Return of the Cartier Cartel (Part 2)

by Santiago, Nisa

  “Well, what would you do? I’m tired of cheap, low-life bitches like yourself fucking around with my husband, knowing that he’s married. Don’t stand here and act like you’re so much above me, when all you are is a high-priced whore! That’s right.” Cartier’s head bobbed up and down. “If you didn’t have the gun, I’d beat you to a pulp, and I know I’d feel good about it. I’m almost tempted to still do that shit. Just because you got a gun don’t mean you’d fucking use it!”

  Cartier’s body language tensed up. She was actually thinking about bum-rushing Mari, feeling dissed standing there with a gun pointed at her. How could she live that down? What if Mari told Jason that she’d pulled a gun on his wife and his wife didn’t do shit?

  “Two things are certain at this moment. One, if you even gesture impolitely, a bullet will rip into you without hesitation. And, two, please don’t let my manicured fingertips fool you into thinking I can’t handle a weapon. Yes, I did grow up with a platinum spoon in my mouth, but while vacationing in Bora Bora, or the equestrian training, we also shot quail in the summer months in the Hamptons. I’ve said all of this to say, never underestimate your enemy. I will shoot accurately, I will shoot to kill, and I will not feel any remorse, so it’s in your best interest to not make me feel threatened. My trigger finger might jump.”

  Cartier realized she might be in over her head. Mari wasn’t following the rules. In Brooklyn, if you had beef, you settled it, scrapping in the streets, and may the best bitch win. This lady was talking about plans, enemies, and quails, the kind of shit Cartier didn’t care to hear.

  “If you didn’t have that gun, I’d wipe that cocky look off your face.”

  Mari giggled and tossed the envelope with the five grand toward Cartier. “What’s the Brooklyn expression—If if was a fifth, we’d all be fucked up? Luckily for you, I’ve been dealing with all sorts of characters half my life. If you haven’t already figured it out, I get paid for my services, and in my line of business, you have to always be prepared for whatever, whenever.”

  “You’re a whore?” Cartier couldn’t believe Jason had resorted to paying for pussy. He was losing all his “cool” points.

  “Jason doesn’t think so. Besides, I like to call it a professional companion. Now take the five grand and forget my address because, I promise you, although you might think I’m easy prey for the angry wife, I’m not. I’ve dealt with an assortment of deranged, angry wives, and you are by far the least challenging. You’re still young, dumb, and you have a lot to learn. And if you don’t learn to grow up quickly, the love for your husband will put you in a precarious situation that you can’t get out of. I learned a long time ago the art of war and how to plan out all angles of a situation, to avoid walking head-on into a trap. Instead of getting five grand tossed in your face, it could have very well been lye. Now, please get the fuck out!”

  The last line did it. It was too much for Cartier’s ego. No one spoke to her like that. No one!

  Cartier lifted her left Nike Air and kicked Mari dead in her “professional” pussy. The sharp pain caused her to double over and drop her weapon to the floor. With all the strength she could muster, Cartier stomped the beauty out, until Mari stopped squirming around on the floor. At one point Cartier’s foot came down so hard, you literally heard bones cracking.

  Mari screamed out in an agonizing cry as a few of her ribs broke. She tried as best as she could to ball herself up into a fetal position, but that failed to protect her.

  Without thinking, Cartier grabbed Mari’s gun, aimed it point-blank at her head, and pulled the trigger.

  Click. Cartier stepped back. Click. Click. Click. She tossed the gun to the ground and grabbed Mari by her long, silky hair and dragged her kicking and screaming into her bedroom. She needed the additional privacy to muffle Mari’s screams.

  “Oh, you thought shit was sweet.” The first punch nearly broke Mari’s jaw. “You wanna play gangsta bitch! Next time, load your fucking pistol. Now I’ma whip your ass, and you’ll wish you had bullets in that burner!”

  Cartier was beyond frustrated on so many levels. As much as she tried to leave the hood and hood life behind and live for her kids, she just kept getting dragged back into the game. Not only did Jason’s actions keep bringing out her bad side, but she realized there wasn’t any way she could be two separate people. She couldn’t be Missus Homebody raising two kids, and also the head of The Cartel, with a beef to settle. The old Cartier would have never walked into that trap. She could have been killed, murdered by a mistress, all over Jason’s dirty dick.

  After leaving Mari beaten and bloodied, Cartier sat in traffic on Interstate 405. At that moment, she vowed to not only embrace who she was, but also to never, ever get caught slipping again.

  Chapter 3

  Queen B

  Back at the apartment, Cartier couldn’t believe Jason was still asleep. She’d left the kids with Elaine, an elderly woman who lived on the ground floor of the complex. She decided to confront Jason before picking up her babies. She really didn’t know what would go down once she confronted Jason about Mari, and she saw no need to subject them to any hostility. What she did know was, she was mad as hell for being disrespected. Words couldn’t describe how she felt about her husband’s mistress pulling a gun on her. Sure, Cartier whipped her ass, but her pride was bruised, her ego was damaged, and her feelings were hurt. But what Cartier hated to admit was that Mari was right. She did run over there unprepared, without a clue as to who this woman was. She could have walked directly into a trap and be dead, just as Monya and Shanine had run into a trap.

  Cartier looked at Jason with disgust. “Get up!” she roared, startling her sleeping husband.

  “Damn, Cartier. What the fuck? Why you gotta be screamin’ and shit like that? You know a nigga just came in.”

  “Get the fuck up because we need to talk,” Cartier stated through gritted teeth.

  Jason tossed his eyes in the air and shook his head. He was in no mood for Cartier’s constant bickering. He thought he’d scream if he had to hear one more time about the hood’s whodunit mystery. Yeah, when it all first went down, he was just as amped on finding out who shot the girls. But now, in Cali, he’d mellowed out.

  Last night he’d kicked it with Jamie Foxx. For all Jason knew, he could get a bit part in a movie or something, so he decided to share this news with his wife. He sat up in bed, oblivious to his wife’s anger. All he had on his mind was reliving last night.

  “Yo, check it, ma. Last night I was at Ecco, and guess who the fuck I was kickin’ it with all night? Guess.” Not allowing Cartier to actually guess, Jason blurted out, “Jamie Foxx! Me and dude was poppin’ bottles and makin’ it rain all night up in the bitch. I mean, everybody was all on my dick!”

  At that moment Cartier realized that Jason was too far gone for reasoning, arguing, or pleading. He was a full-fledged groupie, and she no longer wanted any part of him. She walked over to the closet and began tossing clothes into her suitcase, just enough to tide her over in New York until she went shopping.

  “What are you doing?” Jason asked in a panic.

  “Me and the kids are leaving. Tonight. We’re moving back to New York.”

  “No, the fuck, you’re not!”

  “Watch me.”

  “You’re not taking my kids back to all of that bullshit. I won’t allow it.”

  “OK, no problem. Then they can both stay here with you and Mari. I’ll come and visit them on the holidays. But I am going back to New York, and if you try to stop me, I’ll fuck you up!”

  Jason paused for a second, searching for the right words. He knew he was busted, but he didn’t know whether this was about his cheating or if it was about Monya and Shanine.

  “So that’s what this is about? Some bitch I don’t give a fuck about? You gonna let a bitch run you out of town? I thought—”

  The slap was swift and accurate. As Jason tumbled backwards, Cartier spotted the empty Corona bottle he had left on the dresse
r from the previous evening and broke it on the wall. In a series of rapid events, Cartier had the jagged bottle tucked snugly at Jason’s throat, his eyes exuding fear.

  “If you ever go against me again for any reason, whether for a bitch or a nigga, I promise you that you won’t live to regret it. Now, I said we’re leaving. We got a muthafuckin’ murder to solve. Now get your silly ass showered and dressed ’cause we’re catching the red-eye out of this bitch. Tonight!”

  Chapter 4

  Hello Brooklyn

  Cartier and Jason didn’t want too many people to know they were back. As far as they were concerned, the fewer, the better, so the run-down, navy blue Ford Mustang was the perfect low-profile vehicle to come sliding back through Brooklyn on the low. They had one mission: Rock Ryan to sleep and then move on with their lives. They both assessed that it should take less than a couple weeks for Jason to get the drop on Ryan, and hopefully, although they knew things would never go back to normal, they would be able to put their lives back on track and move forward.

  The two had only stayed in Los Angeles a few months after hearing the news from Bam about Ryan allegedly being the one to murder Shanine and put Monya in a permanent coma. Cartier wished Monya would wake up and tell them what actually happened on that fateful night.

  Just as Cartier had asked, Trina had Bam, Li’l Momma, and Janet all waiting for their arrival. The familiar apartment felt like home to Cartier, her mind quickly recalling better years; a time when all the crew members were breathing.

  Jason took Jason Jr. and Christian into Cartier’s old bedroom to play with Prada and Fendi, while the adults all gathered in the living room to converse.

  Cartier and Jason both looked worn and haggard from their journey, not to mention the stress and strain of recent events. Everyone was anxious to get to the bottom of what happened, and Bam, thus far, was the only one with the answers.

  “So, Bam, tell us again. What’s the word on the curb?” Jason sat down on the sofa, the plastic slip cover crackling under his body weight.

  Bam began to shake her head wildly, and her eyes darted around the room. When she felt she had everyone’s attention, she said, “It’s like I was telling Cartier. Big Mike called me and said shit wasn’t adding up, that the last time he spoke to Monya she said she was on her way to hit Ryan off, and then she’d keep going south to meet up with his boy, but as you know, she and Shanine never made it there.”

  Everyone sat in silence, dissecting the limited information.

  Jason spoke up. “Yo, how we know Big Mike ain’t tryna throw shit in the game and have Ryan take the fall on some Lee Harvey Oswald shit?”

  “What?” Cartier looked at Jason sideways.

  “Lee Harvey Oswald was the guy the CIA planted to take the fall for assassinating President Kennedy when we all know—”

  Trina interjected, “Shut up, muthafucka, with your silly-ass conspiracy theory. This the fucking hood, and those muthafuckas ain’t bright enough to hatch these elaborate CIA strategies. This was a straight jux, robbery, stickup! They saw their mark, and they took it.”

  “I agree with Trina,” Janet said. “I don’t think Big Mike would be clever enough to lure my baby down there, murder Shanine, and then pin it on Ryan. If he called and said the last person to see them alive was Ryan, then Ryan gotta get it.”

  “Well, if you ask me, I think we should hear Jason out. Y’all not giving Big Mike enough credit. Don’t sleep on them ’cause they ain’t graduate from high school and don’t have any plans on going to college. These niggas all got their Ph.D’s in hustling. Street smarts can take you a long way, and for all we know, Big Mike could be setting up Ryan to get got. How do we know they didn’t leave Ryan and make it to Big Mike and his boys and they were set up?” Cartier’s mind was racing. “At this point I don’t know who to trust. I know Ryan, and he’s just not built to rob anyone. That’s just not the Harlem style. Harlem niggas are, and have always been, about making money, not taking money. Taking money is definitely a Brooklyn thing.”

  “What the fuck you tryna say?” Jason roared so loud, Jason Jr. burst into tears in the other room. “You sound like you still sweet on that nigga.”

  “I don’t give a fuck ’bout no Ryan! And who the fuck you screamin’ on?”

  “You coulda fooled the shit outta me. Right now you sound like his cheerleader up in here cheering ’bout how he make money. Like he the only nigga that touch paper. That nigga ain’t have a dime for you when you got locked down.”

  Cartier hated to admit it, but Ryan doing her dirty when she got locked up for Donnie’s murder still hurt, and she was in no mood for Jason to be exploiting her feelings in front of everyone.

  “What that got to do with Monya and Shanine?”

  “It got everything to do with them. You in here swinging from that nigga balls, and he could very well be the one who put their lights out.”

  “Now, y’all, calm down,” Trina scolded. “Jason, all we’re doing here is trying to get to the bottom of what happened. Let’s not lose focus. This isn’t about Cartier and Ryan. Nor is it about you and Cartier. This is about two young women both being shot in the head and left for dead, and until I take my last breath, I will keep trying to find out who took those girls’ lives. They were both like my kids.” Trina took a long drag from her Newport cigarette. “I practically raised all of them. They were over here so much with Cartier.”

  The whole room got silent, all of them reminiscing on the past.

  Li’l Momma spoke up first. “OK, so what do we know? We know Shanine and Monya left New York heading south with weight, to make some paper. We know they were supposed to hit off Ryan, and then continue south to hit off Big Mike’s little man. We know—but it’s not confirmed—that they never made it to Big Mike. So as far as I’m concerned, we have our usual suspects, Ryan and Big Mike. Now all we gotta do is hit the streets and find out as much as we can about the last moments of Shanine’s and Monya’s life. And once we do that, we’ll be led to their killer or killers. One thing is for sure,” she added, “everything done in the dark will come to light. All we gotta do is wait.”

  “Wait? I don’t have time to wait. My life is on hold until I find out who tried to put my son’s mother’s lights out.” Jason was beginning to feel the weight of the situation. He realized that although his son was being raised by him and Cartier, not having his biological mother in his life would surely affect him.

  “I’m with you, Jason,” Janet said, her voice cracking. “As long as my baby lies in a coma fighting for her life, I can’t function properly. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. All I can think about is getting revenge. Whatever it takes, I want the person who did this to Monya dead.”

  “I feel you,” Jason said. “And whoever it was, whether it was Big Mike or Ryan, once I get close enough to them, then it’s a wrap. I will lullaby either one of them.”

  “Get close enough to them? So whatchu sayin’?” Janet asked, her tone taking a menacing turn.

  “What do you mean, what I’m saying?”

  Jason, like everyone else, was lost in confusion, not really knowing what Janet was trying to get at.

  “Well, now you’re talking about if you—”

  “I never said if.”

  “OK, but you talking as if it’s that difficult to murder someone. You a street nigga. What do you mean, once you get close enough to them? If you see either one of them in broad daylight, then guess what? Then you’re close enough to them.”

  “Now hold on, Janet.” Cartier realized that everyone, including her, had put avenging Shanine’s murder and Monya’s attempted murder on Jason’s shoulders. She remembered the same pressure being put on her shoulders after Donnie had beat Bam just inches from being retarded. “Jason will handle the situation as he sees fit. He doesn’t owe anybody anything, including Monya. You’re asking him to go blazing niggas in broad daylight, trading in his life for Monya’s. He has two children and a wife to think about.”

  Janet
couldn’t believe her ears. Especially from Cartier. Cartier’s words to Janet were just as piercing as when the police had called to tell her that her daughter had been shot at point-blank range in the head and had little chance of surviving. Images of the rifts between Monya and Cartier throughout the years began to play in Janet’s head and spill out of her mouth.

  Janet’s voice had elevated to a high-pitched shrill. She was beyond angry. Cartier represented everything her daughter no longer had—love, life, children, and a husband. Monya couldn’t be any of those things because she lay half-dead in a non-descript hospital bed. Janet knew she and Monya would never lock eyes again. That she would never be able to see her smile, give her a hug, or cook a simple meal for her. Death was so final, and no one—other than Jesus Christ, her Savior—could come back from the dead.

  “How dare you stand up in my face and talk about being a wife and a mother when my child no longer has those luxuries? And you called yourself her best friend. The head of the Cartel.” Janet made a lemon-sucking face; she was that disgusted. “And her lover!”

  Trina began sensing that things were going to get combative. “Janet, let’s not go there. All Cartier is saying—”

  “Ma, you don’t have to speak for me. I’m a grown woman.” Cartier stood and began to approach Janet, whose body had stiffened from stress.

  Everyone immediately jumped to their feet to intervene the inevitable. As they began to hold back Cartier, Janet began flipping.

  “Nah, don’t hold her back,” she taunted. “Let her go, so I can whip her ass, like I should have done years ago.”

  “You must got me mixed up with some lame-ass bitch because I will wear you out in here, Janet. I’m begging you not to push me.”

  “Don’t let my age fool you, Cartier, because a bitch still got her hand game, and I will take out all my frustration on your ugly ass.”

  Hearing the word ugly was enough for Cartier. She charged at Janet, relentlessly, but Jason, Bam, Li’l Momma, and Trina created a barrier that neither Janet nor Cartier could break through. After a minute of struggling, Cartier and Janet both gave up.