Back to the Streets

by Treasure Hernandez

  A part of her wanted to be the one to tell her brother who she really was. But then there was another part of her that was glad Halleigh had removed the burden from her shoulders and had done it for her. So many times she’d wondered exactly how she would tell her brother that his sister was a whore. Now she didn’t have to wonder any longer.

  Tasha walked into Maury’s bedroom and saw the pained look on his face, further confirmation that he knew the truth about his big sister.

  “She told you, huh?” Tasha asked as she walked in and sat down beside Maury, dropping her head and staring down at her feet. She made a mental note that as soon as everything was smoothed over and business was taken care of, she’d treat herself to a pedicure.

  “Yeah, but why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  Tasha shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I was just embarrassed that I allowed myself to get in that situation. I wanted to tell you so many times, Maury. Believe me, I did. But then I didn’t know how to. I mean, how does a girl tell her brother that her boss is really a pimp?”

  Maury shook his head and gritted his teeth. “The nigga better hope he get jail time, because I’m-a get at his ass if he don’t. I can’t believe he was pimping my sister.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, and I know it probably won’t, but he hasn’t pimped me in years. I started out turning tricks, but then . . .” Tasha stopped as she thought about the brutal attack from one of her johns that put her in retirement from hoeing. “But then Manolo realized that I’d make him more money being in charge of the other girls, keeping them in line and straight.”

  “So you were, what, a madam or some shit?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “So did you know how bad he was treating the girls?”

  Tasha remained silent, which was enough to answer Maury’s question.

  “I mean, some of the shit Halleigh was telling me went down . . . what kind of man treats women like that?” He continued shaking his head as he thought of the life that Halleigh had led. “I can’t believe that monster treated shorty like that.”

  Tasha did a double-take. “Shorty? What about me?” Tasha asked with mock envy as she punched her brother’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, and you too,” he added before his mind wandered off again to thoughts of Halleigh.

  Tasha just came right out and asked her brother, “You like her, don’t you?”

  Blushing with embarrassment, Maury straightened himself up and said, “That’s not important. Let’s focus on getting this money.” He held his fist up in a pound.

  Tasha smiled and met his fist with hers. It was a handshake they had done since they were kids, and she knew that it meant he was down for the cause.

  Tasha and Maury sat and talked about him unloading the bricks for them. And even though Tasha hadn’t been the one to tell her brother the truth about the life she had been living, she did bring him up to speed with some of the other happenings in Flint.

  Maury thought New York was off the hook, but he was beyond intrigued by what occurred in a little city in the Midwest, of all places. Who knew? In his opinion, Flint sounded more gutter than New York, and from what he was hearing, there were a few cats out in Flint getting money. He could definitely see the opportunity that was presenting itself.

  Robbery was Maury’s profession, so it wasn’t like he was on the up-and-up in the life he was living either. But he had never kept it from his sister and had always shared everything with her. That’s just how close they were, coming up. Heck, they used to use the same toothbrush sometimes. No matter what Maury got into, though, Tasha was always going to love him, the same way he still loved her.

  Maury took the game of robbery to another level. It was a passion he had perfected. He had to be one of the most ruthless and notorious stick-up kids in New York City. He went from borough to borough, holding cats up for their paper. Ski-masking was his method, and he was living nice off his gains. Flint sounded like just the city for him. It was small and unsuspecting, just the way he liked it. Yeah, I’m definitely about to see what Flint has to offer, he thought as Tasha finished up her tales about the city.

  “ ’Spite what it sounds like, I do like Flint. Hell, my life is there.” Tasha looked down at the clothes she was wearing, which were just some plain-Jane type of garments. She just grabbed what was easy when she and the girls had left town. “Hell, all my damn clothes are there too.” She chuckled. “I worked too hard to just leave my shit for them other hoes to cop.” Tasha thought for a minute. “Besides, I was thinking, the girls and I need to go back to Flint anyway.”

  “Why?” Maury asked.

  “No one knows I set Manolo up, but if I just stay gone and shit, people are going to put two and two together. So I’m going to tell the girls that we need to go back just for a minute, so that we don’t look so suspect. If people ask where we were, we’ll just tell them we were laying low in a hotel somewhere, hiding from the cops.” Tasha looked to Maury for a reaction to her reasoning. “So, what do you think?”

  “Look, sis, I see what you’re saying, and I agree. But I can’t let you go back to Flint by yourself, not after the hot shit you just pulled. As far as you know, that cop done turned on you by now. You could already be looking suspect. On the other hand, no one may suspect a thing and there might be more money to be made.”

  Maury looked off greedily. It was an expression Tasha had seen many times before in Mimi’s eyes.

  “I know that look,” Tasha told him. “What are you thinking, little bro?”

  “What I’m thinking is, that nigga Manolo probably got more than one safe.” He looked at Tasha. “You said you set him up at the club? The police got him for his safe at the club?”

  Tasha nodded.

  “I’m sure that nigga got a safe at the crib.”

  Tasha hadn’t really thought of that. She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Yeah, if that nigga was a player in the game like you say he was, then I know he didn’t stack all of his eggs in one basket. Bet you any amount of money that nigga got a stash where he lays his head.”

  “Maybe so, but right now, one bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I’m trying to get paid off of the shit we got.”

  “All right, all right,” Maury said, putting the idea of hitting up Manolo’s crib on the back burner to simmer. “Tell you what, I’m going to get the bricks off here, and then in a couple days, we’ll go back to Flint. I’d never forgive myself if some shit popped off and I could’ve prevented it from happening, so I’m gon’ stick around your city for a while, just to make sure you’re straight. Then if you decide you wanna roll back to the NY with me, you know you always got a place to rest your head.”

  Tasha nodded and reached out to hug her brother before she left the room. She was elated. In a couple of days, she would be twenty thousand dollars richer.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day, Maury hit the block to get the bricks off. Although the drug trade wasn’t really his line of work, he knew a couple cats from around the way who were looking to buy some work, and he blessed them with the weight for $15,000 per brick. Since the going rate in New York was at least twenty-three G’s, niggas flocked to the price, and the eight bricks were gone in a matter of hours. His pockets were $120,000 heavier, and after he split it with Tasha and her crew, he’d still have sixty stacks all to himself.

  He made his way back to the crib, and when he arrived, he saw Halleigh sitting on his front stoop. He grabbed the duffle bag from his back seat, checked his hip to ensure that his pistol was in place, and his rearview mirror before exiting the ’08 Lexus IS. He knew word had probably gotten out that he had moved some weight, and he was sure that somebody saw him as an opportunity to get paid. He may have been the most ruthless stick-up kid in town, but he wasn’t the only one. And he knew the game. Had the shoe been on the other foot, he’d be waiting in the cut somewhere for his mark.

  That was another reason why he knew it was a good idea to l
eave town and head to Flint with Tasha. He’d need to lay low. That way niggas would think he went on vacation and blew the money somewhere. His trip to Flint would give his hood a chance to settle down and forget that he’d ever made the large transactions.

  Maury approached Halleigh and, as he walked past her, motioned his head toward the house. “Come inside. I need to holla at you about something,” he told her as he stepped into the house.

  Halleigh followed behind him until they reached the kitchen. Mimi and Tasha were chilling in the living room, and Maury quickly gathered them up too. He poured the duffle bag full of money out onto the kitchen table.

  “Damn!” Mimi exclaimed. She had never seen so much money in her life. She jumped up and down excitedly. “I’m about to cop me a new whip as soon as we get back to Flint. I know Pookie who runs that car lot over on—”

  “Stop talking stupid, Mimi,” Tasha said, cutting her off. “Ain’t none of us copping anything extravagant. What we look like, going back home with new cars and shit? That would make us look suspect as hell. We didn’t have it before, so we ain’t about to get it now. At least until we figure out a front that would explain us coming into some money. Besides, I don’t plan on making Flint home again permanently. We need to stick around just long enough to make sure our names are good. You never know when you might need a muthafucka again. And if for some reason we were to make Flint home again, we want to make sure it’s all good. You got that?”

  Mimi shrugged, but in her mind, she was picturing a nice new candy apple red convertible.

  “Go make sure the front door is locked,” Tasha suddenly stated.

  “I locked it,” Maury told her.

  “Go double check,” Tasha insisted.

  Mimi went and made sure the door was locked and then returned.

  “This is a lot of money.” Halleigh stared down at it in disbelief.

  Manolo had made sure that she never saw more than a couple hundred dollars at a time. The less money he let the girls run around with, the more likely they were to be dependent upon him. In addition to that, he never gave the girls anymore than they’d need for their essentials. That way they couldn’t stack up a nest egg to try to run off on him one day.

  So, to Halleigh, having more than a hundred thousand in front of her was crazy. She knew that her life had just made a turn for the better as soon as Maury started dividing it up.

  He took his cut first, which left the girls with $20,000 apiece.

  “I can really start over with this much money,” Halleigh stated happily.

  Maury noticed her mood had changed instantly. It was as if a huge burden had been lifted off her shoulders, and it caused him to smile discreetly.

  Tasha and Mimi peeped the way Maury was looking at Halleigh. Tasha smiled to herself. She’d never seen her brother react to a chick the way he was reacting to Halleigh.

  Back when Tasha was younger, she would have kicked Halleigh to the curb, as her friend, before she could blink. She hated when she would bring her friends around Maury and he would get a little crush on them, but what she hated most was when the girls tried to holler at him behind her back. It was just an unspoken rule that friends don’t date their friends’ brothers. And Tasha, being as protective of her little brother as she was, just wasn’t having it.

  One time in particular, she had a best friend named Kera, whom she’d been tight with since fifth grade. Kera had come to the house and had sleepovers with Tasha on many occasions. Maury had never paid the girl much mind. But in tenth grade, when Kera grew titties and an ass, Maury couldn’t help but notice his sister’s friend.

  It wasn’t until Tasha and Kera were seniors in high school that she learned that Kera, during sleepovers, would sneak out of her room in the middle of the night to have sex with Maury.

  And she never would’ve known if Kera hadn’t ended up sleeping with one of Maury’s friends too, which caused Maury and dude to go to blows in gym class. And Maury was suspended.

  But he wasn’t the only one.

  When Tasha found out the reason her brother got suspended, she mopped the math class floor with Kera and was suspended too. She felt that Kera had just been using her, and if nothing else, Tasha hated the feeling of being used. Ironically, she never felt she was being used by Manolo, since that was a game she got herself into.

  Looking at how Maury was feeling Halleigh didn’t upset Tasha, though. She looked at Halleigh like a little sister or something. She knew she was good people, so it didn’t bother her that Maury was feeling her girl.

  Mimi, on the other hand, harbored jealousy. But right now, she wasn’t about to trip over no dick, so she just rolled her eyes and collected her cash from the table.

  “Fuck what y’all talking about.” Mimi licked her fingers as she counted her dough. “I’m about to go shopping. I can finally throw all this stripper shit away,” she said as she left the room.

  Tasha collected her cash. “I better go with this bitch to make sure she don’t go back to Flint just as broke as she left. You coming, Hal?”

  Halleigh knew that she needed new clothes. Everything she owned was cheap and indecent, but she honestly had bigger plans for the money sitting in front of her. She shook her head and replied, “Nah, y’all go ahead. I’m good.”

  Tasha and Mimi grabbed their purses and headed out to hit the stores, leaving Halleigh and Maury alone in the house.

  “Why you didn’t go with your girls?” Maury asked Halleigh as they sat on the couch watching television.

  “I wanted to, but I need this money. I can’t afford to go blow it on clothes and handbags. Not right now. I’m really trying to change how I’m living, you know,” she said as she looked up at him.

  Her beauty was breathtaking, and Maury just stared at her for a moment. “Let me take you shopping. You don’t have to spend none of your cash. Everything’s on me.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” she answered. Halleigh knew better. No man had ever done anything for her unless he was getting something in return. She’d learned from Mimi that an expensive shopping trip from a guy meant she had to give up the booty, and she wasn’t ready to do that.

  “Yeah, you can, shorty. You got to let a nigga treat you sometimes.” Maury figured spending a couple thousand on Halleigh couldn’t hurt his pockets, and he wanted to see her happy. “And I know what you’re thinking,” he said, reading Halleigh’s mind. “No strings attached. I’m not looking for anything from you in return. I just want to show you that there are some decent men out there who know how to treat a lady, and I’m one of them. Ya feel me?”

  Halleigh thought for a minute before replying with a nod and a smile on her face. “Yeah, I feel you.”

  “Good. Now let’s dip,” Maury ordered.

  He took out five stacks and put the rest of his share back in the duffle bag and hid it safely in his bedroom wall safe. He got another duffle bag from his bedroom closet and gave it to Halleigh to put her money in.

  Then they headed out the door, Halleigh feeling like Julia Roberts being escorted by Richard Gere in the movie Pretty Woman.

  Maury took her to Macy’s in Manhattan and watched her have a field day in the store. He took her to designer stores that she’d never even heard of before, purchasing her high-end clothes, sparing no expense.

  Halleigh was enjoying the time that she spent with Maury. He was attentive and protective. When she was with him, he made her feel safe. He walked beside her, his arm draped securely around her shoulder. She almost forgot about the hell that was her life. He made her feel special and didn’t judge her or look down on her for the way her life had turned out.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said as he opened the passenger door for her.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, you know everything about me. Things that I can’t even see past you’ve disregarded.”

  “I don’t judge people by the past. What’s done is done. You can’t change that, Halleigh. Y
ou can only look forward and do better in the future.” Maury leaned into her and kissed her softly on the forehead before pushing her gently into the car.

  Halleigh spent the entire day with Maury, and he showed her everything that New York had to offer. They store-hopped for most of the day and then did an early dinner. He even purchased last-minute theatre tickets for The Color Purple.

  Halleigh was so impressed with the hustle and bustle of New York City. It was completely different than her hometown, and she enjoyed being away from the grit of Flint.

  By the time they arrived home, Halleigh was exhausted.

  “Thank you for everything, Maury,” she stated as they stood in the dark foyer. “No one has ever done anything like this for me. I had a really good time with you.”

  “You deserve it,” he replied softly as he touched her face.

  She gasped from the warmth of his hands and closed her eyes. Halleigh wasn’t ready to be in a relationship, but the way she felt when she was with Maury gave her hope that one day she could be happy.

  “Come here,” he whispered as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his room. Maury opened the door.

  Halleigh reluctantly followed him inside, her heartbeat increasing with each step she took.

  After closing the door behind him, he stepped toward Halleigh. Her body trembled slightly, and he smiled to himself. Even though he knew her past, he still sensed an innocent nature in her. He slid the straps of her summer dress off her shoulders, and the fabric dropped to the floor. He then undressed himself, down to his boxers.

  Halleigh’s breaths became shallow as he pulled her onto his bed. Against her better judgment, she felt the space between her legs become wet.

  “Maury, I can’t.” Her words came out more like a moan than a whisper.

  “I know,” he replied.

  The feeling of his breath on her earlobe sent shivers down her spine.

  He pulled back the covers so that she could put her feet underneath and then lay on his back, pulling her head onto his chest. “Go to sleep, Hal. I want you to feel me next to you. I’m willing to be here for you when you’re ready.”