“They say he’s gay and runs an elite escort service with men and women,” Tamar mentioned.
“Where the fuck do y’all hear these rumors from?” Pike asked. “Ain’t any of them close to true.”
“So since you’re good friends with him, or claim to be, what do he do, huh? How does infamous E.P. make his millions?” Cristal asked.
Pike shrugged and returned, “I don’t know.”
“Exactly,” Cristal said with some sarcasm.
“Listen, all I know is he told me to bring some fine ladies to his party tomorrow night, but they couldn’t make it, so I thought about y’all. Second string is always good, and I know y’all can clean up well, right?” Pike asked, with his signature smirk toward them.
“Oh fuck you, Pike!” the girls exclaimed all together.
“In due time,” he continued to joke around.
“So, y’all coming or not?” Rich asked.
“Hells yeah, we coming! We ain’t tryin’ to miss out on what could be the party of the year—an exclusive VIP party at that. We is up in there and we gonna be the finest bitches at his party,” Tamar announced excitedly.
“And you know this, girl,” Cristal shouted out, slapping fives with her best friend.
“Ooooh, I can’t wait,” Mona said.
Sharon exited the bathroom feeling much better. Once again, she and Pike exchanged pleasing glances at each other. She smiled. Pike smiled. Everyone in the room paid attention to their flirting.
“Damn, y’all want some privacy or sumthin’?” Tamar spat.
“Give it a rest, Tamar,” Sharon tersely shot back.
“No jokes here, just tryin’ to look out for my homegirl. And speaking of homegirls, how’s Mesha, Pike?” Tamar asked, referring to his ex-girlfriend.
“I haven’t spoken to that bitch in a minute,” he replied coolly.
“Okay, cuz you know that bitch is drama.”
“And you just a go-happy Disney character, right?” he returned matter-of-factly.
Rich laughed loudly.
The atmosphere in Pike’s kitchenette apartment was lively with jokes, weed smoking and conversation about E.P.’s upcoming party. The girls were excited about it. They’d heard through the grapevine about the kind of parties E.P. hosted. He always had the elite attending his functions, and the venues were always breathtaking. They were expensive and, most of the time, extremely formal.
With each one smoking on their third blunt, music playing, and time passing by, it was getting late. Everyone was lying around and high. Tamar and Cristal had already talked about the special outfits they wanted to get for E.P.’s party and the store they planned on boosting them from. They had some special techniques they implemented in the stores to prevent getting caught and arrested. They were professionals at taking from others.
With midnight approaching, a loud knock at Pike’s door caught everyone’s attention. Cristal and her crew rose up and stared at Pike.
“Late-night booty call?” Mona asked flippantly.
“I don’t know who that is,” Pike responded, clueless.
He stood up and approached the door. He looked through the peephole and sighed heavily. “Damn,” he uttered.
“Who’s that?” Tamar asked.
The knocking at the door continued and was loud and obnoxious. “Pike, open the fuckin’ door. I know ya home,” a woman shouted out.
Pike looked at his company with a scowl and said, “I ain’t know she was coming.”
Pike relented and allowed her into his apartment, but surprisingly, she hadn’t come alone. Mesha came through with her crew of girls and automatically started scowling and beefing with everyone.
Mesha, with her long weave, light skin, and nasty attitude, charged into Pike’s place like she owned it. Two of her homegirls stood right behind her like bodyguards. Immediately, the tension in the room heightened. There had always been bad blood between Cristal’s peoples and Mesha’s crew. They were like oil and water—just weren’t meant to mix around each other, and when they did, it took a while to clean up.
Mesha had always been insecure and overprotective of Pike. They had an on-again and off-again relationship. She wanted babies by him, but Pike didn’t want to have any kids. She was always tired of his cheating ways, but she would always take him back when he came running and fucked him when he was horny—in other words, allowing Pike to have his cake and eat it too. She was in love with him, but he wasn’t in love with her. Pike’s true colors were exhibited daily: He was a womanizing, arrogant and self-centered drug dealer who wasn’t changing his ways anytime soon. Knowing every woman wanted to be with him made Mesha a jealous, raving bitch who wanted to bite the heads off all of her competition.
“What the fuck are these bitches doin’ in ya apartment, Pike?” Mesha exclaimed heatedly.
The drama was already starting.
Sharon, surprisingly, stood up before Tamar and Cristal. She scowled and shouted back, “Bitch? Who the fuck you callin’ bitch?”
“You, bitch!” Mesha retorted.
“Damn, it’s about to get real up in here,” Rich said, amused.
But no one else thought he was funny. Tamar, Cristal, and all their crew stood up. Their high and the good times came to an abrupt end. Mesha stepped toward Sharon, sullen, with her lips twisted. Her crew was behind her. The only thing on her mind was hate and jealousy. She assumed one of the bitches in Pike’s apartment was fucking him. Even though they were off again, she couldn’t handle him being with anyone else. “Why you got these bitches in your place, Pike?!” Mesha screamed out.
“We ain’t even together, Mesha. Why you trippin’ like this?” Pike retorted.
“You know how I feel about you!” she exclaimed.
“Fuck that dumb bitch, Pike! Look at her, she’s fuckin’ wack, no wonder you came over to sumthin’ better,” Tamar shouted.
Mesha spun toward the comment coming from Tamar. “Bitch, who you think ya talkin’ to like that?!”
“What you gonna do, bitch!”
“Bitch, you don’t fuckin’ know me!”
By now, everyone stood on high alert, scowling at one another. For some reason, Mesha pivoted in Sharon’s direction again and screamed out, “And look at this dark-ass, wack bitch, lookin’ like a house slave. Pike, I know you ain’t tryin’ to get wit’ that bitch.”
Before Tamar, Cristal or anyone could defend their friend, Sharon snapped like a rubber band upon hearing the harsh comment said about her. She was nice, but sometimes people underestimated her. Like lightning striking, she struck with vengeance, charging and swinging with her fists. Mesha caught two hard hits to her face and went stumbling backwards like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Sharon was a strong, proud woman, and she wasn’t about to take any disrespect from anyone.
A fight ensued in Pike’s kitchenette apartment, leading to an all-out brawl amongst everyone else. Mesha’s crew wasn’t about to stand to the side while Sharon was getting the best of their friend. When they tried to jump in, Sharon’s friends jumped in.
“I told you bitch, don’t fuck with me!” Sharon screamed out heatedly as she sat on top of Mesha, bashing her face in with her fists.
Pike and Rich stood aghast at what they were witnessing. Weaves were being torn out, clothing ripped apart and his furniture toppling over. Tamar and Cristal tore into Mesha’s friend Quinn like lions with a prey, while Lisa and Mona handled the other friend, Shay. They stomped her repeatedly with their sneakers in a nearby corner.
“Yo, y’all really need to chill the fuck out. Y’all fuckin’ up my crib,” Pike shouted.
But no one cared what he was saying. They were heated and belligerent toward each other. There were multiple fists swinging in every direction and some blood spewing. Sharon was ready to kill Mesha for the disrespect toward her, but she held back her anger somewhat, knowing
too many blows to that bitch’s head would get her locked up for murder.
“Yo, y’all need to take this shit outside! I’m ’bout to call the police on everyone,” Pike shouted out in desperation.
Shit was getting broken in his place, and when they knocked over his flat screen TV, he started to see red and became highly upset. He pivoted toward Rich, who seemed aloof from the violence around him. He was smiling and enjoying the scenery of women fighting each other.
“Yo, you just gonna sit there and let them fuck up my place like this?” Pike cried out.
“Hey, man, this shit is better than Pay-Per-View.”
The disturbance from Pike’s apartment started to catch the attention of his neighbors. It brought some of the building residents out of their apartments and had them lingering in the hallway. Pike and Rich pulled Tamar and her friends off of their victims and the fighting started to dwindle down.
It was clear that Sharon won the fight, and Mesha and her friends got their asses beat down like they owed some pimps money. Pike and Rich dragged Mesha and her friends out of his apartment with them kicking and screaming. Sharon smirked, knowing who the better bitch was. She didn’t even have a scratch on her. But the girls knew that with their win against Mesha, they would forever have to watch their backs. Mesha was a crazy bitch who always held grudges, also known to cut bitches in the face, and she was linked with the 69 Brooklyn Bloods. And this wasn’t going to be the end of their beef. Mesha and her crew were going to retaliate—when and where, the girls didn’t know, so they had to always be ready.
Today, the girls felt good about themselves—together, they felt unstoppable. Together, they were the shit. Always together, they were a force.
Three
Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island was always a gold mine for Tamar and Cristal. It was considered to be an ideal family place, offering many name-brand stores as well as a carousel for children. It was the name-brand stores that Tamar and Cristal took advantage of. They had some connects inside the stores to help them with their boosting, and with their subtle schemes to steal, they seemed impervious to getting caught. Having done it for so long, the girls knew the ins and outs of shoplifting.
Cristal and Tamar walked into one store after another, cleverly surveying the area and picking out what outfits and other items they wanted to steal for tonight’s party. The clothing had to be classy and stand out. It had to be something to get people’s attention. They were always considered ghetto and hood, but tonight, at E.P.’s exclusive party, things were about to change.
Along with having store employees helping them in their scam for a share of the profits, Cristal and Tamar were smart at stealing from any store and had an elite network going on. They had the right tools to bypass the security system. That day, both girls walked out of Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Burberry, and Bebe with several nice stolen dresses.
Tonight, they were going to look like goddesses. The girls walked toward the food court to grab a quick bite to eat.
“Girl, that shit was smooth,” Tamar said.
She took a seat opposite Cristal at the table. Both shopping bags were placed underneath the table, containing pricey dresses in their sizes.
Cristal chuckled. “They don’t know how we do.”
“Right, we the best at this,” Tamar replied, slapping a celebratory high-five across the table with her friend.
They lingered in the food court for a short while and left with a feeling of accomplishment. They made their way back into the East New York neighborhood. They couldn’t stop talking about E.P.’s party. They felt special being invited. The only thing the girls could talk about was snatching up a baller to trick on them. They had the looks and the goodies to grab all the boys’ attention, and with the dresses they’d stolen from the store, they were adamant it would be a sure thing.
They arrived in front of the towering project apartment Cristal resided in with her mother, Renee. It was a sweltering June summer evening. The minute they stepped on the block, a couple shopping bags in their hands and their beauty overflowing, all the boys were gawking and calling out at them. Tamar and Cristal didn’t have time to play with boys in the hood; their attention was on greater things.
They took the pissy elevator up to Cristal’s fifth-floor apartment. The city’s heat wave made it almost unbearable to do anything that evening. It was 98 degrees, and the humidity was just as high. Air conditioners and fans were on full blast, and people walked around almost naked and sweaty.
With the smell of urine, trash, and sweat mixing around in the pocket-sized elevator, Cristal and Tamar screwed up their faces at the horrendous smell and felt like they were about to pass out and die.
“I can’t wait to jump my ass in the shower,” Cristal said.
“I feel you.”
“Muthafuckas are so nasty in this building. I swear, I can’t wait to move,” Cristal said.
“If we meet the right people and make the right connects tonight, anything can happen.”
“We gonna make it happen.”
When the lift stopped at their floor and the metallic door slid back into the wall, Cristal and Tamar hurried out of the reeking elevator and walked down the narrow, graffiti-filled hallway. Walking into the apartment, Cristal saw her mother lounging on the couch, asleep with an expired cigarette in her hand. The place was silent but messy, with unwashed dishes piling up in the sink and a dirty, cigarette-stained carpet, with clothes and empty beer cans scattered everywhere.
How could anyone live like this? Cristal asked herself that every day.
Her mother was quiet, not a loudmouth, but she was very lazy. And she had other vices. She was forty years old and had given up on life a long time ago. She was an alcoholic, constantly downing beers and liquor from sunup to sundown. And when she wasn’t drinking heavily, Renee was either smoking weed, playing cards, gambling, or playing her numbers. She held card games inside her apartment and took frequent trips with friends down to Atlantic City—playing blackjack and poker on an obsessive level. The funny thing about Cristal’s mother was that she always carried a fresh deck of cards to play a quick game wherever she was at.
Surprisingly, she had a man in her life, Johnny, or Mr. Johnny, as Cristal called him. He was sixty-seven years old and still working as a janitor at a local public school. His paltry checks only paid his rent and allowed him to give Renee a few measly dollars for whatever.
Occasionally, when Renee needed some extra money, she would babysit the kids of the young girls in the building while they went out partying. She was always good with kids—maybe not with her own—but the young mothers in the projects loved her. She was always around and dependable for thirty dollars a night.
Cristal looked at her mother and frowned. The living room smelled. The fridge was empty, and it was always embarrassing to bring friends over. When Cristal’s crew did come over, Renee allowed them to do whatever they wanted. They ran her apartment, with any parental authority being nonexistent.
“Damn, your moms is twisted again,” Tamar said.
Cristal sucked her teeth and said, “You know she’s always like that.”
“Sad.”
“Yeah, she is.”
Renee remained comatose to the girls’ criticism.
The girls went into Cristal’s bedroom, a contrast from the rest of the untidy apartment. Her bedroom was neatly decorated with a stylish queen-size bed, wood dressing table, and a 55-inch flat screen with multiple DVDs scattered around. Most of the items were goods stolen for her own benefit. Cristal’s bedroom looked like a dreamland while the rest of the apartment looked like hell.
The girls dumped all the stolen items onto the bed and beamed at their prompt come-up on some more pricey goods—further items added to their collection.
“Lisa, Mona, and Sharon should be on their way soon,” said Cristal.
“Shit, let�
��s take the good stuff now.”
Cristal nodded.
Cristal opened her closet door and flipped on the lights. Inside were several stolen dresses and other clothing with the price tags still on. Her wardrobe was all hot. In real life, she couldn’t afford any of the clothing she wore or what was concealed in her closet. The prices on the clothing ranged from one hundred to four grand.
Cristal and Tamar delicately shifted through their score, trying to pick out the right attire to wear for tonight’s party. With the right dress had to come the perfect accessories. They wanted to look super sexy, but at the same time, classy. Pike and Rich always joked about how hood or ghetto they were. Tonight, it was their chance to prove them wrong, and also, to not embarrass themselves. They were mixing it up with a different kind of folks—the city’s elite.
“I need to get high before we do anything,” Tamar said.
Cristal agreed.
They called the weed man who proudly delivered, and then they ordered some Chinese food, and put on some hip-hop music to listen and dance to. They had plenty of time to get ready. The event started at 10pm. It was in Manhattan, just over the bridge and in Midtown. Pike and Rich were picking them up.
Tamar sat on Cristal’s bed taking apart a cigar with a razor in her hand. There was a dime bag of some pink weed next to her. It was the most potent to smoke. Cristal took a few pulls from the cigarette and stripped down to her pink underwear. Her figure was magnificent. Even Tamar gazed at her friend’s body with a tinge of jealousy in her eyes. Cristal seemed to be the picture of perfect with everything on her natural and curvy, from her juicy round booty to her succulent, protruding breasts and her long lashes.
Tamar knew it was inevitable that her friend would catch the attention of a fine, maybe rich man tonight. Tamar wasn’t on the chopping block of prettiness either. She was cute too, and curvy, but wasn’t as endowed in certain areas like her friend. Cristal was taller and shapelier. She was so pretty that even without makeup and dressed down she turned heads.
Cristal lingered by her bedroom window in her underwear and gazed outside, puffing on her cigarette and exhaling. The sun was gradually setting over the projects, transitioning day to night and creating a dark hue in the sky over Brooklyn. The Chinese food had satisfied her hunger, and her mind was on tonight.
Murdergram, Part 1 Page 3