circus like the late great Bernie Mac as Dollar Bill in the movie
Player’s Club.
At those times, if it weren’t for a caring staff, especially Toni, she felt like she’d lose it.
“Boss lady, here they go.” Toni’s voice brought Justice out of her lingering thoughts.
Justice rose from her chair and watched as Virgin and Precious entered her office reeking of cigarette smoke and fruity body oil. Looking at the two reminded Justice of that old school flick
Twins
with Arnold Swartzeneggar and Danny Devito. Precious was towering over Virgin by at least eight inches like Arnold had done Danny. Nevertheless, Precious’s height didn’t intimidate Justice in the least because if it weren’t for Precious’s heels, she and Justice would have been eye to eye. Justice had no idea where the pair had come up with their names because everybody in the Chi and the surrounding Metropolitan area knew the girls were anything
but
precious and virginal. It was even rumored that the two had used the VIP for occasional tricking. Turning tricks was a definite no-no in Phire and Ice.
After Toni had left the office and closed the door Justice stated, “Sit down.” She was looking back and forth between the two girls with equal amounts of animosity so there would be no mistake as to whom she was speaking.
Virgin took a seat on the leather sofa near the door while Precious remained defiantly standing for a few seconds. Finally, she sucked her teeth and reluctantly sat her amazon ass down next to her partner.
Precious adjusted the garter on her thick thigh, which was stuffed with bills—tens and twenties, only a fraction of the tips she had earned for the night. Both girls were dressed in bras and matching g-strings along with expensive pumps. Virgin was wearing her signature color of all white, which symbolized purity. Her auburn-dyed hair was fixed in tight cornrows, which made her defined cheekbones even more pronounced than ever. Her creamy, peanut butter complexion was flawless without a trace of make-up. However, the glassy look in her eyes made Justice wonder if she was rollin’ on X or jacked up on coke. There was no mistaking the fact that she was definitely high on something.
Precious was wearing fire engine red with gold-colored rhinestones decorating the nipple and crotch area of her outfit. This night she had her naturally short hair styled into a throwback Halle Berry number. Her ebony skin was glistening with a thin sheen of perspiration from the lap dance she was so rudely pulled away from.
With the bodies both Precious and Virgin possessed, Justice hated to admit the fact that they were both wearing their outfits damn well. Between Justice and the dancers, the confidence level in this room was at a record high and so thick you could taste it. Justice strolled over to her picture window and glanced out over the crowded, well-lit parking area before addressing the girls.
“Do y’all know the definition of the word
insanity
?” She had her back to them and could feel their eyes boring into the back of her head.
“What?” Precious asked with a hint of attitude and slight frustration as if she hadn’t heard Justice’s question correctly.
“You heard me,” Justice said. She turned to face the girls, disdain evident in her exotic features. “If you don’t know, lemme enlighten you. Insanity is when you constantly do the same thing but expect to get different results, different outcomes.”
Precious and Virgin exchanged heated looks and rolled their eyes while twisting up their mouths as if they were sharing the same thought,
Yeah we know what insanity is. This Chinese looking, Kimora Lee wannabe bitch is the one insane. Sittin’ up here lecturin’ a bitch when it’s niggas out there spendin’ that dough.
“I said that to say this: Every time I spend my hard earned money to bring new faces up in here so my customers won’t get sick from seeing the same tired faces every night, you two always seem to be in the way. Tryin’ to do all you can to make the featured girls as uncomfortable as possible. I don’t understand you two.
Justice pointed towards the door.
“It’s enough money out there for a hundred girls to eat and y’all wanna fuck that up every chance you get. You are the only two that hate like that! Y’all are just like cats, pissin’ on a spot to try to claim turf!”
Justice’s slanted eyes were boring into the girls.
“I’on’ know what you talkin’ ’bout ’cause I ain’t—” Precious started, but Justice cut her off.
“You know
exactly
what I’m talking about, Precious! And I can do without your funky ass attitude right now.” Justice’s voice began to rise. “I got eighteen girls who dance here nightly along with ten I fly in every weekend from different cities. Tell me why I need you two!?”
Precious and Virgin were looking at one another dumbfounded as Justice calmly sat back down and began tapping her French manicured nails on her desk awaiting a response. She was silently sitting there waiting to see what type of justification the girls could come up with that would keep her from banning them from the hottest strip club in Chicago.
After a long uncomfortable silence, Precious responded, “So, you wanna play
that
game, huh?”
She arose from the sofa and slowly approached Justice’s desk with a devious grin on her face.
She and Justice locked eyes, then Precious stated in a whisper, “You think a bitch don’t know how you used to get your money back in the day in Carolina?” She waved her arms around as she looked about the spacious office. “A bitch know how you ended up with all this. I guess
nothing
was outta your realm when it came to gettin’ dough, huh? Maybe not even murder.”
Precious smiled devilishly as she read the look in Justice’s eyes.
“So, Lucy Lu, you might wanna be mindful of who you threaten the next time you open your mouth ’cause you neva know who might know what you think they don’t know, feel me?”
Justice stammered, “I…I don’t know what you talkin’ about. You need to get outta my office and outta my building before—”
“Oh, I think you do know what I’m talkin’ about. But that’s gonna just be between the three of us...for now.” She looked back at Virgin and winked. “But right now, me and Virgin got a couple of VIPs lined up out there. So, we gonna finish out the rest of this night, and tomorrow night, and the next night, and the night after that, and...you get the idea.” Precious scowled at Justice, then turned to Virgin, “You ready to finish getting this money?” Just that quickly, the tables had been turned a whole 360 degrees.
“No doubt,” Virgin replied as she arose from the sofa and headed for the door with Precious right behind her.
When Precious reached the door she turned to look at Justice, “Holla at cha later, boss lady.” The sarcasm was thick.
Then they were out the door.
Toni was standing outside the door waiting for the girls to exit. As soon as they came out, Toni went in.
“How much time you give them to get their shit and get out?” she asked Justice. Then she noticed the look on Justice’s face. “Girl, what happened?”
Justice buried her head in her desk and ignored Toni’s question. After a few minutes, Justice raised her head and stated a weak “They’re staying.”
“What?”
She looked at Toni and told her, “Lemme think for a minute. Come back in thirty minutes and we’ll talk.”
She watched as Toni reluctantly left the office. As soon as the door was closed Justice’s mind began reeling. She tried to come up with scenarios as to how the two girls could possible know her secret.
After about twenty minutes of pondering over this, she came to the conclusion that the two girls couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about. They had to be speculating on rumors. This wasn’t the first time Justice had heard about her past of setting niggas up to be robbed, but it was the first time the word “murder” had been mentioned.
Speculation or not, Justice decided that she couldn’t take the chance of letting those two bitches keep that secret dangling over her head. She opened her desk drawer and looked down at the .9mm she kept stashed there for protection. She picked it up and had flashbacks of the day she’d killed J.T. Never in a million years would she have thought that she would have to pull the trigger again to take a life, but the way she figured it, she had no choice.