“Follow me to the van,” he went on, “We've got everything here ready and waiting.”
We moved towards the club where a large black transit van was stationed. Both Hulk and Ez walked slowly and with purpose. I couldn't help bu notice that emblazoned on Hulk's back was a red devil with the words Ugly Bastards Motorcycle Club stitched in.
Hulk pulled the doors open, “Our friends up north will be happy with this. You doing us a big favor, Mr Young.”
Locked out back behind The Vault we had absolute privacy, and looking at the bags stuffed with ominous shapes, did we need it. Five sport bags were filled to the brim. Each containing a single long and tubular object which bulged through the thin material.
“Wanna take a look, my man?” Ez stretched his arms out over the goods.
“Nah, it's alright. I ain't being paid to look, only drive. What's in there is none of my business.” Jerome edged closer with eyes that fixed on the contents. He might have convinced the pair, but I knew the reality. He wanted into those bags, and badly. The dollar signs flashed above him.
“Let me and my man here help you get these bags into your car then.” Hulk grabbed three himself and left the remaining two for the others to collect.
“Shit... They're goddamn heavy!” Complained Ez. “I might have to start hitting the gym.”
They quickly had the bags shut securely in the trunk.
Hulk patted Jerome on his shoulder. “What's the plan now, Mr Young? You staying around down here tonight or getting back on the road?”
“Staying overnight. Got some fun up here planned with with my boy, Ez there. I'm not gonna miss it. They tell me I've got a deadline for tomorrow evening up in Midnight.”
“Yeah, prez. I'm gonna show him the club. We ain't seen each other in time,” Ez belted back to us while jogging to open the gate.
Hulk took a seat on his massive Harley and thoughtfully spoke. “To tell you the truth, I'd prefer it if you headed up the interstate now. There's a lot of merchandise in there, kid. But... If Vendrell said that's your deadline then that's his business.”
“He did,” Jerome gruffly replied. “What he said. Heard it with my own ears.”
“Make sure you send him my regards.” He turned to Ez and stated, “Treat the pair of them to a good night.”
“You know it boss. I'm the best host in town,” sang Ez. “Heading back to the clubhouse?”
“I am... Night Mr Young, night Cassie.”
“Nice to meet you,” I replied back.
“Likewise.”
Hulk kick started the engine and wheeled himself around before riding off into the night. It was strange to think Hulk and a guy like Ez were members of the same club. The president looked at you with a sincerity that reflected on every line of his face. By contrast, Ez – as outwardly affable as he tried to be – was constantly moving like he was always on edge. His hands twitched ever so slightly by his sides when he spoke. My money would be on it revealing his insincerity.
With the roar of Hulk's bike drifting away into the distance, Ez spoke freely and immediately proved my point with a show of duplicity. He exclaimed, “That candyass fuck? Coming here – to my place - acting like god nigger himself. Fuck that!”
Evidently Ez wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. While his president may have been out of earshot, what he said was loud enough for half the town to eavesdrop.
“You hear that shit? You hear that shit? Goddamn nigger called me kid earlier! Fuck... If this weren't the fucking pick up, I'd have lost my cool,” Jerome stood there gesticulating like he was ready to lay someone out while backing his friend up to the hilt.
“J-J... I tell you something. That fuckers day is coming. Mark my goddamn words. There's going to be a change in this club soon...” Ez pulled up the back the black of his jacket revealing a gun slid down the back of his pants.
Jerome immediately fist-bumped his friend. “I like it, I like it!”
“Come on, enough thinking about him. Lemme get you inside. We got a lot of liquor to drink...”
Both began walking for the backdoor of the club and left me behind outside like a forgotten memory. Even though it was a summer's night, the air was cool and chilling my exposed legs. Hurriedly I rushed to keep up with them.
~ Chapter Eight ~
“...And then I said 'fuck you nigger' before slamming the bottle straight over his bean head!”
The circle of faces sitting around the table burst into raucous laughter upon Ez finishing his story. The five friends of EZ, their women and Jerome were in fits. His story of tormenting a down and out drug addict who who asked for more time to pay up on a debt he owed had them rioting. Though I found it horrifying and got through by forcing a smile.
“You going to the john, girl?” Jerome asked when I stood up.
“Yeah. Just going to powder my nose,” I replied giving him a white lie. In reality I needed a break.
“Be quick. I need you at the car when you get out.”
“Why's that?”
“Just do it.”
I left the gathering and followed the stairs from the VIP area to the toilets below. It was late in the night and Ez shut the club early to have this private party. Or at least that's how he said it. Since we arrived only a smattering of customers had actually walked through the door. In fact the girls working here – and there were a lot of girls – outnumbered the customers three to one. While the word nightclub may have been above the door, inside it was a strip club through and through. Upstairs was the VIP room, though below was all poles and plastic seating trying its hardest to be leather.
“Hey girl,” Blue, a girl stripping at the club who I thought had left hours ago, called to me when I entered the girls restroom. “Can you help me with something?”
“No problem. What is it?”
Then I saw it. Lined up on the fake marble counter tops. Cocaine. Lines of it. A lot of it. More than I thought anyone could take.
She looked up at me again and I noticed the unmistakable white film covering her left nostril. “I... I can't focus. My head's in pieces. Think you can help me cut this up? I've been trying over and over, but I can't get it cut.”
Blue struggled to stay upright wearing her ludicrously high heels while she arched over the basin. The bright neon blue dress she wore, even brighter next to the darkness of her skin, rode up her curvaceous legs and held tight over a nipped in waist. The smell of sex filled the dirty room and I would put money on the bag of coke lying opened in front of her was payment for whatever had just went down.
“Here,” I said while sliding in next to her. “Let me do it for you.”
It pained me to help. She was in a bad way and I certainly didn't want to encourage getting her a worse state, but I figured it was better me cutting those lines for her than one of those guys upstairs offering their assistance. Especially if they already had.
“Oh, wow girl. You make it look so easy,” she drawled in a mess with pupils staring up at me like saucers. “I guess you know what you're doing.”
“I never liked it, but my boyfriend who does it sometimes. You learn how to cut a line quick with a guy like that.” I lifted her hair up for her and she snorted the line up like a vacuum cleaner with an all-powerful snort. Instantly she jumped upright, patting her nose.
“Mmm... That's it. Exactly what I needed. You sure you don't wanna try? It keeps you thin?”
“I'm OK. I just need to use the little girl's room.”
Her mind was focused elsewhere. She didn't take in what I said. “You do another for me, Cass?”
“OK, but I need to be hitting that stall quick.”
I tipped out her bag, which must have been an eight-ball, and began cutting up another two lines for her. When you've been around someone like Jerome you learn that another always turns into another. It's like the second the first line goes up, the person can't stop until the rest is completely gone.
The second the razor blade finished its work chopping her rolled ten
dollar bill was straight back to work.
“Your man's aight. How long you two been together?”
Through the open cubicle door her ass stared back at me. I had only sat down and she already began chopping again.
“Too long to count. It feels like we've been together forever.”
“Uh-huh...” The lines she snorted clearly gave her a renewed vigor. Blue inhaled and faced me patting her nose like before. “That must be great. Me? I've been with Ez for three years now.”
“He a good boyfriend?” I asked, hoping not to hear the worst.
She laughed, “Well... I wouldn't say we were together. I like to think I'm his bottom bitch.”
“Bottom bitch?”
“Girl, you don't know what a bottom bitch is? I'm his top girl... Well, as top as any pimp's girl can be.”
Suddenly it made sense. The strip club, why all the girls who stayed around paired off with the guys upstairs once the doors were locked, Ez's shady character. It was now obvious. He was running girls. Call me innocent, but this was a world I never stepped into before. I always assumed real pimping was a thing of the past. I guess not.
“You work for Jerome?”
I took my place next to her at the basin and my blood ran cool. I don't have anything against girls who take whatever path they need to, though to be thought of by someone as a woman who would be set me on edge.
“No... He's my boyfriend.”
“...Oh.”
I dried my hands and left the bathroom. I didn't blame her for thinking that. You pair up with a man like I have and someone arriving at that conclusion isn't so much of a shock.
I left her taking another hit of the coke.
“Goddamn! These fucking bags.” Before I left the backdoor of the club I heard Jerome's frustrated voice ring out.
I took my place next to him at the side of the car. “What's up?”
“These bags won't open! Motherfucker! Why they need to wrap 'em like this?” He sat in the backseat struggling with a taped plastic brick from one of the holdalls laying open next to him.
The lot wasn't well lit, it wasn't more than a light above the club's backdoor and dumpsters, but I could make out the contents. A long gun, the type the army uses, and too many taped up square bricks to count.
I sat down next to him, surprised at what he was doing so openly. “Baby. What are you doing? You can't be opening these here. What if someone sees?”
“Bitch!” He tossed the bag he held down into the seat between us making me jump. “I don't give a fuck. Who the fuck'll care?”
“But what about Ez? I know you go back, but he's connected with the guys you're picking up from.” I placed my hand on his face to calm him down, but he instantly swiped my fingers away. At this point he was too drunk to reason with.
“Fuck Ez. Fuck the pick up! Fuck those white boys up north. I ain't got nothing to worry 'bout. I want a bit of this and I'm going to have it.” His eyes stared up at me bloodshot and wide. The same stare as I saw in Blue's gaze only moments before.
Without a shadow of a doubt he had been using. It's the reason why he now acted so irrational with this risky behavior. That said, while I sat next to him with arms crossed equally as frustrated as he was at the bags, it was beyond my comprehension. How could someone be so stupid as to do this here? The skimming off the top from the Sinners was bad enough, but being this reckless was on another level.
But, of course, this was Jerome. Him acting this was has become a common occurance. It used to only be when he was high. Now this is how he is all the time.
I sighed in resignation. “Here. Let me help you. My nails can get through it. You'll get it everywhere if you keep ripping like that.” I took the bag from his hands and my nails tore through the tape and plastic instantly. A light haze of white powder rose up into the air between us.
“Yes, yes, yes!” He cried out. Snatching the opened bag from me without even a thank you. Like a man possessed he raised the pile to his nose and took a huge snort. “Fuck... That's what I needed.”
Right then he was more pig in a trough than man. Coke was everywhere. On his fingers, face and covering the back seat.
“Uh-huh,” I replied. I leaned back in the seat. Tired from the travel, tired from the drinking, tired from life.
“Shit... I can see why they're paying me so much for the delivery when it's this pure. Fuck... I ain't had anything like this for a long ass time.”
I took two cigarettes from my purse and lit them between my lips. “Want a smoke? How about you put that away and we go back inside?”
“No chance in hell. I'm going to be enjoying some of this tonight.” He fumbled for a piece of paper in his pocket, maybe a check. Carefully, and with surprising focus, he tipped cocaine into it before wrapping it up.
His actions made no sense. Why was it only me who could see that this would lead to ruin? Boyd and his crew up in Midnight had offered him a huge amount of cash for a delivery. A simple delivery – a quick drive. Why wasn't that enough for him? Why did he have to scam and be so foolish?
It was enough to make me lose it. And I did. “Jerome, do you have to do this? Think about what you're doing. And out in the open. It's crazy. Ez'll have more coke than sense inside. Get some from him.”
He glared at me intently and with absolute disdain. “Chill, bitch. I don't need your worthless fucking opinion for anything. I'd get more wisdom out of a fucking dog... Now shut that whore grill or I'm going to bust it.”
“Do you---”
He stopped my sentence mid flow with words that radiated hatred. “Quit it... or you can drive that stupid motherfucking ass of yours back to the hotel...”
We fell into silence and he took another snort. Then another.
I hated him treating me in this way, but after years of it I felt powerless to react. My gaze fell to the floor unable to meet his. Malice and vicious aggression radiated through every pore of his body. I swear to god that if I spoke one more word then he would have lashed out and killed me.
He broke the silence by laughing hysterically to himself in complete and utter contrast to his previous tone. “And anyway... That motherfucker Ez ain't to be trusted. I tell you. He'd sell his goddamn gramps for a forty ounce.”
You learn quickly around coke users that their mood can change in a heartbeat. Jerome smiled to himself after hitting the bag again like he was the most content man in the world. Instantaneously his previous rage became a distant memory. Though it was still front and center in mine
“Now come on girl,” he urged bright and animated. “Stick that holdall back in the boot and come meet me inside. I'll tell one of the girls to get you a drink in the meantime.” He dropped the still open bag on top of the holdall and left for the club.
I felt a tear falling down my cheek before I even realized I was crying. That bastard! That fucking bastard! My hands lashed out at the seat in front of me in frustration at not daring to do anything. Why do I let him treat me like that? Why have I put up with it for so long? My hands pummeled the seat. Aiming every blow at what I wished to be his head.
Yet, my hands slowed and the fight quickly left me. It was easy to live in a fantasy where I fought back, but the reality is I couldn't. I'd lost the will to fight...
I wiped away my tears and reapplied mascara and foundation. He made me feel like shit, but I didn't want the world to know.
In the back of the car I cleaned up the mess Jerome made.
~ Chapter Nine ~
“...Most definitely. I got these hoes on lock. They know how good they get it.” Ez was once again holding court when I reentered the VIP area. I had left the party for over half an hour and seemingly he'd been talking all the while. “Take my shorty here, Pinky. She can tell you.”
Clearly Ez wasn't inventive with giving his girls nicknames, but in this case it was right.
Pinky, a short yet phenomenally curvaceous light skinned girl, hung off the arm of one of the men in our circle. She replied with a soft high
-pitched voice, “He a good daddy. I ain't had it better.”
“You see. You see?” Ez waved his arms around to the rest of us. “If it weren't for me. She'd still be a fucking hoodrat doing tricks for white husbands wanting a taste of chocolate.”
Pinky, draped over the guy to her left, nodded along seemingly satisfied with the words he spoke for her.
“The pimp brings out the best in bitches. Without us, they wouldn't have a fucking clue. I've never met one with any smarts.”
“What you mean?” A gruff man in sportswear asked to our left.
Ez didn't miss a beat. “Think of it this way... How much can a bitch earn on a good day in these streets? Five hundred? A thousand? Pinky, how many men did you fuck a night while on the streets?”
She took a sip of her drink while thinking to herself. “Maybe... half a dozen. Ten? My best Saturday was a twenty-two.”
“Exactly!” He beamed. “They're making more Benjamins than most white collar fucks could imagine... Yet you think they save a penny? No sir. They all blow it on drugs, clothes and weaves. They got no sense of perspective. No hoe can think for herself. She needs someone to do it for her...”
Everyone except me nodded along.
“...That's where I come in. Pimpin' is an art, and I'm like a manager for them. I keep them hoes in line and my astute control of their bank means they don't blow it as soon as they suck it!”
Ez and everyone else burst into laughter at his joke.
I hid behind my drink, and only feigned a smile when I caught Pinky's smiling glance.
Ez preached on about his methods and how his wisdom has turned many 'street' girls into premium call girls, but my mind drifted back to the bathroom and Blue. Especially as she still hadn't returned. I imagined her still bent over the basin with her ass in the air, cutting up lines and tapping her plump well-used nostrils. Is that the kind of happy life Ez is leading these girls down? I said a silent prayer that I never fell victim to a life like that. Maybe if things had been slightly different that could have been me.
FOUND: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Page 6