Petie took a chance and went to his house. Fuck it, he had to. Renee had disappeared and he needed to get some things from the crib anyway. He rode around and made sure that the coast was clear. Finally he made it inside the apartment and got the rest of the work he had stashed. Petie grabbed the bags, the scale and threw some clothes in a backpack. He hit *69 on the phone to see who had called the house last. After hearing his cell number, he pressed play on the answering machine and skimmed through the messages that Renee had already heard but never erased. When he heard Venus’ voice he wondered, What the fuck did she call here for? He was sure it was some catty shit Share had put her up to, and he went on to the next message. He didn’t have time for the bullshit right now. He bounced and headed back to Queeens.
Kalif was in the bathroom washing himself off. When he was done he went into the living room and gave Des two dimes for the head job, but she wanted more. ”If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even know where Ladelle lived, nigga—not to mention that I can give you his exact apartment number. Hit me off for that information, Kalif. You know I always come through for you,” she said shoving the two dimes inside her bra.
”What’s the apartment number?” Kalif asked her. She told him and he threw her two more dimes. ”Now beat it,” he said. Des knew how Kalif was, so she bounced.
She remembered when she and Petie used to cut up bricks in her house, bag them up and get money. Des had let Ladelle and Petie keep work at her crib all the time. Then she started smoking. She had lost her apartment and was in the street turning tricks now. When she heard about Rasheed’s death and Petie and Ladelle being connected to it, she started giving Kalif information about Ladelle and pumping him for crack. Des didn’t know what Kalif was going to do, but she knew it was on and poppin’.
She stashed the two additional dimes and went back out on the street in search of another dick to suck. This time she needed money. She didn’t have anywhere to go and she needed some quick cash for a cheap hotel room; she was tired. She was thinking about going to the rehab when some cat said, ”Miss, you wanna hang out?”
”Yeah, where we goin’?” she asked.
”To my crib. I got a room on 128th and Park.” Des was straight for the night.
Chapter Twenty- Nine
Venus and BJ pulled up in front of their apartment. BJ was on crutches, and Venus grabbed his backpack and held the door open for him. The minute they got inside, Bullet and Diamond started growling and barking at BJ. Venus had to put the pits away just so he could come into the apartment. She helped him into the bedroom and then went to check her messages.
BJ’s cell phone was on the nightstand by the bed. He picked it up and checked all the missed calls he had. They were all from Annette and he immediately erased them. He hopped into the living room, leaving the crutches behind and sat on the sofa. There was a faint spot on the carpet where he had bled that Venus tried to clean. It reminded him of the night they fought. It was their first fight. It upset him to think that he had gotten physical with Venus in that sort of way. He remembered when his father used to beat his mother, and he had vowed to never hit a woman. If anything, he should have hit Annette. Grimy bitch, he thought. To think she had been blowing up his phone. What if Venus had answered? But it didn’t make a difference now anyway, because he had already come clean with her.
Venus had fried fish because she knew it was BJ’s favorite meal. They ate and watched a DVD afterward. When the movie was over, they turned on the news. If anyone has seen this man...the reporter stated, and a photo of Petie flashed across the screen. She recapped the vicious attack on Share and the attempted murder of Will at McDonald’s.
Venus and BJ sat in silence as they listened to the story. The reporter urged viewers to call Crime Stoppers if they had any information on Petie’s whereabouts. He was a wanted man.
Good for his ass, Venus thought. She turned off the TV and she and BJ got ready for bed. She thought about the fight they had the last time they’d been home together. I guess that makes the relationship official. She began to laugh. BJ asked her what was so funny. ”It’s just one of them things,” Venus said.
What the fuck is wrong with everybody? Petie wondered looking at his phone. It seemed as if everyone was turning their backs on him. Fuck it. He got undressed and went into the bedroom to bone Roz. She wasn’t turning her back on him, and if she did, it was only because she wanted something up in her.
Petie lay there after they finished fucking and smoked a cigarette. He fell into a nightmarish sleep. He dreamed about the police kicking in Roz’s door and shooting up the place. If it had to come down to that, then that’s just the way it would have to be.
Chapter Thirty
Ladelle was up bright and early for work. Lydia was still in bed, so he made a bowl of Apple Jacks and a glass of orange juice. He knew she’d be home all day and he wanted to come in early so that they could go to a movie. He went into the bedroom and bent down and kissed her on the forehead. ”I’ll see you when I get in tonight,” he said before walking out the door.
Ladelle didn’t wait for the elevator; instead he took the stairs down, two steps at a time. He passed by some chick on a lower floor taking a hit, blowing the smoke down the stairwell. ”Get the fuck outta this building with that shit!” he barked at her.
Ladelle walked through the lobby, exited the building and went to a newsstand. He grabbed the Daily News and a pack of gum. He took out the keys to his Escalade and stopped dead in his tracks before hitting the alarm on the key ring. He dropped the newspaper and walked over to where his ride was parked. ”What the fuck happened?” he asked out loud. It was obvious what had happened; somebody had trashed his ride.
Ladelle couldn’t believe his eyes. All of his windows were smashed out, someone had slashed his tires with an ice pick and there was spray paint all over the sides of the truck. The seats, dashboard and roof were all cut up, and there was more spray paint throughout the interior.
Ladelle was tight. There was no way this was his ride. He called 9-1-1 from his cell phone and then he called Lydia upstairs.
The police arrived and Ladelle gave them a full report of what had happened to his truck. Lydia had come downstairs by the time he was done. Ladelle called his insurance company and then he called AAA. When they arrived, Ladelle filled out the necessary paperwork and showed his title and registration, along with his license to prove ownership of the truck. They surveyed the damage and towed the Escalade away. It was a good thing he had full coverage or he’d be fucked.
Ladelle walked Lydia back to their building and caught a cab to midtown. He was already late, and he knew that traffic would be a monster now. Better late than never, he thought.
Lydia got upstairs and made some tea with milk and honey. She was worried about Ladelle. She wondered if maybe she’d made a mistake in marrying him. Now someone had taken their anger out on his Escalade. Somebody was definitely sending him a message. But she knew it came from his dealings with Petie. Lydia wanted Petie out of Ladelle’s life once and for all. All he did was bring trouble to people. He destroyed lives and she didn’t want Ladelle to have anything to do with him anymore.
Lydia called her girlfriend, Janine, and told her that she was coming over. She didn’t want to be in the house alone, and she needed someone to talk to.
Kalif was having breakfast at Pan Pan’s on 135th. He called Will to find out how Share was doing. Will told him she was all right and would be home from the hospital next week. He was going to stop in at the McDonald’s restaurant on Fordham Road for a couple of hours before going to see her.
Kalif and Will talked about BJ and his fight with the dogs and the foul shit Annette did. Kalif told Will he used to fuck with Annette and that she was mad grimy.
They ended their call, and Kalif went back to Lincoln and rolled up a blunt. He called Carlito, his Latino dust connect, and made arrangements to see him on 141st and Seventh at Drew Hamilton Projects. No sense in having the trees without the dus
t. That would be like having chicken without any seasoning or pancakes without the syrup as far as he was concerned.
The weather was good, so Kalif jumped on his mountain bike and rode to Drew Hamilton. He stopped on the way and hollered at a chick standing in front of a corner store. He told her to watch his bike, and he went inside the store and bought two more blunts and a pack of Certs; her breath smelled like a sour mop. Kalif came out of the store and gave her the pack of Certs. ”Here, ma. Suck on them real slow, okay? After you freshen up, I’ll holla at you,” he said.
”Fuck you, nigga! You ain’t all that!” she said as Kalif got back on his bike.
”Yeah, aiight, but at least my breath don’t smell like a hallway,” Kalif replied. He rode his bike in traffic until he got to Drew Hamilton. He saw Carlito—a Puerto Rican kid—and got two bags of dust from him. Kalif wondered where this nigga copped from. Every time he asked, Carlito acted liked it was some ancient Chinese secret, so he just stopped asking.
Carlito had some Dominican chick with him. Kalif winked his eye at her. She smiled and winked back. No good bitch, he thought. Here she is with this cuchifrito and winking at me. He thought about hitting her doggy style. Shit, if he did that she’d tell him where all the stash spots were. And by the time he was done with her, she’d be bringing him bricks that she had stolen—anything for the anaconda.
Kalif wondered what her tonsils felt like. She looked like she had a deep throat. He got back on the bike and before pulling off, he beckoned her to him. She moved closer to the bike, smiling and licking her lips. Kalif turned and farted, and then he took off. She was one of those now & later bitches: I’ll hit you now and dis you later.
Kalif got back to Lincoln and grabbed his blunt. He dropped one of the bags of dust in it and fired it up. He took a few pulls and began to feel lifted. He walked to the kitchen and opened a beer before returning to the living room to watch rap videos on BET. When Kalif went back to the kitchen to get another beer, he saw somebody standing in the hallway. He blinked his eyes and looked again, and he saw a male figure standing there laughing at him. Kalif walked toward it, but it disappeared. He went to his bedroom to look for the figure. He looked under the bed and in the closet...there it was, still laughing at him. Kalif went to grab at it, but it went through the wall into the bathroom. What the fuck is happening? he thought. Kalif ran into the bathroom and didn’t see anybody. He was totally tripping. He opened the medicine cabinet and closed it back. Then he turned on the sink faucet and leaned forward to splash water on his face. After drying off his face he looked in the mirror and saw someone standing behind him. Kalif turned around and saw no one. When he looked back in the mirror he saw his reflection melting. He tried to grab at his skin to keep it from slipping off his face, but it continued to melt. His face was falling apart. ”Oh, God, what the fuck is happening?!” he yelled at his reflection after seeing his nose fall off and his eyelids slide down the drain.
Kalif ran out of the bathroom and stood in the living room with his back to the wall. His skin started to crawl and his head began to itch. Oh, no, he thought. Ants are on me. He looked down at his feet and saw about a million ants beginning to crawl up his body. Kalif got the broom and started swatting at them. They were all over him now, including his hair. He shook his legs frantically and beat himself in the head, trying to get the ants out of his hair. They wouldn’t budge.
Kalif ran back into the bathroom, turned on the shower and got in the tub fully clothed. He let the water pound down on him and finally washed away the invisible ants.
Kalif got out of the tub and took off his clothes. He dropped them in a pile on the floor and stood in the bathroom butt naked. He didn’t want to look in the mirror; he didn’t know what he’d find there looking back at him. His earlier reflection had scared him to death.
He went to his room and got in the bed underneath the covers. He grabbed the gun that was under his pillow in case the figure reappeared. He would shoot it if it did. Kalif lay there in bed naked for hours, waiting for the figure to return. He saw nothing, but he did hear something—the voice of Rasheed, his brother who was taken away from him by knuckleheads. He missed him so much and his heart was in pain.
Kalif knew what he had to do to let Rasheed rest. He had to bury the niggas who had killed him. They wanted beef, well, they were gonna get it.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lydia was spending the day with her girlfriend, Janine. She needed to clear her mind and get her thoughts together. Janine had four kids, and Lydia was attached to the youngest—thirteen-month-old Janelle. Janelle would start to cry every time Lydia would get ready to leave, so Lydia suggested that she keep Janelle overnight. Janine was more than happy to have one less child to clean up after, so Lydia made Janelle an overnight bag and put her favorite teddy bear in her pocketbook. She called a cab and headed home with Janelle.
The cab pulled up to Lydia’s building. She sat outside with Janelle for a little while and then pulled out her keys. She took Janelle by the hand, put her overnight bag over her shoulder and walked toward the building’s entrance. A guy approaching from behind asked her to hold the door for him. She held it without a second thought. The guy was Kalif.
Lydia pressed the elevator button and waited. The elevator doors opened and Lydia, Janelle and Kalif, who was listening to a set of headphones now, all got on it. Lydia pressed 14 and Kalif pressed 12 as the doors closed. When the doors opened back up on the twelfth floor, Kalif got off and told Lydia to take care. She told him to do the same, and the elevator doors closed again.
Lydia exited the elevator when it got to her floor. She had the key in the door when Kalif walked up on her. She panicked when she saw the gun in his hand.
”Open the door, prego, before I drop this rug-rat down the incinerator,” Kalif said to her as he snatched Janelle up in his arms. ”What an ugly little girl. The doctor should have slapped your parents,” he added looking at Janelle.
Lydia opened the apartment door and Kalif stepped in behind her and closed it. He took the keys out of her hand and put them in his pocket. He put Janelle down and took the keys out of his pocket after realizing that a key had to be used to lock and unlock the door, even from the inside. This was even better than he had expected. He locked the door and put the key back in his pocket.
”Who are you?” Lydia asked, reaching for Janelle. She wanted to keep her from crying, even though she felt like crying herself. Kalif told her his name was The Coroner, and that’s what she should call him. Lydia looked at the blank expression on his face, and it dawned on her who he probably was. She wanted to ask him about the Escalade, but there really was no reason to; she knew he was responsible.
”Please, this is my girlfriend’s daughter and I’m pregnant. Please don’t hurt us,” she pleaded.
”Oh, this is your peep’s daughter? Well, that bitch needs to go to prison for endangering the welfare of pretty muthafuckas like me,” he said with no feeling at all.
Janelle began to cry and Lydia tried to comfort her, but it wasn’t working. ”Please, she’s just a little girl, and you talking like that is scaring her.”
”Scaring her? Scaring her?! You can’t be serious. She’s scaring me, with that ugly face of hers, now shut the fuck up!” he shouted, still wearing the same blank expression.
Kalif asked Lydia when Ladelle was coming home. She started to say any minute, hoping that would scare him and make him leave, but she changed her mind and said she didn’t know. He told her that the sooner she found out, the sooner he’d be leaving. Suddenly, he looked at her and started laughing. Lydia asked him what he was laughing at. ”I’m laughing at you,” he said. ”Now stop asking me questions.”
Lydia noticed that Kalif had an odd look on his face now, and she asked him what he planned on doing. He looked at her and said if she asked him one more question, he was going to put Janelle in the freezer.
Lydia viewed him as a little boy who didn’t get enough attention during his childhood. And
she could tell by the blank look in his eyes that he was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. She wondered if he was a maniac, but she decided that he looked too young to be one. She was wrong.
Kalif told Lydia to get some rope. When she told him she didn’t have any, he went to her bedroom in the back, looked through the dresser drawers and found a pair of pantyhose, using them to tie her hands behind her back. Janelle started crying again and Lydia tried to comfort her, but there wasn’t much she could do now with her hands bound. Kalif yelled at Janelle to stop crying, and that made her cry even more. He told Lydia he’d put her in the closet if she did-n’t shut up.
”Please untie me so I can feed her, and then I’ll try to put her to sleep,” she pleaded, hoping he would feel some kind of sympathy. He agreed to untie her, but only because Janelle’s crying was getting on his nerves.
”If you try anything funny, I’ll push you out the fucken window. I’m not playing, so don’t sleep on me,” Kalif said as he untied Lydia’s wrists. He went on to tell her that the two most important things in his life were money and drugs, and he didn’t give a fuck about her. He also told her that his mother and brother were both dead, so dying meant nothing to him. That alone told Lydia that he didn’t care about her life or the baby she was carrying.
Lydia was trapped in the house with a nut and had no idea what time Ladelle would be coming home. She couldn’t help but wonder whether Kalif would let her go or really hang around until he arrived. And when he did get home, what would Kalif do then? In the meantime, she was stuck in the crib with a nut and didn’t know if she was going to live or die. She couldn’t bear the thought of what the end result might be.
If it Aint One Thing it's Another Page 12