Passion for the Heist, page 22
* * *
“I always warned that fool nephew of mine about riding dirty,” Cassandra continued. “If you have something in the car that you shouldn’t, either have a place to conceal it or leave it at home. I drilled this into all of you, and my poor half-wit nephew let it go into one ear and out the other.” She shook her head in disappointment. “No one would blame you if you were still in your feelings over his fuckup. It was months before I could even bring myself to look at him, let alone speak to him. His wings were clipped on the same night you got arrested. Had he not been my sister’s son, there’s no telling what kind of punishment I would’ve handed down. I just couldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. Ralphie did some dumb shit, but he’s still your family,” Pain said.
“But so are you!” her voice rose. “Percy, I know there’s nothing I could offer that will replace the years that my nephew stole from you, but I want to make this right in any way that I can.”
“Cassandra, I keep telling you that this isn’t your mess to clean up. If anything, Ralphie’s bitch ass should be the one out here apologizing. He wrote me a punk-ass letter and put a hundred dollars on my books twice when I first went upstate, but I didn’t hear shit from him after that. At the very least, he could’ve come here with you and offered to buy me a drink.”
“Ralphie’s off the bottle. He has been since that night. He doesn’t even smoke weed anymore. He got himself cleaned up and moved out to Queens with his girlfriend. He even has a daughter now.” Cassandra pulled out her phone and showed Pain a picture of a cute little girl of about three or four.
“I’m glad one of us was able to have a shot at creating a life,” Pain said sarcastically. “No disrespect, but why are you telling me this like I give a fuck about that boy?”
“To show you that he’s a changed man. Ralphie has had no part of this life in years. He’s a civilian now. A square. And therefore the rules we live by don’t apply to him anymore.”
“What? You think I’m planning on doing something to him?” Pain finally understood why she was pleading her nephew’s case so hard.
“I know you, Pain. It was my hands that molded you into my weapon of vengeance. You’ve done things to men for less, so why would I not expect my nephew to fall under the shadow of the Blackbird?” Cassandra asked seriously.
“Because that monster doesn’t live here anymore.” Pain placed his hand over his heart. “I’d be lying if I told you that in the beginning I didn’t hold some hatred in my heart toward that dude. He took the one thing from me that I can never get back: time! The irony is that the same thing that he took from me is the thing that allowed me to finally get over it: time. I did a lot of soul-searching in prison, and I like to think I’m a better man for it. I’ll never forgive him for what he did, but I don’t hate him anymore. Your nephew has nothing to fear from me.”
“Thank you.” Cassandra cupped one of his hands in hers and kissed his scarred knuckle. “My biggest fear was being put in a position to have to choose between my heart and my blood.”
“And what side would you have stood on?” Pain asked curiously.
“My last name is Savage. From the Bayou to Boston, everybody knows how my clan feels about family,” she said seriously. “Enough about blood and death. You are home and this is cause for celebration. Let me take you out for dinner. We can grab a nightcap afterwards like we used to?” she suggested.
“Maybe another time. I’ve got an early day tomorrow, so I should probably take it down for the night,” Pain respectfully declined. Memories of having this beautiful old broad splayed on her stomach while he pushed himself into her soaking wet pussy made his dick hard, but he couldn’t give her that type of control over him again. Not just yet.
“Another time then.” She gave him a knowing smirk. “Well, should you change your mind, all you have to do is reach out. There will always be a place for you at my side and in my heart.”
“Thank you, my Queen.” He kissed her on both cheeks. Pain made to rejoin his waiting friends, but Cassandra had some parting words for him.
“The pages of this story are about to turn.” She cast a glance at Case, who was still watching them. “When the book is closed, don’t let misplaced loyalties land you on the wrong side of history.”
* * *
“So, you just gonna sit there on some mad shit for the rest of the night?” Case broke the silence that had been lingering in the car for the past ten blocks. He was behind the wheel with Pain in the passenger seat. Tyriq was in the back seat, drunk off his ass and still going. He’d made them stop by a liquor store to grab himself a pint before they dropped Pain off.
“I ain’t mad, Case. Just disappointed that you would keep something this big from me,” Pain told him. There was no judgment in his tone. He was simply starting how he felt about it.
“I wasn’t keeping it from you, dawg. I just knew that based on your relationship with the Queen, it would’ve been hard for you to hear, so I had to wait until the right moment presented itself to break it to you.”
“We been together at least ten hours off and on since you pulled up on me in the hood this morning. You mean to tell me you couldn’t find no time in between to tell me you’ve decided to go rogue?” Pain asked.
“Ain’t nobody rogue. I just ain’t jacking that Crow shit no more. To her credit, Queen gave us a play coming up, but we grown-ass men now. We supposed to live off that broad’s mercies forever? Kicking her up a taste off everything we hit, all for what?”
“Because she’s the Queen!” Pain countered.
“Of thieves,” Case corrected him. “That’s one crown out of the five which now govern this city. Respect to Cassandra for helping us get our feet wet, but her vision is shortsighted. All we’ll ever be is thieves and stickup men under her, but why limit ourselves? Since we freed ourselves from those feathered shackles, we’ve been able to expand our operations. We still doing heists, but we’re also moving drugs, protection, and pussy. We’re running the whole gambit out here now.” Case broke it down. “I know you’re in your feelings because of how close you and Cassandra are, but I need you to see the bigger picture. What I did was for the benefit of all the homies.”
“If you say so, Case,” Pain replied. He understood where Case was coming from, he truly did, but the fact that Case had kept the split from him made it feel shady, and Pain didn’t do shade. After the revelation, he couldn’t help but wonder what else his friend might’ve been hiding. The car had barely made it to a full stop on Pain’s block before he was swinging the door open and stepping out. Tyriq managed to pull himself from the back seat to take Pain’s place in the front. He drunkenly tried to hand the bottle he had been swigging from to Pain. Pain shoved it away. “I’ve had enough for the night and from the stench coming out your pores, so have you.”
“Nigga, I’m just getting warmed up. I’m about to pull up on a bitch and hit her with the Hennessey dick tonight!” Tyriq made thrusting motions with his hips.
“You shot out, man,” Pain laughed.
“It’s still early, my nigga. Let’s keep the party going; get some bitches and some more drink. We ain’t even gave you your welcome-home gift yet.” Tyriq was trying to convince Pain not to turn it in. The last time Tyriq and Pain had hung out he’d still been a kid, so he was eager to show his big homie the kind of clout he carried as a young man.
“Give it to me tomorrow.” Pain gave Tyriq dap, then a hug. He walked around to the driver’s side and leaned into the window. He and Case stared at each other for a long beat, before Pain held up his fist. “Still my nigga.”
“That ain’t never gonna change.” Case bumped his fist. “You gonna think about what we discussed earlier?”
“Yeah, I’ll weigh it up,” Pain said, still not quite ready to go there.
“One and done, baby. Easy work,” Case assured him.
“It’s always easy work to the ones who ain’t doing the heavy lifting.” Pain slapped his palm against the top of the car twice. “I’m gone.”
“Boy moving like he big mad,” Tyriq said as they watched Pain disappear into his building.
“Nah, he ain’t mad. Just uncertain,” Case assured him.
“Maybe if he’d seen his present it would’ve swayed him. Showed him that we’re the ones with his best interests at heart and not Queen Crow,” Tyriq suggested.
“Or made this whole situation ten times worse. You saw how he acted around her. That old whore still got his nose wide-open. Gonna take a steady hand to pry him loose from her teat without doing any major damage.”
“So, since you ain’t trying to give it to him, what are we supposed to do with it?” Tyriq wanted to know. The high point of this night was supposed to be seeing how Pain’s eyes would light up when he saw how big they had did it for his coming home.
Case shrugged. “No refunds and no exchanges.”
“Say less. I got it.”
“Nah, I got a better idea,” Case told him before pulling out his phone.
* * *
Alexander Jenkins, also known as Lil Sorrow, sat behind the wheel of the lime green Audi, bumping his head to Lil Baby’s “Sum 2 Prove” as it pounded through the speakers. As usual, a black bandanna was tied snugly around his braids, pulled down so far that you almost couldn’t see his eyes. From somewhere in his mouth he produced a razor, which he ran along the side of a cigar, gutting it like a freshly killed stag. He replaced the tobacco he had just dumped out the window with a healthy amount of sticky green buds, before taking his time to break it down between his thumb and index finger. He had just sealed the blunt and was about to light it when his phone vibrated. When Lil Sorrow saw the name flashing on the screen he felt his heart quicken. He’d been waiting for this call all night and only hoped the conversation went as he had imagined.
“Talk about it,” Lil Sorrow answered. He listed as the person on the other end of the phone spoke, nodding occasionally. “You know you ain’t even gotta ask me twice,” he said smiling into the phone. He was about to end the call but the person on the other end wasn’t done. “What? Tell that nigga ain’t nobody smoking in his bitch’s whip,” he lied, sparking the blunt. He knew that the owner of the car hated people smoking, but they should’ve considered that before having him babysit for the last couple of hours.
After ending the call, Lil Sorrow got out of the car, burning blunt pinched between his lips. He was sixteen, but had the swagger of a grown man as he ambled toward the trunk of the car, dark jeans hanging off his ass, butt of his .380 slightly visible in his back pocket. He gave a casual look around before popping the trunk. Inside it, bound, gagged, and wedged between a case of water and a gallon jug of motor oil, was Pain’s welcome-home present: Cassandra’s nephew Ralphie. Case had had Sorrow and Tyriq snatch him while he took Pain shopping. Lil Sorrow had just been waiting for the word that would decide his fate. He took a deep pull from his blunt before flicking the ashes on Ralphie. “Last stop, fuck nigga. Everybody off the train.”
PART III
DUSK
CHAPTER 17
It took a couple of weeks, but things had finally managed to go back to normal at Uncle Joe’s place. Well, normal wasn’t quite accurate. Things were never normal in that place. It was just less fucked-up as usual. After the incident with Birdie and Ted, Passion noticed some changes around the house. Passion wasn’t sure what Bo had said to Uncle Joe after they had gotten into it, but whatever it was brought about some changes in him as well as their lifestyle. Uncle Joe was less of an asshole, not jumping down the girls’ throats for every little thing. He was still no walk in the park, but he became slightly easier to deal with. After the time with Ted, he never touched Birdie again. In fact, he treated her like his new favorite, not tripping when she slacked on chores and coming in with little gifts for her from time to time. Some might’ve said that his new treatment of her was out of guilt, but Passion knew that guilt didn’t live anywhere in that black heart of his. If anything, he was probably afraid of what would happen if word ever got out that he’d developed a taste for children. Joe fucking young girls was nothing new, but Birdie was practically a baby.
Probably the biggest change was that Uncle Joe no longer allowed tricks to come to the house to spend money. Everything was outcalls. Zeta and a steady rotation of new girls handled most of those. Sometimes Claire would go out with them, but not too often. Joe kept her and the younger girls in the house, busy helping him with his new primary hustle, which was now drugs.
Uncle Joe had his hands in a few different income streams, from extortion to running girls. They all brought in money, but his bread and butter had always been whores. He sold drugs through his young boys, but not on a large scale. It was just a few ounces here and there. He’d always claimed that the business of drugs was too risky to go all-in, but somewhere along the line he must’ve changed his mind, because now he was moving weight. No one was quite sure what had made him take on a bigger role in the drug business. One day he had come home and dropped a duffle bag full of coke on the table and announced that the family was expanding their operation. He had Bo teach Passion and the other girls how to cut the drugs, while she handled his street distribution. Joe was handling so much coke that sometimes they would be up all night, mixing and packaging the stuff.
While the other girls were happy to be seeing the extra money, Passion was still leery. You didn’t go from selling a few ounces here and there to becoming the Snowman overnight. How had Joe gotten his hands on such a big bag seemingly out of nowhere? Passion didn’t trust Uncle Joe, or his magic bag of snow, any further than she could throw either one of them, but she wasn’t dumb enough to turn down the money he was paying his little helpers. Joe was the devil, but that money would be her angel of mercy. Between what she was stacking working for him, and the income tax check she had gotten in the mail from working at the diner, she would have enough to follow through with Juju’s plan. If it worked, then she would finally be able to put Uncle Joe and his little shop of horrors behind her.
Her daydreaming took her back to the backyard party and the guy she had met. Pain, that had been his name. He had been on her mind quite a bit lately. More out of curiosity than anything else. From the few minutes she kicked it with him, he appeared to be smart, warm, and funny as hell. Those were all the qualities a woman could ask for, but she knew from watching Uncle Joe that men always showed you what you wanted to see before revealing what you had actually signed up for. She had heard too many stories of women getting roped in to be broken down to bite just because the bait was enticing.
The man who called himself Pain was a gangster, to be sure. Not even for the fact that he had been splashed with another man’s blood at the time of their meeting, but the fact that he had managed to inflict harm on someone in a spot like that and not get bounced out on his ass, or worse. He was obviously someone of note in the ever-rotating circle of thieves, killers, and no-goodniks, but there was something about him that just didn’t fit. He was the perfectly sculpted and polished circle trying not to stand out in a room full of jagged edges. Passion felt it from their first word exchange. His power … his grace. Pain was a king who had yet to don his crown, and in a perfect world she might’ve entertained him and allowed herself to see what it felt like for a man to love her properly, but the world she lived in was anything but perfect. It would’ve been easy to give in to what he was after and risk dulling his light with her bullshit, but instead Passion let him go so that one day he might shine. She wasn’t worthy and he didn’t deserve it.
“Girl, you gonna sit there daydreaming or finish putting them packages together? I told you I got somebody waiting on them.” Bo brought Passion out of her moment of self-deprecation.
“Sorry,” Passion offered and went back to what she was doing. On the table in front of her was a Tupperware bowl full of Ecstasy pills, which she had been sorting and putting into smaller plastic baggies for the last twenty minutes. The E-pills were something else Joe had been selling along with the coke. Those were more popular with the kids her age.
“You okay?” Bo asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because usually when I get on you for dragging your feet you give me some lip behind it,” Bo said.
“Nah, just lost in my own head.” Passion downplayed it.
“That’s a dangerous place to be, stuck in your own head, that is.”
“Seems like that’s the only place I can find my peace,” Passion replied. She finished bagging the pills then dropped the smaller bags into a ziplock before handing them to Bo. “If y’all don’t need nothing else from me, I’m gonna head out for a while.”
“Where you off to?” Bo questioned.
“Nowhere, just to hang out with Juju.”
“Oh, I thought you might’ve been heading across town to cash your income tax check,” Bo said, much to Passion’s surprise. She had been extra careful when she got the check, meeting the mailman in the lobby when it came so that nobody knew she had it. The last thing she needed was Uncle Joe trying to confiscate her money. “Girl, don’t look so surprised. You know that I know everything that comes in and out of this house. Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna tell your Uncle Joe. That’s your money. You earned it, so spend it how you see fit. Just make sure you put something up for a rainy day.”
