Trying her best not to be seen, she followed Stacy and her friends throughout the entire mall. Once they left the mall, she followed them all to Stacy’s car. Then she climbed in her own car and followed Hakim’s beloved, flirtatious girlfriend as she dropped each of her homegirls off. After the last one got out at a mini mansion in Palmer Woods, Stacy was in the car alone. Jada wanted to make her move. As they drove past the old State Fairgrounds, they went across Eight Mile. Woodward Avenue was crowded, and Jada almost lost sight of her mark. She stayed at least two cars behind as Stacy got on I-696, heading east. In Jada’s twisted mind, this was it. This was when it was going down. When Stacy exited the freeway, Jada would ram her car from behind, causing it to flip over. If the devil was on Jada’s side, the young girl would not survive.
Stacy got over into the far right lane. Seconds later, she put on her blinker. Jada saw the red flashing light and got ready to make her move. She checked all her mirrors, knowing she’d have to have perfect timing so that she wouldn’t kill or injure herself while trying to take Stacy out of the game. Jada got all the way over, cutting off a late-model Grand Prix with rims. Now only one car behind Stacy, Jada had to make this thing appear to be an accident. Five, four, three, two . . . Her countdown had almost reached one when a state boy came out of nowhere, lights flashing, ruining Jada’s plan. His flashing lights caused everyone to slow down and merge to get out of his way.
Aggravated that her original plan had failed to work out, Jada became even more adamant about making Stacy pay. Now top side, she continued to follow her to her house. As Stacy turned into her driveway, Jada slowly crept by, eyeballing her hard. As she turned around at the end of the block, she watched Stacy go inside the ranch-style house. Totally deranged by this point, she quickly figured out what her next move would be. First, she went to the Dollar Store. Once there, she grabbed two huge plastic containers with screw-on tops. Then a gas can.
After she left the store, Jada headed in the direction of a gas station. Conniving, she parked her car a block from the station and walked over, with the gas can in hand. When she got to the gas station, she asked the attendant for three dollars’ worth of gasoline. As part of her act, she claimed, loudly enough for other customers to hear, that she’d run out of gas. Almost in tears and looking disheveled, she announced she had no more money than the crumpled bill in her hand. Jada then fake begged the cashier and a few customers to help her out.
“Sir, excuse me, but can you please help me out with a few dollars? Or at least take me back to my car?” Jada asked one white man, but she was quickly cut off by his agitated wife, who got out of their vehicle and answered for her husband.
Others disregarded her pleas for help as well. Jada made sure to tell some of them thank you, anyway, and give them a smile. She then headed over to the pump and filled the gas can, along with both plastic containers.
With ill intentions on tap, her bad day was about to get better. She returned to the house she’d seen Stacy go into, and then she parked a few doors down. She didn’t care who was in the house. It was what it was. If there were more casualties than Stacy’s rotten ass, so what? After making sure there were no prying eyes watching, Jada removed the gas can and the two containers from the car and tiptoed onto the front porch of the house. She poured gasoline all around. Then she headed to the side door, which she doused with gasoline. Next, she walked around to the rear door and saturated it as well. The remainder of the strong-smelling, highly flammable chemical she let drip down on the hood of the vehicle Stacy had driven. Dumbly, she sat all three now empty containers she’d used on the rear stairs of the house.
After removing a red lighter from her back pocket, Jada grabbed a bunch of sales flyers that was lying near the trash cans. She lit one after the other, until she had four in total, and then she tossed one at each door to the house. As flames licked the doors, she threw the last lit flyer on Stacy’s car. Then she took off running back to her car before Stacy’s house became engulfed in flames.
After driving around the corner, Jada pulled over and finally looked at her cell phone while she waited for Stacy to be burned alive. Her cousin had called, but Jewels would have to wait. Jada had important business on the floor right now. In Jada’s twisted mind and way of thinking, if the youngster Stacy was gone, Kalif would come and beg her to return to his side. As she sat in the car and nibbled on the last chocolate chip cookie she had in her bag, she wondered what Kalif was doing. It took a special type of crazy to recognize crazy. That was why she had always felt they were the perfect match. Seconds later, Jada was geeked when she heard fire trucks off in the distance. Stacy’s house was ablaze.
Yeah! Burn, bitch! Burn! Burn to the fucking ground with that funky ho inside!
Chapter 21
The feedback on the Captagon Dip, aka CD, the guys had received was more than impressive, just as Nieem had promised it would be. Each one that came on the block had a wild story to tell. Keys bragged that the handful of pills he’d passed out in the East Seven Mile and Van Dyke neighborhood and in parts of Black Bottom had had the addicts running around behaving as if they couldn’t get hit by the cars they bravely walked in front of. When they’d been outside of the liquor store, begging for spare change, they hadn’t taken no for an answer and had run up behind people. They also had ignored the requests to stop leaning on people’s cars that were parked in the lots, and they’d thrown hands with each other until they were exhausted. Keys had just looked on in amazement at how fast the new magic moneymakers had caught on. He reported that he’d been around the way for only ten minutes or so before the pills kicked in. The high had been instant, just like the customers liked.
Li’l James and Pit Boy had experienced much the same reactions when spreading their portion of the testers in Southwest Detroit, Downriver, and the Cass Corridor. Amir had hesitantly given his to drug addicts he knew that stayed in the homeless shelter in Highland Park. Unlike the others, he hadn’t waited for the addicts to give him a personal report. He had just sat in his car a little ways down and had watched the madness soon erupt.
Not to be left out, Kalif had put in work too. With the majority of the Captagon pills in his possession, he’d headed to the Brightmoor area of Detroit. While it was not heavily populated with working residents—or with any residents, period, for that matter—the ones that did live or hang out there were perfect. Not trying to hide what he was doing, Kalif had pulled up and set up shop. After passing out every pill, he’d told them he’d be back around sometime tomorrow if they wanted to get at him.
Now that their traps were set throughout the various parts of the city, it was time to sit back and hope they were onto the next big thing. If they got in on the ground floor, no matter how many wannabe imitators came along, trying to move heavy amounts of their come-up drug, they would be the originators and would make the majority of the revenue.
While the guys sat around chilling and just kicking it, Kalif’s cell rang. After taking it out his pocket, he looked at the screen. Damn. It’s my pops. He still had not returned Rasul’s call from the night before. And at this point, given that what he had on the table was on the verge of skyrocketing, he doubted he ever would. Instead, Kalif shot Rasul to his voicemail, which wasn’t even set up, on purpose. Right about now, I ain’t trying to hear that negative shit he gonna say. Especially since he still out in the streets, doing low-key bullshit hisself. It don’t matter if it’s old game or new game. Game is game.
* * *
“Still no damn answer. I swear, that boy is gonna be the death of me. If I say go left, his ass goes right. If I say go up, you can best believe he’s going down. I just don’t understand him. I done tried working with him since he was little, and the outcome has always been the same. Kalif going against the grain.” Rasul was venting to his best friend, Abdul. The two had met up for dinner not only so they could discuss in person what S. P. Black had told Rasul, but also so that Rasul could reveal to Abdul that he’d packed some of his belon
gings and moved out of the house and away from Fatima.
“Come on now,” Abdul replied. “You know Kalif gonna be Kalif, so stop beating yourself up about it. You’ve always done the best you could where he was concerned. Allah knows your true heart for that boy, so that’s enough. And as for Fatima . . .” He paused.
Rasul lowered his head, not wanting to hear the speech that was forthcoming. “Go ahead, man. I’m listening.”
Abdul went on. Not only did he repeat the laws of Islam and what it said in the Koran about breaking up the family, but he also reminded Rasul about what he already had considered. “Fatima is still younger. Younger than us both. So she will remarry. Do you really want another man raising your daughters? Kalif and Hakim are both grown, but you got babies, girls no less.”
Rasul didn’t say a word. He just reached for his coffee, sat back, and thought about what his longtime friend had said. But for now, he and Fatima were broken.
Chapter 22
Jada was ecstatic and still very much zoned out. It was as if she didn’t understand the true implications of what had just happened. As she sat listening to the fire trucks and ambulances get closer, she felt as if she’d served justice on the young, worrisome tramp in training that had ruined her chance at happiness. The sirens were on the very next block. She could easily tell. Jada was beside herself. For her, it was as if it was Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, and her birthday all rolled up into one.
This is what she gets. Now maybe next time she will think twice about being all up in the face of the next female’s man. That side chick jump-off shit might fly with some bitches, but I ain’t with the man-sharing shit, in the dark or otherwise. Well, I guess my job is done here.
Satisfied she had made her point, the crazed arsonist started her car and drove off. As she passed by the flashing lights that filled Stacy’s block, once again she prayed that death was in the air. In much better spirits than when she had left the house, Jada went through the McDonald’s drive-through and ordered a vanilla milk shake. She wanted an ice cream, but as always, their machine was down, so the milk shake would have to do. After she had eaten all those cookies and burned a bitch alive, a cool treat was exactly what she needed. Sipping on the straw, she drove back to the house and pulled up in the driveway. She parked her vehicle exactly where Kalif had seen it last. Most of the workmen were still there. After the way she had given them the evil eye at the beginning of the day, this time each man ignored her as she approached. But Jada was back to her old friendly self.
“How’s everyone doing this evening? How y’all feeling?” she asked as she pranced by without a care in the world.
The men just nodded hello as all four of them took notice of the strong smell.
One worker asked if the others smelled it. “Hueles eso?”
Another replied that he did and that it smelled like gasoline. “Huele a gasolina.”
“Y por qué huele a eso?” asked the first worker who had spoken.
“Look, don’t ask why she smells like that,” their foreman barked. “Just regresemos al trabajo. Okay? Eso no les concierne! You understand? It’s none of your business! Just hurry up. It’s almost seven.”
With the exception of their foreman, the Mexican workers were all undocumented. The foreman often advised them to keep a low profile to avoid the possibility of Immigration being called. When Jada went into the house, their heads went back down, and they continued to work.
* * *
Very much in need of another shower, Jada jumped right out of her clothes. She simply tossed them in the corner of the bedroom, as if she was immune to their strong smell. Upon noticing the time, she grew sad, realizing it was going on forty-eight hours and still she had received no calls or texts from Kalif. But knowing that she had solved one of the roadblocks that was stopping him from wanting her once again, Jada was content. After turning the knob in the shower all the way to hot, she waited for steam to fill the bathroom. Her hair was already a mess from her first shower, so there wasn’t much more damage that the water could do. She placed one leg in the shower, decided that the temperature was just right, and then climbed all the way in.
As she stood under the water, she broke down. All Jada White had ever wanted was Kalif, and for Kalif to want her in return. In her mind, that dream wasn’t too much to ask for. She’d done each and every thing he’d ever asked of her, and even more. Her loyalty to him in his quest to be a boss had gone unchallenged. She’d stolen for him, robbed for him, fought for him, and now killed for him. There was nothing Kalif could ask of Jada that she wouldn’t do. For months and months, she had been by his side in bed and had not even had sex. She’d waited in vain for him to make a move one night in the bed they shared. And the fact that he still had not called was evidence that her love had been no more than a waste of time.
Leaning against the wet marble walls of the shower stall, she trembled and got chill bumps, although the water was still hot. Jada’s body slid to the tiled floor. Burying her face in her hands, she mourned the loss of being Kalif’s ride-or-die. All she’d done for him was out of love. Why could he not see that? Why could he not accept that? And most importantly, why could he not return that same love and devotion? Hysterical, she couldn’t calm down. But strangely, Jada shed not one tear of remorse for the pandemonium she had caused at Stacy’s house. That type of emotion Jada was not built for.
Once out the sensitive state of mind she was in, Jada lay across her bed, with the belt on her robe tied tight. She felt that when she went to sleep, it would be for hours. She was exhausted. But before she went to bed, she had to check and see if her handiwork had paid off. After taking the remote from under the pillow, where she always kept it, she turned on the television. Before she could get to changing channels, her cousin came in the house and yelled out her name as she climbed the stairs.
“Jada! Jada! I know you hear me calling your punk ass.”
For the first time in the forty-eight hours since parting ways with Kalif, Jada had a genuine smile on her face. Even when times had been crazy while she was growing up, Jewels had always made the worst situations better.
“Girl, I’m up here in my damn bed, chilling. But what up, doe?”
“What up doe is all this, bitch,” Jewels said as she entered the room. She dropped an armful of clothes with the tags still on them on top of the bed. “Me, Euri, and Nia hit a dope-ass lick. I tried to call your ass so you could get on, but you ain’t pick up or at least get back with me. So yeah, it was fuck you the long way. Let a bitch get all she can.”
As she went through some of the expensive clothes, Jewels was distracted. But then she started waving her hand in front of her face. She frowned. “Girl, what in the entire fuck is that shit? It smells like straight-up gas in this motherfucker. Your room is lit!”
Jada laughed. “Dang. You right. My bad. It’s my clothes over there in the corner, the ones I had on today. I probably need to throw them in the washing machine.”
“Washing machine? Hell to the naw! You need to burn them stanking motherfuckers. Which probably won’t be hard, as strong as they smelling,” Jewels saw a wet towel on the floor and threw it over Jada’s tracksuit. “How your ass get that shit like that anyhow?”
“Shhh. Be quiet. The news coming on.” Jada turned up the volume on the television.
The first story was about a suspicious house fire that had left one elderly woman dead and her granddaughter fighting for her life. Then Channel Four News went live and showed the severely damaged home in the nearby suburb of Madison Heights. With smoke still visible in the rear area of the dwelling, officials permitted the cameras and reporters to get only within thirty feet of the front door. The neighbors who were interviewed had nothing but nice things to say about the woman who had lost her life and her young caregiver and granddaughter. At this point, they were not certain, but the authorities believed arson played a part in the tragedy.
Jewels knew her cousin all too well, and the way Jada was looki
ng at the TV screen was almost a dead giveaway. “Jada, I asked you a question, and you still haven’t answered it. I said, How did you get that gas on your tracksuit?”
Jada smirked devilishly, pointing the remote at the television. “That’s how.”
Jewels was speechless. She was stunned. She couldn’t believe her ears or what her eyes had just seen on the television. If what her cousin had said was indeed true, then Jada was more than a hustler, a go-getter, and a con woman. She was now a murderer too. Praying that what Jada claimed was no more than a bad joke, Jewels asked her once more about the tracksuit, this time demanding the truth. “Look, crazy girl, stop fucking around with some serious bullshit like that. How ya clothes really get soaked?”
Jada sat all the way up on the bed. With her knees pointed to the ceiling, she casually explained what she had done. “Oh my God, is you going deaf or something? I ran into that little bitch Stacy that was all up in Kalif face. Her and her girls called theyself clowning me, so I burned the ho up. Case closed. Well, I guess I burned her and her old granny up. Case closed!”
Jewels had known since they were kids that her cousin had problems, but she had never thought they were the kinds of problems that would cause Jada to do something as wild and crazy as burning people alive. Since Jada wasn’t thinking clearly, Jewels would have to do it for her. The first thing she did was run to the linen closet and get a pillowcase. After stuffing the strong-smelling clothes inside the pillowcase, she rushed down the stairs and out the back door. Then she lifted the lid on the barbecue grill and tossed the pillowcase inside. After drenching it with lighter fluid, she started a fire. Flames leapt up, and the clothes started to burn. With bandos on most of the block, there was no one to question her as to why she was grilling at such a late hour. Once the fire burned out and the grill cooled off, Jewels would drag it down the alley, dump the ashes in one vacant backyard, and discard the grill itself in another.
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