by Kiki Swinson
LaBeckie had his driver pull up to a small one-family house in the Church Street section of Norfolk. I ducked and weaved my head around so I could see just where the fuck they was gon’ have me laying my head. I mean, anywhere was probably better than prison, but a nigga had to make sure it was gon’ be safe and secure and decent. So far, from what I could see, the neighborhood looked like any suburban neighborhood with similar houses equal distance from one another, fences out front, lawns and driveways with regular cars parked on them.
“This is going to be your home from now on. You do right by us and you may never see the inside of that prison cell again . . . You fuck this up . . . you will never see the light of day again,” LaBeckie threatened me, in true LaBeckie fashion. He was such a dick rider for power that I realized he couldn’t help himself: being a dick was what kept his ass alive every day. I had long ago realized that LaBeckie was hiding behind that badge like the coward that he was.
We all exited the heavily tinted Impalas that had transported us to the house. I was still shackled and shit. What did they think I could do to the ten of them with no ass gun?
The inside of the house was cool. I mean it was nowhere close to how I was living at the time I got locked up, but it wasn’t a hole-in-the-wall roach-ridden project apartment like what I thought they were going to put me in.
The house was simple. It had light hardwood floors, beige standard cabinets in the kitchen with those cheap, bottom-barrel counter tops. There was a small family room area off the kitchen with a dark brown suede couch, a small glass coffee table, and a forty-two-inch flat-screen hanging on the wall in front of it. The TV was a plus since it had been almost a year since I had been able to watch what the fuck I wanted to watch on TV.
Shit, it wasn’t the mini-mansion I had lived in before I got knocked, but it damn sure was better than a hard metal bunk and a dank, pissy, roach-infested prison cell. At least in this house I wouldn’t have to inhale the stink of another man’s balls all fucking day long.
After LaBeckie’s flunkies unshackled and uncuffed me, LaBeckie immediately started with his rules, regulations, and lectures. There were more rules to becoming a confidential informant than there was being a fucking prisoner. But I listened because there were a few things I had in mind that I was going to benefit from being out. Number one, I was going to see my son in the flesh. Not a muthafucka alive was going to keep me from doing that. I wasn’t going to let Lil Todd see me and start crying and shit, but I was going to creep and see him. I need assurance that he was alive and well before I went through with this mission for LaBeckie. Wasn’t no use in snitching if they had already did some shit to my son.
Number two, all the niggas that had shitted on me while I was inside were going to get a visit from me. That meant those bitch niggas Zack, Billy, and most important of all, Jock. And, last, I was going to find Shannon’s heist stash and I was going to take every single nickel of that shit. I knew my wife well enough to know that she had taken some of the Bobby Knight money and put it away. What I had to figure out was exactly where she had stashed it. I had a few places in mind. I also knew that she had been trying to get in touch with my old attorney, Mr. Kaufman, because when I called him his secretary had said, “Oh, Mr. Marshall, I told your wife yesterday that Mr. Kaufman would get back to her.” That let me know that my snake-ass wife was trying to hire Kaufman to get her off, which also meant Shannon had money somewhere that she was going to use to pay him.
It would take me some time to get my bearings being out of prison, but as hood rat and predictable my wife was, I knew it wouldn’t be long before something came to mind about where she might have hidden her stash. That bitch thought she had pulled off the ultimate heist, but this nigga here was about to pull off the last heist.
5
Shannon
I was fucking sick when I finally recovered from my injuries and returned to general population and heard that Dee had been stabbed to death trying to save me from those Latina bitches that Todd had put on me. None of the other bitches I had in my crew had even dared to step up, but my main bitch Dee had lost her life trying to save mine. It depressed me to no end because Todd was trying to kill me, not Dee. She was innocent in all of this.
I had lain in my cell three days, refusing to leave for yard, chow, shower, nothing. It was all my fault that Dee was dead. I kept picturing her face and all of the things she had done for me while I was locked up. I could’ve never imagined that she would’ve given up her own life for me, though.
The depression had hit me so bad that the prison psych came by to speak to me and even that soft-spoken, mousy-faced bitch couldn’t get me to utter a word. She kept whispering my name and asking me if I was okay or if I thought I needed to see a doctor. What the fuck did she think? Dee was like my little protégée and my family. I didn’t know what I was going to do without her, because the rest of the bitches in my so-called crew wasn’t about shit. I hadn’t said two words to those weak-ass bitches since I had been back and I had something special in mind for each one of them too. Them bitches all stood around while I was literally getting the shit kicked out of me and they ain’t do shit.
When it was all said and done, I had landed in the infirmary with three broken ribs, a small fracture in my skull, two or three subdural hematomas, both eyes swollen shut, six missing teeth in the front, a broken nose, a broken collar bone, two busted knee caps, a shattered ankle, and five broken fingers on my right hand. I heard I had pissed and shitted on myself during the beat-down and blood had leaked from my pussy too. I probably could never have babies again. It was really a wonder that I was still alive. Even the doctors and nurses in the infirmary couldn’t believe that I had made such a miraculous recovery. I chalked it up to God wanting me to get my revenge . . . or else why would I have made it through that beat-down alive. Especially now that I walked with a limp and one of my eyes never opened back all the way. Yeah, I was all messed up and I refused to look in a mirror to see just how ugly I had become. I could feel the raised scars still on my neck and left cheek—remnants of the slicing I had taken from those Latinas. I felt like the hunchback of Notre Dame when I was going through physical therapy to learn how to walk all over again. It was apparent without even looking in the mirror that I was not the same flawless Shannon as when I had arrived. Whoever made up that saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder was full of shit. Either your ass was beautiful or you wasn’t. I would never be considered beautiful again and that was final. I was used to being drop-dead gorgeous and getting what I wanted because of it. That’s how I had snagged Todd in the first place . . .
“I never seen nobody as gorgeous as you, ma,” Todd said, sidling up next to me at the skating rink where everybody hung out on Saturdays. I didn’t look or smile at him; instead, I rolled my eyes at his corny-ass game. I was so used to niggas pushing up on me with whack game that I had already formulated a plan to dismiss them. I was that stuck up.
“Oh, it’s like that? A’ight, ma, you got it. I just wanted to let you know that your face is flawless,” Todd had continued. I sucked my teeth, ready to say something smart to his ass. That was until I turned all the way around and noticed the huge diamond-encrusted Jesus piece dangling from his neck, his iced-out Rolex, and the crispest pair of white Gucci sneakers I had ever seen. I couldn’t even look in his face because I was already feeling ashamed of myself by just what he wore. Dollar signs rang in my head and right away I felt inadequate. Finally, I shyly looked up at him with my heart racing a mile a minute. I was screaming his name in my head because I couldn’t believe he even took the time out to say something to me. Shit, everybody in the hood knew who Todd Marshall was . . . kingpin of the south.
Me, I was hardly on his level at that time. I was the daughter of a crackhead mother and a father who was doing life. I lived with my grandmother and twelve of my cousins in a two-bedroom project tenement where I slept on a pissy mattress with two other cousins and didn’t have shit to call my own. In fact, I s
hared shoes, clothes, and even a book bag with my cousins: that’s how poor we were.
“See now, you actin’ like the cat got ya tongue. You must like what you see,” Todd said smoothly. I felt a flash of heat come over my body and I felt like my feet had suddenly been planted in cement blocks on the floor.
“What’s your name?” Todd asked, licking his lips like he always did. Blushing and about to faint, I opened my mouth to tell him, but I didn’t get the chance.
“My name is LaShell. La first, then Shell,” my older cousin called out from behind me before she rudely cut in front of me, smiling with her yellow-ass teeth and big-ass gap. I sucked my teeth and just moved aside. I wasn’t going to get on her bad side and have to deal with her wrath later on at home. Besides, little ol’ virgin me ain’t have nothing on my cousin. LaShell had a reputation around town for sucking dick and being fast in the ass so I just knew Todd was going to love her. To my surprise, he pushed LaShell aside.
“Excuse me, though,” Todd said, dismissing her. “I was talking to this beauty right here.” He smiled, grabbing my hand and kissing the back of it. I swear flashes of fire engulfed my body at that moment. That was it. I belonged to Todd Marshall from that day forward. I was with Todd every day after that. I didn’t remember life without him after that. One day I asked him what would have made him choose a bummy girl like me when the skating rink was filled with gorgeous girls. He told me that my face was so beautiful that he’d never even looked at the holey sneakers, dirty jeans, and ripped sweatshirt I was rocking. He couldn’t see anything but my gorgeous face. My beauty had snagged one of the richest dudes in our neighborhood.
“Marshall! Visit!” one of the COs yelled into my cell. I slowly sat up in my bunk, feeling too depressed to even care. I was wondering why she was even fucking with me because it was common knowledge in the prison now that I was mentally fucked up.
“I don’t want no visitors,” I grumbled, killing my own nostrils with my breath. I hadn’t brushed my teeth in days.
“It’s your attorney, so let’s go. You ain’t got no choice,” the CO told me.
I forced myself up from the bunk. I could smell myself, which meant the CO and anyone else I passed could too. I didn’t give a fuck, either. I dragged my bad leg as I walked to the attorney/client visit room. When I saw Mr. Kaufman, the look on his face gave me chills. I didn’t know why right then, but something in my gut just wasn’t feeling right about him. As usual and just like with Todd, I ignored my first instinct about Mr. Kaufman. One of the many mistakes I made that would come back to haunt me.
6
Todd
I had convinced LaBeckie that I needed to go see one of my former workers in order to get my connection back to Abe. I had to work hard to convince LaBeckie that putting a wire on me would be a big mistake because Abe and the dudes I ran with were pros at finding those shits. When I was on the streets and I didn’t trust a nigga wasn’t snitching, I would even have one of my flunkies glove up and feel around a nigga’s asshole looking for wires. LaBeckie finally agreed, but of course he had mad warnings about if I didn’t do this and if I didn’t do that. They provided me with a whip—one of my S Class Benzes that they had seized when I was arrested. Crazy, right? But I guess it was the only way to convince niggas in the hood that I had gotten my shit back and I was out for good. LaBeckie had his tech guys strap a small tracking device to the car and then came more verbal warnings about coming back and reporting everything to him. In my head I was laughing at LaBeckie because he thought he had me under pressure, but really, I had his stupid ass under the most pressure. I wasn’t stupid and everything I do always has a plan B.
I drove the S Class to my old car garage and the code on the gate was, surprisingly, still the same. I thought for sure that nigga Jock would’ve changed all that shit. I knew LaBeckie and his crew was watching the GPS monitors so being there wasn’t going to raise any red flags. They knew that on some level I had to make my old crew think I was back in business. What they didn’t know was that I was two steps ahead of their asses. I parked the Benz inside the garage and went into my old office. I stopped for a few seconds, inhaled and exhaled and shook my head. “It was all good just six months ago,” I said to myself. Being there made me reminisce on how large I was living at one time. Now here I was scrambling for revenge. I quickly shook it off, raced over to the desk, moved the office chair, and pulled up a loose floorboard.
“Jock ain’t find this shit,” I whispered excitedly as I retrieved two stacks of cash totaling three thousand dollars and an old .40-caliber Glock I had stashed in there for emergencies. The money and the gun were all I had left to my fucking name. I turned back to the desk, picked up the phone and, again to my surprise, it was still operational. Things seemed to be going perfectly. I called a cab and told the dispatcher to have the cab pick me up in the alley behind the garage. LaBeckie would think I was at the garage all night and even if he had a tail on me, they would all be looking for the Benz. My first stop was to see a little nigga that came up under me named Zack. As I rode to the address I had for him, I thought about what Shannon had told me about how the nigga had shitted on her when she came to collect from him. I could see the whole shit taking place.
Shannon said there was a bunch of niggas out there, gambling and standing around waiting for their customers. She was disgusted and scared because although she had grown up there, she hadn’t been to this side of town in a long time. All the run-down buildings and crack fiends running up and down the streets made her nervous. Even though some of those crackheads were her relatives and she grew up around there, it was a place she had wanted to forget.
Shannon pulled the E Class Benz I had bought her right up to the corner where she spotted Zack.
“Zack!” Shannon called out of the window. She said all of the niggas in front of the trap turned around like they were ready to flex. They were all staring at her like she was crazy. Zack put his hand up to his eyes and moved his head in and out like he was having a hard time recognizing Shannon. She said the nigga looked confused and shit, even though he had stayed at our crib and seen Shannon a bunch of times. Shannon called out to him again, this time bending her head down a little so she could be sure he could see her face through the window. Her face wasn’t one niggas in the hood could forget, either. Shannon said that she knew damn well Zack knew just who the fuck she was, but she played it cool while he played his little game.
Finally, he bopped over to Shannon’s car.
“What’s up?” she asked, giving him a dirty look.
“Oh, damn, Todd’s wife—Shannon, right?” Zack asked, putting a little phony-ass smile on his face. Shannon said the way he was playing all dumb and shit she could’ve slapped the shit out of his skinny ass.
“Yeah. You don’t remember staying at my crib when you first got home?” Shannon asked him, reminding that nigga just who took care of his ass and got him back on his feet when he was hungry.
“Nah, I’m saying I remember and shit, but you look different and shit,” Zack said, all cocky like.
“A’ight, well I’m sure you heard about my husband, right?” Shannon asked Zack, not even giving him time to answer because the way the streets of Norfolk was, she knew he already knew about me getting locked up.
“Well, Todd sent me here,” Shannon started again.
“Oh yeah, I heard he got locked up on some ol’ life sentence shit,” Zack said with more cocky boldness behind his words. Shannon told me that Zack’s words kind of gut-checked her and she felt like doubling over like he had actually punched her.
“Nah, that’s what niggas might think. He gonna get out as soon as I collect from all the dudes that owe him so I can pay his attorney,” Shannon had said with an attitude. “That is the reason I’m here. You owe Todd twenty thousand, right?” Shannon asked Zack, giving him that eye that said she already knew what he owed. Right away Shannon wasn’t getting a good vibe from the nigga at all.
“Ummm. I thought me and t
hat nigga had settled that,” Zack said dismissively.
Shannon was a little shocked by what he said but she wasn’t having it. “Settled it? Well, that ain’t what Todd told me. I really need to collect that as soon as possible,” Shannon shot back at him. She was not trying to hear that nigga right then.
“I’ma see what I can do,” Zack said, starting to back away from the car like he was dismissing my wife.
“When should I check back?” Shannon yelled out the window, but Zack had moved away from her car fast as hell.
“I’ll get back to you. You don’t have to look for me. I’ll get at you,” Zack called out, turning his back and returning to his little group of corner boys, leaving Shannon sitting there looking like some bum bitch begging for money.
I snapped out of my thoughts of the story Shannon had told me about Zack just as I made it to the address I had for him. Trust me, I had a renewed fever to get at this nigga thinking about how much paper he owed me and how he didn’t even try to help my wife get up the attorney fees.
When I pulled up to the spot where Dugan had told me Zack was staying now, my jaw dropped. Zack had gone from little flunky corner boy and runner to the big leagues. Seeing how he was living just infuriated me more, knowing that when Shannon came to Zack to collect money he owed me to help me get a lawyer, this nigga played the fool and dismissed her like he never owed me shit. I squinted my eyes at the house as jealousy and anger cropped up in my mind. Zack had bought a crib bigger than my old crib. He was living large over in Emerald Green Estates, which was a ritzier neighborhood than where I used to live. I bit down into my jaw and curled and uncurled my fists as I sat outside and watched the house for a little while. This nigga had big huge columns outside of the house with a beautiful beveled-glass front door. I guess my mentoring had done Zack some good. I had always told my crew to buy things like property and invest some of their money so that they always had a backup plan. I guess my words of advice and mentoring wasn’t good enough for Zack to look out for a nigga while I was locked up. I had been hearing that loyalty among these young niggas was dead, but seeing was believing. How did Zack think that that shit he had done to Shannon by not giving her my bread was going to come back and bite that nigga in the ass?