Lost Boy, page 4
Hulie looked up from the steering wheel visibly shaken. Literally, he unglued his fingers off. He checked his head for bruises after banging it against the windshield, then slowly turned Jabari’s way. “Sorry, ‘bout that. But...I just can’t let it go like...”
“Let it go, Rip is dead! The police are probably flooding Liberty Hill. Hell, somebody might have seen the truck! Then your boy, Riko, they know it was his trap-house. Don’t think they don’t know! They’re looking for us. So, you do this crazy shit...” Jabari banged the dashboard, he couldn’t help but spaz. “I can’t even grasp this shit! Man, pay me and let me get the fuck outta here!” He turned his way with his hand out waiting. Hulie looked off mumbling something under his breath. “What?”
“I ain’t got it.”
“You ain’t got it! What the fuck you mean, you ain’t got it? Well, where is it? Let’s go get it.”
“I ain’t got it. The money we was supposed to get from that dude, T-Black. I was gonna pay you from that.”
Jabari grabbed at his head. The bullshit meter was off the chart. This was it. The last fucking straw, he reached over and grabbed him by the collar. “This wasn’t part of the deal. You said all we had to do was put the tim down, then we’d get paid. That was the deal!”
“I know...I know!”
“You fucking lied then! You knew this crazy ass shit was going down from the jump. You, and that fucking slime-ball, Riko!” Jabari started reaching for his gun, but it was too late. Hulie already had his pointed to his chest.
He peeped around slowly for any witnesses on the street. Jabari just knew he was gonna kill him, then kick his body out in the gutter. So, he leaned back.
‘Let it happen.’ Then, he thought. ‘To hell with this, I’m going out like a trooper. He figured he was already dead, anyway. He didn’t have much more to lose.
Strangely enough, Hulie started easing back the gun. “Just hear me out...” He was trying to calm him down.
Jabari started to relax, a little while looking him square in the eyes.
He thought. ‘This had better be good.’
Hulie knew exactly where his gun was, and once he fully pulled back his gun, he was coming out shooting. Fuck it.
“What’s up?” Jabari asked.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.” He turned and put the gun away. “Yeah, we was supposed to just go over there, put the tim down and he was supposed to give us back the money, and dope.”
“Then, why’d you kill him?”
“He was fuckin’ with my head, trigger finger slipped...”
“You fucked up.”
“Man, this shit is big.”
“He said something about a lady downtown. What was that about?”
He flinched when Jabari said that, his demeanor changed. He guessed, that maybe he didn’t catch it. He turned his way straightening up. Jabari started to reach for his gun. He definitely didn’t want no trigger finger’s slipping on him. He knew it was going down as he reached into his pocket, but Hulie just pulled out a card, then handed it to him.
“This.”
Jabari reached for it and it read: Sunshine Brown, Esquire, 9th Circuit Solicitor-Charleston, South Carolina.
“What the hell she got to do with anything?” It was a dumb question at this stage, but Jabari knew he had to ask.
“Trust me and don’t get it twisted. We’re in danger, but I can’t do nothing without the money.”
Somehow as he spoke, Jabari knew what he was saying was real. He sighed. “Okay but trust me and don’t get it twisted. It’s not we! You fucked up, not me. Now, what’s the deal, this time...tell me the truth?”
Hulie nodded his head and leaned over his way. Jabari hoped this had better be good. Still, he would have to take it all with a grain of salt. He didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him.
“He stole some money from some people I know, and I was sent to collect.”
Jabari’s face twisted. “And.”
“What I’m saying is that, if we get the money, I can pay you. That’s what you want, right?”
“Hold up, you’re saying a whole lot that don’t add up. What was up with the broad? The card you showed me. Where does she figure in at?”
“The people that want the money say if I don’t get it, they’ll blackmail me. Tell her some shit to get me fucked up.”
Jabari leaned back in the seat and digested what he’d told me him. It all sounded like one big lie. There was no money at least, from what he could see. Either that, or he just didn’t want to pay him.
“I’ll tell you what. How ‘bout I get out right here, and we cut our losses and ties, okay?”
“A hundred grand!”
Jabari was just about to turn for the door to get out. “That’s the number...for what?” he asked.
“That’s what we were going to pick up, ninety-six stacks, and twelve keys of cocaine.”
That caught his attention, he was curious now, so he got back in to see where Hulie was going with this. “Let me get this straight. T-Black owed you damn near one-hundred stacks, and twelve keys. Okay...okay, what does Riko have to do with this?”
He started to look off instead of at Jabari. A sure sign of lying, but he humored him anyway. “Riko tried to set me up and keep the money.”
“Where is this...so called money, anyway?”
“T-Black’s house, it has to be there. We...uh...I thought he would bring it, but he didn’t. I just know it has to be there.”
“Where’s that at?”
Hulie reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper with some numbers on it, then tossed it over. “His mom’s crib, he stayed with his mother.”
“So, you’re sure? I mean, this shit sounds crucial. What is his mom supposed to do, just give us the money? Hell, does she even know that her son is dead? And on top of that...you killed him!” Jabari chuckled. “Man, you’re fucking crazy. You’re out your rabid-ass mind. We suppose to just go over there, ask for ninety stacks...twelve keys and she just goes and gets it?”
Hulie banged the steering wheel. A honk went off and echoed across the quiet night causing the yelps of stray dogs in the distance. Jabari guessed he was looking for a reaction, but he was used to his shit already. He got nothing but a stern look.
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy.” He turned facing him and started fidgeting with his hands. “Look, if we get this money. I’ll give you thirty grand and three...no, four keys. A’ight?”
The sweat poured from his head as he spoke. He was desperate and scared. For what? Thirty grand sounded good and with four keys he could easily sell two and give the money to Rip’s people. Then still have money and dope to make a run and lay low for a while. It didn’t take long for Jabari to agree with it.
“One thing,” Jabari said.
“What?"
“You gots to keep your cool because she just might not know where the money is. We might have to go searching through the house. No bodies, alright.”
Hulie nodded head, then put his hand out towards him. “Agreed.”
“Now, where does she live?”
“Back up in Liberty Hill.”
This time it was Jabari who banged the dash. “It’s flooded with police! We’ll be taking a chance, it’s too risky. Let’s do it another time.”
“No, my ass is in deep shit, I gotta get it tonight!”
“It’s your ass, Hulie. Not mine, and...if I do this tonight. It’s gonna cost you half.”
“Half!” Hulie screamed. “A’ight...half, then.”
Jabari knew he was going to renege on the deal, so he’d already made up in his mind that he was going to have to kill him once they got the money. He looked over at him, he was quite sure he was thinking the same thing.
****
T-Black’s mother, Nikki, picked up the remote control to the widescreen plasma T.V., then swung her feet up on the coffee table. She flipped through a bunch of channels until she settled on one in particular. A romance-mystery, she prepared a cup of smoothing, mocha coffee and gently blew the hot steam smoldering from off the top. Taking a sip, she curled underneath a blanket. She was trying to concentrate on the movie, but her mind couldn’t help but wander off to the conversation she and her son Carl a.k.a T-Black had earlier.
She’d been begging him to stay home this evening. He’d been running himself ragged lately, and she took notice. He’d almost agreed until he got a call, but he didn’t say from who. All he said was that he’d be back later, and they’d talk. She thought about all types of things as he worried. The biggest being, was he thinking of leaving? She feared that the most. At her age, all she had was him, even though she didn’t want to seem like she was smothering him. She didn’t want him to leave either. Like her husband...his father did.
He’d gone out one night telling her the same thing. He’d be back later. A couple of weeks later he was looking at a fresh fifteen. She played the role of the good wife. There for him as much as she could, establishing phone contact right off the muscle.
‘It was unbelievable,’ she thought, as she reminisced.
Talking to his sons over the phone got him stabbed in the back...killed. That took a lot out of her. A good while passed before she’d gotten over it, then Bobby, the oldest started running the streets. He’d tell her tales of how he wanted to be a tough guy like his old man, Big Willie.
But when she tried to tell him that his father wasn’t no real tough guy. That he didn’t have a choice when he robbed the liquor store. That pressure bust pipes, rent was due. It was hard and the only thing that was tough was the times. Bobby wasn’t trying to hear that. He needed something to replace his father. So, he lived off a rep that wasn’t there. One he created for himself...an illusion.
It was too much for her when she answered the door that evening. The police came right out and told her he was dead. On top of it all, she couldn’t even claim the body. He had to be identified by a victim in the robbery. After being shot dead, he laid in the morgue for a week. She turned to drinking and smoking reefer, trying to take her mind away from the reality, the pain. She socially tried cocaine ignorantly thinking it would suffice, but instead it took her deep into the seedy, underworld life of freebase. When that well ran dry, she turned to crack-cocaine.
Crack had flooded much of the hood, and she fell right in line with it. At first, it was an entertaining type of high, but after getting raped a couple of times by the dope dealers that gave her the drug freely. She gave in and started tricking to get her own. She would become one of hundreds of crack whores that flooded South Carolina in the nineties. Now, she was getting older, and ready to give it all up. Rehabs after rehabs wasn’t cutting it for her anymore. She was sick and tired of sucking young boy’s dicks for dope. Boys no older than her own sons. She was tired of it all, the game had changed, they had no respect.
The dope hadn’t affected her weight much. She was naturally good looking for her age. A ripe thirty-six, a statuesque, five-foot-ten, and she carried her one hundred twenty-five-pound frame well. She had big round titties and a plump ass with a youthful swagger that kept her pussy busy. But these days she didn’t have no man for herself. No real friends to talk to. It took a toll on her, and she kept to herself.
She started dozing off when she heard a light tapping sound at the window. “Carl?” she called out, but no one answered back.
She got up hesitantly, and cautiously tipped over to the window, then peeped out. No one. The wind was blowing, and tree branches crashed against the cold window. It was late, and she was in for the night. She still had a couple of rocks left in her purse. Maybe, she’d take a hit, or two then finish watching the movie, but first, she needed a shower.
Nikki walked into her bedroom and rummaged through some drawers. She found what she was searching for. A nine-inch dildo that was shiny and gold metal, three inches around. She smiled pleasingly. She was going to get off tonight in the shower, her own way, fuck anyone else. She did think about calling one of her trick-girls over, Bebe they could get down with each other and freak. Yeah, she grinned, that was a plan. Carl wouldn’t be home for a while, anyway.
‘He’s probably out fucking one of them, young girls that flock around him all the time,’ she thought.
There were always girls playing with his dick. Trying to get money out his pockets. She peeped out the window one more time to make sure he wasn’t coming. Catching her eye was the house up the street where his childhood sweetheart lived, Cleo. She wondered how she was doing lately. She hadn’t seen her on the track lately, or even running the streets. Carl wanted to talk to her about something. Maybe, she was it.
She closed the curtains uptight, then cut off the front porch light, went into the bathroom and started running the water. She took off her clothes and stepped in after testing the water with her toes. She liked it hot, especially for what she wanted to do. Once she got in, she tried the batteries out on the shiny dildo, then wet it down slick with some K-Y, getting it right.
Slowly, she slid it up her gap-opened legs and welcoming pussy. She pushed it in and out, pulling slowly so that it grinded against her now throbbing, and fattened clit. As she pushed it further, she hit what she was looking for, her G-spot. She moaned, the pleasure caused her to nearly slip in the tub, but she braced one foot firmly on the bath knobs and continued pushing until it became dripping wet. She could smell the pussy juice coming off the heat of the mechanical dick. Her juices were dripping down her leg into the tub, foaming up into a lather as the water gently washed it down the drain.
She slowly adjusted her body so that the soothing hot water ran down her back to the crack of her ass from her long silky, shoulder length hair, letting it drip into her pussy. She gyrated her hips and started to thrust it inside of her faster and harder. A foam worked up between her legs, it wouldn’t be long now.
Her body started to spasm, her asshole tightened. She squealed in delight, tensed up, then shouted. “Oh, my fuckin’ God! Ooooohhhh...” She’d come and was still coming when she bent over and rammed the still wet stick into her ass. She pulled it out back and forth, circling it around, while with the other hand massaging her clit until she fell to her knees exhausted. Her body rocked in convulsions as she braced her hand on the tub’s railing, moaning loudly.
The dildo slid slowly out her asshole and floated on the button of the tub. She picked it up, turned it off, and tossed it outside the tub. Opening her eyes, she turned over and sat as the soothing water drenched her like rain from the shower-head. She curled herself up into an almost fetal-childlike ball and started crying.
It was all too much for her, she was tired, she was lonely. Her mind, her body, and her soul.
Chapter Three
They slowly drove back towards Liberty Hill, coming through the front end of Montague Avenue. As opposed to the backside of the hood near the beer factory. They knew ball which, is code for police would be deep looking for any suspicious activity, mainly the shit they were doing. As they drove through, they were right, ball was all over the place. They turned to Lester Street and drove down Nesbitt Avenue, figuring they’d come up the street, so the truck would be facing towards Rivers Avenue and a fast get-away.
It was crazy, but dope was still being smoked openly. It seemed like everyone said fuck the police. Tricks, prostitutes, and fiends looked at them like nothing happened. The only thing though, no one crossed the avenue to the other side. The ones that tried were immediately pulled over, questioned and subsequently harassed. Good for their dumb asses. There was no expression on Hulie’s face. His breathing was heavy like he had bronchitis or something. He drove carefully, this time on purpose, paying attention to the speed traps along the way.
As he came to a stop where ‘ball’ sat, he smiled but all the time rubbing his gun along his thigh like he had a nervous tick. Jabari thought about what his sister would say. It would be some ole slick shit. She’d just told him something bad was going to happen if he didn’t change. She’d asked him for his social security number and if he knew where his birth certificate was just in case, he died, or something happened? Man, she’d hit it dead on the head. That’s what started the damn argument.
Jabari cursed her ass out so bad she cried in the street like a lost baby. Jabari knew he was wrong for that shit. After all, he loved his sister, but they were just on separate roads. Jabari still wondered what she saw in Hulie’s ass, he wasn’t shit. To Jabari, he seemed bigger than life when he really didn’t know him. But now he was just a quick-tempered thug who really didn’t have no more than the drugs allowed to him. Given another environment he would be an average dick-head joe.
‘I can’t believe fuckin’ Rip got himself killed. I’d have to explain this shit to Dondi, to everyone. Hell, I haven’t had the chance to come up with a good lie yet. But what would I tell the cops?’ All this ran through Jabari’s mind.
He knew they would come looking for him asking questions. Dondi saw them leave together, she knew something was going down but maybe she wouldn’t say anything. Yeah, fuckin’ right. That bitch would sing louder than Beyonce if given the chance. Jabari’s mind wouldn’t stand still for shit. He wondered what T-Black was trying to say. Why did Hulie shoot him in the chest if he needed to know where the money was? The bullshit he fed him about all this money. Was it real? Jabari was about to get trapped off.
“Yo’ man, that’s the house,” Hulie said pulling Jabari out of his thoughts if only for a moment.
He pointed up the street to an old wooden house that sat deep inside a fenced-in lot. It was well kept but the screen was dark and dirty. You really couldn’t see on the porch. Jabari looked around the sides as they drove by and no lights were on in the front, but one shone bright in the back. It looked like the kitchen or something there was an old Beamer sitting in the yard off to the side on blocks. The hood was halfway open like somebody was doing work. Bushes sat off along the three-foot leaning fence with crabgrass running wild along its bottom.
