by Noire
“I almost didn’t get to come back down here, you know.”
“Why?” she asked, looking at me with those soft eyes of hers.
I shrugged. “Not because I didn’t wanna come back but,” I lowered my gaze and whispered, “but because I had to go to court.”
I bit my lower lip and kinda turned my upper body away from her, like I was so damned shamed of myself.
“You had to go to court? For what?”
I took a deep breath and glanced at her real fast. “For writing bad checks,” I blurted out. I caught her quick frown, and I went deep into actress mode.
“But I didn’t write them,” I insisted, which was true. I didn’t write the hot checks that I was telling her about, but I had damn sure written a whole bunch of other ones. “It wasn’t me. They had the wrong girl. The checks didn’t even come outta New York. They came from some other city when I could prove I was in New York, so they had to drop the charges and let me go.”
“But why did they blame you in the first place?”
Now I damn sure wasn’t about to tell her all that! The truth was, I had gotten busted for getting down on an insurance scam, and somehow when they arrested me and ran my fingerprints, they came back a match for some chick who had a warrant out on her ass for cashing stolen checks and failing to show up in court. Even though I had to sit in jail madder than a mutha for getting knocked for somebody else’s scheme, the idea seemed like a damn good one to me, and as soon as they cleared shit up and let me loose, I got me my own check-cashing hustle going and I rode that baby until the wheels fell off.
But was I gonna explain all that to Selah? Hell to the naw!
“I was a victim of identity theft,” I told her instead, and that was not a lie. “Somehow my fingerprints came back a match for a girl who did all kinds of illegal stuff while she was pretending to be me.”
“Really?” She frowned. “Who was she? Did the police ever catch her?”
I shook my head and said truthfully, “I don’t know who she was, or if she ever got caught, but she was good. Real good.”
Matter fact that chick was damn good. I’d gotten busted more than once behind her bullshit. Just like me, she was a fraudster. A master thief. Any kind of scam you could think of that involved stealing somebody else’s dollar, this grifter had pulled it off.
“That girl was into everything,” I told Selah, and ran her down a list of stuff that I had been busted for in the past, as well as some shit that I didn’t really do but had been charged with anyway. “And guess what? Right before I came down here the first time, this same girl got busted in some kinda credit-card scam, and I was the one who had to show up in court!”
I spit all that out like I was real offended by the fact that somebody was skunking up my good name, but the truth was, if it was this easy for me to take over Sable’s identity, it had probably been way easier for some other chick to steal mine.
Selah pursed her lips and looked pissed off.
“It’s such a shame,” she said, shaking her head, “that nothing is sacred or safe these days. Sure, the Internet gives us great access to information and cultures and trends that we could have never reached before, but it also gives other people a lot of opportunities to exploit us. Really, your word and your good name is all you own in this world. I’m told it can take years to get your credit straightened out after your identity is stolen.”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed real fast, setting the stage for all my other denials later, “and it can take years to get your arrest record wiped clean of all those bogus charges too.”
“Well, be careful, baby. Nothing is truly secure these days. Thieves are everywhere, and if they’re trying hard enough to get you, they’ll get you.”
CHAPTER 13
Barron knew better than to roll up in Harlem looking like an oil mogul and smelling like cash, so instead of hiring a limo and a driver the way he usually did when he traveled out of town, he rented a nice little Acura at the airport and drove into Manhattan on his own.
New York was full of flossers, and even though he dug the city, especially Broadway and the financial districts, Barron wasn’t feeling the kind of women that places like Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx spit out.
He had driven across the bridge and toward the projects of Harlem, and everywhere he looked there were chicks like Mink who were living strictly for the city.
They walked around all glossed and glammed up in the city heat, with more ass and titties popping out of their skimpy clothes than a little bit. Their quick, hungry eyes checked him out as he drove by, and he eyed them right back. Yeah, some of them were fine and packing big bombs, but a whole lot of them were also rough and grimy. Tough chickens that the streets had dried out and used up. With their crazy four-color curved nails and matching wigs, tatted-up tits, swap-meet Gucci purses, and over-the-top gear, they were colorful products of the gutters they were trying so damn hard to claw their way out of.
Barron had hit up the PI dude named Frankie Gaines as soon as he touched down at the airport. Frankie was an ex-parole officer who came from a big family in Harlem. Although most of the men in his family were in law enforcement, Frankie had ditched his monkey suit so he could be his own boss. They were planning to meet at T. C.’s Place, a renovated pool hall that one of Frankie’s boyz ran, and Barron wanted to make sure he was there right on time.
“Yo, ya girl Mink LaRue been bizzy as hell. Bizzy, bizzy, bizzy!” Frankie said as he dapped Barron out and greeted him at the front door of the old pool hall that was now a youth nightclub. He had a folder in his hand, and Barron followed the young, street-tested dude to a small office down a hall. “So how much did this fine-ass thief hit you for?”
“A hundred grand.”
Frankie’s eyes got big as he shook his head. “Damn, fool! Where you from, my brotha? That trick stole you! You shoulda called a nigga up a long time ago and I coulda saved you some cash!”
“Lemme see what you got,” Barron said. His hands shook with greedy excitement as he reached for the report Frankie was holding.
Frankie waved him off and started reading. “Pick pocketing, drug distribution, credit-card fraud, shakedowns, blackmail schemes, wire fraud, identity theft, grand larceny, breaking and entering, prescription scams, bad-check writing . . .” He held up a glossy head shot photo of Mink and then tossed it on the table. “And I’m not talking about just here in Harlem neither. This chick done hit everywhere,” Frankie said, shaking his head. “Jersey, Connecticut, Philly, Baltimore, DC . . . believe it. If Mink LaRue ran across something that wasn’t nailed down—her ass stole it.”
Frankie let out a bitter chuckle and passed Barron the report. “The only thing I didn’t find on her is dead bodies. I ain’t saying she don’t have none, it’s just that ain’t none of them started stinking yet.”
“Goddamn,” Barron muttered under his breath, and then whistled out loud as his eyes continued to scan the report. “This is worse than I thought.”
“Word, bruh. The more shit I dug up on her the more shit came pouring in. This little chicken’s been criminal minded ever since she hatched out the egg! For real, and her moms is the one who got her started pulling scams in the first place.”
“Her mother?”
Frankie nodded. He searched through the stack of paper in the folder and pulled out two sheets.
“I got a report right here that says she was just a toddler when her and her mother were on a city-owned bus and it crashed into a parked car. Her moms faked a bunch of injuries for both of them and she used Mink to get a big fat settlement from the city’s insurance company. I guess pulling ganks got good to them because they’ve been pulling them ever since.”
Barron thought about his own mother who was back at the mansion with the felonious Mink right now. Dane was there with her too, but he couldn’t be counted on to protect Selah because if it wasn’t about getting high then that pussy nigga wasn’t shit. Barron shook his head. “Yo, I’ma have to get back home and
toss that lil bandit up outta my crib, man.”
Frankie laughed. “Nigga you better hope you still got a crib when you get back. The way this chick’s been running through other people’s paper you might go back and find all your shit transferred into her name!”
Barron took that shit in stride. He knew this hood dick was sitting there laughing at him, but it was cool because Mink really did have him looking just like a clown.
“I found one more thing for you,” Frankie said as his laughter faded away and he got real serious.
Barron frowned. “Yeah, what’s that?”
“I found Mink’s nigga. Her ex-convict boyfriend. A cutthroat street slanga they call Gutta who just hit the bricks. He rolls with a killer click, and word on the streets is that Mink dipped out with a whole grip of young dude’s paper. And now that nigga wants it back. Every goddamn dime of it.”
Barron’s ears perked right up. Now this was the type of shit he liked to hear!
“So, Mink beat a drug dealer out of some money? And now he’s on her ass?”
“Yep. That’s the story. I dug up a heap of dirt on dude too. He ain’t no petty thief like ya girl Mink is, but he is a killer.”
Barron wanted to jump up and down.
“Yo, I wanna meet this dude. Put me on to him.”
Frankie nodded. “A’ight. I might can do that. That nigga’s on probation, so lemme holla at a few of my brothers and see if we can work something out.”
Barron grinned and rubbed his hands together. He loved a good fight, and he was willing to trick off mad money to watch this cat Gutta fly Mink’s head upside a wall. Hell yeah. If he could sic a dog like Gutta on Mink and get those two to go at it hard, then he’d gladly sit back and watch the show and buy everybody in the room some damn popcorn.
Frankie Gaines was good to his word. He had mad family who worked in New York law enforcement, and his little brother Dutchy was actually Gutta’s probation officer.
“Yo, you sure we’re gonna be good running up on him in here?” Barron asked as they walked into the probation building and slid past damn near a hundred convicted criminals. They were scattered everywhere in the large room. Some were lounging on the chairs, and others were leaning up against the walls, and a few were even laid out on the grimy floor.
“Yeah, we straight,” Frankie said over his shoulder. “He’s in there with my brother Dutchy right now. You know they gotta make sure his shit is straight and he ain’t violating nothing.”
They walked down a long hallway that had small offices lining both sides. Hard-looking ex-cons were flowing in and out of doorways looking pissed off at the world. Frankie led Barron into an office on the right side of the hall. A brown-skinned brother sat behind a desk, and another dude, muscle-bound and huge as shit, sat in a folding chair with his back to the door.
He was a hard nigga, Barron could tell that even before dude turned around and grilled him. Young, but dangerous. He was dressed like the streets and a cold look of disdain lurked in his eyes. He shifted his massive shoulders slightly to the right so he could see Barron better, and everything about his chiseled posture and the vibe he was giving off labeled him a predator.
Barron waited while Frankie went over to the desk and dapped his brother out, and then he introduced Barron to Dutchy, and Dutchy introduced them both to Gutta.
“Sup,” Barron said and reached out to Gutta for some dap.
That nigga never even blinked. The look in his cold eyes said Barron was just a sweet lil bitch who didn’t deserve no love.
“Check it out,” Frankie explained to Gutta as he closed the office door and got ready to play power broker and fit all the puzzle pieces together. “This here is my boy, Bump. He’s from Texas. He’s cool with ya girl, Mink. Matter fact, she’s his sister.”
Leaning against the wall, Barron felt the chill go up in Gutta’s eye when Mink’s name was mentioned. Dude had a jaw that looked like it could stand up to a sledgehammer and he clenched it hard when he heard her name, like he was ready to chew something up.
Frankie spent the next few minutes running Mink’s latest game down to Gutta, who got more and more swole by the minute. Barron got his two cents in too, and dropped big dimes on Mink and blew her shit up without an ounce of brotherly love. He told Gutta about the hundred grand that Mink had scammed his family for, and about the rest of the cash she was down in Texas trying to get her hands on right as they were speaking.
“Yo!” Gutta growled, opening his mouth for the first time. “You tellin’ me that bitch tricked off all my fuckin’ money and then she stole a hunnerd grand off you and dipped with that shit too? Wit’out paying me minez?”
Barron shook his head. “Nah, man. I’m telling you she spent the hundred grand she got from me too. And then she dipped. Her ass is broke again right now, but unless I can come up with something concrete on her, she’s probably gonna clean us out again. And this time she’s gonna get even more than she got the first time.”
Gutta shrugged. He was a solo gorilla. Barron could see it all in his face. He was gonna take Mink down in his own vicious way, and he didn’t need no pack of wolves to help him hunt neither. “So what y’all pussy niggas need me for?”
“I need you as my proof of what she’s been out here doing, man,” Barron said. “Proof in the flesh. Come with me back to Texas, man, and I’ll make sure you get back five times what Mink owes you. Plus a whole lot more.”
CHAPTER 14
Two nights later Barron was ready to get back to Texas and be about the bizz of blowing Mink’s shit up. Gutta had agreed to roll with him to Dallas, and Frankie Gaines drove him to the projects to scoop dude up so they could head to LaGuardia Airport and catch a red-eye flight going south.
“You think he’s really gonna fly?” Barron asked as they got outta Frankie’s whip and strode up the walkway to the fourteen-story project building in St. Nick projects.
Frankie shrugged. “I guess so. Shit, the nigga said he would.”
A group of rowdy young slangas stood loitering outside the entrance to the building wearing huge white tees and loose jeans sagging low on their asses. Barron wasn’t no bitch by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t no banga neither. He rode the fence between the worlds of the haves and the have nots, but he damn sure liked chillin’ on the money side better.
He had left his expensive business suits and thirty-thousand-dollar shoes back in Texas where they belonged. He had left his 9mm behind too, and even though he was dressed in decent shit, it was still the gear of the streets. His ensemble might have been understated, but it was still fresh as hell. It didn’t come off a rack on 125th Street, but it hadn’t come outta Brooks Brothers neither.
He followed Frankie toward the trap boys with a tight feeling burrowing in his stomach that he recognized as unease. Whether it was Houston or Harlem, the hood was still the hood, and dudes from the projects could smell a nigga who wasn’t from around their way. Even though he wasn’t strapped, Barron manned up and made sure he wasn’t giving off even the slightest whiff of fear or concern, and when Frankie dapped out the young’uns and they showed him love by parting to let him through, Barron walked easily through the crowd right behind him.
They took the elevator up to the twelfth floor and got off and walked around the corner to the last apartment on the left. Frankie knocked on the door, then stood back a little bit so whoever looked out the peephole could see who he was before they opened the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Frankie. I’m looking for Gutta.”
Locks turned and the door swung open. The two men stepped inside the small apartment. The old lady who had let them in smelled like Newports and fried eggs. She motioned for them to wait in the living room. Barron looked around the small area. There were statues of Jesus on the cross all over the walls, and it smelled like a pot of beans and fatback was cooking on the stove in the kitchen.
Barron wondered again about Gutta. He had his doubts about that nigga.
As hardbody as he was, the thought of getting on an airplane scared the shit outta him.
“Yo, I fucks with whips, trains, and buses, nah’m sayin?” Gutta had told him. “I don’t fuck with no airplanes and all that kinda aerodynamic bullshit right there.”
Gutta had tried to play him by telling him he needed half the money up front, but Barron wasn’t no sucka and he had let that big nigga know it. His offer was non-negotiable. Wasn’t no transactions going down until they got to Texas, and if Gutta wanted to get paid and get his hands around Mink’s throat, then his ass had to get on an airplane and roll with it.
Gutta came outta the back of the apartment looking mean and tight. The odor of hard liquor surrounded him in a cloud. He glanced at the men standing in the living room, then brushed right past the old lady and walked straight out the door.
“What the fuck?” Barron muttered as the door slammed shut. He scrambled behind Frankie, who snatched the door open and followed Gutta out into the narrow hallway.
“Yo,” Barron hollered as Gutta pushed through the stairway door and bounded down the pissy, garbage-strewn stairs. “You still going, right? Where’s your bags and shit, man?”
Gutta led them all the way down to the first floor, through the crowded project lobby, and outside into the warm night air. Barron didn’t know if this nigga was gonna get in the whip and ride out to the airport or not, but to his surprise Gutta paused and followed Frankie down the walkway and got in on the passenger side of the car.
Barron squeezed into the backseat with his long legs crunched up, and they rode a short distance away to Frankie’s crib, where Barron had left his rented Acura. He had already dished off the dollars he owed the private investigator, so him and Gutta switched cars and left Frankie standing on the curb outside of his building.