Money Makin Manhattan

by Noire

  “Yeah,” Honore said weakly as she tossed the pills back and chased them with the juice. “It feels kinda wet back there. I think it’s bleeding again.”

  Cucci’s hands had been so gentle as she changed the bandage on her cousin’s ass that she shoulda been a nurse. Honore was grateful to have her bestie by her side, and when she needed to go pee Cucci had been right there holding on to her while she screamed in pain from the mere act of squatting her ass down to sit on the toilet.

  “It’s gonna feel better soon,” Cucci stood in front of her cousin and promised as Honore clung to her waist and cried as she peed. When she was done Cucci had balled up some toilet tissue and passed it to her girl, then flushed the toilet for her and helped her shuffle over to the sink to wash her hands.

  “Don’t cry, Honore,” Cucci had pet her bestie and supported her weight as she crawled back into the bed on her stomach. “It’s gonna all feel better soon, and until it does, I’ll be right here to take care of you.”

  And now, with both of them back at work in time for the big jewelry conference, Honore wished she had stayed home to rest for a few more days. All that standing and sitting was taking its toll, and her patience and her temper were both growing short.

  She slipped outta the conference room the moment they dimmed the lights and a PowerPoint slide appeared on the screen. She headed straight to the bathroom where she popped two Motrin and two Tylenol and then locked herself in a stall and squatted down painfully to pee.

  Honore had just flushed the toilet when her cell phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. She glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was her new friend. Wild Man.

  His call was right on time! Immediately the pain in her ass was gone and Honore morphed into scheme mode as she leaned against the stall wall and chatted with him.

  She giggled inside as she listened to him flap his gums a hundred miles an hour. This fine Asian freak wasn’t nothing but an info pigeon. He was somebody she could definitely manipulate and put the squeeze on for some information. She knew she had the skills to get some data outta him because his type was usually hard in the bed but soft on the cap. The fact that he was willing to fuck behind his man Slick told her that this dude was probably the weakest link on their entire team.

  Honore had a feeling she could lay her best weapon down on Wild Man and get him to cough up some of that critical info that Slick had refused to disclose.

  Yeah, she thought, listening to the Asian cat yap as they arranged to hook up later that day for another date. His ass was steady running his mouth as Honore walked outta the stall and lifted her skirt up and pulled her panties down again. Standing in front of a full-length mirror, she turned around and carefully peeled back her bandage and gazed at the angry red flesh wound on the crown of her juicy ass. It didn’t look as wet and nasty as it had yesterday. In fact, it seemed to be changing for the better, and maybe her luck was too.

  Instead of going back inside the conference room Honore hung out in the bathroom and kept right on chatting the Asian dude up, stringing him along like a simple-minded sherm as he flapped his loose lips. Running into him in Queens that day had been some real good fuckin luck because right now she needed her a serious pigeon. And from where she was standing this gullible yellow nigga looked like he had bird feathers coming straight outta his ass!

  CHAPTER 9

  Playin With Fire

  It was gusty as hell that Saturday morning but the sun was shining brightly over Van Dyke Houses when the young man stepped out of his car. Residents walking through the project breezeways fought against the howling wind as they hurried from the liquor store, the pizza shop, the bus stop, and the train station.

  At any other time a man like this one woulda stuck out like a target in the projects of Brownsville, Brooklyn. But this particular man knew how to blend in. Today he was dressed in black slacks and a crisp white chef’s jacket with the stupid matching hat. Balanced in his hands he carried a thermal bag that looked like it was full of delicious food, and he walked with an air of urgency like he needed to deliver it while it was hot.

  Nearby, the number 3 train roared past on the Livonia Avenue El and the shrieking sound of metal-on-metal followed the young man into the lobby of building 430.

  There were several stooped over and tired-looking senior citizens standing around waiting for the elevator to arrive, but the young man in the white jacket moved swiftly past them and disappeared through the stairwell door.

  The strong and athletic type, he took the steps up two at a time and he didn’t slow down until he got to the fourteenth floor. Then he went up one more flight and stood in front of the exit door that led out to the roof.

  Pausing for just a second, he unzipped the thermal bag and reached inside. He felt around and extracted an 8-inch serrated-edge hunting knife. Skimming his index finger lightly over the blade, he pushed through the door and got ready to do what he had come there to do.

  Put in some muthafuckin work.

  $$$$$

  Gamma and Turk got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor in building 430 and held the door open as they waited for their slime Trill to get off too.

  “Yo, nigga, you comin or what?” Turk spit, grilling his manz who stood planted in the elevator like he was scared to get off.

  Trill didn’t move.

  “Man, come the fuck on!” Turk said as he slammed his hand against the rubber panel that forced the elevator doors to stay open. “Ain’t nobody got all morning to be fuckin around up here. I got some pussy sleepin in my bed back at the crib.”

  Trill took a deep breath before stepping outta the elevator car. He was feeling some kinda way about getting assigned to ride out with these two young fuck-ups and the expression on his mug showed it.

  Six months ago he’d been taken off the streets and brought up to the big house. His favorite uncle, Handgun Goody, had promoted him from worker-ant to security guard, and up until now Trill had spent most of his time hanging out at Club Goody making sure shit ran smoothly for the Goode Brothers Gang.

  Getting sent out on a Saturday morning project mission with frick-ass Turk and his frack-friend Gamma felt like a big fuckin demotion to him. Trill was Hammerhead Goody’s firstborn son, and even though his father was the fuck-up of the family, he still had Goode Brother blood running through his veins. Trill shoulda been way past the little petty hustler grind that these two basic niggas was on, and he felt fuckin embarrassed and insulted to be slumming around anywhere near these dumb-ass cats.

  But Handgun had ordered all three of them to sniff around the project building. They were supposed to find out if anybody new had recently moved into the building and scare the old residents into coughing up some info about the murders of Handgun’s fallen hittas, so that’s exactly what they had to do.

  “I want y’all niggas to wipe that whole fuckin building down!” Goody had commanded. “Smoke that fuckin rat outta his hole, straight the fuck up! Start on the top floor and work your way all the way down to the lobby. Bang on doors and get up in some faces, too, my niggas! I want them old dusty folks shittin in their Depends, you hear me? Some fuckin body in that building either saw something fishy or they heard something funky! Don’t bring y’all asses back here until you find out who the fuck that somebody is!!!”

  Trill was feeling some kinda way, but he had no choice but to follow the two clowns over to the projects and start knocking on doors.

  “Yo, let’s split up,” he demanded as he walked off the elevator. He sent them to the left and he headed to the right by himself. It was bad enough that the old folks were looking outta their peepholes scary as fuck. They damn sure wasn’t gonna be opening their doors if they saw three killer-looking hard-bodies standing out there in the hall.

  Trill walked down his side of the hall shaking his goddamn head. He had to obey Goody’s shake down orders but he wasn’t feeling this shit. He wasn’t feeling it at all.

  $$$$$

  By the time Goody’s three thugs stepped
off the elevator on the building’s top floor, the dude in the white chef’s hat had already finished handling his handle up on the roof.

  He paused at the top of the stairwell for a split second as he heard them on the fourteenth floor, knocking on doors up and down the hallway and talking in loud voices. Quickly, he jetted down the steps to the twelfth floor, pushed through the exit door, and then jabbed at the call button and waited for the elevator to arrive.

  Right on time, he grinned to himself as the elevator car coasted to a smooth stop. When the doors opened he stepped inside, whistling softly as he swung the thermal bag carelessly by the handle like he had just made a delivery.

  The elevator descended toward the lobby, stopping quite a few times on its way down. Several tenants got on at various floors. Some nodded and said hello, and others got on and immediately turned their backs on him as they stared straight ahead.

  None of them noticed the fact that his crisp white jacket had Fook U Tu embroidered on the nametag. They didn’t know that the bag dangling from his hand was full of balled up old newspapers. And they definitely didn’t notice the wet streaks of blood that covered the bottom of his black pants, or the faint red prints on the floor that were left by his shoes.

  $$$$$

  Goody’s three hoods had already banged on doors and harassed everybody on the fourteenth and the thirteenth floors, and they were jogging down the staircase to the twelfth floor when they saw him.

  “Yo, Sometimey!” Turk hollered as the tall bum with the grimy hat ran up the stairs three at a time toward them. “Where the fuck is you runnin to so fast, my nigga?”

  The peasy-headed bum tried to push his way past them but Gamma hooked his hand under dude’s arm and flung him back around hard.

  “You heard him, nigga!” Gamma growled. “Where the fuck is you going so goddamn fast?”

  Sometimey trembled in fear and his knees knocked together under his stained jeans. He ducked his peasy head down and mumbled some type of gibberish under his breath.

  “Open season!” Turk suddenly hollered and then,

  Smack!

  He swung his open palm down hard and slapped the back of Sometimey’s neck like he was trying to kill a giant mosquito. The cracking sound echoed throughout the stairwell as Sometimey yelped in pain and covered the stinging skin on the back of his neck with both hands.

  “Chill, Turk!” Trill barked as the two low-level mutts laughed like stupid hyenas. “Y’all dumb fucks need to stop playing so much!”

  Trill turned to the dingy-looking bum who stood there with his head hanging down even lower. Dude’s face was damn near touching his chest, and in a way Trill could understand why Gamma had taken the opportunity to serve him up. The “open season” game had been around forever and even the stupidest bum shoulda known to protect his neck.

  “Ga’head, nigga,” Trill urged the raggedy tard-head, waving him off toward the top of the stairs. “Be about your bizz, my man. But stay up on ya fuckin neck, bruh. You heard what that nigga said, didn’t you? It’s always open fuckin season in the hood, slime. It’s always open season.”

  $$$$$

  Sometimey was known as a scaredy-cat muthafucka, and after getting slapped like that it took everything Slick had in him not to blow his cover and start breaking those young niggas into pieces.

  He had forced himself to take the vicious slap to the back of his neck without retaliating, and while he had stood there trembling in what looked like pain and fear, it was really rage and a heroic attempt at self-control that had him shaking in his bird shit-covered boots.

  It was Saturday and the Zip ’em up Crew members were each off doing their own thing. Slick was helping out the elderly folks around the building, and he had just made a run to check on old man Pie when the trio of slangas surprised him as he was on his way back upstairs to his grandmother’s crib.

  Slick hardly ever encountered anyone on the staircase this high up in the building because all of his neighbors were too old and sick to walk up that far, so they took the elevators up and down instead.

  Fuck is these clowns doing up here? Slick had silently asked himself as the corner boys put their hands on Sometimey and clowned him. He had breathed a sigh of relief when one of the dudes nodded and told him to get going. Slick knew he coulda taken all three of them out right then and there if he needed to, but he was much more interested in knowing why they were lurking around on his fuckin staircase than he was in getting his hands bloody.

  That nigga Goody must not’a got my message, Slick thought coldly as he pictured the brutality he had inflicted on them soft soldiers Ricky Rollack and Cajiid.

  Them lil bitches better let me be and stay the fuck outta my building! he thought as he ran up the stairs with the sound of their harsh laughter filling his ears.

  Slick paused at the exit door on the 14th floor and put his hand on the doorknob. His body tensed up like he was gonna push the door open and walk on through, but his hood senses tingled as he glanced toward the dark flight of stairs leading up to the roof, so he changed his mind and jetted up there instead.

  $$$$$

  Standing on the rooftop Slick was so dizzy he was almost blind. His heart lurched as he stumbled toward his bird pens with his eyes bulging wide.

  Nah, he whispered to himself as he stared down at the pebbly tarpaper that covered the rooftop. He stepped on something soft and recoiled in disgust as he lifted his foot up and saw what it was.

  Nah, nah, hell fuckin NAH!

  His birds.

  Them niggas had gotten to his birds. Sliced them up. Damn near all of them. The locks had been shot off the pens and the doors stood wide open. Most of his flock had been slaughtered, even Dinky. Only a few of the messenger types hovered around flapping their wings. No doubt, they had flown outta the coop before they could be cut the fuck up.

  The sound of his blood boiling in his veins rushed to Slick’s ears. The rooftop was stained with red liquid and the tiny feet that had been cut off his birds were scattered everywhere. Countless hobbled bodies still lurched and twitched on the ground, wings flapping uselessly as they bled out and died.

  Slick stood there enraged for what seemed like a whole fuckin hour, but in reality was less than sixty seconds. The scent of fresh fowl blood slid up his nose and soured his stomach, and it was the nausea that rose to the back of his throat that freed him from his paralysis.

  Goody!

  The name shot through his mind like a cannon as Slick tore off his Sometimey cap, wheeled around, and dashed back through the door. He bounded down the steps silently, three and four at a time as his hand burrowed deep inside his front pocket and he came out with what he wanted.

  It was open fuckin season all right, and Slick was about to get him some neck too.

  He rushed them niggas from behind, taking the trio of slangas by surprise as he rolled up slashing and swinging.

  “Argghh!” the one they’d called Turk squeaked like a bitch as Slick clasped his forehead back with one hand and slit his throat with the other. Dude stumbled down two steps clutching at his neck as he gurgled frothy red bubbles from his brand new smiley face.

  Slick didn’t pick and choose which one of the other cats he was gonna do first. He just pounced on the first nigga he could get his hands on.

  Gamma half-turned and threw his arm up to protect himself. Slick blocked it with his left, and reached under and stuck him in the throat at the same time. The blade went in deep, like it was driving through a ripe peach, and when it hit the nerve between the bones of dude’s spine, his knees buckled and he collapsed like his feet had been cut off, just like those birds.

  The third cat was the smartest and the fastest. He had taken off running the moment he spotted Slick. He was on the move before the first “Argghh!” even came outta Turk’s mouth.

  Dude bolted down the steps like he was running on air, and by the time Slick pulled his blade outta Gamma’s throat that other muthafucka was already three floors down.

&nb
sp; Slick chased that nigga with a vengeance. He was rounding the corner on the 4th floor when he heard dude hit the exit door leading to the lobby at a dead run. Several moments later Slick hit that bitch too, but by the time he pushed into the lobby dude had busted outta the building and was sprinting down the walkway like an Olympic track star.

  Slick took off after him. His feet moved like lightening as his chest heaved with every breath. Dude was running wild. He leaped over a fence without even touching that shit, and cut across the grass as he dashed toward his home territory.

  But long-legged Slick was closing in. Closing in fast. He fell back on his days in the Army and sprinted at full speed, eager to catch that bitch-nigga and stick his knife right through his heart.

  The corner boy must have felt the heat approaching on his back. He hopped over a chain-link fence and headed toward a building across the street where his boys were chilling on the porch and he knew he would be safe. He glanced back over his shoulder with wild, wide eyes, and when he peeped Slick bearing down on him he threw his head back and his legs started moving even faster.

  Them shits were moving so damn fast that there was no time to put on the brakes when he saw the garbage truck coming through the intersection. He darted out in front of it, tucking his ass in and praying he wouldn’t get clipped and smashed.

  Slick was right up on the truck when it slammed into the dude with a sickening crunch. It caught him on the hip, and Slick watched that nigga twirl around and fly high in the air and sail halfway down the street. Then he slammed into the concrete ground with a loud, hollow thud.

  Tires screeched in the air and people up and down the street started yelling and screaming. Slick took a step forward to finish the job, intending to rush over and stab that nigga while he was down, but the way the cat’s body was twisted up and the angle of his neck, not to mention the spreading puddle of blood that was fanning out all around him, all that told Slick that the job was already done.