by Noire
They rushed the door when they saw Salida standing there, and everyone started wailing and crying like crazy. Monique elbowed her way inside and stood in the middle of the living room looking and feeling out of place. She had never been all that fond of Brooklyn. It was so big and crazy compared to Harlem, and in her opinion Brooklyn tricks were grimier and more cut-throat than those in any other borough.
She only planned to stay for a hot minute, because even though Salida’s people were jumping up and down and crying and singing with joy at seeing her alive, a few of her female relatives were sitting around looking at Monique like she was a dark stain on a piece of used toilet tissue.
“Call me,” Monique told Salida as she broke for the door. She had already written her phone number on a slip of paper and given it to the older woman. “I’ll have somebody swing by and bring you to the G-Spot whenever you feel like hanging out, okay?”
“The G-Spot?”
A lady who was hugging on Salida spit loudly and with mad attitude. Monique glared at the woman and her eyes almost popped out her head when she thought she was seeing double. This chick and Salida looked just alike. From head to toe, they could have been beautifully stunning, identical twins.
“Isn’t that G’s old place?” the woman demanded.
“It’s okay, Lourdes,” Salida said.
“Uh-uh! Hell no, it’s not okay!” Lourdes glared at Monique with Salida’s exact same eyes. “That’s G’s place, right? The place where they tried to kill Gino? Why would my sister wanna go there?”
“Gino!” Salida entire face lit up at the mention of his name. “Where is my son?” she demanded loudly. “Is he here? Where’s my Gino?”
Salida’s crazy eyes darted around the room and Monique’s did too. The joint was packed out but there was no Gino in sight.
“Gino, Gino, Gino, Gino…” Salida sang in a high-pitched voice. “Gino, Gino, Gino, Gino, Gino…”
“Your son’s away at college,” Lourdes said, gently placing her arms around Salida as she tried to hush her and steer her toward a back room.
Monique paused with her hand on the doorknob. She cocked her ears like a hunting dog as she listened closely, hoping to learn Gino’s whereabouts.
“Gino’s doing fine,” Lourdes continued when Salida kept calling her son’s name and refused to budge from where she stood. “Your son is happy, and he’s doing really good in school. Getting all A’s.”
“But he should be here!” Salida wailed. “I’m his mama. He’s my baby! I wanna see him!” she pleaded with tears in her eyes.
“Soon,” her sister said gently, soothing Salida like she was a sleepy child. “Please don’t cry. You’ll see Gino soon. I promise.” Suddenly Lourdes turned and glared at Monique. There was no mistaking the ‘get the fuck out already!’ look on her face.
Monique knew the deal. She opened the door and stepped outside. She was closing the door slowly behind her when she heard Lourdes say to Salida, “Gino is doing fine, chica. Come. Sit with me and I’ll tell you all about him.”
CHAPTER 13
Two nights later, at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday night to be exact, Monique closed the door on fuck room number 3 and pushed a wrinkled fifty-dollar bill down into her bra. She had just finished flat-backing in one of the G-Spot’s hottest rooms, and she was still damn near broke. She was heading to the bathroom to wash up when she heard a big commotion going on at the front door.
A tall, regal woman had pushed past Greco and swept through the doors lugging two expensive suitcases behind her.
“What’s wrong, Mizz Salida?” Monique cried out as she hurried over to the distraught woman. “Hey, what happened? Why didn’t you call me so I could send a car down to pick you up?”
“Gimme a drink,” Salida demanded, abandoning her suitcases and marching over to the bar. She snapped her finger at Bizzie, who opened his sissy-ass mouth to curse her out. He thought better of it when Ace walked up and checked him with a quick nod.
Monique and Ace waited while Bizzie poured Salida a double shot of hen dog. She tossed it back like it was sweet tea, and then slammed her glass on the bar and signaled for another one.
“You okay, Mizz Salida?” Ace asked, his big hand patting her shoulder. “What happened? Somebody been fuckin’ with you?”
Monique passed Salida a cigarette and Ace pulled out his lighter and sparked it.
“I need somewhere to stay,” Salida said after exhaling a thick funnel of smoke from her nose.
“Sure,” Monique cooed sweetly. She looked Salida over and thought about that envelope full of money that Ace had given her. Bitch, get a hotel! “That ain’t no problem. You can stay with me and Pluto. We got plenty of room. Things ain’t working out for you in Brooklyn?”
Salida sniffled, and to Monique’s surprise tears began streaming from the older woman’s eyes as she sobbed into her hands.
Mrs. McKay suffers from terrible mood swings…up one minute, down the next…you never know what you’re gonna get out of her…be sure to keep her on her medication at all times….
“Mizz Salida,” Monique cooed, putting her arm around the crying woman, “you sure you should be drinking liquor while you taking all that medication?”
Salida stopped crying and looked up sharply. “What goddamn medication? I threw all that shit in the trash! They pushed them damn pills into me for over ten years. I ain’t taking so much as a vitamin for the rest of my life!”
“Okay, then what’s wrong, Mizz Salida? Why you so sad?”
“Who the hell said I was sad?” Salida snapped, glancing around in confusion. “Who said it?”
A bent, bitter look crossed her face as her tears dried up. “Those bitches don’t know me. They think they can hide my baby from me like I’m crazy. Do I look dead to you?” she demanded.
Monique shook her head quickly. Mama was straight up coo-coo, but her interest had suddenly shot up to the highest peak. “Nah, you look real live from where I’m sitting at, Mizz Salida. But what bitches you talking about? Who’s been hiding your baby? Gino’s a big man now. You not talking about your sisters, are you?”
Salida ignored the slick young girl in her ear. She had already peeped her game and would give Monique her full attention later. When she could be useful. Right now she was just a mouthpiece. Talking all out of her ass.
She puffed on her cigarette and tried to concentrate as random thoughts and phrases floated around in her head. It had only been two days since she’d left the hospital and she was still drugged up and confused. But soon she would be better. Very soon. She laughed inside. Damn right there was a reason G had locked her up all those years ago and tried to throw away the goddamn key. And it wasn’t because she was crazy like he told everybody, neither.
No, it was because she was smart. Way smarter than his ass was. If it hadn’t been for her slick advice and cunning counsel G would still be wandering around Harlem scratching out a hustle under Big Sonny.
Salida motioned for Bizzie to bring her another drink. When it came she flung it back and then held the empty glass up to her lips until the very last residue of liquor dripped onto her outstretched tongue. She’d been living in a dark tunnel for more than ten long years, but now that she was off all those psycho-buster mental pills she was counting on her slick mind and her devious wit to come back in full force.
Yes. Salida shook her head again and willed herself to focus and control her thoughts. Yes, yes. She was coming back! She knew her knack for scheming and calculating might return very slowly, but she also believed her skills would come back stronger and more potent than ever!
$$$$$
After slipping away from Salida and going to wash up, Monique reappeared at the bar smelling clean and fresh, and ready to get her buzz on. She usually popped a tab of X or something to help her get through the long nights of grinding on her back, but she decided to stick to Grey Goose and juice so she could keep a focused eye on Salida.
With her hair laid nicely and st
yling a short red freak ’em dress, Monique had just sat down at the bar when one of the G- Spot’s former strippers came over to chat.
“Hey Mo,” Nae-Nae greeted her and climbed up on the stool beside her. “What’s good homegirl?”
“Long time no see,” Monique said eyeing the ex-church-girl-turned-stripper with a big grin. “Girl, what you doing up this way? I heard you moved down to Brooklyn. Where’s that cute little fella of yours?”
Nae-Nae smiled at the mention of her son. “You should see Maleek. He’s almost two now and talking like I don’t know what. He’s still staying down the street with my mother. You know my father opened a jewelry store in Brooklyn after he got kicked outta the church. I work down there with him during the week and I come up here to be with my baby on the weekends.”
“Yeah, I heard about your old devilish dick-slanging pops,” Monique said with a wicked glint in her eye. “Papa was a rolling stone, wasn’t he? While you was up in here stripping on the stage, his old nasty ass was tearing up some poon-poon in the pulpit!”
Nae-Nae’s face fell and she looked embarrassed. “Yeah, well ain’t none of us perfect. We all have our troubles in this life. My daddy was a pastor, but he’s still a man. Hey,” she said, perking up a little bit and pointing down the bar to change the subject. “What’s she doing up in here? She’s from Brooklyn.”
“Who?” Monique asked as she scanned the row of patrons who were sitting where Nae-Nae pointed.
“That real pretty Puerto Rican lady in the blue,” Nae-Nae said, and started waving at Salida. “She’s so nice! I cleaned a stupid-sick engagement ring for her about a week ago.”
“Nah,” Monique shook her head. “You didn’t clean no ring for that trick because she just got out the nut-house two days ago.”
“Oh yes I did,” Nae-Nae insisted. “That’s her. She waited while I cleaned the ring, and me and her talked for the longest. She’s so damn pretty there’s no way I could forget that face.”
Monique’s eyebrows furrowed as her mind shifted into high gear. “You said you cleaned an engagement ring for her?”
“Yep. It was a block of straight-up ice. She said her nephew was getting married out in Los Angeles and she wanted it nice and shiny so she could send it to him.” Nae-Nae shook her head. “But on the real, that thang was sick, Mo-Mo. It made all the tiny shit my father sells look like little ice chips.”
“Hmm…” Monique was deep in thought. “Are you sure it was her?”
Nae-Nae glanced down the bar again. “Hell yeah. I can go over there and get with her right now. I know she remembers me because we ran our mouths together forever.”
“No-no-no-no!” Monique said, hand-checking Nae-Nae before she could slide off her stool. “I believe you. Did she mention her nephew’s name?”
Nae-Nae shook her head. “Nah, I ain’t ask her all that. She just said he was getting married in L.A. and that she was sending him his mother’s ring. It was her, though. I swear to God it was her.”
Monique squeezed her thighs together as she tingled with glee inside. It was a long shot, but she was damn near willing to make a bet on it. If the woman Nae-Nae had spoken to was who Monique thought she was, then she could see why Nae-Nae had mistaken her for Salida. Monique had met her too, and them two pretty Puerto Rican divas looked just alike!
$$$$$
Monique had fixed up her couch like it was a queen’s throne for Salida. She topped it with freshly ironed sheets, four fluffy goose-down pillows, and a thick purple velour blanket that had never been used.
An insomniac would have gotten a good night’s sleep on that bad boy, but Salida never closed her eyes the whole damn night. And this Monique knew because she’d snuck out into the living room several times to check.
No wonder G kept her bugged-out ass on lock, Monique thought as she peeked around the fish tank and spied on Salida. That nut was sitting straight up on the couch still dressed in her cute blue dress. She was rocking back and forth and crying one minute, then cursing somebody out real good under her breath the next.
Yawning and pretending like she couldn’t sleep, Monique walked through the living room in a pair of yellow bikini panties and a matching t-shirt and went into the kitchen. She took a box of instant hot cocoa out the cabinet and turned around and held it up so Salida could see it.
“Want some?”
Salida nodded, and Monique spent the next five minutes microwaving two big cups full of hot chocolate until they were steaming.
After adding milk and sugar to the mix, she carried both mugs over to the couch where Salida sat and put them on the table. Then she plopped down on the purple blanket where her houseguest was still rocking back and forth and went to work.
“It must be real hard being back in New York after being gone for so long. Everything probably looks real strange to you. I bet you missed a lot of people too. Especially your son.”
Monique picked up her mug from the table and held it carefully. Salida was rocking so damn hard she was scared she might make her spill the hot liquid all over herself.
“He was around here not too long ago, you know,” Monique said slyly. “Me and him used to hang out a lot.”
“Gino?” Salida stopped rocking. “You talking about my boy?”
Monique nodded and sipped. “Yeah. He’s a grown-ass man now, though. He’s even taller than G was, and swole up too. Real smart dude. G woulda had him running things in Harlem by now if it wasn’t for that bitch Juicy.”
“Juicy?” Salida sniffed. She snatched a cigarette from the open pack on the table and lit it.
Monique shrugged. “Hell yeah. Juicy. She’s just some low-down young bird from 136th Street. Your sisters didn’t tell you about her? She’s the chick who got between G and Gino. She had ’em tearing at each other’s throats all out in the streets and shit. Them two was real tight before Juicy came along and ruined everything. You shoulda seen how close they used to be. Gino loved his father, and G was always bragging on his son.”
Salida kept smoking, but now tears were in her eyes. “But how could G turn his back on our baby like that?” she moaned, her face crumpling with pain. “What happened to the two of them?”
“Like I said….” Monique got ready to spin a long tale, “That young bitch Juicy came along and ripped them apart. Some kinda way she caught G slippin’. She got in real deep with him and got him open. Man, Juicy had G tricking up all his money on her and her brother, and leaving Gino out of everything! I guess Gino musta started feeling real lost and left out behind that shit. He told G he was gonna have to choose between his son and his bitch. Juicy probably saw her dollars turning into cents, because the next thing everybody knew she started banging Gino! After that, the father-son relationship was definitely over. From what I heard, Juicy’s brother is the one who murdered G. I think the cops was looking for Juicy to see if she had anything to do with it, but her and Gino ran off somewhere together.”
Monique spent the next twenty minutes dropping funky loads of bullshit into Salida’s ear. She told her all kinds of dirty, scandalous lies about Juicy, making up shocking incidents of greed and manipulation as she went along. She really sold that shit, too. She invented devastating tales of betrayal between Gino and G. She painted a picture of Juicy that was so ugly and evil that by the time she finished yapping Salida’s eyes were red from crying and her lips were tight with rage.
“So,” Monique finally concluded. She had the mother in Salida on boil, and she could actually feel the steam coming off the older woman. “Nobody knows where Gino and Juicy ran off to. Ain’t nobody been able to find them. But from what people say, Juicy ain’t never gonna let Gino come back to Harlem. You probably ain’t never gonna get your son back, Mizz Salida. That’s word. Never.”
Hearing that, Salida cried out like she had been punched. She snatched Monique’s cigarettes from the table and took the last one out of the pack.
“Oh, my poor Gino,” she said pounding the tip of the cigarette on the table be
fore sparking it up and puffing on it real hard. “My baby boy is lost to me!” she wailed, her eyes running like a faucet. “G was supposed to take care of him! How could he let a piece of tail tear them apart?”
I got her crazy ass going! Monique cheered inside. Now all she had to do was find a way to get some of that cash outta Salida’s pocketbook and her work would be done.
Her chance came at about ten o’clock that morning. Her and Salida had stayed up talking for hours, and Monique had just gone back to her room and dozed off good when she heard the bathroom door slam shut. She jumped out of bed and peered down the hall before tiptoeing past the fish tank.
The living room was empty, and the sound of water running in the bathroom sink met her ears. Quicker than shit, she dashed across the room and over to Salida’s big-ass pocketbook and rifled through the bag.
There was all kinds of shit in there! An open bag of onion and garlic potato chips, some red nail polish, a wad of balled up tissue, a pack of purple Violet candy, and…a fat-ass envelope stuffed with doe.
The sound of the flushing toilet made Monique jump. She slid a chunk of hundred-dollar bills outta the cash-fat envelope and pushed them down inside the crotch of her panties. Her naked titties jiggled under her t-shirt as she darted back toward her bedroom. She was right by the fish tank when the bathroom door opened and Salida stepped out.
“Good morning, Mizz Salida,” Monique whirled around and said brightly, but the look on the older woman’s face stopped her in her tracks. Salida’s eyebrows were furrowed, her nostrils flared, and her lips were pressed into a hard, vicious line. This chick is bent, Monique thought. Straight bent. “What’s the matter?” she asked, and for once she was seriously concerned.
Them damn tears were long gone. Salida looked like somebody in that bathroom had picked her pocket, fucked her man, and slapped the shit outta one of her kids.