Chronicles of Crooklyn, page 16
Slick saw the situation for what it was. Trill had two bitches on his hip and he was a shooter for one of the biggest gangstas in Crooklyn. The lil nigga’s pride would make him clap Slick right there on the spot before he even thought about backing down.
But Slick was a gunslinger. He could kill this young punk with one blow from right where he stood. But that would fuck up everything him and Jewelz had planned and ruin what they wanted to accomplish long-term though.
“Let’s go Lil Slick,” Jewelz finally stepped in between the two Brooklyn hittas. “This ain’t the time for this shit, yo. Fallback and let’s ride out, it’s just a misunderstanding. Come on, let’s fucking go.”
Slick let Jewelz guide him to the door by his arm while he grilled the wanna be tough guy on his way out.
“Yeah, you better listen to that bitch, Lil Slick,” Trill heckled. “’Fore it get ugly for yo bitch-ass in here. This my house nigga! Goody-Goody always hoody! You know how the fuck we get down.”
CHAPTER 15
Hump Back, Hump Back, Cucci Momma
Stretched out on her mama’s couch, Cucci was chewing some gum and thumbing down her Twitter timeline, silently laughing at the latest gossip in the social media world. She had just finished eating the Sunday dinner that her mother had lovingly prepared, and she was chilling in the living room while everybody else cleaned up the kitchen.
“If you don’t get your ass off that phone and get in the damn kitchen,” Honore complained as she walked in the living room carrying a broom and a dustpan.
“Everybody else is in there scrubbing pots and busting suds but I bet yo lazy ass is either on Twitter or the ‘Gram. How about you get off your ass and act like you appreciate that meal Aunt Frita just stood up at the stove all day and cooked for you.”
“How about you kiss my ass,” Cucci responded softly. “I’m always on my job in more ways than one, homegirl. Nowadays if you got a bangin body all types of idiots try to holla at you on Instagram. I’m trying to cash out on these dumb asses.”
“You crazy girl,” Honore said as she laughed, but she knew Cucci was speaking the truth. “My inbox be lit too. It’s full of thirsty niggas offering me all types of shit. Dudes and dyke bitches too. They don’t even realize who they fucking with. If I run across the right one I’ma definitely line one of their asses up though.”
“Speaking of niggas getting lined up,” Cucci sat up quickly like she had just remembered something. “Bitch I just heard some breaking news that ya boy Samuelson got smoked in a hotel room the other night! What the fuck happened?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Honore said keeping a straight face as she slid the broom under the couch and pulled out some dust bunnies. “Who knows what kinda drama he got caught up in. What did the news report say?”
“Basically it just said that Joel Samuelson got done dirty in a hotel room and some real gruesome shit went down. They think he got robbed for some jewelry. It’s funny how he got slumped on the same day that you delivered that package and got stuck-up on Fulton Street. How convenient. A prime diamond gets stolen, Joel gets murked, and you get kidnapped. Crazy.”
Honore shrugged. “Yeah. Real crazy.”
“Uh, huh. But if you know like I know, that murder wasn’t over no small-time charm bracelets or rings, if it went down like that. Joel was too smart to get caught out there and he kept his game tight. He prolly wasn’t by himself in that hotel room neither. It sounds to me like some kinda back-door transaction that went all the way to the left.”
“I guess his game just wasn’t tight enough.” Honore shrugged again. “That’s fucked up though. He was good people. I wonder what’s going to happen at the job now.”
“Are you sure you don’t know nothing about that shit?” Cucci probed.
“Bitch why you keep asking me that? I already told you I don’t know nothing about that slimy dog getting slumped!”
“Well I’m just asking, damn! You sure seem real nonchalant about that shit, Honore!” Cucci said with an attitude. “You do realize his white ass was hitting us off with some real thick slices of bread, right? He was the one setting us up real nice with them licks! He was the plug! How the fuck are we supposed maintain what we got going on without him?”
“Why are you asking me all this shit like you don’t know what’s poppin?” Honore snapped. “Joel was in the same line of business that we’re in. He took the same risks we do. Just cause he’s a white dude with money don’t mean he’s exempt from getting touched. Plugs get wacked out here everyday. One monkey damn sure won’t stop my flow! I’m more worried about the police or whoever smoked his ass finding out that we were working with him.”
“Yeah, a’ight,” Cucci said with a sly smirk. “Well I should be pretty safe then because you were working with him much closer than I was. Way closer. All my action with him got cancelled just as soon as I put your ass on to him. It’s all good though. I still got your back.”
“The fuck you tryna say?” Honore gave her cousin the death stare. “Bitch I was sucking his little stank dick for the both of us! You still got paid, didn’t you? Did you miss any fucking meals? Are your bills overdue? Do you have money in the stash? A’ight then! Stop dry-hating and throwing shade. I didn’t tell Joel to stop rocking with you. He just thought I was better suited for the job. I made sure me and you both ate regardless, so cut the shit, Cucci!”
“Damn you going all extra-hard for no reason,” Cucci said trying to defuse the situation.
But something bothered her about the whole scene. For one thing, Honore had claimed she was transporting a lil weak under-priced diamond that night, but who the hell put mad security on a stone that wasn’t even worth nothing? Plus, on the news they said Samuelson had gotten smoked for some high value pieces of jewelry. Could it have been a high-priced diamond? Including a high-priced diamond!
Honore was acting like Samuelson being rubbed out of the picture wasn’t gonna affect their pockets at all. She was acting like she wasn’t gonna miss those ends he helped them bring in. For all Cucci knew her cousin had made up that whole fantastical story about getting kidnapped by some stick-up kids. For all she knew Honore was walking around with a real grand diamond stuck up her ass, just’a sitting on that shit so it could hatch into a bunch of little Faberge eggs. Hell naw, Cucci wasn’t buying it. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
“Relax, cuzzo,” she said sweetly. “I was just stating the obvious and tryna see where ya mind was at now that the big boss is gone.”
“My mind is on to the next hustle,” Honore responded coldly. “Whatever happened to his old ass is his damn business. I’ll tell you this much, I’m glad it was him who got slumped and not me. You don’t know how deep that rich white man was in the game. He coulda owed somebody some bread or fucked over the wrong person. Shit happens.”
Cucci let the conversation die down, but she kept asking herself why Honore was acting so cold-hearted and dismissive. Honore had been way up Joel Samuelson’s ass and sucking his dick on a regular. The bitch was just like her dead damn mama when it came to men! Her sneaky ass had stolen Cucci’s trick when Joel had been her sugar daddy from the gate!
Cucci’s hood alarm was going off and ringing on a thousand. She was ready to put some money on the fact that Honore knew more about their boss’s brutal murder than she was letting on. And if Honore knew something slick, then Cucci was damn sure gonna find out what it was.
CHAPTER 16
Ain’t Nothin More Important Than the Moolah
It was a busy Monday morning at the New York Diamond and Jewelry Exchange. But instead of the usual friendly interactions with the rich clientele in the diamond industry, the back-office employees were walking around wide-eyed and talking amongst each other in hushed tones.
It had been on the news all weekend that one of their top supervisors had been gruesomely murdered in a hotel room, and all the white folks on staff were walking around looking pale in the face and stressed the hell out.
But not Cucci Momma. She was strutting her stuff and looking gorgeously cool and upbeat in her tan and red Kate Spade dress as she came out of a meeting room and strode across the large, elegantly decorated office in her red patent leather heels. With her eyes on rotate she squatted down discreetly near Honore’s desk.
“The fuckin FBI is here!” Cucci spit from the side of her mouth. Reaching out to slide open a lower drawer, she pretended like she was searching for some documents.
“They’re grilling everybody because that fucker Samuelson stole a major fuckin diamond! Them reporters lied and said it was just jewelry on the news, but it was a big fat diamond! When the investigators call you in don’t say shit!” she hissed in warning. “Tell ‘em you don’t know a goddamn thing about that dead muthafucka!” Cucci stunted, knowing full well that she had already tickled their little pink ears off with all kinds of suspicious and incriminating shit about both Honore and Joel Samuelson.
“I can’t be sure,” Cucci had pressed her hand to her chest and dry snitched earlier when the alphabet men asked her if she’d ever noticed anything suspicious about Joel Samuelson and the way he handled the company’s diamonds, “but I kinda got the feeling that he was living a double life, you know? I mean, I actually walked into a supply closet and saw him taking a diamond out of his pocket one day. He was on his cell phone whispering about finding a black-market trader, whatever in the world that means. Of course I couldn’t hear everything that was being said, but he was definitely trying to hide something.”
She had shrugged innocently while the investigators scribbled notes on their yellow pads and then added, “I never really knew Mr. Samuelson that well,” she lied, “but he worked pretty closely with a girl here named Honore Morales. Please don’t put my name in it, but my guess is, if anybody knows anything about him getting a little too close to the diamonds, it would be her.”
And now, Cucci cut her eyes over at Honore.
“Bitch did you hear me?”
Nodding slightly to acknowledge Cucci’s warning, Honore never looked up from the ledger she was writing in because she already knew the deal. Joel had signed out one of their largest diamonds on Friday morning and he got deaded before he got a chance to slip a fake one back in its place. With that big-ass empty spot in the vault it wasn’t surprising that the federal authorities had closed in trying to connect the missing jewel to his murder.
The FBI agents on the scene today were both young white men and Honore had already peeped them way before Cucci’s warning. She had seen their eyes crawl over her before they followed her boss into his office and firmly shut the door, and while her co-workers had crowded together in a huddle whispering and kicking up rumors, she had remained behind her desk working her ass off, just as she usually did.
Cucci had barely switched her apple ass back to her side of the office when Honore heard her boss’s door open again and the agents stepped back out. She lowered her gaze and pretended to be focused real hard on reading something in her ledger, and then acted all surprised when she looked up and saw they were standing right in front of her desk.
“Oh!” she said sweetly in her pure-little-prissy-girl voice, her bright eyes going back and forth between her boss and the two agents. “Good morning Mister Goldberg! Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yes, there is, Honore,” her boss answered quietly. “These gentlemen are from the FBI. They’re here to investigate a possible connection between Mr. Samuelson’s murder and the diamond he signed out on the day he was killed. I realize you were off work that day, but I’d appreciate it if you’d fully cooperate with them and assist them in any way you can.”
“Of course,” Honore said earnestly as she rose from her chair and followed the trio into the big boss’s office. “I’d be happy to cooperate.”
$$$$$
No sooner had the door to the boss’s office slammed closed behind Honore did Cucci join the other clerks who were gathered around whispering amongst themselves. They went back and forth with the tongue-wagging, coming up with all sorts of cloak-and-dagger scenarios to fit their version of how shit had gone down.
“First the Pinkerton Detectives came by here earlier this morning,” a young secretary squealed with excitement in her eyes, “and now the FBI! I overheard them say Mr. Samuelson might have been stealing diamonds for years! I mean, just think about it…he probably belonged to some intricate underground jewelry ring, because with a diamond that big he had to have help somewhere along the way.”
“Really?” Cucci batted her eyelashes and butt-in. “You really think he’s been stealing for years? I don’t see how since our vault is always locked up tight. How could anyone be stealing diamonds for that long and get away with it?”
The secretary shrugged. “I guess that’s what those agents are here to find out. Mr. Samuelson was kinda up there in senior management so he had a lot of access to the vault. I bet they’re talking to Honore now because she’s one of the people who worked steadily in his department. Maybe she noticed something fishy about him over the years.”
“Wow,” Cucci said, looking wide-eyed and impressed. “How much do you think that stolen diamond was worth?”
The secretary shook her head and shrugged again. “I’m not sure, but I know it’s a lot. At least a few million dollars. It was one of our best pieces which is why only senior executives were allowed to sign it out.”
The cackling group of hens suddenly scattered when the door to the boss’s office opened and Honore and the agents walked out together. The staff pretended to be engrossed in the business of their day, when in reality all the ears and most of the eyes in the room were scoping shit as hard as they could.
Honore didn’t even look at her co-workers as she walked calmly back to her desk and resumed her work. Whatever it was that those agents had said to her behind closed doors, she made sure that not one damn inch of her looked frazzled. Not a hair on her fuckin head was out of place, and there wasn’t a drop of sweat anywhere on her body. Because them FBI agents didn’t have shit on her. They didn’t even have a clue. After submitting to their questions and agreeing to take a lie detector test, she was cool and collected and unfazed in every way.
Cucci watched from afar as one of the agents stapled a large flyer to the office bulletin board. Even from where she was standing she could see the picture of the stolen diamond and the words, “SEEKING INFORMATION” and “$100,000 REWARD” written in large bold letters.
Glancing around discreetly, she waited until the agent had walked away and then she grabbed some paperwork and swayed her hips closer to the bulletin board.
Opening the top drawer of a file cabinet, her eyes glinted deviously as they rushed over the words, “Seeking Information in the Recovery of a Valuable Diamond. A $100,000 REWARD is being offered for information leading to the identity and the arrest and conviction of any persons found to have committed burglary, robbery, or theft of the jewel on these premises.”
Tossing her paperwork carelessly on top of the file cabinet, Cucci re-read the poster, then glanced over at Honore. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she looked at all them zeros on that poster and a zing of electricity shot through her whole body.
So them bitches wanna know about that diamond, huh? Well, somebody better hope I don’t mess around and tell ’em about the diamond diva! The diamond fucking QUEEN!
Cucci’s conniving mind was churning as she scooped up her paperwork and turned her back on her beloved cousin and best friend, barely able to hide her sneaky smile.
CHAPTER 17
Chasin Like Jason
It took about seventy-two hours for Honore to receive the phone call that she had been waiting for. She had been itching to hit those digits herself at least a thousand times in the last three days, but she had decided to take Sly McFly’s good advice and hold off on making the first move.
Nah, don’t call him. He’ll call you. I guarantee it. When a weak nigga pulls a bitch-move like that you know for sure he ain’t on his game.
“Hey whassup, French Fry. I’m just calling to check up on you like I said I would,” he said, running her some old bullshit line.
Honore knew what time it was. He had worn a mask over his face but she’d seen the lust and intrigue in his eyes the night he snatched her, and she was surprised that he had held back from calling her for this long.
“Excuse me?” she said, faking like she was annoyed. “Who is this?”
His chuckle was low and sexy as it came through the phone line.
“Stop frontin girl. You know who this is.”
“No, I don’t,” she said coldly. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to hang up. I have a class in fifteen minutes and besides, I don’t talk to strangers.”
“It’s ya boy Slick,” he said quickly, and she had to stop herself from laughing out loud.
Wide-open simp nigga!
“Slick?” she spit with disgust. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t have any friends with that street name.”
“I’m not a friend,” came the response. “I’m that dude who saved your life the other night when my crew wanted to blast you into next week, remember?”
Honore held her breath and remained silent on the line, hoping he’d think she was shocked and didn’t quite know what to say.
“Honore?” he said right on cue. “Honore are you there? Look, sweetheart. I’m sorry about the way things went down out there the other night, a’ight? I just wanted to holla so I could check on you. You know. Make sure you were straight.”
“I-I’m here,” she finally said, lowering her voice so she could yank the shit outta his stupid heart-strings. Her words quivered. “I was so damn scared that night . . . especially after seeing somebody get shot like that right in front of me. It was so scary because I’ve never been involved in anything violent like that before. But I’m doing a little better now. I’m trying to get my head back into my school work and I just wanna put everything about that night behind me.”
