The Pink Palace

by Marlon McCaulsky

“Four years.”

  “So, is that why your wife left you?” I ask.

  “Yeah, Lauren and me were married for one year before I got assigned to the undercover unit in Atlanta. She couldn’t handle me doing this. I don’t blame her.”

  “I know how she feels. For this past week, I kept on expecting to open the paper and see ‘Undercover Cop Found Dead in Some Alley.’ Jayson, Damien is a psycho. He’s going to know something’s wrong.”

  “I’ve been getting close to Damien for five months now. He thinks I’m a hustler from Chicago. No one has ever been this deep, and as soon as King puts this deal together, we’re going to bring them all down,” Jayson reveals.

  “I hope it’s as simple as you say it is. What happens to us after that?”

  “I’ve been thinking that. After this assignment, I was going to transfer to a different department down in St. Pete.”

  “St. Petersburg? What’s there?” I ask.

  “I got family down there. It’s quieter down there. Maybe you could come with me.”

  “I don’t care where we go, as long as I’m with you.”

  Jayson kisses my lips, and I wanna believe everything will be fine just as he said, but I know my life ain’t a fairytale. Happy endings only happen in bedtime stories. I will hold on to Jayson as long as I can and try to avoid facing the inevitable.

  10

  Hot Shot

  JAYSON

  Damien’s lucky that I’m a cop, or I would’ve killed his ass last night. I know he wants to get with Janelle, but I didn’t think he would go this far. I shouldn’t be surprised. This nigga is grimy enough to do anything. Janelle has been through enough bullshit in her life, and I can’t put her in danger anymore. It’s bad enough having Vanessa being so close to King and worrying about her safety as well. How did this all become so damn complicated?

  It feels so good waking up with Janelle lying naked in my arms. I didn’t think she would ever forgive me for lying to her. I thought I fucked up what we had like I did with Lauren. Somebody up there must like me.

  “Janelle . . .”

  She smiles when I call her that. “It feels so good to hear you say that to me.”

  “It feels good to say it. I was thinking that you should leave town until I wrap this up.”

  “But I thought I was going to stay here with you.”

  “It’s too dangerous. Whenever you’re here or at Nikki’s house, Damien can still get at you.”

  “Where would I go?” she asks.

  “To Savannah, until I take care of this. As soon as it’s done, we’ll go to Florida.”

  “I don’t wanna leave you here, Jayson. What if something happens?”

  “I’ll be able to take care of myself, but I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you. Trust me.”

  “I do,” Janelle says, and I kiss her forehead.

  “Good, so we’re going to go to Nikki’s house, then we’re gonna pack you a bag and get you to Savannah.”

  “Okay. I love you, Jayson, so you better not get yourself killed,” Janelle says to me.

  “I promise.” I kiss her lips.

  She parts her thighs, and I penetrate her wet walls, sliding deep inside of her. This is heaven. Her body is so soft, and her lips are so moist.

  We make love for hours as if it’s our first and last time together. I feel my muscles tighten and her pussy clenches my dick as I explode between her legs. I bury my dick deeper inside her and let my cum gush into her warm pussy. We both climax together, and I know I can’t lose her. I haven’t felt this way about a woman for a long time.

  We drive to Nikki’s house, Janelle packs her bags, and we leave.

  “Take care of yourself, Jayson.”

  “Call me as soon as you get into town.”

  “I will.” We kiss again. She gets in her car and drives away. At least I know she’s safe now, and I can deal with Damien.

  I pick up Quan, and we go to a restaurant to get a meal. King and Damien treat Quan, Corey, and Horse like shit. He maybe hits them off with $1,000 a month, and they do all the dirty work. They take all the risk and get none of the big money that flows in day after day. When he can, Quan sends his mom in Brooklyn half of what he makes. This kid is too smart to be played like this.

  “So, Quan, how did you get down with Damien in the first place?”

  “I was running the streets, selling dime bags, and Damien saw me. He gave me ten small, folded-up pieces of aluminum foil with heroin in them and told me if I could sell it by the next day, he would put me down with the Flip Set and take care of me.”

  “Let me ask you something. Is he really taking care of you?”

  Quan takes a bite of his burger and swallows it. “I could be doing worse.”

  “Or you could be doing better.”

  “Yo, Tommy, if I could, man, I wouldn’t be here doing this shit. I would be doing like you said—I’d be in college. I was born an underdog in American society. If I was born in Beverly Hills with the right skin tone, I’d be good, but I was born with the have-nots. I just wanna take care of my mom and little sister. I don’t wanna see her swinging around a pole, dancing to make a dollar.”

  “I understand ya.”

  “Believe me, Tommy, if I could be in school, taking care of them, I would.”

  I wish I could help him get out of this before it all comes crashing down around him. Quan is a good kid in the wrong business. Maybe I can help him cut a deal. It’s times like these I feel like a sellout.

  One hour later, I meet up with King and Damien at King’s place up in Buckhead. Vanessa has gone out shopping for the day. That’s a good thing. Now I can just focus on working these niggas over. I wanna just blast Damien in the face, but I got a job to do first. I know this nigga’s foul, but to do something like that to Janelle just makes me wanna take him down even more. All these months of deep cover have been building up to this deal. No wires, no taps and no back-up is how we’ve had to play it to get King out in the open like this.

  “Tommy, my connection from L.A. is coming into town Saturday night. They bringing enough snow to make it cold in July. That’s the reason I sent Damien down here to set shit up. It’ll make shit easy for us when this happens. When this goes down, we’re gonna have Atlanta on lock,” King says.

  “Damn right. Where is it going down, so we can have niggas in place just in case things get shady?” I ask him.

  “When the time’s right, you’ll know all you need to know. So for now, just relax and stay on point.”

  “What about security?”

  “I got that under control. We just can’t have any fuckups on our part. That’s where you come in,” Damien says to me.

  “Me . . . what you talking about?” I ask him.

  “I see the way you handle Quan and Corey, and we gonna need niggas like you making sure them young niggas stay focused. We gonna get this money,” he says.

  “A’ight, my nigga. You know how I do.” You just don’t know how focused I am, nigga. I’m gonna lock your ass down in Rikers again, mutherfucka.

  NIKKI

  When I get up this morning, or should I say this afternoon, I see a letter from Mo’Nique on the table. I open it. It reads:

  Hey Nikki,

  I hate to take off like this, but I had an emergency. I had to leave and take care of Aunt Gene in Valdosta. I’ll call you when I get there. Take care of yourself.

  Auntie Gene? We haven’t seen her for years. I didn’t even know Mo still kept in contact with her. Well, I guess somebody gotta look out for the family.

  Damien came through with no warning last night. I’m not sure I like that. He says I’m his lady and shit, but then he leaves for a month and doesn’t call. He knows I’m a stripper, but he doesn’t care as long as I’m there for him whenever he calls. I know he fucks with other girls, so how can he think that I don’t mess with other men? It’s like we have these unspoken rules that we play by. This ain’t a love thing, and he knows that as long as he gives me cas
h, he can get some ass.

  Despite our weird relationship, we still take mini vacations together. One weekend, we went to Miami’s South Beach and partied on the yacht he rented. Other times, he treats me to shopping sprees at the Lenox Mall.

  I’ve never messed with a trick with this kind of money before, and I don’t think he’s ever fucked with a girl that looks like me. Sure, he’s had other pretty women, but I’m his own personal fantasy chick or something. Plus, sexually, I’ve done things to Damien no other woman has. That’s why he’s addicted to my pussy.

  Damien left $1,000 for me to spend, so I head straight to Lenox Mall and into Macy’s to get some of Beyoncé’s House Of Deréon fashions. I gotta step my game up if I plan on taking King away from Vanessa’s stuck-up ass. Not like she’s that much competition for me. She’s a pretty girl, but I am the shit. I’m like a cross between Naomi Campbell and Meagan Good, with an ass that can stop traffic. That’s why I’m the top seed moneymaker at The Pink Palace. I coulda been a model if things were different. Most bitches that dance in the club look like dogs, but Mo’Nique and me, we’re like supermodels up in there. Not hoes with bullet holes and cigarette burns.

  On my way out of Lenox Mall, I run into Dre and some of his niggas in the parking lot.

  “What’s up, Nikki?” Dre says.

  I walk up to the car and bend over, putting my head in the window. I can see the way Dre’s boys stare at my fat, round ass, and I love it.

  “What’s up, Dre? Where are you off to?”

  “We’re heading down to College Park to handle some business.”

  I look in between the seats and I see a Mac-11 semi-automatic submachine gun half exposed, and I know what business he’s gonna handle.

  “I heard that New York nigga was back in town, so we gonna show him what time it is.”

  Shit, this is not what I wanna see go down. Dre’s gonna go and try to kill Damien’s ass for what he did to his cousin. I say try because Damien isn’t just another corner boy Dre can just roll up on. Damien has a small army down in College Park ready to ride, and a part of me doesn’t wanna see Dre dead in the streets like his cousin Rodney.

  “Dre, you can’t just ride down there and go at Damien like that. He’s got people looking out for you. As soon as you get there, he’ll be waiting for you,” I tell him.

  “I don’t give a fuck who he got looking out for him. They can get it too!” Dre exclaims.

  Dre’s dead serious about killing Damien, and I know the only thing that can stop him. I know his one weakness, and that’s me. Since Dre was 17 he’s been in love with me. Anything I want, he’ll do it for me, so I decide to run interference for Damien.

  “I know you gonna ride on them, but wouldn’t it be better to do it when Damien’s actually in town?” I lie.

  “In town? Where the fuck is he?” Dre asked.

  “Damien went down to Miami last night.”

  “Shit! When that nigga coming back?”

  “He didn’t say, but since you don’t seem to have anything to do tonight, why not spend it with me?” I say to him and rub my hand down his chest.

  Dre smiles and gets that same lustful look in his eye again. But Dre’s no fool. “Why you wanna kick it with me tonight?” he asks me suspiciously.

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, Dre, and after the way you put it on me the last time we hooked up, you’ve been all I been wanting to do.”

  It wasn’t really that much of a lie. Sure, I was playing a dangerous game with his emotions, but I did teach him everything he knows about fucking. Dre was very green on how to sex a woman right back in the day. Like most boys, Dre only knew how to catch a nut real quick. Up until me, he’d only fucked with young girls who didn’t know shit about how to make a man extend his orgasm and make a bitch catch her nut first. I turned his young ass out by doing shit to him no other woman did. I’m the one that taught him how to eat pussy so good and introduced him to the Ghetto Kama Sutra. I was basically the Yoda to his Skywalker. The other night, he really showed me how much he had learned.

  We end up heading to a nearby Days Inn and picking up where we left off the other night. The sex is erotic and raunchy. I have to admit that I do enjoy fucking Dre again. At first, when we hooked up in The Pink Palace, it was just a quickie. I was just trying to get him off and get paid, but these last two times we’ve hooked up, Dre was really trying to get me off for a change.

  “That’s it, Dre. Don’t stop,” I say as Dre pounds his dick deep into my pussy.

  “You like that, Nikki?”

  “Ahhh, shit, yeah, daddy. Keep it right there,” I say as I dig my nails into his back.

  Dre digs deeper into my gushy pussy and blows my back out with his powerful thrusts. It feels so good that I close my eyes and release my cum all over his dick. Dre continues to pump away, until his dick finally explodes with cum.

  He collapses on top of me. Our bodies intertwine as we lay huffing and puffing, enjoying the sensation of our orgasms. Dre just fucked me better than Damien ever has. Dre rolls off of me and lies on the bed with his dick still fully hard.

  “That was good as hell, Nikki,” Dre says to me as he catches his breath.

  “You still the shit, Dre. You be making me feel like how a woman should feel.”

  “I keep on telling you that, but you keep on fucking with that whack-ass New York nigga. I know you all about the dollar, Nikki, but that nigga can’t treat you the way I treat you.”

  “Dre, we go back. That’s why I mess with you still, but I ain’t trying to be tied down.”

  “So what do you think that New York nigga is doing to you?” he asks.

  “Damien thinks what I want him to. As long as he breaks me off, it’ll stay that way.”

  “Is that why you lied to get me here? ’Cause you know one way or another I’m gonna kill his ass?” Dre says. Shit, Dre’s smarter than I give him credit for.

  “So, if you knew I was lying to you, why did you come here with me?”

  “Because I really do care about you, Nikki, and I wanna be with you. I know you better than you think. You’re a hustler just like me, and that’s why I love you. I’m gonna put myself in the position where you won’t have to dance at the club or fuck with no other niggas. You just wait and see. Pretty soon I’ll be running this shit.”

  For the first time ever, I believe Dre plans on doing everything he says. I’ve never heard so much conviction in his voice before. Maybe he does know me better than I thought, and that turns me on. Perhaps that’s the reason I’ve always fucked with Dre, because we’re so similar, like two peas in a pod.

  I grab Dre’s hard dick and start to jack him off. I get up on him and slide his dick back inside of me and ride the shit outta him. I don’t know if it’s his ambition, his feelings for me, or that big dick of his—maybe all three—but for once I really wanna be with Dre.

  DAMIEN

  I’ve become more like King during my stay in Atlanta, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. I’m getting used to the idea of lying back and calling the shots instead of getting my hands dirty. Letting Corey, Quan, and Horse run the spots does have its appeal, but I miss the action for some reason. Horse is right about the corners down here being hot. These fiends come through like clockwork. It’s a good thing we got these local cats down here helping the fiends get their fix.

  I’ve snorted some dope in the past, but I’ve never let myself get hooked on that shit. I only fuck with X when I really wanna get my freak on with a bitch. Did that shit with Nikki once, and we were fucking off the walls. I wonder what Mo’Nique would be like if I did that with her.

  Nikki and Penny fucked shit up with her the other night. I was gonna fuck the shit outta that red bitch. Even though Nikki messed things up, I still had a good time fucking her ass. You know how it is when you’ve been hitting the same bitch for a while. It gets boring. With Nikki, it’s like a different porn flick every time.

  I haven’t seen Mo’Nique since th
e other night. I’m gonna have to see what’s up with her soon.

  Tommy seems more focused now than he did a few days ago. I guess with this deal about to go down, Tommy knows things are gonna change. He just don’t got any idea how much I’m gonna change the game. I’ve been a soldier in King’s army for too long. It’s time to become my own general. I’ve studied this game for too long not to be a major player in it.

  King thinks he’s smarter than me. He thinks he can hit me off with pocket change like Corey and Quan while he makes millions. The street value alone of the cocaine we cook is about 15 to 20 grand per kilo. At a street price of around $100 per gram, the actual street value of a single kilo can quickly escalate to $189,000. Six kilos of coke could ultimately sell for $1.1 million on the street, and the fact that I’m only making $100,000 off of that shit is crazy!

  King is paying these ma’fuckers out of L.A. 10 million cash for the hook-up they about to supply him with. That shit’s gonna triple on the streets, and all I get is a 10 percent raise out of it? I think it’s time to renegotiate my contract. King has been my nigga for a long time now, and I’ve had his back since day one, and this is how he thanks me? I’m a loyal nigga, but if you fuck me over, then I got no choice but to fuck you.

  I’m chilling at my house in College Park when Horse hits me on the Sidekick.

  “Yo, what’s up, nigga?”

  “What up, son? Yo, I got something to tell you,” Horse says.

  “What is it?”

  “Yo, you know how you told me to keep an eye on that Dre nigga?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I followed them niggas out to Lenox Mall, and they looked like they were getting ready to go to war.”

  “Word? So those niggas coming?”

  “Naw, I saw your girl Nikki come outta the mall and start to talk to Dre’s ass,” Horse says.

  “Really?”