Dirty Money Honey

by Nisa Santiago

  “Word!” Big Meech agreed. “We going buck wild up in that piece, and the only thing you’re expected to do is have a little fender-bender? Get the fuck outta here! And you beefin’? Yet you gonna eat what we eat?”

  “Look, I’m an old man. My body can’t take too many bumps and bruises,” Luther explained.

  “If you can’t take the heat, get out the kitchen,” Cinnamon stated.

  “Shut the fuck up! Would you do us all that favor?” Big Meech snapped.

  “No! You shut the fuck up!” Cinnamon said, finding her voice. “You, you, you, big bully!”

  Big Meech took his massive hand and, with one slap, leveled Cinnamon. Her head hit the floor so hard, I thought he’d split it open. Everyone gasped at the sound. Seconds later, however, Cinnamon was back on her feet, scratching and clawing at her baby daddy. We all intervened, and the meeting came to an abrupt end, while I stayed back to console the injured Cinnamon.

  “Why do you allow him to put his hands on you? You’re better than that.”

  “I didn’t,” she said, her face stained with tears and grief. “You see I fought him back.”

  “You tried to fight him back. Your little baby punches could hardly penetrate someone as big and muscular as Big Meech. I’m talking about leaving him.”

  “And go where? With what? My looks?” She snorted disgust at her own dire situation. “And what about our baby?”

  “Well, after we pull off the Harrah’s job, you’ll have your own money to do what you please. You mean to tell me that you’d still stay with him and subject your baby to the dysfunction?”

  “That money won’t be mines. I thought I’d be able to get the money and leave him.” She wiped her tearstained face with the back of her hand. “He’s already said that he’s taking my cut.”

  “Taking your cut? How you figure?”

  “Honey, once we split the money, who’s going to stop him from taking my money?”

  I thought for a moment. My brain was already remixing the plan, which was something I tried to shy away from. It was too risky.

  “Let me ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly. If you could choose between having your own money or living life out with your baby daddy, which would you choose?”

  Cinnamon lowered her eyes.

  “And you can’t have both. So what would your choice be?”

  “I’d choose the money. I hate to admit that, but I would choose the money.”

  I nodded. “Good answer.”

  Chapter 7

  When I walked into the back room of Party’s mother’s house, the playful mood shifted. The joking around stopped. I stared at Natasha and could visibly see her discomfort.

  She shifted in her seat and adjusted her collar around her neck. Sweat began to form under the pits of her arms, omitting a slight odor, which began to permeate the room.

  “So what happened last night?”

  “Honey, you know how it is.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “Ummm, well, the last time you and I spoke—”

  “Natasha, don’t fuckin’ recap what I already know. Tell me what I don’t.”

  “OK, OK, I just didn’t do it, OK. Are you happy? I fucked up. I was supposed to leave Monday and go to Arizona to lift our getaway car for the heist, but I got caught up in the casino. I was playing my hot streak, Honey. You gotta feel me on that.”

  “You were playing a hot streak worth what? One stack? Two? When we’re about to pull off the biggest heist in Las Vegas history? Are you a fuckin’ idiot?”

  “If I’m an idiot, then what are you? You’re the one who pulled me in knowing I had an addiction. You’re supposed to be the fuckin’ mastermind or something, so you should have seen this coming a mile away.” Natasha laughed, and she began to relax. She continued, growing confident in her words, “It’s just a little hiccup. Like what the fuck? You actin’ like I killed somebody. It’s only a car. I can grab a car anywhere, and we’re still good.”

  Mercedes said, “Don’t you think Honey had already considered us grabbing a car from anywhere? There was a reason you were supposed to snatch the car out of state. Do you think you’re the only one in here to have a plan B?”

  “Nobody’s even talking to you.”

  “Well, I’m talking to you.”

  I never took my gaze off Natasha. I always knew she was a wildcard, but she was good at what she did, so I took my chances and gambled. I didn’t lose, though, because I was still playing a winning hand.

  “Y’all so hypnotized. Honey got all y’all shook. But I ain’t scared of no fuckin’ body! And if anyone in here even thinks about cutting me out of the deal, I’ll go to the fuckin’ feds! I swear on everything I love, I’ll do it! Y’all think you’re going to divide up all that cash without me? Well, you better think again.”

  “Nobody’s going to divide up the cash without you, Natasha,” I said, “because you don’t exist.”

  Party stepped forward with a garrote in her hand.

  Natasha’s eyes widened from sheer panic and fear. She lunged forward, in an effort to knock Party over, but Party grabbed a hold of her collar, and they both fell over the coffee table, which ended up in splinters.

  From there, it was pound for pound. Party would hit, and Natasha would throw a punch back. Not only was Natasha outpunched, but she was outsized. Party began tossing her around like a rag doll as we all watched in amusement. Natasha was more formidable than I’d ever imagined. Her lean body frame could actually withstand severe trauma.

  Soon a knife entered the fray. The plan was for Party to strangle Natasha to death. Simple. Clean. Party lifted the eleven-inch blade, something a person would use to carve a turkey, high above her head and then shoved it in Natasha’s back.

  Natasha let out a low moan as her knees buckled.

  Just as Party was about to thrust the knife once again, I commanded, “Stop!”

  No one moved. It was like I had pushed a “pause” button.

  Natasha took my words as a sign of weakness. “Honey, don’t let her do this. I’m not dead yet. This can all be fixed. Just drop me off to a hospital, and I swear, I won’t tell the police shit. I was just fuckin’ around.”

  I tossed Party the duct tape. “Silence that bitch!”

  “Honey, no-o-o-o!”

  Natasha screamed until Party almost had her face gift-wrapped. She tried to fight back, but it was a weak attempt. She was losing pints of blood by the minute.

  At that moment I realized I was good at ad-libbing. I grabbed a heavy-duty plastic bag. “Tie up her hands and feet and toss her in the bag. She’s leaving a bloody mess, which is evidence.”

  “I’m sorry, Honey,” Party said.

  “It’s all good.”

  Party said, “Mercedes, help me tape up her hands and feet.”

  Mercedes walked over to assist Party to subdue the still defiant Natasha.

  “Wait!” I said to Mercedes. “Put on gloves when handling that tape. I don’t expect authorities to ever find her body, but if they do, they’d have a field day pulling your prints off that sticky tape.”

  Mercedes exhaled. “Thanks, bossy. Always one step ahead.”

  After we’d successfully gotten Natasha in the plastic bag, I ordered Party to put a plastic bag over her face and put her out of her misery. From there we cleaned up all the blood from off the floor, washed it down with bleach. Was that foolproof? Not at all. If a forensic team had come in here with luminol, it would have still picked up traces of her DNA. But the thorough cleanup ensured that they would have never even considered looking in here for any forensic evidence.

  The heist was less than twenty-four hours away, and we were on our way to the Nevada desert to drop a body in a pre-dug grave. Party and Mercedes rode in the dirty car, w
hile myself, Tee-Tee, and Blythe followed shotgun, with Tee-Tee at the wheel.

  “So what now, Honey?”

  “What’s up?” I asked, clearly in another world.

  “Like, what are we going to do now? We’re one girl down, and we don’t have the getaway vehicle.”

  “Have you ever heard the expression ‘one monkey don’t stop no show’?” Not waiting for a response, I added, “There’s always an answer, if you ask the right question. Now ask me the question you want to know.”

  Tee-Tee took a few moments to think. “Who will replace Natasha, with us being one girl short?”

  “We were never one girl short. We were always one girl over.”

  Tee-Tee thought about my answer and obviously wasn’t happy with it. “Well, what will we use as our getaway vehicle?”

  I put a sheepish grin on my face. “Let’s just say, this heist will definitely make the papers, baby.”

  Chapter 8

  The Super 8 Motel was a safe haven for orgies, drug deals, murders, prostitution and the likes. The three criminals thought they’d found nirvana. Chief was in one room selling weed, Big Meech was in another having a threesome, while Delano was in yet another getting his dick sucked by a toothless prostitute.

  “Oooh shit, yeah! Wooo! Suck that shit just like that, no hands. Ahhh shit, yeah! I’m about to cum in your fuckin’ mouth! Ahhhhh shit!” Delano exhaled, breathed heavily and smiled right before tossing the prostitute thirty dollars.

  “Where the fuck is the other twenty?” the toothless Spanish chick asked him.

  Delano thought about jerking her and putting her ass out his room, but she had just given him one of the best blowjobs he’d ever had, so he went back in his pockets and tossed another twenty-dollar bill to the floor, and she quickly scooped it up.

  “No tip, muthafucka?” The feisty broad wiped cum from her chin.

  “How about I put the tip of my dick in your ass?” Delano asked just as he got a text from Honey.

  ***

  “Skunk weed! Not punk weed!” Chief yelled at a middle-aged white customer. “Imported straight from New York. Ain’t nobody on the West Coast got anything that can fuck with it.”

  The white dude eagerly pulled out a crisp hundred-dollar bill and handed it to Chief.

  “My man!” Chief went into the bathroom and came back with a small Ziploc bag of weed and handed it to his investment banker client.

  “You got any blow?”

  “Not right now. That’s on back order,” Chief calmly explained.

  The dude nodded his head and turned and exited the room.

  “Yo, call me the Chef because I be serving them up!” Chief yelled out into the room as he counted a wad of cash. Just at that moment he got a text from Honey.

  ***

  Meanwhile Big Meech was being as reckless as he could possibly be. He was high off weed, but that was still no excuse for him to be running up raw in two white chicks. He had one white girl butt naked on her hands and knees on the floor, and he made the other butt naked white chick mount the white girl, so it looked as if one chick was giving the other a piggyback ride. He did that so that both of their asses could be facing him, giving him the perfect access he wanted.

  The white girl who was on top turned and said to Big Meech, “Fuck me, daddy!”

  Big Meech didn’t need any urging as he fucked the white girl as hard as he could. Then without warning he pulled his dick out of her and he bent down and slipped his dick inside of the other white girl, who gasped as his dick entered her tight pussy.

  Big Meech was feeling like he was just about to cum when he heard his phone on the table vibrating. He was going to ignore it, but he didn’t know if it was Chief or Delano, and if they were in any kind of beef or anything.

  Big Meech yelled, “Shit!” and he pulled his dick out of the white girl and walked over to his cell phone. He ignored the text from Honey and went right back to the white girls. Then he had them simultaneously suck his dick until he came.

  All of the Super 8 Motel shenanigans came to an abrupt end when the three received the simultaneous texts from Honey. She was on her way and had called an emergency meeting. When she got there, no one was particularly happy to see her.

  “Damn, Honey! I know this is your operation, but you can’t think that when you say jump we’re gonna say how high. We all had shit we was gettin’ into,” Chief stated.

  “What’s more important than tomorrow? Please riddle me that.”

  “I’m just saying, Couldn’t this have waited?”

  “Give her a break, Chief. You always ridin’ her. If she came all the way down here, then it couldn’t wait,” Big Meech explained. “Go ahead, baby. School us,” he said, even though his mind was on getting back to the two white chicks for another round of fucking.

  ***

  I wondered why it was so easy for Big Meech to respect me and not the mother of his only child. Men. It’s just too hard trying to figure them out.

  “A friend of mine is working the eleven to seven shift tonight, and I need all of you to show up around two a.m. and sit at her table and play a few hands—”

  “That’s gonna make us hot,” Chief said. “Then we gotta come right back up in that bitch at seven? What’s the logic?”

  “As I was saying . . . the reason y’all need to come through is because the head of security, Javier needs to get a good look at all y’all faces.”

  Everyone screamed in unison, “What?”

  “You jokin’, right?”

  “More serious than cancer.”

  “Yo, Honey, you tryin’ to set us up or something?”

  “I’m trying to get us home-court advantage. Javier is now on our team.”

  “Now we got another mutherfuckin’ mouth to feed?” Chief retorted.

  Big Meech immediately twisted up his face. “I don’t trust him, Honey. Dude gonna set us up.”

  “All I know is that I’ll be like Bobby DeNiro,” Delano said. “I feel the heat coming around that corner, and I’ll leave my momma out in the cold.”

  Chief began pacing up and down the cramped motel room. His action was making everyone nervous. “We didn’t need him. Why you go and put him on to us?”

  “Look, I got a friend back in the ATF who I called on a favor. When I did Javier’s background check, he came up clean. When my friend ran his name, it pulled up his life story.”

  “So?”

  “So? So he was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Marines when he was nineteen for trying to steal a couple guns off base. No doubt, he would have sold them to his hombres. Next, he applied and got a job working for the Sheriff’s Office in Orange County, California. Then he was fired for allegedly taking bribes under the table. That charge never stuck. He then moved out to Vegas and, using his mother’s maiden name, became the head of security. That’s why he came up clean.”

  Chief was barely listening. “What does any of this have to do with exposing ourselves to him?”

  “Well, I got to thinking . . . I need to know the type of man who’ll be holding down the casino when you run up in there. I need everyone to make it out alive. Now an ex-Marine, ex-cop just might want to play hero to redeem himself for all his wrongdoings. I couldn’t take that chance, so I thought, A dirty muthafucka is a dirty muthafucka.”

  “Honey, take us around the block already! You takin’ too long to get to the point.”

  Chief always did have a smart-ass mouth and dumb-ass brain, I thought.

  “Bottom line is that Luther and I kidnapped his pregnant wife and two daughters two days ago. They’re at an undisclosed location. He plays the game, they live. Along with five grand out of my cut.”

  I pulled out a photo of a Hispanic pregnant female and two young girls, all bound and gagged. Everyone inspected
the picture.

  “Damn, Honey! You really muthafuckin’ hood!”

  “I get down for mines,” I replied. “I couldn’t take a chance with this guy pulling a Rambo. Now with him on our team, when y’all run up in there, y’all don’t gotta be so paranoid. That will leave Delano time to concentrate on helping retrieve the chips, instead of wasting the valuable three minutes keeping watch on Javier.”

  “Good plan, Honey. I like the way this is going down. And look at Luther. He still on his gangsta!” Chief said, cheering our work.

  “I’m glad everyone is pleased with my decision.”

  “That’s why you’re the boss.”

  “Heavy lies the crown . . .” I replied aimlessly.

  ***

  At two o’clock we all headed to the blackjack table separately. I told them that no one would address each other—the dealer, Javier, no one. Everyone would act like we’re strangers. We were there for one reason and one reason only.

  “Yo, what’s up with the wig?” Chief asked as I pulled on a short black wig and a pair of oversized shades.

  “I work for the Bellagio, stupid.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m supposed to be working tonight and tomorrow, but I called out sick. If someone bumps into me at Harrah’s it could blow my whole cover.”

  “Oh, that’s what’s up. Well, ain’t nobody gonna recognize you in that getup. I’m your blood and I don’t even recognize you.”

  “That’s why it’s called a disguise.” Before Chief could reply, I said, “Don’t do it. Just let it hang out there in the universe. No need to even respond.”

  Shortly into our hand Javier walked over and greeted Kelly, the dealer for the evening. He took a quick, yet thorough glance at everyone and then kept it moving. He moved with ease, like a panther. Perhaps, more like a lion. He was strong and confident.

  ***

  We all headed to our respective homes to rest up for our big day tomorrow. And what a day it was going to be. The last, most memorable day of all of our lives. A new beginning for some, doomsday for others. I didn’t plan on getting much sleep, the details constantly replaying in my mind. If we were off by one minute, or if something unforeseeable occurred and we weren’t ready to improvise, then tomorrow would become Armageddon. Tomorrow there was going to be one step between life and death, and I knew which side of the yellow tape I wanted to be on.