The Banks Sisters 3

by Nikki Turner

  “Running through that bitch’s social media. That’s the best way to find out where a bitch at, what she doing, or where she plan to be.”

  “Word?” Wolfe liked her style.

  “Dead ass,” Tallhya said, continuing to drum on the keyboard. She was on a mission.

  “What you going to do when you locate her whereabouts?” Wolfe asked

  “I’m going to do exactly what I promised I’ll do—drag the bitch! I ain’t never really been much of a talker.” Tallhya felt like this was her way of paying Rydah back for being so generous. Also, the way she saw it, in the hood, most big sisters fought at least a dozen battles for their younger sister before the younger sister’s eighteenth birthday. Tallhya figured she owed Rydah about a dozen ass-kicking hands, the same way Bunny had kicked ass for her when they were growing up.

  God forbid, what if Rydah had got seriously hurt . . . or died? she thought. They never would have met. Thank goodness nothing like that had happened, but at the same time, Tallhya felt that she needed to let these Miami bitches know that there were consequences and repercussions for messing with a Banks girl. Rydah had folks that loved her, folks that weren’t going to stand by and let anybody try to fuck her over.

  Wolfe loved Tallhya’s energy. He wished that Rydah was more like her sister. She was the type of bitch that he needed on his team.

  Chapter 18

  April Fool’s Day

  Partygoers filled Club Hoax well beyond its 1,500-patron capacity. Buffy had been scamming, sucking, and saving all year for her mega birthday bash, and the final results were even better than her expectations. Eighty-inch projection screens were positioned throughout the club, and the camera stayed positioned on the birthday girl for the entire night. Buffy hammed up every second of it.

  The party was called “The Dirty Thirty,” and the theme was the Wild, Wild West. Buffy lived on social media, and she blasted her favorite platforms—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snap Chat—advertising it as the party of the year.

  There were mechanical bulls set up in the middle of the lower level. Anyone that could stay on the mechanical beast for a whole two minutes with the setting on high won a stack. A line of inebriated guys and a few chicks tried their hand at the prize. None of them got close to hitting the two-minute mark.

  Half-naked go-go dancers stood on the bar, dropping it like their lives depended on it. You could rent the back of a stagecoach, furnished with a queen-sized bed, for thirty minutes at a time. Mock canons were shot off every half hour. Men walked around in chaps, women in Daisy Dukes, and almost everyone wore a cowboy hat and boots.

  Buffy was excited to see her vision come to life. The only thing that excited her more was meeting her new mystery friend. Buffy hoped that the mystery girl she’d met on social media would be as hot as her pictures were. If so, Buffy planned to make love to her like a real cowgirl.

  Tallhya walked into Club Hoax rocking black leather Daisy Dukes, ostrich cowboy boots, and a skin-tight, blinged-out T-shirt. Across her chest, she wore two bandoliers, fully loaded with bullets. And she carried two real-looking AK-47s. She gave the security guard her fake name and was escorted straight upstairs to VIP, to be formally introduced to the birthday girl.

  Tallhya had successfully catfished Buffy on Facebook. Tallhya had used her real pictures, but said her name was Natalie.

  Buffy gave Tallhya a long, thirsty look and nearly fell in love with the color of her eyes. “Thank you for coming.” She hoped they were real.

  Tallhya blinked, showing off her mink eyelashes. “I wouldn’t have missed it for all the pussy in Bangkok,” she said. Tallhya once heard the line used in a movie, but she couldn’t remember its name.

  Amused, Buffy took a harder look. “You remind me of someone I know,” she said.

  “That’s not a very original come-on,” Tallhya said. “But I’ll give you a pass, because I hear it all the time.”

  The D.J. played a Trina cut and the girls went nuts.

  “You are so pretty,” Buffy said. She liked girls with a little meat on their bones, as long as they were cute. “Are you really into girls?” she asked.

  “Not at the moment,” Tallhya quipped. “But the night is young.” She thought to herself that this shit was easier than she expected. She could just take the bitch home, get her drunk, and then slit her throat with a kitchen knife. But if she got knocked, she could kiss her surgery and her life good-bye. The only two states that executed more people than Florida were Texas and VA.

  Fuck that!

  “True.” Buffy was clueless as to Tallhya’s real intentions. “The night is young,” she said. “And so are we. Young and free to do anything we want. Anything.”

  Tallhya smiled. This was the type of attention that she craved to get from men. But it no longer concerned her, because after her surgery, she would have to fight the guys off with a stick.

  She didn’t respond to Buffy’s remark.

  Breaking the momentary silence, Buffy said, “This shit is going to sound corny, but I was in love with the girl who you remind me of.”

  “Was?” Tallhya feigned like she gave a fuck. She asked, “What happened?”

  Buffy contemplated the question. After Rydah wouldn’t give me the time of day, I got one of my homeboys to carjack her bourgeois ass. Then she said, “She was straight.”

  Tallhya joked, “Don’t ya hate when that shit happens?”

  “In the worst way. But I never thought I’d rebound with one of my social media fans.”

  Did this bitch just call me a groupie? Getting this bitch drunk, taking her to a hotel, and poking her with a sharp knife is starting to look like a good idea again. Who the fuck does this ho think she is, a broke Nicki Minaj?

  “Fan this!” Tallhya reared back and coldcocked Buffy with one of the fake assault rifles. Buffy dropped like a thot’s G-string backstage at a rap concert. She screamed, “That’s for my sister Rydah, ho!” Then she commenced to ram her ostrich boots upside Buffy’s head.

  The one-sided melee was like something from an MMA fight, and the entire smackdown was being recorded live on 23 different projection screens.

  People were screaming, “Stomp the bitch . . . stomp the bitch . . . stomp the bitch!”

  And Tallhya didn’t disappoint. She zoned out. She envisioned the faces of her cheating-ass ex, Walter, and his new bitch in place of Buffy’s and got to whaling even harder.

  “Stomp the bitch . . . Stomp the bitch . . . Stomp the bitch!”

  Finally, security showed up. Better late than never, if you were the one getting your face stomped out. But Buffy would have given anything for them to have gotten this crazy bitch off of her a little sooner.

  A big black guy wearing a tight yellow T-shirt, who looked like he came straight up off of WrestleMania, snatched Tallhya up like she weighed no more than a ham and cheese sandwich. He had her a good three feet off the ground, carrying her across club’s floor, kicking and screaming. The next thing Tallhya knew, she was out the front door on her ass.

  A stranger walked up. “Are you okay?”

  Tallhya was out of breath. “I’m fine,” she said.

  The guy handed her a closed bottle of water. “You look thirsty.”

  She hadn’t realized how dry her throat was until the cool water hit the inside of her mouth. Damn, that shit taste good. She’d been on an adrenaline rush, and now the rush was quickly turning into an adrenaline crash. She sat on the bench, drinking the cool bottle of water, smiling at how she’d kept her promise. She’d beat the brakes off a bitch at her own Dirty Thirty birthday party.

  Thirty definitely had a dirty start for Buffy.

  Tallhya was smiling at the ordeal when a massive headache came on. Tallhya took another long drag of water and she was done! She collapsed to the ground, out for the count.

  Chapter 19

  American Dream

  12 hours later

  Tallhya woke up on a pissy mattress in a small, dark room that—besides the urine
—smelled like old clothes and mildew. She had no idea where she was or how she got there. The last thing she remembered was mopping the floor with that bitch Buffy and getting thrown out of the club. And then she recalled someone offering her a bottle of water. After that was a blank canvas.

  She tried to wipe the mucus away from the corners of her eyes, but she was unable to carry out the task. Each of her wrists was encircled with a heavy plastic tie. The plastic ties were intertwined with one another, creating a virtual handcuff. The same contraption was used on her feet. Someone had made her a prisoner. When she attempted to yell out for help, her screams were short-stopped by a rag, which was packed inside her mouth. She had to breathe out of her nose

  Click.

  Someone cut on a flashlight and pointed the beam into her face.

  “I see you’re finally awake,” said a voice from behind the flashlight. His accent was Haitian, and he spoke with the casualness of a friend or lover. “I’m going to remove the gag,” he said, “but when I do, you must promise not to scream. Okay, Tallhya? Nod your head if you understand.”

  The bright LED light caused the decibles from the drum-like noise reverberating inside her head to increase two-fold.

  If you get that fucking light out of my eyes I’ll agree to whatever you want, she thought. But since, at the moment, she couldn’t speak, she nodded.

  The guy with the flashlight and the Haitian accent approved. “Good,” he said, then: “I told you that she would be cooperative.”

  Tallhya and Flashlight weren’t the only two in the room?

  “They all cooperative when they tied up and shit,” said his partner.

  Flashlight: “Don’t be so negative.”

  The partner said, “Whatever. Let’s just move this shit along.”

  Flashlight removed the rag from her mouth. “Okay, Tallhya, I need for you to answer a few questions for me. Okay?”

  Tallhya had few questions of her own, starting with, “How do you know my name?”

  Flashlight said, “I’m psychic. I know many things.” To prove his point, he said, “Your name is Natallhya Banks. You’re thirty-two years old, and you’re from Richmond, Virginia.” Then he laughed. Tallhya missed the joke. “Besides,” said Flashlight, “it’s all right here on your Virginia ID.”

  Her predicament was getting worse minute by minute.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked.

  “What do I want?” Flashlight echoed. “Well, Tallhya, I want what everybody in America wants—money! It’s the American dream, no? Okay,” he said, “your turn is over. Now I ask questions. And your answers will determine whether or not you make it back to Virginia alive, or end up in Mexico selling pussy.”

  Tallhya said, “I don’t have any money.”

  “Well, as you know, I’ve already been through your wallet, and based on the stuff I found on your person: two grand worth of hundred-dollar bills, a Consolidated Bank platinum card, an iPhone 6Plus with a Swarovski crystal custom case, Christian Louboutin lipstick, Chanel chain purse . . . Tell the broke shit to someone that don’t know better,” he said. “I’m sure there is more money somewhere.”

  Tallhya begged him to believe her. “Trust me,” she said, “there isn’t any money.” After the $150,000 life insurance policy Me-Ma left was divided three ways, Tallhya had spent everything but the twenty thousand she had put up at Rydah’s house. Most of if was for the surgery, and the other grand was for a good weave.

  Flashlight said, “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “I take it you’re out here on vacation,” said the partner. “So if you wanna be back with your family and friends, you need to figure out where to get one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t know anyone with that kind of money.”

  Flashlight wasn’t buying it. “You better think about it real hard, then.”

  Tallhya, just a couple of weeks ago, felt like she had nothing to lose. In fact, she hadn’t cared if she lived or died. Now, her life had changed. She had met her sister, who was kind and pushed her to win and wanted nothing less than the best for her. Her self-esteem was building, and finally she had the financial resources to change her lifelong battle with obesity. And after she got her lifestyle under control, she would help others as well. Ironic how at this very moment she wanted nothing more than to survive, to live, to be healthy, and to strive.

  “So,” the partner said, “who are you out here on vacation with? We take travelers checks.” He had a mean look plastered on his face.

  For some reason, when Tallhya looked at him, all she saw was his mug shot picture in her mind, with that mean and ugly disposition written all over his face.

  Tallhya told the truth. “I’m visiting my sister.”

  The partner nodded his head.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said. “What your sister do out here?” He took a not-so-wild guess. “She a dancer?” Half the street girls in Florida either danced or ran scams.

  “No,” Tallhya said, a bit too defiantly. “She works at a car shop.”

  “Fuck!” Flashlight rolled his eyes. “That shit no good. What about family back home?”

  “Two of my sisters are dead, and the other one has cancer. My mother is dead—and when she was alive she never gave me a dime.” Tallhya chose not to mention Me-Ma or the money she left behind. It would only complicate things more than they already were, she thought.

  Flashlight or Mean-Mug didn’t seem to be moved by her losses. “What about your nigga?”

  “He left me for a skinny bitch and cleaned out my bank account before he dipped.”

  “Fuck! It must really suck being you,” Mean-Mug surmised. “You may be better off to everyone selling pussy for a living.”

  Flashlight tried to make her better understand the predicament. “You know what it’s like working whore houses in Mexico? Fucked up. Nigga after nigga, wetback after wetback. You’ll be servicing about twenty to thirty smelly dicks each night. You seem like a cool person that’s caught a few bad breaks. You’ve come through before, and I believe that you can get through this. Get us the money so that you can go on with your life.”

  Think, bitch! Think! Think!

  Tallhya stared off into the darkness. A few weeks ago, she was in the crazy house being coerced to take meds she didn’t need. That seemed like Disney World right now.

  Mean-Mug got an idea. “Does your sister have a dude?” He held Tallhya’s phone in his hand. “Who can we call?”

  Tallhya started to lie and say no, but the fib died on her lips. “Yeah,” she said. “She has a boyfriend, but I don’t know him like that. He may not care enough to pay the price for me. We just met a few days ago. I just met my sister for the first time not even a month ago.”

  A phone rang with a “We Are Family” ringtone. It was Talhya’s.

  The partner killed the call, got the number, and then Face-Timed the caller back. When Rydah answered, he pointed the camera toward Tallhya on the urine-saturated mattress with no sheets. He held it just long enough for Rydah to get a brief visual of Tallhya’s predicament. Then, the kidnapper texted Rydah from Tallhya’s phone.

  Tallhya: 150K to get her back alive!

  On the other end of the phone, Rydah was speechless, but she texted back right away.

  Rydah: I’ll give you whatever you want. Just don’t hurt my sister.

  Flashlight’s partner handed him the phone. “Look at this shit, man.” After Flashlight read the message, they both thought the same thing: Bingo.

  “I thought you said that your sister worked on cars for a living. What does her nigga do?” Mean-Mug was trying to hide that he wasn’t pleased and now he wanted to know if there was a way that he could squeeze more.

  “I don’t know,” Tallhya said honestly. “All I know is that his name is Wolfe and that he’s from down here somewhere.”

  Neither guy could hide behind their poker faces how Tallhya’s statement had surprised the hell out of them. The name
Wolfe represented money and danger. Everybody in the streets knew that Wolfe was caked up. But the name also meant trouble. Wolfe was an egotistic, ruthless, certified sociopath.

  Flashlight said, “Well, Tallhya, your sister seems to be more worried about you than you thought. She says that she’s willing to pay to get you home safe. For that, I’m not going to put the rag back in your mouth. But if you act stupid, I’m not only going to gag you . . .”

  The partner pulled a pistol from his waist and finished Flashlight’s sentence. “I’m going to fuck you with this.”

  “I–I wont try anything,” she stammered. “But I need to use the bathroom. Is it possible to untie me?”

  “Piss on yourself, bitch. That’s what you been doing.”

  “But since my sister is paying you, please cut me some slack,” Tallhya calmly asked. “Honestly, you don’t have to worry about feeding me. Just get my diet pills out of my purse and I will be okay,” she said.

  “She is human,” Flashlight said.

  “Get that bitch a bucket and give her them leftover bum-ass wings that I got from The Office the other night.”

  Mean-Mug looked like he was about to change his mind. He stared her in the face, and she looked as innocent and hopeless as she could. In return, Flashlight placed a bucket and styrofoam takeout tray of old chicken wings in front of her. However, Mean-Mug still studied her.

  To reassure them that they were making the right decision by untying her, she said, “I promise I won’t do anything crazy.”

  But she couldn’t speak for Wolfe.

  Chapter 20

  The Shake Down

  Tallhya was left alone in the room. She used the time away from her abductors to pray. One after the other, she prayed to God, Me-Ma, Ginger, and Bunny. It was the same prayer each time: Please help me!

  She even asked (via prayer) for help from her no-earthly-good mother. Maybe the woman who gave birth to her would be a better mother from the grave than she was in real life. One thing for sure, Tallhya surmised, was that reaching out to her mother, whether she was in Heaven or Hell, couldn’t make her situation any worse than it already was. Like Me-Ma used to say, “Closed mouths don’t get fed.”