Supreme Clientele

by Ashley Antoinette Snell

  “What’s the combination?” Zya’s gunman asked her as he removed the gun from her mouth.

  Zya remained silent, but Snow began to talk in a calm, low voice. “You idiot mu’fuckas know y’all just signed your death certificates, right? Even if I don’t make it out of here, I got niggas that will hunt you down in my place. Y’all niggas is dead.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” Snow’s gunman hit him hard across the face with the butt of the gun.

  “No! Stop it!” Zya screamed as she tried to free herself to get to Snow.

  “Bitch, what’s the fucking combination to the safe?”

  Zya still didn’t talk. She just stared at her attackers with cold eyes.

  “What’s the combo to the safe?”

  There was no way she was giving up her cash. “Fuck you,” she stated loudly in defiance.

  Zya’s gunman loosened his grip and skeptically said, “Heavy, man, let’s just get out of here.”

  “Heavy!” Zya shouted in disbelief. She knew that he didn’t like her and that he was upset that she hadn’t put him on, but she would have never expected him to rob her.

  “Stupid mu’fucka!” Heavy yelled at his partner. “I told you no names!” Heavy walked back and forth, rubbing his head in anger. “Fuck it!” he yelled as he removed his mask.

  “You think this is a game?” he asked Zya, staring in her eyes. He rushed over to Snow and hit him repeatedly with his gun. Whack! Whack! Whack!

  “Heavy, no!” Zya screamed as she struggled to break free. “Stop!” Whack! Whack! Whack! The sound of the gun slamming against Snow’s head and face made Zya’s knees go weak.

  “Bitch, give me the combination!” he yelled as he hit Snow over and over again. Whack! Whack! Whack!

  “Okay! Heavy, okay! Stop!” she begged.

  Whack! Whack! Whack!

  Whack! Whack! Whack!

  Whack! Whack! Whack!

  Zya fell to her knees, her heart breaking as she watched Heavy hit Snow repeatedly and forcefully with his gun. She heard the crunch of bone against steel and could almost feel the pain herself. “Stop it!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Stop! I’ll do anything. Just please don’t touch him.”

  Heavy stopped the pistol whipping and turned toward Zya. He had Snow’s blood splattered on his shirt. Zya looked back at Snow, who was passed out, his blood leaking onto her white couch, and his face a swollen and unrecognizable pulp.

  “What is it?” Heavy asked.

  “Thirty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-one.”

  Heavy took off for the bedroom and told the other gunman the combination. Zya’s eyes flooded with tears as she watched Snow’s body lose its life.

  “If he dies, I swear to God I’m goin’ . . .” she said coldly to the gunman who had his gun pointed at her.

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch! Your ass ain’t gon’ do shit,” the gunman interrupted, disregarding her threat.

  Heavy and his henchman came running into the room with three duffel bags full of money. He walked up to Zya and whispered in her ear, “You should have just let me fuck.” He ran his hands along her breasts, and she cringed at his touch.

  “Come on, man, let’s go!” the other two intruders yelled as they exited the apartment. Heavy smiled devilishly and then ran out behind them.

  Zya ran over to Snow. “Snow! Snow! Wake up, please, wake up!” Zya tried to lift him up from the couch, but she couldn’t. She picked up her phone and dialed 911.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “I need an ambulance. Somebody’s hurt. I need help. Please!” she yelled between her delirious sobs.

  “Okay, miss, we are tracing your call now. An emergency dispatch unit will be at the address you are placing this call from in approximately ten minutes.”

  Zya hung up the phone and held Snow in her arms. “God, please let him be okay,” she pleaded as she rocked him back and forth. There was so much blood. It was everywhere, and she hoped that he would be okay. God, please help me. You just brought him to me. Please don’t take him away.

  Zya didn’t notice that EMS had arrived until they pulled her off of Snow.

  “Are you all right?” they asked her. Besides a cut on her lip from the gun being jammed into her mouth, she was fine.

  “Yes, just help him! Please hurry!”

  The paramedics loaded his body onto a stretcher and she grabbed her keys and asked, “Where are you taking him?”

  “Bellevue,” a paramedic said as they rushed out of the apartment.

  Zya was frantic, and her nerves were bad as she sped toward First Avenue. Please let him be okay. She sped into the emergency parking lot and hopped out of her car. She ran into the building and went to the nurse’s station.

  “I need to see Torey Snow!” Zya said. The nurses looked at her in bewilderment. She was covered in blood, and her lip was busted and swollen.

  “What are you looking at? I need to see Snow! Torey Snow!” Zya yelled. One of the nurses came from around the desk and led her through two double doors and into an examination room.

  “Please, I just need to make sure he’s okay,” Zya pleaded. The nurse put on gloves and nodded sympathetically. “Okay, but first we are going to make sure you are okay.”

  The nurse removed Zya’s bloodied shirt and saw that she looked worse than she actually was. All of the blood had been Snow’s. The nurse applied three stitches to the corner of her mouth and gave her some ice for the swelling then she helped her clean herself up.

  “Here’s a gown. That shirt is too bloody to put back on.”

  Zya took the shirt and asked, “Can I see him now?” The nurse nodded and then led the way up the hall to Snow’s room.

  Zya put her hand over her mouth when she saw him lying in the hospital bed. His face was swollen badly, and although the doctors had cleaned him up, she knew that he was hurt. She stood next to him and watched over him. His eyes were closed, and Zya felt guilt for what had happened.

  If he wouldn’t have been there trying to help me, this would not have happened.

  A doctor walked into the room and looked at Zya. “Miss, are you okay?” he asked her.

  Damn, I must look pretty bad too. She nodded her head and asked, “How is he?”

  “Well, he has a very serious concussion and a broken jaw. We’re trying to make sure that there is no hemorrhaging, so we’re are monitoring him right now. He will be in here for at least two days.”

  “Can he wake up?”

  “Yes, he will wake up in a couple hours or so. The pain medication that we injected is what is causing him to sleep so heavily. He will be sore, however, but once that jaw heals and the concussion is gone, he will be fine.”

  Zya sighed in relief and held Snow’s hand to let him know she was there. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, and in the bottom of her heart, she knew that Vita had helped Heavy set her up. Vita was the only other person who knew that she kept money in shoeboxes at the bottom of her closet.

  I trusted that bitch. I’ve known her since seventh grade, and she gon’ pull something like this ... for Heavy’s ass. She was like my sister. When I see her ass, it’s curtains for her.

  Zya knew that she wouldn’t be able to bring harm to Vita because she had been close to her for so many years. She didn’t understand how Vita could try to hurt her, especially for a nigga. She thought that their friendship was special, and that they were better than that. I guess I was wrong. She was pissed off by Vita’s betrayal, but more than that, she was hurt.

  Zya felt a presence in the room, and she looked up to see Lonnie Wade in the hallway, watching her. Zya’s heart skipped a beat as she got up and walked out of the room.

  “Are you following me?” Zya asked him angrily as she followed him up the hall. He stopped at a coffee machine and began to put money inside.

  “I just thought you should know that I am on your every move. You can’t run from this, Zya.”

  “I wasn’t trying to!”
Zya lied. She just wanted Lonnie Wade to disappear from her life.

  He pulled Zya into one of the hospital’s closets and pinned her against a wall. “Sure you were, Zya. I was one of the officers called to the scene that just took place at your house. I saw the suitcases. You are going to help me bring down Anari. If you don’t, your pretty little self will be rotting in a prison cell for the murder of King. Think about it,” Wade said in a threatening way as he pulled out one of his cards and held it close to her lips. “I guess I don’t have to question you about what happened tonight. I’ll just write it up as a robbery. But I better hear from you . . . and soon.” He opened the door and left Zya in the closet alone.

  She hated Wade. She hated Vita. She hated Heavy. She hated Jules. Everybody in her life was creating turmoil right now, and all she wanted to do was leave. The one person who she was beginning to trust had gotten hurt because of her, and she was trapped in a city where everyone was out to get her.

  Zya walked out of the closet and went back to Snow’s room. He was the only person she cared about at the moment. She sat down in the chair next to his bed and held his hand as he slept. She tried to wait for him to wake up, but hours passed, and she too dozed off.

  She felt Snow squeeze her hand in the middle of the night, and she woke up instantly. She turned on the small lamp on the stand next to the bed and looked at him with worry written all over her face.

  “I’m here,” she said as she held onto his hand.

  Snow’s jaw was broken, and it hurt him to talk. “Did they hurt you?” he asked as he gripped her hand tightly from the pain.

  “Shh, don’t talk. I’m fine. I’m just sick from worrying about you.” He sat up in the bed and removed the IV from his arm.

  “What are you doing?” Zya asked.

  “We’re getting out of here. I’m gon’ get you on the first flight to Mexico, and I’m gon’ go handle Heavy,” he said. He winced from the pain that shot through his face as he talked.

  “No, Snow, you need to stay here. The doctor said he needed to make sure you weren’t bleeding internally.”

  “Zya, them niggas is dead, yo,” Snow said loudly, rage filling his eyes. He had never been touched before, and now that he had, he knew he would have to make examples out of Heavy and his goons.

  “I know, I know, but I need to make sure you’re okay first.”

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any money to go anywhere now. I’m gon’ have to grind it out until I have enough to skip town,” she said.

  “You know I got you,” Snow replied.

  “And you know I can’t accept your money. I got to make my own, Snow.”

  He didn’t like what Zya was saying, but he respected it. After much convincing, Zya persuaded him to stay the full two days in the hospital. She stayed with him all day and all night, and they grew close in that short time. Snow liked how Zya wanted to take care of him. In fact, he liked everything about her.

  “You got to give me some pussy now. A nigga done got pistol whipped for you and shit,” Snow said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

  Zya laughed loudly and smiled at him. “The going rate for this is worth more than a pistol whipping,” she said playfully.

  Zya was feeling Snow. She was feeling him a lot, actually, but knew that she would have to put him on the back burner after he got out of the hospital. She didn’t want to. If it was up to her, they would be on a beach at that very instant, sipping on daiquiris, but it wasn’t up to her. Her life was in the hands of Lonnie Wade, and she knew that he didn’t have her best interests at heart. Something told her that he had something personal to gain from this investigation, and she knew that it was not going to be easy to get rid of him.

  I have to get my paper back up so I can get out of town as soon as possible. She was dead broke and would have to start from scratch. That meant she had to get her work on consignment. All of the money she had was taken in the robbery, so she didn’t have a choice. Even though she was sure that Snow would try to hit her with free bricks to get her back on her feet, she would not accept them. Their feelings for each other didn’t change their business relationship. She was determined to keep business and personal life separate. She didn’t want any favors from anybody, not even Snow. When she made it to the top, she wanted it to be because she hustled and fought her way there, not because her boyfriend placed her there.

  She began to come up with a hustle plan in her head. She knew that the two days she was taking off work to be with Snow were days that she could be hustling in the restaurant, but she felt like it was worth it. She felt like his predicament was her fault. He was only trying to help me, she thought. So, she decided to stay by his side until the doctors let him go home.

  While Snow was in the hospital recuperating, she called into work, but she knew that she would have to go back to work as soon as he got out. Her life was still at stake, and she knew that she was going to have to answer to Wade, sooner or later.

  Chapter 8

  Snakes in the Grass

  Anari had her chauffer park in the back of Stello’s. She had never visited the restaurant in the daytime, but because of recent events, she felt a meeting with the roundtable was urgent. Before she exited the tinted limo, she put on her big shades that covered most of her face, and a silk head wrap that concealed her hair. Her new French manicure graced the door handle and she exited the limo. She walked to the back entrance and knocked on the door. A man looked through the peephole and let Anari in. Anari went straight to Meechi’s office and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Meechi said as he sat at his desk, talking on the phone. Anari pulled off her sunglasses, exposing her face. Meechi quickly hung up the phone when he noticed Anari’s face, and gave her his full attention. Anari had a displeased look on her face as she sat down in the chair in front of Meechi’s desk.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Anari said calmly as she seductively crossed her legs and rested her folded hands on her knee.

  “I don’t know. They just busted in unexpectedly. They don’t have anything, though, but someone is talking. They mentioned Supreme Clientele, and the detective asked about the meetings.”

  “We have a rat somewhere.”

  “I know.”

  “Where is your father?”

  “He went back to Chicago, just until things calmed down.”

  “I don’t blame him. But shit doesn’t stop now. We need to find the inside rat and handle that situation. There is too much money being lost right now with us having no coke,” Anari said with a serious look on her face.

  She wasn’t going to let a raid stop the operation. There was too much money to lose by shutting down. Anari had been in the dope game for a long time and had seen hundreds of millions of dollars pass through her hands. The money was just as addictive as the dope that she sold. She knew that she was taking a loss, but there was nothing she could do. The last couple months, her connect had been without dope, which meant she was without it. Anari kept thinking about her empire slowly going down the drain, and that only fed her desire to find another connect. She had worked too hard to establish herself in the drug game. I’ll be damned if I fall off because of a fucking drought. Anari’s first priority was to find the police informant, within the restaurant.

  “Who do you think is the rat?” Anari asked as she leaned back in her chair.

  “Well, there are only a few people that know about the meetings,” Meechi said as he reached out his hand and began to count. “There’s only Liz and Marcella. I caught Marcella talking to Liz one night about the meeting, so I got her taken care of. Liz, she is a good girl and goes to church every Sunday. She wouldn’t say anything. And there’s Buggy, but he’s a fuckin’ retard. Oh yeah, and there is Zya. She’s the black waitress that served us the other night.”

  “What do you know about that Zya chick? Could she be snitching?”

  “No fuckin’ way. Forget about it! She’s just as dirty us. Y
a see, she’s been pushing coke around the restaurant. You know, since the drought. If you ask me, she kind of reminds me of you a couple of years ago,” Meechi said as he played with the toothpick that dangled out of his mouth.

  “Is that right? Where do you think she gets her coke from? Is it any good?”

  “Probably not. She’s from the fuckin’ ghetto,” Meechi said as he laughed at his own joke.

  Anari grew slightly offended and replied, “I’m from the hood, Di’Meechi. Don’t get it twisted. For the last couple of years, I’ve had the purest shit that hits this country, so that don’t mean shit!”

  Meechi knew he had pushed Anari’s buttons, and tried to lighten up the mood. “Sorry, Anari. No disrespect. I just don’t think she has the quality that we are looking for.”

  “Just to make sure, let me talk to her. Set it up for later on tonight.”

  “Okay,” Meechi agreed as he nodded his head up and down.

  “And Meechi, take care of the other waitress and fire that retarded kid. I’d rather be safe than sorry,” Anari said as she got up to leave the office. She didn’t want to kill Liz, but it was all in the game. This was the life she had chosen, and there was no half-stepping; either you do it all the way, or don’t do it at all. Anari wanted to keep the grass cut, because then the snakes would show.

  Wade rode through the city streets, collecting his thoughts. Lately, the only thing he could think about was revenge. He remembered how close he had been with his deceased cousin, Tiffany. He laughed as he pictured them in the bar, getting drunk as hell together and trading “yo’ momma” jokes, and when he first told her he was going to be a cop. She talked for days about him becoming one of the “others.”

  Then he remembered when he was the one called to the scene when she supposedly committed suicide. He had just talked to her the night before, and everything was going good with her. He knew that she couldn’t have killed herself, and it tugged at his heart. The only thing he could remember was her naked body hanging there with a lipstick mark on her cheek. He couldn’t get the image out of his head.