by Erica Hilton
“Oh, no. Thank you, but I can’t take that.”
“Just take it, buy coffee or something when we land in New York.”
“He said he can’t take it. Now sit your ass down, so we can take off! Bitch!”
Everybody seated in the front of the plane was shocked and surprised at Jasmine’s language, not to mention confused.
Mia smiled and calmly walked toward Jasmine and stood over the white lady sitting next to her. “You’re frustrated. I understand, sweetie. You’ll be okay,” she said in a soft, nonthreatening tone.
“If you were smart, you would sit your ass down in your seat.”
“Ladies, is everything okay?” a gay black male flight attendant walked up and asked both Mia and Jasmine.
“Everything is fine,” Mia replied right before taking her aisle seat. “She’s just going through a little of life’s frustrations.”
The flight attendants stood watch for about a minute, and then they realized that Jasmine’s emotions had subsided. They continued on with their duties, and the flight eventually took off.
For the remainder of the almost six-hour flight, Jasmine and Mia both ignored each other. Jasmine sat with more of a screw face, but that was because her prospects for the future didn’t seem as bright as Mia’s.
Mia sat through the entire flight knowing that within a matter of days, if not hours, she would have her hands on three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash, which would go a long way to helping her feel good, regardless of what Jasmine and Nico chose to do.
***
When the flight was approaching the airport, Jasmine sent Simone a text and asked her if she could pick her up in thirty minutes from LaGuardia Airport, which wasn’t too far from Simone, and Simone agreed.
So when the plane finally landed, Jasmine and Mia continued to ignore each other, and they both exited the plane, with Mia walking in front. Mia had luggage that she had checked in, so she had to go to the baggage area. When she went to the left, Jasmine went to the right toward the passenger pick-up area outside. She saw Simone and she walked toward her, pulling her carry-on bag behind her.
“Hey, girl.” Simone rolled down the passenger side window. She popped the trunk, so Jasmine could put her bag inside.
“Thank you so much. I flew out of Kennedy Airport, and I got my truck parked there. But there was so much drama, I ended up flying back in to LaGuardia,” Jasmine explained.
“Oh, okay. So you need me to shoot you over to Kennedy?”
“Yeah, if you can.”
Simone gave Jasmine a look. “If you didn’t have your car parked at Kennedy, then I would be driving you home. So what’s the difference?”
“No, I’m just saying I don’t want to be all rude and assuming, that’s all.” Jasmine smiled.
“So you went to Vegas and didn’t even tell me?”
“Drama, drama, drama—I can’t even begin to tell you!”
“In Vegas? What happened?”
“So I go out there with this dude named Derek McGee. He plays football for the Green Bay Packers—twenty-million-dollar contract, fine as hell, muscles, all that. So . . .”
“And when were you going to tell me about him? Hook a sister up with one of his friends!”
“No, just listen. So me and Derek are at the Wynn Resort. We chillin’, smoking good weed, good sex, eating good and all that. So we at brunch at this restaurant, and who the fuck walks in? Nico!”
“How did he know you were there?”
“I got no idea. So Nico comes to the table beefing, like, ‘who the fuck is this nigga?’ Yadda yadda yadda. So Derek stands up from the table, and he ain’t a street dude, and inside I’m saying to myself, ‘Derek, I know you got muscles and all, but I hope your ass knows how to use your hands.’”
Simone chuckled. “Nico ended up knocking his ass out, right?”
“No. So I stand up and I step in between them. But Derek starts talking shit, so next thing I know, I see Nico reaching for his gun.”
“Jasmine, no.” Simone held her hand over her mouth.
“So I screamed, ‘Nico, no!’ and I rushed him and held him so he wouldn’t do nothing crazy. So Nico is going crazy like, ‘What the fuck are you doing out here?’ and he’s snatching me up, like, ‘Come on, let’s go.’”
“And what was Derek doing?”
“He was just standing there, asking me if I was all right, so I ended up telling him that I would be right back and I was sorry and all that. And Nico marches me out of the restaurant, and it was just crazy!”
“So what else happened?”
“It’s too much to tell, but I wasn’t trying to have Nico murder my ass.”
“So you just left Derek out there?”
“Well, his punk ass ended up texting me, talking about my pussy was good and all that but for me to lose his number because he don’t need the drama. Look.” Jasmine handed Simone her phone to look at the text Derek had sent to her.
“Wow! But, Jasmine, that’s twenty million you leaving on the table.”
“I know, I know. Don’t even remind me. I am so through right now.”
Jasmine shook her head and slumped in her seat and kept quiet before turning up the volume on the radio.
“So where’s Nico?”
“He’s still out there. He had some business to take care of. And you know what? I’m glad you asked me that, because you need to come chill with me in Long Island until he gets back in a few days.”
Simone looked at Jasmine but didn’t say anything. She was well aware of what happened the last time one of her friends went to her and Nico’s house, and she wasn’t trying to end up dead.
“Okay, well, at least chill with me for the rest of the day, and then let’s hang out later tonight or tomorrow, or something.”
Simone agreed.
The two of them ended up driving to Simone’s house, where Simone parked her car and got into Jasmine’s truck, and they headed out to Bell Boulevard, in Bayside, Queens.
On the plane Jasmine had made up her mind to get a tattoo, and she wanted to do it right at that moment so she wouldn’t change her mind.
“You have got to be the wildest chick I know. You just barely healed up good and you getting a tattoo?”
Jasmine smiled and nodded, maneuvering her truck on the Cross Island Parkway toward the Bell Boulevard exit, and before long the two of them were at a tattoo shop called Murder Inc. Jasmine felt her government-issued phone vibrate, and she looked down and realized it was a text from Agent Gosling that said, That was quick.
It instantly filled Jasmine with anxiety. She knew that the clock was ticking, in terms of how much time she had to come up with the information they needed, or else her ass was going back to jail. And, to make matters worse, she had to figure out how to delete some of the conversation that she and Nico had, when he basically put Shabazz’s murder squarely on her.
She responded, Yeah, we’ll talk. Working on something
She had to quickly make a move and get her ass in the streets, so she could at least give the FBI some of what they wanted.
Jasmine put her phone away, blew out some air from her lungs, and turned off the ignition. “Let’s go do this,” she said to Simone, even though Simone wasn’t getting a tattoo.
“You are crazy. On your neck? Jasmine, you sure you want to do this?”
“Positive!” Jasmine shot back as they walked toward the shop. “On my neck I am going to get a tattoo in cursive letters that says LOVE IS CURSED. And on my hand I’m going to get a cobra tattoo.”
“And you thought about this already?”
“Yup.”
***
Jasmine was excited by how her tattoos turned out. Her excitement didn’t last too long, though, because Agent Gosling was texting
her again and asking when could they meet.
Jasmine sent back Soon. Just give me a little more time. You’ll be happy.
And before should could look at her tattoos for a full five minutes, she began plotting and scheming about how she could quickly get close to Black Justice.
Twenty-One
Bebo’s wake was a mad house with people wall to wall. There were relatives, baby mommas, friends, undercover police and federal agents, and celebrities. Almost all of the members of Ghetto Mafia were present, but Nico, BJ, and Lorenzo, BJ’s cousin and right-hand man, were all noticeably absent.
As people milled about and huddled in their circles of two, three, and four, rumors about why Nico wasn’t there began to surface. Some people had heard that it was Bebo who had shot Nico’s girl, Jasmine. Others dismissed that rumor as nothing but bullshit, while still others believed it and fed into it. For those who believed it, they all agreed that Bebo was dead simply because Nico had retaliated, like any real man would have.
Others believed that the two masked men who had gunned down Bebo were BJ and Lorenzo because Nico would send his two lieutenants to carry out his orders for him, instead of doing the dirty work himself.
Two and a half hours had passed, and many people had kissed Bebo’s cold, lifeless body as it lay inside a twenty-thousand-dollar casket. The undercover cops and federal agents discreetly milled around and mixed in like regular mourners while subtly taking photos and video both inside and outside the funeral.
With about a half an hour left in the wake, Nico, BJ, and Lorenzo pulled up to the funeral home on Linden Boulevard in Nico’s Maybach, driven by Nico’s most trusted driver. Nico’s driver illegally parked the Maybach in front of the funeral home and got out and opened the rear door so that Nico, BJ, and Lo could exit the vehicle.
It was dark outside, and the curtains inside the Maybach were drawn, so no one knew who was inside, until Nico and his two homies emerged. Immediately the three of them began to get a lot of love from the different mourners.
“Keep ya head up, my niggas,” a Queens thug said to Nico, BJ, and Lo after he exhaled smoke from a blunt.
Nico nodded to him, and they kept it moving. Nico led the way, followed by BJ and Lo.
It seemed as if everybody wanted to give Nico a pound and a hug, and in the process it took them about twenty minutes to make it inside the funeral home. The three of them made their way to the front row of the mourners, and they each addressed the family one by one, shaking their hands and telling them that they were sorry for the loss they had suffered.
“Auntie Rose,” Nico said to Bebo’s aunt. He too called her auntie because she always cooked tons of food for him and all of Bebo’s crew, and she was like an aunt to everybody. “You was like a mother to Bebo, and you like a mother to me. That’s not going to change. Whatever you need, just let me know, and I’ll always be there for you,” Nico added directly into her ear while he held on to her hand.
Auntie Rose squeezed Nico’s hand and pulled him toward her, so she could now speak directly into his ear. “Just promise me you’ll find the people who killed my nephew.”
Nico didn’t know what exactly to say. He felt so fucked up at that moment, knowing that Auntie Rose was looking right at her nephew’s killer. “Most definitely.” Then he patted her on the shoulder and kept it moving.
By this time BJ and Lo were both already at the Bebo’s casket looking at his body. All BJ could think about was the day he had murdered Bebo, and now there he was standing at the casket, looking at his victim. Deep down inside he knew that he had carried out the proper justice because Bebo had broken codes of the street and therefore deserved to die.
Nico touched the side of the casket—a casket he had paid for—and stared at Bebo. All Nico could think was that they wouldn’t have been there if Bebo hadn’t tried to kill Jasmine and hadn’t let his ego get the better of him.
The three of them stayed at Bebo’s casket for about two minutes, and then one by one they turned and walked away from the casket and out of the funeral home. Lo took out a cigarette and offered one to BJ. Nico didn’t want one, but he stood on the steps of the funeral home while Lo and BJ smoked.
“That shit is fucked up,” Lo said.
BJ knew how to keep his mouth shut, so he had never even told his cousin Lo that it was him and Nico who had murdered Bebo.
“That’s the streets,” Nico replied real coldly.
“Word up,” BJ added.
It was starting to drizzle lightly, and although the wake was nearing its end, it seemed as if there were now more people standing outside the funeral home than at any other time during the wake.
The funeral was scheduled for the next day, Friday morning at 9 A.M., at Allen A.M.E Cathedral, which wasn’t too far from the funeral home.
“So in the morning we riding together or what?” Lo asked BJ and Nico as they continued to stand on the steps.
Before either Nico or BJ could answer, an all-black Hummer SUV sped up to the front of the funeral home. The Hummer, driving eastbound on Linden Boulevard, was driving so fast, people had to scurry out of the way to avoid getting hit.
As the Hummer came to a skidding halt on the slick roads, the front and rear passenger side windows both rolled down, and masked gunmen in the front and back seat both stretched their bodies out of the windows and started firing toward Nico, BJ, and Lo.
“Oh shit!” BJ hollered, ducking for cover behind one of the funeral home’s wooden pillars.
The gunman in the front passenger seat had fired off sixteen shots from a 9mm handgun and was quickly out of bullets. He pulled his body back inside the Hummer and began to urge the driver to pull off. “Drive, nigga! Drive!” he yelled.
The driver didn’t listen because he didn’t want to pull off too quickly and have his other homeboy fall out of the rear passenger window.
TATATATATATATATATATATATAT
That was the sound of gunfire coming from the second gunman’s Calico M960 that had the capability of letting off 750 rounds a minute. Luckily for all of the innocent bystanders, he only had a one-hundred-round magazine in the gun.
After emptying the magazine, the gunman slipped his body back inside the truck, and it peeled off down busy Linden Boulevard before making a quick right turn onto 195th Street.
Within seconds, police and ambulance sirens could be heard blaring from every direction.
Lo had been hit multiple times in the back, legs, and ass, and was laying on the steps of the funeral bleeding and writhing in pain.
BJ had also been shot multiple times. He was hit in the stomach and in his right arm. He was doubled over in pain and hiding in bushes he’d jumped behind after unwisely stepping from behind the wooden pillar.
Everyone outside the funeral home began screaming when the shots rang out, and a good majority of them rushed into the funeral home fleeing from bullets.
Nico had managed to make it inside the funeral home. He was kicking himself for not being strapped. He was trying to figure out which way to go, and then he saw a sign that said “exit” and he headed toward it and ran down some steps that led to the basement. In the basement there were about five dead bodies on silver tables and there were caskets everywhere. Nico saw another exit sign all the way on the other side of the basement, and he bolted toward it. He was breathing hard and moving as fast as he could.
Nico knew that he shouldn’t have come to Bebo’s wake, but he’d gone against his better judgment. Now he felt like he was going to have to pay for it with his life.
He pushed open the other basement door, and that triggered a loud alarm that scared the shit out of him. When he emerged from that door, he realized he was in the back of the funeral home. He saw people running down the street in a panic.
At that point he didn’t hear any more gunshots, but he did hear a ton of police siren
s, so he figured he was safe. He leaned against the brick rear wall of the funeral home and tried his best to catch his breath. It was at that moment that he realized that BJ and Lo weren’t following behind him.
“Muthafucka!” Nico yelled out loud. He then left safety and ran down the block toward the funeral home. He was running in the opposite direction of all of the people who were trying to get away.
As soon as Nico made it to the front of the funeral home, he saw twelve different people, who had been shot, lying on the ground. Including a four-year-old girl.
He looked for BJ and Lo and saw them both on the ground, and from his vantage point, they both looked as if they weren’t moving. “Ahhh fuck!” he hollered.
Cops had quickly roped off the scene with police tape, and where there wasn’t police tape, the cops wouldn’t let anyone near the funeral home. They were trying their best to clear everybody from the streets.
Nico’s driver had been forced to move the Maybach, so Nico couldn’t locate his car. But it wasn’t his car that he was concerned about; he was worried about his two homeboys. When he was prevented from getting closer to them, he had no choice but to think the worst.
Nico helplessly looked on at the chaos until he was forced by police to leave the scene, which he reluctantly did. He later learned that fifteen people had been shot—four fatally—and more than twenty people who hadn’t been shot were also injured. He had gotten no word from BJ or Lo, and his calls and texts to their phones went unanswered.
Twenty-Two
The morning after the shooting at the funeral home, Agent Gosling called Jasmine on her government-issued BlackBerry. Jasmine was hesitant to answer, but she didn’t want to duck him, only to have him pop up unexpectedly in person somewhere.
“Can you talk?” Gosling asked.
“Yeah, I can talk.”
“Talk to me about the shooting last night at Bebo’s wake.”
Jasmine paused.