by Erica Hilton
So after Jasmine was convinced she was down with Ish getting set up, she started calling Simone more often. Each time, Jasmine reminded her that they needed to go out because they hadn’t been out in so long. Simone jumped at the bait because she was itching to show off the new outfits and other gifts Ish had given to her.
“Did you move in with Ish yet?”
“I might as well have. I mean, I’m always at his crib. He loves when I cook for him, so I try to be there as much as possible.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Jasmine tried her best to stay in character.
“What?”
“You know the only reason you be over there is for some dick! You probably ain’t cook that nigga one good meal yet. Remember you are the one who texted me a picture of his dick.”
“Oh, my God!” Simone laughed, trying to sound embarrassed. “That shit do look good though, right?”
“I don’t know. I deleted that right after you sent it to me. Picture me trying to explain to Nico why Ish’s dick is in my phone.”
Simone burst out laughing, completely thrilled to talk about Ish any chance she could. After Simone finished laughing she started to talk low and in a real serious tone. “So tell me something—When’s the last time you had some dick?”
“Why you asking me like you trying to get the scoop on something? You already know Nico is out of town.”
“Jasmine?”
“Yes?”
“You telling me you ain’t fuck nobody since Nico been gone all this time?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Unless you know about some dick that I don’t know about.”
“No, I’m just saying.”
“You just saying what?” Jasmine braced herself to hear the latest rumor about her. Jasmine hadn’t told her anything about Homicide because she couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t say anything to Ish.
“I’m just saying I don’t know how you go for so long.”
Simone was still the dark-skinned, round-faced girl with the pig nose who only recently started looking decent when she had the money to make herself look better. But the way she was speaking, she was trying to make it like, for all her life, dudes were in bidding wars over her pussy and she always had her pick of dicks.
“It ain’t that hard, Simone. And you act like Nico is doing time in prison or something. He’ll be back.”
“I hear you. But just as long as you know, after we finish partying or whatever, my black ass is going home to Ish for some dick. So don’t be looking for me to come back to chill with you in Long Island.”
“Whatever, Simone.”
Jasmine literally couldn’t take anymore of Simone, so she ended the call with all of the info she needed to relay back to Homicide.
***
With Jasmine’s urging, she and Simone made plans to hang out at Sway, a white trendy bar lounge in SoHo. Sway was in walking distance from Jasmine’s apartment, but Simone was under the impression that she and Jasmine would both be driving in separately to Manhattan to meet up at the lounge.
“Who told you about this place?” Simone asked Jasmine after she entered Sway and found Jasmine seated at a table by herself. Simone had a stink look on her face.
“I been here before.”
“Here?”
“Girl, sit your ass down and let me order you a drink. It’ll be poppin’ in about a hour.”
“I hope so. All these white people . . . I don’t party with white people.”
Jasmine shook her head, annoyed with Simone already. She managed to get the waitress’s attention and ordered two apple martinis.
“None of these white boys better try to talk to me.”
“Simone, trust me, these white people in here be on a completely different vibe. They all about having fun and a good time when they go out. Watch how many celebs stroll up in here within the next two hours or so.”
“In here?”
“Yes, in here.”
Simone rolled her eyes.
The waitress came back with the drinks, and Simone took her drink off of the tray without even waiting for the waitress. She crossed her legs, put the tiny red straw to her mouth, and started to sip on her drink.
“Thank you.” Jasmine handed the waitress forty dollars.
“So what’s up with school?”
“It’s kicking my ass.” Jasmine didn’t want to tell Simone that she had withdrawn from school for this semester.
“That’s cool.”
Simone was clearly distracted. She put her drink down and was responding to a text message. After a moment she started to smile, and she texted something.
“Ish said to tell you what’s up. And he said he’s been to Sway before, and it’s a cool spot.”
Jasmine looked at Simone and just shook her head. Suddenly Simone had loosened up and was ready to let her hair down after Ish validated the spot.
“So what was you saying about school?” Simone asked.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Simone ordered some Buffalo wings for them. Jasmine knew it was going to be a long night, but she was working, and that’s how she looked at it.
She sat for about two hours and listened to Simone talk about how she was so certain that Ish was going to be getting her an engagement ring real soon and how she couldn’t wait for him to ask her to marry him.
“No offense, Simone, but do you think Ish is the marrying type?”
“Yup,” Simone immediately replied.
Jasmine left it alone and didn’t try to argue with her.
Before long, Simone was asking Jasmine what she had planned for Saturday, which was the next day.
“Nothing at all. You don’t understand how boring my life is right now. It’s like all I do is go to school and come home and study.”
“You need to stop acting like you married to Nico and start doing you. That’s your problem,” Simone had the audacity to say.
Jasmine just nodded. “So what about you? What’s up for tomorrow?”
“I’m probably going to go with Ish to the new casino that opened up in Queens.” Simone then excused herself to go to the bathroom and told Jasmine that after that she was probably going to get ready to leave.
“Let me guess—You’re heading to Ish’s house for some dick?”
Simone smiled and pointed at Jasmine, and then she walked off to the bathroom.
As soon as Simone was out of eyesight and earshot, Jasmine pulled out her phone and called Homicide. “We about to leave now, so figure in about thirty or forty minutes.”
“That’s what’s up. I’m good. I’m here,” Homicide replied. “Everything sound a’ight?”
“Yeah, everything is good. She talking about she heading there now to get fucked.”
“No doubt. Just keep your phone on.”
“Okay.” Jasmine ended the call.
***
Homicide and his homeboy, who went by the name of Cash Out, were parked three houses down from Ish’s house, sitting in an all-black Audi with tinted windows. Ish lived on a quiet middle-class block, where all of the neighbors parked their cars on the street, so the Audi didn’t look out of place, even though it was two in the morning. Ish’s house was completely dark, and the white Mercedes-Benz S550 that he drove wasn’t on the block or in his driveway.
At two fifteen in the morning Simone pulled into the driveway of Ish’s house and turned off the engine. It took her about two minutes to get out of the car, and when she did she was talking on her cell phone. Simone was fully engrossed in her conversation so she was distracted and didn’t see Homicide and Cash Out exit their Audi wearing all-black and black ski masks.
Ish’s house didn’t have a fence or any bushes. It was just wide-open landscape and layout, so it would have been
easy for Homicide and Cash Out to be spotted.
Simone ended her call with Ish just before unlocking the front door. As she opened the door she felt somebody grab her forcefully from behind, rush her into the house, and close the door behind her. Simone’s heart dropped to her feet and she desperately tried to free herself from the intruder’s grip.
Homicide’s left hand was inside of a black leather glove that completely covered Simone’s mouth, and with his right hand he gripped a black semi-automatic weapon and pressed it to her temple.
“Shut the fuck up! Stop fighting me, and I won’t kill you!”
Simone stopped resisting, but her chest was visibly rising and falling because she was nervous and breathing so hard.
“Who’s in the house with you?” Homicide asked.
Cash Out turned on the lights and closed the vertical blinds, so no one could see inside the house.
Simone shrugged her shoulders to indicate that she didn’t know who was home. She didn’t know who was gripping her from behind, but she could see Cash Out in his ski mask, and the sight of him terrified her.
Cash Out quickly ran through the house and went from room to room just to make sure it was completely empty.
Homicide knew from Jasmine that Simone talked about how Ish would have her get cash and go to the post office to buy money orders for him to pay his bills, so he was sure there was cash in the house.
Homicide slid his hand from Simone’s mouth and held her in a headlock, her back leaning against his chest and his forearm applying choke-hold pressure to her neck. “Where the cash?”
Simone, feeling the gun at her temple, was too afraid to lie. “It’s downstairs in the basement. Please just don’t kill me!”
“Where at downstairs?” Homicide yelled directly into her ear.
“In the stand-alone freezer, under the meat and the food.”
Homicide nodded to Cash Out. Cash Out went downstairs, and within two minutes he came back with three large stacks of frozen cash. It looked like about twenty or thirty thousand dollars, but it was hard to determine because it was stuck together.
“I know that ain’t it! Where the rest of the money at?” Homicide yelled, and he threw Simone to the ground by her hair and aimed his gun at her.
“I don’t know, I swear to you, I don’t know,” Simone said, trembling.
“You lying to me!”
“I’m not. I swear to you, I’m not.” Simone shook her head, and tears began streaming down her face. Simone knew that Ish was on his way home and was hoping he would hurry up and get there before she got raped or killed.
“Where the drugs at?”
Simone was frozen in fear because now she knew she was dealing with dudes who knew Ish.
Homicide nodded to Cash Out.
Cash Out walked up to her and kicked her as hard as he could in her ribs. “Where the fuck is the drugs at?” he hollered.
The kick instantly knocked the wind out of Simone. She doubled over on the living room floor clutching her ribs, gasping for air, and trying to talk all at the same time.
“There’s nothing,” she faintly replied from the ground, certain she was about to die.
Homicide walked over and picked up Simone’s phone and told her to find Ish’s number. Simone was barely able to move because of the razor-sharp pain in her side that felt like she was being stabbed with a hunting knife.
Homicide held out the phone, and Simone quickly scrolled through it until she got to Ish’s number. Homicide then sent Ish a text message from her phone: Where are you?
“Tie that bitch up!” Homicide ordered Cash Out.
Cash Out ripped the lamp from the wall. Then he snapped the electrical cord from the lamp and used it to tie Simone’s hands behind her back and to the base of the fireplace mantle.
Simone had just gotten her breath back in her lungs from being kicked, and just as she did, she found Cash Out’s gun literally stuffed in her mouth.
“Where the drugs at, bitch?” he asked while he cocked the gun.
Ish was just exiting off the Belt Parkway when he got Simone’s text. He was about to text back and tell her where he was, but he decided to just call her instead. Part of him was wondering why she sent him that text if she had just spoken to him five minutes earlier and told her that she was close to home.
The phone rang, and Ish’s name popped up on the caller ID. Homicide didn’t want to answer it because he didn’t want Simone to start screaming or do anything to tip off Ish. Ish called right back when he got no answer, and again it rang out to voice mail.
“Bitch, you got two seconds to tell me where the fuckin’ drugs at or your man is gonna come home and find your brains splattered in that fireplace.”
Simone knew she had to say something. So she remembered the first night she ever came by Ish’s house that he had removed one of the gates to the heating vent and reached inside and took out some weed that he had rolled for them to smoke.
“I swear to God, I don’t know, but in the kitchen look inside the heating vent. There might be something there.”
Ish called back a third time, and again Homicide sent him to voice mail.
Homicide was now wondering if the text had spooked Ish and if he knew something was up. He was ready to bounce because if Ish sensed something was off, Homicide didn’t want to get caught out there outgunned and outmanned if Ish showed up with some of his soldiers.
Cash Out ripped the vent gate from the wall and reached inside and found two pounds of weed. He ran back into the living room and showed it to Homicide. Homicide was pleased with the take, but he was frustrated that the robbery didn’t go the way he’d wanted it. He wanted Ish to walk in on the robbery unsuspecting, so he could hold him hostage and find out where Ghetto Mafia’s stash house was.
Homicide walked up to Simone, and with his gun, he smacked her across the face. Simone saw stars. Her face spun and hit the wall, and blood from her mouth splattered on to the floor and wall. Three of her front teeth had just been knocked out.
“We out!” Homicide said to Cash Out.
Just as they made their way to the front door, the home phone started to ring. When the home phone went to voice mail, Ish knew something was up. He ran the red light he was at and the next three red lights, trying his hardest to get to his crib as quickly as he could.
When Ish ran the light at 147th Avenue and Brookville Boulevard, a New York City cop saw him and immediately turned on his lights and started to follow Ish.
Ish was only five blocks away from house. Had he not gotten pulled over, he would have literally caught Homicide and Cash Out coming out after the home invasion. But, as it turned out, Homicide and Cash Out made it to their Audi with twenty thousand in cash and two pounds of weed.
Ish tried his best to keep his cool as the cop asked him for his license and registration, so he complied without any kind of confrontation or resistance. He was hoping like crazy that the cop didn’t ask him to step out of the car because he was certain the cop would have seen the handgun tucked in his waistband.
Thirty-Six
Homicide and Cash Out got about five miles away from the crime scene when they pulled the car to the side of the road and turned the heat on full blast although it was warm outside. They wanted to thaw out the frozen stacks of money. Once the money was thawed out, Homicide counted out five stacks of the twenty grand and gave it to his partner in crime, and he kept the rest for himself. He had also given Cash Out one pound of the weed and kept the other pound for himself before they parted ways, promising to hook up again real soon for another caper.
Homicide would have split the loot fifty-fifty with Cash Out, but it was his masterminding that had got them the loot. Cash Out was really only assisting on the tactical part of things, so the split was fair as far as far as they both were concerned.
“Everything okay?” Jasmine asked with a bit of nervous anticipation. Although she would never tell Homicide, in her heart she was hoping that no one had ended up dead at the home invasion.
Homicide handed Jasmine three stacks and told her that everything went off smoothly. He sat down on her couch and ran his hand over his head and down his face.
Jasmine took the money and kissed Homicide and thanked him for it, but in the pit of her stomach, she felt horrible. It was the first time that she could remember money in her hands not feeling good to her and not making her feel genuinely happy.
“I bought some Coronas and some Guinness if you want one,” she said to Homicide.
Homicide told Jasmine to bring him a Guinness, which she did, and she sat down next to him on her couch. Jasmine pressed him for details on the robbery, but he had been around the block way too many times and knew to keep his mouth shut. The stone-cold look he gave to Jasmine was all it took to stop her from asking a million questions.
Homicide reached for Jasmine’s remote control and turned on the flat-screen TV.
Jasmine desperately wanted to know what was going through his head. “Babe, just tell me one thing—did anybody get hurt?”
“What the fuck you asking me that for?” Homicide stared at Jasmine.
Jasmine knew that he was seriously waiting for her to give him an answer. “I’m just asking, baby, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry about that shit.” Homicide stood up from the couch and guzzled down the rest of the Guinness.
“I’m sorry.” Jasmine tried to push up on Homicide and give him a kiss, but he wasn’t interested in that. Instead he rubbed on his beard and thought about how he had fucked up by not being patient. He should have just waited for Ish to come home on his own instead of sending that text to him.
“Just be yourself. You don’t know nothing, you don’t say nothing, and you’ll be good.”
“Okay,” Jasmine replied, and she asked him if he wanted another Guinness.