New York's Finest (1st of the Trilogy)

by Swinson, Kiki

  “Whatcha’ trying to say Reggie?” I heard Damian ask. It sounded as if he had a lot of aggression in his voice and he was appalled at Reggie’s allegation.

  “Nigga, I said what I had to say loud and clear,” I heard Reggie reply as if he wasn’t backing down. “And everybody in this motherfucker heard me. So now you need to do some talking.”

  “Damian!” I yelled through the phone. But it became very apparent that he didn’t hear me.

  “Reggie, you know you wrong man. I don’t know where the fuck this shit is coming from, but you know what you’re saying ain’t right and I don’t appreciate you disrespecting me like that,” Damian said in a moderate but sharp tone.

  “Oh. so now you’re feeling disrespected?” I heard my brother say in a sarcastic manner. Then he laughed. “Nigga, I’m the one getting disrespected here because I believe that your homeboy over there knows who robbed my motherfucking sister and killed one of my best men.”

  “Look, I can’t speak for that man over there, but I do know that I had nothing to do with that shit that happened earlier. And for you to insinuate that I would put Naomi in harm’s way isn’t cool. You know I ain’t that type of nigga Reggie. Damn, you and I have been boys all our fucking lives and Lil Sis has been like a sister to me.”

  Before Reggie could respond someone began to knock on the door at the apartment they were in. “Who is it?” I heard Reggie roar. But I couldn’t hear the person’s voice behind the door. I was having major difficulty hearing, so I waited to see what was about to happen next. And then three seconds later, I heard a man say, “Hey the police is back out here.”

  “How many is it?” Reggie asked.

  “Just two,” I heard the guy say.

  “Where they at?” Reggie responded.

  “They on foot and they walking around outside harassing some of them young boys who live in the other towers. Wait, hold on,” the guy said and then the phone fell silent. “Gee just said they followed that nigga, Tony, into the second tower.”

  “A’ight, let’s move before they come back out,” I heard Reggie say. Then Damian’s phone went dead. I didn’t get a hello, goodbye or nothing. So I immediately pressed the send button again, but his voicemail came on after the first ring.

  “Shit!” I spat and pressed the end button. Then I pressed the send again. And once again his fucking voicemail came on.

  Frustrated beyond words, I tried my luck and decided to call my brother back. The phone rang three times before he finally answered. I found myself sighing all over again. “Reggie, what the fuck is going on?” I screamed through the phone. I wasn’t happy by his performance in front of all those lame ass niggas he had working for us. It wasn’t a good look for our operation. It didn’t show cohesiveness. We were their leaders, Damian included, and you never allowed the peons to see any weakness amongst those in management. It was Business 101. The business venue didn’t matter—it could be a ten million dollar car company or a ten million dollar drug, for the most part the same business principles applied. Only, when we got fucked, people died. That was our termination plan.

  “Look, Naomi, I can’t talk right now. I’m trying to get out of this building before we get spotted,” he said to me. I could tell by the acoustics that he was in the stairwell trying to get down to the first floor.

  “Reggie, we need to talk,” I said immediately before he hung up on me. “I heard everything you said to Damian and that was some foul shit and not a good look, especially in front of those guys out there.”

  “Look, I got everything under control,” he told me and then he hung up on me. I knew his ass would do that. I was glad I got in what I did before he hung up. Hopefully it made his ass think before overreacting.

  But I was still left speechless and helpless. What was really frustrating was that I couldn’t do shit about it. Reggie said what he had to say to Damian. Damian said what he had to say back and I couldn’t get a word in otherwise. That’s not how I liked for things to be. I hated it when I couldn’t control a situation. I was bothered to the tenth power and I couldn’t say or do anything to prevent this shit from happening tonight. Whatever this shit was? I just hoped this whole thing would blow over before Reggie got any worse. Hell, we had just flown in a prime shipment of coke imported from South America, and we needed everyone on deck to get rid of this shit, so we can go back and re-up.

  Being in the dope game didn’t promise you a lifelong career of prosperity. In this type of business, you only had a couple of years to get a good run and save up as much money as you possibly could and get the fuck out. If you messed around and let someone come between that or get sidetracked, then you were the damn fool for overstaying your welcome. In other words, you deserved everything that fell on you for being stupid and greedy. At the end of the day, you were in charge of your own destiny. It was a simple motto, “get what you can while you can.”

  After I finally dozed off to sleep, my fucking Blackberry rang and woke me from a semi-sound sleep. When I heard Damian’s voice, I calmed down a little. I peeped at my alarm clock and noticed that it was one-fifteen a.m. “Is everything all right?” I didn’t hesitate to ask.

  “Yeah, everything is cool,” he answered. “I’m on my way to the Bronx to pick up some money this nigga owes me and then I’m gonna head to the crib.”

  “Where is Reggie?”

  “When I left him he was still at the other spot.”

  “Did you guys get that shit straighten out?”

  “Not really. Right after he smacked Walt upside the head with his pistol a couple times, he screamed on him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t tell him who ran up on y’all today.”

  “What did Walt say?” I asked curiously.

  “He denied having any involvement at all.”

  “What do you think? I mean, you know him better than any of us.”

  “I believed him. That’s why I told Reggie to chill out and go at this thing another way. But you know how crazy he gets when we go against him, which is why I believed he started screaming on me.”

  “Did he say anything else to you after y’all left the spot?”

  “Nah, he was quiet the whole drive until Vanessa called him.”

  “Well, did he say something to you when y’all finally parted ways?”

  “He just told me to meet him back at the hideaway spot when I get up in the morning.”

  “You going?”

  “Yeah, I’m going, what kinda question is that?”

  I played off Damian’s smartass remark. But he was right, that was a crazy ass question. If he didn’t show, Reggie would hunt his ass down. “Are you going to talk to him about how he screamed on you in front of Dre and them?”

  “Of course I am. I can’t have that shit lingering out there and not do anything about it.”

  “Well, just make sure you handle the situation with kid gloves. You know how Reggie is when you question him about how he handles his business affairs. Not only that, we’re family at the end of the day, so we gotta stick together. We’ve got too much shit going on right now to be falling apart at the seams behind some bullshit. Now I know we lost one of our soldiers and almost ten stacks, but we’ve still got to move on.”

  “You’re right,” Damian agreed. I could tell he was still pissed but I was glad he called. I could tell he was in better spirits. I just hoped Reggie was in even better spirits by the time they met several hours from now.

  “I know I’m right,” I stated. “So make things right with Reggie and call me tomorrow.”

  “A’ight,” he said.

  New York’s Finest Kiki Swinson

  Chapter 6 – Operation Get Money

  I wasn’t ready when my alarm clock went off at four in the morning. I had to literally drag myself out of bed and into the shower. By five, I was out the house and on the road, heading towards LaGuardia Airport. Thank God the traffic wasn’t bad. I didn’t live far from the airport and on early days like this it usually didn’t take me lon
g to get to work. But on days when I had a mid or late morning flight, the traffic would be backed up as soon as I hit the road.

  I parked the truck and made my way inside the terminal. Every morning around this time I always saw the same fucking faces. A few worked for me and Reggie, but the rest of the lames were regular Joe Blows who worked their asses off for a fucking measly fifteen dollars an hour and they thought they were on top of the world. A couple of the bitches worked for the same airline as me and I considered them a part of the same Joe Blow -clique as the others. But these two troublemakers were in a class of their own. They were ass kissers who snitched on other flight attendants for the sake of brownie points.

  One of the chicks was Suzie Malone and the other bitch was Rhonda Ashford. They both were flight attendants but they worked on different jetliners. I had worked with them occasionally and they weren’t pleasant to work with, which was why I was very upset to find out that we were working the same flight this morning. Thankfully, my girl, Sabrina, was on the schedule with me, because I would have flipped out if I had to work with these bitches by myself.

  Once our plane was airborne, Sabrina and I volunteered to serve refreshments to the passengers at the back of the plane, while Suzie and Rhonda worked the first class. Under normal circumstances, first class was Sabrina and my territory but we allowed them to handle it today, since there weren’t any rich prospects for the taking.

  During the course of the flight, Sabrina and I got a few stares and a couple of snide remarks but we kept it professional and ignored those hoes. Sabrina wasn’t aware of my dealings and how important this job was for me, so I found myself having to remind her that those bitches weren’t worth getting written up over. I also reminded her about the recession the country was presently in—so if she allowed them bitches to get her kicked out of a job, then she would be just another unemployed bitch standing in the dreaded unemployment line. It took a while for her ass to get it, but after my five-minute pep talk, she saw the light and got the hint. America was fucked right now and another bitch in the soup line didn’t bother the politicians or the wealthy swimming in dough.

  “What would you like to drink ma’am?” I asked the first woman in the last row of the plane.

  “Pretzels?” I heard Sabrina ask the woman on the opposite row. She and I handed out drinks and bags of pretzels to passengers in our section. And right before it was time to land our plane, she and I had to go back around to retrieve all of the trash that the passengers had to discard. When that was done, we took our seats and waited for our plane to land.

  The landing was bumpy as usual but we landed safely. After all the passengers had exited the plane, it was the flight attendants’ job to cross check to make sure no one left any of their belongings behind. So as Sabrina and I searched each row, we saw Suzie and Rhonda coming towards us. I stood up and faced them.

  “We’re going to need you two to rearrange the beverage cart y’all used because it’s in disarray. And Rhonda and I aren’t trying to get written up behind you guys laziness,” Suzie said. I really wasn’t in the mood for this petty shit today. But it is what it is when you get too many women working together. And that was the nature of the airline industry. Women working together and causing all kinds of unnecessary drama just for the sake of drama was a part of the course.

  Before I went in on Suzie, I took one good look at this fucking blonde hair bimbo. She tried her best to look like Pamela Anderson, but she was way off with her fake fucking boobs and long blonde extensions. If she knew what was good for her, she’d better get the hell out of my damn face before Rhonda was picking her ass up off the floor.

  I shook my head and gave that stank bitch the nastiest expression I could muster up. “First of all, what makes you think you can come back here and approach me Suzie?” I questioned her silly ass. “I don’t fuck with you like that. And for you to tell me that Sabrina and I have to rearrange the beverage cart is really taking it to another level. Girl, if you don’t get out of my damn face, I’m gonna say something that you really ain’t gonna want to hear.”

  Sabrina chuckled, while I stood there and waited for Suzie’s white ass to say something else stupid. Instead of making another comment, she rolled her eyes while her sidekick, Rhonda, said, “I told you she was going to act ghetto with you.”

  Appalled at this bitch’s remark, I damn near spit out fire. “Ghetto!” I snapped as I placed my right hand across my hip. “Oh, you ass kissing bitches ain’t seen ghetto.” I snarled as I took one step towards them both.

  “Come on, Suzie. Let’s get out of here before she shows us how ghetto she can get,” Rhonda advised Suzie as she grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards the front of the plane.

  “Yeah, Suzie, you better listen to your dumbass friend, because she ain’t gonna jump in to help you once I start whipping on your ass.”

  Sabrina laughed louder. And I started laughing too as I watched those two dizzy ass chicks run for cover.

  “I’m not worried about you Naomi,” Suzie responded. “I can take care of myself. And besides, it won’t be long before I get your ass booted off this airline for all the underhanded stuff you’re doing. Believe me, I got my eyes on you, sweetie.”

  “You better. Because I got my eyes on you too, you tramp,” I roared. Thank God the pilots had already left the plane or I would’ve been in trouble for that outburst. I hope Suzie was talking about the small minor shit I was doing like being a pain in her ass, and not the real scandalous shit I was doing.

  Sabrina tapped me on my shoulder. “You think she knows about you getting involved with some of the airline’s male passengers?”

  I turned around to give Sabrina my complete attention. I wanted her to see exactly how sincere I was about my response to her question. “Look, I could care less if she knew I fucked every man that walked onto this plane. What I do with those niggas is my business. But if I dare find out that she’s going behind my back to talk to personnel about me, I am going to make that bitch very sorry that she ever met me.”

  “Damn, you’re serious, huh?” Sabrina surmised.

  “You damn right I am,” I replied quickly. “Because I don’t fuck with her, or anyone else for that matter. So she needs to stay the fuck out of my way before she gets hurt.”

  After I expressed to Sabrina what would happen to Suzie if she dared to open her mouth about me to my bosses, we finished what we were doing. Then we exited the plane. Our next flight wasn’t for another two hours and Sabrina suggested we get some breakfast from the food court inside the New Orleans Airport terminal. While we waited for our food, she excused herself to call the guy she had just started seeing. She wanted to let him know that our flight made it safely to New Orleans. While she was preoccupied, I decided to call Reggie. I had to know if he and Damian had a chance to talk and bury the hatchet. But as fate would have it, his voicemail picked up after the first ring, so I assumed he had turned his phone off. Instead of calling Damian, I stuck my Blackberry back into my handbag and thought about how I would approach this situation when I did get him on the phone.

  Reggie was my brother and I loved him to death. I knew his shortcomings and being paranoid was his biggest weakness. He was a man who had built a small but lucrative empire, and his life of hustling was coming back to haunt him.

  Reggie was an innovator. He truly was a student of the game. He had taken the lessons of Al Capote, Frank Lucas, Nicky Barnes and many other gangsters, and used those lessons to forge his legacy. His product wasn’t local; it was transported from South America via different locations to the states. I was his mule via my different flights throughout the United States. There were four cities I flew to often that were great points of entry to the U.S.: San Diego, Phoenix, Miami and Houston. These were also sites that the DEA patrolled and staked out regularly, but having connections with TSA bag handlers and customs officials kept us in business and more importantly, kept us stealth. And in this business, you had to fly under the radar.


  During a recession, any extra dollar could help and Reggie fed on that fact. The money he paid our U.S. connections was worth it. And who couldn’t use an extra ten grand during these trying times. Additionally, the take from the suppliers in South America was also lucrative.

  So everyone was getting paid, including me.

  And since Reggie wasn’t dealing with a local supplier, he wasn’t on the DEA’s radar nor NYPD’s Narcotics Division. NYPD didn’t look at Reggie as being the big time dealer he was. They thought he was a third or fourth tier dealer, and that was fine by my brother. The less they thought of him, the more income he could bring in.

  Maybe it helped that Reggie and I were both diversified financially. His best lesson was never keep your money in one place. As much as black people didn’t believe in banks, those in the criminal element believed even less. Reggie was different. He had created at least five aliases for both of us, and we had bank accounts spread throughout the U.S. and an account in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands for both of us. My regular airline check was direct deposited into a local bank in New York. Reggie also owned a computer repair shop that had legitimate employees in the front of the shop, while a hidden staircase led to a basement where Reggie stashed drugs, weapons and money.

  Lastly, because of his paranoia, Reggie believed in confiding in three people: me, Damian and our father, Miguel Foxx. If any one of us ever broke that trust, I believed Reggie would freak the fuck out. And there’s no telling what he would do to get the revenge he thought he deserved. I just hoped that day would never come, because we all needed each other to maneuver around this cutthroat ass world. We had to keep this shit tight or all of us would be going down.