Trickery (13 page)

Because right about now Pluto was about to go Lone Ranger and pull some trickery on these fools. He was gonna get his hands on some of that profit Salida was always hollerin’ about, and then teach his boy Ace a fuckin’ lesson that he musta never learned in school: pussy might have a whole lotta power, but a fat dick like his came packed with some major fuckin’ muscle. 

CHAPTER 14

Me and Trey rushed over to Harlem hospital and took the elevator upstairs to the intensive care unit. I felt funny coming up here knowing that I wasn’t coming to see Rita, and even though my heart was bamming hard with dread for poor little Taleah, my coochie muscles were still humming with horniness for big bad Trey too.

That call from Rain had come just in time. Both me and Trey had been grinding so hard and hot on his couch that we could have easily taken shit to the next level, regardless of what kind of drama might have come out of it. I felt horrible that yet another Harlem child was in the hospital because of violence and drugs, but that didn’t stop me from reliving the memory of Trey’s hard dick pushing against me or his wet lips and strong hands roaming all over my half-naked body.

I couldn’t lie. I knew what I wanted now, and I wanted me some of him. I wanted him the way I used to want Gino, and admitting that shit excited me and scared the hell outta me at the same time. It shamed me like crazy too, because I felt like was betraying the memory of Gino and of our unborn baby too.

Rain was waiting for us when we got off the elevator. I kinda moved to the side and let him and Trey talk, but I could still hear what they were saying. I watch Trey’s shoulders get real stiff as Rain told him that Child Protective Services had taken emergency custody of Taleah and that her doctors were trying to find out what kind of crazy drugs she had been forced to take.

We walked down to the nurse’s station and one of the young nurses I knew from being on the floor with Rita all the time told me that no one was being allowed to see Taleah for the rest of the night. She said she was sorry she couldn’t give me any more information, but when I asked her if we could peek in on Rita for a quick minute she said okay.

When we walked into Rita’s room my girl was still bruised up and swollen, but she was looking a little better than she had before. I held her hand and smoothed her hair back, and her eyelids tried to flutter a little bit. Once or twice I even thought she tried to squeeze my fingers. 

“Everything is okay,” I told her, wondering if she could hear me. “You’re doing real good, Rita. I’m here for you, girl. Just rest, that’s all you gotta do. Everything is gonna be just fine.”

Trey put his arm around me and I leaned on his rocked up shoulder and took a deep breath. He looked down at me, and his hand slid along the length of my arm and he gently cupped my hip.

I was grateful that Rita was at least stable, and I wanted to say something about Taleah that might give Trey a little comfort too, but before I could get my words together the nurse from the front desk walked in the room holding out an envelope for me. My name was scribbled on it in scrawny chicken-scratch letters, and whoever wrote it had spelled it “Jucy” like they forgot to put the letter i between the u and the c.

“Sorry, I meant to give this to you,” the nurse said.

I frowned as I took it. “What is it?”

She shrugged. “A letter, I guess. One of the night orderlies brought it upstairs and left it at the nurse’s station for you.”

“Thanks,” I told her, and then I glanced at Trey as she left the room.

“I can’t think of nobody who would be sending me no letter up in here,” I said suspiciously, all the while thinking of those flowers that Flex had sent to Trey’s crib. 

“Go ahead and open it,” Trey said calmly.

It didn’t look like nothing but a plain white envelope. The kind that people send letters in every day. I tore into it and pulled out a single sheet of paper. The writing on it was scratched out and raggedy. It said:
Call Nooni rite fuckin’ now 917-555-1213.

I stared at Trey as I passed him the note. “Uh-uh. It’s a set-up. I know damn well Nooni didn’t write this. Somebody else musta wrote this shit.”

We got up outta Rita’s room so we could talk. We both agreed that I should call the number, but Trey told me to wait until we were back in his whip before dialing it. He had one of them Bluetooth systems in his ride, and that way the call would be blasted through all the car’s speakers and he could listen in and hear what was being said. 

Sitting beside him in the front seat of his whip, I pushed the numbers from the note into his cell phone and the call was answered on the third ring. Immediately the sound of music and a partying crowd blared from the speakers and exploded in our ears.

A dude with a deep voice barked over all that noise and said, “Speak, muh’fucka!”

“Um . . .somebody left me a note that said to call this number,” I stammered.

“Yo, who this?”

I strained, listening close.

“This is Juicy. Who is this?”

He answered by laughing.

“Juicy, Juicy, Juicy,” he shouted into the phone. “It’s been a real long time, baby. You doing a’ight?”

Immediately I knew exactly who the fuck I was talking to. I had a quick flashback and I clutched my throat as the taste of his fat, nasty dick washed over my tongue and almost made me throw up in my mouth.

“Where’s Nooni?” I snapped.

That foul niggah laughed again. “She’s the same place yo azz was at the last time I saw you. Remember? That night I was gonna bang you? Hold on a minute. I’m going down there right now.”

He was talking about the G-Spot. The Dungeon. I shuddered inside as I heard his big feet stomping down the stairs. I remembered how bad that niggah had done me when I was trapped down there in that shit hole and I just couldn’t resist taking a jab at him.

“You talking about the night I almost bit your lil nasty dick off?”

“See now, Juicy. That shit wasn’t right boo. I’ma get you back for that one. Or maybe I’ll just take it out on Nooni.”

The noise of the music was gone, but right on cue I heard a loud, smacking sound of flesh hitting flesh, and then a young chick screamed and whimpered, begging for mercy, and right away I knew it was Nooni for real.

“Pluto!” I hollered. “Why the fuck you hitting on her like that? Y’all need to let that girl go, Pluto. Let her the fuck
go
!”

“Oh, I’ma let her go,” he said easily. “’Cause this lil feen is sick. Sick enough to die. But first I’ma need you to do me a lil favor.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You there, Juicy? You hear me, girl? You there?”

“I hear your ass.”

“Good,” he said. “’Cause you gone hafta do me a lil solid if you want this little bitch back home safe and sound, nah’mean?”

“A solid like what?”

“Well, I ain’t gonna ask you to suck my dick no more, but you
are
gonna get down on a little swappy-swap exchange with me. Ya feel me? You gonna get me the name of G’s old drug connect, Juicy. That’s what the fuck
you
gonna do. And in return, I’m gonna give you Nooni” 

I sucked my teeth real loud at his bogus offer. Pluto knew goddamn well G had never told me shit. I was the last person the great Granite McKay wanted up in his business, and I reminded Pluto about that.

“You know G didn’t tell me nothing. He never told me a damn thing, so I don’t know
who
the hell he got his drugs from.”

“Oh, I know
you
don’t know who G’s connect was,” Pluto said happily. “But Moonie damn sure does.”

“
Moonie
?” I said in amazement. I hadn’t thought about him or heard his name in a long time. “What Moonie got to do with me? You think I been hanging out with some Moonie?”

“No, dumb ass,” Pluto said. He sounded real exasperated, like I was retarded or something. “I know
you
don’t know where Moonie is, but you know that real swole niggah you been fuckin’ with? The one who’s listening in over the goddamn speaker-phone right now? That niggah sure as hell knows.”

$$$$$

Bitter bastard
! Ace thought as he watched his manz roll his fat frame out of a chair and amble toward the back of the club. He had been chillin at the bar with Salida, acting all nonchalant like ere’thang was ere’thang, when in reality he had been checking his boy Pluto as he sat in the shadows shooting venom from his eyes.

Shit, if anybody shoulda been on broil it was him. Pluto had convinced him to go along with some whack-ass plan for them to use Nooni to squeeze some info outta Juicy, and then he had hired some off-brand juveniles to do it. Of course shit had gotten all fucked up. Them young’uns didn’t have no experience in kidnapping nobody. Instead of dipping in to get Nooni and then sliding back out like they was supposed to, them wild cowboys had rolled up in there and sprayed the whole joint with lead. They’d popped Nooni’s sister and slumped two little kids, and for what? To have their crime splashed across every television screen in Harlem during the six o’clock news? And even after all that pandemonium Juicy was still safely under the protection of the Talented Ten, and now Ace and Pluto were no closer to finding out who the fuck G had been in bizz with than they were before all this shit started.

The whole scenario had pissed Ace off because Nooni’s sister Rita was down with a family full of NYPD cops. Word on the street was that her man Dutchy Gaines and his crew were on the prowl for Rita’s shooter, and this shit had the potential to bring unnecessary heat down on all their heads. Bottom line, it had been a stupid ass plan, and Ace couldn’t help barking on his boy over it neither.

“Yo,” he had spit when he found out how bad shit had gone, “why you send them lil knuckleheads in there to fuck everythang up, man? You said snatching Nooni was gonna send Juicy running straight to us and make her give up the connect. Well, we got Nooni feenin’ like a muthafucka down in The Dungeon, but where that bitch Juicy at with the info? I’on’t see her helpful ass nowhere around here.”

 Pluto had stared at him through glazed, deadly eyes. Ace could see a vein jumpin’ on the side of his man’s temple like that niggah was about to pop a fuckin’ vessel.

“We can’t get close to Juicy right now,” Pluto lied. “That Talented Ten got her on deep lock. But tell me something, ak,” Pluto hit him, coming outta nowhere with a blast from their grimy past. His eyes had bored into Ace’s and his words were flecked with ice. “Wuss good witcha cousin Rabbit out in Cali, man? That west coast niggah a’ight? What about his dudes? You know, the two fools you hired to put in that work on Gino. What they call them niggahs? Izz and Zero? Yeah. How them two hot-headed muh’fuckas been doin’?”

Ace had swallowed hard as guilt crept up his cheeks. How the fuck did Pluto find out about the side deal he had made with his cousin? That was the first time that Ace had ever betrayed Pluto or gone behind his man’s back. He’d cut an under the table agreement with Rabbit to send Izz and Zero to confiscate Juicy’s whip, and them idiots had fucked around and gotten blasted into small, bloody chunks when the car blew up from an ignition bomb. To this day his cousin Rabbit still wasn’t speakin’ to him behind that shit, but how the fuck was Ace supposed to know that Juicy’s whip was rigged?

That there conversation had confirmed the status of their relationship in both Ace and Pluto’s minds. There was no more loyalty between them, and only the illusion of an alliance. Their cards had been dealt and now they each had to play out their hands. Neither one of them had meant for their bond to get all fucked up the way it did, but sometimes shit just happened, and every gangsta in the hood had learned to roll with them kind of punches.

Ace shook his head as he patted Salida on the ass and stared at the spot where Pluto had just been sitting. There was a time when he woulda laid down his life for that niggah. A time when he had trusted Pluto like he trusted the right hand that was attached to his right arm.

“All good shit gotta come to an end,” Ace muttered without a moment’s sadness. Some niggahs just didn’t have enough vision. They couldn’t handle the raging river that flowed in the gutter of progress, so they had to keep their feet dry and get left standing safely on the curb.

“Small-minded, bitter
bitch
!” Ace mumbled under his breath. If there was one thing he had learned from G, it was how to think on his feet. That niggah G had stayed three steps ahead of the competition, and the only reason he had been able to reign over the largest patch of drug territory in New York City was because he’d had the foresight and the heart to go out there and get that shit.

Ace didn’t even wanna imagine where the Spot would be right now if Salida hadn’t come along with all of her grand ideas. Fuck what anybody said about that lady, she had a calculating brain that could think laps around even the coldest ghetto kingpin.

Not only had Salida brought back a lot of the G-Spot’s old clientele, she had opened up a whole new drug market for them. A meth market that neither him nor Pluto woulda been able to tap into on their own.

Ace glanced around the club. G woulda been real proud to see his shit all glossed up and shiny again. Salida had done a lot of hard work and remodeling around the joint to prepare for her Grand Re-Opening party that was coming up soon. She had brought in a brand new cleaning crew and had shopped for new sheets for the fuck rooms so that her new Asian and white clients would feel nice and comfortable paying for some trim.

“Hell yeah I let them white muh’fuckas up in here,” Ace laughed out loud as he thought about how mad Pluto got every time he saw a cracker roll up in the club. “Them white niggahs came knockin’ at the door with cash money!”

The kind of money that made the world go around.

The kind of money that Ace had was willing to pay to get rid of the problem that was standing in the way of the G-Spot’s progress. He visualized the cut-throat scene of trickery that was gonna pop off when shit came to a head between him and his former slime.