by Roy Glenn
“That was kind of deep, Leon,” I said as I stretched and yawned. Leon stood up. “Hey, Leon, how come I never met you before? I mean, back when me and Lorenzo were in high school. I thought I’d met his whole family.”
“You met his Uncle Wayne, right?”
“Yeah, we used to go and visit him in jail sometimes.”
“Wayne is my daddy.”
“I didn’t know that. I guess drug dealing does run in y’all’s family.”
“It’s the family business,” Leon said.
“So, you used to live in the Bronx?”
Leon nodded his head in response.
“Why’d you leave? What’s the matter, you don’t love New York?”
“Let’s just say that I left New York for business reasons, and leave it at that, Nina,” Leon said, and as he did every night, went off to slay the tittie twins.
The following day, I came downstairs and found Leon sitting at the kitchen table, while the twins tried to cook breakfast. “Good morning. I’m ready for another day of Drug Dealer 101.”
The twins started laughing until Leon cut his eyes at them. They stopped laughing quickly and resumed their discussion on the best way to fry an egg.
“Good morning, Nina,” Leon said. “Sit down and pay them no mind.”
“I thought you said they couldn’t cook,” I whispered.
“They can’t,” he whispered back, “and I damn sure ain’t eatin’ anything they cook. It’s my fault. I said a home-cooked meal sure would be nice once in a while. What I wanna say that for? Look at them. Between the two of them you’d think they could fry an egg. Anyway, they mean well.”
“I’m sure they have other talents.”
“You just don’t know, Nina. You couldn’t imagine the talents those two have,” Leon said as he looked over at the twins. Diamond glanced over at Leon while he was looking at her. She ran her tongue over her lips and went back to doing what she was doing. Leon smiled more of a smile than I’d ever seen on him. It still wasn’t much, but I could see what the twins saw in him: Leon was sexy.
Leon always had this serious look on his face. It was like he was always thinking. Thinking about what was next, thinking about that bigger picture that he was always talking about. Sure, Leon was teaching me how to play the game, but what was more important to me was when he told me, “Nina, what you have to do is stay focused on the objective instead of the game. How to work from a position of strength, making allies out of enemies to accomplish your objectives. And one other thing: always be right, and when you’re wrong, make sure you have a backup plan. It’s a poor rat that only has one hole,” Leon told me. I nodded my head like I understood exactly what he was talking about, even though I was clueless.
“Now, you go and get dressed and we’ll go to Waffle House,” he told me. “By the time you’re dressed, I’ll have put a stop to this.”
The more I thought about what he was trying to get me to see, the more it made perfect sense. To put it simply, don’t get caught up on bullshit, ’cause it will only take time and energy away from what you’re doing.
“I could cook breakfast,” I volunteered.
“I know. I was thinkin’ about the last time you were here with Lorenzo and you cooked us that big-ass breakfast, but I don’t want you to show them up. Let them go on believin’ that all women are just as useless in the kitchen as they are.”
That day, Leon and I sat out by the pool and talked. He was still on trust. “I know what you’re thinkin’, Nina, but don’t do it. I’m tellin’ you. Don’t fuck with anybody that Lorenzo used to do business with.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you don’t know if you can trust them. You don’t know which ones the cops got their hooks in. Cops had Lorenzo under surveillance; they know who he was doing business with. You see, some of them went to jail behind his shit. The ones that are still on the street are the ones who gave the cops something to stay out.”
“I never thought about that.”
“Build your own team”—Leon said and pointed at me—“People who’ll be loyal to you.”
“I understand. I need a loyal team to achieve my objectives.”
“You have been listening.”
“More than that, I’ve been paying attention. So, I’ll stay away from the guys he used to do business with.”
“Good. They won’t respect you anyway.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause they will always see you as Lorenzo’s ho.” I didn’t particularly like being called a ho, but that’s probably how they all saw me. “Gimme the keys to your car.” Once I handed him the keys he said that he would be back in a couple of hours. “You’ll be ready to leave in the morning, so relax for the rest of the day.” He got up. “Diamond, come follow me,” he yelled to one of the tittie twins, and she left with him.
Once Leon was gone, Pearl came and sat with me by the pool. “You smoke weed?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Pearl said, and pulled out a blunt from her cleavage. “It’s a little damp, but we’ll fix that,” she said and put a lighter to it. “You wanna drink too?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Don’t worry, Nina, I make drinks better than I cook. Come inside with me,” she said, and I followed her. “I used to be a bartender until I found out I could make more money dancin’ than pouring drinks. Now I’m gettin’ too old for that shit too. Anyway, I’ll make us a couple of Blue Muthafuckas,” Pearl said.
“What’s a Blue Muthafucka?”
“It’s a Long Island Iced Tea with this blue stuff mixed with it,” she said, holding up a bottle of Blue Curaçao. “Now, how does that sound?”
“Great.” I smiled at Pearl. Even though I had been there for a few days, this was the first time I had been alone with either of the twins. There was something I’d been dying to ask. “You mind if I ask you a question, Pearl?”
Pearl stopped making our drinks. “Go ahead.” She gave me this what-you-wanna-know, bitch look.
“Is your name really Pearl?”
She started laughing, so I laughed a little with her, but I still wanted to know. “Yes, Nina, my mother and father named me Pearl. You know, people been callin’ us that for years, and nobody’s ever asked me that,” she said, still falling all over herself with laughter. “But you asked the right one. Diamond’s my girl, but she is a little sensitive about her name.”
“So, what’s her name?”
Pearl stopped laughing, got this real serious look on her face, and waited until I stopped laughing. “Alice Fae.” She busted up laughing again.
By the time Leon got back with Diamond, me and Pearl were fucked up—I mean giggling all over ourselves fucked up. Leon just shook his head and made himself a drink. Diamond, on the other hand, seemed just a bit jealous, but Pearl didn’t seem to care.
The next morning when I got ready to leave, I got my money together and tried to give it to Leon. “What’s that for?”
“For the product I’m gettin’ from you.”
“Yeah, well, put your money away. Go buy yourself a better looking, cheap car than the one you’re drivin’ now,” Leon said and laughed. “I’m just fuckin’ with you, Nina. But when you do get a car, make sure it’s nothing fancy, just something to get you around.”
“You told me that a hundred times, Leon.”
“And you ain’t gettin’ no two ounces. I’m givin’ you a kilo.” My mouth dropped open. “That one is on me. Make your money, and when you come back to see me, we’ll talk about a price for the next one.”
“Thank you, Leon.”
“You don’t have to thank me. You’re family now. I ain’t ever gonna see Lo again unless we run up on each other in jail, and you know I’m never going to jail. You’re my cousin now. Whatever you need to make it, all you gotta do is ask me.”
“I will,” I said and gave him a hug.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, you’re gonna be fine. Lo always said you were the brains
of the outfit.”
“What?” I asked, looking at Leon like he was stupid.
“He said that you gave him the best advice whenever he asked you what to do, and how he should handle situations.”
“You’re kidding.” Damn. I never thought he paid any attention to what I was saying. All I ever told him was what I thought would bring in the most money. Who knew the shit was working for him?
“That’s what he told me.” Leon turned around and started walking toward the house.
“Leon,” I called to him. “I don’t mean to ask stupid questions, but where is it?”
Leon stopped and looked at me. “Strapped under the driver’s seat. You’ll need to take the seat out to get to it. If you get stopped, it won’t be easy to find without dogs. And be careful in South Carolina. The state patrol is hot there.”
“Good-bye, Leon.”
“See ya, cuz.”
So, I was on my way home with a kilo under my ass, feeling like I had the world by the tail. Although I was nervous about what I was carrying, I was bubbling over with excitement and anticipation about the future. Having a free kilo to go into business with was a whole lot sweeter than a couple of ounces. My mind began to open up to the possibilities that I was sitting on. There was no longer any thought in my mind of me, Teena, and Shay hustling to flip a couple of ounces so we could re-up. Now we would be able to sit back and wait on the money to come to us.
Now, all the things that Leon had said we could do on price would come into play. He said since I was entering a very competitive market, it would always be to my advantage to have a high-quality product and to be very competitive on price. That was how I would get new customers. They would be loyal as long as I treated them right. He told me to remember that anybody I dealt with was liable to snitch me out the first time I fucked them over, but if I gave them a good price, they would come back to buy more. The more they bought, the more I could buy. My costs would go down, but my selling price would remain the same, so my profits would go up. It was damn good advice.
I got on I-95 and headed north, staying with the flow of traffic for the most part. I got into South Carolina and remembering Leon’s warning, I made sure to do the speed limit. That was cool until I got behind this old woman coming out of Florence who was driving really slow. I took it as long as I could, then I pulled out to get in front of her. I passed her without a problem and was cruising along nicely, when I realized I was doing eighty. I took my foot off the gas to let it slow down and blew right by a state trooper. I kept going, watching the rearview mirror, hoping that he wouldn’t come after me.
“Shit. Here he comes.”
As soon as I saw the blue lights come on, I pulled over. As quickly as I could, I put on some lipstick, unbuttoned the top two buttons on my blouse, and emptied my purse out on the seat next to me. He pulled over behind me and got out of the car. Thank God he’s black, I thought. When he knocked on my window, I went into my act. I looked up at him, rolled down the window and started crying. Not no big, boo-hoo cry, but I forced a few tears down my cheeks.
“Can I see your license, ma’am?”
“Here it is,” I said tearfully.
“You’re a long way from home, Ms. Thomas,” the trooper said as he leaned on top of the car to get a better view of the cleavage I had put on display for him. “What’s your hurry?”
“I’m visiting my family in Florence. I didn’t mean to be speedin’, but I was diggin’ around in this junky purse for my cigarettes, but I don’t see them, so I guess I must’ve left them at Aunt Steph’s house, and I guess I got a little heavy-footed,” I lied. I don’t even smoke, but the plan was working. The cleavage had his ass frozen. I knew then that he wasn’t gonna search the car. Now it was time to get out of getting a ticket.
“Well, Ms. Thomas, I clocked you doing seventy-eight in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour zone,” the trooper said.
You’re losin’ him, Nina. I knew then it was time to close the show. I began to cry a little harder and made my breasts bounce. I looked at his face: his eyes bucked wide, mouth open. He shook his head. “Don’t cry, Ms. Thomas. I’m gonna let you go with a warning this time,” he said and handed me back my license, “but just try to keep it at the speed limit. And maybe you should quit smoking. A pretty lady like you doesn’t need to smoke anyway.”
“I know. It’s a nasty habit.”
He reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out a card and handed it to me. “If you wanna get together some time, give me a call,” the trooper said. He was kinda cute for a cop, so I thought I just might. As he walked back to his car, I buttoned up my blouse and put my stuff back in the purse. I pulled out slowly into traffic and drove on, knowing that I had dodged a bullet big-time. But the fact remained that I had dodged it, and was on my way to do this thing.
Eight
Now that I had it, it was time to make it work. Me and Teena posted up at a table in the back of Jimmy’s, the same hole in the wall bar where Lorenzo and Chris first took us. I remembered what Leon had told me. “The ones that are still on the street are the ones who gave the cops something to stay out.” And here they all were.
I’d been low-profile since Lorenzo went to jail. First I was depressed, then I tried to be a dancer, so this was the first time I’d seen a lot of these people in a while. One by one, each one of them came up to me to show their respect. Their women asked me where I’d been and filled me in on all the latest gossip. Some wanted to see if I was doing okay on my own. Some of the fellas who hadn’t seen me in a good while told me how sorry they were that things went down the way they did. Some of that was sincere, some was bullshit, some of these mutha fuckas were glad Lorenzo was locked up.
Some offered their help, others offered themselves. Imagine what I must have represented to them; what a prize I would be. One of them had taken my man’s position, now they wanted me.
“Look at these mutha fuckas, Nina. All of them tryin’ to get with you,” Teena said.
“All of them sold out Lorenzo to stay on the street.”
“You sure you don’t wanna recruit none of these mutha fuckas?”
“Yup.”
“Not even the cute ones?”
“Especially not them. I thought about it, believe me. This is where I thought I was gonna start: with these mugs. But now, looking at them, seeing how they’re trying to play me, we don’t need none of these sellout mutha fuckas to do this work for us. No, Teena, we gotta build our own team.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we. Or were you just talkin’ that together-to-the-bloody-end shit?”
“No, I wasn’t just talkin’. You know that. But I was just thinking that since things had changed, you know, with you getting a whole lot more than you thought, and with you handin’ me back five hundred of the four hundred dollars I gave you, I thought maybe shit had changed.”
I looked at Teena; it hurt me a little to hear her ask me that. It was like she was questioning the strength of our friendship. “No, Teena, we’re in this together. We gotta build this team.”
“Well, maybe you should tell me exactly what we means.”
“It means we’re partners. Me, you and Shay are partners in this. I’m distribution, you’re recruitment, and you know Shay …”
“Yeah, she’ll get done anything that needs to be done.”
“So, the first person we gonna go see is Kenyatta,” I said to Teena and motioned for the waitress.
“You just said you wasn’t fuckin’ with none of Lo’s people.”
“I know what I said, but Kenyatta is different. That’s my girl. I was the one who brought Kenyatta to Lorenzo.” I laughed. “She’s been tellin’ me since the day Lorenzo got locked down that I needed to do this.”
When I went to see Kenyatta the following day, it was like she was waiting for me. She swung open the door to her apartment before I could knock. “I hope your grand appearance at Jimmy’s last night means you’re ready to take this thing to a new level.”
“Hello, Kenyatta,” I said and walked by her. “How are you today?”
“Just answer my question, ho. What were you doin’ at Jimmy’s last night?”
“That’s what I came to see you about.”
“Talk to me.”
“You ready to take this thing to a new level?”
“Yes! Nina, I been ready. I just been waitin’ on you.”
“Good. You still hold down that same stop?”
“Of course.”
“What’s gonna happen if you change suppliers?”
“Since we’re talkin’ business, let’s say you give me a reason to change suppliers.”
“I’m in a position to give you a much better price than what you’re paying now.”
“Then in that case, I’d be doin’ business with you. They’ll come around, make some noise, but my set is deep enough to make them think twice about takin’ it any further.”
So, now we had a place to sell and it all began from there. The way Kenyatta ran her program was tight: no hand-to-hand exchanges and little or no conversation. You say what you want, drop your money on the ground and go up the steps. On the ground at the top of the steps, you’d find what you paid for.
Kenyatta immediately bought into the concept of making money on volume. She didn’t put a lot of cut on it. Once the word got around that they were rolling with quantity and very high quality, I couldn’t get the product to them fast enough. That would become my foundation, and I would build up from there. It wasn’t long before I was back in Jacksonville.
I made it a point to stay in Florence on the trip down. I called that trooper and went out with him. Not that I was feeling him all that much, but I was going to be driving though there on a regular basis. Any information I could get from him would be useful.
In less than a year, we were able to move four kilos a month. In that time, we had put together a team of nine players, male and female, who were buying weight on a regular basis. As a recruiter, Teena had found her special place in the world, hanging around with people—mostly men, mostly with money—feeling them out, seeing where their heads were at, and taking the ones that fit into our program. “Same shit I’ve been doing for years,” Teena boasted. “Sizing men up is what I do.”