Checkmate

by Nisa Santiago

  “Fifteen minutes,” the dispatcher said.

  “OK. I’ll be waiting.”

  Kola hung up and got everything she needed out of the bodega, except for a pack of Newports. She strutted toward the truck and jumped inside.

  “We cool?” Edge asked.

  “Yeah, we cool.”

  Edge then parked around the corner on 146th Street, a narrow, quiet block with hardly any parking. He was fortunate to find a spot near an abandoned building in the shadow of the block. They had enough privacy to fuck uninterrupted. He turned off the ignition and grabbed for Kola.

  Kola flinched. “Damn, nigga! Be fuckin’ easy.”

  “I want this, Kola. You don’t understand how long I wanted to fuck you. Fuck Cross! He ain’t know what to do wit’ you.”

  “A’ight, just take my pussy slow and shit.”

  Edge began unbuttoning his jeans, ready to pull out his throbbing dick. The hunger in his eyes was like a famished lion watching antelopes graze in an open field.

  “Oh shit!”

  “What the fuck!”

  “I fuckin’ forgot the cigarettes in the store.”

  “What?”

  “I forgot the pack of Newports.”

  “Get them shits later!”

  “They’re about to close, and I like to smoke right after I fuck.”

  “That’s a fuckin’ cliché!”

  Kola was surprised that he knew what the word meant. Edge looked frustrated. He had his dick exposed, his jeans around his ankles, and the condom already torn open. Kola was surprised by his size and thickness. What a waste! she thought.

  “It’ll be only a minute,” she said, opening the passenger door to step out.

  “Hurry up, ’cuz I’m about to explode.”

  Kola feigned a smile.

  She began to walk toward the bodega on Seventh Avenue and then stopped. She reached into her purse, gripped the .22 Magnum, and removed it. She then spun around and started walking back to the Yukon.

  On the block where they were parked, only a closed school and a few abandoned buildings about to be demolished lined the street, so Kola didn’t have to worry about any eyewitnesses peeking from windows above.

  She strutted toward the truck and crept to the driver’s side. She had the gun ready and hidden from Edge’s view. She knocked on the driver’s window delicately and startled Edge, who was still exposed and waiting.

  Edge quickly turned and saw Kola. He rolled down his window. “What the fuck, Kola! You scared the shit outta me! You got the fuckin’ cigarettes? ’Cuz I’m ready to fuck, and you—”

  Kola swiftly raised the gun and aimed it at Edge.

  His eyes widened with shock. “What the fuck is this?”

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Kola put four hot slugs into his frame—three in the chest and one in the head— leaving him slumped over the steering wheel, his brain leaking on the dashboard and the front seats a bloody mess. She then shoved the gun back into her purse and strutted toward Malcolm X Boulevard and 147th Street, confident that no one was around, the cover of night protecting her identity.

  When she arrived on the corner of 147th and Malcolm X, a black Lincoln town car pulled up and came to a stop where she stood. She jumped into the backseat and said to the driver, “Take me to downtown Brooklyn.”

  The driver nodded.

  She passed him a fifty-dollar bill. “If you get me there fast enough, you can keep the change.”

  The driver smiled and drove off.

  Kola arrived in downtown Brooklyn right before midnight. She got out on Flatbush Avenue and thanked the driver. When he drove away, she looked around for her car. Flatbush Avenue was almost empty. There were only a few cars left parked on the block, and every store was closed.

  When Kola got to her car, she noticed she had been ticketed for parking next to a fire hydrant. She smiled. She removed the ticket from the windshield and opened it up. The ticket was written at eleven p.m., giving her the perfect alibi—Junior’s Restaurant.

  Chapter 17

  Chico tried to find comfort in Blythe’s arms in their master bedroom, but he constantly stirred, and he couldn’t sleep. His mind was constantly on Apple. Ever since Two-Face had slipped up and mentioned that Apple might be whoring in Mexico, he’d been restless. He wanted to know where she was. He believed that Dario would find her. He was ready to fly into Mexico and look for her himself, but it was too big of a country, and he didn’t know where to start. It had been a week since he’d hired Dario, a week too long in waiting. If he didn’t hear from Dario soon, then he was prepared to risk the trip.

  Chico looked at the time illuminated on the clock on the nightstand, and it was after midnight. He stared up at the ceiling, his mind spinning with thoughts. Blythe lay naked next to him in the dark, silent room. She had been asleep for hours.

  Chico had been sleepless for days. He had a lot going on. Business was still booming, but the heat on him and his crew was escalating. He felt safe in his new home in Great Neck, but some days and nights it was just too still and boring for him. He missed the bustling sounds of Harlem and the city, and being closer to his business. But with the war with Cross, his presence in Harlem was always a risk.

  Chico decided that sleeping wasn’t an option tonight. He rose up out of bed and sat at the edge of it in his boxers. He peered at the four walls around him. He lit a cigarette and began smoking. He glanced back at Blythe and admired the way she slept. Wrapped snugly in the silk sheets, she looked beautiful and peaceful. He continued to smoke and thought about random things in the shadows of his bedroom.

  Chico then got up and walked toward the window. He pulled back the blinds and stared out at the quiet suburban street. There wasn’t a soul in sight. There were no unmarked police cars looking to harass young black males, and the corners weren’t inundated with gamblers, drunks, and hood rats. The still, peaceful night was almost frightening for him.

  Blythe called out to him, as she noticed him by the window, “Baby, you OK?”

  “I’m good. Go back to sleep.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Can’t sleep,” he said.

  “You aren’t able to sleep for almost a week now. You sure everything’s OK?”

  “Yeah.”

  Blythe removed her naked body from the bed and walked toward Chico. She slipped her arms around him caringly and kissed him softly on the back of his neck. Her bare tits pressed into his back and the strong texture of his skin against hers made her pussy tingle. “You can talk to me, baby,” she said. “I’m always here for you.”

  “I’m thinking about business, that’s all.” Chico couldn’t tell her that he had been thinking about his ex-girlfriend for the past week, and that he still had feelings for her, despite everything that had gone down with them.

  “Well, you need to get your mind off the streets just for tonight. You need to rest, baby. You got everything on lock, and it’s your world. You need to relax. Here, let me help you.”

  Blythe’s voice was soothing in Chico’s ear. She massaged his chest, nibbling at his ear. She reached around his waist again and began to stroke his dick with a soft touch. She felt him growing harder as she had him clutched in her fist.

  “You like that, baby?”

  “Damn!” he moaned.

  Blythe started grinding against his body, and her fingers stroked him to the height of his lust, each caress the most sensuous Chico could imagine, and then some. Blythe was really good with her hands and exploring her sexuality. It was one of the things Chico loved about her. She was able to take her man places that most women didn’t know existed. Chico’s mind instantly went from stressing about Apple and his business in the streets to pussy.

  He turned to face Blythe, and the two soon found themselves posit
ioned near the bed. She pushed Chico onto his back and situated herself between his thighs, underneath the sheets.

  “I’m gonna give you something nice to get your mind off the stress.” Blythe took a tight hold of his hard-on and moved her lips to the mushroom tip and teased it with her tongue. She then took his dick into her mouth and slid her lips down to the base, deep-throating him.

  Chico moaned and squirmed a little. “Shit!” he uttered.

  Blythe released his dick from her mouth but not her hand and looked up at her lover. She smiled. And then she continued.

  Her suction and salivating mouth continued to bring Chico closer to an orgasm. She cupped his balls, her nails tickling the back of his scrotum, her other hand gripping the base of his cock like a vise. She sucked him harder.

  Blythe moaned while she gave Chico head. The vibrations flowed along his shaft, went past her fingers, and traveled into his balls. “Oh shit!” he cried out. He moaned and moved with her.

  “I’m gonna suck you dry, baby.” Blythe began to suck on his dick harder as her hand gripped his dick, stroking it nicely, using her saliva as a lubricant. It went easily down her throat.

  Chico felt her suction pulling his come out of him. The sexual endeavor successfully took his mind from the worries he had earlier.

  Blythe continued to please him for a long while, until he could no longer take feeling vulnerable in her grasp. He placed Blythe on her back and slid his tremendous erection into her awaiting cave.

  Chico grunted as the two entwined effortlessly from position to position. Soon, he released the pent-up sexual energy, and the two lay spent against each other.

  “That should put you to sleep,” Blythe joked.

  Chico didn’t respond, lost in a haze of bliss, but he was able to fall asleep not long after.

  ****

  Chico’s cell phone ringing on the nightstand interrupted him from the hours of sleep that he was finally able to have. It was a little after nine in the morning. Blythe was asleep next to him. He sluggishly moved to answer his phone. It was Jason calling.

  Jason had been Chico’s ally on the streets for years. The two grew strong together during street wars, police investigations, and violence. Jason maintained a low profile throughout the years and didn’t need to conduct himself in street violence and murder. He was well known through networking with the city’s influential citizens, and the profitable business he had set up.

  Jason was book-smart as well as street-smart, and knew how to make legitimate investments to wash his dirty money.

  Jason had set up shell companies and trusts, along with real estate and “black salaries,” or cash salaries to unregistered employees. Jason was known as a financial genius in his hood, and was sitting on millions in capital, stocks, and business, and he was only twenty-nine. He had so much legitimate income coming in through his smart business dealings; it was almost impossible to detect any illegal income or straw purchases in his name.

  Chico answered his phone.

  Jason said, “We need to talk.”

  “About what, Jason?”

  “Not on the phone. Meet me in two hours. Bakersfield.” Jason then hung up.

  Chico looked over at Blythe and had a flashback about the previous night. His woman was a freak. But he wasn’t complaining. He got out of bed and headed into the bathroom.

  It only took him a few minutes to shower and get himself ready. When he walked back into the bedroom, Blythe was awakening from her sleep.

  She looked over at him, surprised he was up early and already dressed. “Where you going, baby?”

  “I gotta go out.”

  “I was gonna make you breakfast.”

  “I ain’t got time. I gotta meet someone. It’s important.”

  Blythe sighed. “Whatever.” She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

  Chico removed his gun from the drawer, stuffed it into his waistband, and then rushed for the door. He jumped into his white Porsche, one of his three cars parked in the circular driveway. He rushed onto the Cross Island Parkway, where traffic was light, and then crossed over the Throgs Neck Bridge, entering the Bronx.

  He arrived at Bakersfield, Inwood an hour after his departure from home. He drove by the security gate without difficulty, parked in one of the many empty spots in the lot, and waited for Jason’s arrival.

  Ten minutes later, a pearl colored Bentley GT drove into the parking lot and parked two spaces from Chico’s Porsche. Jason stepped out of his swanky GT. Tall and handsome, and looking suave in a dark-blue Karl Lagerfeld tailored suit and Italian wingtips, his style screamed wealth and class. His pale-bronze skin exaggerated the depth of his ink-black eyes. And a pencil-thin mustache and goatee framed the corners of his pearly-white smile.

  Jason walked toward Chico with confidence and assurance. He was alone. He had no need for security at the moment. His reputation was all he needed. He handed Chico an envelope. “Merry Christmas.”

  “For what?” Chico asked.

  “For that account you invested in. You remember the shell company I told you to invest into a year ago? I told you to be smart about it. Well, there’s fifty K in there for you. Make it matter.”

  Chico nodded.

  “But, on other important matters, you heard what happened to Edge?” Jason asked.

  “Nah.”

  “He’s a memory now. My peoples say they found him last night, shot four times, three in the chest, one in the head.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Chico said.

  “It don’t matter. I told you before, separate yourself from the violence. I got a call from my source. They say your name is coming up in the investigation.”

  “Man, fuck their investigation!” Chico barked. “But one less to fuckin’ worry about, right?”

  “You need to wise up, Chico. You’re doing well for yourself, but the people in your corner, they’re bad news, especially that new kid you have, Two-Face. I got a bad feeling about him. You need to let go of him. I hear disturbing things about him on the streets.”

  “Like what?”

  “With a name like Two-Face, it’s self-explanatory. But he’s too much heat for you, and then I hear things. He might be plotting against you. How well do you know this young fool?”

  “About a few months.”

  “He was useful to you for a moment, but do you still need his hand around your arm?”

  “He got me my connect wit’ the Mexicans. His uncle is part of a major cartel. I kill that nigga off, and I might be biting off more than I can chew.”

  “You need to think, Chico. Look around you and take advantage of the situation that is happening. Edge was a major figure in Harlem, so there will be people looking to retaliate for his death.”

  Chico smiled at the thought.

  “You keep that little Mexican muthafucka around longer than needed, and he’ll bring upon more trouble to you than he’s worth. You understand this?”

  “Yeah, I get you.”

  “Then start turning the wheels and make it happen. I don’t want to see you get caught up, Chico. You and me came a long way from the block. Cross and Kola are becoming shaky, and when they crumble apart, we’ll be there to collect the pieces. You work smarter, not harder.”

  “I feel you.”

  “I’ll keep in touch.”

  Jason walked to his GT and got inside. The car purred with power when he revved the engine and sped out of the lot, leaving Chico standing in the parking lot pondering his next move.

  Chapter 18

  Cross held his son in his arms and smiled. His boy was his heart, his only light to the darkness surrounding him. It was the one thing that he felt he’d done right. Jeremy had just turned one, and Cross had showered his only child with gifts from Toys “R” Us—teddy bears, clothes, toys,
and so many other things. He had spent a small fortune.

  As he held and played with Jeremy, he looked over at Cynthia, who stood by the window of her apartment with vacant eyes in a pair of cut-up jeans, a T-shirt, and tube socks. Cross hated what Kola and Candace had done to his baby’s mama. The incident created a rift between them, but he was determined to fix it and be with his family. Brooklyn had become his temporary safe haven from the volatile activity going on in Harlem and Washington Heights.

  ****

  In Brooklyn, Cross wasn’t known too well, but uptown, he felt like he had enemies even within his own circle. Ever since they’d hit Eduardo, killing a few of his men and stealing over a million dollars in drugs and cash, Cross had sense to lay low and play his cards right. Eduardo was a major figure, so a hit on him was always going to have repercussions for everyone involved. When Cross heard about the massacre of Kola’s crew in Yonkers, he immediately knew the order had come from Eduardo. It was payback.

  The Colombians were ruthless, but Cross was ready to fight back. If Eduardo was going to be looking for him, then he would also be hunting for Eduardo. Cross put out the word for his goons—fifty gunmen on the street at top dollar—to be on the hunt for Eduardo night and day. Cross was still upset Eduardo had fucked Kola. He knew that Eduardo could only get at Kola because he, himself, was unfaithful. That was the only reason Kola was still breathing. Kola could get a pass; Eduardo could not.

  When Cross saw Kola at the funeral, he’d tried to console her, but she’d made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. That upset him. He went on his way, but not before he noticed Edge talking to her. Cross suspected something was going on. His instincts were telling him that Edge was plotting something, so he knew he had to keep a close eye on his once best friend and right-hand man.

  But when Cross had gotten the phone call about Edge, he was still devastated. An associate of theirs had called him in the early morning and said, “Yo, they got your boy a few hours ago. Shot four times.”

  “What?”

  “Edge is dead, Cross,” the voice said.