by K'wan
“I love it when you get all jealous.” Zo pinched her cheek.
“Boy, cut it out before you ruin my makeup.” She swatted his hand playfully. Porsha pulled out her phone and glanced at the time. “We should probably get going. I know you wanna change your clothes before we head out, or do you plan on taking me to eat dressed like an extra in Paid in Full?”
Zo looked at his outfit. “This is classic Harlem, you better recognize. But yeah, I do wanna throw something else on right quick. Let’s bust a move.”
Zo and Porsha were making their way to the car at the same time Lakim was coming back from the liquor store, talking on his phone. Zo could tell from his body language it was a heated discussion. When he saw Lakim pause, crack the bottle, and take a deep swig, he knew shit had just gotten real.
“Word is bond, son. It’s about to be kufi-snatching season out here. I’ll see you in a few, peace.” Lakim disconnected the call.
“Everything good?” Zo asked.
“Nah, everything ain’t good. Some shit just went down. I need you to help me round up the troops so we can handle business,” Lakim told him.
“Oh, hell, no, not today, Alonzo,” Porsha said, calling Zo by his government name. “You’ve been promising to take me out all week, and you ain’t gonna pull this on me again.”
“Porsha, cool the fuck out. Take the car, and I’ll come meet you at your crib once I find out what’s going on.” Zo tried to hand her the car keys, but she just glared at him with her arms folded.
“Zo, I’ll be in the lobby waiting for you. Hurry up, B.” Lakim stormed off.
“Porsha—” Zo began, but she cut him off.
“Why are you always doing this, Alonzo? Every time we’re supposed to do something, I gotta take a backseat to Lakim, Ashanti, or whoever else needs your attention. Are you fucking them or me?” Porsha asked.
Zo sucked his teeth. “Go ahead with that dumb shit, Porsha.”
“It ain’t no dumb shit, Zo. You know what dumb shit is? Neglecting your girl so you can go play with your friends. I’m too old for this shit, Zo, and so are you.”
“Porsha, he’s my brother,” Zo said.
“Yeah, I know. He’s your brother, and I’m just the chick you claim to love. I guess there’s no contest. I’m so off this bullshit.” She snatched the car keys and headed back toward the Audi.
“I’ll be by to scoop you in an hour, I promise,” Zo called after her, but Porsha was already pulling out into traffic. He stood there and watched her peel out down Broadway, feeling like a complete dick because he’d broken yet another promise. He hated hurting Porsha, but Lakim was his older brother, and they were all they had. She was mad now, but eventually she’d get over it . . . or so he hoped. Adjusting the .357 in his pants, Zo turned and walked toward the building to meet Lakim. Whatever was going on had better be life-or-death, or Zo and his older brother were going to have an issue.
TEN
IT WAS A SMALL NOISE that brought Frankie Angels out of her sleep. It was so faint that the average person wouldn’t have heard it, but circumstances in life had left her anything but average. One of the benefits of being extremely paranoid was that it gave you super hearing. She cocked her head to one side, brain still heavy with sleep, and listened.
When Frankie heard the noise the second time, she knew she wasn’t bugging. Someone was fucking with the locks on the apartment door. With one hand, she pushed her long hair back from her face, while the other disappeared under the sofa she had been sleeping on. When it reappeared, it was holding a .380. Frankie slid from under the comforter and tip-toed across the floor, commando-style. She was wearing nothing but a tank top and a pair of purple panties that were almost swallowed by her supple brown ass. Around her neck she wore a black bandanna. It covered the scar from the slashing.
She peered around the corner to the foyer in time to see the doorknob wiggle. Her heart pounded in her chest. Frankie’s mind went back to the last home invasion, when Scar and his people rushed her apartment in the projects. She remembered the feeling of being violated, the touch of death as she lay on the floor, barely conscious. At that time, that was the closest she had ever come to death, but a few years later, getting her throat slashed on a stoop in Brooklyn trumped it. With those situations, and many others, it had been Frankie’s will to survive that carried her through. That was the story of her life; she was a survivor.
Frankie placed her hand over the doorknob. Her palm was sweating and left a print. She’d have to wipe it down later or take it with her when she left. She took a deep breath and held the .380 at eye level. Exhaling, Frankie snatched the door open and fingered the trigger. She was able to stop herself before she accidentally blew Porsha’s head off.
“What the fuck, Frankie!” Porsha jumped back, startled.
“Jesus, I thought you were a burglar.” Frankie lowered her gun.
“Who breaks into their own house?” Porsha snapped. “My key got stuck in that cheap-ass lock, and I was trying to wiggle it loose.”
“My God, I’m sorry, Porsha. I heard somebody messing with the locks, and I thought—”
“It’s fine, Frankie. Don’t worry about it.” Porsha walked into the living room. She was trying to act calm, but she was really scared shitless. This was the second time she had been greeted by a gun when she came home. Frankie had been staying with her for the past few weeks, and it had been quite an experience. When Frankie got out of the hospital, there was no way she was going back to the apartment in Brooklyn, so she found another spot. She had given the realtor every dime she had saved to cover the deposit and three months’ rent in advance, only to find out later that she had been scammed. She was flat broke and out on her ass, so Porsha took her in.
Porsha and Frankie had been roommates before, but this time, it was different. Frankie had been through some terrible things, and she wasn’t the same. She was paranoid and skittish. She barely left the house, and even when she did, it wasn’t without a pistol. She was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder but refused to admit it. Porsha wanted her to get help but didn’t force her. All she could do was be there as best she could for her friend during her trying times.
Porsha tossed her purse onto the couch and went into the kitchen, where she proceeded to raid the refrigerator. When she came out, she was carrying a cold bottle of tequila. She plopped down on the La-Z-Boy and screwed the top off the bottle. Forgoing a glass, Porsha took a deep swig.
“Well, damn, what’s going on with you?” Frankie asked. She’d never known Porsha to be much of a drinker, especially not that early in the evening.
“I’m just stressed out,” Porsha said in a huff.
“Porsha, I said I’m sorry about the whole gun thing,” Frankie said.
“It’s not you, Frankie. Zo just got me in my feelings,” Porsha told her.
“Trouble in paradise?” Frankie asked. She sat on the couch and tucked her legs beneath her.
“Paradise, my ass. I’m about sick of Zo and his bullshit. Every time we’re supposed to spend time, something comes up, and I have to take a backseat to his brother or one of his dumb-ass friends,” Porsha fumed.
“The life of a dope boy,” Frankie said. “Zo is out there chasing a dollar, so shit like this is to be expected.”
“I think I liked him better when he was working in the supermarket,” Porsha said.
Frankie gave her a disbelieving look. “Yeah, right, you wouldn’t give Zo the time of day when he was stacking boxes, but now that he’s stacking paper, that’s ya boo,” she joked.
Porsha looked offended. “Frankie, don’t come at me like that. I’d love Zo if he was up or down, so don’t act like I’m just in this for the paper.”
“I was just kidding, Porsha. Why don’t you relax?” Frankie suggested.
“I wish I could, but I’m wound up tighter than a clock. My job got me stressed, my parents are on my nerves, and I ain’t been fucked properly in a week. I’m about to go postal out this bitch!”
“Well, baby girl, when life gets me down, I look for guidance from the most high,” Frankie said.
“God?” Porsha asked.
“No.” Frankie plucked a rolled blunt from the ashtray. “The weed man, since he’s always the most high!”
Porsha laughed. “Frankie, your ass is shot out.”
“Indeed I am.” Frankie lit the blunt. “Now, why don’t you get shot out with me?” She extended the blunt to Porsha.
Porsha happily accepted the weed. The two girls smoked and caught the last half of a funny movie that was on cable. When the munchies kicked in, Frankie went into the kitchen and fried up some chicken wings. Frankie was as hard as any dude on the streets, but she was all woman when it came to the kitchen. Porsha smashed her wings while Frankie picked over hers. She was laughing at the jokes in the movie they were watching, but Porsha could see something was troubling her. Frankie had a great poker face, but Porsha had known her so long that it was transparent to her.
“What’s on your mind, Frankie Angels?” Porsha asked.
Frankie gave a weak smile. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to someone who knows you,” Porsha said. “Now, what’s good?”
“Same shit, just stressing over this shitty hand life has dealt me. I’m damn near broke and homeless.”
Porsha waved her off. “Frankie, you know as long as I got a place to lay my head, you do, too. We family, boo.”
“I know, and I love you for that. At the same time, though, this is your space. Your apartment is small enough as it is without my grown ass crowding you. I’m looking online and in the newspaper trying to find something but haven’t come up on anything in my price range yet that isn’t a slum or a room for rent,” Frankie told her.
“You know rent is high as hell in the city, Frankie. It ain’t like when we was living in the projects. That whole situation was a pain in the ass, but I can’t even lie, we had mad fun in that apartment,” Porsha said.
“Yo, do you remember that house party we threw that summer?”
“Do I? Poor Sahara threw up so much I thought we were gonna have to take her to the hospital.” Porsha laughed.
Frankie sucked her teeth. “That was her damn fault. Who told her to drink all those cans of Four Loko?”
Porsha shook her head, thinking back to how they had to carry Sahara to the bedroom. “She was always going overboard, but that was my bitch. Have you spoken to her lately? I tried to call her last week, but the number I had on her isn’t working.”
“Nah, I haven’t spoken to her in a good minute. You know her, she’s probably somewhere chasing a dollar.” Frankie thought back on her friend and all her get-rich-quick schemes. “Oh, and speaking of a dollar . . .” Frankie picked her handbag up off the table. She pulled out an envelope and handed it to Porsha.
“What’s that?” Porsha asked suspiciously.
“Open it and find out,” Frankie urged.
Porsha tore the envelope open and found cash inside. “What’s this for?”
Frankie shrugged. “For whatever you wanna spend it on. I been laying on your couch and eating your food for weeks. The least I can do is try to kick you a little something for your troubles. It isn’t but a stack, but as soon as I get some regular cash flow coming in, I’ll try to do more.”
“Frankie, where the hell did you get a thousand dollars?” Porsha asked.
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t break any laws for it. A friend of mine owed me a favor and came through recently,” Frankie said a little too slyly.
“And speaking of favors, what’s up with all this secret shit between you and Zo-Pound?” Porsha asked.
“What do you mean, Porsha?”
“I mean whatever y’all got going on that neither of you seem to want me to know about. Now, if you were one of my other friends, I’d probably be beating your ass for going behind my back with my man on some sneaky shit, but I know that ain’t your MO. You wouldn’t dare fuck Zo behind my back, and if it ain’t sex, I gotta assume it’s dirt. What are the two of you up to?”
Frankie didn’t answer at first. She was going to lie, but she saw it was really bothering Porsha. She couldn’t tell her the whole truth, so she told her enough of it to put her mind at ease. “A’ight, Porsha. Just hear me out before you say anything. You know when I got beat out that money, I was flat on my ass. Anybody I could’ve gone to for money is either dead or in prison. So when all else failed, I turned to Zo.”
“You borrowed money from my boyfriend?” Porsha asked with an attitude. Frankie was her home girl, but she wasn’t comfortable with another woman asking her man for money.
“No, I didn’t ask Zo for no money. You know better than that, Porsha. I broke my situation down to him, and he offered to help me out. At first, he flipped and wanted to go find the dude who took my money, but you know I ain’t about to let Zo get in no trouble. He did offer to give me the money, but I couldn’t accept that in good conscience. What I did was I pawned what little jewelry I had and gave Zo a few hundred dollars to flip for me. That’s how I got the money I gave you.”
Porsha couldn’t believe all that had been going on right under her nose. She was slipping. Frankie would never do her dirty, but that didn’t mean another female wouldn’t have taken advantage of being able to get close to Zo without her knowing. She trusted Zo, but the fact that he refused to tell her what was going on between him and Frankie even when she called him on it meant that he could keep a secret. In her experience, she’d learned that men with secrets were a problem that just hadn’t occurred yet. It made her wonder what else he had been keeping from her.
“Frankie, Zo is a good dude, and I’m glad he was able to help you out, but in the future, if you need something from my man or he offers you something, I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have to hear about it after the fact,” Porsha said.
“You got that, and I apologize,” Frankie said sincerely.
Now that the air had been cleared, the tension left the room, and everything was back to normal. Frankie rolled another blunt, while Porsha surfed through the channels. She settled on the twenty-four-hour news station to see what she’d missed during the day. A story came on about a murder that had taken place in Harlem, so Porsha turned it up to see if it might’ve been anyone she knew.
Frankie paused from her blunt rolling to take a sip of her soda. She had the cotton mouth from the weed. When she looked up to see what had Porsha so entranced, she spit her soda all over the table and the living-room floor. On the screen was a picture of the murder victim, along with his name, Rick Jenkins.
“Are you OK, Frankie?” Porsha asked as her friend continued to choke on the soda.
“Yeah, I’m cool. It just went down the wrong pipe,” Frankie lied. Her eyes and ears remained focused on the television screen and the news anchor describing how they’d found a con man named Ricky Jenkins dead in a motel room from a .357 slug to the chest.
ELEVEN
IN THE HOOD, NEWS TRAVELED fast, especially when it came to death. It didn’t take long for the streets to start buzzing about the murder of the pretty young pimp in the barbershop. Percy wasn’t a big enough player in the game for his loss to cause much of a ripple effect, but there was one man in particular who didn’t take his death well.
Swann sat on the park bench, as he had been doing for the past hour or two, drinking and thinking. He always sat on the same bench when he was in that park. It had sentimental value to him. It had been on that very bench where he had murdered a man he had once called his homie, Tech. Of all the lives he had taken, Tech’s was the only one he regretted. His friendship conflicted with his loyalty, and in the end, he had to put young Tech’s lights out. It was for the greater good; at least, that’s what he told himself so that he could sleep at night.
Swann looked nothing like his normally immaculate self. His clothes were wrinkled, his face was ashy, and his hair needed to be braided. Mussed black hair hung down around his face and gave him an insane
look. His appearance matched his mood. A few hours before, he had gotten word about the execution of Percy. Percy had been like family to him; Swann and Percy were very close. He was a pompous homosexual who sometimes let his mouth write checks his ass couldn’t cash, but that didn’t mean he had deserved to die, especially the way he’d been murdered. Swann had to go to the city morgue and identify the body because Percy’s mother wasn’t up to it. The woman was a wreck over the loss of her only son. When he got there, he was glad that he’d come instead of her. No mother should have to see her child like that.
The killers had tortured Percy with sharp instruments before cutting the skin from his face. The police had searched for hours but were unable to find the missing flap of skin. The police chalked it up as a drug-related hit, but everyone knew Percy didn’t sell drugs. The murder had been a message for Swann, and he heard it loud and clear. It was war!
Swann wasn’t alone in the park. He was surrounded by several of his goons, thirsty young cats who would do anything to eat from the Clark table. In the midst of the goons were two of Swann’s most trusted comrades, Holiday and Angelo. After being shot in both legs, Holiday was confined to a motorized wheelchair until the wounds healed. Although his legs were ruined, his trigger finger still worked just fine, and he was itching to put it to use.
Angelo stood at attention, dressed in a blazer and jeans. His once smooth dark face was now marred by a nasty scar down the side of it. It had been a gift from a woman named Kastro, who was affiliated with Animal. Kastro and Animal had both paid for the disrespect with their lives, but killing them had made them martyrs. Instead of their deaths deterring the upstarts, it only riled them up more. Where Animal had fallen, another vicious young killer had risen to take his place. His name was Ashanti, and he was currently the focal point of Swann’s hatred. Word on the streets was that it was he who had killed Percy. Ashanti and his band of misfits had been violating and pulling capers for weeks to try to get the attention of the Clarks, and now they had it.