by L. E. Newell
Before either of them could respond, Big Al spoke up. “Hey, soldier, if it ain’t too much of a bother, could you pick up a case of Heineken and Old E for me? I’ll hit ya off when ya’ll get back or do I need to give it to you now?”
“Yeah and naw, I can handle it. It’ll be a minute, though,” Sparkle said. A chorus of sounds followed them out the door. Stacy led the way to a black Cadillac with a gold rag top.
“Let’s go to one of them all-nighters where I can pick up some decks of cards.” Sparkled pulled out a deck he had slipped off the table. “Mmm-hmm, Hoyles, they should be easy enough to find. Ain’t there a Cub Foods or Kroger around this way somewhere?”
“Sure, about a five-minute drive down I-20.”
“Okay, let’s go. We can pick up the beer there, too.”
They bought five red and five blue decks, Elmer’s glue sticks, single-edge razor blades, emery boards, sandpaper, red and blue magic markers and the cases of beer.
As they were exiting Kroger, Sparkle said, “I saw a Thrift Inn right down the street. Can you go get us a room? Yo ass ain’t all the way broke, are you?”
Stacy nodded and went to get the room after they had parked.
When he walked into the room on the balcony level, he tossed the items on the bed and sat down. “Now, youngun, you can never let anybody, and I do mean absolutely nobody, know about the things I’m about to show you.”
While Sparkle began opening the stuff up, Stacy sat on the edge of the bed, toying with the TV remote. He waited until he found a station he wanted to see.
“By the way, I gave Debra these cheat lessons a year before I got out last time, and she been killing niggas ever since.”
Stacy jumped off the bed with a look of shock written on his face. “You mean to tell me that my own auntie’s been cheating me outta my money for all these years?” The fire was certainly lit up under his young ass and he started pacing the floor with his jaws puffed out.
Sparkle lay back on the bed and lit a cigarette and eyed him for a moment before he resumed unwrapping the stuff. After lining the decks up, he took the razor and cut all the cellophane off carefully. Then he used the markers to place strategic marks on the cards for suit and numeration before placing them on the bed to dry.
The way that Sparkle ignored his anger, steadily continuing what he was doing, curbed Stacy’s pacing and he sat on the bed to observe. To say that he looked astounded was an understatement, for youngun was straight-up dumbstruck.
Knowing that his nephew’s mind was racing in all kinds of directions, Sparkle smiled. “That’s the same attitude these suckers are going to have if you give them any kind of sign that you down with the cheat. Uh-huh, that goes for somebody else, anybody else that even sniffs at you being hip to this stuff. Hell, I’ve been skinning JJ for years and ‘B,’ too, and you know he my dog. That is, until I finally hipped him a couple of years ago while we was in that camp in Columbus. Nephew JJ don’t even know that your auntie be cheating to this day.”
Old slick-ass auntie. He smiled as he sat on the bed, stunned by the things he’d learned.
Sparkle cleared his throat to draw his attention back to what he was doing. “Now watch me carefully; I’m going to let you do the last deck to see if you got it.”
“Okay.” He nodded, turning his full attention to the lessons at hand.
He proceeded to take out the aces, kings and queens and used the emery boards to file down the edges at each corner. Then he used the sandpaper to sand down the middle of the rest of the deck. He carefully explained the process as he was going. “These, baby boy, are called slides because you take ‘em like this here and slide out the cards you done fixed up. You use these mostly for Georgia skin to shoot what niggas call the curb, but they also work pretty well for three of a kind playing poker.”
Next, he took out the deuces, treys and fours and marked them with very small dits on the edges. “This, way you’ll know where twelve cards are in poker, and they also come in handy in skin, as you can see. And let’s not forget the advantage you’ll have knowing what cards a nigga’s dealt and holding in tonk.”
Finally, he placed the deck back in the cellophane, using the glue stick to gently paste the cellophane and stamp back together. “Usually, you will let somebody else open the deck up. But for right now, I want you to stand close enough to me where you can hand me one of these decks for the switch. You can handle that, can’t you?” As an afterthought, he added, “Of course you got to do it quickly and out of sight.”
Stacy nodded in understanding.
Then Sparkle took one of the decks and showed him how to run up hands, followed by doing false shuffles and cuts. “We’ll do some more of this later. I wanted to give you some hand maneuvers to practice on.”
He gave him enough time to get a grip. “Now, for the encore, here’s how you suck most of the money out of a game when you set to roll.” He gave him a sly smile and picked out five low-ball hands, arranging the cards where everybody would be forced to go in the drywood to trade cards for a better hand.
After watching him maneuver through the concept a couple of times, Stacy leaned back on the bed, smiling. “Unc, I had no idea… damn, you something else, yo. Guess I got a lotta practicing to do, huh?”
Sparkle nodded. “Yeah, nephew, I’ve been at this for a long time and I still got to get that practice in on the regular. And you had no idea; ain’t that something else? Now Stacy, you have got to remember this at all times. Look at the hits and side dits really quickly and natural-like and never get caught staring at the deck.”
“Yeah yeah, unc…damn, where you learn all this stuff from?”
Sparkle snorted a short laugh. “Man, this is how Debra and your grandma been skinning folk for years, yo.”
His eyes widened in shock. “Ah, man, Grandma be cheating a nigga all this time, too?”
Sparkled laughed out loud. “Man, she’s the one that turned me out and I came up with the rest over the years.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He shook his head in amazement.
Sparkle held up his hand to get his attention. “Now concentrate on this here, for real, yo. When I rub my hair and scratch behind my ear three times, I want you to say something funny as hell to get everybody to look at your face. And slide me this deck here so they don’t see your hands making the switcheroo, got that?”
“Yep, oh man, this is going to be sweet.” Stacy gleamed, his eyes shining.
“Okay, now what I do is play down the river, sometimes with a wild card; that way I can see what I dealt everybody. And then spread the deck out like this so I can see the next four cards coming off,” he added, studying his reaction.
“Oh, man, that’s slick as shit.”
“One last thing; when I adjust my chair like I’m getting ready to get up, I want you to be ready to switch the low ball set-up, okay? Just say something to Al or JJ, ah hell, anybody but Debra, so that their attention will be drawn off of me. It’ll only take a second.” He finished by popping his fingers to emphasize how really simple it could be.
Stacy smiled. “Yeah, yeah, I getcha, man; let’s go get paid, unc.”
“Okay, give me a second,” Sparkle said before he fixed himself up a hit of coke. “Okay, I’ll work the slides and shakeouts for now, to let you see this shit at work. I’ll help you perfect everything later; we ain’t got time right now.” He took a deep breath, gathered up all the decks and headed for the door.
Several hours later, Al was looking at him with a smile that curled to one side of his mouth. “Damn, Sparkle, this must be your lucky night, dude; you done hit up for at least ten g’s, maybe more.”
Sparkle swigged down the rest of the can of beer he had been sipping on for a while and folded his stacks of money. “Uh, can I get that beer money now?”
Al laughed out loud. “Man, I almost forgot about that.” He slapped the bill on the table. “Keep the change.”
Sparkle tossed the c-note back and smiled. “It’s on t
he house, partner. No problem, soldier; I only wanted to see if you was a man of your word.”
With his eyes squinted, Al studied him real hard for a few seconds. “Hey, you aight, dude, and I really enjoyed playing with and meeting ya.” He stuck his hand out for a shake. “But don’t think for one second that I ain’t gonna get my money back.”
“Just a friendly game amongst players, right?” Sparkle winked at him.
Al leaned further back, then took a long drag off of his cigar. “Yeah, yeah, sho ya right. Well, boys and girls, ya’ll welcome to enjoy yourselves with my baby here if you want to, but I’ve got to hit the rack.” He turned to Debra. “Be by yo spot between two and four o’clock, if that’s cool with you, baby girl?”
“Sure, Al, you know I’ll be there for ya,” she replied.
When he left the room, she pulled up on Sparkle as they were heading for the door. “Nigga, I know you gonna kick some of my ends back.”
“I am?” he squeaked as he reared his head back with a look of surprise on his face.
“Yeah, you are.” She looked under eyed at him and held her hand out.
“Shit, I got out of the way when you got your thang in and if I recall, you did the same thang with yo half-slick ass. And I ain’t asked for nothing back from you.”
She leaned back a little further, laughing. “You still ain’t shit, is ya, nigga?”
He pinched his nose and shook his head. “Hell, two rags from the same cloth, you and I. Come on, Boogie Bear, and damn you playing big bro for a real sucker now.”
“Okay, okay, but I need a few anyhow. Got to get Ebony and Mike some school stuff,” she tossed back, giving him a sweet little smile, knowing she had hit his weak spot. “Don’t worry about it right now. But you know that I’m about to shine on your stingy ass, right? Uh-huh, get right in front those two smiling faces and tell them that good old unc don’t give a fuck if they got new clothes or not. Hmm-mmm, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, for sho.”
“You good, girl. You know that? You good.” He gritted at her.
“Yeah, we are, aren’t we?” She winked.
As they entered the game room, Johnny Bee motioned him over to one of their foosball machines. “Got a few games in, ya nigga; it’s been awhile since I done laid the Bee-law down on ya.”
They played four games, which Sparkle won three to one, the same ratio when it was an everyday thang for them at the gym in the Columbus prison.
Afterward, they settled on the couch, sipping Olde English. “What plans you got, partner? You need some hoes? Some dope? Hell, you don’t need no money; all them greens you pocketed in that game.”
Sparkle took a long swig. “Got money; got dope. What I need is a rundown on a couple of hoes I just met.”
“B” rubbed his chin with hands that looked like they belonged to a seventy-year-old man, all gnarled up and shit. “’Pends on who ya talking about.”
Sparkle flicked the TV remote to a music video on BET. “One’s named Dee, redbone, thick in the ass and shit.”
“From Candler Road?” “B” responded immediately.
Sparkle smiled and cocked his head sideways. “Yeah, foxy ass a muthafucka.”
“B” leaned back, laughing. “Ah, man, you mean to tell me that you don’t remember little nappy-headed Dee from back in the day?”
Sparkle was confused and it showed as he cocked his head to the side and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Man, I’m lost, and you got me there.”
“B” coughed into his fist. “The little red bitch from Carver Homes that used to wear pink and red everything… Uh-huh, we all thought she was a fucking tomboy and shit.”
He got up and started pacing the floor. After a few ups and downs, his eyes lit up in recognition. He sat down beside “B.” “Aw dude, now I remember them green eyes. But shit, man, ain’t a damn thing tomboy about her now, for sho.”
“B” stared at him for a second and then put his hand back up to his mouth, laughing. “So you done already got some of that super pussy and head of hers, huh? Shit, that bitch has always been a super freak. Hell, I even had her working for me for awhile, until her ass kept putting that geeking shit ahead of my money and the game I was pouring into her ass.”
Sparkle started shaking with laughter. “Oh yeah, she done put that thang on me and I must admit, she’s definitely got the bomb on both ends.” He gazed off to the other side of the room. “Man, I put a package in her hand. Hold up now, before you say anything. The bitch be smoking that stuff like twenty-four-seven, but I’ve got to start somewhere. Hell, might as well get some good pussy and head in the process, ya feel me?”
At that moment, Debra and Stacy came through the door. “Hey, man, what you gonna do?” Debra asked in a gravelly voice. “If you wanna hang with that black-ass nigga there, you can. Or you can roll with us and we are about to roll now, so do what you feel.”
“I’m rolling with ya’ll.” He turned back to “B.” “Hey, dog, give me your digits so I can hook up with you in a day or so after I take care of my legal.”
“No problem there, partner; you seen our nig, Rainbow, yet?”
“Naw, I ain’t seen him yet.” He squeezed “B”’s shoulder and then embraced his lifelong buddy before he got up and left with his folk.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Trapping A Fast-Stepping Ho
Beverly couldn’t shake off her paranoia as she made the right turn off Peachtree onto Auburn. Subconsciously, she kept checking both rearview mirrors every few seconds, making sure that no one was following her. Most of her police training consisted of being alert at all times, never really knowing when something might pop off. It had become a second nature to her.
She couldn’t detect anyone trailing her but that certainly didn’t mean that there wasn’t. Sensing she was on point, she dared not turn her head; it would be a dead giveaway that she was nervous about something. Yep, a definite no-no.
Perhaps she was putting more into the awkward feeling she had with Lt. Woo earlier. Or maybe it was the run-in she had with Deputy Commissioner Aaron Taylor and the way he always made her feel uncomfortable. Despite his position of rank a step above hers, she couldn’t force herself to trust him; neither he nor the assistant police chief, Roger Jackson, better known as RJ. She hated to admit it, but they were two people she would never trust with her life.
A car horn blared loudly behind her, snapping her out of her revelry. She wondered how long she had been idle at the green light. She needed to get those icky feelings off of her mind and put more concentration into the dilemma at hand. Ever since she had started her climb in the Atlanta Police ranks, she’d made friends, enemies and forced allies. Hell, it came with the territory.
Right now, she had to fight off the nervous energy that came every time she had to go on one of these secret rendezvous. No way could she ignore a request from anyone who was responsible for her being in the position that she was in today.
Even though her loyalty to her friends often had her taking chances that could easily destroy her career, she couldn’t find it in her heart to turn her back on them when they needed knowledge or her influence.
So despite the warm and cold feelings she got whenever she had the chance to see or help them, she still had to be careful, extremely careful. Thinking of Lah, Rainbow or Johnny, whichever name he had chosen to go by now, she decided to take the extra time before their scheduled meeting to pay a visit to the MLK Center. It would also give her the opportunity to double and triple check for anyone suspicious that may be following her.
She parked in the center’s parking lot and took a little stroll of the historical site. Afterward, she decided to leave her car where it was and walked back down Auburn Avenue. When she got to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, she started feeling good that none of the people getting out of the many limos recognized her behind her disguise. As she watched her image in one of the cars she passed, she adjusted her sunshades and baseball cap. The faded-out jean outfit helped her to blend
right in with the regular denizens of Atlanta’s red light district—one she had prowled for years when she was on the beat as a rookie, sergeant and on upward through the ranks.
As she crossed the street across from the corner cab stand-poolroom, she noticed a young girl strutting her wares. Right off the top, she wondered if she was one of Rainbow’s girls. Damn, why couldn’t this nigger get out of this life? He’s so very, very smart. Hell, he could’ve been a helluva…a helluva…well, anything he wanted to be, she thought as she watched a young couple enter the pool-room.
She pushed open the door and tingled at the sound of the bell over top of the door. Damn, she hated how that fucking bell jumped all over her nerves every time.
She spotted Rainbow immediately, sitting in a corner booth with his legs crossed, displaying a shiny pair of Gucci loafers. He was gulping down a huge slug of Heineken beer when he saw her and uncrossed his legs.
He gave her his best Max Julien smile. “What’s up, Bevy girl? You looking super fine, as usual.” He faked a shiver of ecstasy. “Gives a playa dreams of sweating your glory.” He stood up from the table and pulled back one of the chairs, offering her a seat with a gentlemanly flair of a wave, like he was accepting royalty into his midst.
“Just answering the call of the wild again,” she said, scoping out the other patrons in the room.
“Hey, you didn’t really have to go through your espionage bit again, you know. That call was only that; a call to let you know that our boy done got out.” He looked away, smiling brightly as he motioned for one of the girls to bring him a couple of more brews.
She sat down gracefully. “Well, I haven’t seen you for awhile either, and a girl can’t ever get tired of looking at a Max Julien look-alike. Have you seen Johnny Bee lately? He still holding down my girl, Yolanda, since she got out last summer?”
He ran a manicured finger under his nose and sniffled. “Come on, Bevy, you know just as well as I do that dat thang there is forever, for life, just like we are.”