Heartbreak of a Hustler's Wife: A Novel

by Nikki Turner

  The brightness in his eyes dimmed a few watts. “I don’t want to waste your time, so I’m going to get right down to the point. I need your help,” Rahllo said concisely, and looked into Yarni’s eyes.

  She knew that this had to be serious because the egotistical self-centered Rahllo she remembered would never admit needing anybody’s help. Especially a woman—and her, to boot. Things must be real bad for him to come crawling to her. “How so?”

  “I never really get into kids’ business, but you remember my son, Rocko?”

  “Of course.” Yarni remembered him; she and his mother had had a couple run-ins back in the day.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “You know he was just a little boy when you and I was dating. Well, he ain’t no little nigga no more. He pushing twenty, but doing big boy shit in a grown man way. To make a long story short,” Rahllo said proudly, poking out his chest, “he picked up where I left off, running these streets like crazy.” He shook his head. “But I think he took to the streets at a younger age than I did,” he boasted.

  Surely this dude didn’t show up at my place of business after almost twenty years to tell me his son is walking in his footsteps as a criminal, she thought, but asked, “Did he get locked up?”

  “No, but from what I can gather, he had a run-in with your niece last night.”

  “What? My niece?” He had to be mistaken but in her heart Yarni knew he wasn’t. All she could think about were those sneaky smiles that Lava and Desember both wore at lunch a few days ago.

  “Well, Rocko said it was your niece that was Nasir’s girl. But to be honest, there was another girl was with her and that’s the chick that he really had the run-in with.”

  Yarni was surprised—but then again, she wasn’t. Her gut feeling from the start told her that Desember was a little hellion. And she had bucked her curfew, had not made it in last night.

  For a split second Yarni thought about the conversation she and Des had earlier that morning about Desember staying out all night long.

  “So what you going to do about your daughter bucking curfew?”

  “I’m going to deal with her whenever she get her ass back in this house.”

  “Her first time out she disobeys your rules, just wait until she gets comfortable.”

  “Don’t get worked up about Desember. I got her,” Des said, as if talking about it to Yarni was frustrating. She shrugged it off, because after all it was his alleged child, not hers—and as far as she was concerned it was his worry, not hers.

  But boy was she wrong; the girl’s trouble had been dropped in her lap now, she thought, and realized she had to iron out this girl’s B.S.

  “What exactly happened?” Yarni asked.

  “Apparently, Rocko and his boys hit the coat check and robbed the door of some party last night, and the girls’ furs were caught up in the process. Then as fate would have it, they saw the lil nigga at the gas station and jacked him for his truck.” Rahllo shook his head with a slight smile. He was still in disbelief that the girls caught his son slipping as he continued to tell his son’s side of the story to Yarni. “After she didn’t find her coat with the others, she told him that she’d be holding on to the truck until Rocko comes up with her shit.”

  “So let me get this straight, the girls took your son’s truck because he stole their jackets.”

  Rahllo nodded. “Pretty much.”

  Yarni was sure that there was something to this made-for-TV story being left out, and she intended to find out what it was.

  “This doesn’t seem like a terribly difficult problem, Rahllo. I mean, even for the young ones to work out.” Before he could answer, she continued, “It seems to me that the kids can work it out amongst one another. He wants his car, and she wants her coat. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but in our books fair exchange has never been robbery.”

  “No doubt,” Rahllo agreed. “But things have gotten a little more complicated. The coat went somewhere else and Rocko is still working to get it back. He’s offered to pay the full price plus an inconvenience fee for her trouble, but he has to have the truck back ASAP.”

  Yarni surmised that they were getting closer to the real reason for his visit. “Why would Rocko be in such a hurry to shell out more than the coat is even worth?” she asked, trying hard not to sound like she was cross-examining him, but she was ready to go in on him hard because she still knew he was bullshitting her.

  “You were always quick on your feet, Yarni. A brother man can’t get too much past you.” She could tell he was trying to figure out how much information he wanted to disclose. “Well, let’s just say, the Escalade has a few added amenities that greatly increased the book’s street value.”

  The foolishness had gone on long enough. “Cut the bullshit, Rahllo. What’s in that truck?”

  She could see his brain working overtime. Then he finally said, “A large quantity of heroin. There’s close to five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of dope in a stash spot, and we have to have it back.”

  Her first thought was Rocko had to be the dumbest guy in the world to go rob a coat check with a half million of dope in the car. Was he auditioning for a show called The Dumbest Dickhead? But that was neither here nor there—the dope was still missing. Rahllo wasn’t the most violent person, but half a million had a tendency to bring the worst outta a person.

  “Out of respect for you and Des, I come to you, to try to resolve this civilly.”

  Let the truth be told, Rahllo feared Des. And if he knew the girl with Lava was Des’s daughter, he’d probably shit a brick.

  Yarni listened as Rahllo went on, “But the real problem is that I put my ass on the line and got a bunch of D on consignment for Rocko.”

  “For your son, Rahllo?” she questioned. “Come on, now!” Yarni had heard it all. “Rahllo, you know better than that. That’s utterly ridiculous. For your son?” she repeated.

  “Fuck it, he going to do it anyway. I don’t want my son getting fucked up in the game and niggas robbing him with high-ass prices. So if he gonna throw bricks, I’m going to make sure that it’s well worth the risk.”

  She shook her head. “This is a conversation for another day, Rahllo.”

  “Spare me your lectures today.” He reiterated, “I need to get that Escalade out of the girls’ possession because they riding around hot as hinges on Hell’s gates, and I’m pretty sure they don’t even know it.”

  Before she could respond, Layla came in and reminded Yarni that her next appointment had arrived.

  “Give us a couple more minutes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Layla closed the door behind her.

  “Look,” Rahllo said, “I need you to get in touch with your niece and let them know we need to get the truck back from her and I will make sure she gets her coat in return or more than enough cash to replace it.”

  Yarni wanted to say she heard him the first time but she didn’t. Instead, she took a few moments to contemplate the entire situation.

  Before she could speak, he did: “I would hope that you’d do it on the strength of all the paper you got from me back in the day, but if not I will hire you for your services.”

  “That won’t be necessary. No promises, but I’ll see what I can do. Just give me a few hours to try and get to the bottom of this craziness. Leave me a number where I can reach you.”

  “It would be greatly appreciated if we could make the exchange today. And maybe,” he threw it out with a stupid grin on his face, “I can persuade you to let me take you to dinner once the business is in order.”

  “Rahllo, my husband would kill you.”

  “Yeah, I know. But nothing wrong with me trying my hand—at least I’d go a happy man with a full stomach.”

  The second Rahllo left the office, Yarni snatched up the phone and dialed Des.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” she said when he answered.

  “Hey, baby. I’m walking into a meeting right now. I’m going to have to call you ba
ck.” He rushed her off the phone before she could get out another word. Just said, “Love you!” and was gone.

  She tried to control her frustration by taking a deep breath, then dialing Desember. No luck there, the call went straight to voicemail. Same thing with Lava’s phone. Young women today, she thought, remembering when she was the same way. She hoped that Desi would grow up with a little more sense. She then texted both girls.

  I need you to call me—heard what happened last night—CALL ASAP!

  Thirty minutes went by with no response from either of the girls. Yarni was getting more pissed with every minute that went by. And added to her frustration, Des had still not called her back. No more Mrs. Nice Bitch, she thought to herself before punching out another text message to the girls.

  CALL ME BEFORE I BEAT BOTH OF YOUR ASSES! THIS IS NOT A JOKING MATTER! CONFIRM YOU WILL BE HERE BY 3PM!

  Ten minutes later her BlackBerry buzzed a return message:

  We will be there at 2:30 to tell you our side. It’s not what you think! SORRY AUNTIE! The text was from Lava.

  2:30 it is, see you then. She sat back in her chair and wondered what in the hell had she gotten herself into.

  What Do We Know?

  With five acres of pure unadulterated automobile opulence, Des’s Grown-Man Toy Store was arguably the most fashionable and upscale spot on the East Coast to buy, or accessorize, a whip.

  A maze of aisles, between bumper-to-bumper BMWs, Mercedes, Jaguars, Lexuses, Audis, Porsches and Range Rovers eventually led to a huge air-conditioned warehouse that housed only the best of the best exotic vehicles—from Lamborghinis to Ferraris to vintage classics. All roads led to the most important place on the lot, the main building, where the business and negotiations went down.

  Inside the main building was a six-car showroom, and off to the right of a rose-colored Maserati a hallway opened to a full-service espresso machine with bottled waters stacked from floor to ceiling. About fifty feet past a station to make coffee and tea, the hall came to an abrupt end at a solid oak door. Behind that door, an important meeting was in progress.

  Des sat behind a grand mahogany desk. “What have we found?” he asked his trusty men. He was tired of being on the defensive; it was time to get active and find out anything that would lead him to the people responsible for trying to take his life and the empire he’d built.

  On the other side of the room Slim and Stanka sat on a leather sofa. Mo sat in one of the oversized chairs to the right of the sofa, and Black Bob, head lowered in his hands, sat in the one to the right. Chip stood nervously in the corner. He was raised in the hood but he wasn’t a street dude by a long shot. Not like the others. His expertise lie in computers, and with a bachelor’s degree in progressive finance, it was natural for him to take on the role of treasurer. Although when those two gunmen held a nickel-plated pistol to his dome and forced him to wire away Des’s money with the click of a button, it was a job he probably wished he never had.

  “Don’t everyone speak at once,” Des said after receiving no response. He knew that Black Bob was still mourning the death of his little brother, Tony. Shit, everybody was feeling the loss. Des had known the brothers since grade school. They were two neglected kids with a chip on their shoulders, and Joyce had basically taken them in once she found out their mother cared more about drinking than feeding her kids.

  Stanka was the first to shoot his opinion into the fire. “I think they may’ve been from out of town.” He looked up. “If it was local, it would’ve gotten out.”

  Des hadn’t known Stanka as long as the others, but he trusted Yarni’s uncle and valued his wisdom.

  “I’m not too sure about that,” Slim disagreed.

  Des didn’t believe the gunmen were from out of town either, but he held his theories to himself, for now.

  “Why, Slim?” Des pushed his oldest and closest friend to continue.

  “They were too comfortable,” Slim said with his fingers fixed under his chin like a steeple. “When a person is in a strange city doing dirt, I don’t care how smooth they are, there’s a certain amount of nervous energy that surrounds them. It’s as common as liquor stores in the hood.”

  Des nodded.

  Black Bob raised his head. His eyes looked cold and hard. He spoke with the soft, deliberate timbre of a man that had seen more than his fair share of violence. “I don’t give a fuck where they from. But the nigga that killed my lil brother, Tony—wherever I find ’im, that’s where he’s going to die. I put that on my mother’s grave,” he promised.

  “I don’t like all this mystery shit.” Mo rose from the chair and started pacing. He preferred using his hands more than his head. A vein the size of a slug pulsated from the side of his neck. “I’m so frustrated I can’t even think straight.” He shook his head. “And the fact that shit went down in front of our very eyes and there wasn’t anything we could have done is really fucking with me.”

  Des didn’t have Mo on the team for his intellect anyway. The man was a certified stone-cold killer. He wasn’t complicated—in fact, pure and simple, he was a man-eating tiger, loyal to the hand that fed him.

  “Then I’ll do the thinking for the both of us,” Des said to his friend. He made eye contact with Stanka, Black Bob, Chip, Slim and Mo before continuing. “I believe the same person, or people, that took the shot at me on Friday was behind the sting on the church. It’s a strong gut feeling.”

  “But what does that tell us?” Slim asked. “We don’t know who did that either.”

  “If they were willing to kill me, then it couldn’t have been all about the money,” Des said.

  Stanka asked, “Why don’t you think it was about the paper? These clowns got away with at least ten mil and that ain’t even counting the congregation’s money. What other reason would they need?”

  “That’s the point. If that shot they took hadn’t hit the Bible, I’d be dead. And if they’d killed me on Friday, it would’na been nobody at the church to rob on Sunday. This shit is more about me than money or anything else.” Des paused for a second. “Somebody either wants me dead or broke. It’s just that simple.”

  Des had their undivided attention.

  He was sure this was personal. He’d run the probabilities and possibilities over and over, and at the end he had to go with his gut.

  “Now all I have to do is figure out who hates me enough that they would want to see me dead and risk the chance of losing out on a ten-million-dollar come-up?”

  “That’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Mo said.

  “Exactly. The good thing about finding a needle in a haystack is that a strong enough magnet will pull the metal needle away from the straw that shelters it. The magnet attracts the metal. In this case I’m the magnet and the people we’re looking for are the needle.”

  The guys thought about what Des said and they all started to smile as they understood what he was saying, some nodding.

  But Slim wasn’t sure if he liked the idea. “You mean instead of layin’ low, you want to put yourself in the light, even more, to draw them out? You want to be bait?”

  “Unless you have a better idea.”

  The Exchange

  The morning dragged for Yarni after the unexpected visit from Rahllo. All she could do was sit at her desk and wonder how in the hell did two supposedly intelligent, beautiful young women go out for a night on the town dressed to kill and end up stealing a dope dealer’s Cadillac Escalade filled with hot fur coats and enough heroin to put them both away for the rest of their natural lives.

  Yarni shook her head. Each passing second Desember was proving to have more in common with Des than her chocolate, smooth skin, thick hair and engaging dark eyes.

  Yarni thought the day couldn’t perplex her any further until she got a call from her mother.

  “I hate to call with only bad news,” her mother said in an unsettling voice.

  Yarni immediately thought the worst: the cancer was worse than the doctors firs
t thought. Why did shit like this happen to good people? The only thing her mother had ever done in her life was try to help others. Yarni wasn’t going to dwell upon why God had chosen this to be her mother’s fate, but instead would be strong for Gloria.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Ma. I’m always here for you, whenever and wherever you need me, good or bad. Now, what’s up? What’s going on? How are you feeling?” she asked, holding her breath.

  “I think my husband is cheating on me,” Gloria said bluntly. “Well, I know he is.”

  Yarni let out a sigh, relieved. Though, having cancer and also a husband having an affair is enough to kill a woman. Yarni couldn’t ignore the pain in her mother’s voice. “Why do you think that, Ma?”

  Sam wasn’t Yarni’s father, but she knew how much Gloria loved the man. And up until that moment she thought Sam was a stand-up dude who had always been good to her mother. She’d never thought he’d do such a thing as cheat on Gloria. She’d always imagined that they’d live happily ever after. They always seemed so happy together. Maybe Gloria was mistaken? It had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

  “Our CPA pointed out some unusual purchases on our credit card statement. I never go over that stuff,” Gloria said. “And obviously Sam has been banking on me being a creature of habit.”

  “Maybe you’re overreacting, Ma. Exactly what were the receipts for?” she asked.

  “I’ll fax them over so you can see them with your own eyes.” Gloria wasn’t trying to hear it. “Yarni, I raised you! And I’ve been dealing with men since before you were born. Ask your father. Believe me, there isn’t anything slow about yo’ momma. I know what I know.” Then she said, “That fool been renting a hotel room, twice a week, every week for the past six months. And even though we own a few restaurants, he’s been gallivanting all around town wining and dining some woman.” Gloria blew into the phone, displaying her frustration. “Don’t get me started.”

  “How do you know all this, Ma?”