Shyt List 5: Smokin' Crazies The Finale' (The Cartel Publications Presents)

by Reign (T. Styles)

  Rozay walked closer to him and he realized he was wrong about her scent earlier. She now smelled like strawberries and vanilla. Maybe she mixed the fragrances to throw them off but it smelled so sweet. She still sported the black Chinese bang bob, which moved every time she did.

  He thought about kissing her, until he recalled hearing some time back, that she was with southeast Tony. He was broken-hearted when he learned they got together after she broke up with him.

  “You wanna drink?” He removed a plastic cup from its stack. “I got Ciroc and Henny.”

  She shrugged. “Ciroc is fine. You can put some coke in it too.” He mixed her drink and she took it from him, gently touching his fingers in the process. Placing the cup against her lips, she smiled slyly. “Thank you.” She paused. “So what you doing here?” She walked away and sat her purse on the floor. He saw it was a Louis Vuitton bag and wondered was it the one he’d bought her. “It look like you been in here for a minute.” She looked around.

  He made his drink and moved toward her. “I’m chilling.”

  “I see that...you back in school?”

  “I’m not thinking about school right now. My mind is on my money.” A wide grin spread across her face. “Maybe next year.”

  “Why go back to school at all?” She encouraged. “It ain’t like nothing going on anyway.” She sat on the bed and he joined her. “You really dropped out?”

  “If that’s what you wanna call it. For real I just decided I got other shit to do then to be sitting in class wasting time.”

  “So how much money you making now?” Her eyes grew wider, as her mouth fell into her cup. “Like a whole bunch? Or a little bit?”

  “Enough to finally take care of you. If that’s what I wanted to do.”

  She ended the fake game she was putting on her drink and downed it in a second flat. Then she placed her cup on the floor and threw her arms around his neck. “B, don’t play with me.” Her lips touched his ears and he could finally see her for the gold digger she was. It wasn’t like he cared; to him some things were worth the high price tag. “I’m so serious about being back with you if you ready. I been wanting to get back with you for the longest, but you couldn’t afford me at first.” With a firm hold on him, she ran her hand through his curly mane. “That’s why I had to leave you alone.” She paused as she remembered an important truth. “Well, that and the fact that you let AJ and his friend Dirk break my fingers.” She wiggled them to show they now worked.

  He pulled back from her. “First off I didn’t let anybody break your fingers.”

  “You didn’t stop them either.” She frowned, wanting him to accept responsibility. “I mean, how you think that make me feel, Bilal? I need a boyfriend who can take care of me, even if I do pop off every now and again at the mouth. But you didn’t do that. You let some niggas come up in your house and hurt me and that was wrong.”

  “If we get back together, nobody will ever hurt you again.” He looked into her eyes. “I promise.”

  “Whatever,” she waved, wanting him to make his argument stronger. Whenever anybody promised to protect her, she got aroused. “I hear you talking but you not saying nothing.”

  Dead ass serious, Bilal stood up, dug into his coat and pulled out the weapon he used to kill Melvin and his lady friend earlier in the week. At first Rozay was scared, thinking he was finally about to shoot her for all the foul shit she said about him at school. But when he pointed the hammer the other way, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What’s that, baby?”

  “You know what it is?” Bilal, Jr. grinned, for the first time, loving the power he felt with the gun in his hand. “You pretty but you smart too.”

  “That’s yours?”

  He looked at her. “What you think?”

  “I think I’m in love.”

  He grinned a little and sat next to her. “Let’s just say if somebody tries to fuck with you again, it won’t be good for their health. And depending upon how I feel, it may not be good for their family either.” He stood up and placed the gun on the table. Truth be told, it made him nervous if he kept it too close. Sitting next to her again he said, “you wanna smoke?”

  She reached into her bag on the floor and brandished a fully loaded blunt. “You got fire?”

  For five minutes they bandied the weed back and forth, until they were good and high. Now in a clouded haze, he felt more confident to ask the burning question. “You got a boyfriend now?”

  She looked at him and laughed. “Boy, no. Even if I did I would leave him for you, B.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because from the first moment you came into class that day, I loved you. That’s why I started flirting with you and stuff. I knew you were the one. You don’t remember that shit?”

  “I remember you had a lot of fans, that’s about it.” He smirked.

  “Well I wasn’t interested in nobody but you. But you were soft and that made me think twice about choosing you. I hear you when you say things changed though. And that you can protect me.” She looked at the gun across the table. “You ever kill anybody before?”

  “Why?”

  She hunched her shoulders and wiped the hair from her face. “I just wanna know.”

  “I may have. But I wouldn’t tell you about it if I did.” He stood up and turned the TV on. “That way if the police came and asked you anything, you wouldn’t know shit.” He sat next to her when the channel rested on Rihanna’s music video.

  She turned toward him and rubbed his leg. “Let me shoot it.”

  “Shoot what?”

  “The gun.” She pointed at it on the table.

  “Why?”

  “I never shot one before. My brothers too afraid to show me how and it makes me mad. They be at the range all the time but never take me.”

  “Maybe you not old enough.”

  “I am, they just don’t want me to go.” She rubbed his leg harder. “Let me shoot, boo. Just once.” When the current seduction setting wasn’t working, she kicked it up a notch. “I’ll make it worth your while. I promise.’”

  Her eyes melted him. She was a weakness he had been hoping to free himself from for a long time. But now that she was in his presence again, all he wanted to do was please her. To make her happy. Wanting to play hero, he stood up and got the gun. Something told him not to but again he ignored his intuition. Slowly he handed it to her and said, “Okay, aim toward that wall. And fire.”

  “Won’t it go through it?”

  “First off a bullet won’t go through a wall. So you don’t have nothing to worry about. Second of all that wall leads outside so even if it did go out, you won’t hit nobody. We in the back of the building. Ain’t nobody behind there.” He placed his hands over hers and said, “When you ready, aim and shoot.”

  He removed his hand and Rozay waited less than one second before busting off. The force of the weapon pushed her backwards and the sound scared the hell out of her. Ignorant when it came to guns, she dropped it and fell into hysterical laughter. “Oh, my God!” She yelled jumping up and down. “I can’t believe I just did that shit!” She covered her mouth and looked at the hole and the small tail of fire around it. “That was so much fun!”

  He enjoyed the fact that the smile on her face had everything to do with him. “Now you got it out of your system.” He chuckled. “So you should be good now.” He placed the gun in his lap and rubbed her back. It was time to fuck. “I like how you handled that shit though. Now it’s time to see what you do with me.”

  In addict mode she asked, “Can I see it again?”

  “Yeah…but no more shooting. You can only hold it. Plus that shit was loud as fuck and I don’t want nobody to hear it and call the cops.” He handed it to her and walked inside the bathroom. Realizing bullets were still in the gun, he quickly returned and took it from her. “I gotta take the bullets out first.” He knew she was infatuated and didn’t want her to do something like hurt herself. If that happen
ed, he knew Uzi would kill him, especially since it was the gun used in Melvin’s murder.

  She laughed. “What you don’t trust me?”

  “It ain’t even like that, I don’t trust the gun.” He took the bullets out and stuffed them into his pocket.

  He tried to hand it back to her but with an attitude she said, “Fuck it.”

  Still high, he shrugged and sat it on the table. “That’s on you, ma.” He rushed to the bathroom to take a shit. Had he not been off the chronic and liquor, he would never have gotten so comfortable releasing his bowels with her in the room. From the toilet he yelled, “If you want, we can get something to eat when I come out. That jay got my head twisted.”

  She screamed, “I’m hungry as shit, where we going?”

  “Wherever you want?”

  “Wait…you have a car too?”

  He laughed. “How I’ma have a car when I sent a cab for you? I got some paper though. We can just jump in another taxi.” He paused and spun the toilet roll. “You have any ideas?”

  Silence.

  “Rozay, you have any suggestion on where you wanna go?”

  Silence.

  After taking a dump he wiped his ass, flushed and washed his hands. Then he moved toward the door. “Did you hear me, baby?” He opened it and when he stepped into the living room, he saw five guns aimed in his direction. Rozay was handcuffed, faced down on the floor crying softly.

  “Come out slowly, son.” One of the officers demanded. “With your hands up!”

  He followed orders. “What’s going on?”

  “Put your hands behind your head and lay down, face first on the floor.”

  “Can you tell me what we did?” he was high and asking dumb questions. He knew full well what he’d done. Well, what Rozay did anyway.

  “If I have to tell you again we gonna come after you. But if we do that, it’s gonna end in pain. That’s not what you want.”

  Bilal dropped to the floor and the cops rushed toward him. They forcefully placed one hand behind his back followed by the other. Soon after, the cold steel of the cuffs dressed his wrists. “Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”

  “Someone was shot. And the bullet came from this room.”

  “Fuck!”

  ANNA LIVINGSTON

  Anna sat on the floor in her mansion in Washington DC, with a glass of vodka in one hand, and a balled up piece of tissue covered in mucus and tears in the other. Her dark walnut colored skin was loaded with tearstains. She nervously shook the glass, causing the ice cubes to dance against one another. She was delirious and paranoid at what was happening to AFCOG as a whole. It didn’t make her feel any better that their leader Rufus Day, played Yvonna’s mission off as nothing more than a spoiled woman’s attempt to shut their operation down. Although she was a millionaire, courtesy of the thousands of children she exploited each year, she now wondered if it was worth it.

  When her phone rang, she dropped the tissue and rose from the floor, almost slamming her forehead into the table. On her feet, she snatched the gold handset off its cradle and announced, “Anna Livingston’s residence.”

  “Did you hear about the eight secretaries? They’ve all been murdered.” Ramona Cass, one of the other captains asked. “Shit is falling all apart now. I never thought it would go so far.”

  Anna paced back and forth before walking in an inelegant circle. “I don’t wanna die, Ramona. If I have to, I’ll meet with her and try to talk some sense into her head.”

  “What makes you think you can reason with her? She’s a killer, Anna.”

  “Well everybody loves money!” She disputed. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to meet her and put up a million dollars to see her walk away.” Although the idea sprung to her mind, she was actually looking for Ramona’s partnership with her plan. The last thing she wanted to do was approach the legend known as Yvonna Harris on her own. “What is Rufus saying?”

  She sighed and it was obvious she was frustrated. “He’s saying it’s an isolated event.”

  “What about Pastor Robinson? And Ron Max? This is anything but isolated.”

  “I agree,” Ramona continued, on the verge of tears. “I don’t want to go to jail. They’ll kill us in there if they find out what we’re in for. Everybody hates people who exploit children.”

  “I’ll kill myself first!” Anna confessed. “But before I get to that point, you need to come over here and discuss my idea, to speak to her. You could put in five hundred and I’ll put in the other half. We can arrange a meeting with her and everything.” After walking herself dizzy she stood in place. “You think Abel will be down with our cause too?”

  “Fuck no! Abel called me earlier today and said the first mothafucka who come through her door is getting it in the face. She hired some young boys to help. You know she part crazy. Between me and you, I think she’s looking forward to the war.”

  Anna shook her head, disappointed that she couldn’t shorten the upfront money she planned to use on Yvonna, by splitting it three ways. “Let it be her funeral.” She sat on the high sofa. “You coming over or not?”

  “I’ll be there in an hour.” She sniffled and with a broken voice said, “Oh my God, Anna. I think this is it. I think the shit we did in the dark has finally caught up to us.”

  “It doesn’t look too good.” She declared, “but we still have fight in us and money in the bank. With those odds, we should at least be able to come up with a plan. So hurry over, I’ll see you soon.”

  Anna hung the phone back up on its cradle. When she threw her head back, she saw four people standing behind her, dressed in all black. She lost her voice in the middle of her throat and couldn’t call for help that wasn’t there anyway. Her temples throbbed and threatened to expose themselves on the side of her head. She tried to run but the moment her ass cheeks rose, Ming snatched her back in position, causing her neck to make a cracking noise.

  “Don’t get up again,” Yvonna said, as she and her clan prowled toward the front of the sofa.

  With barbaric eyes, she looked upon each of them. The bunch looked sinister no doubt, but she wasn’t sure if one of them was the legend, or if they were a group of vagabonds who happened upon her home and made themselves comfortable. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?”

  “You already know who we are.” Swoopes said. “This is Yvonna and we here on some get back shit.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with no kids!” She sobbed, uselessly. “Honestly.”

  “You don’t know shit about honesty.” Yvonna laughed as she stooped down in front of her. She ran the nose of her gun from her kneecap to her inner thigh. Calmly she asked, “Where are the kids?”

  “I don’t have any kids. I think you’ve gotten me confused. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ming stepped out of the line up, strolled up to her and stroked the side of her face before punching her in the abdomen. Anna balled up; covered her stomach with her forearms and coughed out blood. She turned a shade of red, that none of the clan had ever seen before, and two veins snaked to the middle of her forehead. “Please don’t hurt me.” She looked up at them. “I don’t want to die.”

  “I wonder how the kids you sold to killers felt.” Bricks said, eager to take the loss of his brother out on somebody. “Now we know about everything already. We know who you are and we know your position in all of this. So ain’t no use in lying to us. I just lost my brother, don’t make me take it out on you like you had everything to do with it.”

  The gig was up and she knew it. “They’re downstairs.” She pointed toward the only cherry wood door in the living room which was locked. “The keys are over there on the mantle, above the fireplace.”

  Yvonna grabbed her by the hair and escorted her to the mantle to retrieve the keys. Anna fumbled with them, in an effort to locate the correct one. She’d been to the dungeon she hosted more than ten times a day, and now she acted as if it were her first time. When the door finally opene
d, the crew with Anna and Yvonna in the lead, treaded downstairs. Swoopes on the other hand, chose to nurse his basement phobia and remain upstairs.

  “I’ll stay up here to stand guard.” Swoopes noted. “I got ya’ll backs in case someone comes in.”

  Knowing bullshit when he heard it, Bricks felt it was necessary to let him know. “Sooner or later you gonna have to get over your fear. It’s stupid anyway.”

  Embarrassed he responded in the best way he could. “Like I said, I’ll be up here.”

  The crew disappeared into the darkness of the basement. They went down three more sets of stairs which surprised them because they didn’t realize it was so deep. Once they were at the lowest level, they came to another door which also had to be unlocked. Anna placed the key inside the knob and pulled the door open. Because they weren’t sure about the reception, Ming and Bricks guns were trained ahead of them, while Yvonna kept a firm hold on Anna.

  With a flip of the switch, they were stunned to see over twenty kids in the room ranging from the ages twelve to sixteen. All of them were partially naked, with the exception of the soiled underwear that covered their frail frames. Every time Yvonna saw one of the factories, it brought back horrible memories.

  Angry at the world, Yvonna struck Anna in the mouth so hard with the butt of her gun, her gums split. She dropped to the floor and with gaping eyes looked upon her in shock. “You mothafuckas are the worst.” Yvonna pointed out. “You don’t care about nobody but your fucking selves.” Then she looked at the children who, in her opinion, were her brothers and sisters in the struggle. “I’m the one they call The Legend but my name is Yvonna Harris,” brief chatter rose throughout the room, “and these are my friends.” Ming waved while Bricks nodded. “We’re here to set you free.”

  The frightened children didn’t seem to understand what was going on. Most of them looked at each other and maintained their positions against the walls, within the darkness. “Do you understand what we saying?” Bricks took over. “You can bounce. You ain’t gotta stay in this hell hole no more.”