Partnerz in Crime

by Kareem

  “You make me feel very special and wanted, Korey.” After I placed her gift on her arm, we kissed some more.

  “Because you are special,” I told her with a feathery rub of my hand up and down her back. She was sitting on my lap with only a designer leopard bra and thong on. I was wearing only leopard briefs that she had also bought for me and suggested I wear for this romantic occasion. She was looking so sexy in her bra and thong. Her bra held her voluptuous breasts incarcerated. Wanting to kiss, lick, and suck them, I lifted her bra up, freeing her tits like the judge freed me of my unreasonable prison sentence. I kissed and sucked one while gently squeezing the other with my hand. I pinched her nipples with my fingertips. She moaned when I did that.

  After making love to her warm, soft tits with my mouth, tongue, hand, and fingertips, I lifted her up into my strong, muscular arms. I carried her to her bedroom and lay her on her bed. I removed my briefs, then crawled to her and got back to sucking her nipples, both of them, which caused her back to arch and her to take in air between her teeth. I kissed and licked my way down to her flat stomach and circled my tongue on her navel.

  Wanting to taste her sweetness, I pulled her thong off, got on my knees, and held her legs up at her inner lower soft thighs. I buried my face and tongue in her delicious peach pie of pleasure, causing her to squirm and grip my head in ecstasy.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said, eating her to bliss.

  “Thank you, Santa,” she softly shot back, enjoying the ride.

  Chapter 18

  Happy Birthday!

  Six months after Christmas, on a beautiful summer day in June damn near ninety degrees, I picked Shamika up from her job in my Vette. It was her birthday, June tenth. I’d already had a dozen red roses sent to her job with a gift basket of bath stuff, including a gift certificate for a massage, facial, and manicure. She hopped inside my car, kissed me, and told me that all her girlfriends at her job as a cashier at Walmart off South Boulevard were harmlessly jealous of the fact that her daughter’s father was home and treating her like a queen on a throne. I smiled hard when she told me that. For all I ever wanted was to make her happy and as comfortable as possible in life.

  “You said you had somewhere you wanted to take me, Korey. Where?” she asked as I drove out to Mint Hill, which was on the outskirts of Charlotte. I pulled up to a nice-ass double-wide trailer with nice green lawn and a big driveway.

  “Who lives here?”

  I turned the engine to my car off, reached into my pocket, and retrieved a set of keys. “You do,” I said, handing her the keys.

  “I do? Korey, are you serious?” she said, wide-eyed, with her hand covering her mouth.

  “It’s yours, sweetheart. A two-bedroom double wide and fully furnished. C’mon, let’s take a look inside.”

  Once inside, Shamika could hardly move. She stood still and looked around at her new place of residence. She covered her eyes with her hands and broke down crying.

  “No, baby girl, don’t cry,” I said, wrapping my arms around her.

  “I’m just happy, Korey. That’s all.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, to make you happy, sweetheart. I love you and our daughter.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. “Thank you, Korey.”

  “Keisha owns a lot of property and houses, Mika. She sold this to me for seventy grand. The paperwork is straight. Everything.”

  “Seventy grand, Korey? That’s a lot of money. Are you serious?” she said as we toured her new place.

  “That’s nothing. I’ve been doing a helluva lot of hustling and saving. Trust me. We just got to keep up the property tax. It’s nothing, though. Keisha will handle everything for me on that end.”

  “You sure?”

  “Most definitely. She’s a business woman and a good girl. A real good friend, she is.”

  “Okay, but let me ask you this, Korey, because I notice you talk a lot about her—”

  “Only because she has helped me a great deal since I’ve been home. She’s really a good friend and business consultant, Mika,” I cut in.

  “I can understand that. But are the two of you intimately involved? That’s what I would like to know,” she asked, looking me directly in the eyes for the truth. We had stopped right where our daughter’s room was going to be. I looked back into her eyes, knowing how she was and how she felt about me having a side piece. That was a no-no in her eyes. If I told her the truth, that I was in love with Keisha, but on a level different from the one she and I shared, it would be a truth that Shamika would vehemently contest for lack of understanding my blossoming friendship and soul tie with Keisha.

  “Look, Mika,” I said, attempting to answer her without saying something I shouldn’t that would cause her to slap the hell out of me. I knew her. She was not into sharing her man and throne with no other woman. Oh, no. Not if she could help it. “I just gave you the keys to your own house. The days of you paying rent are over. I got another surprise for you as well. All I want is for you and our daughter to be as comfortable as possible and out of the fucking projects. Now, you know me. I’m never going to outright, on purpose, disrespect you. Neither will I allow anyone else to. All I ask, Mika, is that you afford me the same courtesy and not trip off shit that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. Wait,” she said, putting her hand up and staring at me with a look that told me that she was about to get all in her feelings over this. “I understand all that. And it goes without saying as far as whether I love you. You know I do. And I respect you.”

  “Then, baby girl, you gotta let me be me. I’m not a peewee. I’m a man.”

  “I challenge you to act like it. Because, listen, Korey,” she said, now pointing her finger in my face, “I won’t be your fool.”

  I blew air out of my mouth, causing my jaws to inflate, and I slightly turned my head and closed my eyes. The last thing I needed was for her to start bitchin’! “C’mon, Mika. Let’s not do this on your birthday.”

  “Do what?” she shot back with attitude.

  “Start arguing over nothing!”

  “I’m not arguing with you, Korey. But you will not be pissing on my face and calling it rain!”

  “So that’s what you think I’m doing? Pissing on your face and calling it rain, Mika?”

  All of a sudden, she got quiet on me. Just stood in front of me, lips poked and arms crossed. When she got all quiet and shit, that was when I had to really watch her. It was in those moments she’d be thinking that what she was saying to me was going in one ear and out the other. When she started feeling like that, like I was not listening to her point of view, that was when she started wanting to talk with her hands. So what did I do next? I gently placed my hands on her shoulders and softly looked her in her eyes.

  “I picked you up at your job, baby girl, to give you your birthday present, to show you just what you mean to me. How many niggas you know hustling and taking their baby mama and their child out of the projects to better living? Niggas out here making money and spending it in strip clubs and on fucking rims for a car, while their baby mama and kids are struggling!”

  “And I appreciate my birthday gift,” she said calmly. “But you’re still not answering my question, Korey.”

  “Because I don’t need you asking me shit like that regarding Keisha.”

  “Why not? What is there to hide?”

  “It’s irrelevant, Mika. That’s why. And, trust me, I ain’t got nothing to hide.”

  “Then give me a direct answer, Korey. Are the two of you intimately involved?”

  “No!” I lied. “Now, you happy?” I had too much love for her to tell her the absolute truth. Telling her the absolute truth would only cause her to toss and turn at night wondering if I loved Keisha more than I loved her. Plus, telling her the absolute truth would have gotten me slapped on the spot. Now I knew why they say, “Don’t let your left hand know what your right one is doing.” Some things you
just gotta keep to yourself.

  “I know you lying, Korey.” She pointed her finger in my face. “I swear you better not bring me no disease. God knows you better not do that. And you better not have Olivia around her like that’s her second mother. The devil is a liar! I didn’t have our daughter around no man while you were gone because I didn’t have one. So you do me that favor and not have her around your woman you’re lying about, ’cause y’all got far more than a bizzzness relationship. I should punch you!” She pushed my shoulder.

  I started laughing and shaking my head. But this was Olivia’s mother. My heart. I loved her to death. “I’m grown. We’re grown, Mika. Let’s focus only on what really matters. If I had a hundred women, not one of them would be Shamika. There’s only one of you. My baby.”

  “Whateva.” She smiled, sucking her teeth. I reached and pulled her to me by her waist.

  “You and our daughter got a roof over your head that you can call your own. That’s all that really matters to me. You hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Good. Give me a kiss.”

  She kissed me with her eyes closed, intimately.

  “I love you, girl,” I said, wrapping my arms around her tightly. “Okay, now, let me show you what else Keisha helped me purchase for you. You do like this crib, though, right?”

  “I love it.”

  “All right then, good.”

  Shamika and I hopped back into my Vette and drove a couple blocks from the crib I bought her. We pulled up on this busy strip where there were businesses of all sorts, black and white owned. I escorted her to a spot right next to a white-owned barbershop. It was a small beauty salon that had been up for sale. An older Korean lady owned it who Keisha knew as a client. She had filed bankruptcy and gone out of business due to tax issues relating to some of her other business endeavors. I had to have it for my baby.

  “You told me that while I was in the joint, you went to cosmetology school to be a beautician and that you had even gotten your license, right, Mika?”

  “I did,” she confirmed. “Been wanting my own shop ever since. I swear, Korey.”

  “Well, now you have your own three-chair shop.” I gave her the key, and we went inside. It was small, but still very clean and nice. Shamika looked around and nodded her head.

  “I like it. Now I ain’t gotta worry about doing hair at my apartment. Thank you, baby!” She kissed and hugged me. “How much did it cost you?”

  “Almost twenty for this. But, again, Keisha made it happen.”

  “Twenty thousand?” she said, surprised. “Korey, not to be all in your business, but you making money like that?”

  I wanted to tell her that Hammer and I were rolling selling heroin, that sometimes we’d make $50,000 with one drop. We were selling an ounce of good heroin anywhere from $12,000 to $15,000 a pop. I didn’t go all into that with my sweetheart, though. The less she knew of my criminal involvements, the better.

  “I’m doing pretty good, baby girl,” I answered her. “Mainly, I just been saving.” I had learned while in the joint, in a business awareness class, that making money was one thing. Managing it was another. There was no way I was gonna be back hustling, making crazy cash and not have enough sense to put that cash where I felt it was needed, securing not only my future, but the future and comfort of Shamika and our beautiful daughter, Olivia.

  “Happy birthday,” I told her with tears in my eyes from seeing her so happy. “Happy birthday.” I wondered if her mother would think I was good enough for her daughter now. Probably wouldn’t. But fuck it. I was here to make her daughter happy, not her.

  Chapter 19

  Fuck Beating Josh’s Ass

  Keisha

  “Fuck beating Josh’s ass,” I told my brother-in-law while sucking my teeth and dismissing the thought of wanting to see him scared and bruised all up. Hammer had come to my condo with Korey to get confirmation from me regarding the matter. When they arrived at my condo, it was late, like a quarter to midnight on a Friday. They both were dressed in all black and riding their twin Ninja bikes, which I discerned from seeing their bike helmets in their hands. I saw that they were both also packing guns. They had placed them on my kitchen table where we were sitting and sipping on green tea with lemon. Hammer had fired up a blunt and passed it to me for a hit. I hit it and passed it to Korey. He said he was cool, so I passed it back to Hammer.

  “Are you sure you don’t want this muthafucka fucked up, Ke?” Hammer asked, between holding in the smoke from his mellow grass. He was looking for further confirmation. After all, we had made a deal. I came through on my end. Now he was ready to deliver on his end. I knew he would be, sooner or later. One thing about my brother-in-law, he didn’t play with his word. If he said he was gonna do something, he did it.

  “Korey and I drove by that cat’s crib, and we saw him from a distance, playing with a little boy on his porch. I was ready to serve his ass.”

  “Yeah, that little boy was more than likely his new bitch’s son. Apparently, the bitch had him from a previous marriage. Like I said, fuck him. I’m moving on.” When I said that, I noticed Korey nodding as if to say that was the right thing to do. Hammer passed me the blunt again, and I took another drag, then passed it back.

  “I was about to serve the dude, but Korey stopped me and said that we should check with you for a final word.”

  “Well, now you have it, Ham. Let him be. Besides,” I said, pouring them some more of my homemade green tea, “the two of you got your hands full doing what you’re doing, businesswise. Correct?”

  “Business is good. Real good,” Hammer replied.

  “Not to mention catching up to that rat, Fat Raheem! We all want to see him get his.”

  “Oh, for sho’, Ke. Korey and I will see him soon. Real soon, hopefully.” I saw Korey nod when Hammer said that. They both changed their facial expressions as he said that. They put on their thug faces for that one.

  Fat Raheem was the chief stoolpigeon in my father’s case. I never forgot his fat ass and what he decided to do against my father for the Feds. This rat sat at our father’s table and was even referred to as “Uncle Rah” by Kolanda and me. He was extremely close to our father. He was family! But he crossed my father to save his own ass from experiencing prison. It’s always the ones close to you that hurt you the most.

  While we were talking, Hammer’s phone went off. He went to the bathroom to answer it. It was Kolanda. She had gone out of town on business, which was why I had been over at my condo. Korey and Hammer were at the house doing what they did.

  “How is Shamika and Olivia?” I asked Korey.

  “They good. Love their new place. Olivia is going to finish school out where she is, which will be out in a month or so. Later, Shamika will enroll her in a school near their new place. They love it, though, Ke.”

  “That’s good. How about things at Shamika’s new salon?”

  “Well, it’s only been open a month and a half, but business is starting to pick up for her. She got the other two chairs filled. Some young twenty-five-year-old gay black dude rented one and a black woman, who is, I think, in her mid-forties, got the other. They both seem like good people. All of them had clients the other day when I was over there. So things are coming along.”

  “I’m happy for her. I know she means a lot to you. I think it was smart of you to get her her own shop. You a good man, Korey.”

  “You think so?”

  “Know so.” He leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Couldn’t have made none of that possible for Shamika and our daughter without you. I appreciate you, Ke.”

  “I know you do.”

  “What about you, Ke? I noticed you been working crazy hard lately.”

  “Just finally got a settlement. $1.6 million.”

  “What?” His eyes widened.

  “My client suffered some serious, debilitating injuries. He should have gotten more. He was beaten pretty badly, walks with a cane, and h
as problems remembering things. Remember, cops only have the authority to arrest you, not assault you. So Kolanda and I are glad we were able to get a nice settlement for him.”

  Hammer walked back into the kitchen, phone in hand. “Well, y’all, that was my wife. She’s on her way home and wants yours truly to have her bathwater ready.”

  “She’s on her way home right now, Ham?”

  “Yeah, like an hour away. Told her we were all over here at your place, talking. She said for me to tell you that things look good with that office y’all hoping to open in Rockingham.”

  “Oh, great.” I clapped my hands, excited. Kolanda had gone to Rockingham, North Carolina, to see about opening an office. She stayed there two days with a girlfriend of ours who was also a successful practicing attorney. She wanted us to partner with her in a firm. Pamela was her name, and she did federal and state cases. Unlike my sister and me, she was a criminal trial attorney. She had clients who had wrongful convictions that she wanted my sister and me to represent in lawsuits. The only reason I didn’t go with my sister to help solidify our partnership with Pamela was because I had been busy getting that $1.6 million settlement for my client the Mecklenburg County cops assaulted.

  Hammer left so that he could be home when my sister got there. Korey and I kicked back, ordered some Domino’s, and watched my favorite movie of all time, Coming to America. I crashed in his arms.

  When I awoke late the next day around 11:00 a.m., Korey was nowhere in sight. He just left a note: “I’ll call you,” I read.

  Chapter 20

  Taking a Trip to Monroe

  Korey

  “Korey, what it do, dawg?” Hammer greeted me on the other end of the phone. He phoned at nine in the morning on the dot while I was still at Keisha’s.

  “Man, I’m lying here on Keisha’s sofa with her in my arms,” I said groggily and as quietly as possible to avoid awakening her.