Diamonds and Pearl

by K'wan

  “Niggas who flash are the first ones to go to prison,” Domo warned.

  Raheem sucked his teeth. “Fuck that! What’s the good of having money if nobody knows? I’d have a fly ride, nice crib, and a bad-ass bitch like Pearl. Yo, did you see her giving me the eye when we were at her crib?”

  “Nigga, you know Pearl wasn’t looking at you.”

  “That’s on the hood she was checking for me!” Raheem insisted. “She be playing hard to get, but I’m gonna wear her down and she’s gonna be my girl. Once me and Pearl start fucking, I’ll get her to hook you up with her Spanish homegirl, because I know you be liking them yellow bitches. Once niggas in the hood see us with them, everybody gonna be on our dicks!”

  Domo chuckled. “Bro, I love you, but you sound crazy. That’s Big Stone’s golden princess. Ain’t no way her or anybody of her caliber is stunting no broke-ass niggas from the other side of the water.”

  “We ain’t gonna be broke forever, Domo. Our time is coming, and I can feel it,” Raheem proclaimed.

  “Well, if it is coming, I wish it would hurry up,” Domo half joked, wishing he shared his friend’s confidence.

  “Have you given any thought to what we talked about?” Raheem asked.

  “Yeah, and I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. Stoney is our friend, and I’d never want him to think we were using him,” Domo told him.

  “We ain’t using him—just asking for a favor. It’s like you said: Stoney is our friend and his dad is the plug, so who better than to get us a formal meeting?”

  “We been around them long enough to know that Big Stone don’t let his kids anywhere near his business. He’d probably beat the black off Stoney for asking, and us killed for putting him up to it. Nah, I’m gonna pass on that.”

  Raheem sucked his teeth. “C’mon, Domo. If we keep sitting around waiting for someone to hand us an opportunity, we’re never gonna get to where we need to be. We gotta step up and claim it. Sometimes to get where you need to be in life, you have to be willing to take risks.”

  “I’m cool with risks. I just got a problem with dying,” Domo said, and ended the conversation.

  The entire ride home, Raheem continued to chatter on about his dreams of becoming a crack lord, but Domo was only half listening. His mind was elsewhere. Sometimes when he visited Stoney and his family, it put him in what he could only describe as a funk. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy visiting with the Stone family; to the contrary, the visits were sometimes the high points of his weeks. Stoney had everything and was always generous with his friends, sharing money, food, and even clothes. During those visits, if only for a short time, Domo was able to forget that he was a poor kid from the Bricks, but then reality would set back in and he would remember that’s exactly what he was. Every visit to the Stone residence was a reminder of how desperately he needed to get his weight up.

  This brought him back to the conversation he was having with Raheem about asking Stoney for an introduction. He agreed with him that they needed a way in so they could start making some real money, but he wasn’t about to go through Stoney to do it. Unlike Raheem, he valued Stoney’s friendship too much to taint it by looking for a handout. Be it in Big Stone’s organization or someone else’s, Domo would earn what he got or he wouldn’t have it.

  They got off the PATH train at Newark Penn Station in Downtown Newark. Raheem wanted to jump on the bus and ride into Union to see if they could come up on a lick, but Domo wasn’t up to it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t use the money, but he just wasn’t up to it. He had too much on his mind, and going on a mission when your head wasn’t in the game was a surefire way to get yourself caught. He suggested they put it off for another day, but Raheem’s mind was set, so he went alone.

  Instead of waiting for the bus to take him to his block, Domo decided to walk. He only lived a mile or so from the station, and the fresh air would help him to think. He sparked a Black & Mild and strolled down Market Street, navigating through the clusters of people who were roaming in and out of the various stores that seemed to be springing up like weeds. With the way new stores were popping up every other week, Market Street was starting to look like a miniature version of 125th Street in Harlem. The city was calling it gentrification—creating a beautified Newark—and it went over well with those not in the know, but to those who did, it was putting a Band-Aid over an already infected wound and hoping it didn’t get any worse.

  By the time the fire had eaten its way down to the filter of the Black, Domo was approaching his neighborhood. He was originally from South Fourteenth Street off Eighteenth Avenue, but his current residence was the second-floor apartment of a two-family house near Lincoln Park. The block he lived on was relatively quiet, but you could go two streets in either direction and find yourself in the middle of some shit. His mother had moved them out of the old neighborhood right around the time Domo had come of recruiting age for the local set. She thought that if she got him out of the neighborhood that she could save Domo from going down the same path his brother had, but unbeknownst to her, Domo had already been on the hood for a year. When you grew up in certain hoods, you either claimed whatever gang controlled that area or you moved. Everybody who was part of his set he had either grown up with or played ball with, so making it official only solidified the bond they already shared. Unlike some kids who joined gangs for protection or to fit in, Domo got down because it felt like the natural thing to do.

  To get to his block, he had to pass the corner liquor store, which was a popular hangout spot for the locals. You could always find homies posted up, but on that afternoon the corner seemed a little more crowded than usual. As he got closer to the small crowd, he noticed they were huddled around a shiny red BMW. Domo had never seen the car in the hood before, and it had New York plates. The crowd parted momentarily, and Domo was able to catch a glimpse of the two people in the car. Behind the wheel was a chick he had never seen before. She was a slim brown-skinned cutie who wore a green wig to match the green dress she was wearing. Leaning in the driver-side window, chopping it up with her, was a kid by the name of LA. LA was a career criminal who was responsible for damn near 80 percent of the crime that went on in the neighborhood. From jacking cars to selling dope, LA was with all that. He and Domo were cool and would sometimes hang out and smoke weed, but Domo kept his interactions with LA to a minimum. LA had done so much shit to so many people that you could never be sure when someone was going to come along and try to blow his head off.

  Domo slapped the palms of a few of the guys standing out front before slipping inside the liquor store. He had ten dollars to his name, so he grabbed a forty-ounce of St. Ides and two loose Black & Milds and saved a few dollars for later in case he needed something. When he came out of the store, the BMW and the girl were gone, but LA was still there. He was posted up outside the door like he had been waiting for Domo to come out.

  “What the deal, Blood?” LA greeted him.

  “Ain’t shit.” Domo gave him dap. “About to go in the crib and kick back for a while.”

  “A’ight, well, I’ll walk with you. I need to holla at you about something,” LA told him. From the tone of his voice, Domo knew LA was up to something, which was nothing new. “So what you been up to?” LA asked once they were out of earshot of the rest of the homies.

  “Not too much. Chasing this paper like everybody else,” Domo told him.

  “Well, are you ready to stop chasing it and finally catch it?” LA asked.

  “All depending on what I gotta do to get it.”

  “Check it: a friend of a friend plugged me in with some cats from out of town that could use a little extra muscle for a job they got lined up. Nothing too serious,” LA said casually.

  Domo gave him a look. “Me and you got two different definitions of serious.”

  “C’mon, man, you think I’d let Understanding’s little bother get caught up in some bullshit? Like I told you, these niggas just need some extra muscle to watch their backs while th
ey hit this spot in Harlem. Me an’ them would handle all the heavy shit, and all you’d really have to do is hold down the door so nobody can get the drop while we’re robbing this joint. You’d be making a few grand for less than five minutes of easy work.”

  The thought of making a few thousand dollars was definitely tempting, considering Domo was ass-broke, but he was still suspicious. LA was making it sound too easy. “Why’d you come to me? I’m sure there’re at least ten more niggas on the block who are way more qualified than me to do this with you.”

  “Fo sho, I can think of ten niggas off the top of my head who’d be down to shoot a bunch of shit up over the promise of a few dollars, but them niggas ain’t got no common sense. So that’s why I come to you.” He looked around cautiously to make sure no one could hear what he was going to say next. “I ain’t gonna bullshit you, Domo. These country niggas I got turned on to are supposed to be real heavy, and according to the streets, they have some real promising futures. I’m trying to get in good with them so maybe I can finally stop fucking around out here with this chump change and get some real money. I need to make a strong presentation, and I can’t do that rolling in with a bunch of hardhead-ass niggas with ‘blast first’ mentalities. I need someone who I know ain’t gonna fold and do some dumb shit if things heat up, and you’re one of the most level-headed dudes I know.”

  LA sounded sincere enough, but Domo wasn’t completely sold. “Let me think on it and get back to you.”

  “Don’t think on it too long. This shit is going down in a few hours. Blood, I ain’t gonna twist your arm, because whether you go or not, I’m still mobbing. This is too good to pass up. If you decide you’re tired of risking your freedom on petty shit and ready to step up, you know how to reach me,” LA capped, and then ambled back down the street.

  For the rest of his walk home, Domo examined LA’s offer from every possible angle. Knowing LA, it was likely that he was keeping it G and it would be easy work, but it was just as likely that Domo might find himself in over his head. Domo was no choirboy—he did more than his fair share of dirt in the streets and would even blast on a nigga if his hand were forced—but LA was a straight-up killer. Unlike some, Domo wasn’t a man who believed in swimming out of his depth unless he was absolutely sure how deep the water was. If he had learned anything, he knew that all money wasn’t good money.

  A few minutes later, Domo was walking into the apartment he shared with his mother. Her car wasn’t in the driveway, so he knew she wasn’t home. She was most likely at work, which was where she spent the majority of her time. Domo’s mother worked two jobs to keep the bills paid, and on weekends she did hair on the side just so they could have a little extra change. Domo kicked in when he could, but the few ends he gave her from his various hustles weren’t much. Domo wanted to drop out of school so he could focus more on making money, but his mother wasn’t having it. She told him the best way for him to help the family out was by finishing school so that he could find a legitimate way to get them out of the hood. Domo didn’t like it, but she had made him promise he would at least finish high school before exploring any other options.

  Domo plopped onto the couch and sat his forty-ounce on a pile of mail on the coffee table. He grabbed the remote control to cut the television on, but when he hit the button, nothing happened. Confused, he got up and went to check the wires. Everything was plugged in and properly connected. Perplexed, he grabbed his forty-ounce from the table. As he was chugging, he noticed one of the papers from the table was stuck to the bottom. When he peeled it free and read it, he found out why the television wasn’t working. It was an electric bill dated two weeks ago, the words FINAL NOTICE stamped on it in red letters.

  Frustrated, Domo tossed the bill back onto the table and headed for the door. If he hurried, he could catch LA before he left the block.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Knowledge pushed his Acura through Harlem in no particular rush, windows cracked and chronic smoke billowing out. He was deep in thought about the dilemma Big Stone had asked him to deal with before he left for his trip. He was on the fence about the best way to handle it because it hit so close to home, but he suspected that was the reason Big Stone had insisted that Knowledge take care of it instead of passing it off to someone else. It seemed that the older his mentor got, the more paranoid he became. He was constantly testing the loyalties of those he kept close, including Knowledge.

  You would think that for as much blood as he’d spilled and the secrets he’d buried in Big Stone’s name, the old head would be a bit more trusting, but he wasn’t. It irritated Knowledge, but he understood. In his decade of hustling, he had seen best friends become enemies and kingpins become star witnesses for the prosecution, so to an extent he could understand Big Stone’s paranoia. But that still didn’t make him feel any better about what he was being forced to do.

  Knowledge had to go out to Queens.… He hated going to Queens. He didn’t have anything personal against the borough or the people in it, but whenever he went out there, he always felt like he was cut off from the rest of the city. It was like being out of town without leaving the city. That didn’t change the fact that he had to go. He needed to pay a call to a man he had once called a friend, but in light of the current set of circumstances, he wasn’t sure where they stood. He could’ve rolled in with his usual shooters, but it was an already delicate situation that he didn’t want to force one way or another, so he needed someone who was nonthreatening yet would lay something down without hesitation if the situation went left and they needed to get out of Dodge in a hurry. This is what brought him to the barbershop on 132nd and Lenox.

  He left his car double-parked and hopped out, stepping onto the curb. He gave a quick nod in greeting to the two dreads who sold weed on the stoop next door, and went inside the shop. It was alive with the sounds of buzzing hair clippers and banter about everything from world politics to who the nicest rappers of the time were. Barbershops could be a wealth of information and sometimes foolishness, spewed from the mouths of everyone from the well-educated brothers who had no common sense to men who had little to no formal education but could’ve held their own with some of the deepest philosophers. Knowledge would sometimes sit in the shop for hours, soaking up game or trading laughs, but he didn’t have that kind of time that afternoon. He planned to get in and out.

  At his usual post, in the first chair, the one closest to the door, was the shop owner, Mr. Davis. All the guys in the neighborhood called him Cap, which was short for his street name that had at one time been Red Cap, but the fuzzy red afro that he had been notorious for had long ago thinned out and all but abandoned him. He now wore his head clean-shaven. He was locked into a heated debate with one of the other barbers. Cap loved to argue almost as much as he loved to cut hair, and no matter what, you could never convince him that he was wrong.

  “What’s shaking, Cap?” Knowledge greeted him.

  “Not too much. How you today, Knowledge? You in for a cut?”

  “Nah, just need to holla at P. Is he working today?”

  “Yeah, he in the back. Listen, don’t be coming in here, trying to take him off on no missions either, Knowledge. Today is the first, and there’s gonna be a lot of little nappy heads coming through here that need cutting when they mamas cash their checks. I need all my barbers on deck.”

  “Whatever you say, Cap,” Knowledge said halfheartedly, and started toward the back.

  “I’m serious, Knowledge!” Cap called after him. “Ol’ baby Scarface muthafucka,” he mumbled once he was out of earshot.

  Knowledge bumped through the crowded barbershop, giving dap to the people he rocked with and ignoring the ones he didn’t. He was a man of few words and fewer friends, but that didn’t change the fact that everybody wanted to stand next to him. They knew that standing next to Knowledge would put you one step closer to standing next to Big Stone.

  Power was at his usual post, hovering over the last chair in the rear of the shop and a
dministering a haircut to one of his regular clients. If you had only heard about his exploits in the streets before ever meeting him personally, you’d be caught totally by surprise by Power. He was a brutishly built man with skin so pale that it looked like it had never been touched by the sun. Over the last few years he had let his hair grow out and now wore it in cornrows that were such a rich shade of blond that they looked gold. He didn’t see Knowledge at first, but he must’ve felt him standing behind him because his clear blue eyes glanced up at the mirror.

  “Peace, God,” Power greeted Knowledge in a tone that hardly matched his appearance. “Gimme a sec to finish up.” He went back to grooming his client.

  The friendship between Knowledge and Power went back to a time when they were both snot-nosed kids getting into mischief in the streets. Power had always had it rougher than most. He looked white but spoke just like everyone else in their neighborhood. Kids used to call him nasty names like Oreo or Wigger, accusing him of pretending to be Black, but he was African-American, at least in part. His father had been a fair-skinned Puerto Rican with blond hair and blue eyes, and his mother was as dark as Knowledge. It was just a strange twist of the gene pool that had given him most of his father’s features and hardly any of hers.

  When Power finished with his client, he cleaned him up and stepped off to deal with Knowledge. “What’s the science?”

  “Came by to see if I could convince you to take a ride with me,” Knowledge said.

  “What kind of ride?” Power asked suspiciously.

  “I gotta make a move for Big Stone, and I need somebody I can trust to watch my back,” Knowledge told him.

  “Yo, God, you know I’m still on parole,” Power said. He hated his parole officer, and the feeling was mutual.

  “I know, I know. It ain’t nothing like that. In fact, I hate to even ask this favor of you because I know how hard you been working to stay straight, but it’s a delicate situation and I can’t roll up with some knucklehead who can turn this whole thing into a worse mess than it already is.”