“A what?”
Wydron bolted over to Big Six, extended his gloved hand, and grabbed him around the neck. Big Six saw his own reflection struggle for air, much to the consternation of Cind’rella and Jila, who knew to leave well enough alone.
“Ugh, m-man, you’re hurtin’ me—”
“—Returd. A cross between a retard and a turd.”
Cind’rella made the mistake of allaying his master’s vengeance. “Wydron, man, drop it. I was there, it ain’t his fault—”
“—Get your cross-dressin’ bitch face outta my face. I ain’t speakin’ to you.”
Wydron tightened his grip and lifted Big Six a foot from the floor.
Iris took in the extraordinary sight and remained perfectly still.
“Nigga, I gots a consignment comin’ in from they Arabs and they need payin’.”
“Yuh, yuh.” Big Six croaked as the oxygen starved its way out through his limbs, flapping around like a dying fish.
“So y’all fat asses best get me my ‘ting back, yeah?”
“Yuh—”
“—Or I’mma drop you. Y’unnstan’?”
Wydron finally acknowledged Iris. In a state of bewilderment and surprise, he dropped Big Six to the ground and pointed at her.
“Who’s this?”
Cind’rella nodded at her, silently praying for his life. “Man, we found her outside. She saw us takin’ care of business.”
“Taking care of business?”
Big Six held his throat and climbed to his feet.
“Man, get up off the floor,” Wydron called out to Big Six as he eyeballed Iris on his way over to her. “What you mean you found her outside? She ain’t exactly a roll of bills, now, is she?”
Jila pointed at the dead body and cleared her throat. “Yo, Wydron, man. Lookie here.”
He followed the instruction and clapped eyes on the corpse. Instead of losing his mind, he threw his hands up in disbelief.
All eyes were on him for his reaction. The odds for a certain response were completely off the books.
Wydron held his cigar in his lips and blew a flurry of smoke out through his nostrils.
“What the fuck is goin’ on around here?” he screamed. “First, y’all lose my motherfuckin’ money. Then, I gotta put up this with strange lady gettin’ involved, and now, I got a fuckin’ dead elephant-looking Rasta in my fuckin’ meet? Somebody best start explainin’ what’s up.”
Nobody dared respond.
“What the fuck?” Wydron asked again. “Y’all stop starin’ at me like a bunch of mute retards and answer me.”
Which is precisely what they resembled.
“Speak.”
Cind’rella buckled first and offered an answer. “Shit’s fucked, man.”
“You don’t say, genius,” Wydron said and turned to Big Six. “You and Jila take the corpse to the bathroom out back.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, I need my head examined askin’ you to do shit around here.”
As soon as Wydron snapped his fingers, Jila lifted the corpse’s feet and waved Big Six over to the other end. “C’mon, man.”
“Yeah.”
Wydron walked after Big Six as he crouched down before the corpse. His fingertips barely met around the trunk-like wrists that swelled up.
“Run the tub full, now. Head down, feet up. Look for bubbles comin’ outta this dead coon’s face. Make sure he’s dead.”
Wydron titled his head at the corpse’s face. The nose had elongated past its mouth and hung off its chin.
“Is that a trunk?”
Big Six wrenched the body’s arms up and huffed. “I don’t like this one bit. It weighs a ton.”
“Make sure no bubbles come out from its… trunk… or whatever it is.”
Iris closed her eyes, still frozen to the floor. The cold, damp cement seeped through the soles of her feet and hugged against her bones.
She snored with her eyes wide open.
Big Six and Jila carried the body to the far end of the warehouse.
Cind’rella pointed at Iris. “What about her, man?”
“It’s all good. We frontin’ for them guys on delivery. We can use an extra piece of pussy pie for sure.”
Iris didn’t have a clue what Wydron had meant, but she soaked up every word. The look on his face suggested that whatever he’d meant, she was in trouble. Wydron remained calm given the nature of how proceedings were going, and she couldn’t figure out why.
Then again, she was fast asleep.
Weird things happen when you’re coasting somewhere between awake and asleep, and she knew not to trust everything she saw.
Inspired by Wydron’s now-serene demeanor, Cind’rella upped his enthusiasm. “Yeah, yeah. Jila and her can play it down.”
“What exactly did this bitch see, anyhow?”
“Just the body. And me and Big Six.”
“And now she’s seen me, asshole,” Wydron added as he moved towards Iris. “My face, your face, everyone’s face. The meet, here. Locations, man. She’s seen everything.”
“Yeah, man.”
Standing a clear five inches taller than Iris, he lowered his head and took in the sight of the strange woman standing before him.
Her glazed, gray eyes, and pin-sharp pupils.
The thin nightgown complementing her physique, and her bare feet.
“What happened to you?” he muttered as he went to touch her face. “The hell’s a broad like you doin’ out here, anyhow?”
SNATCH.
She grabbed his wrist before he had a chance to touch her face. A steely determination emanated from her pupils and into his. No touching, her face undeniably seemed to suggest.
“Well, shit. We most certainly do have a badder bitch in our midst, dun’t we?”
Iris’s face contorted as she struggled to hold Wydron’s wrist away. He removed it with a swift action and slammed the side of his jeans.
“Y’all know what’s goin’ down here, do ya?” Wydron asked her to no response. “Lemme tell you what’s up. Y’all seen my faggoty fuckin’ colleague here dressed like a fairy?”
Iris knew Cind’rella stood nearby, and didn’t need to check twice.
Perturbed by her presence, Wydron shuddered at Iris and grew angry. “Y’all gettin’ up in my business. So, you might as well see everything.”
The back of Iris’s throat gurgled, producing a deathly snoring sound.
“What’s up with you, anyhow?”
He waved his palm in front her face to see if she’d flinch.
She didn’t.
Somehow, the entire event burrowed deep into Wydron’s heart. The woman frightened him. He knew she couldn’t live to tell the tale.
“What’s that sound you makin’? Are you snorin’?” Wydron asked. “Cind’rella, man, it’s like she’s fast asleep.”
“True, true.”
One final check to see if she’d flinch at his hand was all it took. A sense of unease pervaded the top half of his body and made him shudder without his permission.
Fighting the urge to quake, he sneered in her face and kept up the bad boy pretense. “Listen here to me, nigga. I dunno where you from, or where you is in that fucked up head you got, but you gonna work with us now you seen us.”
“Listen to my man, man,” Cind’rella added, cautiously.
“Shut your damn mouth,” Wydron barked, never tearing his eyes away from Iris’s. “You hear me?”
Of course she had heard him, but still remained defiant. Her chest pushed in and out as she breathed, ready for war.
“Feisty bitch, huh?” Wydron continued. “You stand right there and when my boys come, you keep standin’ and you show ‘em you know what’s up.”
The bathroom light flickered to life, throwing a clinical white light onto the tiles on all four walls. The hum from the lone bulb was loud and uninviting.
Jila lifted the body’s top half over the rim of the bathtub and accidentally released it.
&
nbsp; Whump.
Big Six just about managed to keep the corpse’s legs in his hands. “Be careful, man. He’s gettin’ heavier.”
Jila twisted both faucets on full blast. “He’s dead, ain’t he?”
“Yeah, he looks it.”
“Lift his feet up.”
Big Six couldn’t figure out the sex of the corpse. “You sure it’s a he?”
“Okay, put its feet up. Put its ankles on the soap thing.”
She lifted her right leg and placed her stiletto heel on the side of the tub. Her short skirt rode up her thigh and nestled just under her bikini line.
She caught Big Six licking his lips at her. “The fuck y’all fat ass lookin’ at?”
“Nice,” he tutted. “I’m sure they’re gonna love you.”
“Just put the feet on the soap thing.”
Big Six dropped the corpse’s ankles onto the soap dish tray halfway up the shower pipe, but refused to look away from the unusual sight taking place in front of him.
Jila reached up for the shower head and unclipped it from the housing.
“Get back, man. Don’t get yourself wet,” she said as she dropped the head onto the corpse’s chest.
“Jila, y’all ready wet.”
“Huh?”
He pointed to her inner thigh. Coarse scales had developed over her otherwise perfectly smooth skin.
“Look,” he said.
Jila looked down and spread the skin on her leg out with her fingers. Her voice trembled with fear. “Oh, shit. What the—”
“—And your legs are all wet.”
“I never touched the water, man,” she gasped in terror. “The water never touched me.”
Big Six took a few steps back with a look of disgust on his face.
“Man, you got some fuckin’ AIDS, right there. Don’t come near me.”
Jila yelped in terror as she inspected her other thigh. “What’s happening to me, man?”
The same coarse skin erupted down her thigh and creaked its way down to her knee, producing a gelatinous and transparent goo.
Big Six bolted into the warehouse in a state of panic, which caught Wydron, Cind’rella, and Iris’s attention.
“What’s up in there?” Wydron asked.
Big Six caught his breath. “I think Jila’s gotten ill, man.”
“Shit. We got our brown boys comin’ in ten minutes, and the money has ghosted.”
Just then, another man ran through the single door to the warehouse. Disheveled, he scratched his buzz cut and made a beeline for Wydron.
“Yo,” the guy said. “I got the thing.”
“Toe Tag? Where you been?”
Toe Tag sucked his teeth and swung his right shoulder forward, revealing a giant green duffel from behind his back. He chucked it to the table in the middle of the room and opened it up.
“I just hope they never took none of the bills.”
Zip.
Iris wasn’t sure where to look. She struggled to tear her eyes from Cindrella’s bizarre get-up, but more urgent matters took place at the central table as Wydron joined Toe Tag to inspect its contents.
Wydron called over to Iris. “Yo, bitch. Come here. See this.”
As Iris moved forward, the view of the duffel twisted to reveal what was inside.
A grid of one hundred dollar bills perfectly lined in at least ten rows, pushing the sides of the bag.
Cind’rella gasped and clapped his hands together. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Dissatisfied, Wydron reached into his belt, took out his Glock and pointed it at Toe Tag’s face.
“Yo, Double-T. How’d you get this?”
Toe Tag raised his arms in the hope he wouldn’t get shot. “What the fuck, man? I got the thing, didn’t I?”
“I know you got my ‘ting. What I don’t know is how it went missing and how you got it back?”
Big Six and Cind’rella poised, ready to draw their own firearms.
Why was the guy being threatened named Toe Tag, anyway? Iris wondered. It was evident when she scanned the man’s purple sneakers. Attached to his ankle was a cream-colored label, with the man’s life and death dates, along with his name and address - 706, Tower Three.
“Man, I ain’t done shit to you.”
Wydron spushed the nozzle of his Glock in Toe Tag’s forehead and teased the trigger.
“Man, what you doin’?”
“Tell me everything,” Wydron said. “And make it good, else your momma won’t recognize a dead nigga on the slab ‘coz his face is all fucked up.”
Slurp-gurgle-squelch.
A guttural, nauseating sound of death echoed around the warehouse walls, originating from the bathroom.
“Big Six, man. Go check on Jila and the corpse. Make sure she ain’t puking up all over the damn place,” he said, before returning to Toe Tag. “My nig, you best explain what happened to my cash money.”
Cind’rella, Big Six, Wydron, and Iris faded away from view, leaving Toe Tag standing on his own.
Chapter X
9 pm, according to the antiquated clock above the warehouse door.
Toe Tag looked nervous, sitting on the lone chair in the warehouse. His legs swung back and forth, trying to shake off his anxiety. Something disturbed him. His attempt to read the roman numerals on the clock above the warehouse door did nothing to allay his nerves.
Man I told you. I was waitin’ here with it. Like you told me to. They rolled up and walked in.
A clumping sound of metal on cement from the warehouse door forced him to look towards it.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. We just do this thing, we get paid, they go, we all good,” he muttered as he walked to the wall and flicked the door switch.
Groan…
The door rolled up the wall and introduced a brand new, jet-black Bugatti with tinted windows. The engine revved as it rolled forward and blared its horn - a piccolo-sounding rendition of the William Tell Overture.
Toe Tag yelped and indicated the driver to be more discreet. “Shit, shh. Keep it quiet.”
The Bugatti slowed to a standstill inside the warehouse. The driver’s door slid open, filling the warehouse with aggressive hip hop music from its speakers
Seconds after the door opened, a man’s sneaker stepped out and hit the ground.
Toe Tag clutched the green duffel in his chest in much the same way a child would do with their prized toy.
Toe Tag stared at the driver’s feet and looked up the length of his jeans, finally settling on a Rastafarian gentlemen with long dreadlocks.
“What’s good?” he asked.
Two of the Rasta’s bodyguards - big, burly men in suits - exited the vehicle, ready for an exchange to take place.
“Are you Double-T?” the first man asked.
“Yeah, man. I’m Toe Tag. Are you Sweetheart?”
“My buddies call me Sweet. You got that ‘ting for me, now?”
“Yeah, man. I got your ‘ting.”
I knew we was fucked when the dude checked me out. This Sweetheart guy didn’t do shit but stare at me.
Sweetheart clicked his fingers, signaling to one of his colleagues to hand him a briefcase.
He took it in his hands and approached the table, making sure to swing his hip-length dreadlocks from side to side.
Nigga looked like a dealer, for sure. Licking his lips, I felt like he was gonna rape me.
Sweetheart unclipped the case and showed Toe Tag the contents. Thousands of tiny, bullet-shaped pills that produced a colorful prism of multicolored light from the fluorescent bulb several feet above them.
“Prizm, man. One hundred thousand of them,” Sweetheart said. “Cash payment.”
“Okay, cool.”
In return, Toe Tag showed Sweetheart the money in the green duffel. “We good?”
“Yeah, brudda. We chill.”
Then, shit got worse.
Sweetheart burst out laughing as his two colleagues produced their guns and aimed them
at Toe Tag.
“Dumb bitch,” he said. “Gimme the bag.”
Sweetheart snatched the green duffel from Toe Tag’s clutches and backed up to the Bugatti. “Take care of this dumb motherfucker.”
The two men stepped forward and opened fire on Toe Tag.
“No!”
The bullets chewed through Toe Tag’s torso and stomach, sending him stumbling back in a haze of blood and smoke.
Sweetheart climbed into the driver’s seat.
The final bullets shattered Toe Tag’s skull - his jaw pinged away from the lower half of his head. His cheekbones exploded and showered the floor.
The final bullet punctured through his forehead, burrowed through his skull, and tore his brain clean in half.
They fuckin’ killed me, man.
Toe Tag’s body hit the floor in a crumpled, thoroughly-executed heap of blood and gore.
Sweetheart shifted the Bugatti into reverse and honked the horn. “Let’s get outta here.”
But I wasn’t playin’ around…
The two armed men climbed into the back of the car as its tires spun.
Screeeech.
The car rocketed out of the warehouse.
Toe Tag opened his eyes and sat up straight, witnessing the Rastafarian’s escape.
“No, no, no.”
He pushed himself to his feet and chased after them. “Get back here.”
The Bugatti’s tires screeched as the car spun around and hit the road outside. Toe Tag ran after them leaving a torrent of spraying blood from his bullet-ridden body along the cement.
It’s strange just how strong you get after you’ve been executed, man.
With a sudden injection of energy, Toe Tag launched himself onto the back of the car as it sped along the road and approached the freeway.
Sweetheart clocked the dead man clinging to the back of the Bugatti.
“He’s on our tail.”
He spun the wheel to the right, and then to the left, in an attempt to shake Toe Tag off the back of the car.
80 mph, 85 mph, 90 mph…
The Bugatti hit the main freeway.
“Get this crazy-ass dead man off the back of my ride.”
One of the two men lifted his gun and rolled down the passenger window. “I got it.”
He moved the top half of his body through the opening and aimed the gun at the back of the Bugatti. The road whizzed underneath the wheels of the car.
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