The House that Hustle Built, Part 1

by Nisa Santiago

  Pearla had overheard her mother talking one day to Janet, her best friend. She went into explicit details about how she gave one inmate a hand job as he put his big dick through the slot of the steel prison door and she subtly jerked him off. Both women laughed.

  Poochie said then, “Janet, this muthafucka is fuckin’ fine though, and he’s on twenty-three-hour fuckin’ lockdown. Shit, every time I checked on him, he would be working out in his cell butt fuckin’ naked. When I fuckin’ saw what he was muthafuckin’ working with, I was like, ‘Gotdamn! Why he gotta be fuckin’ locked up?’ Bitch, you know I had to touch that big muthafuckin’ dick at least one time.”

  Sometimes Pearla felt like she was the parent and Poochie the child. It was hard to believe that Poochie gave birth to her, because Pearla was more posh, well-spoken most times, and meticulous with her appearance and her room, while Poochie was messy and uncouth.

  Pearla’s bedroom was her safe haven, a direct contrast to her mother’s messy apartment. When she wanted to escape or be alone, she would lock her door and either turn on her radio, write and doodle, or just think. The room was decorated precisely the way she wanted it and was scented with candles and perfume.

  Her love for Paris and Parisian antiques showed with her vintage 18th century four-poster bed, crystal lamps, and custom drapes and bedding.

  At the foot of her bed was a large retro storage trunk with an array of stuffed Disney animals and Mickey Mouse memorabilia that she kept dear to her heart. They were gifts from her father. She barely knew the man. He lived in Maryland with his wife and kids and always promised to come see Pearla, but he never did, nor did he send money to her. He also never paid Poochie a dime of child support.

  Poochie constantly cursed about him and his new wife and kids. “Fuck that muthafuckin’ bitch-ass nigga, his fuckin’ cunt-ass wife, and his fuckin’ bastard kids!” she would always say.

  However, Pearla loved the man she barely met. On every birthday, from the time she was six years old, she received a cute, stuffed animal from her father and a birthday card. She knew that one day he would fulfill his promises to come see her.

  ***

  Pearla slid her feet into her pink slippers, walked to the window, and gazed outside at the beauty of the day and decided to dare it and get ready. She opened her bedroom door, and Mary J. Blige could be heard blaring from the sound system. The hallway was cluttered with her mother’s clothes.

  Through the music, she heard her mother getting her groove on.

  “Ugh! Ooooh! Fuck me! Fuck me!”

  Pearla quickly went into the bathroom and locked herself inside. She shook her head, wishing she was somewhere else at the moment. Looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Pearla was still a beauty in the morning without any makeup, her hair wrapped in a blue-and-white scarf. She splashed her face with some water, brushed her teeth, and then shed her bedtime attire to jump into the shower.

  As the running water cascaded off her light-skinned flesh, she closed her eyes and thought of a few pleasurable things to get the moment started. It’d been a minute since she’d had sex—maybe too long. She was always about her business and didn’t have any time for a boyfriend. Though, there was one boy she did like and have a crush on, but he barely noticed her.

  With the temperature of the water set just right, Pearla groaned as she focused on her clit, rubbing it heatedly with her thumb. She then inserted two fingers into her vagina at the same time and moved them slowly in and out. She put the showerhead near her clit and teased it with the water pressure until she came—hard and fast. It was a really good orgasm, one she needed to get her day started. With no boyfriend in her life, her early-morning masturbating escapades were satisfying enough.

  She stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Once again, she gazed at her naked reflection in the mirror, where her beautiful face was strong and captivating. She couldn’t say the same thing about her body. It was enticing and pleasing to look at, but she couldn’t hold a candle to her friends and other bitches with bodies like a video vixens. Her friend Jamie was bad from head to toe, voluptuous and curvy. Even Roark was thicker and more shapely than her. But what Pearla lacked in booty and tits, she made up for in sexiness, style, and wit. She dressed the part and looked the part. One day, with the money and the nerve, she would get a boob job and ass implants to enhance her body image.

  Pearla took her time to get dressed. Today, she planned on wearing something simple— jean shorts that flattered her petite figure, a white camisole, and a pair of white Nikes. She wore the right accessories to enhance her look and wore her hair down to her shoulders. She looked like a cute, preppy female ready to hit the town and hang out with her friends.

  Before exiting her bedroom, she picked up her cell phone and called Roark. The phone rang a few times before her friend picked up.

  “Hey, Pearla,” Roark answered. “You ready to make moves?”

  “I’m ready,” Roark replied, sounding excited. She was always excited when they went out to do a job.

  “We definitely gotta keep sharp and swift.”

  “I know. We hit that mall a million times and never had any problems.”

  “I just want us to stay sharp and not slip up.”

  “We won’t. We a team, right?”

  Pearla smiled. “Yeah, we’re a team.”

  “You talked to Jamie yet?”

  “I’m about to call her right after I hang up with you, but I’ll be ready to come get you within the hour.”

  “Okay.”

  Pearla hung up. She sat on her bed and sighed heavily. For some strange reason, she had butterflies in her stomach about today. She’d never had butterflies in her stomach when they were about to pilfer from any store or mall. She had been doing it for so long that it felt natural to her, like tying her shoes and applying makeup. Her feelings were always concrete. She was smart about the stores or the malls her crew would hit. They would try to rotate their crime wave throughout the city, and their wave of schemes stretched from New Jersey to Long Island. She would never try to hit the same places twice in one month. And she would try to use different girls for different places, to avoid using the same faces. It took skills to steal high-end merchandise from stores with heavy security, but it took smarts and wits to not get caught.

  Pearla called Jamie.

  “Hey,” Jamie answered.

  “Jamie, you ready?”

  “I was born ready,” Jamie responded, moving around her bedroom in her underwear and taking her time to get fresh.

  Pearla chuckled. “That you were.”

  “What we hitting up today?”

  “Roosevelt Field mall.”

  Jamie reminded her, “We just hit them up.”

  “I know.” Pearla was aware of the risk. “But a bitch don’t feel like driving to Short Hills mall today, and we can’t get the high-end things we need from Kings Plaza.”

  “You sure you don’t want to travel out to Jersey? You know I don’t like fuckin’ with Long Island like that. Those crackers be heavy out there.”

  “I know, but there’s money out there.” Pearla was adamant.

  “Well, you know a bitch gotta go where you go, right?”

  “Right,” Pearla co-signed.

  Pearla could hear Jamie having a good time in her bedroom with the music playing. Jamie was a huge Drake fan and always referred to him as “her husband.” Her bedroom was decorated with his posters, and his heartthrob image on front covers of several magazines spread out on her table. Jamie always joked that if she ever saw him in person, she was going to kidnap him and have his baby.

  “Pearla, I know you’re going to the block party this weekend,” Jamie said out of the blue.

  “What block party?”

  “What? You ain’t heard? Everybody supposed to be coming through on Saturday, and DJ Mack Red is supposed to
be doing the party. You know he deejays at Platinum and shit. Then they supposed to have some big-ass after-party at Platinum later on that night.”

  Pearla had forgotten. She had been so busy with her hustle, partying became almost nonexistent in her life, but hearing Jamie talk so lively about it and who was coming excited her too.

  Jamie asked, “You are going, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna go.”

  “Cool. You know we gotta go out there and represent for real, Pearla. I already know what I’m gonna wear that day, and believe me, niggas ain’t gonna be able to take their eyes off me, and bitches gonna be hating us hard. We gotta go lookin’ like divas and shit.”

  Pearla agreed. They never went anywhere half-stepping. From the grocery store to a player-filled party, Pearla, Jamie, and Roark were three eye-catching females not about to get caught slipping wherever they went.

  For a short moment, they talked about the upcoming block party then about the club. Then the conversation went on about making money and, briefly, about boys.

  Jamie loved the attention she received from the males. Even grown-ass men tried to talk to her and offered to pay any of her bills or take her somewhere nice for a fraction of her time. She and Pearla were in the same boat when it came to attracting the cuties, the hustlers, and the bad boys, but Jamie had a more active sex life.

  After her talk with Jamie, Pearla gathered her things and walked out her bedroom. Passing her mother in the living room, she heard Poochie ask, “Bitch, where the fuck you goin’ lookin’ like that?”

  Pearla spun around and looked at her mother with contempt. “I’m going out!”

  “Out? Bitch, you ain’t got no fuckin’ job, and I told ya fuckin’ ass about that shoplifting. You think I’m fuckin’ stupid, Pearla? I know what the fuck you ’bout to go out there and muthafuckin’ do! Ya ass is about to go and steal some fuckin’ shit!”

  Poochie was nestled on the couch with her new boyfriend, both of them inadequately dressed and looking like two lazy bums. It was obvious they’d just finished fucking. The living room reeked of sex and weed.

  Pearla noticed two empty condom wrappers on the coffee table and a half-empty bottle of Hennessy near his legs with two empty plastic party cold cups toppled over on the floor. The man was exactly Poochie’s type—a roughneck, brawny, heavily tattooed, black, and bald. In Pearla’s eyes, he looked like trouble.

  Pearla and the man locked eyes briefly. He smiled her way, but Pearla frowned, tired of the company that came in and out of their apartment. Her mother had no respect for herself or her. Poochie was the epitome of a hood rat. Pearla yearned to gather enough money together and get her own place, somewhere far away from her mother and the ghetto.

  “You stupid bitch! I work in the gotdamn muthafuckin’ jail, and when you get fuckin’ locked up, I ain’t gonna be the one to fuckin’ bail ya criminal ass the fuck out! You hear me, Pearla? ’Cuz I already told ya fuckin’ ass—You need to stop stealin’ shit!”

  Bitch is funny, Pearl thought to herself. Her mother was always rambling on about her stealing but never turned down any clothing that was her size and sported proudly the stolen clothes or items she brought home. Poochie was the biggest hypocrite. How she was able to keep her federal job as a correction officer was a mystery to Pearla.

  “I like them shoes you got on,” Pearla replied sarcastically. They were the same shoes Pearla had taken out of a store in Queens a month back, and they were exactly her mother’s size.

  “You tryin’ to be cute?” Poochie retorted.

  “No, I just like your shoes,” Pearla replied evenly.

  “Bitch, you better not be gettin’ fuckin’ cute wit’ me. I don’t give a fuck if ya nineteen or not. Bitch, you ain’t muthafuckin’ grown, and if your fuckin’ ass wanna be fuckin’ grown, then I will fuckin’ come over there and knock the pretty of ya light-skin ass.”

  “I’m not.”

  “And don’t be out there fuckin’ drinkin’!”

  Pearla had heard enough. She spun back around toward the door and marched out. Dealing with her mother was like walking barefoot across broken glass—sharp, painful, and plain stupid. She hurried out the building and walked toward her Benz, which was parked a block away.

  All the hustlers and bad boys were out today showboating in front of their flashy rides, some gambling, others throwing back liquor and beer, and admiring the lovely creatures roaming about. It was a beautiful afternoon and everyone looked like they wanted to take advantage of the day.

  Pearla couldn’t walk a block to her car without some nigga trying to talk to her, or some resident asking about an outfit, shoes, or jewelry they wanted her to get, so they would be able to wear it to the block party and club this coming weekend. Everybody wanted something from her. It wasn’t a secret in the neighborhood what Pearla did.

  She got behind the wheel of her Benz and took a quick breather, checked her image via the mirror in the sun visor, and went on her way to pick up Roark and Jamie.

  ***

  It was the middle of the afternoon, and being a weekday, the mall was less crowded. Pearla decided to linger in the food court while Roark and Jamie hit up Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom. Bloomingdale’s was sweet. The girls were in and out.

  Holding Bloomingdale’s shopping bags full of stolen merchandise, Pearla sipped on a milkshake and kept her eye out like a hawk above. She noticed a man seated on the other end of the food court constantly looking her way. He tried to be inconspicuous, but he wasn’t doing that good of a job. She had spotted him several minutes earlier—a white boy, young, maybe mid-to-late twenties, dressed regular, in blue jeans and a white T-shirt with short, cropped hair. He had a harmless look about him, but something was off.

  He could be a cop.

  Then suddenly, Pearla noticed two mall security guards entering the food court area—redneck-looking white boys—toy cops that looked too eager to take their subpar job seriously. Their attention wasn’t focused on her yet, but she felt, in a minute it was about to be.

  She tried not to look spooked by their presence, but butterflies began to swim around in her stomach. When she caught him looking, white boy averted his attention elsewhere. He sat alone, nibbling on the same French fries for the past half-hour.

  It didn’t take that long for anyone to eat some fries. Pearla knew better. She played it cool.

  He was definitely watching her.

  The mall security guards too. They stayed a good distance from her, acting like they were there formally.

  Pearla removed her cell phone from her bag and called Jamie. Her instincts told her to abort today’s plan. She didn’t get this far in the game by being stupid. Somehow, she felt that mall security were on to them. But how? She pushed back her chair and removed herself from the table. Walking away from the food court with the phone pressed to her ear, Pearla heard Jamie’s phone ring twice before she picked up.

  “Abort! Run away!”

  Jamie didn’t need to ask any questions. When Pearla said abort, they aborted.

  Pearla started to casually walk away from the food court, trying her best not to peer over her shoulders and give herself away. She took a few steps away from the area, and as predicted, mall security started to follow behind her nonchalantly. White boy too—he removed himself from the table, and Pearla found herself with unwanted company coming her way.

  She took a deep breath and felt her heart beating a little bit faster. Bit by bit, her easygoing movement started to speed up. She clutched her bag to her chest tightly as she moved toward the exit on the lower level. The mall wasn’t crowded. She had plenty of leeway from the top floor to the mall exit on the lower level.

  At first there were three, but from her peripheral vision, she noticed another guard approaching from her left, his intense looked aimed at her. Yup, she was marked.

  Like a heartbeat, Pearla dropped
the bags filled with stolen merchandise and took off running, the men right away giving chase behind her. Pearla sprinted through the mall like a track star, bumping and almost knocking over mall patrons in her way. She headed straight for the escalators ahead of her and went flying down two to three stairs at a time. When she hit the ground, she made a sharp right and went flying by the stores. Security tried to entrap her, but Pearla moved like a fly in the sky, zigzagging through the bottom floor and desperately trying to reach the exit and escape.

  “Stop! Stop!” she heard a security guard yell out.

  There was no way she was going to comply. She wasn’t about to be detained. The chase through the mall caught everyone’s attention. People gawked at them like they were watching a scene from a movie. With her arms flaring up and down, Pearla didn’t look behind her once. She was too focused on getting away. She could see the exit fifty feet from her, and security was close behind.

  With freedom so close, she put a little power into her running and bolted toward the nearest exit like a bullet discharging from a gun. She was young and in shape, and her pursuers weren’t. They were already winded—except for the white boy. He was able to keep up, moving like he was a track star.

  Who is this muthafucka? Pearla wondered.

  Pearla became a blur to the storeowners and mall customers witnessing the craziness unfold right before their eyes.

  She rushed through the glass doors like a flood pouring through, nearly shattering one of the doors as she thrust it open, escaping into the parking garage. She had a half a minute window to hide herself somewhere in the garage. She interweaved through the parked cars and hunkered behind a black big-body SUV, her breathing ragged. She kept quiet and looked around her, carefully listening for anyone approaching. She could hear the guards’ radios going off as they searched the area for her.

  Pearla was scared. Why were they chasing after her?

  The guards were heard moving through the parking garage. Their voices and walkie-talkies gave away their positions. With one coming close, she lay down flat on her stomach and shimmied underneath a different car that was low enough to conceal her. She remained quiet and still like a mouse, observing her chasers walk right by her.