by Noire
Me and Bunni breezed past the front seats so we could go sit in the circle with some of the cousins we’d partied with the night before, but Selah called me back, and while Bunni got to go chill with Dane and them, I was forced to sit up front with her and that crazy-ass Barron.
She patted the empty seat between them and I sat down and crossed my legs. I looked at Selah and smiled. I was diggin’ Mami’s style and I could tell she had some Brooklyn in her. Her hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail, and she had on a chic little skirt suit that made her look sharp and sexy at the same time.
She smiled back at me as I put on my seat belt, but that dude Barron was acting all grumpy like he had a pickle stuck up his ass or something. Nigga was fly though. I had to give it to him. He was styling Armani gear all the way, and he even had on a pair of thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Amedeo Testoni shoes on his big-ass feet.
“So, Mink.” He got in my ass and started giving me the bizz before the pilot could even sit down in his little compartment. “It’s been a minute since I’ve hung out in New York, but everybody knows it’s a bad-ass city. I hear they’ve renovated a lot of brownstones in Harlem. Did your family get a chance to jump on any of those while they were hot?”
“Nah.” I kept my voice light. “We never had that kinda money. I already told you my whole family lives in the projects. Grant, Taft, Manhattanville ... we’re all over the hood.”
“Oh, so you come from a big family, huh? How many sisters and brothers do you have?”
“None, actually. It was just me. All my aunts had six or seven kids each though, so I grew up with a whole lotta cousins, but my moms only had one child. Me.”
“How old were you when you found out you were adopted?”
I sighed like I was tired of his shit and spit out all the bullshit I had memorized and already told him. “I didn’t really know until I was eighteen. I needed my birth certificate and my mother couldn’t come up with one. I finally pushed her ... and that’s when she told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That I was adopted!”
“But last night you said you knew from the time you were a little girl that you were adopted!”
“I said I knew from the time I was a little girl that I was different. I didn’t know what made me different, though, I just knew I was.”
“Uh-huh. So what about your father? You never asked him any questions?”
“Barron. I already told you. My mother was a single parent. When I was little she told me my father was up in heaven.”
“What high school did you go to?”
“We got put outta our apartments a lot, so I went to a lot of different schools in the city.”
“I bet it was hard on you when your mother died. She must have been a real alky, huh? So where is she buried?”
“Barron!” Selah frowned and shook her head. “Come on now. That’s enough! Everybody wants to get to know more about Mink, but I know I raised you better than that! Enough with the endless questions! There’ll be time for all that later. Right now your father needs our positive energy, so let’s try to focus on that.”
That yay I’d smoked with Bunni and Dane had my eyelids heavy. I knew it would piss Barron the fuck off, so I scooted slightly to my right and put my head down on Selah’s shoulder, and I fell asleep with her patting my hand.
About thirty minutes later I opened my eyes and saw we were landing on a small airfield in Houston. Our entourage was ready to roll out, and I looked toward the back of the plane for Bunni. Her ass was laughing and clowning with Jock and Dane like they’d had a good old time back there. I figured they had probably guzzled some good liq the whole way down here, while I was trapped up front drinking apple juice with Barron’s high-strung ass.
Fallon, Carla, Ray, and Pilar had ridden in the back of the jet too, and Pilar stood up with her gear looking crisp and every hair on her head was laid.
There were four sparkling limos waiting for us when we got off the small plane, and Selah made sure I got in the first one with her and Barron. We drove to the hospital and pulled into a private, restricted-access parking area. A representative from the hospital administration was waiting for us, and as soon as our limo driver opened the back door, the rep came over and shook Selah’s hand and practically kissed her feet. His glasses kept sliding off his nose as he threw his fake love down on all the family, and when we went inside and I saw a plaque of Viceroy on the wall, I knew the Dominions must have donated some mega-ass bucks to this joint.
The rep led us to a private wing of the hospital where Viceroy was being kept. Everybody in our little posse walked behind him all quiet and dignified, and I couldn’t help comparing the way these rich folks acted to the way my hood family had clowned up at the hospital when my mother had almost drowned. I mean, they had gone straight bonkers up in that mug. When the doctors came and told us she was in a coma and she might have some brain damage, my aunts and cousins had started acting so ill that somebody called security. And when two little scrawny-ass play guards came to put us out, my uncle Bushwick had taken both of their lil light asses down to the ground and fucked them up.
But I could tell there would be none of that going down up in this hospital today. These people had a completely different flow game than what I was used to. Selah and her crew was dressed to impress, and you could smell the money coming off of them, even from a distance.
We went into a real big conference room where three doctors were waiting to give us an update on Viceroy’s condition. From what I could tell, they were saying not a whole lot had changed. Viceroy was still drifting in and out of consciousness, and even though today seemed to be a good day for him, they really couldn’t predict what kind of condition he would be in tomorrow, so the only thing the family could do was wait and see what happened.
I could tell how much the whole family loved Viceroy because everybody took the news bad. It kinda reminded me of how I felt when the doctors told us they didn’t have no crystal ball and couldn’t see into my mother’s future neither.
“That’s okay,” Selah said. She had a brave look on her face as she tried to comfort everybody except herself. “We’re not giving up no matter what! Everybody just stay positive and keep praying! Our prayers are already working whether we can see the results or not!”
Only three people were allowed to go into Viceroy’s room at one time.
“Barron, you and Mink come in with me,” Selah directed us.
I busted a twisted look on Pilar’s face as Selah reached for my hand, and I sashayed real close to Barron’s so-called “cousin” so she could suck up my fumes as I passed by.
But something came down over me when I stepped into Viceroy’s hospital room. I felt some kinda way, the way I always felt whenever I went to visit my mother. Her little room wasn’t even half the size of this one, but it held the same smell of the sick and the dying.
I dragged my feet behind Barron as we went toward his father’s bed. Viceroy was laid out flat with the top of his head wrapped up in bandages. A long, clear tube ran outta his mouth, and one of his eyes was swollen up like a boiled egg.
I felt kinda grimy for stepping in on their private moment. Hell yeah, I had come down here so I could get my hands on this man’s moolah, but I didn’t know I was gonna have to be going up in no hospitals and shit.
“Viceroy.” Selah sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hand. “Wake up, Viceroy. I brought somebody to see you, baby.” She called his name over and over, and then finally his one good eye slowly opened.
“We’re all here,” Selah said. “And everybody loves you.”
My feet were stuck in place but my eyes were glued to the man in the bed. I couldn’t tell a whole lot about him other than he was a long-legged dude who had been fucked up real bad.
Selah motioned for Barron to come closer, and he stepped up and greeted his father with real love. He talked to Viceroy like the man could hear him, and it was the first time I’d seen a side of Barro
n that wasn’t cold and on guard.
It was my turn to talk to Viceroy next, and all Mizz Mink wanted to do was break for the door. Selah reached for my hand, and I forced myself to focus on that hundred-grand jackpot as I reluctantly moved toward the bed.
“I brought a special visitor with me today,” Selah said as she drew me closer to her. I stared down at Viceroy’s one good eyeball, and I knew for damn sure that he was staring at me too.
“Viceroy,” Selah said after a deep sigh. “I think we might have found our daughter.”
It seemed like every machine in that joint stopped beeping. Viceroy’s good eye got real big and the expression in it totally changed. I heard the machines in the background click on again, and the one that was recording his heartbeat started kicking all outta whack. Selah took Viceroy’s reaction for excitement, but something in that one eye told me the man in the bed was seeing straight through me.
“I know!” Selah beamed and talked to him like they had a mental conversation going on. “Look at her! She’s beautiful, isn’t she! She looks exactly the same as she did when she was a little girl!”
Viceroy’s blood pressure musta been off the chart. His body trembled on the bed and he clenched and unclenched his ashy lips around the tube in his mouth.
Him and Selah seemed like they was communicating.
“I know!” she shouted again real loud. “I know! It’s Sable, isn’t it? It’s really her!”
I couldn’t take that shit no more.
The look in that rich man’s eyeball freaked me out. I broke away from Selah and jetted for the door. I rushed past all the family waiting outside and ran into the bathroom and started splashing cold water all over my face.
I was staring at my trifling self in the mirror when Bunni walked in.
“Umm ... what the hell was all that about? You came flyin’ up outta there like somebody was chasin’ you with a knife. Girl please don’t tell me your ass is getting soft!”
“Chill, Bunni!” I snapped. “Ain’t shit soft about me. I just don’t like hospitals that’s all, and you should already know why.”
“Yeah, uh-huh. Right.” She peered at me like she was tryna read my mind. “So what the hell just happened in that damn room?”
I shrugged and played it off. “Nothing happened. The daddy was laying in the bed all tubed up.”
“So why you come bustin’ outta there like a damn crack house was being raided then? You catchin’ feelings for these people or something? Girl, you got my left titty itchin’. I’ma need your brain to stay real focused on the money, okay? That’s the only reason we came down here in the first place, remember?”
“Bunni.” I patted my face dry, then smoothed some gloss on my lips and acted like I was schooling her on the finer points of the con game. “I don’t know about that itchin’ titty of yours, but I ain’t got but one thing on my brain, and that’s getting paid. That lady in there really wants me to be her daughter, and when I was little I woulda gave almost anything to have a family like this. But we’re talking real life, okay? So I’ma need you to concentrate on getting next to that big pussy-ass nigga at the lab, and you let me handle all the family shit. Cool?”
CHAPTER 23
Bunni went with Pilar, Fallon, and Carla downstairs to the snack bar, and I was sitting in the hospital waiting room watching TV with some of the little kids.
“The results are in,” Maury said as a hush fell over the crowded studio. The jump-off sitting on the stage laughed and looked like she just knew what the fuck she knew.
“Please, please, please, please!” a young dude sitting across from her with cute cornrows in his hair whispered as he stared down Maury’s throat like he was praying the right words would pop outta Maury’s mouth. Another guy wearing a fitted and some baggy jeans sat next to him and he was getting tested too. A picture of a sleeping baby girl came on the screen, and mug shots of both of the could-be daddies was posted up on either side of her.
“In the case of two-month-old baby Taiquanapaula ... Taiquan, you are ... but wait!” Maury faked us, going for the stall. “Taiquan, if you are the father of this precious little girl, are you planning to take care of her?”
“Hell yeah!” he lied. “I’ma man-up and handle minez!”
Maury turned to the trifling-ass baby mama who sat there in a halter with a muffin top spilling over her belt. “If he is your baby’s father, do you still want to be with him?”
Dummy hunched her shoulders.
“Okay, in the case of two-month-old baby Taiquanapaula ... Taiquan, you are NOT the father!”
Dude jumped outta his chair and leaped off the stage. He started happy dancing all in the aisles and dapping dudes in the crowd like crazy. “I TOLD you! I TOLD you! That baby don’t look nothing like me! That baby got chubby cheeks and my face is real skinny! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I TOLD you!”
“But wait, we have a second test,” Maury said as he calmed the crowd down. “We have a second test!”
This time, Baby-Mama-Jump-off squinched her eyes closed and crossed her fingers as she waited for the second bomb to drop.
Maury turned to the other dude, who was now looking scared as fuck, and continued. “In the case of baby Taiquanapaula. . . Paul ... you are NOT the father!”
Mami fell dead outta her chair. She rolled over on her stomach and started kicking her feet and banging her head and fists on the floor.
Paul jumped off the stage too. Him and Taiquan started doing the Kid ’n Play foot dance as the crowd chanted, “Do that shit! Do that shit! Yeah! Do that shit! Do that shit!”
“Them boys got lucky, didn’t they?”
I looked up and saw a tall hunk of black dude who had come into the room. He looked like a gangsta cowboy. He had on a spotless white Stetson, some starched black jeans, and a real sharp white shirt with black lanyard trim.
“Yeah, they did,” I laughed. “Baby-mama-drama all day long.”
“You got any kids?”
I gave him the look. “Do baby boogers go with my dress?”
He laughed and sat down next to me. His skin was real smooth, and his mustache was jet-black and sharply trimmed.
He was a fine-ass old head. I took him to be about thirty-five, and not only was he tall as hell, he was built real yummy and he looked like he could rope a bull.
He nodded at me. “How you doing today?”
I side-eyed him. “I’m good.”
“You looking good too, little lady. Are you sure none of these are your kids?”
Before I could answer, one of the little boys from Houston ran over and jumped up in his lap.
“Hey Uncle Suge!”
“Aw, hell, Terrence!” He tossed the little boy up and started tickling him. “You one of our kids!”
Terrence wiggled out of his lap and came over to me.
“I’m hungry, Mink. Are we gonna leave soon?”
“Yep, it won’t be much longer, babe. As soon as everybody gets back we’re gonna go get something to eat.”
“Mink?” Ol’ boy gave me a look. “You’re Mink?” He pulled off his shades and checked me out real good. “The long-lost daughter from New York?” He grinned and held out his hand. “Well I’ll be damned. Nice to meet you. I’m Suge.” He looked sexier than a mutha as he grilled me up and down. “Your ... um ... uncle.”
“Mink LaRue,” I said, busting the hungry look in his eye. “And yeah, Mister.” I smirked, just a teasin’ and a flirtin’ with his ass. “I have heard some stuff about you!”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re Viceroy’s crazy-ass brother who just loves to gamble and chase tail!”
He laughed, showing off a nice set of even white teeth. “Is that the kinda shit they be telling people about me?”
“Uh-huh!” I said, nodding my head.
His sexy eyes skimmed across my thighs.
“Well I guess I’m guilty ’cause they sure as hell ain’t lying!”
He crossed his leg at the knee and I stared at th
e spiky-looking things sticking out all over his boots and the emblem of a Texas longhorn that ran up the front.
“Wild Alligator,” he said, nodding at his feet. “They snap hard and stroke deep, just like me. You like ’em?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I mean, you ain’t gonna catch no brotha runnin’ around New York in those, that’s for sure. They’re nice, though. They look expensive.”
He chuckled. “Baby doll, everything good in the whole wide world costs money, and men like me don’t mind spending it.” He put his arm around the back of my chair and I caught a whiff of his cologne. Goddamn. Clive Christian No. 1 for Men. And he wasn’t slumming with the cheap perfume spray that you could get for under a grand, neither. Nah, Unc was rolling in that Pure Splash, baby! Twenty-one hundred smacks a bottle!
“Damn.” He shook his head and chuckled again as he appreciated me with his eyes. “You probably about the prettiest thang I’ve seen all week and you could end up being my niece. Ain’t that some shit? You’re a beautiful girl, Mink LaRue. Real fine. Welcome to Texas, baby doll. I’m glad you’re here, but I hope like hell we ain’t related.”
CHAPTER 24
Barron walked out of the hospital room with his mother wrapped in his arms and his brothers Jock and Dane by his side. The image of their father as a tough, invincible hard-hitter was the only one they’d ever known, and seeing him in such a weakened condition was an emotional blow to all of them.
“Take Mama back to the conference room,” Barron directed his youngest brother. “We’re leaving in ten minutes so make sure everybody starts heading back to the limos. ”
Barron walked down the hall feeling the weight of the Dominion name on his shoulders. Viceroy looked much worse than he did the last time he saw him, and his doctors seemed to be stuck in a cycle of let’s wait and see.