“Yeah, I understand.”
“That feeling I felt when I found out about you and Jamie, it almost drove me insane. I don’t want to ever lose you, not to another bitch or to these streets.”
Cash reached across the table and took her hand into his. “And you won’t lose me,” he said. “I promise.”
“I better not,” she replied coolly.
While talking to Pearla, Cash thought about Alisha. She had texted him from Miami asking when she was going to see him again. Cash knew he had to be careful, because the way Pearla was talking, she was indicating implementing some biblical shit.
“I have to fly down to Miami again in a few days. Marc hit me up, more business to take care of.”
“Just when you’re down there, think of me,” she said simply and then smiled.
“I will.”
***
Cash landed in sunny Miami in the middle of the afternoon and moved through the busy terminal like he was on a mission. Marc had texted him and said he needed to see him. It was an emergency. Marc couldn’t go into details, and that worried Cash. So many questions flooded his mind. He was nervous, but it didn’t show on his face. He was confident that everything was okay.
The minute he stepped off the plane, he texted Pearla letting her know that he landed safely.
Alisha had also texted him, yearning to see him too.
With his carry-on slung over his shoulder, Cash walked outside and saw Alisha parked outside the terminal in her convertible coupe, smiling ear to ear when she saw Cash exiting the terminal. She hopped out of the car and hurried in his direction, throwing herself into his arms, excited that he was back in Miami. They hugged and kissed.
“I missed you, baby,” she said to him.
“I missed you too.”
Alisha grabbed his crotch. She didn’t care who was watching. “You wanna go play right now?”
He smiled. “Business first.”
Cash tossed his bag into the backseat.
“You drive,” Alisha suggested.
Cash jumped behind the steering wheel and drove off.
Leaving the airport, he got on his cell phone to call Marc. His call went straight to voice mail. He lit a cigarette and jumped on the Dolphin Expressway doing seventy, headed to the Hilton Hotel in South Beach. With Marc’s call continuing to go to voice mail, he decided to spend his time with Alisha.
Moving toward the city, Alisha smiled and did the predictable, leaning into his lap and undoing his zipper.
“What you doing?” Cash asked, looking shocked when he shouldn’t.
“I wanna taste you.”
She gripped his dick, sliding her hand up and down it, causing a moan to escape from his lips. Then she threw it into her mouth, down her throat and gulped him down like a good, tasty drink.
With one hand on the steering wheel and the other pushing the back of Alisha’s head to deep-throat him, Cash swerved a little on the expressway but quickly regained control of the car. Alisha’s head game was fierce, matching his fiancée’s.
“Damn, love, you tryin’ to make a nigga crash,” he joked.
With her glossy lips wrapped around his cock and feeling the speed of the car moving on the expressway, Cash was about to explode inside her mouth when suddenly his cell phone rang. He didn’t want to answer it, but the caller ID showed it was Marc calling him back.
His breathing was ragged when he answered, “Marc. What’s good?”
“Where are you?” Marc asked.
“I landed an hour ago. I’m driving toward South Beach now.”
“I need you to meet me.”
“Where?”
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah, ugh, everything good,” Cash replied.
Alisha was still sucking his dick, her head bobbing up and down in his lap. He tried to conduct a normal conversation with his friend, but with her full lips sucking him crazily, he almost wanted to pull to the side and deflate.
“Cash, meet me at the bar near the American Airlines Arena in an hour.”
“A’ight. Marc, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s cool.”
“Then why the emergency text?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you, Cash.”
“A’ight.”
Cash hung up and hurried toward his favorite hotel in Miami. Alisha was determined to finish him off as he drove. She was a freak bitch and wanted to take advantage of the full hour they had before his meeting with Marc.
Within the hour, Cash checked into the luxurious Hilton in the South Beach area, fucked Alisha quickly, unpacked, and hurried out the room, his freak bitch following right behind him.
He jumped into her convertible and hurried toward Port Boulevard.
Marc wanted to meet at the Largo Bar and Grill, across the street from the arena, located in the heart of downtown Miami.
Cash pulled up to the area with Alisha and looked around. The area was teeming with people drinking and mingling, everyone having a good time. The Miami Heat were scheduled to play the Knicks in a few hours, so the area was flooded with people and activity. Every bar and lounge was busy.
“Stay here,” he told Alisha.
She nodded. “Don’t take long, because we still gotta do round two.
Cash grinned. He got out of the car and walked toward the destination. His eyes searched for Marc. He saw him seated near the railing, overlooking the bay waters, with yachts and boats docked all around.
He went over to Marc, seated alone and looking aloof from everything happening around him. He took a seat at the table with Marc and asked, “What’s goin’ on? Why we meeting here?”
“I wanted to kick it, you know, catch up before we go out and steal more cars.” Marc’s voice was a bit louder than Cash thought necessary. He looked around and smirked.
Marc kept talking. “So, how was your flight?”
“Long.” Cash was irritated but couldn’t quite put his finger on why.
“Yo, how much did you get for that Maserati that you stole from Exotic Cars of Collins a couple weeks back?”
“Maserati? You got me mixed up, son. I don’t boost cars.”
“Nigga, what you smoking?” Marc tried to relax, but his bottom lip was trembling. “This me you talking to. I just need to know how much you got for it ’cause I’ma cop me one and sell it to this cat in Houston.”
Cash was deadpan. “Muthafucka I ain’t smokin’ shit. I just said I ain’t boost no car, therefore I can’t sell what I don’t have. I came out here to see my girl and have a good time. End of story.”
Cash could see that Marc was frustrated by his answers. Then out of the blue, he saw them swarming in around him, local police and federal agents charging his way with their guns drawn and shouting, “Get down! Get down now!”
People in the area quickly moved away from the trouble after seeing chaos ensue. Cash was utterly shocked. Over a dozen Miami PD officers and agents came rushing his way like he was Tony Montana in Scarface. Surrounded and outnumbered by law enforcement, he had nowhere to go. It was obvious that Marc had set him up.
He was thrown to the ground and handcuffed in front of the public, feeling like he was in some crazy public exhibition.
“Officer, why am I being arrested? I ain’t do shit.” Cash tried to remain calm, but he was nervous.
“We don’t need your admission, asshole, we got you on surveillance tape!”
Being dragged off the ground with his arms cuffed behind him, he glared at Marc, knowing he was a snitch. “Why?” Cash asked through clenched teeth.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Cash, and I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Fuck you!” Cash growled, wishing he could break the man’s neck.
Cash knew his arrest in Miami was going to break Pearl
a’s heart. He felt ashamed. He was ushered to a marked police car with his head down and they shoved him into the backseat.
When Alisha saw who they’d arrested, she leaped from her car and ran over to Cash and the officers. “Baby, what’s going on?” she hollered.
“Just keep cool, baby,” he said. “Everything’s under control.”
Twenty-Eight
Hearing about Cash’s arrest in Miami made Pearla cry and cry. She couldn’t lose him, especially in a state so far away. Seeing it was his second arrest, there was no telling what the consequences would be this time. She had no other choice but to go down to Miami as soon as possible. It was going to be her first time there.
Immediately she began packing her bags and making arrangements. Her man needed her, and she was about to be there in a heartbeat. Once, she thought the heavens were smiling down on her, now it felt like hell was trying to pull her under.
With what was going on around her, she was ready to go. Her home was in shambles. Between a drunken Ray-Ray and her feud with Momma Jones, she was going crazy. She wanted them out of her home. She wanted everyone gone around her. She needed to think, to get her life back on track. Since she’d found out the IRS was auditing her, she felt like she was losing control of things.
For once, her home was quiet, with no Ray-Ray or Momma Jones around to disturb her or get in her way. The reason she kept them around for so long was because she loved Cash. Ray-Ray was a nice guy, but his drunken stupors and Momma Jones funking up her home with her whorish and ghetto ways was becoming too much to deal with.
They were doing drugs in her house. She started to find things and money missing, which meant they were stealing from her.
Cash would look the other way, make excuses for his parents’ behavior, but Pearla didn’t want to tolerate it anymore. Because of them, she and Cash were sometimes at odds with each other, arguing and fussing. It was embarrassing to her that she had control over so many things, but in her own home there was mass chaos.
Pearla decided to take a soothing bubble bath for an hour or two. She closed her eyes and dreamed of Cash being in the tub with her, but the doorbell ringing interrupted her pleasant thoughts and solitude. Annoyed by the sudden company, she removed herself from the tub and donned a long robe.
She made her way downstairs and looked to see who it was. She remembered his face. It was one of Cash’s friends. Why is he here? What does he want? She wasn’t about to take any chances.
She retrieved her gun and carefully answered the door. Looking him in the eyes, she asked, “You’re Petey Jay, right?”
“Yeah. I’m here for Cash. He home?”
“No, he’s not.”
Petey Jay stared Pearla up and down and smiled.
“Why are you here?” she asked seriously.
“Just business,” he responded.
He looked jazzy in some new clothes and a gold Rolex around his wrist. Parked outside her home was an Audi R8. His appearance screamed drug dealer or something.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of money—forty-five thousand dollars to be exact. “I owe Cash this,” he said, placing it in Pearla’s hands.
“Owe him for what?”
“He invested in me, and it’s paying off.”
“Investment?” It was the first time she’d heard of Cash investing with a friend. “What did he invest in, and how much?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Obviously not.”
“Well, it’s not my business to tell. But tell Cash there’s more where that came from.” He winked at her and then turned around and left.
Pearla figured Cash was dealing in drugs now and keeping it a secret from her. She was furious. Something told her to check their money in the safe, hoping he didn’t do what she thought he did.
She slammed the door and hurried to her bedroom. She went straight for the concealed safe in the closet. When she opened it, it was almost empty. Cash had taken a large amount of money without letting her know. She was devastated. Why would he do it without running it by her first? They weren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other.
She sat slumped on the floor, looking despondent. In two days, she was flying to Miami to help him out and be by his side, but at this point all she wanted to do was turn her back on him.
***
The flight into Miami went smoothly. Pearla did a lot of thinking during the trip. She realized that she and Cash needed to tighten their purse strings, kick out his parents, and that she needed to cut off her mother completely. She had bought Poochie a Yukon Denali. Though Poochie had proven useful to Pearla and her organization, she was also becoming a handful, always needing a hand out, creating unwanted problems, and spending her money like it was free.
They also needed all the money that Cash had invested with Petey Jay. Pearla was determined to work around the clock to keep what they’d built. With the IRS breathing down her neck, and with Cash arrested, that meant spending money on lawyers and bail, meaning money was going to start going out faster.
Pearla was a stranger to Miami, so she needed the assistance of a sociable cab driver to drive her around. She was able to bail Cash out of lockup. His bail was $150,000.
***
In all, the Miami Attorney General charged twenty people a few days earlier in the takedown of a major international carjacking and stolen car trafficking ring. The media was all over the story, reporting that approximately 160 stolen cars worth more than $8 million were recovered during the operation. The ring targeted high-end vehicles—particularly luxury SUVs, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Maserati, Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, and Aston Martin. The defendants used electronic keys fobs, critical to the resale value of the car, to steal the vehicles from various locations in the South Beach and Miami-Dade area. The ring then shipped them to West Africa, where they resold them for large profits.
Cash was caught up in the criminal operation and was looking at multiple charges, from conspiracy in operating a criminal organization to money laundering—six counts of grand larceny, six counts of conspiracy to commit grand larceny, two counts of breaking and entering, and two counts of conspiracy to enter a dwelling with intent to commit larceny or felony. As he thought, Marc had turned snitch/informant and sold him out, among twelve other people. As the officer had stated, they had several surveillance tapes of the cars being driven off the lots, and Cash was in more than one tape. It would have greatly helped the prosecution’s case had Marc gotten Cash to admit his involvement.
The list of charges made him want to bury his face in his hands and cry. He was looking at three to seven years in Florida.
When he saw Pearla there to pay his bail, it felt like an angel had walked into the courthouse. He hugged and kissed her, not wanting to let her go.
The first thing Pearla wanted to do was get him a lawyer. Brent Donaldson was one of the best Miami had to offer. He had a ninety percent acquittal rating and came highly recommended. The problem was, lawyers like him are costly, and with the case Cash had lingering over his head, it was going to be expensive to try and pay for his freedom. There was no choice but to hire him, since they couldn’t afford for Cash to go away. The retainer alone nearly broke them.
Pearla informed Cash of her plans to cut off the hemorrhaging, and he was with it. People were bringing them down, and it was time to clean house. Together, they came as a team, and it was going to be them against the world.
Twenty-Nine
It felt cruel, but it needed to be done. Ray-Ray was sad and pitiful when he was told that he had to leave the house. He put Cash on a huge guilt trip about being kicked out from his own son’s home. He’d gotten used to eating good food and having shelter from the cold. He didn’t want to go back to living on the streets.
Despite Ray-Ray’s complaining and bickering, Cash understood that he had to remain strong. He had to re
move his father from his home. “You can live in a shelter, Pop,” he suggested.
“A shelter? You know what they do to people in there. You know what they will do to an old man like me inside a shelter.”
“Shelters are safe, Pop, and you’ll still have me.”
“I would rather live back on the streets than go stay in a shelter.”
It was tough on Cash to make his father go. With his criminal case in Florida pending, he needed to save money and make things right. And Cash didn’t truly owe him anything. He was his father and he loved the man, but Ray-Ray didn’t raise him at all, nor gave him a dime.
Momma Jones was pure hell. She wasn’t about to leave so easily. She was there to stay. She was a street bitch, and she’d gotten accustomed to living the good life. When Pearla demanded she pack her things and get the hell out of her house, it was a problem. They started cursing at each other. Pearla was sick of Momma Jones’s shit. She wanted her gone.
“Bitch, make me fuckin’ leave!” Momma Jones shouted.
Pearla was tired of her. The bitch was too disrespectful. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Momma Jones picked up a few things and tossed them at her, leading to a brawl between them. Momma Jones went berserk, trying to scratch up Pearla’s pretty face, and then spitting and biting, acting like a wild animal.
Pearla hit her with punch after punch. “You dumb bitch!” she screamed, wanting to take Momma Jones’ head off.
The fight between them spilled out into the street.
Being a high-class neighborhood, the neighbors immediately called the cops when they heard the disturbance. It wasn’t the first time officers had showed up at the couple’s home. When uniformed officers arrived at the residence, Pearla and Momma Jones were cursing each other out, throwing nasty threats back and forth. Cash was in between his mother and his fiancée, trying to keep them separated to prevent them from tearing each other apart. Both ladies were bloody and bruised.
“Fuck you, bitch!” Pearla yelled. “I’m sick of your shit!”
The House that Hustle Built, Part 1 Page 20