by Noire
“Happy Valentine’s Day, baby,” Gino had said as he opened our front door. His sexy brown eyes had been full of pride as he gazed at the spanking new special edition Beemer parked in our driveway.
“Damn, Gino!” I’d screamed as I ran outside. “This little mami is sweet!”
He held out his hand and a key clicker dangled from his finger. “Damn right she’s sweet,” he said, following me outside. “I paid cold cash for this little Green Gotcha and she’s all yours.”
“But I thought you said we were gonna keep it low?” I had asked as I circled the two-door whip slowly, checking it out from all angles. “This ain’t hardly low.”
Thanks to the countless bricks of cash that G had stashed in Grandmother’s grave, Gino could afford to buy me practically any car he wanted to buy. For the first time in my life I had more money than I knew what to do with. In fact, we had rolled into Cali with so much cash that finding someplace safe to stash it had become one of our biggest issues.
Gino had landed a plush job just two days after we arrived in L.A. Some big-shot land development organization had sent him an email saying they were looking for an architect to design some new structures. Gino had jumped all over it, and The Organization had hired him right away.
The head boss was a tall, chunky Italian guy named Frankie Sanvenero. He was from Brooklyn, like Gino, which we thought was a cool coincidence. Big Frank had six brothers and too many nephews to count, and all of them had relocated out west to work for him.
Gino’s first interview with them took place on a members-only golf course, and he had come home open like a book. He said The Organization’s business plan was tighter than anything he had ever seen on Wall Street and that they didn’t even consider going after a contract unless the starting bid was at least three mil.
It wasn’t long before me and Gino started hanging out with the Sanveneros, especially Frank, who was about fifty, and his cute wife Renata, who was a lot younger than him. Frank was real tall with jet-black hair, beautiful blue eyes, and a big jolly belly, and Renata was about my height, but very neat and petite with blond-streaked curls.
One of Frank’s nephews was a tall, buff dude about our age. His name was Salvatore McCain, but everybody called him Slick Sallie. Him and Gino had connected on the Brooklyn tip, and since Sallie didn’t have a car and they were both die-hard Knicks fans, they rode to work together every day and played one-on-one basketball almost every weekend.
The Organization had become our family on the West Coast, and they looked out for us. They had even helped us get a sweet, two-bedroom condo in a gated subdivision. It wasn’t Central Park West, but it was a long way from 136th Street and I was feeling it.
One of the first things Gino had insisted on when we got to Cali was that we keep the Feds off us. That meant we had to make sure we didn’t do like Hansel and Gretel and leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading to our front door. If we were going to hide our shitload of cream and stay off the Fed’s radar, we would have to stash G’s cash out of sight and live mostly off the money we earned legally.
We knew better than to go near a bank with all that drug loot, so as soon as we moved into our condo Gino went and installed a fireproof metal safe in the crawl space in the attic. He stacked about a hundred and fifty grand inside that baby, but he took the rest out of the house for safekeeping.
“We’ll use the money in the attic as our emergency stash,” he had explained. “But we gotta bury the rest for when we retire, Juicy. And I mean we gotta bury it real deep.”
“Oh, God,” I had muttered feeling sick to my stomach. “We’re not gonna hide it in no dead person’s grave, are we?” Just thinking about how G had stashed all his dirty greenbacks in Grandmother’s casket made me want to throw up.
Gino had shaken his head. “Nah. I’m not putting it in no grave, but I am putting it underground. Sallie’s moms got a wine cellar in her house. I’m gonna stash it in the dirt down there.”
I had to think about that one real hard.
“I don’t know, Gino…they might call him Slick Sallie for a reason. You trust that white dude like that? Every time I see him he’s got a gun sticking outta his clothes somewhere. He looks like a dabbler to me.”
“Nah, Sal don’t be getting high. He drives too fast so he lost his license and he’s always bumming a ride, but other than that he’s straight. Dude looks out for me at work all the time.”
He saw the doubtful way I was eyeing him.
“What? You think I should stash it with Frankie and Renata instead?”
I shook my head real quick. “Nah. Frank’s your boss. He’s real nice, but I don’t want him and Renata all up in our business like that.”
“A’ight, then I got this,” Gino said. “Sallie might be slick but he ain’t no fool. He’s gonna know where the safe is stashed, but he won’t have the combination. You’ll be the only one who can get up in it.”
“But what if something happens and I need to get my hands on the money for some reason?”
“Then you just call Sallie and he’ll bring the safe to you. It’ll be just like this one, but bigger. And don’t worry, it’ll have the exact same combination that this one has.”
And now, looking at the pricey green sports car made it pretty obvious that Gino had recently dipped his fingers into that retirement safe. We had already agreed that there weren’t gonna be any wild shopping sprees, or big cash purchases for expensive items, so I was kinda surprised that he had spent so much money to get me a Beemer.
“But are you feelin’ it?” Gino had wanted to know as I climbed inside the fresh whip and checked out all the little bells and whistles and special features.
“Hell yeah I’m feeling it,” I admitted as I pushed down on the brake and the gas with both feet at the same time. “But I don’t even know how to drive, baby!”
Gino had shrugged. “That’s only because you’re a New Yorker and nobody ever taught you. You’re real smart, Juicy. You’ll be spinning this baby in no time.”
Something inside of me had still resisted.
“But won’t a BMW and your brand new SUV sitting side-by-side in the driveway look like too much? You musta dropped a hunk for this baby.”
Gino had nodded. “A gwap,” he bragged proudly, “but that’s what you got a dude like me for, baby. To give you the best.”
“I know,” I insisted. “But what about the Feds?”
“Don’t worry about none of that,” Gino had told me. “If the Feds come knocking then The Organization will cover for us.”
I had accepted Gino’s logic, and now as I gripped the creamy leather steering wheel, I snuck a glance at my diamond engagement ring and wondered if the Feds or anybody else was watching our spending habits and clocking our doe.
The ring was a sick hunk of diamond-shaped ice that stretched from the base of my finger damn near all the way up to my knuckle. It had belonged to Gino’s mother back in the day. In fact, it was the engagement ring that G had given her before their wedding. Gino’s aunt had sent it to us when he called to tell her we were getting married. She said it was part of a custom-designed set that G had gotten made somewhere in Asia.
I would have been just as happy with a smaller, less lavish ring, and sometimes I wondered if Gino was trying to compete with his father by showering me with expensive gifts all the time when we were supposed to be hiding our money and keeping it low.
I mean, really. The condo, the sports car, the ring. All that flossing. I didn’t require none of that stuff because Grandmother had raised me and Jimmy humble and brought us up Vienna-sausage poor. But like his father, Gino always insisted on giving me the best. Finery might have been in his blood, but there was something about a man’s ego that I just didn’t understand. Being proud wasn’t something that came naturally to me because I’d been taught that pride was the mother of all sins. It always went before a deadly fall.
I exited the freeway, turned the corner, and zoomed toward my girlfriend’s beauty p
arlor. A young corner boy who was leaning against a light pole stood up straight as I drove past. He whistled at the Green Gotcha in envy and admiration.
I smiled at him. I guess me and Gino did have a lot to be proud of. My ride was sweet and there was no denying it. Green on the outside and cream on the inside. It was hard to knock that.
CHAPTER 4
The first time I laid eyes on DarQuese Middleton I almost freaked straight out. I had walked through the doors of the Hella Hot House of Hair and asked to speak to the owner. The girl at the front counter had smiled and pointed me toward a giant stylist who was wet-wrapping a customer’s hair in the last chair.
“Hi,” I’d said, faking confidence as I strode over to her station. She was tall as hell. Probably six-four. Her back was to me, and she was working magic with her sweet-smelling wrap lotion.
“My name is Juicy Stanfield. I just moved here from New York. I was wondering if I could speak to you about some business for a minute.”
She stood up straight and turned toward me, and I got so shook I almost ran back out the door.
The entire right side of her face looked like some burnt cheese that had slid off a pizza. Her eye was almost melted shut, and her cheek drooped low with folds of excess skin that cascaded down to her jaw.
I had to force myself to stand there without cringing, but when she turned and faced me with a smile, to my surprise the left side of her face was totally beautiful. The skin was smooth and tight. The features were soft and feminine. She was gorgeous. But she was horrible-looking too. I didn’t know this chick, or know a damn thing about her story, but the conflict between the two sides of her face just about blew my mind.
“Hell yeah, you can push your dresses outta here,” DarQuese quickly agreed when I told her about my JuicyOriginal line of trend-setting urban wear. Just looking at her I could tell she was into fashion and was probably one of those high-maintenance chicks who spent at least three hours getting dressed every morning. She had long legs, pert titties, and a high, muscular ass. Her shoulder-length permed hair was some of the silkiest I had ever seen. Her shit was tight all the way around.
I had followed her into a back room that she used as an office, and I tried to focus on the good side of her face as I quickly ran down my profit-sharing business proposition.
She waved her hand to shut me up before I was halfway through. “Alright, alright. I’ll give you a shot. But quit with all that bullshit about splitting your profits and shit. How you gonna stay in business talkin’ silly nonsense like that? You designed all them clothes, didn’t you? You bought the fly material. You sewed everything together. Give me one good reason why I should be trying to eat off your back?”
I had shrugged, surprised. “Ummm…because it’s your shop? And they’re your customers?”
DarQuese smirked. “My customers come in here because I have low prices and my stylists are the shit. I might do my business in the hood, but I’m a professional, baby. I don’t double and triple book appointments, and I damn sure don’t start working on somebody’s head first thing in the morning and make them sit around all day waiting for me to finish it. My customers are loyal, but they’re also smart. So, if your gear is as hot as you say it is, and if this is the only shop in Compton where ladies can buy it, then that just gives them one more good reason to keep coming through my door.”
I liked this girl already! All the other beauty shops I’d gone in had been full of hostile sistahs who had looked at me like I was begging for the stray hairs they swept up off the floor. I knew my fashion sense was hot. I knew I could sew, and I knew I made the kind of gear that sexy young chicks with big breasts and banging booties looked good in. But the owners and their stylists had stared me down the minute I started talking about us doing business together, and I knew they were checking out my big booty and talking shit about me before I could get back out the door. But not DarQuese. She seemed friendly and real generous.
I nodded at her. “Oh, my collection is hot,” I said with assurance. “You can believe that. It’s flamin’ hot.”
DarQuese nodded back. “Okay, cool. We’ll see. If you’re a real hustler then you’re probably used to selling shit all up outta your trunk. Why don’t you bring a few pieces inside? Let’s see if these Compton sistahs got a taste for some of your East Coast flava.”
$$$$$
You woulda thought I was giving away free creamy crack the way them Compton girls crowded around trying to get at my JuicyOriginals.
I had ’em lined up.
I sold out of everything in my car in less than fifteen minutes. Chicks were snatching my hot little dresses and sizing them up, and some even asked DarQuese if they could go in her backroom and try on a few pieces. I knew I had them open when they started whipping out cell phones and calling their homegirls. They were asking what size they wore, and taking pictures with their phones and text messaging them all across town.
DarQuese had laughed and brushed me off when I offered to split my profits with her again. She was real cool, and she put me in the mind of my old friend, Dicey.
Like Dicey, she was street smart and had a lot on the cap. And just like Dicey, she became somebody I could really talk to. But unlike Dicey, DarQuese wasn’t gonna get her throat slit and her tongue cut out just for schooling me and being my friend.
Hanging out in DarQuese’s shop became one of my favorite things to do, but it also made me kinda homesick for Harlem too. She had five stylists working her chairs, and like the Dominican shop where I used to wash hair back in Harlem, there was always plenty of good food, good gossip, crazy chicks, and banging music up in there too.
Meeting DarQuese ended up being one of the best things to happen to me in Cali. She had lived in Philly and Brooklyn too, so she could be really loud and ghetto and sometimes she used her height to back females down, but as Quese had proven on the first day I met her, she was also one of the realest people I could ever know.
CHAPTER 5
It was after ten a.m. when I turned onto DarQuese’s street. It was a busy block with a whole lot of small stores and specialty shops, and the upbeat energy and flava in the air put me in the mind of 125th Street in Harlem. I pulled into a parking spot a few doors down from the shop, put my top up, and made sure to lock my car door when I got out.
I was heading toward the beauty shop when a guy standing across the street shouted my name. I didn’t even have to look to know who it was. His voice was so deep and hard you couldn’t mistake him for nobody else.
Dude’s name was Pit, and he was a real buff, real mean little midget. Pit stood about four-and-a-half feet tall, and every inch of him was muscled-up gangsta. He owned an urban clothing store across the street from DarQuese’s shop, and he was forever trying to get me to buy a pair of the stylish, custom-designed sneakers that he sold.
“What it do, Juicy?” he hollered, lifting his chin at me. I lifted mine back and kept it moving. Sneakers and hoodies weren’t the only things Pit traded for cash. He was deep in the local drug game, and the two or three urban clothing stores he owned in Compton were just money-washing fronts for the real product of value that he moved on the streets.
I frowned when I saw him running over to cut me off. He stood in front of me rocking on his heels and grinning like a little boy who was about to beg for a piece of candy.
He lifted his chin again. “Yo, when you gonna let me holla at you, shawty? You and me can do some real nasty thangs together, ma.”
I rolled my eyes at his tired ass. Pit had been trying to get at me since the first day I met him.
“You fresh around here, right?” he had asked me one day as I was going into Quese’s shop. “What’s ya name, baby?”
“Juicy,” I had answered.
Pit had chuckled and peered around me so he could see my ass. “Juicy, huh?” He chuckled again. “I bet the fuck you is.”
I had gone inside the shop and asked DarQuese who in the hell the nasty little short dude was.
“O
h, that’s Pit,” Quese had told me. “My homeboy. That’s his urban clothing joint across the street.”
I’d laughed. “Pit, like in armpit?”
DarQuese had rolled her eyes. “You stupid, Juicy.”
“No, for real. I’m just trying to figure him out. Pit, like in pit-i-ful?”
She smirked. “That shit ain’t funny, Juicy. It’s Pit, as in Pit-bull. And don’t be forming no ignorant-ass opinions about him because he’s little, neither. He’s a boss on the streets and he’s a real man. He keeps order around here. If it wasn’t for Pit them crazy thugs out there slanging rock on the corner would be shaking me down for my cash bag every night. Pit makes sure them niggahs fall back when they see me coming.”
It didn’t take me long to figure out that Pit and DarQuese had some shit going. And it was a whole lot more than just business like she tried to pretend.
“He don’t judge me!” she had screamed on me one day when I pushed her into admitting they were fuck buddies. “He’s a fuckin’ man and I’m a woman! He don’t look at my flaws, and I don’t look at his neither!”
I had swallowed real hard because I had basically forgotten that she was disfigured. She had confided in me that her ex-boyfriend had thrown gasoline on her when she was sleeping and lit a match, but I hardly ever focused on the scarred side of DarQuese’s face anymore. I just didn’t notice it. She had become beautiful all the way around to me. Yeah, I knew most people would be real pressed about being all burnt up like that, but DarQuese always seemed so confident about herself, like her scars weren’t even there.
But for real, I couldn’t even imagine her tree-tall ass getting banged up by some funny-looking troll Pit’s size, but she assured me that the only thing short on Pit was his legs. Quese said she’d been with countless men who were way shorter than her, and she swore everybody was exactly the same height when they were mashing it up in the sheets.