Partnerz in Crime

by Kareem

  After scooping KJ up and taking him to school, he got with Hammer over at their studio around nine o’clock to begin recording and putting finishing touches on Mad Loot’s and She’Cute’s upcoming CDs. She’Cute, who Korey had been working very closely with being that he discovered her, was a petite cutie with short blond hair who wore a small diamond nose ring to look sexier. People said that she put them in mind of Miley Cyrus. She sang with the vocals of Mary J. Blige, but her swag was like that of a Lil’ Kim.

  Korey took a liking to her and so did Hammer after overhearing her in the parking lot of a club late one night. She was singing as she was walking with some other girl to the other girl’s car. Korey looked at Hammer in amazement at her heavenly voice. So, having called her over, he introduced himself, along with Hammer, and gave her his recording studio card.

  Three days after that introduction, She’Cute called him. Korey set up a meeting with her over at the studio in the presence of Hammer and some of the studio engineers. Korey told her to get on the mic and sing the late, great Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You.” She’Cute killed that song. That’s when Korey and Hammer knew that they had to sign her. Now, after a whole year of working with her closely, it was nearing the time for her CD to drop. Korey just had to have her perfect her vocals on a few tracks previously recorded.

  Korey had been working with her since this morning; then, after breaking around 3:00 p.m. to pick KJ up from school, he had returned only to receive that call from Olivia.

  The news Olivia dropped on him hit him like a slug to his chest from a twelve-gauge shotgun. Someone had dared to mistreat his baby girl without knowing who her father was. Moreover, who her uncle was.

  Korey’s head was hurting now, thinking about getting to his daughter’s assailants. But at the same time, while mobilizing on his way to the studio, he was thinking about what Shamika dropped in his ear on the matter as well. He knew that Shamika loved the hell out of their daughter. Olivia was her only child. They were also like best friends. If anyone wanted justice for what happened to Olivia, it was Shamika. She would move heaven, earth, and hell for Olivia’s well-being and safety. But she wasn’t a stupid mother who would dare risk her freedom just to get revenge. Korey knew this about her. He had to respect her point of view. She was just being Shamika. But he was a street-oriented cat. He loved Shamika tremendously because she, if no one else, had his very best interests at heart. He just couldn’t see himself being the “call the cops, let them handle their daughter’s gripe” type. That mentality was foreign to him and the Partnerz in Crime circle, where there the motto was, “Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Fuck over anyone in this family and we’re comin’ to see you!”

  “Yo, Ham. What’s up, babe?” Korey had phoned him about fifteen minutes away from the studio. He turned the volume down on his music.

  “Over here recording a hit, my nig. What it do?” Hammer said, raising his voice over the loud music in his background from the Mad Loot recording.

  “On my way over.”

  “Good. How’s O, yo? Baby girl a’ight?”

  “Nah, we got a problem. But I’ll put it in ya ear in a moment.”

  “Okay, bet that. Look here, She’Cute right here. She wants to holla at’cha.”

  “Put her on.”

  “K, this you?”

  “Yeah, what’s up, Cute?”

  “Are you coming back over?”

  “I am. In fact, I’m on my way now.”

  “Mad and I laced and laid that track. It’s hot, I swear. You gotta hear it. Hammer said it’s a hit!” she said with mad excitement ringing through her voice.

  Korey smiled on the other end of the phone and said, “Word, yo?” In the music business, a hit song and record meant mad cha-ching, as in lots of dough. For her to tell him that Hammer called what she and Mad Loot had worked on a “hit” meant a lot. Because, like him, Hammer had a seriously keen ear for good music. He had predicted that two other artists on their roster had hits when he heard their singles. He turned out to be absolutely right. Both of their singles made Billboard’s Top 10 and went gold.

  “Yeah, it’s that fye. I promise you.”

  “Well, I’ll definitely hear it for myself in a li’l bit. Besides that, Cute, everything’s a’ight with you?”

  “Things couldn’t be better for me right now, K. I’m working with you and Hammer. Y’all are like the Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson here in the Queen City. Everybody and their mother with talent trying to get signed by y’all. P.I.C. Records is the Motown here. Like I said, things couldn’t be better, K.”

  “If you and Mad laced that track like you said, it’s going to get better.”

  “Oh, we laced it. You’ll see,” she cut in, still with that exuberant excitement echoing through her voice. She was mad confident over having combined her vocal skills with the highly potent lyrical rap skills of Mad Loot, who she considered an up-and-coming heavyweight in the rap game.

  “The team at P.I.C. Records is going to push you and Mad as far as we can. I just want you to continue working your ass off.”

  “I am, K.”

  “Hard work and dedication is the key. Our other two artists, Gurl Squad and Juice, are back on tour and selling mad CDs. So just keep working hard. Y’all next.”

  “Like I said, K, I am, and I know Mad gon’ continue working his ass off. He wants to be just as successful as I do.”

  “Tell Hammer I’m pulling into the lot now and to come out and meet me.”

  “Okay. I got you, K. See you when you come in.”

  “Bet.”

  Hammer checked his watch as he was walking out of the studio to meet Korey in the parking lot. His watch read 8:28 p.m. He saw Korey with his elbows on the hood of the driver’s side of his Benz and his chin resting on his hands, which were locked together by his fingers. He was looking out into the darkness that was blanketing the atmosphere, being that the sun had long rested.

  “What’s up, K? Why you wanted to talk out here?” Hammer asked, placing his arm around Korey’s shoulders. He knew his ace well enough to know that the look of him being in deep thought meant that Korey’s spirit was disturbed.

  “Two bitch-ass niggas violated baby girl, yo,” Korey looked Hammer in the eyes and face and said as calm and cool as he could.

  “Say what?” Hammer shot back, hoping he didn’t hear what he thought he just heard. “In what way?”

  “One was her so-called boyfriend. The other, his best buddy. According to O, they were celebrating the nigga’s twenty-first birthday. They all were partying hard and drinking. When the party was over—”

  “K,” Hammer cut him off and put his hand up. “You better not be about to tell me that my niece got raped. Is that what O drove from college to tell you, my nigga?” Hammer looked at Korey with thug eyes, nose flared and lips tightened.

  A tear suddenly fell from Korey’s eye while he nodded slowly. “The muthafuckas forced O to suck ’em off.”

  “I don’t wanna hear no more.” Hammer whipped his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling O right got’damn now.”

  “Call her. But, Ham, don’t say nothing crazy over the phone. You and I both know that those two niggas are on borrowed time right now. They will not get away with what they did.”

  “You know what?” Hammer said, putting his phone back in his pocket and pacing back and forth in front of Korey, thug mad. “Where them niggas stay?”

  “O gon’ have everything we need to know by the weekend. I already told her what to do. Plus, she graduates next month. So—”

  “Yeah, but we’re not waiting until she graduates to holla at them niggas who violated and disgraced her, K. Are you buggin’? Them niggas didn’t wait to get their dicks sucked by my got’damn niece. Fuck that! I wanna know where they can be located, bottom line, K! And we gon’ make ’em come up missing.”

  “We’ll know when O come home for the weekend.”

  “Man!” Hammer exclaimed, hitting his
fist in his palm. “O, my got’damn baby. Ain’t no nigga touching her inappropriately without having to answer for it. Fuck that!” Hammer was hyped and ready to see Olivia’s perpetrators dealt with, if possible, right now, even in the face of putting their new artists on hold. He didn’t give a damn. Violating someone in their family was the worst thing someone could ever do in his eyes.

  Korey was the same way, but he was a little more nonchalant and composed about it. Not that he wasn’t mad as hell over the matter; but he had learned, while taking anger management classes in prison, to control his anger and not let it control him. It was a reality that even Shamika put him in remembrance of. This was why after Olivia had shared the news with him he walked outside to calm himself down, as well as to give her time to gather information. He wanted to see how he would be feeling in a couple days. He knew that “day one anger” over a matter was the deadliest. Moreover, he knew that no matter how much he cooled himself down, it was just a matter of time before O’s violators meet her father.

  Chapter 34

  As Korey and Hammer continued working with their artists in the Queen City and contemplating murder, in the small town of Monroe possible trouble for both of them was brewing. A story that was aired all over the news eight years ago of a vicious execution-style murder that was speculated to have been drug related was suddenly back headlining nearly every local news station there and in surrounding areas.

  “Authorities say that it was one of the most gruesome murder scenes ever witnessed in an upscale, quiet suburban neighborhood in Monroe. It looked to have been a murder of two, but one miraculously survived: a female, Sheila Malinda Lawrence, who suffered a gunshot to her forehead. Authorities believe that she knew that she was about to be shot because her Life Alert was pressed, alerting 911 that there was an emergency at the residence. When authorities arrived, they found her home on fire. Police personnel were able to drag both bodies from the house. A male body, that of Donald Lee Lawrence, was said to be deceased on arrival. The female was unconscious, but she had a pulse. They both suffered severe burns from the fire. She was immediately rushed to the emergency room, where she underwent surgery after surgery before slipping into a deep coma.

  “Authorities say that after eight years of being in a comatose state, her eighty-nine-year-old mother, who refused to pull the plug on the life support system her daughter was supported by, was elated when her daughter slightly opened her eyes. Authorities are hoping that she will soon be able to open her mouth and provide them with information regarding who shot and killed her husband and attempted to kill her, leaving them both for dead.”

  Kolanda was watching Channel 9 Eyewitness News at 11:00 p.m. when this story began to air. When she saw Fat Rah’s face as the one who was shot to death and his wife’s face, who survived, she quickly got Hammer on the phone.

  “Kolanda, what’s up, sweetie?” he answered, seeing that it was his wife.

  “Hammer, babe, I need to see you. Where’s Korey?”

  “Korey’s in his car behind me. We’re just leaving the studio. Been over here working hard. What’s up, though? Something wrong?”

  “Listen, dear heart, whatever you and Korey do, y’all need to get here right now.”

  “What’s wrong?” Hammer turned his music down, sensing the urgency in his wife’s voice.

  “Can’t discuss it over the phone, but you and Korey are not going to believe what the fuck I just saw on television.”

  “This ain’t got nothing to do with Korey’s daughter, O, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t. But it’s dead serious. Don’t y’all stop nowhere. Come straight here.”

  “A’ight, babe. See you in a minute.”

  Hammer immediately phoned Korey, who was tailing him closely. He told Korey that Kolanda had just called and needed to see them right away.

  “What for, yo?” Korey said, with Olivia’s situation still weighing heavily on his mind.

  “Don’t know,” replied Hammer. “She didn’t say. But something’s not right. I know my baby. It was in her voice, K. Something’s wrong.”

  They pulled up at the house, parked, got out damn near in unison, and went inside, with Hammer leading the way. In the living room, standing in front of a big, widescreen television mounted on the wall, Kolanda pointed to it. The newswoman anchor was about to mention again what Kolanda had heard earlier that made her pick up the phone to call her husband.

  “Look at this shit, y’all.”

  “What is it, babe?” Hammer looked at her, puzzled. So did Korey; then he looked at the television. A second later, Fat Rah’s and his wife’s pictures were being shown. The headline read, WOMAN IN COMA EIGHT YEARS AFTER BEING SHOT IN THE HEAD AND LEFT FOR DEAD NOW SHOWING SIGNS OF LIFE.

  “What the fuck?” Hammer exclaimed in disbelief. He’d put a bullet in her head, at point blank range. He and Korey both knew that when they exited Fat Rah’s crib eight years ago both he and his wife were unresponsive.

  “How in the hell could that bitch have survived?” Korey said, shaking his head.

  “Earlier, I was listening to this shit,” Kolanda said, “and they were saying she’d been in a coma the whole time, and that her mother refused to pull the plug on her. However, they say they don’t know if she can talk.”

  Hammer placed his hands on top of his head and locked them together. He began pacing the floor. Her survival befuddled him and had him in a serious state of disbelief. His mind quickly and repeatedly replayed the moment he pulled the trigger. The bullet greeted her forehead, and she fell to the floor.

  “Kolanda,” he said, putting a halt on his pacing back and forth. He stood in front of her. “I need you to get your people on this.”

  “I’m going to see someone tomorrow,” she replied. “Right after my court appearances.”

  “Find out this woman’s condition in its totality. Can she see? Can she talk? Can she remember anything? Can she walk? We need to know every damn thing.”

  “We’ll know. I’m certain of it,” she assured him.

  “This too much info for one day,” Korey cut in. “Look, I’m on my way back to Keisha’s. I’ll get with y’all tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Korey,” Kolanda said. “How is O?”

  “She’ll be all right. Hammer’s gonna let you know what’s what. Like I said, I’ma see y’all tomorrow. Too much on a nigga’s head right now,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “A’ight, my nigga. See you tomorrow. Get you some rest, if you can,” Hammer said, embracing him and locking trigger fingers with him, P.I.C. fashion, before letting him be on his way.

  Chapter 35

  Fridays at Got’cha Lookin’ Good beauty salon, owned by Shamika, were always busy days for her. Shamika had more clients than she actually wanted to do today. When she awoke, she noticed that she was feeling like she hadn’t slept at all last night. Actually, she hadn’t gotten but about two hours of rest, if that’s what you wanted to call it. Truthfully, all she’d done was shut her eyes, doze off here and there, and toss and turn. For the most part, she and Olivia spent most of the night talking on the phone. She spoke with Olivia her whole drive back to Chapel Hill. She wanted her to feel safe and to not worry or fret over those two guys taking advantage of her in the name of them having fun. She knew that immature individuals did immature and stupid things, especially under the influence of alcohol.

  “This too shall pass,” she told Olivia. What she wanted Olivia to know above all was that God doesn’t like ugly. He would repay her perpetrators when He deemed it necessary.

  In Olivia’s mind and heart, God was gonna use her dad and her uncle to see that justice was truly served regarding that situation. But she didn’t make mention of that to Shamika. She knew all too well that, over the years, her mother had become churchgoing and seriously religious. The only thing holding her back from becoming like a nun was her daddy’s dick.

  Oh, Olivia wasn’t stupid. She’d overheard, many times, her dad and mom in the bedroo
m, getting their freak on. Her dad would be putting it on Shamika, too! Afterward, her mother would have a different glow and happy demeanor about herself. Olivia knew that her mother loved herself some Korey. Bad boy or not, she couldn’t get enough of her father’s love. Like Samson was for Delilah, it was no secret to Olivia that her mother was weak for her father.

  As she got up out of her bed feeling extremely sluggish from lack of sleep, Shamika slipped into her house robe and slippers. She checked her clock over on her nightstand. 5:55 a.m., it read. She had to have the shop open by 7:45. Her first client was scheduled at 8:00.

  She stepped out of her bedroom to go into her kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, but having walked to her living room first, she was surprised to see Korey lying on her sofa, sound asleep. She shook her head, having no idea whatsoever that he was even in the house. Now, I wonder, what time did he get here? And how come I didn’t hear him when he came in? she said to herself.

  His phone began vibrating on the table where he had it next to his car keys. She walked over, picked his phone up while he was still asleep, and saw that it was Keisha on the caller ID. She quickly sent it to voice mail.

  Ever since Korey broke the news to her more than seven years ago that Keisha was carrying his child, she hadn’t cared too much for her. Shamika long knew that the two of them were having sex. The night that she busted Korey with all those scratches over his chest assured her of that. When he broke down at her house and told her that Keisha was pregnant by him, for the first time ever Shamika punched him in his eye as hard as she could; then she ran off into her bedroom and cried her eyes out for three hours. Korey had a black eye for a week!

  Feeling the presence of someone’s shadow over him, Korey twisted out of his sleep and slowly opened his eyes. There was Shamika, directly in front of him, putting his phone down.

  “What’chu doing, Mika?” he asked groggily.

  “Your whore just called. I sent her to voice mail.”

  “Damn, Mika baby, why you do that? It could be something important she’s calling me about. Something could be wrong with KJ. Don’t be doing that,” he scolded her and reached for his phone.