B-More Careful

by Shannon Holmes

  “They got Mann.”

  “The cops?” Tone said, popping up like a jack-in-the-box.

  “Black,” Netta replied, bowing her head.

  Tone was wide awake now. With one phone call, Netta’s peace was broken. Having moved on with her life, she had tried to forget about Black. But there was no rest for the weary. Black wouldn’t leave well enough alone until she was dead. For the first time in her life, Netta was happy and in love. She had Tone and she certainly was moving on with her life. Completing the 360-degree turn around, Netta had enrolled in college and was pursuing a degree in physical therapy. Just when she was getting herself together, life seemed to take a drastic turn. If it couldn’t get worse, it damn sure couldn’t get any better. Her past had just about caught up with her. She knew the saying, ‘you can run, but you can’t hide.’ Sure enough, she had been found.

  Chapter 25

  Tone was in a state of shock. He couldn’t believe Mann was kidnapped. The first thing he did was call his aunt’s house in the Bronx to see if Mann had gotten there. Maybe Black was bluffing, trying to scare them, but it turned out he wasn’t. His aunt told him she hadn’t seen him yet. Careful not to arouse any suspicion, Tone conversed about family for a few minutes before hanging up. The next call he made was to Mann’s apartment and Mimi answered.

  “Hello,” Mimi dully answered.

  “Hey, where’s my cousin?” Tone asked, not playing any games.

  “They… they said, if I told anybody or called the cops they would kill him,” Mimi said, stuttering to make drama.

  “How many of them was it?” Tone asked, followed by a series of questions. “What did they look like? Where did they snatch him at?”

  Continuing to blitz her with question after question, Tone was looking for answers and any inconsistencies in her story. Not letting up, he hoped to catch her in a lie and figure out what went wrong.

  “Calm down, Tone. You talking too fast, yo. Let me tell you what happened…” Mimi told him everything that happened and how. She told him everything but the truth.

  “…I couldn’t see their faces. They had on hoodies and I wasn’t trying to get killed staring at them too long,” she said.

  “You alright? They didn’t do nothing to you, right?”

  “I’m okay. I’m just scared they gonna do something to Mann, yo.” Mimi sobbed.

  “Yo, don’t worry about Mann. He’ll be alright. Just stay in the house and wait for me to call you back,” Tone instructed.

  Tone hung up the phone. His gut feeling told him something wasn’t kosher. Her story smelled fishy. He could understand the kidnappers telling her not to call the police, but why didn’t she call him? Surely they wanted some ransom money. Kidnapping wasn’t an accident, it was planned. Mann had been targeted, but for what reason? Tone didn’t have a clue.

  To understand the situation, Tone had to investigate Netta’s past. He planned on starting with Mimi, as she was a mystery to him. All he knew about the chick was that her and Netta used to be tight and for some reason they fell out. Tone had seen her maybe a handful of times and from experience, he knew that Netta didn’t like talking about Mimi. In the past, Tone had respected that. But now he needed to know certain things. Like who the hell had called and told Netta in the first place?

  As soon as she was out of the shower, he was going to question her extensively.

  Across town in a dark, dirty basement, Mann was blindfolded, gagged and tied to a chair. He was still woozy from the bumpy ride in the trunk over to the stash house. Through the vent, he could hear the voices of his abductors.

  “…You should let me slump her, yo, or at least let me go get her and bring her back here, just to keep an eye on her. Suppose that hoe start running her mouth, yo?”

  “I got this, yo. Let me worry about her. We gonna use Mimi to get to Netta, then she gonna get hers, yo, in due time, just like the rest of them. We got to be smart about this. I ain’t trying to go back to the penitentiary. If I get knocked for another body, they gonna put me under the jail.”

  Mann couldn’t believe his ears. They had just implicated Mimi in his kidnapping. He swore up and down if he ever got out of that chair, he’d kill her himself.

  “… Go downstairs and check on him while I go take care of something.”

  From the basement, Mann could hear a pair of footsteps fade and the front door slam. Then he heard a loud whistle and the scratching sounds of dog paws, followed by more footsteps on the creaky wooden basement steps. Stink and his dog flew down the stairs and into the basement.

  Stink’s light brown pit bull terrier, Gator, was a ferocious dog bred to fight and kill. Had Mann gotten a glimpse of Gator, he would have probably shat himself.

  “Watch ‘em, Gator, watch ‘em,” Stink whispered to his dog. Gator look intensely at Mann and snarled, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  “Sit,” Stink commanded, then launched a verbal tirade at Mann.

  “We let y’all come down here and get money, yo, and what’d y’all do? Y’all try to take over! Now what type of shit is that?” Stink asked, throwing his arms out in the air.

  Mann said nothing. He couldn’t since his mouth was gagged. This cat got a personal beef with New York for real, he thought.

  “Keep it real, y’all live better down here in B-More than you do up there in the big city. ‘Cause if y’all niggas didn’t, yo, then why the fuck is so many of y’all motherfuckers down here? Huh?”

  As Stink talked to Mann, he began to pace the floor right in front of him. He grew madder and madder just thinking about the New York invasion of Baltimore. Frustrated, Stink raised his hand and slapped the shit out of Mann. The force of the blow almost knocked Mann and the chair over. Gator reacted to the loud ringing sound, standing up at attention and ready to attack.

  “Sit, Gator!” he directed his dog, then continued with Mann.

  “Y’all New York niggas is out here getting my money, yo, fucking with my bitches…”

  Stink went on and on. It was around this time that Mann gave up hope of coming out of this alive.

  Netta stepped out the bathroom in a fluffy, white bathrobe from Victoria’s Secret. She walked into the bedroom to find Tone lost in his thoughts. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his chest bare, wearing only a pair of boxers and socks, looking straight ahead at a blank empty wall.

  “Hold ya head, Boo. Everything will be alright,” Netta said, doing her best to raise Tone’s spirits.

  There was no response. Lost in his train of thought, he forgot he had been waiting to question her. Now, it was time.

  “Yo, what’s up with Mimi?”

  “Mimi?” Netta questioned, somewhat confused.

  She hadn’t given her much thought since the hospital. She knew friends tested each other, but what Mimi did was totally inexplicable. Her sudden disappearance was unexplainable and Netta couldn’t figure it out to save her life.

  “Yeah, Mimi. I need you to tell me the 411 on her. How does she get down? I talked to sis while you were in the shower and she sounded a little shaky, word. I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet Mimi got something to do with this shit. She’s lying, I can tell. It’s something about her that ain’t right, word to the mother,” Tone said.

  “Mimi? I don’t see her doing anything like this, yo. I mean why would she? She doesn’t need the money. Her twin brothers and her father used to get money. I know for a fact her family still got paper,” she said.

  “What’s her story then? What type of person is she?” Tone asked, pressuring Netta for some background information.

  “She’s a club-hopping party girl, a gold digger!” Netta said bluntly. “But, that still my girl, no matter what. I love her to death, Tone. Mimi gets a little emotional at times and when it comes to men, she can be gullible. Mimi and me go way back…”

  Netta took an unwanted trip down memory lane telling Tone how she and Mimi met and became tight. She told him about all the drama they’d been through and t
hen she told him about the Pussy Pound. Her life was an open book to him. Netta exposed herself, knowing this conversation would either bring them closer together or rip them apart. But, she told him the truth. There was no getting around it.

  Tone lay there, non-judgmental, which for a man was hard because of the ego factor. With a stoic look on his face, he continued to pay close attention to every word she spoke. He wasn’t shocked or surprised at the things Netta was saying, he just couldn’t believe she was so damn devious. The men, the money and the lifestyle she spoke of put him in reverie as he took her words in. See, there is a flip side to every coin, just as there is a flip side to the game. Tone had no choice but to understand Netta. Everybody had to eat, and everybody had to make a living, some way, somehow. He had skeletons in his closet, too. Plenty of things he had done in the game that he wasn’t proud of. He had no intentions of talking about them either, with anyone, ever. At least Netta had the courage to tell him and trust him with her life. Lord knows Tone had done plenty of dirt. Matter of fact, he was still doing it.

  “… After all that we been through, you’d think Mimi would have been there for me, like I was there for her. I can’t help but feel some kind of way about that, cause when the shoe was on the other foot, I was there for her every fuckin’ time,” Netta declared.

  “Yo, if y’all were that close, why you and Mimi stop kickin’ it?”

  “That’s a good question. Only Mimi knows the answer to that one,” Netta replied.

  “Yo, there’s one more thing I need to ask you?” Tone said seriously.

  “What?”

  “Is the nigga that got my cousin, the same nigga who beat you like that?” Tone asked. He figured he might as well get all the information from Netta while the getting was good.

  “Black?” Netta responded.

  Thee Black, not thee Black from West Baltimore, Tone thought. There were over a million Blacks in Baltimore but only one ‘Black.’ His name and reputation proceeded itself. He was like a living legend. Even though Tone was from New York, he was still rolling in Baltimore and he certainly knew who he was. People on the street would speak Black’s name with reverence and fear. It was as if he were some kind of superhero who had the power to single-handedly drive every New York clique out of Baltimore.

  “I heard that nigga was in jail for killing his man,” Tone stated, questioning fact or fiction.

  “He’s out, trust me. That’s what everyone else thought til he hit the bricks.”

  “Yo, why that nigga do you like that? What, you shitted on him or something?” Tone asked, always wanting to know what was behind the attack on Netta.

  “Something like that. I robbed him,” Netta said, admitting the truth. Tone just stared at her. He remembered the night he found her. How could he ever forget that?

  “I ain’t sayin’ I did or didn’t deserve what he done to me. I did take $200,000 from that nigga. So, I guess I got what was coming to me. You know what goes around, comes around. That’s the game and I took what he gave me,” she replied.

  “But, what I can’t figure out is what do me and my cousin got to do with this shit? Or is Black just bugged out on some jealous shit? What? He thinks me and you are in cahoots and that you broke me off a piece of his loot or something?” Tone asked, puzzled.

  Netta sat there thinking when suddenly the answer hit her.

  “Black hates New Yorkers. Ever since his Uncle Briscoe got killed in Spanish Harlem, he just automatically started hating New Yorkers,” she said, pacing the floor as her mind quickly scrambled.

  For Tone though, his mind was scrambled. He had some answers and some understanding. She robbed him for $200,000? Tone sat still as he looked at Netta, never thinking that of her. She took a seat in a chair across from him and began apologizing.

  He tried to kill her and now he must be coming back to finish what he started…Thoughts of the malevolent night filtered through his head. And since I’m with her now and I’m a New Yorker, he took my cousin.

  “What are you thinking?” Netta asked, looking at Tone and breaking his concentration.

  “I’m thinking, if he could do what he did to you in that hotel room, it’s no telling what he’ll do to my cousin,” he said. He was hurting for Mann, yet still unable to put his finger on what Mimi’s role in all this was.

  “You ever set anybody up before?” he asked Netta, expecting the unexpected.

  “No, never. I ain’t get down like that. I would never set anyone up. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not that! Don’t ask me why I did what I did to Black, because I don’t have an excuse. I guess I didn’t love him. I used him, and I’ll live with it for the rest of my life, please know that. And know that I’d never do anything to hurt you, I just wouldn’t. I love you, Tone,” she said, hoping he wasn’t upset with her.

  “Naw, that’s not where I’m getting at,” Tone sharply replied.

  “Then what you you tryin’ to say?” Netta asked, jumping up out her seat ready to pace again.

  “I’m trying to say that Black had to have somebody help him kidnap Mann. Somebody close to Mann, in order to set him up,” Tone said, thinking logically like the Libra he was.

  “Well, I don’t think it was Mimi. I don’t think she’s capable of anything like this,” Netta said.

  “Yo, you don’t know that for sure. People change but I know this, what’s done in the dark will certainly come to light,” Tone replied.

  “You right about that one. I’ma call a few people to find out what Mimi’s been doing,” Netta said, opening up the night table drawer for her phone book.

  Yeah, you do that, because you don’t know your girlfriend like you think you do. She’s not right, Tone thought, his mind wandering back to his conversation with Mimi earlier. He was willing to bet his life Mimi had something to do with this. For Tone, it was hard to imagine things getting any worse than this, but they would.

  Netta got out her black book and went digging into her past. She was conducting a thorough investigation. One by one, she called the original members of the Pussy Pound. They were all surprised to hear from her.

  “…Yeah, Netta, she said you said fuck us! You don’t need us! We need you,” Petey confessed. “I ain’t know what the deal was with you, yo. She was saying some pretty foul shit about you…”

  Although her friends couldn’t tell over the phone, Netta was visibly upset. They couldn’t see the anguish in her face or the hurt in her eyes, nor could they feel the pain in her heart. Netta couldn’t believe Mimi had hated on her like that and for no reason. On top of that, the worst was yet to come. Rasheeda dropped the bomb on her.

  “…I’ma keep it real with you Netta, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news or back bite Mimi, but girlfriend is out there, yo. She’s sniffin’ that diesel like crazy!”

  Netta was speechless. She never would have guessed that Mimi was getting high. Mimi knew how she felt about junkies and crack heads.

  “I been wanting to tell you, but nobody could get in contact with you. Damn, babygirl you shoulda been called so I could have told you what was going on,” Rasheeda said.

  Still skeptical, Nettta couldn’t believe it. “Sheeda, how you know about Mimi? Are you sure?”

  “Lemme put it to you like this, some nigga approached me on some ol’ bullshit. Straight up, like three or four different niggas asked me if they could they run a train on me like they did on my friend, Mimi,” she explained. “They said their whole crew ran up in her for a bundle of dope and Mimi let them. I also heard some nigga got her on videotape freakin’ her out, camera all up her ass and everything. It’s terrible. It’s really bad, girl. Damn, where you been? I knew you ain’t know what was going on.”

  Netta was silent. There were no words that she could muster out of her mouth at that moment. This news was unbelievable.

  “People see her standing on dope lines with toilet paper hanging out her nose and you not gonna believe nothing else I say, because you don’t believe what I’m trying
to tell you right now,” Rasheeda said, wanting Netta to brace herself for the clincher.

  “What? What else is there?” Netta questioned, as if it couldn’t get any worse.

  “I saw her riding around with Black not too long ago in a black Jimmy,” Rasheeda finally concluded.

  This shit was a startling revelation, not to mention disturbing to say the least. It added insult to injury. Netta couldn’t believe Mimi would cross her like that. Slowly, she began to realize that Tone was right. Mimi was involved in Mann’s abduction.

  That bitch! How could she fuck with him after what he did to me? He damn near killed me! That was the straw that broke the camel’s back; Mimi had crossed the line. Friends don’t fuck behind their friends. Certain things are off limits and ex-boyfriends were definitely one of them.

  “You were right,” Netta said, hanging up the phone. She looked at Tone. After everything she had told him, this seemed the hardest to say. “They say she’s getting high and Sheeda seen her riding in Black’s Jeep a few weeks ago.”

  “Yo, I knew it. She’s fucking with Black, huh?” Tone said, as he jumped off the bed and began pacing the floor. He was stressing. “Yo, you think Black is holding Mann for some ransom money?”

  “Naw, he don’t need your money. Black is paid, yo,” she replied.

  She couldn’t bring herself to tell him what she was really thinking. Mann was a goner, if not already. She hoped for the best but expected the worst. Netta was anxious to bring some closure to all this drama. In her heart, she knew this was far from over. She knew Tone would retaliate whether Mann was dead or alive. Revenge was the law of the land.

  Back at the stash house, Black sat at a tiny kitchen table, mixing a lethal concoction together.

  “What the fuck is that you doing?” Stink asked as he hovered over his big brother’s shoulder.

  “It’s a hot shot, yo, battery acid and dope,” Black said.

  “What you gonna do with it?” Stink asked, prying some more.