by Dorian Sykes
“That nigga gotta get a new car. We can’t be pulling up in that silver bullet try’na holla at no chicks,” Trey said as he closed the room door.
Wink reached over from the bed and grabbed the phone off the nightstand. He dialed his home number and waited while the line rang.
“Hello,” answered Gary.
That was just the person Wink was looking for. He was hoping his mom wasn’t there, because he didn’t feel like hearing it.
“It’s me, Wink. Is my mom around?”
“Ah, what’s up, Steve man?” Gary said, pulling the sheets back and rolling out of bed. He walked into the kitchen, leaving Hope asleep in bed.
“What’s up, Wink?” whispered Gary.
“I need you.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m down in Mississippi with a couple of my partners, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, what’s up? Is you a’ight?”
“I need you to go see your friend for me and have me six this time.”
“You finished already?”
“Done. I’ma catch a bus back in about another day. Can you have that for me when I get back?”
“You sound like you’re going right back?”
“I am. It’s sweet down here.”
“Well, listen. There ain’t no sense in you doing all that back and forth on them highways. Give me an address, and I’ll get it to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just trust me. Give me an address.”
“Hold on,” said Wink. He got up and walked over to the window and peeked down at the address painted above the lobby door. He read the address off to Gary and gave him the street.
“In the morning, be on the lookout for a UPS truck. It’s coming under the name Clarence Thomas. Have somebody else sign for it, though.”
“You sure that’s—”
Gary cut him off. “Trust me, Wink. It’ll be there.”
“A’ight. What about my mom?”
“She’s okay. You just be careful out there. And I’ma tell you something. Don’t you go gettin’ laxed down there. Get what you come for and get your ass back home. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“A’ight then, in the morning.”
“Bye.”
Wink locked up the room and stepped down to the lobby of the hotel. He peeled five hundred off his share of the money and sent Krazy a MoneyGram. He had to make sure his main man knew they hadn’t forgotten about him and that they were handling business.
Wink thought about his call with Gary and wondered just how much game that old nigga was sitting on. He had never heard of anyone using the mail to send dope. If that shit worked, Wink told himself, then the sky was the limit. He could send work at will, whenever he needed it. He laughed at the thought of the police trying to bust people for selling drugs when they were moving it without even knowing it.
Wink reached in his pocket and looked at the pawn receipt. “Dad, as soon as I get back to the D, I’ma get this bracelet back.” The thoughts of his father were starting to get the best of him. When he wasn’t counting money or thinking about selling drugs, the only thing Wink could think about was his father.
When he got up to his room, he dug in the front pouch of his carry-on bag and removed the photo of Gary and his father. He looked on the back of the picture for the first time. There was some old blue ink scribbled across the photo. It read: Wayne “Gunz” Stewart. Wink reached for the phone and dialed information.
“Information,” answered the operator.
“Federal Bureau of Prisons, please.”
“One moment.” The operator clicked off and put Wink straight through. The phone just rang and rang.
Wink was about to hang up, but at the last second, someone answered the line. “B.O.P.”
“Yes, can you tell me where you have Wayne Stewart located at in prison?”
“Wayne Stewart?” asked the clerk.
“Yes.”
Wink heard the operator typing on a computer keyboard. There was a moment of silence before she came back. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not showing that we have an inmate by that name. Are you sure that’s the name he’s serving his sentence under?”
Wink looked at that back of the picture again.
“I don’t know,” he said, frustrated. “Sorry I wasted your time.”
“It’s okay. If you get another name, don’t hesitate to call us. We encourage family contact. Are you a family member of the prisoner?”
* * *
Wink hung up the phone. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he couldn’t yet answer that question. Family was more than being related. Wink stood up and put the photo back in the bag, then lay across the bed. He closed his eyes. Thoughts of his father dominated his mind. Eventually, he started to think about all the money they were about to make. He fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, Wink woke up at the crack of dawn. He was waiting across the street at the Waffle Hut, watching the Ave. for any sign of a brown UPS truck. Gary hadn’t said exactly what time to expect the package. He just said in the morning, so Wink was up and ready. He sat at a booth next to the window, sipping coffee and nibbling his strawberry waffles and eggs. Wink, paid Beats twenty dollars to sign for the package once it got there. Out of all people in the world, he picked Beats’ sheisty ass. It wasn’t like Wink had much of a choice. The truck could pull up at any moment, and ole slick Beats was the only one up at the time.
Wink watched Beats as he loitered around the lobby area, sippin’ on a pint of Wild Irish Rose. He paced the sidewalk. The twenty dollars was burning a hole in his pocket. He couldn’t wait to give it right back to Wink so he could get a taste of that good butta. Beats stopped his pacing at the sound of a diesel engine approaching. He could hear the gears shifting, then the brown UPS truck appeared in the distance. Beats nodded at the Waffle Hut, and Wink jumped up from his waffles.
The UPS truck stopped at the curb, and a young white man jumped down with a small box in one hand and a clipboard in the other. Beats met the man at the lobby door and signed for the package. He said something to the driver, and they both started laughing.
“Let the man go, Beats,” Wink said aloud. He was watching the transaction from the foyer of the Waffle Hut. He looked down the Ave. and didn’t see any signs of a sting. The white man jumped his goofy ass back in the truck and pulled down the road. Wink pushed the glass door open and stepped outside. He waited for two cars to pass, then crossed the street in full pursuit of Beats, who was already headed up the stairs.
“Slow down, Beats. I’m coming.” Wink took the steps four at a time. He took the box from Beats and put his key in the door.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” said Wink.
“When you gon’ be straight?” asked Beats.
“Soon as I get on, you gon’ be the first one to know.” Wink stepped inside the room and locked the door. He carried the box into the kitchen and used his key to cut the tape open. At the top of the box sat a bunch of different exotic soaps. Wink looked at each of them, then removed the plastic wrap from the center of the box. He unwrapped the plastic, and it was the coke in its rawest form.
Wink was happy that it had made it, but why hadn’t Gary cooked it? He walked in the front room and picked up the phone. He called his mom’s number.
“Hello.” Gary’s deep voice sounded on the other end.
“I got it,” said Wink.
“Good. So, you’re cool then?”
“Yeah, but why you didn’t you do like last time?”
“I showed you. Now it’s time to see if you were paying attention. You remember what I showed you, right?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Just don’t do nothin’ extra and you’ll be all right. Call me back if you can’t get it to come back.”
“In a minute,” said Wink.
He looked at the powder chunks sitting on the counter, and his stomac
h filled with butterflies. He was overanxious to try to cook it, to the point he was scared he’d mess it up. Wink took a deep breath and tried to remember everything he saw Gary do. He walked back into the kitchen and went to work. He grabbed the lone box of Arm & Hammer baking soda from the mini fridge. He put a pot of water on the electric stove and searched around for a jar. He found an old pickle jar full of rubber bands on the top shelf.
“This oughta do,” Wink said. He poured the rubber bands on the counter. He measured out about an ounce worth of coke, then about seven grams of baking soda. He poured them both into the jar, then ran a little water over the mixture. He swirled the jar around just as he saw Gary do, then put the jar inside the boiling pot. Wink waited until he saw the coke take on the form of gel and pulled the jar out the pot.
“Shit,” he said, burning his fingertips on the rim of the jar. He endured the stinging pain while swirling the jar. He took the jar over to the sink and ran some cold water inside.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
“Hell yeah!” shouted Wink. The coke turned to crack right before his eyes. Wink pulled his small cookie fortune from the jar and stuck it under the water for a moment. He could feel it hardening even more from the shocking cold water. He carried the ounce over to the counter and let it air-dry on a napkin.
While the crack dried, Wink raced back to the phone to call Gary. “It worked. I got it!”
“I knew you could do it.” Gary laughed. “When you get back, I got another trick I wanna show you.”
“A’ight. Thanks, Gary man.”
“You’re welcome. Just hurry back home.”
“I will. Bye.”
For the first time in his life, Wink was starting to feel some type of connection with Gary. He wasn’t that bad of a dude after all. It was just too bad that they only got to talking on the strength of some coke.
Wink carried his thoughts back into the kitchen. He took a razor blade and cut the ounce dead in half, then did the same with the two chunks. He decided that all he was cutting this time was hundred-dollar pieces, since it would be their last run and then back to Detroit. Wink wanted every penny off them six ounces, and he was set on getting it. He cut one twenty-piece for Beats and packed all the rest into sandwich baggies.
Wink stashed the other five ounces and locked the room up. He pounded on Trey and Willie’s door. They both were in there, passed out sleep, drunk and some more shit. Wink pounded some more.
Willie reluctantly rolled onto his back and managed to ask, “Who is it!” Those few words made his head ring from his hangover.
“Get the fuck up and open the door,” snapped Wink.
“Who... is... that?” asked Trey.
“Sound like Wink’s ass.” Willie rolled off the bed and snatched the door open and squinted from the morning sun beaming in his face.
Wink brushed past him. “Get up. It’s time to get this loot.” Wink paused in his sentence at the sight of two naked, nappy-neck chicks. He waved his hand at the sleeping beasts and asked, “What’s this?”
“Pussy, nigga. Or you done forgot what it looks like?” snapped Trey.
“Yeah, my nigga. You been on some robot shit since we been out here. Niggas still gotta get they dick wet,” said Willie as he climbed back in the bed with his beast. Trey was laying on the floor with his.
“Y’all would want a nigga to be on some robot shit too if you were sittin’ in jail. Anyway, I’m not hearing that shit. The party’s over.” Wink turned all the lights on and started shaking the girls to wake up.
“What the fuck is you doin’?” asked Trey.
“It’s early as shit. We’ll be up in a minute,” said Willie. “You trippin’.”
Wink wasn’t hearing that shit. “Come on, baby girl. Get all ya stuff. Rise and shine. Get ya weave and Reeboks. They gon’ holla at y’all later.”
The girls were looking at Wink with the screw face. “Fuck nigga, who is you?”
“Never mind all that. Here, put these on,” Wink said, handing one of the girls her polka dot panties.
She snatched them from Wink and mumbled under her breath while getting dressed. Her and the other young tackhead were dressed and out the door in minutes. They let the door slam hard.
“My nigga, you fucked up the pussy,” said Willie.
“Fuck them raggedy-ass bitches. We back on, and custos is waiting, so here. Get up.” Wink tossed the sack of rocks on Willie’s chest.
“Where you get on at?” asked Trey.
“That’s not important,” snapped Wink.
“Oh, so what, we keepin’ secrets now?”
“Nah, I’ma put you on it, but not right now. Y’all niggas get up and let’s get this money. Oh yeah, all we sellin’ from now on is hun’d pieces. We gotta kill ’em before we leave, so even if it takes us a little longer to dump, so be it.”
“Go to the store and get me a beer to knock this hangover off,” mumbled Willie.
“Yeah, and bring some waffles back,” said Trey.
“A’ight, but be up when I get back. I’m ’bout to let mothafuckas know it’s back on.” Wink stepped outside and flagged ole Beats up.
He had been diligently waiting on his taste, as he called it. Beats jogged up the steps with the sweaty twenty in his hand. “Let me get one of them butta pieces from you,” said Beats as he tried to hand Wink the money.
“Nah, hold onto that. Here,” Wink said, handing Beats a lookout rock.
“That’s real classy and playa-like of you, young blood. Thank you.”
“You take care of me, I’ma take care of you.”
“Without a doubt. You need me for anything else before I get going?” Beats was stepping in place as he clutched the rock in his palm for dear life.
“Yeah, I need you to bring me two orders of waffles and eggs and a forty-ounce of Old E.” Wink dug in his pocket and gave Beats another twenty.
“I’ll be right back.” Beats jogged down the stairs on his mission.
As Wink stuck his key in the door, he saw Ball pull into the parking lot in the silver bullet. He honked once and stuck his fat arm out the window. Wink waved him up, but Ball waved him down. His heavy ass wasn’t trying to see those two flights of steps again unless two Big Macs was waiting at the top.
Wink walked down to the parking lot and climbed in the passenger seat. “What’s good?” he asked, giving Ball a play.
“Shit, you,” said Ball.
“What’s up?”
“I got a few niggas asking if they can grab some weight off you. They heard you got straight butta, and they wanna know what’s up.”
Wink thought for a second. “How they know I got anything in the first place?”
“They don’t know you’re the one, but you know how people talk.”
Wink looked at Ball like, Yeah, I do.
“What are they looking to grab?” Wink didn’t plan on selling them any part of the six ounces, but he was curious, seeing how everybody else seemed to be asking questions. “These niggas got money. They’ll buy whatever you bring their way. I’m talkin’ ’bout whatever.”
“What they paying for an ounce down here?”
“Like two G’s, sometimes twenty-five hun’d. It just all depends on if there’s some coke in town, which it hardly ever is. That’s why niggas is pressed to hook up with you.”
“I’m not try’na meet nobody right now, but I’m gon’ definitely do something with you.” Wink thought about how easy it was for him to receive the work through the mail. He figured once he went back to Detroit, it wouldn’t be nothing to send Ball some work, and it would be just like he was still out of town, hustling.
“Yeah, we definitely gon’ do something.”
Chapter Twenty
Trey and Willie focused up and helped Wink grind out for five days straight. The only sleep they got was in between blinks. Crackheads were coming like they knew it was going to be their last time smoking some butta for a minute. Wink had made fifty-seven thousand and still had a hal
f ounce left. He had never seen that much money before in his life, let alone called it his. He took another page out of J-Bo’s book and started sending MoneyGrams home every five grand he made. Gary was to hold the money until they got back.
The crackheads weren’t the only ones circling the Knights Inn. Undercover cops started showing up in tinted-out Crown Victorias. They’d cruise through the parking lot and be over at the Waffle Hut, asking people questions about the young boys from out of town selling crack. That’s how Beats brought it to Wink. He said that was their way of sending a warning shot.
Well, they didn’t have to tell Wink twice. He got the message loud and clear. It was time to take the show on the road or risk going to jail. It was all good, though, Wink had gotten what he came for. They murdered the town, and now it was time to keep it moving.
Wink walked into Trey and Willie’s room. “Y’all almost ready? Ball downstairs waitin’ to take us to the airport,” he said.
“Airport?” Trey stopped packing his bags.
“Yeah, nigga. We rich now. I know you ain’t scared to get on no plane?”
“Nigga, the only thing I’m scared of is dying broke. I was just asking,” Trey said, zipping his two bags, then throwing them over his shoulder.
“Shit, I ain’t gon’ lie. I’m scared as a mothafucka to get on a plane,” Willie said.
“That shit ain’t nothin’. Come on. That’s Ball hittin’ his horn now.” Wink stuck his head out the door and nodded like, Here we come.
“For real, I was thinking about staying for a little while and help Ball set things up,” Willie said.
“I mean, if that’s what you wanna do, I ain’t got no problem with that.”
“Shit, I don’t give a fuck if we ridin’ a donkey back. I’m ready to get back to the city,” said Trey.
“So, what you gon’ do? You staying?” asked Wink.
“Yeah, I’ma stay for a couple more weeks. Go see my grams and them, and wait on you to get it going.”
“A’ight. Well, here. Take this.” Wink counted out a thousand dollars and handed it to Willie.
“Oh, yeah. And here. That’s about a half ounce.”
“A’ight, bet.” Willie tucked the crack into his sock and folded the money.