Guarding Secrets

by Pat Tucker

  Bishop’s eyes got big.

  “Did she hear what was going on?”

  “I’m sure she did. How could she not have heard? I was trying to help Edwards. I couldn’t do that and keep an eye on the damn door. Hell, I didn’t even know I needed to. Damn, Bishop, you had one job!”

  Bishop threw her hands up, like she had a reason to be frustrated.

  “What did you expect me to do? Did you really want me stuck to the bathroom when shit fell apart over the radio? I did what I thought was right. I made an executive decision.”

  It took everything in me not to slap her ass.

  It was a good thing I didn’t because I turned and Sheppard was right there.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. She acted like we were all friends.

  We both looked at her.

  “What makes you think something is wrong?” I wanted to add, “And if it was, why would you think we’d discuss it with you?” She worked my nerves like it was a second job.

  “Looks to me like y’all fighting. I hope it’s not over nothing I brought in. My shit is legit. I don’t play none of that knockoff mess.”

  That comment confirmed for me that Sheppard was an idiot.

  “What’s up, Sheppard? What do you need?”

  “Oh, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Her eyes darted to Bishop like she didn’t want to talk in front of her.

  Bishop didn’t budge.

  Again, I wanted to slap her. If she had been that diligent at the damn bathroom door, we wouldn’t have had a problem with Jones.

  “Bishop, can you give us a minute?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. She had the nerve to act like she was irritated.

  “Oh, you can go look for R.J. I need to talk to him.”

  It seemed like recognition finally registered in her features; she nodded and left.

  Once we were alone, Sheppard moved closer. “Hey listen, I really need to make more paper. So I’m trying to figure out, do y’all know what y’all need beforehand or you just take what we bring in?”

  “Why?”

  “I may have a connect on some cell phones, but I don’t wanna go outta my way if y’all can’t move ’em. I don’t know for sure yet, but if this thing works out, I’m talking at least one or two brand-new cell phones a week.”

  She had my full attention.

  “Brand-new? How can you guarantee that? And can you guarantee that?”

  “I ain’t saying shit else until I know for sure that there’s a deal on the table.”

  I understood her point, but I didn’t need her to know that.

  “Maybe I need to be talking to the boss man instead of you.”

  It made me sick how all the females wanted to get next to DaQuan.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHARISMA

  When I saw Bishop and a couple of DaQuan’s men outside the closet, I figured R.J. must’ve helped Edwards with her situation. It was still funny, even though I would’ve paid money for it to happen to KenyaTaye instead of Edwards.

  I passed by the guards’ booth and saw Franklin and Dunbar. If they hadn’t seen me, I would’ve kept walking. But my eyes connected with Franklin, so I turned to go inside.

  “Say, Jones, you straight?” Franklin turned and asked.

  “Yeah. Good looking out earlier.”

  Dunbar didn’t say a word. That was fine with me. There was no need for us to make small talk or act like we could stand each other when we couldn’t.

  I was about to take a seat when it dawned on me, I was still loaded.

  “If y’all got it under control in here, I’m about to go make some rounds.”

  “Oh yeah, you straight,” Franklin said.

  Again, Dunbar didn’t speak. To think she was the damn sergeant on duty, but she ignored me unless she couldn’t avoid it.

  The thought of going back into the bathroom made me uneasy. Even though I was sure R.J. and Edwards were in the closet, thoughts of what happened to her earlier stayed on my mind. I couldn’t erase the sound, sight, or smell of them in that bathroom.

  Once inside the bathroom, I checked to make sure it was empty. Relieved that I was alone, I went into the stall and felt around my weave to get the plastic bags out. I had four. Once that was done, I sat on the toilet and removed my boots. I carefully removed the packages from each shoe and inspected the bags.

  The last thing I needed was for R.J. to find broken pills. He’d try to dock my pay, and I couldn’t have that.

  I took the packets and slipped them into my pockets. Once I was confident that it didn’t look too obvious, I went back to the booth.

  This time, Edwards was with Dunbar. The second I walked in, they stopped talking. That was just fine with me because I wasn’t interested in their pussy-diving conversation anyway.

  With the two of them in the booth, that meant I could go deal directly with R.J. and that’s what I preferred.

  “S’up, Charisma?” R.J. said, the moment I approached.

  “I got something for you.” I winked at him.

  “That’s what’s up, ma! That’s what’s up!”

  His enthusiasm made me feel like I could pull anything off. I wished I could deal only with him and not Dunbar’s mean and ignorant ass.

  “C’mon around here so we can do this real quick.”

  I followed R.J. to one of the areas outside of the cameras’ range. I pulled the packets out of both pockets and discreetly handed them over to him.

  “Ya did real good this time, ma. That’s like double what ya did last week. Oh, boss man’s gonna be real happy when I let him know.”

  And that right there was what made it worth it for me. I was sure R.J. was just talking, but I knew he reported everything to DaQuan.

  DaQuan paid well in cash and other things too. Thanks to my cousin Lance, I was able to keep a steady flow of pills coming into Jester. In the short time I had been on the team, I had already solidified myself as the go-to C.O. for pills.

  Once I unloaded my contraband, I left the secluded area ahead of R.J. just in case someone paid attention to us. It felt good to unload the pills. The last thing I wanted was to have pills on me as I walked around the prison. It was hard to get the contraband inside, and even harder, or downright dangerous to hold on to it once it was inside.

  With one eye on the clock, I made a couple of rounds, then prepared to end my workday. It dawned on me that outside of work, I really didn’t have much of a life. But after all I had been through, that was fine.

  The money I got for the pills would help me get out of some debt and be able to live better.

  I rounded the corner, and walked right into a melee. A group of inmates was kicking and stomping someone on the ground. I froze. I couldn’t even tell who was down there, and I looked around for backup, but there was none. I didn’t know what to do. Nothing from training popped into my head. I was frozen.

  After a few seconds, I fumbled to get to my radio.

  All of a sudden, DaQuan walked up on the scene and everything changed.

  “Yo! What the fuck is y’all doing?”

  At the mere sound of his voice, the inmates stopped what they were doing and the person on the ground quickly scurried away.

  “What the fuck was y’all thinking? I don’t remember telling nobody to handle that kind of bi’niz. This ain’t gonna do nothing but make things hard around here. Y’all know the rules; ya don’t touch nobody unless it’s cleared.” Their eyes fell to the floor.

  He had reduced big, grown men to children.

  “Dude tried to steal my Green Dot card,” someone said.

  “So ya’ll jump him because of that? Why didn’t ya go through the proper channels? Y’all trippin’!”

  Since he had the situation covered, there was nothing for me to do but stand and watch as he handled it. After it was all over, a couple of male correctional officers rushed to the area. They were late and out of breath.

  “What’s going on here, Jones?�
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  I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “The situation is over,” DaQuan said.

  I thought I saw relief flash across the C.O.s’ faces. If it wasn’t on theirs, I knew for certain it was on mine. When I saw the group as they beat that inmate, I couldn’t help. It reminded me of a pit bull on a piece of raw steak.

  That’s not a situation any female wants to handle. There was little I could do. When a mob was angry, it’s liable to turn on anybody. I wasn’t ready for the hazards of the job.

  The C.O.s looked around and said, “You okay, Jones?”

  “Yeah, she straight,” DaQuan answered.

  The way he moved in and took complete control of the situation made me feel like he could handle anything. Words couldn’t describe the intense attraction I felt for him at that moment. His power was incredible.

  “DaQuan, you gon’ handle this or what?” one of the C.O.s asked.

  “Yeah, lemme see what was really going on and I’ll take care of it.”

  “Okay, now, you better handle it because if we do—”

  “C’mon, man! Go on with that bullshit! I just told ya I’ma take care of it. I don’t need to hear all the extras. I got this.”

  DaQuan pushed himself between my two coworkers and walked away.

  “Look, man, we don’t want to make him mad. He’s the reason our jobs are easier around here,” one of the C.O.s said.

  “How’s that, man?”

  “You must not have worked in a prison before. Man, fights break out over the simplest shit; somebody always trying to punk somebody else. Not in here. DaQuan keeps it calm and for whatever reason, they listen to him, so it’s all good.” The C.O. shrugged.

  I had heard about DaQuan’s power before, but in that moment, I came to understand the real power he had over the Jester unit, and I liked it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KENYATAYE

  As I strode around the cell block, everything was quiet and in order. I approached the TV room and saw him surrounded by his soldiers.

  He was in the middle of a meeting, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to interrupt, but I got close enough to hear what he was talking about. I was careful not to let him see me.

  “If it ain’t ’bout the money, then it ain’t my business. In here, pussy is our connection to that paper, and that paper is the business.” DaQuan looked around at the workers, then continued. “When I came back to jail, I’m like, shit, I’m not going to stop making my money. Ya feel me? I seen what the fuck was going on, asked a few people what was up and who was who, and what was what. I am just about my money. Ya hear me? I got to get it.”

  A few heads nodded.

  “Money and pussy!”

  He turned to the Minister of Finance, Ryan Jacob, better known as R.J., and said, “You up, playboy.”

  Jacob fixed the glasses on the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat. “Okay, so peep this. We only pulled in sixteen G’s last month. Ten of that alone came from pills. The rest is a combination of weed and meth.” I wasn’t surprised to learn that profits were down. DaQuan had been sloppy.

  “What about the strips?” DaQuan asked.

  R.J.’s forehead wrinkled as he looked down at the paper he was reading from. Sixteen thousand was a slow month. We took a hit on the north side when we lost a man over there. That meant sales would be down until we could fill the void, and I knew DaQuan was still trying to figure out how to recoup.

  But when the business suffered, we all suffered. It was all about money and how to make more money. That’s why I didn’t understand how he took the risks he took. Why put Jones on the team when she hadn’t even passed her probation period on the job yet? Why have Sheppard on the team when she was clearly strung out?

  How come he couldn’t stick to the system? Our system had worked for years. Trusted correctional officers smuggled pills, phones, and drugs into the prison.

  The working men consisted of trustees, those inmates with jobs at the facility. They pushed Suboxone Strips, Xanax, and Percocet. It was simple enough because they had free reign of the prison and its grounds through their jobs as kitchen helpers, janitors, or mail room workers.

  In addition to the pills, and depending on who came through, we got weed, meth, and some crack too. But lately, pills sold like free hotcakes.

  Some of the chicks that wasn’t on the team also sold ass or blowjobs. Before DaQuan and I got serious, I used to sell blowjobs too. It was a way to make fast cash. I wasn’t proud of it, but it was what I did. That was before me and DaQuan started kicking it.

  A lot of money floated through the system, and the way DaQuan had it set up, everybody was on the payroll, basically. Most of the inmates used Green Dot cards. Those were like preloaded credit cards, and they worked better than cash. Inmates would get their relatives and friends to put money on their cards. Inmates used them to buy everything from liquor to ass. But cash still found its way behind bars.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right, I see it now. Ten is from the pills and the strips. My bad,” R.J. said.

  “Okay, so how’d we do on taxes?” DaQuan asked.

  “Real small amount; wasn’t even worth its own column on the report.”

  Taxes were like gravy. DaQuan charged ten percent to other inmates who sold anything outside of our crew. That was a rule that had to be enforced. One time an inmate lucked up on some tobacco. He had to get DaQuan’s permission before he sold any of it. He held it for nearly two weeks. After the inmate agreed to the tax, dude sold out in less than two hours.

  DaQuan made it clear; he couldn’t have anyone selling willy-nilly. He insisted that if others thought they could sell without paying the tax, eventually that would cut into our profits and DaQuan couldn’t have that.

  At first, I thought a tax was too risky and would cause problems, but he knew what he was doing. My baby was smart as hell.

  “Hmm. That’s not cool.” DaQuan turned to Larry Reed, aka Lucky, the Minister at Arms. “So ol’ boy ain’t paid yet?”

  They were talking about Colt Anderson, a new dude who had transferred in a few months ago. He thought he was above the law and probably thought he could get away with not paying. If he knew like I knew, he’d better get in line because he didn’t want DaQuan to have to show him he meant business.

  “Nah, not a dime,” Lucky said.

  DaQuan’s face became stoic. I could nearly see the wheels that spun in his head as he made a decision. A few seconds later, he looked at Larry and said, “Make the message clear after breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  “Bet that,” Lucky said.

  That meant Colt would soon be headed to the infirmary. He wouldn’t be dead, but by the time they were finished with him, he’d wish he was.

  The minister of education, Darius Patterson, or Don Juan, nodded slightly when DaQuan looked at him.

  “Three soldiers are working their C.O.s. They should be flipped by next week. Oh, and we got two new ones on the yard, and I got a good feeling about both of ’em.”

  Don Juan’s job was to teach the working men, soldiers, and everybody else how to do business DaQuan’s way. The key to our success was the females who helped move product. Everybody had a job to do and that kept the business successful.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “You ain’t seen ’em yet?” Don Juan’s eyes got wide.

  A couple of the guys laughed. One pressed his lips together, blew air into his jaws and spread his arms wide, to show how big one of the women was. They all started to crack up with laughter—everybody but DaQuan.

  That bastard liked all shapes and sizes.

  “Hear what I’m telling ya, playboy. Just because a female big, that don’t mean she got low self-esteem. Them confident broads ain’t nothing but trouble, and we don’t need trouble. I don’t care what size she is; stay away from them confident broads. They too hard to flip.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, or how one could tell such a thing, but I continued to listen.
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  “Okay, boss man, I feel you,” Don Juan said.

  They were in the corner near the kitchen where they met once a week. The C.O.s pretty much knew what was up, so we made sure everybody stayed away so DaQuan could conduct business.

  “Pay attention to the target. I don’t care who’s new. Let’s not lose focus on those we been working on. Remember we only interested in the ones who are loners.” He was in his zone. That shit was sexy to watch.

  “Send mixed signals; be tough. But chill too. One day drop a bunch of compliments, but two days later, act like ya don’t even know her. We need her to be unhappy. Ya gotta handle it right. If ya get straight to the point too soon, ya risk resistance that’s impossible to get through.”

  He used his hand to count down his points. “This is a proven system. Start out as a friend, then slowly work yo way toward hitting it. Once ya lull her into feeling secure, that’s when ya strike. Even better, try to get at her through a third party.”

  At first it felt good to watch him in action. But the more I listened, the more the things he said started to make me sick. Is that what he did to me? Was I a guinea pig?

  “Damn, Boss, you a master at this shit,” Lucky said.

  The other inmates looked up to DaQuan and hung on every word that flowed from his mouth.

  “It ain’t brain surgery. Follow my lead and we straight. When y’all try to do this shit yo way, that’s when ya fuck things up, believe that.”

  A few heads nodded. He looked at R.J. and said, “Tell Dunbar to pay e’erbody by the end of the day. Anybody else got anything?”

  “Nah. I think we straight,” Lucky said.

  “Okay then, cool. Let’s go get that paper!” DaQuan said.

  I watched as everybody got up from the table and walked away.

  “Yo, Lucky, fall back for a sec.”

  Larry told R.J. he’d catch up to him later; then he walked over to DaQuan.

  “Whassup, boss man?”

  “Tell Jones I need to see her in the closet this afternoon.”

  “I’m on it,” Lucky said, then left.

  Did he just say he wanted to meet that bitch in the closet?