by Noire
“Nah, I’m cool,” Zeke said as he stood in the corner and folded his arms. “So what the hell do you want with me? My lawyer is gonna serve you the papers, so all me and you need to do is square off in court.”
Viceroy shook his head as he leaned back in his big dog chair and lit a Cuban cigar.
“Okay, cool. Let’s cut to the chase then, shall we? As you can probably see, I don’t want or need shit from you, Zeke. I’ve already got it all. And you don’t have shit.”
Viceroy looked right into the boy’s empty skull and watched the wheels turning in his head. This fool was just as dumb as his daddy. In his young mind he’d thought he had the upper-hand by listening to Ruddman and filing some funky-ass lawsuit. Did this lil nigga think he was gonna catch him sitting up at his desk holding his dick and shaking in his drawers?
“Listen Zeke, let me tell you something,” Viceroy said in all seriousness. “I didn’t get in this position by bending over every time somebody wanted to fuck me, okay? What do you really think you’re gonna accomplish with this lawsuit? I have a whole building full of lawyers who will eat this lil shit up. In fact, I can have this petty shit tied up in court for the next thirty years.”
Zeke was looking mad as fuck because he wasn’t feeling the way Viceroy was talking at him and Ruddman damn sure hadn’t prepared him for this part.
“From the looks of you I’d say you know the streets pretty well,” Viceroy continued his verbal thrashing. “How about I just keep it hood for you, then? You see, it’s like this young’un,” Viceroy broke it down. “I’m from the same streets you’re from, and I’ve had this shit mapped out way before you were born. It don’t take much for a muthafucka to come up missing in Dallas, even though I’m not trying to go that route. Listen, I have a son your age and I’m willing to help you out the same way I just helped him. In fact, I offered your father the same position right before he died.” Viceroy leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “I run a tight ship around here, but I’m willing to bring you on my staff without asking for a drug test or even an application. How’s that?”
Zeke was absorbing everything Viceroy said and he could tell he wasn’t bullshitting. He wasn’t stupid and he knew how to play the game. Who had thirty fuckin’ years to spend in court when he could be a hotshot executive at a billion-dollar company tomorrow? Fuck Ruddman. That nigga wasn’t offering up no cheese. It was time to make big boy choices and he didn’t wanna fuck around and wind up on the losing end of the game.
“So what position are you talking about?” Zeke asked. “And how soon can we make this happen?”
Viceroy smiled, happy the kid was smart enough to see things his way.
“Don’t even worry about it, I got you,” Viceroy said. “Just report to my Human Resources department on your way out. It’s located on the third floor. Tell them your name and my people will take good care of you, and that’s a promise.”
“Hey Connie.” Viceroy pressed an interoffice button the moment Barron had escorted Zeke out of his office. “I’ve got a new hire for you. Set Zeke Washington up in our system and have him put on the payroll immediately.”
“No problem, sir,” Viceroy’s chief of human resources responded. “What position will he be placed in?”
Viceroy smiled, looking just like a shark.
“The mail room, Connie. Put him in the muthafuckin’ mail room!”
I had always been the type of chick who walked through life with my eyes wide open. Couldn’t nothing ever sneak up on me because I stayed plugged into every scene and I knew where I stood at every turn.
I had never once been true to a man in my whole damn life before, and that’s why when I busted Suge and his so-called Asian “friend” at the BBQ it hit me in the gut and I started doubting myself just a little bit. Okay, hell. For the first time in my life I went into surrender mode. Yeah, with my banging body and LaRue good looks, I knew I had it going on in that come-bang-me hood-chick kinda way. Men swarmed at my feet and begged for just a whiff of what I was hiding in that triangle between my thighs, and I had been slamming my sex appeal down on dudes from the time I was twelve years old.
But this was different. Every chick that had ever tried her hand at competing with me had failed. I could slay a bitch and steal her man by just batting my eyes and shifting my hips, but when it came to this new chick on Suge’s arm I couldn’t help but feel like I was outta my league, out-classed, and outmatched.
“Heffa what you talking about?” Bunni demanded the next morning when I ’fessed up that I had no wins over the beautiful Asian chick who had my boo’s nose wide open. “You way cuter than that girl, Mink! You got more titties and you definitely got way more ass!”
I shook my head. Bunni just didn’t understand. Everything wasn’t about a golden fuck-pole contest. This match-up wasn’t about who had the slickest tongue or the bangingest body. I took the prize in that department, no doubt about it. But this shit went way deeper than that. For the first time in my life I felt inadequate because that Lil Bit chick musta been something that I could never be.
I had Googled Miyoko Su and found out that she had graduated from one of the best law schools in the whole damn country. If that didn’t shut me up and sit me down, then nothing would.
“So? Just ’cause she’s one of them hot-shot lawyers it don’t make her no better than you!” Bunni spit. “You’re smart too, Mink! You’s one of the best con-mamis in the game, girl!”
“I’m smart, Bunni, but she’s intelligent. She went to college.”
“So what? We know plenty of people who went to college! Some of them are still out there dancing and grinding and making it rain on a stage!”
“But she even graduated too!”
“So what?” my BFF bucked. “That don’t mean shit! She might be university trained, but can a bitch pick a pocket? Can she bust a slick move? Can she polish up a pole? Is her twerk game on target? Can she gank a mofo for his racks and get away with all her teeth still in her mouth?”
“I don’t know if she can do all that,” I admitted. “But I do know one thing she did damn well.”
“What’s that?”
“She took my fuckin’ man!”
I felt so hopeless. Life was meaningless and nothing seemed to be poppin’ for me anymore. After putting every ounce of conniving energy I had in me into getting my hands on that Dominion loot, I had it. I had that shit!
And I didn’t know what in the hell to do with it.
Oh, for true, for true, me and Bunni had shopped like two crackheads in a freebasing contest. We’d bought every pair of shoes that we could cram our corns in, snatched up expensive jewelry out the yang, ordered the entire premium line of Glama Glo wigs in every color under the rainbow, and dropped mega dollars for more designer-label clothes than would probably ever touch our backs. I mean, we had turnt up, baby. Harlem-style! Our hair stayed did, our nails stayed slick, we got facials and massages every other day, and we ate shrimp, crab, and lobster till we were shitting out seaweed.
Trust and believe, we had washed those Dominion dollars down the drain like they were city water, and just when I was exhausted and we thought our greedy asses were gonna overdose on finery and gloss, I had checked my bank account and that baby was still overflowing!
But right now reality was slapping me right upside my forehead. Me and Bunni were both forced to look in the mirror and face the cold hard facts of the matter, and what we saw staring back at us wasn’t hardly cute at all.
We saw me and Bunni!
Two scheming-ass hood chicks who had pulled every racket in the book, gotten hold of more loot than we could ever spend, bought every piece of jewelry, every designer purse, drank more alky, and hit more get-high than a little bit, yet didn’t have a damn thing else going on in our empty little lives.
I had smoked loud and got lifted up to the stars every night, and then woke up at noon and put on a brand new wig and got flyer than a mutha. I had pranced outta my suite looking lacy and
tasty and spritzed my body in a thousand-dollar-an-ounce stormcloud of good smells, and for what? To groove in what action? To walk around this big old mansion being envied and adored by who? No damn body!
The truth was, being rich wasn’t cracking up to be what I thought it would be. Without Suge to fuck with I was bored outta my mind. I missed my old life. The life where I woke up to a new misadventure, a new hustle, and brand-new grind every single day. What good was sipping top-shelf liquor and toking the best piff in the country if there wasn’t no horny niggas to slick-talk with afterward? Hell, the mansion was way back in the woods with nothing and nobody around, when I was used to project living where I could always get fly and step out my door then switch my ass up on the avenue where the slangas, hustlers, and thugstas were sure to have some drama poppin’.
I had hung out and got high with Dane and stuffed my face with Bunni and Peaches a lot, but I was used to living in the eye of the storm ’ere single day, and no amount of steak and lobster could take the place of the excitement and the happenings on 125th Street. My mood was swinging real low behind that shit and my lip was starting to poke out. I wanted me a hero from the deli up on Eighth Avenue. I was having fantasies about a piping hot slice from the pizzeria up the block from my old crib. I craved some dirty Chinese food and a monster-sized chicken wing from Wing Luck Su.
Believe it or not, I missed my ghetto Granny, and I even missed Aunt Bibby’s bald-headed behind too. So with all that on my heart I made up my mind. Mizz Mink was going home! The first chance I got I was taking my ass right back to New York!
CHAPTER 28
Selah had deliberately dressed down and dabbed just a tiny bit of makeup on her face. The last thing she wanted to do today was flaunt her wealth, and standing in her mirror dressed in a regular old pair of blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt, she still looked cute, but she was definitely understated.
She had the doorman bring Fallon’s old Toyota around to the front of the house. It had been a present for her fifteenth birthday and Viceroy had bought it specifically for her to use as she learned how to drive. By the time she was old enough to get her license, the Toyota had more dents and dings than a little bit, and Viceroy had surprised his baby girl with a brand new Porsche to celebrate her new driving privileges.
Selah had a flashback to her old Brooklyn days when her father drove a whooptie and struggled to keep the lights on and his children fed. It had been a special treat to get a ride in his old raggedy car because most kids in New York caught the train or the bus everywhere they went.
She drove down the highway handling the Toyota carefully. After years of having her ass touch the seats of only premium cars like Bentleys, BMWs, Maseratis, Porsches, and every now and then a Lexus or a Mercedes, the little Toyota felt hard as a rock. It was way too close to the ground for her comfort, and the windows rattled in their frames every time she hit a bump.
Thoughts of the old times flowed through Selah’s mind as she drove. Her and Viceroy went way, way back with Wally Su, and he had once been considered one of their closest allies. He and Viceroy had been bright-eyed and ambitious young men together, eager to claim a stake in the upper crust of the world. They had made a solemn pact and one hand had loyally washed the other, and today Selah was going to sit beside Wally’s deathbed and remind him about that shit.
According to Suge, Wally had been moved to a hospice to live out his final days, and Selah was prepared to beg for his mercy and cooperation on behalf of her family. Although Viceroy had been the brains behind a lot of their business dealings, he would’ve never become as powerful and successful without Wally’s help. But Wally would have never become as rich without Viceroy’s burning drive and determination either. She had called ahead to the hospice and was told that only those on a pre-approved visitors list were allowed to have access to the patients, but Selah was led in her spirit to show up in person and try to see him anyway.
The hospice was situated on a quiet stretch of greenery that looked colorful and serene on the outside. A spray of bright flowers lined both sides of the walkway, innocent reminders of new life in a place where the primary business was death.
It was a warm day outside, but the stifling heat that hit her when she stepped into the building was at least ten degrees hotter.
“Finally!” A young white man sitting behind the front counter looked up at her with frustration in his eyes. The sleeves on his white dress shirt were rolled up to the elbows, and the sweated-through fabric clung to his pale skin.
“Er, hello,” Selah said hesitantly. “I’m here to—”
“Where are the other two?” he demanded, pushing a damp shock of black hair off his sweating forehead. “I asked them to send three.”
Selah shook her head. “Well, I er—”
“Never mind,” he snapped. “It doesn’t matter. One, three, five . . . the way the stomach bug has run through my staff it’s going to take at least ten temps to get us through the madness today. Over there—” He pointed toward a doorway on the right. “You can put your things in a locker and grab yourself a pair of scrubs. Most of our patients are pretty stable for the moment but we’ve got at least three who could check out at any time.”
Beads of sweat had formed on Selah’s top lip and she swept her hair back and shook her head. “But I—”
“I know, I know,” the young man said impatiently. “It’s hot as hell in here. The central air pump went out late last night and I’ve been trying to get someone in here to fix it all morn—”
The jarring ring of the telephone interrupted him.
“Good,” he said, snatching it off the hook. “This is the repairman now.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and glared at her. “Move it!” he snapped, angling his head toward the locker room. “Get in there and get changed, and when you’re done check on our three sickest patients first before they die on us—Baker, Duncan, and the other one I think his name is um—” He glanced at a clipboard that hung from a hook near the desk. “Su. Wally Su.”
Dressed in a pair of loose-fitting nurse’s scrubs with tiny Minnie Mouse emblems on the shirt, Selah stood over Wally Su’s bed and stared down into the face of her former friend.
“Wally,” she whispered softly as the gaunt face with the gaping mouth and fluttering eyes stared up at her.
He had never been what you would call handsome, but right now he looked a mess. Selah could see why he’d been so eager to get on Skype and confess to the commission. Wally was almost dead. His flesh had been ravaged by disease and there was a horrible rotting smell oozing out of his open mouth, as though his insides were already racked with decay. And with his body already as good as in the grave, Wally was trying to save his soul.
“Wally!” she said a little bit louder. His eyelids fluttered weakly and he struggled to close his mouth, only to have it fall open again.
Selah studied him. A large sign was taped to the wall above his headboard that had the letters DNR in bold magic marker. He was connected to several machines, and one of them emitted a beep every few seconds. Nearly every hole on his body had something running either into or out of it.
Selah raked her hair back with her fingers. She had to talk some sense into Wally. To convince him to honor the pact he’d made with Viceroy all those years ago. It would have been so easy to put her hand over his mouth and pinch his damn nose closed, Selah thought. But did she have it in her to do it?
Selah knew she could do whatever it took to protect her husband and her children, because even if Wally died before he could confess, there was still the matter of those documents he was holding that, no matter what, must never see the light of day.
“Wally,” she called out again, leaning closer to him. “It’s your old friend, Selah,” she said. “Selah Dominion. Can you hear me, Wally? Please, open your eyes. Open your eyes if you can hear me, Wally.”
She watched as his eyelids fluttered again and then opened wide. For a brief moment they stared at each other and recognitio
n and remembrance flowed freely between them.
And then the look in Wally’s eyes changed. Recognition became concern, and concern turned first into fright and then into terror.
“No, no, no . . .” Selah put her hand on his chest and tried to reassure him. “You’re safe, Wally. I just came to talk to you. To find out where in the world you put those papers and to ask you to give them to me and spare my family and yours too, any further trouble and embarrassment.”
Wally started tossing his head from side to side and Selah was shocked by what had crept into his eyes. Yes, it was fear! Even with one foot already in the grave and his fist raised to knock on death’s door, Wally wanted to live! He was afraid of her. Afraid she would shorten his time on earth by a few measly hours, at the most a couple of days.
“Where are those papers?” Selah demanded. His lips moved frantically and she had to practically press her ear to his mouth to make out what he was trying to say.
“Where are they, Wally? I can’t understand you. Tell me. Where are they?” she cried.
She lowered her ear down to his moving lips again and then she heard him.
“Help!” he whispered weakly. “Help!”
“Shut up!” Selah snapped. “You weren’t crying for help when you were taking our goddamn money and living high on the hog! All those years we thought you were our friend, and now when you have nothing left to lose except your old soft, moldy bones you turn around and betray us! Where’s that goddamn paperwork? Where is it?”
“Look un-un-un . . .” he struggled to whisper, “under my . . . nuts!”
Selah hauled off and slapped him. Slapped the holy shit outta him!
“You old bastard! I was there for you when your daughter was born! I held your hand while your wife took her last breath! You’re a hypocrite, Wally!” She slapped the shit outta him again. “A goddamn hypo—”