Cartier reached down, and sure enough, his penis was brick-hard. “We could go back inside, and I could help you with that problem.”
He swatted her hand away and readjusted his tool. “Hold on tight. And don’t be screaming like a girl. You might mess up my concentration.”
Cartier tapped him playfully on his shoulder and then wrapped her arms as tight as she could around his waist.
The drive into the city was surreal. The way the bike hugged the corners as Head leaned into each turn was exhilarating. The night was clear with a slight breeze, and as they rode over the Manhattan Bridge, Cartier hugged his waist even tighter.
Head took Cartier to Little Italy for a massive pasta dinner. His favorite place was Carmine’s, adorned with outside tables, umbrellas, and opera music over their sound system. As they were being seated, he said, “Do you recognize that tune?”
Cartier grimaced. Hell no, she didn’t recognize that music. She shook her head rapidly and sat down.
“It’s Ennio Morricone. It’s the theme song from Robert De Niro’s movie, Once Upon a Time in America.”
Cartier listened more closely. “Hey, you’re right. I would have never guessed that.”
“What type of music do you like?”
“The usual. Rap, R&B, I guess, a little pop, but mostly hardcore rap. I’m into Fabolous, and Jay-Z, of course, but they got this new kid from Harlem named Chopper that’s going hard on the mixed tapes.”
“What about this tune?”
Cartier pursed her lips and shook her head rapidly. “Umm, not my cup of tea.”
“That’s because you’re not listening with your heart.”
“Why do you care? I said I don’t like it.”
Head chuckled as he picked up the menu. After his eyes briefly scanned the wine list, he put the menu back down and folded his hands. “I care because one day I’d like my wife to walk down the aisle to this.”
That information stunned Cartier. “Why would you want your wife to walk down the aisle to a gangster’s theme song? And it sounds gloomy, if you ask me.”
“Just listen.”
“I am listening. ‘Here and Now’ by Luther Vandross is a little too common for you.”
“If you listen with your heart, you’ll see it’s not gloomy at all. The melody is filled with hope, and so was the film. Robert Deniro’s character loved one girl, and only one girl, his whole life. The flute playing throughout represents his loyalty toward that girl and his friends. And even though those closest to him betrayed him, he still remained a consummate friend. That’s what I want my wife to feel about me, an undying love, so if even if those around us betray us, the love we have for each other will never die.”
Cartier thought about the movie and what it represented to her, and then suddenly she could see his point. And the haunting melody did become a beautiful song. She closed her eyes and took in the whole experience.
“I see what you’re saying.” Cartier began to get into the next few songs as they ordered dinner.
Finally Head got down to the basics. “I found dude.”
“Who? Ryan?”
Head nodded.
“Is he dead?”
“Not yet. I’ma go and handle him tomorrow. My li’l man said every Thursday night he rolls through this gambling joint on 145th Street in Harlem. Niggas go in there around ten, eleven at night and don’t come out until daybreak. Everyone coming out that bitch is on high alert, thinking they gonna get juxed ’cause they handling bundles of dough. So I plan to follow him home and get the drop on him and his chick.”
Cartier couldn’t believe that Head was able to pull off in a couple of weeks what Jason couldn’t do in over a year.
“Who’s your li’l man?”
“This kid named Leroy.”
“Leroy? How long have you known him and are you sure you can trust him. I don’t want you walking into a trap.”
“Nah, he good peoples. We go way back.”
“Well anytime a parent names their child Hank, Earl, Bubba, Leroy or Tyrone—there’s gonna be a problem. Those mutherfuckas aren’t to be trusted,” Cartier joked.
Head laughed, “I can trust him, trust me.”
“Are you sure you wanna do this? I mean, you don’t really know me. Why would you risk your life, livelihood for me?”
“I thought you’d want to do the same for me. I thought we were on the same page here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’ve been talking about starting a new life together—”
“We are.”
“Then how am I going to represent to the world that you’re my girl, and you got niggas gunning for you? And even if I did decide to chill, once we make it known that you’re under my wing, niggas gonna add me to the list.”
“But what if they don’t? What if they only care about getting at me and Jason?”
All of a sudden Cartier felt uneasy with Head taking over. It was all happening so fast. She didn’t think he’d get information on Ryan so quickly, especially since Jason and nosy Bam couldn’t.
“I just don’t want you getting hurt. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. This Ryan don’t give a fuck about no one. I told you how he came out of the club blazing.” The shootout at Club Roxy flooded Cartier’s memory. “I think I should step up to the plate and handle mines.”
“Look, Cartier, I ain’t no killer, but I’ve killed. It’s how you survive out here. I know how to handle mines, and as I’ve tried to drill into your thick skull, I don’t want you to have no parts of this. Tomorrow, I’ma come and swoop up your family and take all y’all to my crib to lay low until all scores are settled.”
What did he just say? Cartier had to fight back tears. She wasn’t a punk and wasn’t about to cry openly in public. “Well, at least give me the address, so I could give it to Jason. Let’s see what he does with the information.”
Head pushed his chair back, making a screeching sound. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Cartier’s eyes popped open like that of a child. “What now?”
“You still sweet on that nigga?”
“What? I am not!”
“You still investing in his abilities to handle Ryan, even after all he’s done. YOU told me he fucked Jalissa, instead of deading Ryan. YOU told me he forced your hand to pull the trigger. YOU told me the nigga was so grimy, he fucked your homegirl. Now you’re going to sit up in my face and tell me to trust dude with my info?”
Cartier couldn’t argue with those facts, but she did want to set one thing straight. “The last thing I could give is a fuck about Jason.”
Head peered into her eyes, challenging her to look away and show any signs of lying. “Then you won’t have a problem with me completing what you started.”
Cartier needed to choose her words carefully. “That’s only if he still has a vendetta against me, and as it seems, we’ve both decided to squash the beef.”
“You did, huh?”
“Yeah, this morning.”
“Word?” It was Head’s turn to pop his eyes open in surprise. “How that happen?”
“Well, I went to see him.”
Head shifted in his chair, causing Cartier to pause.
Then she continued. “I went to see him to give him back his car. I told him we were together, that I didn’t want anything of his, including his car and house. So the kids and I will be homeless.” Cartier had to throw the lie on thick. She realized Head had a jealous streak. She hated to admit it, but it made her feel secure in their relationship. It was silly, but his anger made her know, if she wasn’t the only girl he was fucking with as he’d told her, she was the one he was most feeling.
“See, that’s what I’m saying. Fuck that nigga! He ain’t shit.” Head leaned forward in his chair. “How he gonna kick out you and his kids on the streets? That’s not what real niggas do.”
“So I should stay in the house?”
“Hell no! I got you and your family.
I’m saying, he shouldn’t have made you leave; that should have been your choice. Anyway, Jason got that young money. I’ma show you how a nigga with grown-man money will treat you.”
Cartier showed her pearly whites. “Really?”
“Really, ma.”
“OK, then it’s settled. I don’t want to discuss this too much more, but just so that we’re clear, I’m going to move out of Jason’s house, and you’re not going to touch him, right? For the sake of our kids, I don’t want him touched.”
Head couldn’t believe her hypocrisy. It was all right for her to fill him with bullets, but for him, Jason was off limit? “Cartier, what’s changed between you and him?”
“I just told you. Nothing. I swear on everything I love, nothing’s changed. We’re done. Now promise me you won’t do anything to him.”
“I can’t promise you, because I keep all my promises.”
“But he doesn’t have a beef with you. I told him about you, and he’s cool with us being together.”
“First off, I don’t need his permission. And, second, you won’t know a nigga got beef with you until the bullet has already left the chamber and is lodged snugly in your temple.”
“Head, I’ve seen Jason. He’s all fucked up. He can’t hurt a fly.”
The waitress came and took their orders, providing a much-needed distraction for Cartier.
“Look, let me enjoy my meal,” Head said. “We’ll kick it about this later.”
****
After dinner, Head decided to take Cartier to where he rested his head at night, a large apartment in the cut of Brighton Beach, a predominantly Russian-Jewish community.
Cartier used to think you couldn’t pay a Black person to live there, but obviously she was wrong. “How did they let you in here?” she wondered out loud.
“Money affords you everything.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. This isn’t exactly the lap of luxury. I meant, aren’t they usually racist, only letting in their own kind?”
“I know exactly what you meant. As I said, money will afford you anything. I mean”—Head kicked off his Air Nike—“I know this isn’t the Taj Mahal, but it’s a temporary joint until you go house-hunting for us.”
“I thought you’d live in some grand mansion.”
“I knew that’s what you thought. After I got out the prison, I found this little hideout, until I figured out what I wanted to do. I had lost touch with so many people and wasn’t ready to relocate until I had rubbed shoulders with all that I loved. Family, friends, you know, get all that out of my system.”
“This place is immaculate. Are you this neat, or do you have a housekeeper? Some Russian chick in a maid’s outfit dusting not only your furniture, but your dick as well?”
Head laughed. “I do like the whole maid thing. Maybe we could get you one so you could dust my dick all day. But I’m only into my sistas.”
Cartier walked farther into his apartment in her stiletto heels, dress draping over all her curves, and her butt jiggling with every step. She knew he was watching her intensely.
“After you finish taking your tour, call your moms and your kids and tell her that you’re safe with me and that you won’t be coming home tonight. No need to have her worrying.”
Cartier did a salute. “Yes, bossman.”
Cartier walked around the spacious but humble three-bedroom apartment with the old-school hardwood floors that would give you a splinter, a standard eat-in kitchen with white appliances, not to mention a king-size bed, large LED television, Wii station, and about one hundred sneaker boxes stacked from floor to ceiling.
As Cartier made herself comfortable on his plush mattress, she toyed with the idea of letting him know that she was going to meet Jason tomorrow at Trina’s, but she decided against it. Shortly thereafter, Head walked in with a pint of Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream and two spoons.
“You trying to get me fat?”
“Only with my baby.”
“A baby?”
“First comes love, then marriage, then a baby.” He kissed her forehead. “You wouldn’t want a little me?”
“You don’t think it’s a little too soon to be putting all of this on our shoulders?”
Head shoved a large scoop into her mouth to shut her up. “Cartier, I know what I want. I’m a go-getter. Always have been, and always will be. If there’s one thing my past has taught me is that you gotta live your best life now. You don’t get a second chance. I’m thirty-six years old, never been married, and I don’t have no kids. When I got locked up, it hurt me that I’d never been a father. I’d never have a wedding, a real wedding with the wife of my choice, not that jailhouse shit with some random chick coming to see her cousin or brother. Now that I’m out and I beat that case, I’m moving at the speed of lightning. So if you’re not in love with me yet, then you better hurry up and fall, because I don’t have time to make this a long, drawn-out courtship. And because I’ve already fallen in love with you so, you better catch up.”
Cartier didn’t reply. She didn’t know what to say. Instead, she put down the ice cream and made love to him all night long.
Chapter 26
Frienemies
Every night Marisol would wake up in a cold sweat, clutching her chest from pain and screaming out in a blood-curdling moan, visions of Jalissa’s badly beaten body with dime-sized bullet holes indelibly etched in her memory. The guilt of not only being the one to encourage Jalissa to hook up with Jason so they could milk him for his money, and then also missing her chance to murder Cartier when she’d spotted her driving down the boulevard was palpable. Marisol should have known that Jalissa was no match for Cartier.
She picked up the untraceable mobile phone and dialed her informant. “Yo, I already told you what will happen to you if you don’t get me close to this bitch!” she screamed into the phone. “Now where the fuck does she live?”
“I don’t know yet. She never gave us her address.”
“So get it!”
“If I ask for it now, then she’ll know something is up,” the girl whined. “She’s not stupid. If she knows I’ve switched sides, she’ll kill me.”
“And what the fuck do you think I’ll do to you?”
“Look, you can stop with all these threats! I want her dead too! I told you, if you just chill, I would do it myself.”
“No! She’s mine. Besides, if you had the balls to do it, you wouldn’t have contacted me.”
“I contacted you because I wanted the bounty you put on her and Jason’s heads. Is it still fifty thousand a head?”
Marisol tossed her eyes toward the sky. There wasn’t any way the informant would see a dime of that money. “Yes, it’s still the same, but I’m going to raise the stakes. If you could get the information for me to get at her before this week ends, then I’ll double it. I can’t sleep at night with her still walking this earth while my sister’s body is rotting in a lonely grave.”
“What about Jason? Do you still want him?”
“Of course, I do!”
“And how are you going to get all that cash? Is Ryan going to give it to you?”
The greedy bitch was irking Marisol’s nerves, but she knew she had to rein in her anger to get the end result. “It was his idea to up the ante. He’s already given me that gwap.”
“Good. Because you can get them both, this evening. They’re going to be on our block at her mother’s apartment.” The informant laughed. “We’re supposed to sit at the round table and plot you and Ryan’s murder.”
Chapter 27
Playing With Fire
“Good morning,” Cartier said sweetly into her cell, turning over on Head’s plush mattress. He’d gone to take a shower, so this was an opportunity for her to speak with her mother frankly.
“Good morning?” Trina’s voice elevated in surprise. “Since when you start using manners? You must be putting on airs in front of that nigga. Where he at? He laying right next to you?”
“Ain’t
nobody putting on. Damn!”
Trina snorted, still a little miffed at the way Cartier had carried on with her the night before in front of Head. And when she thought about them not coming back to the house as he’d promised, leaving her to babysit, she got even more angry.
“What time are you coming home? Because I gave birth to three kids, not five. I’m not going to keep being your live-in nanny. You’re not Angelina Jolie.”
Cartier chuckled. She knew her mother was trying to pick a fight, but she wasn’t going to buy in to it. “Now what does Angelina have to do with anything?”
“You must think you’re some sort of celebrity, with the hours you keeping, running in and out of here with no care in the world.”
“Ma, I have cares, and I have worries, but I can’t spend every waking moment riding up and down the streets of New York looking for Ryan with a pistol in the palm of my hand. I already told you that I’m on high alert, watching my back and trying to settle the score. Can’t I have one day here and there to keep me from going insane? You have your soap operas, and now I have Head. Why do you keep trying to ruin this?”
Trina acquiesced. “Well, the kids are fine, and I’m fine too. You don’t have to rush home.”
“Thanks, Ma. I only have a few minutes before Head gets out of the shower. I need your help.”
If there was one thing that would always remain unchanged was Trina’s loyalty to her daughter. The moment Cartier said she needed help, Trina’s attitude shifted from the being a bickering nag to the protective mother. “What happened?”
“Remember, we were all supposed to meet up in Brooklyn tonight with Jason to discuss stepping up our efforts to get at Ryan and Marisol?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So I can’t make the meeting. I’m not going to cancel it, because Jason might have some valuable information. Let everyone meet there, and keep telling them I’m coming. I’ll need you to head up the meeting and ask all the questions I would. Meanwhile, Head wants me to go home and grab a few of our things and move us into his place.”
“When you say us, I hope you just mean you, not me and the kids, right?”
“No, he means all of us. That means the kids and you too.”
Return of the Cartier Cartel (Part 2) Page 17