Promise Broken, page 10
She knocked on the apartment door in the pattern that Mouse had taught her. There was silence, and then the stealthy shuffling of feet. The beam of light from the peephole was blocked as someone peered out to see who it was. Several seconds later the locks came undone and she was snatched inside before she even had a chance to ask after who she was looking for.
A guy who she had come to know as Goodie, was at his usual position behind the door. No matter what time she showed up at this place she could always find him at his post. She wondered when he found time to sleep? Goodie was a portly man with soft caramel skin and the faintest whispers of a five-o’clock shadow along his jaw. He’d gotten the name due to his love of snacks. Two things were certain with Goodie: you could always find him with some junk food stashed in one of his pockets and the other was that whenever he was on duty, nobody was getting through that door unless he wanted them to.
“I see you out looking for trouble a little earlier than usual, huh?” Goodie greeted her good-naturedly. Since even before Mouse had started running with Ab, Promise and Goodie had always been solid. He was one of the few dudes in their click that was always nice to her and wasn’t looking for anything in return. He was just a good dude.
“I’m looking for Mouse.” Promise hit him in the arm playfully.
Goodie shrugged. “Ain’t really no difference in the two as far as I can tell. You find Mouse, and I’m sure you’ll find yourself in some trouble.”
“Goodie, you out there trying to put shit on my name again, man?” Mouse called from where she was seated at the dining room table. Mouse had on only her jeans and a bra beneath a cooking apron and a pair of rubber gloves on her hands. She was hunched over the largest pile of dope Promise had ever seen. Mouse was talking shit over her shoulder, while she sifted through the powder with two playing cards. There was another girl across the table from her who was tying rubber bands around small packages of heroin, and a third in the kitchen running powder through a sifter. The trio moved with the synchronization of a dance troupe getting their product ready for the streets.
“I guess I caught you at a bad time?” Promise eyed the drugs suspiciously. If she had to wait until Mouse and the other girls packaged all that then it would probably be best for her to catch Mouse at another time.
Mouse wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm, careful not to get any powder on her face. “Nah, you good. Shit, I’m done. They do this in shifts and I was just filling in for one of the girls. I been here almost four hours already.” Mouse snapped off her rubber gloves and placed them on the table. “Let me just go grab my shirt,” she said, getting up from her spot.
“You know the rules,” Goodie said from across the room.
“My fault.” Mouse picked up the gloves, balled them up, and stuffed them into a diaper genie that sat in the corner. As a rule, B-Stone wanted all paraphilia promptly destroyed after use. It didn’t go down an incinerator or in the trash. Everything was taken and burned. She went into the back to wash her hands and change back into her shirt, leaving Promise to wait.
“Why don’t you cop a squat while you wait on her instead of standing around like a statue?” Goodie offered.
Promise looked at the lone couch in the apartment. It was a rickety thing that was being held up by cinder blocks where the legs used to be. The stained, plum-colored cushions looked like they had been graced by one thousand unwashed asses. A dude who she didn’t know, but had seen around was lounging on one of the arms of the couch. He looked at Promise, hopefully, waiting for her to sit so he could invade her space. “I’m straight,” she told him. Just the thought of what was probably living in the creases of the chair was making her itch.
There was a knock on the front door. Goodie crept over and looked through the peephole. Whoever he saw standing on the other side caused him to tense. Goodie motioned for Promise to take a seat. She didn’t want to sit on the rancid couch, but there was a sense of urgency that she couldn’t ignore, so she sat on the couch cushion that looked to be the least soiled. As she had feared, the dude who had been sitting on the arm of the couch took the seat next to her. Goodie waited until everyone was situated before removing the locks from the door and opening it.
Two men entered. One was older, with a snow-white beard and long salt-and-pepper dreads that had begun to abandon him at the top. He wore no jewelry or sported tattoos that Promise could see, but carried himself with an air of seriousness that everyone in the room seemed to feel. The second man to enter the apartment brought in a feeling with him too. This one was of pure menace.
He had a rough look about him—an unkempt beard with hair that looked like a Brillo Pad. Around his thick neck hung an expensive gold chain.
This wasn’t Promise’s first time seeing B-Stone. He didn’t really play the block but passed through a few times per day to check on his operation. Whenever their paths had previously crossed it had been from a distance, so she had never gotten a chance to feel firsthand how his energy could fill a room. It was overwhelming, like what one might feel walking between the lion or tiger cages at a zoo. You were pretty sure that they couldn’t get to you through the barriers, but the fear that they might be able to remained.
“Fuck took you so long to open the door?” B-Stone asked Goodie. He had removed a crooked cigarette from behind his ear and placed it between his lips.
“Gotta know who is who, now don’t I?” Goodie replied. Unlike everyone else in the room he had no fear of B-Stone but respected how dangerous he could be.
“Indeed,” B-Stone agreed before stepping around Goodie and coming into the living room. “How we looking?” he asked over his shoulder while surveying the drugs on the table.
“We’re good on this end . . . at least until sometime tonight, depending on the glow,” Goodie told him.
“That’s what I like to hear,” B-Stone said, lighting the cigarette. He went to light the cigarette, but paused as if he had just remembered something. “Where is Asher?”
“Had to bust a move. Said he’d be back in a while,” Goodie said as if Asher had only just left. Truth be told, he hadn’t seen Asher in hours.
“Only moves he’s supposed to be busting are in here. Why the fuck I always gotta remind niggas of what I’m paying them to do?” B-Stone ranted.
“Ain’t no big deal, Stone. I had it under control.” Goodie tried to defuse the situation.
“I know you got shit under control, Goodie, but that ain’t the point. I pay you to do the door and that lil nigga to run this spot. If you’re doing both jobs then why am I cutting two checks instead of one?” B-Stone went on. He took another deep pull of the cigarette, which seemed to make his pupils dilate.
Goodie just shrugged. He had been around long enough to know how to pick his battles when it came to B-Stone.
The man with the white beard and shoulder-length locs was about to say something to B-Stone, but the gangster waved him silent. B-Stone cocked his head as if he was listening for something. “Y’all hear that?”
“Aww, shit.” Promise heard the girl who had been in the kitchen with the sifter curse under her breath. What Promise didn’t know at the time was that B-Stone had a thing for PCP and sometimes it made him paranoid.
“Hear what?” Goodie asked, even though he probably shouldn’t have. He knew where this was about to go. B-Stone was wet again.
“The numbers are wrong,” B-Stone said, walking from the living room, through the kitchen, and back again. “I know how many people are supposed to be in this house and the numbers are off. Somebody don’t belong,” he continued, peering under the table briefly before turning to the couch where Promise was sitting. “Yo, who the fuck are you?”
Promise felt her chest tighten and the color drain from her face. She opened her mouth to answer him but found her tongue as dry as sandpaper. B-Stone must’ve gotten tired of waiting for her to answer because he stormed over to the couch. Now, standing so close Promise could smell the smoke and she knew without a doubt that it wasn’t tobacco alone in the cigarette. To her surprise, she wasn’t the target of his anger. The boy who had been sitting on the couch with her was.
“Little nigga, you deaf? I asked you a question.” B-Stone hovered over him.
At first the boy thought it was a joke. Some sort of initiation as him being one of the new workers, so he tried to laugh it off. “C’mon, Stone. It’s me . . . Mark. Stop playing, man.”
B-Stone grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him to the window. Everyone looked on in shock as B-Stone kicked out the screen in the window and shoved the boy’s upper body through it, holding him by the legs. “You still think I’m playing, new face? Who sent you? That nigga Zul put you on me?” he pressed, dangling the boy out the window by his legs.
“I never even met Zul! Cal hired me yesterday to run packs to the workers. I’m just trying to get a dollar!” the boy pleaded. Over his head he watched the people four stories below move out of the way so as to avoid having his body land on them when and if he fell.
“Bullshit, nigga! Zul sent double agents into my establishment trying to jam me up. I’ll squash all you roaches before I let him take what’s mine!” B-Stone shook him.
“Stone.” The man with the thinning dreads and white beard rested a calming hand on B-Stone’s shoulder. “You trippin’! He ain’t one of Zul’s.”
“Nah, Saud. You know how Zul plays. He’s trying to eat us from the inside out and this kid is a parasite!” B-Stone insisted. He released one of the boy’s legs and was now dangling him with one hand by the cuff of his jeans. His survival now relied on the quality of his pants. Some of the people in the room had never seen a man murdered, but all signs pointed to them witnessing a homicide.
“Stone, I was there when Cal gave him the job. He isn’t an enemy. Pull him in,” Saud said, this time his voice was a little more forceful. B-Stone weighed it before pulling the boy back in and letting him crash to the floor. Saud led him away from the window, whispering reassuring words into B-Stone’s ear. What Saud had told B-Stone about being there when the boy was hired was a flat-out lie. He had never seen the boy a day in his life, but he would’ve rather gambled on there being truth in his confession than having B-Stone toss him out the window and having to clean up a murder.
Promise couldn’t remember having ever been that afraid in her life. She had heard stories about B-Stone’s murderous rages, but seeing one firsthand the stories hardly did the man’s antics any justice. As Saud was calming B-Stone, Promise decided to make her exit. She wanted to get as far away from the Trap, and its insane overlord, before he wigged out again and looked for another victim. After what she had seen it was doubtful that she would ever come back. When she arrived at the door, Mouse was coming out of one of the bedrooms, fixing her shirt. She looked at Promise, who had turned a ghastly shade of white.
“What did I miss?”
CHAPTER 12
Asher ambled down the street, humming along with the rap music that was playing in his headphones. He was in a good mood that day, as he should’ve been. That morning he had managed to collect a debt on a dude he had been chasing around the city for a while. It had been outstanding for so long that he had decided to charge it to the game. It was hardly enough money to make a big deal over. As luck would have it, he happened to bump into the dude who owed him the money coming out of the check-cashing spot. He paid his debt and the two parted company on civil terms.
With his newfound money, Asher decided to treat himself to something. A new pair of J’s had dropped the week before and he had been trying to make time to go and grab a pair. There was no time like the present. He ended up leaving the store with not only his sneakers but one of the employees. She was supposed to be on her thirty-minute lunch break, but it ended up turning into her calling off for the rest of the day. Asher had spent most of the afternoon at the girl’s apartment digging up in her guts. Two nuts and a goodbye blow job later, he was on his way back to the block.
Asher took the side streets back to the strip. He didn’t want to walk along any of the main avenues because he didn’t want to run the risk of running into anyone that he knew. When he was in creep mode he liked to move with stealth. After a block or so he would spare a glance over his shoulder. Ever since leaving the girl’s house he had the feeling that he was being watched. It was probably just paranoia brought on by the fact that he was off doing dirt again, but he couldn’t shake it.
Just to make sure that he wasn’t bugging, he cut down a random block and once he was in a blind spot, ducked into the cut of a building. He drew the .380 pistol that he always kept with him and waited. A few seconds later a dude passed by. He stopped a few paces away from where Asher was hiding and started looking around like he was lost or looking for someone. Asher was about to creep up behind him when the dude stepped off the curb and crossed the street. A girl was coming out of the building. The two hugged and walked into the building together.
“I’m bugging the fuck out.” Asher slipped his gun back into his pocket. His anxieties had been running high since hearing that Zul was home, and he had been moving around the neighborhood on eggshells. Asher hadn’t run into him yet, and if he could help it he didn’t plan to. Zul hadn’t made a move yet, but Asher knew he would. It wasn’t in his nature to let things go. Something was going to happen and it was the uncertainty of knowing when that was driving Asher nuts.
Asher was so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t immediately noticed the red Honda Civic that had slowed to a coast next to him. By the time he did, the passenger’s side window was rolling down. The barrel of a gun was being pointed at him. He was too far from either corner of the block to try and run and there was nothing for him to hide behind. He had been caught slipping. The events of his life to that point played over in a reel as he waited for the end, but it was not to be. The window rolled completely down and he found the grinning face of his girlfriend, Ruby, behind the gun.
“Aww, you was shook!” Ruby laughed.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I almost popped your ass.” Asher stormed up to the car. He had managed to pull his gun from his pocket, after the fact, and brandished it threateningly. “What you doing ridin’ around all reckless?”
“Star took me downtown so I could take pictures for this modeling joint,” Ruby told him.
“How’d that go?” Asher asked.
Ruby shrugged. “I don’t know. I took some pictures, filled out some paperwork and they said they’ll call. Same as the last three shoots I went out on.”
“Ruby, you know if you took modeling a little more seriously something might come of it,” Asher told her.
“Whatever, man. I ain’t nothing special. Just another tall Black bitch from the hood. I ain’t getting my hopes up,” Ruby said as if it were no big deal. Ruby had been dabbling in modeling off and on for the last couple of years. She had a unique look about her that photographers seemed to like. Every time it looked like something was about to happen for her she found a way to fuck it up. She would either blow off the shoots or find something she didn’t like about the photographer. She was a self-saboteur and couldn’t seem to get out of her own way.
“You’ll never make it if you keep thinking like that,” Asher said disappointedly.
“Cut the bullshit. You know this white man’s world ain’t got no place for us. We gotta get it how we live,” Starla, Ruby’s right-hand homegirl, said from behind the wheel. She was sporting a black hoodie and red bandana tied around her head. Ruby was tough as nails, but Starla was a straight-up gangster. She had been gang banging, jacking, and shooting at people since she was old enough to hold a pistol. Her name rang bells in the neighborhood. She was one of those girls you didn’t want any smoke with for two reasons: Starla got busy with her hands and pistols, and if you did happen to get the best of her she had three brothers who were known killers that would be on your head.
Asher peered deeper into the car. He hadn’t noticed at first, but the covering on the steering column had been pulled off. The car was stolen. “Wait, y’all went to a modeling gig in a stolen car? You broads are out of your minds!” Asher shook his head. He too had once dabbled in stealing cars, but had long since grown out of it and was onto bigger things.
“Jump in. We’ll spin you back to the block,” Starla offered.
“You must be out your fucking mind. Knowing y’all, you been riding in that bitch all day and it’s probably hot as a firecracker right now. As a matter of fact, Ruby get your ass out of there.” Asher snatched the door open before she could protest.
With a suck of her teeth, Ruby reluctantly got out. “I’ll catch you back in the hood, Star.”
“Whatever, bitch,” Starla said with a laugh before peeling rubber and pulling off. She flew through a red light at the end of the block, almost hitting a woman crossing the street.
“You keep fucking with that crazy bitch and you’re gonna end up in some shit, Ruby,” Asher warned.
“Says the nigga who kicks it with killers twenty-four-seven,” Ruby replied sarcastically.
“Yeah, my people got some shit with them but Starla’s ass is reckless. It’s only going to be a matter of time before something happens to her and I don’t want you going down with her.”
“Oh, now you wanna play the concerned boyfriend? I ain’t seen you for more than a few hours here and there for more than two weeks. What’s really good?” Ruby pressed.
