Lickin' License Part 2: More Sex, More Saga

by Intelligent Allah

  Chanel's mouth was open, her eyes wide and glued to Domingo. “Keep going.”

  “Good news is they reached out to me for help, ya heard?”

  “And Candy?”

  “They three-way been a wrap for a minute. They broke up because Candy wanted to let y'all live. They don't know where she is,” Domingo said, then continued building on his lie.

  “So I was right?”

  “What?”

  “Rich. I knew he had something to do with killing Leah.”

  “Him and Vanessa. Remember Mimi said it was two people. But Vanessa was the one who shot first.”

  “That Bohemian broad really bustin' her gun?”

  “Y'all made a monster, now y'all gotta end her career. Her and Rich, ya heard?”

  “This shit is crazy.”

  “What's more crazy is they planning to move on y'all at the Father's Day Tournament tomorrow.”

  “How they know we gonna be there?”

  “Evidently you must've mentioned it in the shop around Vanessa back in the day.”

  “You right. I tried to get Candy and Vanessa to come before, but something came up. They know I go every year and Meisha and Leah be there with me.”

  “Vanessa got a good memory.”

  Chanel shook her head. “I can't believe this shit. They tried to rock us to sleep for over two years, then get at us.”

  “My suggestion is that everybody fall back from the Father's Day Tournament, then we meet to discuss this. Everybody involved.”

  “I'll talk to everybody and set up a place to meet.”

  Domingo nodded. He rubbed his hand over Chanel's cheek. “Ma, you know I wasn't gonna let nothin' happen to you.”

  “I know.”

  “That's why I put you on first before everybody else. On some real shit, I'll hurt something for you, ya heard?”

  Chanel smiled.

  Domingo leaned forward and kissed her, pecking her lips, then working his tongue inside of her mouth. To his surprise, she submitted. She was usually adamant that kisses were off the menu, because that level of passion was reserved for the type of loving relationship that exceeded their mere sexual episodes.

  Chanel's eyes stayed on Domingo's as they parted from their kiss. “Thanks for telling me.” She was on the verge of crying. “I could've really got killed tomorrow. I owe you.”

  Domingo kissed away her tears and hugged her. “As long as I can help it, ain't nothin' gonna ever happen to you.” He rubbed her back and then looked her in the eyes. “Don't worry, Vanessa and Rich gonna get it.”

  * * *

  There was a tenseness that permeated Vera's living room. Domingo was sitting on a sofa beside Chanel. Meisha was beside her. Mimi sat in a recliner and Vera was pacing in front of the window. Since people began arriving twenty minutes earlier, there was a lot of small talk to pass the time. Everyone had been briefed on the drama and warned not to attend the Father's Day Tournament that was in full swing. Instead, they began piling into Vera's apartment.

  Domingo was tweeting on his iPhone, but his mind was on the meeting set to soon start. He had been preparing all night on how to manage the people in attendance. The objective was to have Vera's brothers kill Rich and Vanessa. Not only were they qualified to murder, they were qualified to track down Rich and Vanessa if Domingo was unable to.

  “It's about time,” Vera said.

  “They here?” Chanel asked as Vera gazed out of her window.

  Vera nodded.

  “Showtime,” Domingo mumbled to himself. He logged off of Twitter and put away his smartphone. While he was the youngest in the room, he knew it would be his responsibility to steer Jahiem and Tahiem in the direction he wanted. The two brutish thugs were renegades-the type of guys who lived within the street culture of crime but had little respect for rules. What they liked they took, with few exceptions. They had no problem shitting where they lived and getting high on their own supply was reality for the gunslingers who often dabbed in selling Ecstasy.

  The intercom rang. Vera buzzed her brothers in. Within minutes, they walked into the living room followed by her.

  Jahiem and Tahiem were the shortest, but most dangerous people in the room. They each sported baggy jeans in an era of skinny jeans. It was part of their renegade attitude. Jahiem donned a long Inspired By Brooklyn t-shirt with a slew of Brooklyn neighborhoods printed on the back. He walked over and kissed Mimi as Tahiem made his way into the living room. Domingo could see the print of each of their guns on their waistlines.

  “What it is?” Jahiem said, before sitting on the empty couch with his twin brother.

  Tahiem simply nodded his head. He was the more discrete of the two, but just as dangerous.

  Being in their presence reminded Domingo of the caliber of individuals he was dealing with. The Twins were identical in their chocolate skin tone, chiseled faces and short bushy `fros. But the brothers had different demeanors. Yet they shared a love for drama that was infamous in Red Hook. Domingo had seen them in action. They had been the only two people to walk away from a six-man shootout.

  Jahiem turned to Domingo with a sinister look. “This shit true what my sister say about Rich and Vanessa?”

  “I don't see why Vanessa and Rich would lie to me.”

  “Then the question is, 'Why they even come to you?'“ Jahiem said, leaning forward, his eyes trained on Domingo with a focus that would intimidate most people. But not Domingo.

  “When you 'bout your business, you don't have to chase customers, ya heard?”

  Tahiem interjected. “Highest bidder.”

  His brother looked at him and nodded, then turned to Domingo. “We all know your loyalty is to the highest bidder. But you want us to believe you turned down whatever they threw at you and ain't nobody in this room lining your pockets?”

  Domingo grinned. He had prepared for this question all night. “Of course, I like to get gwap. And I'm sure if y'all get your hands on Rich, he'll point us in the direction of that paper he sittin' on.”

  Jahiem looked at his brother, Vera, then back to Domingo. “So this ain't about saving us from some drama, it's about you cakin' off?”

  “It's about killing two birds with one stone. If I didn't care about everybody in this room, everybody who was planning on going to the Father's Day Tournament would be duckin' bullets right now.”

  Jahiem nodded slightly and then looked at Tahiem before refocusing on Domingo.

  “Ain't no reason Rich and Vanessa shouldn't pay with they life and they money, ya heard?”

  Jahiem said, “Get at me tomorrow.” He looked at the women in the room. “Y'all keep a low profile. This shit will be dead in a minute.”

  Domingo watched Jahiem pull Mimi to the side and talk to her for several minutes, before kissing her. He then left the apartment with his brother.

  Vera locked the door behind them. It felt unusual for Domingo to be in a room full of women who had watched him conspire to commit murder. He had thought long and hard about having them present. Ultimately, he knew they had all conspired to kidnap Candy, so he felt they were capable of keeping their mouths closed. Domingo also felt it was important for them to witness the Twins commit to handling the problem, because everyone in the room knew the Twins were capable of murder and lived by their word. So having the women present was a way for Domingo to assure that they remained calm about a serious situation, which he may not have been able to assure them of a resolution.

  “So you gonna let the Twins take all the money?” Chanel whispered to Domingo.

  “That's a small thing to a giant. And this ain't really about money.” Domingo paused, then lowered his voice another notch. “This is about making sure nothing happens to you. I don't really care about the rest of these broads. My obligation is to you.”

  Mimi stood up. “This shit is crazy.

  “What?” asked Meisha.

  “Everything. I knew Vanessa since she was on some straight lame shit in college.” Mimi laughed. “Now this chick o
ut here planning to murder me. I knew she was poison when she flipped on me and started hangin' with y'all.” Mimi shook her head and slapped her hands together. “She thinks she's so damn smart, but she never knew I was messing with Jahiem.”

  Domingo kept his eyes on Mimi. He knew she was the one person in the room who knew Vanessa on a different level. Even though Vanessa's three-way relationship had driven Mimi to cross her in a jealous rage, Domingo still wondered about where Mimi placed her loyalty.

  “The crazy shit is they killed Leah,” Chanel chimed in.

  “Pregnant Leah,” Mimi added.

  Meisha shook her head and said, “Makes you realize it can happen to any of us.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CANDY

  Candy sat in a desolate jail cell thinking about how her life had slipped out of her control. Outside of all the drama she had experienced following her kidnapping, nothing had affected her like what she experienced since handcuffs had been clamped on her wrists. The cramped back seat of the patrol car, the hours she spent being processed in the system, the humiliation of being strip searched, the corrections officers who barked at her, the detainees who saw her as prey because of her New York accent and shapely figure; the list of reasons that caused Candy to yearn change were endless.

  She laid back on the thin mattress in the roach-infested cell, gazing at the water stains on the ceiling. “Why and how?” she questioned herself. Why had life been so cruel to her? How had she not seen the women she considered family plotting her downfall?

  It was Father's Day, so Candy had been having negative thoughts all day. She was frustrated about what could happen to Vanessa. Candy had called Rich and learned that he was having trouble finding Vanessa. She had checked out of the hotel. Rich had driven past the Father's Day Tournament a few times, finding no sign of Vanessa or her intended targets. But it was only 3:00, so Candy knew there was time left for the beef to unfold.

  “Hey.” The New York accent startled Candy. She took her eyes off the ceiling to find a pretty twenty-something woman with cornrows and smooth skin that was as black as her hair. “Take this.” The woman squeezed a large bag through the cell bars.

  “I don't need nothing,” Candy said, rising from the bed. She had never been incarcerated before, but her life in the streets taught her that everything came with a price.

  “Guess you like having ashy skin and an empty stomach.” The woman laughed. “It's some cosmetics and food in there. Ain't none of these country-ass chicks around here gonna give you nothin' but an ass whippin' or a STD, so take it.”

  Candy walked over to the cell bars, reaching through them to shake the woman's hand. “Thanks.”

  “I'm Danette. I'm from Brooklyn.”

  “I'm from Harlem. You can call me Candy.”

  Danette said she had been locked up for the past nine months after the police stopped her for speeding in her boyfriend's Bentley. He was a dope kingpin from Brooklyn who had moved to Atlanta with her two years prior. “They was lookin' for him for a murder and it just so happened he had a gun under the seat.”

  “Damn,” Candy said, shaking her head.

  “Last I heard, he was on the run in Texas.”

  “That's fucked up.”

  “Fuck-ups are the story of my life.”

  “I got my share.” Candy told Danette about Zora finding her having sex with Rich and everything that unfolded.

  “That's a bullshit assault charge. You'll make bail as soon as you get one in court.”

  “Shit has a way of not working out as planned for me.”

  “Long as old boy put a muzzle on old girl, you'll be all right.”

  “If.”

  “Even if he don't, a good lawyer can get you probation. But you gotta be easy when you get out, 'cause they'll make a chick do that probation time in here if you slip up again.”

  Candy listened to Danette speak of her plans to begin her life over. “No more hustlers and thugs for me. If I even think a guy know the difference between China White and Purple Haze, or he got a bulge on his waist instead of one between his legs, I ain't fuckin' with him.”

  “I hear you.”

  “You better, 'cause this shit is real in here and I'm not never comin' back, so ain't no use having no man on his way in.”

  As Candy listened to Danette, she realized how lucky she and Vanessa had been. They had killed Chase and avoided capture. They had even killed Leah and her husband without a problem. Plus, they had beaten up Zora in the MGM Grand. Candy realized that it was their escape from any repercussions that had convinced them they could continue breaking the law and making enemies. But sitting in a jail cell for her second assault on Zora was a reminder that she was not untouchable.

  “I'm a find me a good man that's about his business, that ain't about all this bullshit. Have some kids and raise them right. How my moms tried to raise me before I started chasing behind these guys that bust the gun and sling drugs.”

  Candy couldn't help but think of Rich. I already got a good man. A man who was schooling me to all this shit from experience. Only if I would've listened to him.

  * * *

  The following day, everything seemed different as Candy walked out of jail, peering at Rich leaning against his Audi. The air seemed fresher, her body seemed lighter. Even her vision was clearer. More importantly, she was thinking sharper. She knew that life was more than what she had settled for and she was destined to get everything good it had to offer.

  Rich's face lit up as he stepped toward Candy, kissed her and hugged her. “Missing you is an understatement.”

  Candy held him tight, silently savoring the feeling of security and love that she craved. “I'm sorry.”

  Rich leaned back, his hands around Candy's waist as he gazed into her eyes. “Sorry?”

  Candy nodded. “I should've listened to you a long time ago.” She began telling Rich about her prison experience and the new outlook Danette helped her discover.

  “Forever forward, never backward,” Rich said. He opened the door of his car and closed it after Candy got inside.

  In seconds, they were rolling. Rich wheeled the Audi with one hand, the other hanging off the door, inside the car. The crooning of “Love Faces” by Trey Songz reverberated at a low level. “I got two tickets to New York,” said Rich. “We going straight to the airport.”

  “Tell me something good about Vanessa.”

  Rich shook his head. “She ain't returning my calls. And I slid by the Father's Day Tournament a few more times after we spoke. Nothing.”

  “Chanel and them either?”

  “Nothing.”

  “At least we know Vanessa didn't go through with the plan,” said Candy.

  “She could've changed it.”

  “What you mean?”

  “What if she decided to get at them at a different location?” Rich asked. “It would explain why none of them showed up.”

  Candy pulled out her phone and called Vanessa. “Voicemail,” she said. “Vanessa, this is Candy. Please call me as soon as you get this. I'm on my way to New York and I need to see you. Love you.” She slammed the phone in her lap and frowned.

  Rich rubbed her thigh. “Don't worry, baby. Don't worry.”

  Candy wiped her eyes and picked up the phone from her lap.

  “Who you calling?”

  “Domingo.”

  “Hell no! You know I had words with him about y'all?” Rich asked the rhetorical question before retelling the story of his latest call with Domingo.

  “He's all we got as a link to Vanessa.”

  Rich paused and let out a deep breath. “Call him.” He shook his head. “Fuck it.”

  Candy phoned Domingo.

  “Mamita, what's good?”

  “You tell me?”

  “Did sparks fly on the Fourth?”

  “The girls didn't wanna play ball,” Candy said, referring to Chanel and the others not showing up at the Father's Day Tournament. “I was hoping you could tell me
why they was on the bench?”

  “Last minute game in Atlantic City. But they was still supposed to be back before the last quarter. That's why I asked you about sparks flying.”

  “All right. Just remember you getting paid good money to ref this game, so we expecting you to make the call on stuff like that.”

  “Got you, Mamita.”

  “All right.”