by N'Tyse
Illusion was astounded. Not even Denzel Washington could play a better role than the one he was playing. She had never had to work so hard to convince a man of anything. The bit of dialogue they shared, she found it to be interesting enough to still bless him with her full attention.
“But I do happen to be on a special quest, otherwise I’d enjoy talking with you some more,” he continued. He reached for his designer shades hanging off the visor, and placed them over his face. He watched Illusion lose the thrill in her eyes. But it was his loss, not hers.
Illusion ignored the honking of car horns behind them.“Special quest? Okay, well I don’t wanna hold you up,” she said, as she sneaked a quick scan of his car. She blocked the sun out of her eyes and just when she decided to let the man move on about his business, she almost gave herself whiplash. There was a gold cross hanging on the neck of his rearview mirror, but that wasn’t the reason her mouth flew open and her eyes began to strain. She tried to make out the girl who was posed in the picture wearing a red, white and blue cheerleader uniform. She stepped closer until her breasts were nearly rubbing up against his ride. It had to be her. There was no doubt about it. Illusion broke out in chills, although she was standing directly in the morning sunlight. Gesturing to the picture, “Who’s the girl?” she asked. She had to take a second and third look. “She’s pretty.”
“Oh this?” He took the wallet-sized portrait down and kissed it.
Illusion’s nose flared up and the butterflies in her stomach began to swarm around.
His voice weakened. “This my baby sister, Tylesha,” he said, staring closely at the wallet portrait. “This here was her junior year in high school.” He inhaled deeply. “I drove all the way from Florida for this girl right here, and I promised my mother that I ain’t leaving until I find her.”
Illusion remained paralyzed in complete and suffocating shock.
“Look lady, can you move your car!” A black guy yelled out of his window at Illusion.
“Don’t you see me talking, rude ass!” Illusion snapped back. She turned back to Ty’s brother.
“Speaking of that, that’s my mission for being out this early ’cause a brother normally don’t crack a peek until at least ten in the morning,” he laughed. Beep! Beep! “Well I better get out these folks’ way. Thanks for the compliment,” he smiled.
“Huh? What?” Illusion had spaced out for a moment.
“My eyes, remember? Being sexy and all,” he grinned, showing a beautiful set of straight white teeth.
“Oh yeah.” Illusion rubbed her forehead. She wanted to tell him. She tried to tell him, but the words wouldn’t come out fast enough. “I,” she inhaled. “Um ... I think I can help you find your sister.” She dropped her head and faced him again.
He muted the stereo volume so that he could hear her better. “What was that?” he asked.
Illusion struggled with a way to tell him. She bit down on her bottom lip.
“Fuck you!” the irate guy yelled, whipping his truck around and reversing to the lane with the longer line.
Illusion held up her middle finger without looking in his direction. “I know her. We ... Humph. Look, I know your sister, okay? Let me just help you find her.”
He looked baffled, but the seriousness in Illusion’s face and voice said it all. She knew something. She had information. He removed his shades as if doing so would give him a better understanding of what she was telling him.
Illusion felt faint and the burden that rested on her heart was all too unbearable. It was that exact same feeling she felt oftentimes when she thought about her baby. She wished she hadn’t run into him today. She wished she could walk away and pretend that Ty was better off in the streets, even if she knew it wasn’t true. Instead of feeling what she felt, she wished she was across the street, inside that truck, making her wages by the nut. “Are you telling me you know where my sister might be?”
“Yeah,” Illusion nodded. She was almost too ashamed to admit that she had that kind of information now. “I do. But I just hope you’re ready to find out,” she told him sadly.
“You stealing my gas! Come back! I not charge correctly!” the short Arabian clerk yelled from the front door at everyone who zoomed past in their cars, scurrying across the parking lot in different directions. He had a pen and paper in hand trying to record the license plates but couldn’t write them down fast enough.
Illusion looked around, then at the pump’s display. It was blinking. The clerk had turned them all off. “Follow me!” She circled the pump and hopped in the BMW. She drove it about half a block up from the service station. She pulled into an empty driveway, just as if it were her own, and jumped out the car lugging her belongings. She activated the alarm on the car, then slid the keys into her purse and quickly hopped inside the waiting Infiniti. She hoped this man wouldn’t ask her any questions about that car she just jumped out of, the house they were driving away from, and the bag of clothes she just pushed between her feet.
“So back to my sister. Where is she?”
Illusion looked on in silence as he navigated through the South Dallas neighborhood. She finally looked up at Ty’s brother. “I’ll tell you where to find your sister,” she said. “and when you do, the best thing you can do for her is get her out of Texas. That’s if you want to keep her alive,” she said seriously.
Trent looked from her then back to the road. He gripped the wheel tighter. A million things ran through his mind. He could only think the worst of what this woman was trying to tell him, but luckily he came to Dallas prepared for anything.
“By the way, you never told me your name,” Illusion said, reaching for the sunglasses that rested in his lap.
“You never asked,” he smiled slyly, making a right and merging on to the I-30 freeway. “I’m Trent,” he said, scoping Illusion out in the corner of his eye as she placed his shades over her face.
“Trent?” she repeated. She turned to face him. “Well Trent, I’m Illeshia.”
“Nice to meet you, Illeshia.”
“Pleasure’s all mine,” she smiled. Illusion took another look around her. She was just as afraid now of being spotted as she was earlier. She leaned further back in her seat. As long as she was wanted by Chyna, she could never get too comfortable.
F
11
antasy’s head moved feverishly between Chyna’s succulent thighs. She kissed and drove her pretty pink tongue repeatedly over her lover and pimp’s smooth erotic flesh until all Chyna could do was moan in pure ecstasy and spit orgasm after orgasm into her mouth. She pulled her in closer, gyrating her own hips while her wife’s tongue twirled the tip of her clit. It felt so good but Chyna wanted more. She flipped Fantasy on her backside and played out the scene from all the times before.
“Make me cum,” Fantasy called out. Chyna was right behind her. She rocked her harder, faster. She was in control. Fantasy’s head fell back and her breasts stole the show. Chyna moved her hands over Fantasy’s bouncing breasts, cupping them in her palm as she massaged her nipples between her fingers.
“Oh shit!” Fantasy cried out. She felt the rush of her orgasm bombard all her senses. She made the entire bed shake as if a herd of cows jumped in with them.
Chyna looked down at her own wet stomach and satin sheets. She uncrossed her legs and eased off her bitch. “If my phone rings, answer it,” she said. “I’m expecting a drop today.”
Fantasy nodded her head. “Okay,” she yawned. This was why she felt special. Chyna wasn’t fucking and spending time with the other girls like she did with her. She was her token and it would always be that way if she had anything to do with it.
Three hours had passed before Chyna picked up the phone to call one of the runners that were on schedule to make the drop. “I need to talk to P,” she said.
“Yeah, this him. What up witcha?” P answered groggily. “What’s up with me? Nigga, where the fuck is my shit?” Chyna lashed out into the receiver.
“The drop? Ma
n, you better get outta here with that shit,
Chyna. That’s been done. Ya boy made that happen for us last
night. Shit, you got your days twisted up or something? You got
your dough.”
Chyna gripped the phone tighter. “If I had it, I wouldn’t be
calling you, now would I?” She glanced at her watch. She was
already behind schedule.
“Man, catch this,” P said in his morning voice. “We did what
you told us to. It was that new mark ass cop friend of yours and
whoever the fuck those other cats are you get down with,” P said,
rambling off names. “We dropped half a mil last night on ya boy.
Him and Aaron counted that shit, gave us our keys, and caught
ghost. So all that shit you talkin’ in my ear right now ain’t what’s
up, ma.”
Chyna got quiet. She hated when niggas like him tried to
handle her.
Fantasy returned from the bathroom. She automatically
recognized the heated look in Chyna’s face.
“Look, my business is done here in Dallas. Adiós this shit,” P
said before hanging up in Chyna’s face.
Chyna stared at the phone in her hand.
“What’s going on?” Fantasy asked.
Chyna didn’t say a word. She tried calling James, her
undercover dope pusher, but every call went straight to voicemail.
She was furious. She punched in Aaron’s number, a veteran officer
on the force who also served as her inside connect.
“You’ve reached Aaron. Leave me ya number and a message and I’ll
hit you back.”
Chyna didn’t want to talk to no damn machine! The anger
that filled her made her hurl the phone clean across the room.
She dragged her fingernails through her hair, nearly peeling the
skin off her scalp. “God dammit!” she yelled. She finally raised
her head and saw Fantasy standing in a corner, afraid to make a
move. “Call Fletch!” she ordered.
Fantasy knew by the look in Chyna’s eyes that it could only
mean trouble. She picked up Chyna’s phone and punched in
Fletch’s digits as Chyna paced the room. She waited after a few
rings then handed her the phone.
“Hello,” a woman’s raspy voice on the other end of the
telephone line called out.
“Let me talk to Fletch,” Chyna demanded.
“Who’s this?” the woman questioned, unaware that she was
speaking to Fletch’s boss.
“Ho, just put him on the motherfucking phone!” “Ho?” The woman directed her anger at Fletch. “I’m tired of
your bitches calling. You need to check her ass!”
“Didn’t nobody tell your ass to answer my phone anyway,” Fletch
fired back. “Who the fuck is this?” he asked, still half asleep. “So, I have to be one of your bitches now?”
Fletch’s eyes popped open and the base in his voice vanished once he realized it was Chyna. He double checked the number on the phone. “Chyna? I uh, was uh, just about to call you,” he said, trying to get his lie together. “Man, I looked all night for
Illusion’s ass. She must have—”
Chyna cut him off and saved him the embarrassment of getting
bitched out in front of his woman. “Look,” she exhaled. “I got
crossed last night and I need you to help me track my package.” Fletch was almost unsure if the woman on the phone was
really Chyna, sounding as desperate as she was sounding right
now. “What kind of package?” he asked.
Chyna knew that she was about to give Fletch more
information than he needed to know, but she didn’t feel like she
had much of a choice. All she wanted was her fucking money.
She cleared her throat. “A half a million dollars.”
Those last few words had Fletch’s full attention. He wiped
the matter out of his eyes and hopped out of the bed. He took
a walk down the hall, away from the woman whose name had
completely escaped him. He rested on the loveseat, lit up the
leftover blunt in the ashtray, and concentrated on his next
question. He had to consider what was in it for him, but Chyna
quickly eased his concerns.
“Fifty grand,” Chyna blurted, reading Fletch’s mind. That was more than Fletch could ask for. “Yeah, all right. Let
me just round up my boys and get some shit crackalacking,” he
said confidently. Fletch knew the streets like nobody’s business,
so he was certain that somebody was gonna slip up.
Chyna made a mental deduction of what she had just promised
Fletch. That fifty grand dropped to twenty five hundred. He was
crazy if he thought for one second that she didn’t know he was
fucking Ty behind her back. But now was not the time to bring it to the table. “You do that,” she told him. “In the meantime,
Illusion is still a priority.”
Fletch rolled his eyes as he inhaled his morning herb. “I’ll call you in about an hour. Until then, I think you need
to check Ms. Mouth over there. She needs to recognize a superior
when she speaking to one.” With that, she disconnected the call.
Chyna played everything out in her mind. She knew she could
only count on Fletch to a certain extent, but right now he was her
only hope so all she could do was believe that everything would
pan out nice and smoothly. She took another look at Fantasy. “Go
round up the girls. I want everybody to hear this.”
Fantasy stood to her feet and headed in the direction of upstairs. Chyna had a lot on her plate, but that wasn’t anything new. She
closed her eyes, exhaled a sigh and let her worries run free. She didn’t
have time for this shit today. She checked the time again. She had
runs to make, appointments to clear, and dope to distribute. All the girls stumbled in one by one, a few looking as though
they were about to rip the runway and the others still draped in
whatever they slept in. Chyna glanced around the room, eyeballing
every last one of them. She was two short of twelve girls. “What’s going on? We having a meeting or something?” Peaches
asked everybody. All the other women stared at her bug-eyed. The room was quiet and Chyna had all ears tuned into what
she had to say. “I normally don’t like to waste my time having
to do this, but I will because I wanted y’all to get the news from
me first.” She looked around the room and locked eyes with her
money makers. There was complete silence as everyone held on
to their breath.
“I’ve just been informed that,” Chyna braced herself for
the lie she was about to feed them, “Illusion was murdered last
night.”
Every single mouth in the room flew open. A few of the
women fell into a huddle and started crying while many of the
others showed no remorse, aside from Peaches who stood in
shock. Her and Illusion had gotten real tight in the two months
they lived in that house. She did not want to believe her friend
was dead. She covered her face with her hands and before long,
her own eyes began to mist. Several of the girls cried on each
other’s shoulders while the few that were jealous of Illusion,
batted their lashes and conversed amongst themselves. The news
was devastating but not enough to ruin their makeup. They all
dismissed themselves and P
eaches fell in line behind the others.
She couldn’t wait until this was all over. She closed the door once
she got to her room. Without her roommates, Illusion and Ty,
being there, Peaches was all alone. She pulled out her cell and
sent an anonymous text message.
Downstairs Chyna and Fantasy stood beside each other,
knowing the women couldn’t wait to get on their phones and
spread the news like wildfire. Chyna had just put out an APB
on Illusion, so wherever she was hiding, Chyna knew that it
wouldn’t be for long.
“Call Parkland and see what’s taking Sand and Ty so long,” she
told Fantasy. “They should have been back by now.” She closed
and locked her room door, then walked into the bathroom. She
wasn’t in there for ten minutes before she came back out with
five bricks of cocaine that were hidden in the ceiling. She lined
the packages on the bed then began placing them in a padded
combination briefcase.
Fantasy walked around the bed and took a seat on the chaise.
“Dallas, Texas,” she began, seconds after dialing the number for information. “I need the number to Parkland Hospital.” It only took a second before the number was being called off to her.
“Yes, transfer me.”
“Parkland Emergency, Shaniah speaking.”
“Yes ma’am,” Fantasy went from hood to proper. “I just
found out that my sister was rushed to the emergency room.”
She paused for dramatic effect. “I would just like to know how
she’s doing or if she’s being admitted so that I can go see her.”
The lie rolled off Fantasy’s tongue with ease.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Her name is Tylesha Marshall. T-Y-L-E-S-H-A.” “And when did she come in?”
“Last night. Well, early this morning, I believe.” Fantasy
could hear the woman pecking away at her computer. “As of right now, I don’t show we have her in the computer. But it
could be that our systems haven’t been updated, so you may want to try
back in about an hour or so, just to be sure.”