The Lipstick Clique

by David Weaver

  “I’m sorry about everything Lena,” Tarra said as she drank the last of her glass of milk.

  “Sorry? Please. Weak bitches are sorry. We’re sorry for weak bitches!”

  They looked at each other and burst out laughing. That had been a phrase that they had been repeating ever since the first week they spent together. They had coined it the “Weak Bitch Chorus.” While they were sharing a laugh, they heard a knock at the door.

  Immediately, both of them went into do or die survival mode. They quieted down and grabbed pistols and AKs off of the floor, table and sofas. Their lights were already low, so they didn’t have to worry about altering the visual setup of their home. What they did have to do though, was figure out who the hell was knocking.

  Lena looked at Tarra, who simply whispered to her, “It’s probably just my homegirl with the food.”

  Relief spread over Lena’s body as she picked up the assault rifle and headed to the door. Slowly, she stuck her eye into the peephole and nearly peed in her clothes. She thrust the assault rifle into a bag of clothes and opened the door with a huge smile on her face. Her Mommy was standing there in the doorway with some big shades on and holding some bags of food.

  Milan walked in and gave Lena a tear filled, heartfelt hug. Emotions ran rampant in the room, and Tarra was just standing there with a fake smile trying to get clued in to what was happening.

  Milan broke Lena’s embrace and walked over to Tarra. “I’m a friend of one of your best friends, Gigi. And I’m also Lena’s mother.” Milan said with a smile on her face.

  Tarra smiled back at her. She’d heard quite a bit about Lena’s mother, from Lena of course, and was just thrilled to be in her presence. If she was a friend of Gigi’s, then she knew for a fact that Milan’s word must be nothing but gold. Tarra hugged Milan, and grew more in awe each second that she was around her. She was such a beautiful woman, and her presence was extremely dominating.

  “Mommy! We have a lot of catching up to do! A lot has happened since the last time we were together! I listened to what you told me and grew up a whole lot! And this is my partner in crime, Tarra. We are The Lipstick Clique Mommy! Just like you told me I would always be, I went ahead and kept getting money!”

  Hearing this sparked Milan’s interest. “How much money do you have child?”

  Tarra was about to respond and let her know that they were down to their last couple of thousand, but before she could get a word out, Lena spoke up. “I hid some money so that when you came back home, you would always have some money. I have about $25,000 put away for you!”

  Tarra was surprised. That was her first time ever hearing that information. As far as she knew, there was no extra money being hid. She thought that her and Lena were on better terms than that. She thought that they were best friends. Still, she forced out a smile, as she watched the older lady get handed a duffle bag filled with money for doing nothing.

  “Thank you, my child! You’ve made me so proud!” Milan said as she wrapped her arms around Lena. Lena stood there blushing and enjoying the love being shown to her by her mother.

  “I’m so glad you came home Mommy!” Lena said naively.

  Tarra sensed that something was wrong and spoke up. “So, what happened? Did you go to trial?”

  Milan exhaled and walked across the room in her stilettos. Her heels clicked against the tile in perfect rhythm as she made her way over to the chair so she could sit down. She took a deep breath and faked a few tears. “Yes Tarra… I beat the case! They didn’t have too much evidence on me at the time, but now it’s a different story.”

  Tarra walked up to her and stood with her hands on her hips. “What do you mean?”

  Milan continued her fake crying session while simultaneously implementing her plan. “I mean… the prosecutor told me that she was going to get some more evidence on me and bring me right back through the ringer with all of that bullshit. So that’s why I came to you two, because I trust you!”

  “What do you mean?” Tarra asked.

  “I mean… I have a job soooo big! I’m talking about a job bigger than any and every job you have ever done in your entire robbing career. This job will make all three of us multi-millionaires, but in order for it to work, several things must happen.” Milan said while gauging the two girl’s reactions.

  When she saw that the reactions were satisfactory, she kept pressing. “The first thing we have to do is travel so that we can make it happen. I have a friend who owns a private jet, so if everything is cool, we can fly out tonight and make this happen. What do you think?” She asked the girls, as if they really had a choice.

  Just for the sake of being nice, Lena looked at Tarra to see if she had anything to say about the proposal. At first it seemed as if Tarra was going to say something, but then she swallowed her tongue and smiled.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Tarra said as she forced her smile to remain on her face. Actually, Tarra hated the concept.

  Treasure

  Treasure looked at the watch one last time. She’d told herself that she was only going to wait two or three more minutes for 5 to return to the house before she left, but those two or three minutes had turned to twelve dangerous minutes. She was standing in the doorway about to lose her mind while waiting on her man to return from that store. When he opened the door and saw the tears rolling down her face, he knew right away that it was time to take his lady away from there. In his heart, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

  She stared at him wide-eyed as he walked into the house and closed the door. She was curious to see if his demeanor had changed and if he had heard anything about her. She didn’t see any change in him. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him, as much as she wanted to. All she knew was that she loved her man and wanted to keep him no matter how much faking she had to do in order to hold on. She figured that just maybe, it wasn’t time for her to tell him about her past yet. Maybe he needed to love her just a little bit more before she did that. And she was going to play it safe as long as she needed to.

  “Why are you crying Treasure?” 5 asked as he set her Tylenol down on the counter.

  Treasure grabbed his hand and pulled him to her. “Baby do you love me?” It was the only thing she could bring herself to say. If he answered yes, then all he would have to do is prove it. It was as simple as that.

  5 laughed. “Of course I love you. I wanna spend the rest of my life loving you baby. I told you that. There is no other woman -”

  “Well let’s go!”

  5 was startled. “Go where?” He was stunned for a second. He didn’t expect this.

  “Let’s go to Florida. Like right now!”

  5 took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She was asking him to pick up and leave his entire family in the middle of the night. He would have to leave his brother and sister without letting them know what was up. He would also be on the road with her while knowing that she was one of the most wanted women in the country. That instantly placed him in harm’s way, but if that’s what it took to make his dream come true, he was all for it.

  He picked up her duffel bag off of the floor. “Is this all you’re taking?”

  She snatched it from him. “Let’s go! Now! We can talk later!”

  They walked to his car, got in and started it up. It was late at night, but they were both wide awake and alert. They would be in Jacksonville, Florida in a few hours, and they could sort things out when they got there.

  __________

  When Danielle and Meatloaf arrived at 5’s house, they were long gone. Grimmer had managed to see the news for himself once he got home, but when he called 5’s phone to let him know what was going on, it kept going straight to voicemail. Grimmer met up with Danielle and Meatloaf at 5’s house and opened the door with his extra set of keys. When they walked in, everything still looked intact. They all agreed that they would come back over there in a couple of hours to check on 5. By then, he should be back to answering his phone.

  Grim
mer apologized to Meatloaf for not believing him when he first brought it up, but there was nothing that could be done about it. What was done in the past could only be referred to in memory format… it could not be used as a current guideline.

  Milan

  It was 92 degrees when Milan, Lena, and Tarra arrived in Borocay, Philippines. Lena and Tarra had huge smiles on their faces when they stepped off the private jet and onto the whitest sand they had ever seen in their lives. It was sooo beautiful, and they didn’t know what they had done to deserve such a beautiful vacation as this.

  “Thank you so much Mommy!” Lena said as she stared at Milan through her matching sunglasses. Milan simply returned Lena’s smile and continued walking until she reached their pre-arranged transportation vehicle. Milan had already arranged most of the things that were happening through the FBI and the CIA’s secret bounty hunter division. Milan took a deep breath as she walked through the scorching sand and got into the vehicle.

  Lena and Tarra followed suit, and all three of them sat next to each other as the vehicle made it across the soft sand and onto the rocky road. The government had taken a chance, allowing Milan to fly out of the country. But they had made proper adjustments, just in case Milan tried something funny on them. Along with making sure she traveled over there without a dollar to her name, they had also sent a recovery team with her. The recovery team would kidnap her and the other two girls and bring them back to the U.S. if it came down to it.

  But the FBI didn’t anticipate any of that happening, especially with the work that Milan had already done in such a short amount of time. They were very impressed with the type of resources that she was able to reach when they allowed her to roam the streets. The results were awesome and all of the big-wigs were impressed with the agent and the prosecutor’s decision to allow Milan to pull off those jobs.

  The Philippines was a different animal, and it had to be treated as such.

  __________

  They were only scheduled to be in the country for 24 hours maximum. In advance, the layout and structure of the Power Family estate had been laid out on paper for Milan to study. The U.S. government had been tracking their lives while they were living abroad, even though it was nothing that they could legally do to them on foreign soil.

  The Bankroll Squad had lost to the U.S. government in a court of law, and had still managed to leave the country as if they were found not guilty. They had managed to make a complete mockery of the federal government and everything that the United States stood for. Malcolm and Kyla Powers had managed to flee in such a manner that when the President heard about it, he almost fired the entire federal law enforcement team that was responsible for the mishap. How the hell could they have them listed as top threats, and number one on the most wanted list, and allow them to just take a got damn airplane out of the country!?

  Indeed, it was an embarrassing situation, but they had managed to convince Milan that she was the right person to atone for their mistakes. In exchange, they would allow her to walk free for her own crimes.

  __________

  Milan had been planning and discussing the situation for six hours, nonstop. She had appointed positions to Lena and Tarra, and had them both convinced that it was going to be a very simple job. She had convinced them that they were all going to get rich from this job, and they had both believed her.

  __________

  Once they had made it in, Milan had to make sure that all of the ladies made it out in order for her freedom to be granted. Not only did she need to bring the Bankroll Squad to the FBI, she also needed to bring The Lipstick Clique to them, in order to complete her end of the deal. They had accomplished what they set out to achieve, and they were only tying up the loose end details. Milan handed Kyla and Malcolm’s baby to Lena so that she could write up a ransom note for the couple to read as their entertainment over the next few days.

  She was writing away feverishly because she knew that it was time to get their asses up out of that house. They had been there for way too long and she knew it. The only thing she had on her side was the fact that they had entered the house as soon as Kyla and Malcolm began their deep sleep. She had stalked their master bedroom from across the street with high quality binoculars until she saw them lay back against their pillows. But that had been an hour ago.

  It had taken them 30 minutes to disarm their foreign security system. If it had been an American system, they never would have been able to disarm it. After they disarmed it, it had taken them another 20 minutes inside the huge estate to find out which room the baby was sleeping in. But Lena, Milan, and Tarra had all successfully pulled off the job of the century. They were smiling and high fiving each other quietly while Milan finished the letter.

  Basically, her plan was to draw the Bankroll Squad back onto U.S. soil, so that her job with the FBI would be complete. Lena and Tarra were going to be turned in as soon as they landed back on U.S. soil, so it really didn’t matter what they thought at that moment. She was only doing the ransom note for effect. She didn’t give a damn about kidnapping a baby for profit. She folded the note and slid it into the baby’s playpen.

  She turned around, smiled at the two ladies, and gave them each the thumbs up. But her thumbs up was very brief, as in the distance she heard a voice that seemed to be getting louder by the second. “Majallaaaaa! Hey babyyyy. Heyyy babbbbyyy! Mommy’s on the wayyyy. You awake in there?” It was Kyla.

  Lena and Tarra took off with the baby in tow. They ran out of the room and into the next room that held the window that they had to climb out of. The problem was that the opening that they had climbed in through was so small that they had to contort their bodies for three minutes apiece trying to get in there. Tarra slid through by folding, stretching and twisting her limbs until they made it out of the window. Once she got out there, Lena handed her the baby and attempted to get her body through the window, but it got jammed.

  She was in a position where she couldn’t even budge… She was stuck. “Shit I’m stuck Mommy!” She whispered in a frantic voice. They heard the voice when it walked into the baby’s room singing a song, and Milan knew that it was Kyla. She used all of her strength and pushed Lena has hard as possible until she got her to dislodge herself out of the window opening.

  Then she turned her own body almost into a compact pretzel as she slid through the window opening with a smile on her face. She stuck her head and left arm out and pointed at the clearing, motioning for them to run. Lena and Tarra took off running, while occasionally looking back for their comrade. Once they made it to the fence and Milan still hadn’t made it out of the house, Lena stood there as if she wanted to go back and get her.

  “Come on girl, let’s go!!” Tarra whispered to her while she held the baby in her arms and rocked her up and down. The baby was starting to cry, and she was starting to get nervous, so she just continued running until they reached the opening that they had cut out of the gate. She slowed down and slid her body and the baby through there. When she looked up, Lena was still standing there like a deer caught in headlights.

  __________

  Kyla walked into the room to give Majalla a bottle and to change her diaper. She’d heard some faint noise on the baby monitor, and knew that it was that time for them to have their special nightly mommy and daughter time. Raising her child was an exciting time for her, and she had embraced motherhood with ease. It wasn’t a hard thing to do, when she had a loving husband in her life.

  For her husband, she had literally laid down her life on countless occasions. It was so awesome to her that he had been willing to lay his life down for her and their daughter ever since they had moved to the Philippines. He kept his pistol on him, and stayed on the high alert to make sure that his family was protected. But that night he was asleep… and Majalla was gone.

  Kyla let out a scream that pierced the silence with terror. “Malcolmmmmmm!” She threw the note back into the play pen frantically. Malcolm ran in there with his gun drawn. “What Kyla?�
�� He asked. When he looked down, he knew what the problem was.

  Kyla looked down at the floor and saw at the trail of dust that had been tracked into the house through bootprints. She followed the sets of dusty prints straight into the next room where she saw someone climbing out of the window. They seemed to be struggling to get out of there and were just now making it across the threshold. They only had one leg inside of the house trying to leverage themselves, and it looked as though they were about to pull that leg out as well before Kyla grabbed it.

  It was a female, Kyla could tell by her weak lower body strength. Kyla grabbed her leg with two hands and fell onto the floor as she pulled her all the way back inside the room. Immediately, she jumped up and stared at her. “What the fuck!!! Bitch, didn’t I allllready beat yo muthafuckin asssss one time?!?!?!?”

  Milan wanted to kick herself for getting tangled up in the window. She took a deep breath and slumped her shoulders down as Kyla threw the first fist into her face. She knew that she should have made Lena and Tarra get out of there after her if she wanted to make it out alive, but her greed had gotten the best of her.