Dollar Bill

by Joy

  “Look at me,” Hennessey said to Dollar, who had his eyes closed. He was taking in every moment of being inside of Hennessey. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

  Dollar followed Hennessey’s orders and began looking into Hennessey’s eyes. He wasn’t even embarrassed as she witnessed the expressions on his face caused by the pleasurable feeling of being trapped by her walls. Formerly trapped between the walls of a jail cell, Dollar now felt trapped between the walls of paradise. He wanted to bottle up the way he felt.

  “Go faster,” Hennessey ordered.

  Dollar began to increase his pace. In and out of her he plunged, not breaking eye contact once.

  “Faster,” Hennessey ordered.

  Dollar pulled his dick out just enough to make sure the condom was in place before he pushed himself deep inside of her. Faster and harder he dove into Hennessey. He was on fire. He never wanted this feeling to end.

  The faster Dollar pumped, the wider Hennessey seemed to open up for him. Still staring into one another’s eyes, they ground and pounded like it was the end of the world, like it was the last time they would ever make love. Dollar could feel the blood rushing through his vessel.

  “I don’t want to cum yet,” Dollar said, attempting to ease up.

  “Fuck that,” Hennessey said as she grabbed hold of Dollars ass and pulled him hard against her. Hennessey whirled her hips, flexin’ her pussy muscle tight around Dollar’s penis, which made Dollar lose it.

  “Fuck,” Dollar said as he began to jerk inside of Hennessey.

  Sweat dripped off of his forehead onto Hennessey’s face. She felt as though she was drowning.

  “Oh, God,” Hennessey screamed.

  “Oh, shit, baby,” Dollar said.

  “Cum with me,” Hennessey said as she began to kiss Dollar.

  “Cum with me. I’m cummin’. Cum with me.”

  As the two climaxed together, they felt as though the room was spinning. They had both gotten caught up in the feeling. They were tipsy off of one another.

  Dollar and Hennessey lay in position breathing heavily for a few minutes.

  “Baby, you felt so good,” Dollar said, finally rolling off of Hennessey.

  “You too,” Hennessey responded. Hennessey stared into space as if her mind was a million miles away.

  “What’s wrong?” Dollar asked. “Did I hurt you or something?”

  Hennessey couldn’t help but softly chuckle. “No, you were great,” she replied.

  “Then what is it?” For the first time in a long time, Dollar actually gave a damn about somebody other than himself. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing,” Hennessey hesitated. “It’s nothing at all.”

  Dollar kissed Hennessey softly on her lips and lay down next to her, wearing what appeared to be a permanent smile.

  Hennessey turned away from Dollar and closed her eyes. For the next couple of hours Dollar watched Hennessey sleep. He watched over her like a mother bear does its cub. Something about looking at Hennessey lying there made Dollar want to protect her. He wanted to pick her up and run far away with her to a place where it was just the two of them, to a place where he could forget about the rest of the world. At the same time he felt safe and protected. It was a feeling he had long needed. At that very moment Dollar knew that his life was about to change.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Final Chapter

  Dollar spent the next day going over the plan with Ral. He sent Ral, with plan in hand, to relay to Tommy. Tommy might not have been trying to hear from Dollar, but he knew she would always have his back. When it came to Dollar Bill, her heart was more forceful than her head. Dollar wasn’t ignorant of this fact.

  With the big moment in their hustling careers being less than fourteen hours away, Dollar was in a zone. He hadn’t turned on any lights or the television. At the moment the only sound that could be heard was the sound of Tupac and Scarface coming from his CD player. “Born with less. . . .” The words echoed through Dollar’s head.

  The sudden ringing of Dollar’s cell phone made him jump to answer it. “Hello,” Dollar said.

  “I’ve got great news,” Hennessey said with excitement. “I’m on my way over to share it with you.”

  “Not tonight, Miss Lady,” Dollar said, as he lay in the bed in anticipation of the following day’s event. In all actuality, he wanted nothing more than to be able to make love to Hennessey again. But he couldn’t focus on that right now.

  “What do you mean not tonight? This is absolutely, positively the best news ever. I’m going to grab a bottle of Dom and I’m on my way.”

  “Hennessey, not tonight,” Dollar said with authority as silence occupied the phone line. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just that tonight is really bad. I got something really big going on in the morning, and I just need to get my mind right. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Hennessey said. “Now that you got what you wanted, you don’t have time for me.”

  That wasn’t the truth, and Dollar hated the fact that he had to allow her to think it was. He hadn’t gotten what he wanted from Hennessey, not by far.

  “You know it ain’t even like that,” Dollar said. “Look, Hennessey, I promise I’ll call you tomorrow. If all goes well tomorrow, things are going to be different between us, you’ll see. I promise.”

  Dollar hung up. He could hear Hennessey trying to get in one last word, but he closed the flap on his cell phone and closed his eyes. He felt bad, but he would make it up to her. But for now he needed to keep his mind focused and prepare for tomorrow. Although he adored Hennessey and wanted her to be a permanent fixture in his life, Dollar was in gangsta mode. No way was a bitch and her feelings coming before him and his money. Hennessey would be there after tomorrow. Opportunity might not.

  With the hit of his life hours away and the possibility of Hennessey being in his future, Dollar had shrugged off his self-loathing and got refocused. Dollar picked up his phone and dialed Tommy’s number. The voicemail picked up and Dollar left a message. “Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Eleven o’clock I need you, T.”

  It was 10:50 a.m. and Dollar was sitting across the street from the bank on a bus stop bench gnawing at his manicured nails. If he wasn’t gnawing on his nails he was tugging at the knit hat he had rolled up on top of his head. He was nervous, not at the fact that he was about to rob a bank for major paper, but that he wasn’t 100 percent certain that his backup would show.

  Tommy said she wasn’t with it, but Dollar knew in his heart Tommy wouldn’t let him down. She couldn’t. Ral was game, but if he got caught up in some pussy or the pipe, Dollar was screwed. But Ral had never, ever failed him before.

  But his attitude, as always, was fuck it. Many men had robbed a bank solo. He could pull it off. He had been in the bank a hundred times. He had cased the joint. He knew they only had two security guards and that one took a ten-minute break at 11:15 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. Tommy was to specifically occupy Hennessey’s attention while he and Ral handled their business as soon as the security guard left his post. He didn’t want Hennessey’s attention on him any longer than necessary, as she might surely recognize him.

  I gotta shit, Dollar thought as his stomach rumbled in knots. This was it, though. Dollar wasn’t about to turn back. Everything was going to go off without a hitch. He had to keep telling himself that.

  “In and out, nobody gets hurt,” Dollar recited. “I’m going in this bitch, get the loot, and live like a Don. Fuck it. If push comes to shove, I can do this shit. I don’t need them.”

  Tommy and Ral had been Dollar’s courage, his sidekicks who had always made him feel superior. But then he remembered Romeo’s words: “Whenever a cat gets iffy on you, like they wanna bitch out, cut ’em the fuck off. They useless.”

  This may very well have been the best advice his father could have given him.

  It was eleven o’clock and there was no sign of Tommy or Ral. All of Dollar’s money was
tied up in that bank. The quick easy change from Redd’s place was no more. He had to do this. He’d never bitched out of anything in his life. He could do it. He could do it alone; after all, he was Dollar Bill. Twenty-two minutes later, Dollar picked up the gym bag he had with him and headed inside the bank.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Dollar said to the single security guard standing at the bank entrance, underneath the surveillance camera. “Can you tell me where the deposit slips are?”

  “Oh sure,” the security guard answered.

  As the security guard turned to point, Dollar pulled his knit hat down over his face, grabbed the security guard’s hand and bent his arm behind his back. He removed the security guard’s gun from his holster and put it to his head. Lucky for Dollar, the fact that “all black people looked alike” would work in his favor.

  “Nobody fuckin’ move,” Dollar said at an even tone, not too loud, but loud enough for everybody to know he meant business. “Put your noses on the ground.”

  No one hesitated to follow their given instructions. With the security guard in hand, Dollar made his way over to one of the tellers. He then handed her the gym bag and ordered her to fill it with money. The teller nervously hit up every drawer in the joint before handing Dollar the overstuffed bag full of money.

  “Everybody count to one hundred Mississippis,” Dollar shouted. “If anybody tries to make a move before then, they’re dead.”

  Just then, Hennessey came running out of her office with gun in hand like she was one of Charlie’s Angels.

  “Detective Roe,” the guard shouted to Hennessey. “Get down. He’s got a gun.”

  “Detective Roe?” Dollar said, looking at Hennessey puzzled.

  Hennessey trembled as she stood before Dollar, staring him dead in his eyes with a gun of her own in hand.

  “Dareese,” Hennessey said. “I know that’s you. You don’t want to do this. Let me help you, please. You don’t want to go back to prison.”

  “Detective! You undercover? You a token?” Dollar shouted as he stood with his gun still aimed at the security guard’s head, but looking at Hennessey. “So this is why you always wanted to help me. I was just a job. I was strictly business to you. Didn’t want to get personal, huh?”

  “That’s not true. I wanted to help you, Dollar. You’re a good guy. I know you are. You just need a chance; someone to believe you. I believe in you.”

  Dollar let out a wicked laugh. “Yeah right.”

  “I do. Otherwise you think I couldn’t have busted your ass on those petty robberies a long time ago if I wanted to?” Hennessey replied.

  Dollar tried to hide the shocked expression on his face. Hennessey had been trailing him; waiting for him to mess up big time so that when they locked him up, there was no way he would ever get out again. Stealing fur coats and those other hits wasn’t the nail in the coffin like this, robbing a bank. Hennessey had told her superiors that she knew it was only a matter of time before Dollar went for something big. She’d been right; even though she had no idea his big hit would be that particular bank—as her luck and Dollar’s bad luck would have it.

  Everything in Dollar wanted to point the gun at Hennessey and blow her brains out. Dollar couldn’t believe this was happening to him. Dollar couldn’t believe he had been caught slippin’.

  “Come on, Dareese,” Hennessey said. “Let me talk to you for a minute. Just come back into my office so we can talk.”

  “I’m not going back to no fuckin’ office. You talk to me right here and right now damn it!” Dollar spat. “Why, Hennessey? Why’d you do this to me?” Dollar asked, trying to hide the visible hurt from her betrayal in his eyes. “I thought you and me could . . . Fuckin’ why?”

  “Ohio put me on you, to get in good with you. When you slipped, I was supposed to be there when you fell. You didn’t think they were really going to let a murderer walk free did you? I’m sorry, Dareese. God, I’m so sorry. You don’t know how bad I wanted things to be different, how many nights I thought about how cool it would be to know you in another life,” Hennessey confessed. “To help you. And I thought eventually I might be able to help you do right. That day I saw you here at the bank, I pulled you out of the line because I thought you were going to do something stupid then. But you really were here just to do business. It was then that a part of me hoped I was wrong about you. So I set you up with Mr. Alleghany; he was real. My superiors had no idea I had him helping you with investments. That’s something I did on my own. I thought maybe I could change you.”

  But you did change me, Dollar thought. “How in the fuck were you going to change me, Hennessey? Did you really think that ‘love conquers all’ shit was really going to work?”

  Hennessey gave no reply. She just held her gun on Dollar.

  “So when we made lo . . .” Dollar had to pause. He was so hurt and angry that he couldn’t get his words out. “When you slept with me, was that work?” Dollar asked.

  Hennessey remained silent.

  “So what if, hypothetically speaking, I did fall in love with you, you know, just say that I was really diggin’ you and decided to live in your world. Could we have, you know, been a couple?”

  “Dareese, please don’t.”

  “I just want to know, Hennessey.”

  Hennessey shook her head.

  “Speak the fuck up!” Dollar shouted. “I can’t hear you.”

  “No, no!” Hennessey answered. “I would have found some way to break it off with you, a job transfer or something. Then I would have gone back to Ohio with my husband and son.”

  “Husband . . . Son,” Dollar said, fighting so hard to hold in the tears that the pain of hearing Hennessey’s words created. “So that’s what all those seminars were, huh? Trips back to Ohio to be with your husband and son?”

  Dollar couldn’t believe it. All the women he’d done wrong, and the one he’d planned on doing right did him wrong. Karma was a bitch indeed. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go down. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Hennessey was going to be that woman who turned Dollar into an honest man, that woman who kept him honest. A woman like his mother.

  “But, I got good news for you, Dareese. Your investments, they shot through the roof.

  “You have enough money to live at the Waldorf-Astoria every day for the rest of your life damn near. That’s what I needed to tell you last night,” Hennessey said, as her infamous smile spread across her face.

  Dollar wasn’t smiling. He was paralyzed by a feeling of betrayal.

  “See, once again, I was looking out for you,” Hennessey said. “You think that money was really supposed to be getting invested? Hell no. That was me. I had the bank investor do it. He was none the wiser, but I went against protocol, for you. I put my job on the line . . . for you.” She then got serious again. “I tried to tell you about the money last night, but you wouldn’t listen. I could tell something was up just by the way you were acting on the call last night.” She shook her head, once again wishing she’d been wrong about Dollar. But the fact that the two were standing face-to-face with guns pointed was just another sign that he’d proven her wrong yet again . . . and for what could be the last time.

  “So please, don’t do this,” Hennessey pleaded.” Put the gun down. You’re only at an attempted armed robbery charge. You can walk out of here with as little as five years. After that, you can take all of your money and settle down, find a nice girl.”

  “Five years.” Dollar laughed, interrupting Hennessey’s lie. “I’m a fuckin’ ex-felon who was in for life who got out on a wild card. Do you think all I’m gon’ get is five years? Hell they wanted my black ass back in the joint from the moment they let me out. They never had any real intention on ever letting me live my life did they? They’ve been expecting me to fuck up. You’re proof of that. And when I did, I was going right back to jail, huh? Well fuck that, and fuck you, bitch. I ain’t going back to jail.” Dollar cocked his gun.

  “We can work this out. I’ll
help you. I’ve looked out for you thus far,” Hennessey said, still overlooking the fact that this was strictly business and that her relationship with Dollar was for hire. Hennessey had tried so hard not to look deep enough within him to find the good. But she knew underneath his hard exterior was a young man with dreams from the ghetto who got caught up in reality’s nightmare.

  “You’ll help me, huh?” Dollar said doubtful.

  “I’m helping you now!” Hennessey lowered her tone. “Why the fuck you think the cops haven’t already busted through those doors and blown your head off? Because I didn’t call for backup. That’s why. But if you don’t think one of them broads behind the counter hasn’t already alerted the police somehow, you’re kidding yourself. And what do you think is going to happen when they see you aiming a gun at one of their own?”

  Dollar paused before speaking. “They’re gonna do what you ultimately set out to do. See me dead. Because if it comes down to it, you’ll put a bullet right through my head, won’t you?”

  Hennessey swallowed hard but didn’t speak.

  “Say somethin’ goddamn it!” Dollar said as he jerked the gun, scaring the security guard and forcing Hennessey to cock her weapon. “Oh, it’s like that?” Dollar said to her.

  “Please, Dareese,” Hennessey pleaded.

  “Stop fucking calling me that. My name is Dollar, Dollar Bill, muthafuckas. Y’all hear that?” Dollar said to the people in the bank as he removed the knit hat from over his face. “Dollar, Dollar Bill, y’all!”

  “Okay, Dollar,” Hennessey said in an apologetic tone. “Just think, when you get out, you’ll be a rich man. You’ll have something to look forward to.”

  At this point Hennessey’s words created an internal inferno in Dollar’s body. His eyes bulged with tears as he gripped the gun tighter. He didn’t know how much longer he could go on with this alone. He had never expected to be broken down like this. He needed his backup.

  Where the fuck are my boys? was all Dollar could think. The three of them could have handled this shit. It didn’t have to be so fucked up. Dollar gazed over at the door hoping to see Tommy and Ral coming through it.