Promise Broken, page 19
“No, I’m asking that you let me finish my business with him before you resume your feud,” Ab said in a hushed tone. “I promise, this deal will be good for all of us,” he patted Saud’s chest reassuringly. Once he seemed to have calmed Saud he turned his attention back to Don B. “If I had known there was some kind of issue between you and the big homie, I’d have never had y’all under the same roof,” he said apologetically.
“I didn’t realize we had an issue either, but it’s whatever,” Don B. said dismissively.
“How about we go back inside the bar and have one last round while we wrap this deal up?” Ab suggested.
“Yeah and when we finally come out they’ll be like ten or fifteen of your little homies outside waiting on us? Thanks, but no thanks.” Devil said. “Don, I suggest we slide while the window of opportunity is still open.”
“I concur.” Don B. nodded. The longer they lingered the more they ran the risk of being trapped.
“Okay, so when should I expect the paperwork? You know, so I can run it by the attorney and we get this done?” Ab asked, trailing the trio of New Yorkers to the exit.
“I’ll have my people call your people,” Don B. said over his shoulder. His tone didn’t make Ab feel overly hopeful.
Ab straightened himself up before walking back into the hotel lobby where the homies were still congregating. He was pissed at what had happened but there wasn’t much to be done about it at that point. He planned to get roaring drunk once he was upstairs in the room. He didn’t say much to the homies, passing them on his way to the elevators. Saud was there to meet him. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He didn’t look happy. “Saud—”
“You ever side with another nigga over me and you die. And I don’t give a fuck what B-Stone or anyone else has to say about it,” Saud threatened him before boarding the elevator.
CHAPTER 23
While Abdul was at one end of town trying to figure out how to respond to being twice shitted on, there was someone on the other end of town preparing to do some shitting of their own.
Zul started that day as he did most of his days, with the upper hand. Even before his trip to prison he had prided himself on planning for the next day a whole twenty-four hours in advance. The early bird caught the worm, but it was the hawk who filled his belly with the bird after it ate the worm.
From the time Zul had received his state ID number up until the day he walked out of Northern State, he had been planning what he would do and people he would see once he was back in the world. There was not a name of an involved party that he didn’t memorize, not a deed he didn’t replay over in his mind on those nights he found himself awake into the wee hours trying to maintain a respectable distance between his bunk and the constant assault of rats and roaches seeking to invade his space. They would all be either witnesses or casualties of his second coming. He’d planned for everything, except this.
In his thirtysomething years of life Zul had never smoked cigarettes in his mother’s house, but that evening he had smoked nearly a half pack sitting on a wooden chair in her living room near the window. His sister was on the couch with an ice pack to her cheek, trying to take down the swelling of the two circular raised welts on her face. They were remnants of the hot shotgun barrel placed against her skin. She’d told him the story of her assault that afternoon at least three times by then. Every time he asked her to recount it he found himself a little angrier.
Zul’s baby sister Liza was his heart. She occupied the space that might’ve been reserved for children if he had even slowed down enough to have any. He’d practically raised Liza when their mother was running the streets. Though Zul was street poisoned, he made sure that she was never exposed to the life. All his life he had been his sister’s sole protector. So, to hear how she had been violated, in his hood at that, was like his enemy spitting in his face and daring him to do something about it. And so he would.
“You sure about this?” the kid with the missing tooth asked Zul. They called him Snags, which was short for snaggletooth.
Currently they were parked at the end of a residential block that looked like it had seen better days. Most of the houses were dilapidated and young cats sold drugs in the middle of the street like it was some kind of open-air market.
“As sure as I was the last three times you asked,” Zul replied from the passenger’s seat. He had been riding through territory that B-Stone laid claim to for the better part of an hour, looking to find someone worth shooting. Most of the generals and lieutenants were MIA, likely at the party Zul had heard about. There were plenty of soldiers on the corners, but none important enough to where they would be missed. This wasn’t about population control, but making a statement. He needed them to feel him.
“You know, it’d be a lot easier if you just let me torch the whole shit,” Snags suggested.
“But where would be the fun in that? Don’t worry so much, Snags,” Zul said in an easy tone.
“This is some crazy shit. Even for you.” Snags told him. In the couple of years that he had known Zul, he’d gotten used to his eccentricities. He was a truly bizarre cat, but he knew how to turn a profit, which is why Snags had stuck by him, even when he didn’t agree with him.
“There is a fine line between genius and madness,” Zul replied. “You just sit tight. I shouldn’t be more than an hour,” Zul told him before getting out of the car and starting down the block. Zul drew more than a few curious glances in his cashmere overcoat and hard-bottomed shoes. He was clearly out of place in the neighborhood and the young dealers assumed that he was either police, the Feds, or a serial killer. Either way, no one wanted any part of the handsome man in the suit so they gave him a wide berth.
Zul’s destination was the house. It was a building with green vinyl siding. A broken-down car sat in the front yard, where a family of kittens had taken up residency beneath. Zul rapped on the door twice, then once then twice more in the proper pattern. A few minutes later the locks came undone and the face of a short Hispanic man appeared through the cracked door. “Tweet working tonight?” he flashed a hundred-dollar bill.
The Hispanic man led Zul into the living room where there were several Latin girls lounging around. They were all wearing lingerie or short shorts, showcasing their wares. When they spotted the well-dressed Zul, the girls began prancing around so that he could see what they were working with in the hopes that he would spend his money with them. To their credit, they were all top-notch. Any other night Zul could’ve seen himself spending a few hours in the whore house sampling the different forbidden fruits, but Tweet was his end game.
It would be twenty minutes before he would meet her. She had been in the back servicing another client. She was short, brown-skinned, and wore her hair in a natural afro. Tweet sauntered out of the back room wearing only a silk robe and black high heels. A white John was with her. She walked him to the front door, promising to see him again next payday before coming back into the living room.
“This one was waiting for you,” the man who had opened the door for Zul informed Tweet.
“Been here damn near a half-hour, but refused to spend any coin with us. Said it had to be you.” One of the Spanish girls told her with an attitude. Tweet, being the only Black girl at the house, was quite popular and some of the other whores resented her for it.
“Sugar, all these niggas around here know who’s got the best throat game in town. Step yours up and maybe you’d clock more than a few funky hundred dollars in a day,” Tweet said with a mocking laugh. “C’mon, handsome,” she took Zul by the hand and led him into the back. The room Tweet worked out of was one of the larger ones in the house. It had a king-size bed, a vanity, and a small bathroom connected to it. “Make yourself comfortable while I go freshen up.” She disappeared into the bathroom.
Zul sat on the bed and waited. Inside the bathroom he could hear water running in the sink. She left the door cracked a taste so he was able to see inside. Through the mirror he could see her running a soapy washcloth under her arms and over her pussy. A few minutes later she came back out, as naked as the day she was born. She stood wide-legged in front of Zul, letting him get an unobstructed view of her. He had to admit that she had a banging body, healthy tits, and a big round ass. It was easy to see why she was in such high demand.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Zul.”
“Voodoo master,” she translated. She remembered seeing the name of a book she had read in school back in the day. “You some type of magician?”
“The only magic I know is how to turn two into four,” Zul replied.
“So, how did you hear about ol’ Tweet?” She worked mostly by referral, so you had to know somebody who knew somebody to get the rundown on her. She didn’t do random walk-ins.
“A partner of mine, a guy I knew from the streets by the name of B-Stone, turned me onto this place. Said he had a stake in it and if I ever found myself out this way and looking to have a good one then I should pop in and ask for Tweet,” Zul lied.
“Well, if you know the big homie B-Stone, you must be in the life. All he fucks with is Blood niggas,” Tweet half-joked.
“I don’t know if I’d say I was in the life. I just dabble a little,” Zul said with a shrug.
“From the cut of this suit, looks like you do a little more than dabble,” Tweet ran her hands over his lapel. “How much you looking to spend? It’s two hundred for the first hour and a hundred for every hour after that. If you wanna bring another bitch into it that’ll be an extra hundred for her and fifty to me on top of the rates I just quoted. Any extra kinky shit you might be into will have to be negotiated.”
Zul reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a thick roll of bills, which he tossed onto the bed. “What will that get me?”
Tweet greedily snatched the money and eyeballed it to take a mental count. There had to be at least three grand there. “Honey, for this I’m gonna take your handsome ass around the world and back again. How do you want to do this?”
“How about messy?” Zul made a quick motion and from the sleeves of his overcoat popped two blades that were almost as long as his forearm. Before Tweet even knew what hit her, one of Zul’s blades pierced her brain and ended her. He sat on the bed and looked at the girl’s corpse.
Tweet fell across the bed at an odd angle. Her lifeless eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. Even in death, there was still something beautiful about her.
“I didn’t want to do it like this, truly I didn’t.” Zul began speaking to the corpse. “This was B-Stone’s fault. Even after he and Saud double-crossed me into prison, I was still willing to stick to the rules of engagement during our little conflict. Then B-Stone got it in his head that it was okay to put his hands on my sister. That sucker shit he did is what let the demon out of the cage and he ain’t going back in until that fuck nigga is dead. You feel me?”
He paused as if the dead girl was going to reply.
“Now, I know a piece of shit like B-Stone only loves two things in this world: drugs and money, so I plan to fuck with both, which is why I’m here. See, he thinks that it’s a secret that he and that sour old bastard Saud are partners in this place, but there are no secrets from Zul. I plan to take everything that B-Stone holds dear before I allow him to die, starting with this little retirement fund he has going on over here. I would say that this is business and not personal, but I’d be lying.” He patted Tweet’s corpse on the cheek before going out into the hallway. “Hey, I think something is wrong with Tweet,” he called to the doorman who had let him in when he arrived.
The doorman rushed down the hall and into the room. When he saw the girl lying dead in a pool of blood all he could say was, “What the fuck happened?”
“This,” Zul replied before slicing his throat. The doorman was dead before he hit the ground. Zul twirled the blade, flicking the excess blood onto the walls while making his way back to the living room where the rest of the whores were lounging. They were lambs to the slaughter.
CHAPTER 24
Promise was thankful to be away from the scene in the hotel lobby. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been around violence. Things jumped off in the hood all the time and since running with Mouse she sometimes found herself in the thick of it, but not like what had just gone down between Saud and Don B. It was like being ringside at a fight between two hungry lions, and hoping that whichever one devoured the other had eaten its fill and didn’t look to you for dessert. Even Ab, who she had always seen as a powerful figure in the hood, didn’t seem to have a grasp on the situation. It was the first time since she had known him that she had ever seen him shook.
She couldn’t say that she blamed him. She too was afraid, as well as everyone else in the lobby, except Asher. If he was afraid, he showed no signs of it. He appeared to be cool in the face of impending danger. When he placed himself between her and the threat, she felt her heart swoon for the second time that night with the first being the kiss they had shared.
Promise understood that the kiss was for the benefit of Don B. and expected him to go back to half ignoring her once they got upstairs to where the party was, but he hadn’t. In fact, he doubled down. They stepped off the elevator, where the party had spilled into the hallway, arm in arm. Asher was marking his territory and letting everyone there know that she belonged to him. She drew looks that ranged from surprise to admiration to jealousy. They were probably shocked to see Asher publicly claiming a girl outside of Ruby. Promise wasn’t sure what was running through their heads and honestly, she didn’t care. All that mattered to her was that she was with Asher. The short time she had spent with him felt like a fairytale and she wasn’t sure, but she thought that she might’ve been falling in love.
When they’d first heard about the party it was only supposed to be a few of the homies, and some of Clay’s teammates coming through to celebrate his commitment to ‘Bama, but they arrived to find close to twenty people roaming the halls of the third floor. Some of them she recognized as high-ranking members of B-Stone’s gang, but the others she didn’t know.
They rented three rooms. The large suite, where the party was going on, the adjoining room next door, and one down the hall that only a few were allowed access to. Asher walked her into the main suite, where the party was in full swing. Music blasted while the people in the room smoked, drank, and carried on. She imagined that with all the noise they were making the other hotel guests had to have filed at least a half dozen complaints and probably called the police.
“Are you sure it’s cool to be here all reckless like that? What if one of the other guests complains or calls the police?” Promise asked Asher.
“Nah, baby. You ain’t gotta worry about none of that happening. Most of the rooms on this floor are empty tonight, except for the three we rented out. Even if they weren’t it wouldn’t be a problem. Ab is plugged in with the joker who runs this joint. You ain’t fucking with no small fish, Promise,” Asher bragged.
“Oh, so that’s what this is? You fucking with me?” Promise asked playfully.
“Stop acting like you don’t know how long I’ve had my eyes on you.”
“Your eyes be on a lot of girls, Asher,” she pointed out.
“That’s because I’ve been looking for something and all this time I never realized it was right under my nose.” Asher planted a soft peck on her lips. Those lips . . . She could get used to kissing those lips on the regular. “C’mon, let’s find somewhere to post up.”
Asher led Promise through the crowded suite, pausing here and there to exchange dap and hugs from those assembled. It seemed like every few feet they had to stop for him. She knew that Asher was popular, but had never realized how much so. She caught more than a few dirty looks from some of the girls. They were no doubt hoping that would be their night to have a turn with him. Every time he caught sight of it he made it a point to pull Promise closer or touch her affectionately. “Eat your hearts out, bitches!” she beamed to herself.
They settled on a padded seat in the corner of the suite that would give them a view of the entire party. There was already a dude sitting there, but a stern look from Asher and he got up and moved. He brushed some imaginary dirt from the chair, before plopping in it and pulling Promise down onto his lap. Shortly after they had settled into the seat, a kid who Promise recognized from the block ambled up to them holding a bottle of Hennessy and a stack of plastic cups. If Promise recalled correctly, his name was Joe.
“What up, Ash?” Joe bumped fists with him. “I know how you and that brown get down, so I kept this in the cut for you so the vultures didn’t drink it all up.”
“Good looking, Joe.” Asher plucked two of the cups from the stack and took the bottle. He filled the two cups and offered one to Promise.
“I was drinking light already and I probably shouldn’t mix,” Promise told him.
“C’mon, baby, that rotgut you and Mouse were probably drinking on your way here ain’t got shit on this. Start getting yourself used to the finer things in life, because as long as you’re fucking with me that’s all you’re going to have. You’re with me now.” Asher forced the cup into her hand. Promise took a swig and tried to act like it didn’t set her chest on fire. “That’s my girl,” he said proudly, before turning his attention back to Joe. “Yo, what’s up with your man, Milk? Nigga was supposed to meet me earlier and the nigga left me on stuck.”
“You must not have heard what happened. He got jumped earlier. Niggas beat him up pretty bad. The boy has been in the hospital in and out of consciousness. They found him up by where you stay, so I’m surprised you didn’t know.” Joe told him what he had heard through the ghetto grapevine.
