by Ashley
“Can I get an apple martini?” I asked the bartender. I never took a sip from the drink, but I held it for good measure. I didn’t want to be the only person at the bar without a glass in my hand. I wanted to blend in while I discreetly watched every move that Benny made. I watched Anisa kill her drink, and I could see that she was nervous, but the liquid courage she’d just consumed would be more than enough to get her through the night. We both prayed that everything went perfectly. We were a far cry from the seasoned killer that Murder was, but we were stepping into his shoes. I crossed my fingers and hoped that things played out right.
I was so focused that I didn’t even notice the dude that had slid into the seat next to me. He turned the swivel stool I was sitting in around so that I was facing him. I frowned, and was about to say something until he leaned into my ear.
“You and yo girl about to rob that nigga or something?” he asked.
His question caught me completely off guard, and my heartbeat began to speed up. Are we that obvious? I thought as I gave him the evil eye and stood to leave.
Dude grabbed my arm gently and pulled me near him. “I respect your hustle, ma. It’s sexy as long as I don’t come into your crosshairs, nah mean?” his BK accent was strong, and his Usher cologne invaded my space while his dark bedroom eyes scanned me from head to toe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I responded shortly as I titled my head to the side and looked up at him. He smiled; I didn’t.
Any other day I might have listened to what he was kicking. The presidential on his wrist indicated that he was worth my time, but I wasn’t there for all that. I really wished the nigga would get out of my space so that I could re-focus, but he wasn’t moving. I looked over at Anisa, who was still on point. Benny Dough had never left her eyesight. I turned back around to the man in front of me. “Did you want something?” I asked him.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Nigga, what’s your name?” I countered.
He laughed and rubbed the hairs of his full beard. “Joell,” he responded. “I own this club.”
I clapped my hands sarcastically and said, “Congratulations! That must impress a lot of women.” I rolled my eyes, hoping that the nigga would take a hint and get lost, but again, he didn’t.
“I just thought I’d tip your hand a little bit and let you know that all eyes are on you. You walk into my strip joint looking good, smelling good… got these niggas watching you more than they watching my dancers, but you got your sights on one nigga. He looks like a mark to me. Somebody like you shouldn’t have to rob and steal to eat, Ms. Lady. You could be very well taken care of,” he said.
“I’m not putting on no show, and I don’t know nothing about all that you talking. We’re just here for the entertainment,” I replied without looking at him. My eyes found Benny Dough, and noticed that he was preparing to leave. He wasn’t sloppy drunk, but I could tell that he was tipsy. I nudged Anisa and grabbed my clutch. “It was nice to meet you, Joell. You have a good evening,” I said with a curt smile.
He leaned back against the bar and watched me walk away. I put an extra switch in my hips just to show him something that he would never get, and walked right past Benny Dough out of the club.
As soon as Anisa and I claimed our car from valet parking, we changed clothes inside, removed our makeup and put on jeans and sneakers. Arab scarves were tied around our necks. We waited patiently, and minutes later, Benny Dough came out of the club with the stripper chicks and two other men following behind him. We were silent and breathing hard in anticipation as we followed him and his entourage to a cheap motel. They were two cars deep, so we made sure that we didn’t tail them too closely. The last thing we needed was for them to get suspicious.
“There are six of them and two of us. You know all of them niggas is strapped. How are we gon’ pull this off now?” Anisa asked.
“We wait,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure how we would pull it off either. We were outnumbered and outgunned, but we really didn’t have a choice. We were already paid half up front. We had to come through on our end, so it was all or nothing. We watched the room for a half an hour, and suddenly the door opened. One of the guys came out. Anisa went to get out of the car.
“What are you doing?” I whispered harshly as she got out and waved the dude over.
“Hey! I’m sorry to bother you,” she said as she walked toward the guy. “Me and my girl are having some car trouble. It won’t start. Can you help us please?” she asked.
This was not a part of the plan, and butterflies fluttered in my stomach. What is she doing? Now this nigga done seen her face and everything! I thought heatedly.
The nigga was a sucker for a pretty face, because he came right over without question and tapped the front of the car. “Open the hood,” he instructed. I did as I was told and then hit the release button for the trunk as well. I saw him lean over to check out the engine, so I grabbed the gun, and got out of the car.
“Show me your hands,” I said as I raised the gun to his head. Surprise swept over his face and he opened his mouth to speak. “If you want to live to see tomorrow, then you’ll shut the fuck up,” I said calmly. The look on his face told me that he was fuming. “Yeah, you fell for the okey doke,” I commented, further pissing him off.
Anisa reached into his waistline and relieved him of his cell phone, the hotel room key, and a black.45. “Thank you,” she sang as she released the safety and cocked it back.
With steel pressed to both sides of his head, the dude became much more humble. “I got a daughter, man!” he pleaded. “I don’t know what y’all bitches want, but you can have it. My whip, money, whatever.”
We didn’t respond, but we took that nigga for a walk to the back of the car. I lifted the trunk. We were moving in sync as if we had been doing this for years. She was the Thelma to my Louise. “Get in,” Anisa ordered.
The dude reluctantly climbed inside, and we closed the trunk. After making sure that he was locked inside, I turned to her with big eyes and whispered, “What the fuck was that, Nis? You’ve got to warn me before you make a play like that! The nigga saw our faces and everything,” I fussed.
“So, we’ll pop his ass so that he ain’t telling nothing,” she responded as she pulled her scarf over her face. I did the same. The only thing that could be seen was our hair and our eyes as we made our way to the door. I put my finger to my lips and then put my ear to the door. The sounds of music could be heard.
Anisa inserted the key slowly, and when the locked released, I rushed inside. “Everybody on the floor! If I have to say it more than once, I’ma leave you stinkin’ in this bitch!” I yelled as Anisa and I pointed our guns around the room.
“What the fuck? Do you bitches know who the fuck you’re fucking with?” one of the guys asked.
Boom!
He fell dead where he stood. I was surprised that Anisa had shot him, but I didn’t show it. I barely even flinched, because I knew in order to stay in control, I’d have to keep my composure. “Now, does anybody else have any more questions?” I asked. “Sit on your hands!” I demanded.
“There’s a nigga-” one of the girls began to speak, but I smacked the shit out of her with the gun.
“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” I asked. I could see the larceny in her eyes, but I didn’t come there for her, so I kept it moving.
We took the zip ties out of our pockets and began to bind everybody by their hands and feet, but before we could get to the last girl, a nigga came bursting out of the bathroom. He rushed me and at the exact same moment Benny Dough tackled Anisa.
Boom! Boom!
I heard two gunshots go off, and then heard Anisa groaning as I struggled against the dude as we both tried to get a good hold on the gun. He was using his weight as an advantage and had me pinned to the floor, but I was holding on to the gun for dear life. I couldn’t get to the trigger. He smacked fire from my ass, causing the entire right side of my
face to burn and stars to appear before my eyes. I knew it was over when I found myself looking down the barrel of the gun.
“Yeah, bitch! Where’s all that mouth now?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. I didn’t want to see the bullets that ended my life. I inhaled deeply, gulping in the last bit of air that my lungs would ever taste.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The gunshots deafened my ears, but when I didn’t feel any pain, I opened my eyes. I scrambled backwards until my back hit the wall as I watched the dude fall to his knees as three bloodstains began to spread through the front of his shirt. I expected to see Anisa holding the smoking gun, but instead, one of the strippers had shot him.
“Anisa!” I yelled as I crawled over to her. Her neck was raw from being choked, and she was covered in blood. “Anisa… where are you hit?” I asked as my hands roamed her body.
She coughed and gulped in air. “It’s not mine, Miamor… I’m good.”
I helped her to her feet and retrieved our guns.
The girl who had saved me was cutting the ties from her friends’ hands.
“Thanks,” I said as I looked her in the eye. I had every intention of killing them when I came into the room, but after what she had done, I knew that I couldn’t go through with it.
“I hope you bitches don’t think that y’all are getting what’s in they pockets. This was our lick in the first place,” the girl I had smacked spoke up. “I tried to tell your ass there was a nigga in the bathroom,” she said as she rubbed the side of her face and ice-grilled me. “Now you mu’fuckas done fucked up our money. We won’t be able to get back to the nigga house to hit the safe. It was a hundred thousand in that bitch.”
“One-hundred-thousand dollars?” Anisa asked.
“Yeah, bitch, a hunnid stacks,” the girl shot back.
“If we can take you to the safe, we split the money five ways,” Anisa said.
“Bitch, you killed everybody who knew the combo! Crazy ass bitches!” the same girl yelled.
“Bitch, I ain’t gone be too many more of your bitches,” I said seriously. “Now, can we discuss this somewhere else, before the police come in here and arrest all of us?”
I took a pillowcase off of the bed and tossed my gun inside. I then held it out for the three girls. I knew they were strapped, because the one who had helped me had pulled her gun from nowhere. “We don’t know y’all like that. As long as we talking about getting this money, ain’t nobody carrying burners,” I said. Each of the three girls put their guns inside, and then Anisa followed suit. They reluctantly followed us to our car.
The guy in the trunk kicked and screamed when he heard us start the car. The three girls were in the backseat.
“What the fuck type of shit is y’all into? Y’all got niggas in the trunk?” one of them asked. I looked at them in the rearview, but didn’t respond. We were all silent as we drove to a twenty-four-hour diner, where we came to some type of agreement regarding the money in the safe. Anisa and I didn’t say anything about what we had been paid to do. They didn’t need to know all of that. We just wanted our piece of their pie.
Robyn was the leader of their clique it seemed, and also the one I had smacked. Beatrice was a dark-skinned, weave wearing ghetto chick. I couldn’t read the two of them very well at first, but I was instantly endeared to the third girl, Aries. She was the one who had saved my life that night.
After getting to know one another, we led the girls back out to the deserted parking lot. It was the middle of the night and there was no one around, so we popped the trunk. We all burst out laughing when we saw the dude curled up like a bitch. He was so scared that he had pissed on himself.
“Damn! Me can’t believe me was actually going to give chu some,” Aries stated.
We all pulled our guns back out of the pillowcase since a low level of trust had been established. Aries pointed her gun at the dude. “Get chu bitch ass out de trunk,” she said. The dude climbed out and stared at the five of us standing around him with pistols in our hand. “Chu going to lead us to Benny Dough’s house, and chu going to help us crack de safe,” Aries instructed.
The guy didn’t respond, so Anisa cocked her gun, putting one in the chamber and pointed it at him. “Get in the car.”
Twenty minutes later, we were pulling up to a two story suburban home. “Who else lives here?” I asked.
“Nobody,” the dude responded wearily.
I turned around to look him in the eye. I knew he was afraid. I could hear the fear in his voice. “Remember that daughter you were talking about earlier. Don’t be stupid. We just want the money,” I explained.
He nodded his head and then led us into the house. The guy reached under a flowerpot and grabbed the spare key, then opened the door. He had five bitches with attitudes on his ass, so he knew not to make a bad move. He led the way up the stairs to one of the bedrooms, then removed a painting from the wall.
“What’s the combo?” Beatrice asked.
“I don’t know the combination to that man’s safe,” the guy protested.
I knew he was lying when he said it, so I shot him without hesitation. I was tired of playing games.
“Aghh!” he screamed in agony as he dropped to the floor and held onto his bleeding foot.
“If you want to keep the other one, start talking,” I instructed.
“Ha! Bitch, you really are crazy as hell!” Beatrice laughed out in amusement as she watched the dude hold his foot and cry in excruciation. “I’d fuck with her all day! That bitch ain’t scared to do shit!” she said, meaning it as a compliment.
“Thirty-four, twenty-three, ten!” he yelled. “Fuck!” His screams of pain echoed throughout the house.
Anisa tried the set of numbers and smiled as she opened the safe. “Oh shit!” she exclaimed. “This looks like more than a hundred thou.”
As soon as I saw the money stacks sitting in the safe, I pulled the trigger on that nigga. He had seen my face, and there was no way I could send him home to his daughter in any other way except for in a box. To my surprise, he got hit with three more bullets as well, because as soon as I withdrew, so did Aries, Beatrice, and Robyn. We filled him with lead, filled our pockets with paper, and disappeared into the night.
We all headed back to my apartment, where we decided we wouldn’t spend any money until we heard what the streets would say about the murders. Since we didn’t know one another, we all wanted to be in each other’s presence to make sure nobody fucked up and got loose lips.
Chapter Thirteen
(Miamor)
I woke up early the next day and maneuvered silently throughout the apartment. I didn’t want to wake Anisa or the new tagalong bitches we had picked up the night before. I didn’t know Robyn, Aries, and Beatrice, but I was grateful that they were there. Things could have gone real bad for us last night, I thought as I shuddered at the thought of how close I had come to death. If it had not been for them, Anisa and I would have both been taking dirt naps, despite that fact I still did not trust them. Respect them, yes… trust them, hell no!
I thought that my heart would be full of dread, but strangely, my conscience wasn’t phased by what I had done the night before. It was like the higher my body count rose, the less it affected me. I was choosing to become a killer. I had made the decision to pick up where Murder left off, all in the pursuit of the American dream, and there was no turning back. It’s just business, I told myself as I made my way to my car.
My black skinny jeans looked as if they were painted on, and the white Marc Jacobs blouse revealed my cleavage and jewels. The white peep-toe Prada heels I wore completed my outfit as I climbed into my car and peeled out of the parking lot. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, not even Anisa. I knew she’d hit the roof if I told her I was going to see Murder, but I had to check on him. Plus, I thought he deserved a cut of the money we’d made last night. I promised myself that I would keep money on his commissary and put the rest of his
cut aside until he got out.
I couldn’t understand how it was so easy for Anisa to move on and just forget about all that Murder had done for her, because in the short year that I had known him, he would always be a part of me. I had feelings for him. If it wasn’t for him, I would have been locked up. Instead, he took the heat, and I felt fucked up because I was just getting around to visiting him. My bone-straight wrap and Chinese bangs ruffled as the wind whipped through my hair. I hoped I wasn’t making the trip for nothing. I didn’t even know if I was listed on his visitor’s log, but it was a chance I was willing to take.
I hit a department store first and picked up items that I thought Murder might need; a small care package that could hold him over for a while. Then taking the BQE toward Queens, I exited at Astoria Boulevard, then followed the city blocks until I hit Hazen Street. When I arrived at Riker’s parking lot, I stepped out of the car with the box of personal items in my hands as I made my way to the bus that was traveling over the bridge to the facility.
As soon as I stepped foot on the bus, I knew it was going to be a miserable trip. There were babies crying, ghetto baby mamas arguing and talking cash shit, and tired wives who had done this routine time and time again. I shook my head, knowing that I could never be one of the chicks waiting on the outside. I had done years of lockup on my own as a child. I wasn’t trying to do five more waiting on Murder or anybody else. It was then that I knew that I could not ride out Murder’s sentence with him. When a loved one is locked up, that time affects the inmate and everyone around him.
As I looked at an older woman with a wedding band on her finger, I couldn’t help but ask, “Are you here to see your husband?”
My question caught her off guard, but she shook her head and answered, “No, baby. I’m here for that knuckle head son of mine. He grew up watching me make this same trip to come and see his father, and now he’s landed himself in the same predicament… behind the white man’s walls. Like father like son, I guess.”