Murdergram, Part 1

by Nisa Santiago

  “I suggest you try the duck terrine for start. You’ll like it,” E.P. recommended.

  Cristal was ready to try whatever he recommended. E.P. ordered the same thing. The duck terrine, served with a pear chutney, brioche toast, and mixed greens, tasted better than she expected. The terrine had great flavor and was excellent.

  The two conversed while enjoying their appetizers. He started explaining to Cristal how the process worked. She listened intently.

  “If you get hired, you’ll receive an anonymous telegram—”

  Cristal interjected, “Oh, like a kite?”

  E.P. looked at her. Kite? She needed some work. “You’re not locked down in a penitentiary, Cristal,” he said dryly. “Out in the unconfined world we call it a telegram.”

  She raised her eyes, leaned closer across the table and whispered, “A telegram sounds positive. And if what ya telling me is true, then we gonna be deading muthafuckas like crazy.”

  Deading muthafuckas? E.P. looked around and returned, “As I was saying, you’re receiving a telegram—”

  “Murdergram,” Cristal said with a sly grin on her face.

  E.P. couldn’t help but grin back. He relented. “You’ll receive a murdergram from the Commission.”

  “Commission?”

  “Yes, the Commission. These are people who sit on the board and make decisions if someone lives or dies.”

  “So they playin’ God,” she interrupted.

  He ignored her last comment.

  “These are people that you’ll never meet, under any circumstances. Are you clear on that?”

  She nodded.

  “And there’s one golden rule, Cristal. You never cross the Commission. Do you understand that?” he asked with a stern tone and inhospitable stare buried into her.

  Cristal gulped and nodded.

  “No, I want to hear you say it. Do you understand that you will never betray us?”

  “I understand. I will never betray the Commission.”

  “And you need to be ready at all times. And when you receive these murdergrams, there will be a name and location of the intended target. You take out the target, no questions asked within the reasonable time frame of my client’s request. I stress again, if it’s not done within a certain time frame, there will be repercussions.”

  Cristal wasn’t a fool. She understood “repercussions” meant she would be murdered. She was dealing with dangerous people, but knowing this still didn’t deter her from wanting to work with E.P. It was something different in her life—something exciting.

  E.P. went on to warn her, “You may never question why this target was chosen or plead on behalf of the target. It would behoove you to follow these instructions closely.”

  They hadn’t even put a gun in her hand yet, and already they were controlling her life.

  The waiter came by with his welcoming smile to take their orders. E.P. remained normal. He glanced at the man and sized him up. It was his job—in his blood to read people and determine if someone was a threat to him or not. In his line of work, you couldn’t trust anyone and had to be careful. In twenty years in his line of business, murder for hire, he’d made some powerful enemies—men and women who would go to any length to see him dead.

  Cristal ordered an apple martini.

  “Try again!” he uttered sharply.

  She was confused, and so was the waiter. What did she do wrong?

  “Order champagne,” he told her.

  She paused for a moment, being slightly taken aback. Was he still testing her?

  During dinner, without looking at the wine menu, she ordered a glass of Moët. He cut his eyes toward her sharply. Cristal appeared nervous. E.P. told the waiter to bring them a bottle of Cristal. She thought she figured out the puzzle.

  “You ordered Cristal champagne because it’s a nod to me? Because that’s how I spell my name.”

  He smirked. “I ordered Cristal champagne because it’s the best. Remember that. What we’re doing here tonight isn’t about you. It’s about business.”

  Cristal nodded.

  For the main course, they ordered the Branzino fish, which was served with a pesto risotto and an herb salad with raspberry dressing. The fish was perfectly prepared and was fresh and flavorful. Cristal had never had fish like that before, and she truly enjoyed it. For dessert, they had the superb milk chocolate fondant cake, classically accompanied with sorbet.

  After an experience like this, it was going to be hard to return to the projects and rekindle her ghetto ways with her crew. For the past three days, she had felt like a whole new woman. Spending fabulous nights in his lavish suite, the clothes, the great sex, Vinny the stylist, and dinner in a five-star restaurant—yes it all came with a price—eventually; she would have to kill for it. She would have to sell her soul.

  E.P. locked eyes with Cristal and said, “This lifestyle can be all yours if you do the right thing, Cristal. I give the best and I want nothing but the best.”

  She nodded.

  “So are you ready to give me your best?” he asked.

  “I wanna continue this type of living by any means necessary,” said Cristal with assertiveness. “I can’t go back to being that same ghetto chick scraping the bottom. I really want this.”

  E.P. smiled.

  His job was done.

  “You’re hired.”

  Ten

  “Bitches be fuckin’ selfish!” Tamar spat to herself. Cristal had been absent from her life for more than three days now without answering or returning her phone calls.

  Cristal got with E.P. and forgot about friends and family. Tamar couldn’t help but be furious at her friend. It seemed like the bitch’s true colors were coming out.

  The weekend was coming around, and Tamar wanted to go boosting at the mall again to get some fly shit and earn some extra money. But she couldn’t do that without her best friend. Cristal was her right hand, and it had gotten cut off when they went to that fancy party and her friend became smitten by E.P.

  Tamar smoked her Newport alone in the pissy, narrow stairway of her building. She was also upset at Sharon for running around the hood bragging about being with Pike and the measly hundred dollars he’d given her. She heard about Sharon running drugs around town for Pike. Dumb bitch, she thought. Sharon was a friend, but the bitch was just stupid sometimes—maybe too desperate to find love and risking everything for a dog like Pike.

  Her friends were losing their minds over some dick.

  But she was dealing with her own problems at home. Her dysfunctional family was a hot mess. She needed to get away from her moms, her young siblings, and hating-ass bitches in her life. Tamar couldn’t help but to worry about Cristal’s disappearing act. Where was she and why wasn’t she calling?

  It was becoming a miserable day for Tamar. She’d just had a serious and heated argument with her mother, whom everyone called Black Earth. It had almost come to blows between the two of them earlier, in front of her sisters and brother. Tamar was tired of her mother’s dumb, selfish ways and outlandish antics. With Black Earth, it was always something. This time Tamar was highly upset with her mother for selling the EPT food-stamp card for cash again, and spending the money on herself. There were mouths to feed and barely enough food in the apartment to feed her and her siblings. Tamar was also extremely tired and frustrated that her mother kept stealing her clothes out of her closet. The big bitch couldn’t fit any of her shit, so she knew Black Earth was selling the things Tamar had worked so hard to steal.

  Tamar’s three siblings were eleven-year-old Jada, nine-year-old Jayson, and six-year-old Lena. They all had different fathers who weren’t in their lives at all, and they rarely had a mother either. Black Earth had babies only to collect a check. She gave birth and changed some shitty diapers once in a while, but she wasn’t a mother. She’d chain-smoked around her chi
ldren since they were born, she cursed like a sailor around her kids, and she constantly brought different men home to please her sexual desires. Also, she was always out in the streets getting high or in the clubs partying until the sun came up, most times leaving her kids unattended.

  Tamar grew up raising herself. She learned about life through various trials and tribulations that she had to get through on her own. Her only family was Cristal, Mona, Lisa and slow-ass Sharon, and her young siblings. They cared about each other a lot, and would do anything for each other.

  Tamar puffed on her cigarette and exhaled. She didn’t care who saw her seated in the stairway clad in boy shorts and wifebeater with no bra underneath. She just ran out the apartment quickly and escaped into the stairway. She wanted to punch her mother so badly, her temples throbbed just thinking about it.

  It was early afternoon, and Tamar could hear the loud Jamaican music blasting from Sinbad’s apartment. She could smell Ms. Gene’s chitterlings cooking strongly next door. She always hated that smell; the unpleasant odor was sickening to her, but Ms. Gene was Southern old-school and one of the best cooks in the neighborhood, and when Tamar and her siblings went hungry, there was always Ms. Gene coming around to feed them some of her home-cooked meals. Tamar hated the smell of her chitterlings cooking, but she respected Ms. Gene, sometimes wishing the elderly woman were her mother.

  She puffed and collected her thoughts. She fumed, thinking about the two-hundred-dollar dress and Chanel purse that had been taken out of her closet. It was clear that Black Earth had taken her shit and violated her bedroom. And then her mother had the audacity to lie about it.

  The argument in the apartment got heated. Black Earth was a big woman, almost six feet tall and 240 pounds, and she was known to be a really crazy and violent bitch. But Tamar wasn’t scared of her mother. She could be just as violent too.

  Mona and Lisa were on their way over. Tamar hoped they hurried over soon. She needed her friends at the moment. And she needed Cristal even more. She felt empowered by her crew.

  She exhaled and heard people coming up the stairway. She heard male voices. They loomed closer. She looked up and saw another neighborhood menace, Derrick; he was with Tank. Seeing Tank was a shock. His killing of those men in the park the other day played in her head like a movie. However, she kept her cool. Seeing Tank standing over her in passing on the stairway made her feel somewhat ambivalent—uneasy and excited. Unknown to her friends, she had a secret crush on Tank. Rich was right: She loved gangster niggas who knew how to handle themselves on the block.

  She’d always wanted to feel protected, especially after growing up in an abusive household—remembering how, when she was young, it was either her mother or one of her boyfriends physically abusing her. She had always had to fight, and for once, she wished she had someone who could do the fighting for her.

  A nigga like Tank was her picture-perfect man.

  “Hey, Tamar, you good? What you doin’ on the steps?” Derrick asked.

  “Had a fight wit’ my moms again.”

  “Y’all be trippin’.”

  “She be trippin’,” Tamar replied. “I hate that fat bitch.”

  “Well, she’s a big woman and that’s a lot to hate,” Derrick joked.

  She didn’t find his humor funny.

  Tank stood quietly behind his friend, looking emotionless. He was mean and aloof. He didn’t give a fuck about anything. He didn’t even acknowledge Tamar at first. But he saw that she had something he wanted.

  “Shorty, you got another cigarette?” Tank asked in his raspy voice.

  “Nah, last one.”

  “Too bad,” he said.

  There was a quick look exchanged between the two. She wanted to say more to the man, but he was a dangerous stranger, and Tamar had problems of her own.

  “Just keep ya head up, Tamar,” said Derrick.

  She nodded.

  They walked by her, leaving Tamar seated on the stairs smoking her cigarette. Seeing Tank so close and having him speak to her—in her twisted mind it was like meeting a celebrity. His name rang out in the hood like Sunday bells, and she had nothing but respect for a killer like him.

  Tamar finished off her cigarette, stubbing it out against the stairs. She stood up and went back into her apartment still seething from the argument with her mother. She thought smoking a cigarette would calm her down, but it didn’t. She felt worse.

  She walked into the apartment. Her brother and sisters were in the bedroom watching TV, and Black Earth was in the living room, on the couch, smoking and watching a program on BET. The big, black bitch pivoted in her seat and glared at Tamar entering.

  Both ladies scowled heavily. The tension in the apartment was thick. Seeing her mother on the couch stirred up that violent anger inside of Tamar. The dress Black Earth had stolen from out her closet was one of her favorites, one she wanted to keep. And her Chanel purse—there wasn’t any replacing it.

  Like a rubber band, Tamar just snapped. “I’m sick and tired of you fuckin’ disrespecting me and taking shit out my fuckin’ closet! Keep the fuck out my room, Ma!”

  “Bitch, who the fuck you screamin’ at?!” Black Earth shouted. She stood up to display her full height and size, and heatedly continued with, “I told you to stop fuckin’ stealing shit in the first place, you dumb bitch, and if you bring it here, in my fuckin’ home, then you the stupid bitch, cuz your shit gonna get got.”

  Black Earth’s heated response was shattering, running rampant like wildfire.

  Tamar stormed forward, retorting, “I fuckin’ hate you, you lazy, fat-ass bitch! You a fuckin’ bum, bitch! Take care of ya fuckin’ kids!”

  “Don’t tell me how to raise my fuckin’ kids, bitch! You ain’t gotta live here.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Get the fuck out my house!” Black Earth screamed.

  Their loud, heated argument echoed from the apartment and into the hallway, allowing their neighbors to overhear them once again. It was so common to hear Tamar argue with her mother daily that people could set their watches to it.

  “I hope you die, bitch!” Tamar screamed into her mother’s face. “You is a fuckin’ loser! You ain’t shit, you disgusting bitch. Take anything out of my closet one more time, and I swear I’ll kill you.”

  The threat came through Tamar’s clenched teeth, and her words were chilling toward her mother. Tamar’s eyes burned intently into her mother, her own flesh-and-blood, wishing she could melt Black Earth with her angry stare. However, it was Black Earth who swung first, and a violent fistfight ensued between them.

  The hit caught Tamar off guard. Black Earth was heavy-handed and strong like an ox. She went charging at her daughter like a bull seeing red. Tamar went flying over the chair, and her mother came barreling down on her daughter like heavy rain.

  “Bitch, I don’t care how old you are, you gonna fuckin’ respect me in my fuckin’ house,” Black Earth shouted, beating on Tamar.

  The fight brought the kids running out of the bedroom. They watched in horror as Black Earth pinned one of her children to the floor, attacking Tamar like she was a complete stranger.

  They cried out in disbelief.

  “Mommy, stop it! Stop it, Mommy, get off her!” Jada shouted with tears streaming down her face.

  “Mommy, you gonna hurt Tamar,” Jayson yelled.

  “I don’t give a fuck about this bitch!” Black Earth screamed heatedly with her fists pounding into Tamar’s petite frame.

  Black Earth didn’t care who witnessed her violent actions. Even in front of her small children, she became a reckless animal. The fight caused six-year-old Lena to run away into the hallway crying hysterically. She hated when her mother and sister fought.

  Tamar wasn’t any punk, though. She swung and hit back, but it felt like a car was on top of her. Black Earth’s blows were almost crushing.


  “Get the fuck off me!” Tamar shrieked.

  “I’ma kill this disrespectful bitch,” her mother retorted.

  The fight seemed like an eternity in the children’s eyes. Fear and panic had set in. It felt like World War III had erupted in the ghetto-size apartment. When Jayson tried to pull his mother off of his big sister, Black Earth wasn’t having any part of it. She belligerently pushed her son away from her and he went toppling into the TV.

  Six-year-old Lena came running back into the apartment with help. Lisa and Mona came flying inside like a bolt of lightning striking to aid their friend. Mona snatched up a lamp and smashed it across Black Earth’s head, and then Lisa started swinging on the bitch from behind. The two girls jumped in and wailed on the woman like she was some bitch on the street instead of Tamar’s mother.

  With the three of them attacking Black Earth at once, they had the advantage. They punched, kicked, and stomped Black Earth into a corner. Tamar, Lisa, and Mona were like hyenas in the wild. The fight was scaring her siblings and causing attention on the floor.

  “Fuck wit’ me, bitch!” Tamar shouted. “Don’t ever touch my shit again.”

  Tamar kicked her mother in her ribs and punched her repeatedly.

  Leaving her mother bleeding and lying in the corner severely beaten, the girls retreated to the bedroom thinking it was all over. But before Lisa and Mona could ask what happened, Black Earth came charging into the bedroom with a serrated blade in her hand.

  “I’ma kill y’all fuckin’ bitches!” she screamed madly.

  The girls saw the knife and started screaming. Black Earth had rage and murder in her eyes. She swung the knife wildly in the girls’ direction. They scurried out of her way as she barely missed cutting or stabbing them. Tamar tried to escape the bedroom, running for the door, but she tripped over the clothes and junk in her room. Black Earth stormed her way. She thrust the blade downward, scraping a line in Tamar’s skin from her right shoulder blade down to her left butt cheek. One inch closer and her mother would have done some real damage. But it was enough to break her skin and hurt her like a son of a bitch.