by Nikki Turner
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Rhythm is a dancer, I need a companion. Girl, I guess that must be you. Body like the summer, fucking like no other. Don’t you tell ’em what we do. Don’t tell ’em . . .”
“All right, y’all, show this lovely young lady some love. Bless her with some of that dough you holding onto like you gonna make some cookies tomorrow. Make it rain and show some appreciation for one of the hardest-working females under this roof. The one we call Miss Tiffany.” The DJ was still doing what he did trying to coax and encourage the patrons of the strip club to tip. “All right, now, I see two real niggas in the house showing out and showing the way.” One man tucked a few twenties in Tiffany’s garter belt and returned to his seat where he had a steak dinner waiting. Another man then got up from his table off to the side and whispered something into the dancer’s ear. Tiffany smiled, then nodded her head.
“Hey, Chase, what did you tell her?”
“Nothing much. I just told her I was a friend of Ghostman’s and wanted to turn her onto something deep. I ain’t know how she was gonna react, but I took a chance.”
“Damn, guy. And it had her cheesing like that? I mean, damn!”
“Hell, yeah, Jakes. I guess dead or alive, that man’s name rings bells.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, she gonna come sit with us as soon as she comes off the stage and goes to the bathroom. Hopefully we can get her to talk.”
* * *
After returning from pretending he was some sort of Big Willy, the random man brushed by Bunny who was standing a foot or so away from his table. Being the true trick that he was, he, of course asked the fully clothed beauty to join him for a drink while he ate his meal. Getting no response from a silent Bunny who seemed to be in deep thought, he shrugged his shoulder, knowing there were plenty other females up in that spot that were desperate for his attention, and he had more than enough dollars to spread around. “Hey, miss, you forgot to bring me a knife,” he caught the apron-wearing waitress before she breezed by to take another order. Putting his attention back on Tiffany, who’d just gathered her tips off the floor of the stage, he saw she was making her way down. Before he could get a chance to signal for the sweaty stripper to come give him a lap dance, the too-uppity-and-arrogant-to-even-speak Bunny had taken a few steps over, unknowingly blocking his view. At that point, he decided to get two other girls to tag team him.
* * *
Tiffany was making the best out of an extremely slow night. As she thought, there was no real ballin’-type money circulating. The fact another one of the dancers was having a birthday party at the club meant nothing; it was still whack as fuck on the tip-getting situation. Just as the final song was starting to end on her set, the thirsty headliner was blessed with a few dollars from one man, followed by some uplifting news from the next who approached her. Dang, I hope this is one of them funny-style guys from out of town that used to be plugged with Ghostman. Maybe he remembers me from being with that dead crazy motherfucker and wants to spend some of that drug money on a sista. I showl in the hell hope so ’cause I could use a come up right about now. Maybe I can set him and his straitlaced homeboy sitting over there stupid asses up too. They dressed like some dorks, so I know they ain’t gonna be on that for real for real gangster tip. They probably just gonna give that shit up, no questions asked! Thinking nothing but positive thoughts, Tiffany took her last swing around the brass pole. Running her fingers through her expensive weave, she then slid down as seductively as possible. Making sure all the men in the club could get a generous view of her G-string-clad ass, she stuck it out, then up in the air as she crawled around the lighted stage. Having collected all her tips, Tiffany grabbed her bikini top that was discarded to the side and pressed it up to her full double-D breasts. No sooner than her seven-inch patent leather skinny heel stiletto touched the carpeted floor, Tiffany signaled to the man she hoped to get some real Ghostman-type money out of later that she’d be right back in a few. She even solidified the deal by blowing him a kiss and letting them know it was on.
* * *
Bunny was growing sick to her stomach watching Tiffany. She wanted to throw up. As the minutes dragged by, she wanted to scream and yell. It was taking everything in her inner soul not to run up on that tramp and snatch the female bald. The way she was feeling, Bunny wanted to rip every single strand of weave out of Tiffany’s head, then spit directly in her face. Here, this funky-mouth thang was twirling around the stage acting as if shit was all good. She was climbing the pole, hanging upside down, and doing tricks. This belly-rolling bitch was making tips here and there and smiling; grinning all up in niggas’ faces. Her no-good ass was living life with no worries or guilt over getting Spoe and Tariq murdered. Bunny trembled. Her heart raced, and her anger increased. Her fingers felt as if they were throbbing, and her legs tensed up. She was only a few yards away from the one person left alive that could tell her how and why Spoe was gone. Tiffany was the reason Bunny slept alone every night, and the reason she had to commit a federal offense and rob a freaking bank. This two-bit stripper had single-handedly made Bunny turn from living the life to possibly doing life if she and her sisters ever got found out. She had to question this wannabe Beyoncé broad. There was no other way around Bunny living any part of a normal life if she didn’t get some direct answers from Tiffany . . . and then the gleeful satisfaction of killing her afterward.
What in the fuck! Why is this man trying to speak to me after he just tipped that skank? As if I even look like I’m on the same level as her. Like I’m that damn desperate to want to have a drink with his creepy ass, let alone sit the hell across from him and watch his ugly self eat. Where the fuck they do that at? Certainly not here and definitely not with me. Seething with fury, Bunny was way past homicidal, to say the least. If there was no other person in life she detested, wanting to see dead, it was this diseased twat whore. Bunny coldly eye fucked the rear head of another man that felt compelled by his dick head to tip Tiffany.
Hurry the fuck up, music! Hurry up! Bunny counted down the seconds until the song playing would be over and she and Tiffany could be face-to-face. “Rhythm is a dancer, I need a companion. Girl, I guess that must be you. Body like the summer, fucking like no other. Don’t you tell ’em what we do. Don’t tell ’em. Don’t tell ’em. You don’t even. Don’t tell ’em. You don’t even.” Then, just like that, the song ended. Watching her soon-to-be victim like a hawk, she moved over a small bit, making sure she didn’t lose sight of her mark in the dimness of the club. Bunny’s adrenalin jumped when Tiffany stepped off the stage. She knew it was go time when the sneaky ho headed toward the rear of the club. With ill intentions, Bunny Banks followed.
“Hey, Tiffany, you was throwing down up there,” one of the dancers remarked, coming out of the dressing room. “You be making all the money up in this mug.”
“Whatever, girl,” she nonchalantly replied, waving the female off. “Go on out there and you’ll see what’s really good.”
Bunny fell back a little bit while ear hustling on the sly. Just hearing the annoying sound of Tiffany’s arrogant voice made her want to just gut the female right there in the dark hallway—no questions asked. A few feet later, much to Bunny’s advantage, Tiffany went into the women’s bathroom. Good. I don’t have to confront her in front of the rest of these thirsty bitches.
Going into one of the empty stalls, Tiffany unrolled an enormous amount of tissue to wipe the squat-splattered seat dry. Rudely tossing the tissue on the floor, she tore off more, lining the seat before sitting down. After peeing, the seasoned stripper opened her candy-apple red satin pull string bag. Staring down at what couldn’t be any more than a few hundred dollars at best, she frowned at her night’s take. “I should just call it a night. Maybe ole boy and his friend got some better shit popping than this slow motherfucker,” Tiffany mumbled out loud as she stood to wipe herself. Using the sole of her shiny patent leather boot, she flushed the toilet. Straightening out
her tiny bikini top, she then slid the flimsy latch to open the metal door.
Before the arrogant dancer knew what was happening, she had been socked in the face. She saw bright blue and yellow lightning flashes. She wanted to speak but was stunned and couldn’t form the words. Dazed from the forceful unexpected blow, her knees grew weak. As she wobbled to stay on her feet, Tiffany leaned against the wall of the small stall. Still dizzy, she could scarcely make out what female had a sharp knife pressed against the upper side of her throat threatening to slice it open.
“If you wanna die sooner than later, then open your big fat mouth and scream.” Bunny pressed the blade harder, coming close to puncturing Tiffany’s skin. “I’m looking for a reason to just gut the shit out of you anyway! I swear to God, I’m looking for just one damn reason! Open that mouth and you gonna give me one.”
Tiffany usually had a lot of mouth. Like a lot of bully bitches like her, she was all talk and not really about that fighting life. She could talk a good game and have other females buffaloed, but at the end of the day, she didn’t want no real static. It wasn’t in her DNA. Instead of trying to go ham and go for bad, Tiffany just nodded, showing no resistance.
“Do you remember me, ho? Do you?” Tiffany squinted her eyes, finally getting a good look at her infuriated attacker. Her face showed immediate signs of panic realizing who and what this ambush was truly about. “So I guess you do remember, huh, bitch? Spoe’s girl. His fucking woman!” With the steak knife still lodged under Tiffany’s neck, Bunny punched her twice in the side of her lower ribcage. “I need to ask you a few things. And trust, it’s in your best interest to answer. You feel me?” Bunny shoved the knife deeper into Tiffany’s skin, slicing through the top layer. “And if I even feel you lying, I ain’t gonna hesitate to slice your ho-motherfucking-ass ear to ear.”
Tiffany was beyond terrified. Praying for someone to come into the bathroom and save her from Spoe’s revenge-seeking wifey, God failed to listen. She was on her own this time and had to either follow instructions or meet the same fate as Spoe, Tariq, and Ghostman. “Okay, okay, sis,” she struggled to speak as she bargained for her life to be spared. “What is it? What do you need to know? I’ll tell you everything. Please, just don’t hurt me!”
Bunny was pissed. Beyond all the harm and turmoil this tramp had brought into her life, she had the nerve to call her “sis,” like it was all good. “Listen, you foul bitch! You ain’t my sister, and we freaking ain’t cool. This is what exactly the fuck it is. Me asking your ho ass what happened to my man Spoe the night he got murdered, and you telling me. So run that fucking mouth, bitch—and nothing else. So where was Spoe when I got to that apartment, and why did you set my people up in the first damn place?”
“Spoe wasn’t there. Just Tariq was. I swear to God.”
“I know that much, dummy, so don’t play with me.”
“I’m not! I’m not!”
“All right then. I said, where in the fuck was Spoe at then? Please don’t make me keep asking you the same damn shit over and over. You making me pissed!”
“Okay, okay, please! Wait! Wait! I’m about to tell you.”
“Well, then, tell me and stop all that ‘okay, please’ crap you blowing out your fucking mouth. Where the fuck was my baby at? Where was Spoe, bitch?”
“Tariq said him and Spoe ran up in Dino’s crib, and he came home and caught them.”
“Dino?”
“Yeah, Dino.”
“Bitch, who in the fuck is Dino?”
“A dude from up in NYC. I was fucking with him.”
“What?” Bunny grew puzzled the more Tiffany tried to spin the tale of the deadly night. “Dino from NYC? Look, girl, ain’t nobody got no time to be playing word games with you while you stall for time. I ain’t trying to hear that dumb shit no more!”
Tiffany took a deep breath attempting to explain what she knew would only make the person holding a sharp blade to her throat angrier. “I told Tariq about this cat I know named Dino. He the head of some dudes named the Bloody Lions Posse.”
“The Bloody Lions Posse?”
“Yeah . . . They from NYC.”
“And . . .?” Bunny applied more pressure to her victim’s neck to further stress the point she was serious.
“And I told Tariq he had a bunch of money at his house.”
“Well, how the fuck Ghostman get involved in the bullshit?”
“Tariq and Spoe had hit a few of Ghostman’s spots real heavy over the past month.”
“So and . . .?”
“I mean, they hit them real, real hard. He wanted to catch up with them and get his money back. He was tired of taking losses.”
Bunny thought back to the night she and Spoe made love after one of his and Tariq’s biggest robberies ever. That must’ve come from Ghostman. Now some of what Tiffany was saying was starting to make some sense, but Bunny knew there was much more to the deadly story. “Okay, then, why you tell them to hit Dino? Why you set them up to do that shit?”
Tiffany was terrified what Bunny would do if she told her the rest of the story as she knew it. She knew it was ultimately by her hand that all the wheels got set in motion. Both Spoe and Tariq were dead by her decisions—the same decisions that were about to possibly have her pushing up daisies as well. “Ghostman said if they didn’t have his money he was going to kill both of them. I knew Tariq wasn’t gonna just hand him over all that money, so I turned him on to hit another lick so he wouldn’t feel the total lost. Yeah, I did know I was gonna get paid off the top, but you know how it is, sis.”
Bunny sucker punched her once more this time, making a kidney the body blow count. “What in the fuck did I tell your ass about calling me that? I ain’t your damn sis! And naw, ho, I don’t know how it is!”
Tiffany coughed up a small bit of mucus. Tears started to pour out both eyes as her knees grew even weaker. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Fuck being sorry. You gonna mess around and be dead. Now like I said from jump, where was Spoe when I got there?” Bunny demanded, tired of the cat-and-mouse game Tiffany was playing. After slowing slicing the side of the girl’s face and drawing blood, Tiffany knew she had to reveal the entire truth.
“Tariq said Dino and his crew chased both them down in the woods near his mansion. He said at one point Spoe went down. He said he didn’t want to leave him like that, but Spoe told him to take the bags with the money and dope and just get the fuck on.” Tiffany was breathing hard as she told the deadly tale. “Tariq said he got a few hundred yards away and heard a gunshot. He said ole boy had some dogs on his ass so he ran to the van he and Spoe left parked on the other side of the woods. That nigga claimed he drove around for about a good hour or so and Spoe never came out of the woods. He called me crying, saying he know Spoe was gone. After that, I told him to at least bring the money over to the apartment. He ain’t know Ghostman was there.”
“What? So what you telling me is Ghostman ain’t kill Spoe?” Bunny was confused. Feeling like someone had let the air out of her emotions, she was almost broken down. The only thing that was keeping her strong was her taste for revenge.
“Naw, he ain’t never even laid eyes on Spoe. If what Tariq said was true, Dino and his crew killed Spoe. That was the first time he ever saw Tariq. He’d just heard about both them and knew they was the stickup dudes that was hitting all his spots.”
Bunny was infuriated. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “So why in the fuck did y’all involve me? If Spoe wasn’t there, and y’all had the money and drugs they’d stolen from Dino, then why call me? Huh? Why?”
Tiffany knew what she was about to say was gonna get her killed, but she had to roll the dice and take a chance. “Because Ghostman got greedy, and I told him you could get both Tariq’s and Spoe’s stash and bring it to us!”
“What?” Bunny hissed with undeniable rage. “So that asshole not only had Dino’s shit, he made me bring the cash I needed to live off of too? Then had the nerve to come t
o my grandmother’s repast and extort even more money from me?” Bunny was heated. After all, that was the true reason they’d robbed the bank in the first damn place, to repay that bastard.
“Yeah, but, but . . . If you wanna be mad at anybody, be pissed at Tariq’s coward ass. I mean, he the one that called you that night, not me. I mean, shit, he and Spoe was stickup boys from off rip, you know that. They luck was gonna run out sooner or later anyway. They was gonna screw up and somebody was gonna end up killing they asses either way. Sis, you know that’s part of the game! You know how we do.”
That was the last thing Bunny wanted to hear and the last thing Tiffany would say. Kill this rotten bitch and just get it over with. Make her bleed the way Spoe had to bleed. Make this ho feel the pain my baby probably felt, the voices in her head kept taunting, urging her to take instant action. Karma had shown up and was about to show out.
Using all her strength, Bunny stabbed the conniving female multiple times in the rear of her skull. In and out with the ease of a butcher slicing meat, she’d tasted her mother and Lenny’s blood earlier, so this was nothing. Amused at Tiffany fighting to live to see another sunrise, Bunny sadistically whispered into the dancer’s ear to say her final prayers, letting her lifeless body fall to the urine-stained floor as she leaned close, slashing her victim’s throat. Tiffany’s eyes were eerily wide open, but she was no more.
Reaching over, removing the satin bag that lay by Tiffany’s side, Bunny didn’t break a sweat. Untying the string, she opened the bag. She removed Tiffany’s cell phone along with a crumbled up fifty-dollar bill. Taking the rest of the cash out, she disrespectfully tossed it onto Tiffany’s face. Callously, Bunny proceeded to mash some of the filthy currency into the self-proclaimed queen of the strip club’s mouth. “Here the hell you go! You money-hungry bitch! Live off this shit in fucking hell!” After that brutal one-sided exchange of rage, Bunny snatched the girl’s expensive gold and huge diamond-encrusted monogramed tennis bracelet off her floppy wrist. Not wanting to half step, Bunny then, showing no pity for the deceased, yanked down both of Tiffany’s one-carat diamond screw back stud earrings, splitting both lobes. “Thanks, trick. I know Tariq, Ghostman, that dude Dino or some other dim-witted cat whose dick you was sucking sponsored this shit . . . so easy come, easy the fuck go. It’s mine now!”