Heartless

by Al-Saadiq Banks

  “Oh,” Storm says. She grabs her card from her pocketbook. “You understand money, don’t you?” she asks as she rubs her fingers together, signifying money.

  The woman nods her head up and down with a smile. Storm hands her the card and points to her phone number. She places her phone to her ear. “Call me and we make money,” she says, rubbing her fingers together again. She can tell the woman understands her clearly. Just like her beauty is universal, so is money. Everybody understands it. “Mucho, mucho dinero.”

  59

  Beeba and her husband cruise their city after a delightful dinner. He’s so stuffed that he can barely keep his eyes open behind the steering wheel of the Range Rover. Beeba, who is in the passenger’s seat, fell asleep minutes ago. The ringing of her phone awakens her. She sits up, startled. A burst of energy shoots through her body when she sees Storm’s name on the screen. The husband looks over with jealousy, wondering who could be calling her at this hour.

  “It’s her,” she says with joy. It’s rare to see her call.

  “Word?” he says with a spark in his eyes as well. Both of them are hoping the same thing. Well, maybe not the same thing, but they both want her equally. Hopefully she’s calling to tell them she’s in town and is finally ready for part two to their sexcapade. “Hurry, hurry, pick up.”

  “Hey, Storm!” Beeba answers, not able to hide her enthusiasm. She has a supernatural effect on Beeba and knows it. She idolizes Storm.

  “Yooo,” Storm drags. “What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing much. Just leaving dinner.”

  “I heard. What that pussy doing though?”

  This catches Beeba by surprise, and she can’t stop the blushing. She really doesn’t now how to answer. “She chilling, I guess.” She giggles like a goofy little girl. “Me and Jay just headed home,” she says, trying to give away the hint that she’s in his company.

  “I ain’t ask about him. I asked about that pussy. Later for him.”

  “What she say?” he whispers only loud enough for Beeba to hear. “See if we can hook up.”

  Beeba places one finger in the air. “One minute,” she whispers to him. “Where you at though? What you doing?”

  “Wondering what that pussy doing? That’s what I’m doing.” Hearing this come out of her idol’s mouth has her box tingling right now.

  “Watering,” she whispers, hoping he doesn’t hear her.

  “Is that right? Got your panties wet?”

  “Ain’t none,” she admits.

  “Nah? What you got on? I need a visual.”

  “Long black dress and pumps.”

  “Ask her,” Jay demands with excitement in the background.

  “Put your hand up that long black dress for me and play with it.” Storm is curious to know how much power she has over her and over her husband.

  “Huh?” she asks, totally shocked at her request. “Right now? I can’t.”

  “You telling me no?” Storm asks sternly.

  “Nah, not no but —”

  “But nothing. Put your hand on it for me.”

  Beeba discreetly puts her hand on it. “Uh-huh,” she whispers.

  “Palm it for me.”

  She peeks over at her husband, hoping that he doesn’t notice what she’s doing. “I did,” she says in a normal tone to throw her husband off. Her pussy is throbbing at the fact that she’s doing something this sneaky right under his nose.

  “How wet is it?”

  “You have no idea,” she says, squirming in her seat.

  “Give me an idea then.”

  “Gushing,” Beeba whispers.

  “Is that right? Pop that clit for me.”

  “I can’t right now,” she says with great disappointment.

  “Can’t what?” Jay asks nosily. He’s so eager he can’t hide it.

  “No such thing as can’t. Put me on speaker and do what I ask.”

  Beeba places the call on speaker as demanded. She’s torn right now, really not knowing what to do. “You on speaker,” she says, looking at her husband.

  “Yo, Storm! What up?” he shouts.

  “Chilling, chilling,” she says barely having any rap for him.

  “What you up to?” he asks.

  “Right now… trying to get Beeba to play in that pussy for us.”

  He’s stunned by her response. The word us sounds like music to his ears, to his own selfishness, hoping that this is leading to them getting together. He looks to his wife and gives her the head-nod to go on. “Do what she asked.”

  Beeba lifts her dress over her belly, but she’s hesitant to touch.

  “Give me the visual. Tell me what you doing,” Storm commands.

  “I’m just sitting here in the passenger’s seat with my dress pulled up to my stomach.”

  “Cool. Now put your left leg on the dashboard.”

  Beeba does as she’s instructed. “Okay. I did it.”

  “Now tease that clit for us, slowly though.”

  Beeba’s pussy is on fire right now. This whole scene has her steaming hot inside. She wastes no time doing what she was instructed to do. As her clit hardens, her teasing evolves into full blown petting. She’s so hot she can pop right now. She leans her head onto the headrest and closes her eyes. She quickly forgets that her husband is watching and loses herself in the moment. She gasps loudly with arousal.

  Jay, is turned on right now. Seeing his wife this hot and aroused turns him on crazy. He can barely drive. His eyes are off the road and on the action.

  “With your left hand pinch that clit gently. With your right hand I want you to two-finger my pussy,” she commands.

  Referring to Beeba’s pussy as hers sticks out in his mind. He’s noticed that it went from ours, to hers. It doesn’t sit well with him, but he rolls with it, hoping this will reel Storm into their trap. He watches as his wife squirms in the seat uncontrollably. The gushing sound of his wife’s wet pussy swishes loudly over the music that’s playing. He becomes jealous that someone else has her like this. He’s never witnessed her so wet. He can’t help but touch it himself, too. He rubs his fingers through her juices.

  “Can you fit three fingers in?”

  “I can try. It will be tight though,” she says as she’s inserting her fingers. “They in.”

  “It’s tight?” Storm asks.

  “Yes, really tight,” she says. She fingers herself slow and passionately to loosen herself up.

  “Now wind your hips for me.”

  “I am,” she says as she winds like a belly dancer.

  “How my pussy feeling?”

  “Horny as shit,” she grunts. “I need to cum. Can I?”

  “Tell me you wanna cum for me.”

  “I wanna cum for you,” she gasps. “Can I? I need to, right now.”

  The man sits back with envy. The fact that another woman has control over his wife, over the phone with no physical contact is a blow to his ego. “Yo, Storm, where you at? We trying to get with you.”

  “Pound that pussy with your three fingers for me and make it cum,” she says, totally ignoring the man.

  Beeba ignores his presence as well and does what she’s commanded to. She loses herself and pounds her pussy. “Here it come,” she screams. “Here it come. I’m cumming! Ah, yes!” she sighs. The orgasm controls her.

  Storm smiles with satisfaction. She realizes that she has total control of Beeba at this point. She’s controlled her pussy like a remote control car. The satisfaction comes from knowing that she now has control of her mind. Deep down inside, Jay knows this as well. He sits back in defeat, knowing that he has lost control of the one thing that he had total control over.

  With desperation, he speaks once again. “Where you at, Storm?”

  Storm ends the call, leaving Jay angered, while leaving Bee
ba panting for more and in more awe of her.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Homie Big Face pulls his Jeep Cherokee in front of the Seventeenth Avenue precinct in Newark. The passenger, a young woman dressed in a police uniform, leans over for a kiss. She sighs as she dreads going into work. She still isn’t used to working the overnight shift.

  As she steps out of the Jeep, Big face speaks. “Yo, do me a favor,” he says as he digs into the cup holder. He grabs a sheet of paper and hands it to the young woman. She reads it and identifies it as a license plate number. “Run that plate number and get an address for me.” The license plate number is who else but Storm.

  No, this young woman isn’t a cop. She’s a dispatcher. It’s all the same though for him. Having a plug inside of the police department has many perks. Using her to get home addresses of drug dealers gets him right to their doorsteps. He scored a few hundred thousand this way, in the few months the woman has been on the job. She’s his secret weapon.

  “Get on that ASAP,” he demands.

  “I got you.”

  60

  Days Later

  11:57 p.m.

  Storm cruises through the dark streets of the Portuguese section of Newark. Her business here is to link up with the beautiful Mexican girl from Emigrante. Araceli is her name, and she called Storm earlier today. With the aid of a translator, she told Storm how anxious she is to hear about any business opportunities that she may have for her. Storm, being the business woman that she is, didn’t hesitate to set up their meeting.

  Storm stops at the intersection for the red light. She spots Araceli and another woman standing in front of the bar, just as they said they would be. “There’s a parking spot, right there,” Toy says, pointing up ahead. Storm parks the car and they get out with no hesitation.

  Araceli’s eyes light up as she sees them coming across the street toward her. She points at them for her accomplice to see. Before they get onto the sidewalk, Araceli rushes her and gives her a huge hug. Storm is kind of uncomfortable with a stranger hugging her like this. She thinks very little of it because she knows many Latin women who are overly affectionate.

  “Hello,” Araceli says with her raspy but sexy voice. “Happy to see you again,” she says slowly as if she’s practiced saying this. Storm has to wiggle out of the hug because Araceli seems to not want to let go. A shadow appears over Storm’s shoulder. When she turns to look in that direction, she sees two short Hispanic men only a couple of feet away from them. Both of them dressed in all white, they glow in the darkness. They’re dressed identically in white sneakers, white T-shirt and white sweat pants. Their body language and their eyes tell her something isn’t right.

  She quickly thinks to reach for her gun just in case, but it’s already too late. Both men have their guns drawn and aimed at her. She backs up with her hands in submission, thinking that maybe it’s a robbery. She looks over to Araceli and the guilty look that is displayed on her face is a dead giveaway that she set all of this up.

  Storm studies their faces and tries to lock them both into her memory bank. They’ve caught her with her pants down right now, but she will surely get even with them. She pays key notice to their features and quickly comes up with the assumption that they must be from El Salvador. The shape of their heads is a clear indication, coupled with the flat-top, faded on the side, haircut one of them wears. The other one is bald-headed with tattoos all over his neck and some on his face. This seems to be the most aggressive one.

  She pays notice to the colored bead necklaces they both wear, wondering what they symbolize. The bald man grabs Storm while the other one grabs hold of Toy. They push the two of them in the same direction, down the block. The man who has Toy utters some words in Spanish, and Araceli and the other woman go into the bar. Toy is a nervous wreck and it shows. Every few steps she peeks over to Storm, hoping that she has a way to get them out of this.

  “Just take it all,” Toy says as she shoves her pocketbook in the man’s face. She’s heard so many stories of these men raping and robbing and murdering that she can already see the end results. “Please, take the money and go.”

  The man shoves the pocketbook, clearly letting them know that money isn’t what he wants. That leads her to believe he has plans of doing all she has heard of. She looks to Storm, who wears a cool and calm look even under this pressure. She has no time to be scared because her mind is too busy trying to figure out how she will get her hands on the gun that is in her bag. She knows this will be risky and things may get ugly, but she’d rather take her chances than to be at their mercy later.

  The men push them into the dark alley. The one with the flat top takes the leadership role. Clearly he’s the boss and the other one is just the enforcer. “What do you want down here?” he asks. His speech is shocking to them. With the strongly accented El Salvadorian features one wouldn’t expect him to be able to speak English at all.

  “You been down here three times this week passing out your business cards,” he says as he holds a stack of her cards in his hand. “You must don’t know the rules to this shit. These girls belong to me. They’re mine. They will never go anywhere with you,” he says, throwing the cards in Storm’s face.

  “I should blow your fucking head off, both of you,” he says as he points in her face. Storm can’t help but to notice the tattoo on his hand. She recognizes the M with the one and the three inside of it as a sign of the MS-13s. Seeing this triggers of thoughts of a possible way out of this.

  With desperation she reaches into her bag of tricks and hopes that it works. “Cypress? You know Cypress?”

  Hearing the name catches him off guard. Cypress is a high-ranking Latin King that she met many years ago. He took a strong liking to her just as she did him. They’ve done lots of business together over the years, but she hasn’t seen him in some time. Cypress is a Latin King, but he’s one that the MS-13s have a great deal of respect for. Anytime there’s a beef in between the two gangs, Cypress is the only one that can get it squashed.

  “What about him?” the man asks.

  “Just wondering if you know him. If by chance you do, ask him about me,” she says arrogantly.

  “I don’t care to know about you,” he barks. “And if I catch you down here getting in my way again you won’t be a problem to nobody else.” Storm flashes a cocky smile that frustrates the man. “You think this is funny, huh?”

  He says a few words in Spanish, and the other man starts dialing on his phone. He has the phone in his hand and the gun in the other. “He’s calling Cypress right now, and if he doesn’t know you, I’m gonna show you how funny this is. Since you think it’s a joke,” he adds.

  “Yo,” the man grunts into the phone. The man indulges in a conversation in Spanish before looking over to Storm. “Who are you? What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Tell him this Storm, Quiet Storm.”

  The man on the phone lowers his gun as he listens. He looks to his partner and speaks in Spanish. He lowers his gun as well which tells her the desperate attempt worked. The man hands her the phone. She grabs it with the same look of cockiness on her face that infuriated him.

  “Yo?” she says into the phone.

  “Storm, what up? Fuck you doing down there?”

  Her face lights up when she hears his voice. “You better tell this nigga about me, waving guns in my face and shit,” she says with no filter. She feels confident, knowing that they evidently want no trouble at this point.

  “Nah, nah, don’t worry about that. I got that.”

  “You know that’s a violation,” she continues on.

  “Nah, Storm, just cool out. Dude the real deal. Let me just handle it. We’ll all get together and talk this one out. Because shit can definitely get crazy, feel me?”

  “I’m the real deal, too,” she says in defense of her gangster.

  “You know I know that. Just breath
e easy, though. Let me handle it. Give him the phone. And come by the store tomorrow, so I can set this meeting up.”

  She sighs with agitation. “All right,” she says before passing the phone back over to the man. He speaks in Spanish on the phone. What he says they have no clue but what they do know is he’s leaving the alley and he’s instructed his partner to follow.

  The girls walk out a few steps behind them. Right now, Storm has free access to grab her gun and bang his brains out through his face. She laughs to herself that he could be such a fool. It’s obvious that he doesn’t know what type of bitch she can be.

  She doesn’t take that clear shot for two reasons. One reason, she prides herself on never shooting a man in the back of the head like a coward. The second reason is that Cypress put his seal of approval on her. To bust a move like this after a man has vouched for her would be very dishonorable. Regardless of the things that she’s done in life, sacrificing her honor isn’t one of them. She won’t take the shot tonight but that doesn’t mean she won’t take it on another night.

  * * *

  Just as Storm has gotten out of one sticky situation, another one is in the making. The homie Big Face pulls up a few houses away from Mr. Antonelli’s house. He looks to the man in the passenger’s seat. “Look at all them cars. Look like a fucking car show.”

  “Bitch eating like that?” a young man asks from the backseat.

  “Nah,” Big Face replies. “I did my homework. She fucking with some old white motherfucker. He own a Benz dealership. Old motherfucker fully loaded with that gwap. See what I always tell you about patience? Look how this shit fell right in our laps. We gon’ get revenge for my cuzzo’s death and we gon’ get some M’s out of it, too. I already got the perfect plan. Patience is the name of the game though.”

  61

  The Next Day

  Storm cruises along Bloomfield Avenue in the North Newark section. This section is predominantly Hispanic, and it is evident in appearance. Food trucks selling arroz con pollo, pushcarts selling fruit and cohito, corner bodegas with colorful and bright canopies and Spanish music blaring loudly makes the entire community look like it’s not even a part of the rest of the city. The traffic is even different. The small, older model compact cars with loud pipes and dark tinted windows fill the streets, making Storm’s Mercedes stick out like a sore thumb.