“I took that picture of y’all. Fucked-up part about it is I was out there working. Those rich-ass singers and songwriters who showed up needed a fix to deal with Marvin Gaye’s death, and I supplied it.” He laughed as he remembered the day and shook his head. “Hell, I even got that expensive-ass camera from a white cat who worked for the newspaper. He was short on cash, but that camera covered the difference. That was a sad-ass day in music history.”
Temper looked up at her uncle, trying to see if there was a soul inside of the drug shell. She came up empty-handed. “What’s sad is you. You’d do anything for the dope, and the dope ain’t never done shit for you but smoked you more than you smoked it. You know you owe me big time for this shit, right?”
He stood up. “Yeah, I fucked up . . .” Troy forgot his next words at the sight before him. He checked out his skin and then Temper’s. “Girl, you’re bleeding all over your bed. Are you cut, stabbed—”
“Shut up before Granny hears you, nigga. I’m fine. I just feel weaker than a muthafucka right now. So look, you’ll work for me until I get better. I shouldn’t give your stealing ass shit, but I’m going to pay you when you’re done.”
“Whatever you need, Tee, I got you, but if you want me at my best, I’m going to need my medicine, too. You ain’t the only one sick.” He scratched his neck and then frantically scratched his head with both hands while she watched and shook her head in disbelief.
“I’ll give you a dime piece to hold you until after you help me into the shower and clean this shit up for me. Get Wiggles, too. I need her help.”
“I’m on it.”
“Wait,” Temper said before he exited her room. “This stays between us. Don’t tell Granny or anyone in the streets shit about me, you hear? If folks come through looking for me, you ain’t seen me. That goes for everybody, even Kei-Kei, and from now on, stop calling that fat bitch your niece. That ho ain’t fit for our blood.”
He saluted her and went to do her bidding. Temper sat on her bed, and her temperature kept rising. Her skin had gotten so hot that the charm on her necklace heated up and began to feel uncomfortable. She took it off her neck, removed the charm from the chain, and placed it in with her watch as her new keepsake.
“Hey, baby, that sorry, nothing-ass husband of mine said you wanted me.” Wiggles came in with Troy behind her.
“Yeah, I do. Give me a second.” She turned her attention back to her uncle. “Can you go get clean covers for my bed out of the linen closet? And while I’m in the shower, I need you to make it for me. I need to lie down for a while.”
Once he was out of earshot, she locked eyes with Wiggles and let the tears fall that she had been holding back. “I made a move last night that I’m not proud of.” She shrugged and then continued, “But fuck it. I had to and would do it again. I’m going to tighten you up, I promise, but I need your help first.”
Wiggles didn’t know the facts, and she didn’t need them to figure out what was going on. She had been street poisoned young, and going to church every Sunday wasn’t the poison control center as her parents had prayed. Wiggles had noticed the large gangster clothing Temper had recently switched to wearing. Then, Temper would send her into the Bloods’ neighborhood for food at all hours of the night. She’d order chili cheese pastrami fries with a cup of Thousand Island dressing and a cheeseburger with avocado on the side every time. Wiggles knew she had been pregnant. What she didn’t know was that Temper had given birth to the child. When she saw the blood on her comforter, Wiggles assumed she’d had an abortion or, even worse, she had miscarried. Aware of the pride the little girl wore on her sleeve like a badge from the Scouts, she decided to talk so Temper wouldn’t have to.
“First thing you need me to do for you is run down this street to the dollar store. It’s going to take a bottle of peroxide to get that out of the comforter, and do you have pads with wings? What are you doing for the pain? Never mind. I almost forgot that you have a thing about pain medicine. That shower should help a little. I’ll bring the heating pad in here when I get back. What about a fever? You know you’re wide open and can catch infection easily. Otherwise, I would have told you to soak in the tub.” Wiggles was rambling as she placed her palm on Temper’s forehead, which was on fire. “Lord, you’re hotter than virgin pussy on sale on the stroll. I’ll get you a bottle of fever reducer, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to get you to a hospital—”
“No hospitals and no doctors,” Temper interrupted.
“You stupid little girl, do you know you could have killed yourself doing your own home-remedy abortion? I know you don’t want to go to a doctor, but there ain’t shit I can buy over the counter for an infection. But,” she said, racking her brain harder than she had in years, “I do have a friend I might be able to get antibiotics from. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Wiggles, I need you to be my auntie Shirley right now, okay? Damn. Here’s twenty dollars for the store. Get everything you think I need except for pads. I have a bag of them on the porch next to the door. I didn’t want Grandma Jo to see them. I guess I’m bleeding heavier than I thought. Bring that bag in, look through my drawers, and find me an outfit comfortable to lie down in. Put it on my dresser while Troy changes my bed, and then go to the store.”
Words never meant a thing to Shirley until Temper called her “auntie.” Caught off guard by the affection, she wrapped her arms around Temper and rocked her as she sang. Temper didn’t know the song. Still, she’d bet her last dollar that it was known around churches. The lyrics spoke of peace only found through God and giving her suffering to Him. That was about all she could take in as she felt the angelic voice take her to a place she never knew existed. The tears stopped, a smile grew on her face, and then she hugged her aunt back.
“Damn, you can still sing.”
“Girl, that’s nothing. I used to blow the wigs off the first three rows of the church.” She giggled, releasing herself from the hug.
Troy had been eavesdropping at the door, and watching his wife love on the closest thing they had to a daughter made him remember why he had fallen in love with her. It wasn’t the drugs. It was the long nights of talking and dreaming together. The drugs felt good at first, and then they didn’t. It was too late for a do-over, but he vowed to get those conversations back.
He wiped the emotions off his face and walked in as Temper tried to stand up. “I got you, Tee, and the water is already on in the shower.”
“Cool. Just help me get to the bathroom, and I got it from there.”
He got her to the bathroom, and they both realized that she had lied. She didn’t have the strength to take over from there. When the steam hit her in the face when she walked in, she got lightheaded and almost hit the floor. He grabbed the hair dangling from her ponytail and helped to remove her sweatshirt. The awkward silence in the room made them both uncomfortable. He had always been “Troy.” There was no real uncle/niece relationship. He spit knowledge, and she picked over it, only taking what she felt she could use. He pulled on the waistband of her pants and then looked her in her eyes.
“Temper, do you remember what I told you the day the police kicked in the front door to get me for that robbery?” he asked, now pulling down her panties with his eyes locked on hers.
“Yeah, I’ll never forget it. You said the only way out of the hood is over a thirty-foot wall. Being born half Asian gave me a ten-foot ladder, and it’s up to me to get the twenty feet to get over it.” She quoted him almost verbatim.
“Exactly, but there’s more I need to tell you, and that’s that I’m sorry we sabotaged you from getting the twenty feet you needed. None of us got ours, and we didn’t do shit nor teach you how to get yours because we don’t know how the fuck to get them in the first damn place. Look at us—smoked out or drunk off our asses. We gave up our ladders for a fix years ago. Lift your left leg, baby girl.”
Fear of him seeing or having to touch her pad and panties flashed over her face, and he caught
it. “We’re family, Temper. I got you, and I should have stepped up and gotten you years ago. I’m sorry, baby girl. You have been through a lot of unnecessary shit, and if I had stepped up and forced the State to send you to foster care instead of volunteering to help Mama raise you, you would have gotten your twenty feet.” He had fully undressed her and even snapped her bra without ever breaking their eye contact. He kept that contact until she was behind the security of the shower curtain.
“Ay, I’m throwing all this shit in a bag and taking it to the garbage. I don’t know too much about the health of pussy, especially Asian wonton-soup pussy. I’ve swum in the Red Sea a few times to know blood clots the size of plums ain’t a good look, though. You got two of them muthafuckas looking at me like they might grow legs and attack. There ain’t nobody you can talk to about this shit?”
Temper immediately thought about her grandmother. The thought dissipated as quickly as it formed. It was now close to eight o’clock in the morning. She was sure she’d be fully drunk by now. “Nah, Uncle. We will figure this shit out. I think I’ve also thought of a way for you to help me get my twenty feet. We’ll talk about it later.”
“Just let me know what I need to do to make shit right.” He opened the bathroom door. “Let me clean this shit up before it attacks me,” he chuckled.
Temper stuck her face out of the shower as she watched him clean it all up. Before he closed the door to give her privacy, she said, “Thanks, Unc. I love you.” She hurriedly closed the shower curtain, realizing she hadn’t said those words to him since that day when she was eight and he went to jail.
“I love you too, Temper Taz,” he said, calling her by the nickname he had given her as a child. “Scream if you need me. I’ll be back with a towel if Shirley’s slow ass isn’t back from the store by then.”
Chapter Four
Big Trice wished she were alone in the desert without water or maybe in the back of a police squad car shackled to a shitty diaper. Hell, even sitting front row at her funeral would have been better than riding in the car for fifty minutes with Casper and Beast. Of all the bitches banging Low Bottom Rollin’ Twenties Crips, Beast always called on her when it was time to put in work. Especially when her baby daddy was the reason they needed to put in the work.
“Say that shit again,” Beast roared at her for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes.
“I’m gon’ knock on the door and ask for that nigga Travis. If he answers, I’ll hit him with the lines you told me to say—”
“What lines are those?” he interrupted, clearly irritated by Trice’s summary.
“That I’m baby Capone’s baby mama, and that he sent me over there to give him a burner phone so he can call him. I’ll let him know it’s an emergency, tell him the number is programmed already, and walk back to the SUV. If somebody else answers the door, I’ll tell them who I am and walk back to the whip before he comes out. That way, he meets me away from listening ears.”
“Good,” he grunted.
“No disrespect, big homie, but why can’t I just pop the nigga in his dome if he answers the door? His ass is grimy, and he tried to play us fuck ugly, cuz.” She was talking to Beast with her eyes locked on Casper’s.
The men were in the second row, loading clips and placing silencers onto their preferred pieces. Casper had been silent the entire ride besides responding to questions from Beast. He wasn’t known to be talkative, which made the hood name given to him a perfect match. His ghostly moves gave urban legend a new meaning and fortuned him the right to save his words for giving out orders to his less-ranked subordinates. Trice hated his silence, and after investing enough energy into complaining about it, the couple adopted their language. Their language didn’t require words, and if she was reading Casper’s expression right, their plan after the robbery was still a go. Aside from being able to tell that he was scared shitless about making such a bold move, she knew he was ready to get it over with.
“No problem and no disrespect taken,” was all Beast said in return.
The house they pulled up to had seen better days. Bullet holes had broken the two windows that faced the street. There were sun-bleached newspapers taped to the glass to make up for the lack of curtains. Broken shingles covered the ground more than they covered the roof, and the dirty canary paint wrapped around the house needed steam cleaning. Never-manicured hedges and wildly growing grass lined the broken gate that remained closed by the strength of a linked chain and lock holding it together.
Though the house seemed abandoned, there were a few telltale signs that lured you into believing that the house wasn’t vacant. The driveway was clear, and there was a two-wheel freshly indented trail that led from the street to the back side of the house. Although the front exterior showed no signs that the house had running electricity, a lone light at the house’s rear was proof that it did. Vertical black security bars lined every window, and the wrought-iron security door placed in front of the wooden door couldn’t have been more than a year old.
Trice pulled into the driveway and parked with the butt of the SUV in the street. The other entrances and exits to the property were blocked. She unzipped and removed the sweater that shielded her cleavage and granted stardom to her double-D breasts. If her titties didn’t get her the pass she needed to make the plan flow smoothly, she hoped the extra-glossy lip gloss she applied would.
She made it halfway to the back before being met by one of the dope spot’s henchmen. “Damn, sexy, what do you got going on?” asked the man with green eyes now hindering her path.
He was bright yellow with peanut butter–pigmented freckles. The word “goon” could describe his size and dress. However, it didn’t define his face’s angelic features. He was handsome, and if she hadn’t met him with a plan in place, she would have pushed flirting with him to the max. She wondered if his dick was as wide and long as his arms and neck, then seductively asked, “Is Travis here?”
“Travis who?” Hearing his OG’s government name used by the stranger snapped him out of the trance her flesh had put him in. The girl didn’t look as if she could be a Fed, nor did she reek of probation officer. Nonetheless, she wasn’t identifiable, and only those banging Pomona Hustling Crips were allowed at the spot. He wasn’t sure who she was, nor did it matter, because he was sure she was banging his hood.
“Um, I don’t know his hood name. My baby daddy, Baby Capo, gave me this address and sent me over here to give him a burner phone to call him on. He said it’s an emergency. He said there’s a lot of bullshit floating around the pen about his big homie Capone,” she said with a shrug.
“Baby Capone said that? Damn, has he been smashing on them niggas who got the big homie’s name in their mouth?”
She shrugged again, and then he continued with a stone expression etched on his face. It was the first time that “goon” could describe his full description.
“I don’t know if I know anybody named Travis, though.”
“Okay, cool,” she said, turning on her heels and walking toward her vehicle. “I don’t like running his gangbanging errands anyways. If his ass hadn’t left me to do twelve years in Chino state prison, he wouldn’t have let me come to his hood. I’ll tell him what you said.”
She was ten feet away from the car when a different voice told her to wait. It was Travis. He was wearing a white muscle shirt, navy blue khakis, and a pair of white and blue paisley house slippers. He hit the blunt he was holding in his hand before he spoke again. “You Candice?”
“Hell nah, I ain’t Candice. Do I look like a snitch-ass bitch to you?” She said it the way Beast had instructed her to. “I’m his first baby mama, Audrey.”
Travis hit the blunt again and then passed it to his henchman. He started walking toward her, and she rushed to meet him as far away from the SUV as she could.
“What did my nigga say was up?” he asked when they came to a meeting point.
“He didn’t. He told me to give you this burner phone and tell you to ca
ll him. The number is already locked in the recent calls.”
“Good looking out,” he said, accepting the phone from her outstretched hand. He dialed the number as she made her way to the car. Before she could pull off, he flagged her back down.
“Ay, my nigga needs you to drop a package off for him,” he yelled, and she pulled back into her same parking space. Quickly he beckoned her to pull around to the back. Beast had told her he would. “Pop your hatch, little mama, and come on in. It’s going to take me a minute or two to get this shit together.”
“I’m not going in nobody’s house full of thirsty-ass niggas. I’ll wait right here,” she snapped.
“There ain’t nobody else here. It’s just me and that nigga Dice you just met, and we don’t bite.”
She hesitated and then got out. She followed both men in the house. Once she was seated in the living room, or what should have been the living room, her phone rang.
“Is it just those two niggas in the crib?” Beast asked.
“Yeah, Mama, I’ll be back soon. You stay trippin’ on my kids like they ain’t your grandkids, too. Damn, I’m on my way back now.”
The call ended, and the show was about to begin. Both men entered what looked to be the master bedroom. She reached in the waistband of her pants and gripped the handle of her piece. Dice came out of the room first and headed out the back door with a duffle bag in tow. Once she saw Casper walk through the door, she made her way to the bedroom.
“Ay, go back and wait in there. I’m sure my nigga don’t want you caught up in this shit no more than you already are. If the supreme chief, OG Casper, sent word to Baby Casper in prison to get this done, there’s some shit about to pop off with them Low Bottom Twenties niggas in L.A.,” he urged.
Sadly, the sound of her pistol cocking told him otherwise.
Carl Weber's Kingpins Page 6