Hush

by Amaleka McCall

  VOLUME 17: THE RAID

  The summer was in full swing in New York. It was ninety degrees outside and the Mr. Softee ice cream trucks could be heard blaring those annoying songs on every other block. The street corners were alive with hustlers and gold diggers, and more importantly, the Candy Shop was back in its full swing of business. The F.A.B. was making money hand over fist, and Deidre was under a lot of pressure from the Bureau to go deeper and deeper.

  Deidre walked through the dressing room in the basement of the Candy Shop collecting the money that the dancers had made for the night. That used to be Tori’s job, but lately she had been making herself scarce around the crew.

  As Deidre approached a dancer that called herself Mystique, she noticed a picture that caught her attention. She did a double take and walked back over to Mystique’s booth. “Who is this?” she inquired, pointing at the picture.

  Mystique looked at Deidre through her gray contact lenses and fake eyelashes, and with an attitude asked, “Why you wanna know?”

  “I think I know her,” Deidre said.

  “You don’t know her, you just seen her on TV like e’rbody else,” Mystique said dismissively, pouting her dark brown painted lips. The big-breasted girl looked like something out of the circus. Her pale skin, those gray contacts, dark lips and black inch-long nail tips made her resemble a side show attraction.

  “Seen her on TV?” Deidre asked, playing dumb.

  “Yeah, she’s senator Reeves’ daughter,” Mystique said, lowering her eyes.

  “How do you know her then?” Deidre asked, pressing the girl for information.

  “What? You think I ain’t good enough to know a senator’s daughter?” Mystique asked indignantly.

  “Nah, I’m not saying that at all. Just asking,” Deidre assured. She had to play nice to get the information she wanted.

  “Well, her name is Amber. She was my best friend, and now she’s gone,” Mystique said sadly.

  “Where did she go?” Deidre kept pressing forward with her questions.

  “That fucking black ass guy picked her up after she had a fight with Chastity, and I never seen her again. I begged her not to go. He looked crazy, and I could tell he was gonna do something to her because he was mad nervous,” Mystique informed, lighting a cigarette.

  “What guy? You seen him before?” Deidre asked. She was getting excited about the information she was getting. She didn’t realize she might be overstepping her boundaries.

  “Yeah, he was the one who got Amber hooked on that shit. He is from D.C., some fed nigga that she was fucking with. She met him at her father’s confirmation ceremony,” Mystique continued.

  Deidre’s mind started racing. A fed? she thought to herself. “What did he look like?” Deidre asked.

  “Look, what the fuck, are you a cop?” Mystique asked, growing suspicious of Deidre’s constant questions.

  “No, I’m just concerned about your friend. I mean she might be dead,” Deidre blurted, trying to appeal to Mystique’s conscience.

  “Don’t say that!” Mystique yelled, bursting into tears. “Amber was so good to me. When I didn’t have shit to eat, she fed me. People criticized her for being a friend with a lowlife like me. She never judged me. From the time I met her, I told her to stop using that shit. Her father did this to her. That bastard knew that she was selling drugs for the

  F.A.B. He was making money off of it. So was the black bald headed guy, and the other white fed motherfucker!” Mystique shared as she wiped smudged mascara off her cheeks.

  “What . . . ?” Deidre began, but before she could get the words out, she heard a loud crash. Startled, she and Mystique both spun around at the same time.

  “Oh shit!” Mystique yelled.

  Deidre opened her eyes wide when she saw them.

  “Police! Don’t fucking move!”

  Deidre had a gun pointed right in her face. Girls were screaming and running in all directions until the cops threw in a can of tear gas. “Ahem! Ahem!” Deidre started coughing as one of the cops grabbed her roughly and threw her up against the wall. She was escorted upstairs.

  “What the fuck is ya’ll doing! Get the fuck off of me!” Leticia screamed.

  Deidre could hear Leticia tussling with the police as she was led outside with everyone else.

  “Yo, DeeDee! This is some bullshit! Remember, its death before dishonor! Don’t say shit to these pigs!” Leticia yelled out to her.

  Chastity kept her head up and her mouth shut. She was too cool to fight or yell, but inside she was fuming.

  The Candy Shop was raided, and the NYPD totally trashed the newly renovated club. They took a sledgehammer to the cherry wood bar, and all of the tables were smashed into pieces. The shiny glass liquor cabinets were pried open and all of the expensive bottles of champagne were confiscated. The cops also found the safe hidden in the floor in Chastity’s office, which was also emptied of its contents.

  Deidre sat in a cell at central booking with Leticia and Chastity. Nobody said a word. All she could think about was her cover being blown. Fucking with the locals was a sure way to do that. After seven hours of sitting on the cold hard benches inside the small crowded cell, they finally heard something.

  “DeeDee Barnes!” a tall court officer yelled out. Deidre stood up and walked towards the door of the cell. “Going to see the judge,” he said to her. She looked back and Leticia and Chastity, who both looked on, perplexed.

  “What about us?” Leticia yelled as she watched Deidre being led out.

  Deidre turned her head quickly, hearing Leticia’s question. She never turned around to look back again; she was afraid that the worried look on her face would give her away. What the fuck is the Bureau trying to do . . . get me killed? she thought to herself.

  Without so much as a word to Deidre, the judge immediately let her go, but Chastity and Leticia remained locked up. She was relieved to get out, but worried as she left the jail. She immediately jumped on the telephone and called

  R.J. She needed to let him know what was going on. “Hello!” R.J. picked up. “It’s me. They . . .”Deidre began.

  “Yo, be easy on the phone. Meet me at my house,” R.J. said, cutting her off mid-sentence.

  Deidre agreed. She hung up from him and immediately dialed Ferguson. “What the fuck are ya’ll doing? Why didn’t ya’ll just let me stay with the rest of the girls?” Deidre asked, pissed off.

  “I warned you about those fucking local cops. We need to meet, now!” Ferguson yelled.

  Deidre hung up. She had no intention of meeting with Ferguson. She headed straight for R.J.’s house.

  “What was going on when this happened?” R.J. asked as he paced the floor.

  “Nothing unusual. I was doing the collections, and Chazz was upstairs getting ready for the night,” Deidre explained.

  “Where was Loca and T-baby?”

  “Loca was upstairs with Chazz, and T-baby was nowhere to be found,” Deidre informed. It immediately struck her as strange that Tori wasn’t at the club. She started thinking back to the night of the re-opening and how bad Tori looked.

  “Somebody dropped dime,” R.J. said, rubbing his chin, deep in thought.

  “But who?” Deidre asked. She knew for sure that this raid had nothing to do with her case.

  “I don’t know, but we’ll find out,” R.J. said. He moved towards Deidre and kissed her cheek gently. “Are you okay?” he asked, rubbing her bruised cheek.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. What about Chazz and Loca?” Deidre inquired, anxiously biting her bottom lip.

  “I’m waiting for the judge to set bail for them. I hope they don’t jam Loca. She just got home,” R.J. replied.

  “Damn!” Deidre sighed, staring blankly. All sorts of things ran through her mind. Most of all, she was worried about her girls. Startled her when he began kissing her neck. Deidre felt herself getting hot, but she couldn’t concentrate. The girls were the only real friends she’d ever had, and she was stabbing them in the back eve
ry day in the name of the government. She felt like crying. She turned into R.J. and laid her head on his chest. She listened to his heartbeat and felt comfort. He kissed her again, and this time she returned the favor, grabbed her face and looked into her eyes and said, “I think we were meant to be.”

  “You say that a lot,” Deidre replied, avoiding direct eye contact. Sometimes those words made her uncomfortable.

  “I mean it,” he whispered, kissing her again. This time he slid his hand under her shirt and caressed her already erect nipples.

  “Mm-m-m-m!” she moaned.

  R.J. continued his quest, and proceeded to unbutton her pants. Deidre didn’t fight against what she was feeling, and grabbed R.J.’s manhood. “Yeah!” he groaned, biting her left ear. “Ohhh,” she cooed. R.J. had her out of her clothes in no time. He kissed her bellybutton as he cupped her perfect ass cheeks. Deidre placed her hands on top of his head and pushed his head down toward her throbbing hot box. Before she could react, R.J. plunged his tongue into her flesh, parting her labia. He repeated the motion several times, driving Deidre insane. “Ohhhh!” she yelled out, pushing toward his tongue.

  R.J. continued to lap up her juices like a hungry dog, and the more he licked, the louder she moaned. When he was done, he brought his wet face into hers and kissed her deeply again.

  Deidre licked all of her own juices off of his lips. “Let me taste you,” she whispered, trying to sit up.

  “No, I want to feel you,” he groaned, easing her back down and placing his manhood deep inside of her.

  “Ahhhhh!” she screamed out in ecstasy. R.J. continued to pump up and down, picking up speed. Deidre could feel her thighs trembling, and before she knew it, she exploded. “Aggghhh!” she screamed again, grabbing the skin on R.J.’s back. She was in love, she was sure of it.

  After making love, they lay still in each other’s arms.

  “R.J.,” Deidre whispered.

  “Yes, love?” he replied.

  “How did you know my address when you first sent me flowers?” she asked.

  “I’m like God. I know everything,” he replied with a chuckle.

  “I’m serious,” she said, leaning up on one arm as she looked in his face.

  “I’m serious too. I know everything about you.”

  “Like what?” she asked, nervously.

  “Like the fact that you are in love with me,” R.J. replied, looking her directly in her eyes.

  She fell silent and laid back down.

  Tori watched the news broadcast about the raid, and she didn’t feel a thing. “Good for those bitches!” she mumbled as she shoveled a heap of crystal meth into her left nostril. Snitching was easy. All she had to do was give the detectives the information they requested, and wait for them to contact her about Akayla. Detective Schmidt told her that he would even drive Akayla home if everything worked out right. Tori believed him. In her junked up state, she would have sold her organs on the black market, so she damn sure didn’t give a damn about selling out the only people that had been there for her since she was a kid.

  Chastity and Leticia were released the next day. All the raid had turned up was about sixty illegal prescription pills, which the cops couldn’t pin to anybody since there were like twelve dancers there when they came in. Everybody claimed a certain amount of the money that was found, being mindful to keep their claims right under ten-thousanddollars.

  The detectives were pissed, therefore they stole the rest of the money and things that were seized.

  Detective Schmidt and his squad were sure they had foolproof information that the Candy Shop would be loaded with illegal pills and crystal meth. Unfortunately for them, their snitch was wrong.

  VOLUME 18: THE TURNING POINT

  Deidre was exhausted from her hot night with R.J. She wanted to go home, shower, change, and go check on Chastity and Leticia. Ricky, Ferguson and headquarters never crossed her muddled mind.

  Deidre parked her car, and just as she did, her private cell phone began vibrating. She looked down into the cup holder and picked up her phone—it was her mother. “Hello, Mom,” Deidre answered, waiting to hear if her mother was loaded or not.

  “Deidre . . . I need to see you right away,” her mother slurred into the phone.

  “What’s the matter?” Deidre asked, rolling her eyes as she walked towards her apartment building.

  “I had a dream someone was trying to kill you!” Cassandra cried.

  “No one’s trying to kill me, Mom. I can’t come to Virginia right now. I promise I’ll try for next week,” Deidre placated. She was disgusted with her mother, as usual.

  “No, baby girl, they are going to kill you! The FBI is going to kill you like they did your father!” Cassandra wailed, garbling her words.

  “You need to go lie down and dry out. I’ll call you back and check on you later,” Deidre said, sickened and slightly embarrassed by her mother’s outburst. She disconnected the line and shut her phone off.

  She had finally made it inside. Fucking crazy! she thought as she began removing her clothes.

  Officer Duke pulled his car onto Hall Street right behind Deidre’s. As she parked, he watched her. “That’s where I know her from! That’s the bitch from the ticket!” he said out loud to himself. He immediately dialed Chastity’s number. “Yo, I need to talk to you about that new bitch ya’ll running with,” he said into the receiver, pulling off. Although he was on her shit list, Chastity agreed to meet him at his apartment, spurred by his offer of information on DeeDee.

  Officer Duke was happy to tell Chastity that when Deidre was given a ticket and he ran her plate, the car came back as “Property of the U.S. Government”, which meant that either Deidre was a fed, or she bought the car at a federal auction and never got the paperwork straightened out. He also told her what he’d found out about who had dropped a dime before the raid.

  Infuriated, Chastity hid her feelings. She had another mission in mind. “Thank you, baby. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you. It’s just that I love you so much, I get jealous when I can’t have you all the time,” she said deceitfully, sliding close to Officer Duke.

  “You’re welcome. I told you I’d do anything for you, and I forgive you for acting like a bitch,” he replied, touching her hair gently.

  “You know I want you. I missed you,” she said softly.

  He let a huge grin spread across his face. “I missed you too. What you got for me?” he asked, tugging on her belt.

  “Wait, be patient. Since I knew you were going to hook me up with some good information, I got a surprise for you. Lemme go to the bathroom first,” Chastity said seductively, licking her lips and switching her full hips.

  “That’s wasup!” Officer Duke beamed, excited.

  Chastity sashayed out of the bedroom, went into the bathroom and changed into a sheer, Italian lace La Perla bra and panty set. She checked herself in the mirror, inhaled, and placed her hands behind her back as she exited the bathroom.

  “Close your eyes!” she yelled down the hallway of Officer Duke’s apartment before she reached the bedroom.

  Officer Duke was butt ass naked sprawled out on his bed. “Hell yeah!” he yelled back, thrilled.

  “Don’t open those eyes,” Chastity warned as she walked into the room and crawled onto the bed.

  “Ohhh, baby!” Officer Duke whispered, inhaling her Gucci Envy perfume. Anticipation had the hairs on his arms and legs standing up and goose bumps covered his entire body.

  “Don’t open your eyes yet,” Chastity demanded setting herself up. She started her deed by licking his stomach, making her way up his chest to his neck, then his mouth.

  “Ahhh,” he let out a soft moan.

  “Open your mouth for me, baby,” Chastity murmured. Officer Duke complied. “Eat this, you lying, sneaky bitch!” she growled, placing the barrel of a .40 caliber Glock into his mouth.

  Shocked, Officer Duke tried to jump up, but his teeth hit the metal of the gun just as she pulled the
trigger. “Boom!” Blood splattered all over her, the wall and the pillow.

  Chastity jumped as the blood and brain matter spattered all over her face, chest and hair. She was spooked. Murder wasn’t her thing; she usually let Leticia take care of those things. Shaking, she took the sheet, wiped her prints off the gun, and placed Officer Duke’s hands around it. Racing into the bathroom, she hastily cleaned herself up. The smell of fresh blood and shit was enmeshed in her nostrils. When she shot him, his bowels and bladder also released all over her and the bed. With her heart racing, she gathered her things and quickly left his apartment. She left the rental car that she’d paid someone to rent for her right in front of his building.

  “Taxi!” she called out, and she was gone.

  One traitor down, one to go!

  Chastity returned to her house. Rubbing her hands together to mask the trembling, she tried her best to appear cool. She took a long hot shower and washed her hair at least six times. She needed time to gather her thoughts. Once she was satisfied that she’d beaten her battle with the tremors, she called Deidre.

  “Yo, DeeDee, I need you to meet me at my house right away,” she said, with urgency lacing her words.

  “Now?” Deidre asked. She had finally decided to meet with Ferguson. After missing several scheduled meetings, she couldn’t really afford to miss another one.

  “Yes, it has to be now,” Chastity replied, pacing the floor.

  “A’ight, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Deidre conceded. What’s this all about? She thought. Nonetheless, she slid on her jeans and prepared to get ready.

  Chastity hung up and dialed Leticia’s cell phone. “Yeah, Loca, it’s me, Chazz. She’s on her way, so hurry up and get here,” she said anxiously.

  Leticia agreed immediately, and picked up her cell phone to call Tori. “Yo, T-baby, where you been?” she asked.

  “I’ve been stressed over this case. I’m just chillin’,” Tori lied, looking down at her drugs.

  “Well, something came up. You heard about the Candy Shop?” Leticia asked, already knowing the answer.