Promise Kept, page 21
“Asher says that we can come home now if we want,” Promise told her.
“And you believed him?”
“Why would he lie?” Promise questioned.
“Because it’s Asher! That’s what he does,” Mouse countered. “Promise, you might’ve lived in the neighborhood, but I’m from the neighborhood. I grew up around those guys my whole life, so I know how they think. B-Stone was like the pope to them. The kind of dirt we got on our names ain’t gonna wash off so easily, even if Prince Asher seems to think it will. Fuck Asher and fuck Newark. We did too much to escape for me to willingly stick my ass back in the lion’s den. Let the past stay where the fuck it’s at and let’s focus on our futures.”
“Asher wasn’t the only blast from the past that popped up today.” Promise told Mouse about her encounter with Don B.
“You think he remembered you?” Mouse asked nervously. She knew better than anyone what connecting certain dots could bring down on them.
“I don’t think so.”
Mouse shook her head. “You bumping into not one, but two demons in the same hell-hole on the same night is a bad sign. I think you need to fall back from Dirty Wine for a minute.”
“Two steps ahead of you. I quit tonight,” Promise informed her.
“Girl, Keisha and Candice gonna flip when they find out you quit and ain’t gonna be able to come up with your part of the rent.”
“What I got in that bag should keep them off our backs. At least for a little while. It’s really only Candice we have to worry about because Keisha was there when I told Larry to go fuck himself.”
“What? My cousin was in that club and they out there shooting! We gotta go back!” Mouse insisted.
“No, we don’t. Keisha can take care of herself. The last thing we need is to get caught up in some shit with the police, especially if we’re not one hundred percent sure whether we’re still hot or not. Keisha was inside, and the shots sounded like they were coming from outside the club. I saw Don B. out there before we left, so nine times out of ten whoever was shooting was popping at him. If we’re lucky, they hit him and he’s dead.”
“When has our luck ever been that good, Promise?” Mouse questioned.
The two girls drove the next few miles in silence. Mouse was focused on the road, and Promise decided to count the money she had made rather than wait. To her surprise the crumpled bills of different denominations added up to just over $1,700. For girls like Lita, Donna, and even Keisha, that was probably light, but for Promise, that was the best night she had ever had at Dirty Wine. Maybe she had been a little hasty in quitting.
“You think we gonna have to run again?” Mouse asked after they had been driving for a while.
Promise thought on the question before answering. “I hope not. New York ain’t exactly been kind to us, but at least we’ve been able to survive. I doubt starting over in a different city will be as easy as it has been here, unless you got some other cousins tucked away that I don’t know about?”
Mouse shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess, after hearing about you running into Asher, I’m just a little worried about the fallout that might come on the heels of that. He knows where we are now, so what’s to stop him from telling the others? Ain’t but a bridge and a few tunnels separating us from the people who want us dead. Maybe we ain’t ran far enough?”
Mouse had said what Promise had been thinking, but afraid to say. She didn’t think Asher would tell anyone that he had found her, but why chance it? Blindly trusting Asher had been what forced them to run in the first place.
“I’d do anything for you, Promise. You know that, right?” Mouse said quite unexpectedly.
“Of course. And I’d do anything for you, too, Mouse,” Promise assured her.
“I been knowing. You know you’re one of the only people in the world who ever been nice to me. Not even my own mama could stop chasing her fix long enough to pay me a kind word, but you always did. Even though you were dealing with your own shit at home, you always made time for me. I love you for that, more than you probably understand. I like New York, but if we gotta run again, I don’t mind it.”
“Mouse, we’re not gonna have to run. I got us, like always,” Promise said. “So, what were you doing way out in Brooklyn, anyhow?” she said, changing the subject.
“Trying to make a dollar,” Mouse told her, using a loose McDonald’s napkin to wipe the remaining lipstick from her mouth.
Promise had been so focused on getting away from Dirty Wine that she hadn’t even realized that Mouse was wearing makeup, which was something she rarely bothered with. When her face was made up was the only time that she didn’t have the appearance of a fourteen-year-old child. By the way she said, “Trying to make a dollar,” Promise knew that she didn’t mean packing groceries. “Mouse, what did I tell you about that shit?”
“Nah, it wasn’t like that, Promise. This was one of Candice’s people. I didn’t have to sleep with him. The old man just wanted the company of a pretty girl for a few hours,” Mouse told her.
“Then why the fuck didn’t Candice keep him company?”
“You know, she just had a baby and all . . .”
“Girl, that baby is almost three months now. Candice’s pussy is back in working order, so she can’t keep running that. And I’ll bet she made you break her off a piece of what you earned for the plug-in, didn’t she?” Promise asked. Mouse’s silence gave her the answer. Candice wasn’t as mean as Keisha, so that made her a little easier to deal with, but the girl was lazy and sneaky. She was always lining Mouse up to do some dumb shit for her. “I should’ve known something was up when you pulled up in Vaughn’s car without him. Did one of them at least go out with you to watch your back?”
“It’s like I told you, P, he was one of Candice’s tricks,” Mouse repeated.
“Girl, one day, you’re gonna have to wake up and stop being so fucking naive!” Promise chastised her, as if that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black. Mouse got quiet and turned her attention back to the road. She didn’t have to say it for Promise to know that she had hurt her. For as tough as Mouse was, she was also a very emotional young woman. “Mouse, I ain’t trying to come down on you. It’s just that . . . I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
“You know I know how to move in these streets.” Mouse pulled a switchblade from her bra, flipped it open, and closed it expertly before putting it back in its hiding place.
“I don’t doubt that, seeing how we grew up in the same fucked-up neighborhood. I just want you to be safe. Can’t have you going and getting yourself in a jam before we have a chance to get Junie back.”
Mouse’s eyes lit up at the mention of her baby sister’s name. Besides Promise, Junie was the only other person that Mouse could honestly say that she loved. With Mouse’s mother always out chasing drugs, more often than not, it fell to Mouse to look after the little girl. Mouse did as well as could be expected considering she was a teenage girl looking after a child, making sure she was fed and out of harm’s way. There were even times when Mouse would go without eating to make sure that Junie didn’t go to bed hungry. Things got a little better for the sisters when Mouse started working for Ab, selling drugs. She became the woman of the house, taking care of Junie and their mother alike. Mouse was by no means rich at that point, but under Ab she was bringing in enough money to do a better job of providing for her little sister than their mother ever had. All Mouse ever talked about was how she planned to take Junie and get out of the hood once she turned eighteen, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. Thanks to Promise and the bullshit she had pulled them into with B-Stone, Mouse became a fugitive, and life on the run wasn’t one fitting for a girl as young as Junie. With a heavy heart, Mouse left her with some distant relatives they had in South Jersey before they fled to New York. She vowed that one day she would return for her baby sister, and Promise was going to be right by her side to help. It was the least she could do.
“How’s she doing?” Promise asked.
Mouse shrugged. “Okay, I guess. At least according to my auntie Bernice. I check in every few weeks with Bernice to see how Junie is doing or to find out if they need anything, but I ain’t spoke to Junie since not long after we dipped.”
“Why not?” Promise asked.
“Because I know that she’s going to have questions that I don’t have the answers to yet,” Mouse said sadly.
“This life we’re living ain’t the one meant for us. Trouble don’t last forever, Mouse. That’s what my mom used to always tell me.” Promise tried to pick her spirits up.
“Maybe not, but that muthafucka has sure overstayed his welcome.” Mouse mustered a weak smirk. “So, I know you made a few dollars tonight, but how long you figure that’s gonna last us? If you can’t pull your weight, Keisha and them gonna bounce you out the crib. You got any ideas on what you’re gonna do for money when that runs out?”
Among the cash Promise had been counting, she found the twenty-dollar bill that Sincere had written his number down on. “I might.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was almost 3:00 a.m. when Sin pulled up on his block and parked the car. They’d fled the murder scene at Dirty Wine hours prior, but he wasn’t ready to take it down just yet. He needed to clear his head. He dropped Bone off first at his spot in the Bronx before taking Unique to Harlem. His brother wanted to hang out and celebrate a successful hit, but Sin wasn’t up for it. The whole ride Bone kept going on about being upset that he wasn’t there when Sin murdered the rapper and kept pressing him for the details. Sin modestly declined to talk about it. Unique picked up that something wasn’t right with Sin but didn’t press him about it. He knew his partner well enough to know when not to pry. It wasn’t until after Sin had dropped everyone off and was in the car alone that he was able to really breathe.
Sin spent the next hour or so bending corners. He didn’t have a particular destination in mind, he just wanted to keep moving and thinking. He found himself driving down the West Side highway as far as Canal Street and then back up to Harlem, where he kept an apartment. He parked and sat in the car for a few minutes, twisting up a blunt. He fired it up, let the smoke fill his lungs, and held it to the point where he started coughing. The weed calmed him some, but he was still wound up over how things had played out.
For the first time since they had all started pulling jobs together, Sin wasn’t completely honest with his crew. Withholding the information about why Don B. had been marked for death was something small that he could live with, and so could they so long as they got paid. Sin’s stash was going to be a few grand lighter since the money was coming out of his pocket and not the imaginary client he’d told them about. It was a hit he’d gladly take rather than telling them the truth. They’d both likely have still been all in on it and probably would have done the job for free if he’d been honest with them, especially Bone. A part of him wanted to share his motives, but he decided against it. That was his cross to bear.
What really bothered Sin was him taking credit for a murder that he hadn’t committed. Sin hadn’t exactly said that he was the one who killed Don B., only that it was done. They’d assumed the rapper had died by his bullet, and he just didn’t correct them. Sin wasn’t a man who took credit where it wasn’t deserved, but how was he supposed to explain to his crew that some random nigga did what he had tasked himself to? He punched the steering wheel in frustration. Don B.’s life was his to take, and he had been robbed of that. His mind played the turn of events over and over, Don B. and the shooter’s exchange. Catching a glimpse of the shooter and his accomplice under the streetlight after Don B. had fallen. The accomplice’s face continued to nag at him. Where had their paths crossed before? All the facts went into a potluck soup, and Sin was just trying to figure out how the flavors meshed. He was too tired to sort it all out. At least right then.
Sin tossed what was left of the blunt out the window and slid from the car. Ambling toward his building, he spotted a cluster of youths loitering out front. They were locals, and Sin was familiar with each one. The oldest couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. At that hour of the night, they should’ve had their asses in bed, instead of being in the streets looking for mischief to get into. All their young eyes turned to Sin as he approached, with a few of them straightening their posture and trying to put on mean-mugs. Sin knew that was more for his benefit than anything else. Since the young boys had jumped off the porch, they were always trying to impress Sin in hopes that he would pull them into what he had going on.
“Sup, OG?” one of the youths greeted Sin as he approached the building. He was short and a little on the chubby side. They called him Shake because, when he was little, the older heads used to give him money to watch him do the Harlem Shake. For a chubby kid, he could dance his ass off.
“Ain’t shit. About to take it in.” Sin gave him dap. “What y’all lil niggas doing out at this hour looking like y’all trying to catch a lick?”
“Trying to catch a lick,” another of the youths spoke up. His name was Darryl, and he lived on Sin’s floor. Of all the young knuckleheads who took up space in front of Sin’s building, Darryl was the one who was most likely to make a mess of his life. He was always into some shit and generally pulled whoever was standing next to him into it as well. Sin wasn’t as close to Darryl as he was with some of the other teens who hung in the neighborhood, but he had an amazing relationship with Darryl’s mother, Sherita. Pour a few drinks down her throat and she’d show you some shit that made you question everything you thought you knew about oral sex.
“I hear that,” Sin said, suppressing the memories of him nuts deep in Sherita’s throat. He wondered if she was still up at that hour.
“Oh, shit! Y’all seen this?” one of the other boys in the group suddenly blurted out. He was looking at something on his phone. The other boys gathered around to take a look. “Niggas tried to air the Don out.” He was reading a headline on a gossip blog. In the age of the information highway, news traveled fast.
“I ain’t surprised. I heard that’s a foul dude,” Shake said.
“Shit, if all it takes is to be a little foul and I can live like he does, I’ll take that all day. Fuck it,” Darryl said.
“Not me, man. My soul ain’t for sale,” Shake said. “What you think on what happened to dude, Sin?”
Sin shrugged. “I think it’s time for me to take it down for the night. Y’all be cool.” He headed inside the building. A few seconds later, Shake caught up with him. From the look on his face, Sin knew the boy had something on his mind that he didn’t want to discuss in front of his friends. “Sup?”
“You give any thought to what I asked you about?” Shake questioned.
“What’s that?” Sin played dumb. He knew what Shake was referring to but didn’t have it in him to have that particular conversation after the night he’d had.
“C’mon, Sin. You know I been on you for a min to let me get money with y’all. Why you playing me to the left like I’m some little-ass kid?”
“Because you are,” Sin replied. “Shake, you’re a good kid, and I like you, but at your age, you should be focused on school and not getting yourself thrown in jail or killed.”
“Fuck school. Man, I can’t hear them teacher over my stomach growling!” Shake said seriously. “Sin, I ain’t never been no begging-ass nigga. Even when we was shorties and everybody would press y’all for dollars, you never saw my hand out. I always wanted to earn that candy money.”
This was an old argument, and Sin had been having it with Shake for years, but Shake had doubled his efforts in the last few months since he had turned seventeen. Shake was from the block, but he didn’t have the same mentality as the kids he ran with. Unlike his friends, who would all more than likely die on that very same block, Shake had the brains and the drive to be something more than a statistic. This is why Sin could never understand why he was always pressing him to get in the game. “Lil bro, why are you in such a rush to throw your life away?”
“Because I’m too grown to keep having my grandmother try to budget my school clothes into her SSI check,” Shake said seriously. “Sin, I get it. Don’t nothing good come from that game you out there playing, but it’s killing me to sit around and watch my granny keep busting her back and ain’t shit I can do to help. If I bring twenty dollars’ worth of groceries in the house that woman shows the same amount of appreciation as if I’d just brought her a new car. Granny humble like that, but me? Fuck that! I know she deserves more, and I’m going to give it to her.”
“Shake—”
“Before you hit me with the same spin like I’m too young to understand what’s out there, let me stop you.” Shake cut him off. “Sin, I’ve been off the porch since I was fourteen. You see me and my little crew, how we out here moving, so you know I’m in the streets. Now, I can keep fucking with niggas like Darryl’s crazy ass and hope that I figure this shit out before I catch a case over something stupid, or you can teach me how to fish. Whether you put me on or not, I’m gonna get to it, Sin. I ain’t got no other choice at this point.”
Sin studied Shake for a time, trying to find the right words to say. He ran through a thousand speeches in his head that he could’ve fed Shake to try to further deter him from playing a loser’s game, but the look in that young man’s eyes told Sin that, no matter what was said between them in that lobby, Shake had made his choice. “I’ll see if I can find something for you to do.”
“Thanks, Sin. All I need is a chance, man. The rest is on me,” Shake said gratefully.
“You just be cool until I get back with you. And that means no more funny shit with Darryl. Whatever that nigga has got planned for the night, remove yourself from it,” Sin told him.
“I’m cool, man. I’m just gonna hang for a while, finish this blunt and this little bit of drink, then I’m taking it in.”
