A Hood Legend (16 page)

Tina laughed. “Yeah, but it's been a long, long road, girl. It would've been even harder if I didn't have Dwight, but maybe soon we can both slow down and enjoy the fruits of our labor.”

“I can drink to that,” Lisa said, thinking that maybe Tina wasn't so bad after all.

“So where are you from?” Tina asked. She could tell by the way Lisa talked that she wasn't born and raised in Miami.

“Kinston, North Carolina.”

“Kinston ... Kinston ...” Tina said sticking her tongue in her cheek. “I think I did a girl's head last weekend and she said she was from Kinston.”

“Really? Kinston's so small; I'm bound to know her,” Lisa said playing dumb.

Tina thought for a second. “Yeah, and come to think of it, she was one of Big Chubb's new girls ... oh, he owns the strip club. But anyway, she's a dancer and told me she was from Kinston.”

“So that's what you do—hair?” Lisa said, her mind racing. “Yeah, and I own the place—Dwight and I, that is. But most of the time I'm out on the floor helping out if I can get away from the desk. Maybe you should stop by one day. I'm sure you'll love the service and it'll be on me.”

Lisa thanked her and sipped her wine.
If Tina was in the car with DJ at the club, what did it really matter?
she thought.

“Girl, I can't help but notice that bracelet; it's beautiful. Where did you buy it?”

Tina smiled and extended her arm out toward Lisa. “It's a custom piece. Dwight bought if for me on Valentine's Day last year.”

“Hmmm ... I hate to see the wedding ring.”

“You and me both, girl,” Tina said winking her eye.

Lisa thought of Benita ...
So her crazy ass was right ... oh, well.
The two women talked about men, sex, clothes, and everything they could think of. Lisa was also starting to like Tina. Like Martin had always said, she was stompin' wit' da big dawgs.

* * *

“Yeah, I put fourteen thousand in my account,” Dwight said sitting behind his desk in his small office. DJ sat slumped in the chair across from him, rubbing his goatee. “And you move pretty fast, I've noticed,” added Dwight leaning forward and folding his hands.

“Well, to you it may seem that way but to me it's normal. I fully understand that you, or should I say Menage, only did a small amount a month. All I'm doing is moving cars at a faster rate,” DJ said smoothly, his eyes never leaving Dwight's.

“I can say that you have ... let's say, more experience in the street aspect than I do, but I'm not saying I don't know the ins and outs. And due to recent events you now sit in a new seat, but I want you to hear me out, DJ. You will never take Menage's status—meaning every dime you make comes to me and then we'll split the pie; every move you make goes through me first. Now, do you have any problems with that?”

DJ shrugged his shoulders. “Nah, yo, I'm not trying to change nothing. But if you let me open the shop fully, I can give you ... well, I estimate over a hundred grand a month. It's your move, though, like you said.” DJ knew Dwight would find it hard to turn down that much dough, so he waited for his reply.

“DJ, look, just slow down—no speedballin'. And by the way, I want that DB-7 to vanish. I want our hands washed clean of it.”

“Huh? You don't want me to flip it?”

“No! “Dwight snapped. “No out of state cars.”

“I feel ya.”

“Well, that's about it, DJ.” Dwight smiled and stood up quickly. “Let's join the ladies, shall we?” As DJ walked out of the office, he thought Dwight had to be crazy as fuck if he thought he'd just ditch the DB-7. He knew he could get fifty Gs easy ... fuck Dwight. He fucked his girl behind his back, so selling the car wouldn't be shit. DJ still had no clue that it was the Mayor's son he'd killed.

When the two men walked back into the living room, the two women looked up and smiled. DJ stood behind Dwight and eyed Lisa and Tina. He'd love to freak them both at the same time.

* * *

“Man, this is pure bullshit! All I see is this guy with different women and they're all fine as hell; that's all I got—a full roll of nothing on film. Hey, Hamilton, wake up!” Detective Covington yelled. He and Hamilton sat across the street about fifty yards from Dwight's condo in an unmarked squad car.

“Wha-what?” Detective Hamilton said. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “They still in there? Christ, what time is it?”

“Yeah, they're still in there ... it's ten past ten,” Covington said looking at his watch.

“Gimme the binoculars,” Hamilton said.

“For what?”

“Man, come on ... so I can see in the damn dark, that's why!” Covington grimaced and reached for the night vision binoculars in the back seat. He picked them up and gave them to Hamilton.

Hamilton slowly scanned the condo. “Did you ever get the address on that PT cruiser you saw at DJ's place?” he asked with the binoculars still to his eyes.

“No, why?”

“Did the tag on front say MD ... uh ... Salon?”

“Why?”

“Because it's parked in the garage. Are you blind or something?”

“What!” Covington yelled lunging for the binoculars.

“Let me see this shit.” He focused the binoculars. “Well, ain't this a bitch.” He saw the PT cruiser beside a BMW. He only met ... no, saw Dwight once, but he knew he had a woman. He really didn't know who she was and he couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. He thought that maybe someone else was driving the PT cruiser that night. He smiled. All he had to do was find Dwight's woman and compare her to the pictures he had. If Dwight's girl was sleeping with DJ, then maybe he could find out something other than what was obviously going on—late night booty calls. Covington knew it wasn't something to bug his uncle about just yet, and he would first try and put two and two together.

“So what do we do now?” Hamilton said rubbing his jaw.

“We ain't doin't shit!” Covington said as he started the car.

“I'm going to the crib and lay up wit' the wife. You can take the car and do whatever. Maybe you'll find a chick, and that's on the down low,” Covington said pulling from the curb.

“Fuck you ... and hurry up and drive because I'm sick of your shit!” Hamilton said.

“Okay, Ham.”

“My name ain't Ham, it's Hamilton. Do I need to spell it for you!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, chill out man.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You were gonna ask me something before ...”

Covington drove with one hand as he searched for his Newports. “Oh, yeah ... you seen that guy over in traffic? He seemed kinda odd and shit. He gives out tickets over in a school zone. But yesterday I saw him slip a .22 in a hidden holster strapped to his leg. If you ask me, I think he's a shell or something. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I seen him ... why don't you just take it to the captain?” Covington shrugged his shoulders. “Shit ... if I see him tomorrow in the gym, I'll talk to him.”

“Good luck,” Hamilton said with a grin.

* * *

Later that night on Felix's island, Menage sat alone on the beach with Vapor. It was a full moon in a sea of countless stars. He wondered about the true meaning of love and how the word had so much power and could be spoken at any given time. Many times he said the word without having any true feelings at all. And how could he sleep with another woman and be in love with Chandra? Love ... he tried to inject that word into his system, but it just wouldn't stick. He wanted Chandra and he needed to love her, but yet he had so much fear. To him, a broken heart was more painful than any flesh wound. Maybe he was blind to love. He kept more than one woman so he wouldn't get close to anyone; he felt at ease that way, or so he thought. He placed his head on his knees as the water crashed into the rocks to his left.

Chandra had spoken to him about God, and after they had sex she cried and said they both needed to repent and get saved. He was confused. Deep in his soul he had doubts about God. His mom had told him not to question whether or not God was real. She told him to just believe. But why had God allowed all of the recent events to occur? There were too many hard questions and not enough easy answers as far as Menage was concerned. Then there were the people of his own race who said the Bible was just a tool, used to humble blacks when they were slaves—to make them look forward to so-called better days. He took a small Bible out of his pocket and thought about how it said to pray for your enemy.
Yeah, right,
he thought. He'd be dead if he did it that way. Then he thought about how it said that God would forgive all sins and how people enjoyed sinning every day, not giving God a second thought. He didn't understand. Did it mean that people could party all night, hit the bars, and strip clubs and in the end, get on their knees when they got home? And what about atheists? Did they go to hell? But he had also read that man couldn't understand God's way. He stood up and brushed the sand from his pants as the Bible lay at his feet. He turned and walked back to the mansion, leaving The Good Book.

 

Menage clenched the Glock 9 firmly with a two-hand grip and fired off the last five rounds at the target twenty yards away. It was close to nine in the morning when he'd last checked. He was always able to relieve stress at Felix's shooting range. Last night he remembered that he had a built-in system that would automatically record anything off the surveillance camera by the front gate, but he figured that all it would show was what Felix told him about DJ killing the guy in the driveway. However, he still wanted to see it for himself. It was hidden under the sink in his bathroom behind a fake wall. He couldn't wait to see DJ again and thank him for saving his life. But first he had to get off the island. Ignoring the sweat running down his face, he turned and walked back to the Hummer parked in the sand. He knew Chandra would be up waiting for him, upset that he'd left without waking her. Vapor was sniffing a palm tree when he called him. Once Vapor jumped in, he put on his shades and headed back to the mansion. He was glad Chandra had brought some of his CDs from his house. He floored the Hummer down the narrow path as Common pumped from the system. Something had to change, but little did he know it was going to be for the worse.

 

 

Washington, D.C.

 

 

There was an emergency meeting at the White House. FBI agent Neil Loften, Secretary of State William Peterson, USMC Lietenant General Arthur Coleman, and Director of Central Intelligence Joe L. Troublefield were all in attendance. The only man of color was Joint Chief of Staff, Davis S. Ellis. The room fell silent when he nodded toward the U.S. Marine corporal standing at the door. Seeing the signal, the corporal immediately turned on his heels and went outside the door to stand guard. The door softly clicked and the lights dimmed as a flat screen on the wall showed a picture of an island. Ellis cleared his throat.

“Gentlemen, I'm sorry to have you all in on such short notice, and Coleman, I know you're missing church this morning. But what I'm about to speak on is a matter of national security.” Ellis coughed and cleared his throat again. “At twenty-two hundred last night, by order of the President of the United States, we launched a highly classified operation—code name, Take A Look. We dropped six U.S. force recon Marines along with six seals. Once the team hit the ground, they met no challenge and went on with their mission. On that island, gentleman, buried underground by German agents during World War Two, is a massive amount of a deadly Nuclear Biological Chemical. This is unknown, even by the owner of the island, Felix Marchetti. The team carried state-of-the-art chemical analysis systems and I'm here to say that the NBC has lost its power. Troublefield, would you care to finish?”

“Yes, sir,” Troublefield replied. “After placing agents in deep cover in the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the CIA got word that the regime somehow bought information regarding the whereabouts of the NBC from a German agent. The chemical was then going to be stolen by men working for Al-Qaida and transported to a military installation in Iraq. We have proof of plans of the terrorist group wanting to use the NBC against the U.S. That was an action against the U.S. and by tonight, our men will be pulled out of the camps. By order of the President, we will launch a missile strike from the USS John Paul Jones to destroy that installation.”

“So they just don't seem to wanna give up, huh?” Lieutenant General Coleman said.

“It seems that way, but I suspect that if the NBC was made active it would have been hell to stop them. We're lucky,” Troublefield said.

“Well,” Ellis said smiling, “we can call in Scorpion now. It's over.”

“What!” Agent Lofton said, surprised that Ellis knew about Scorpion. “Sir, how do you know about Scorpion? He has nothing to do with the NBC. He didn't even know about it until just recently.”

Troublefield rubbed his forehead. “You're wrong, Lofton. I'm sorry, but Scorpion is CIA. It had to be done this way and to be honest, he didn't know of the NBC. We used him, hoping that he could get on the island. After that we were going to direct him to the NBC, but we had to change our plans, since the FBI was already planning to raid the island. We put our man in ... I'm sorry, but you'll have to call him in here.”

“You can't be for real,” Lofton said as he stood.

“It's true,” Secretary of State Peterson said. Lofton was a close friend of his and he figured he could calm him down. “You were given full control, Lofton, but all the calls you had with Scorpion were heard by the CIA. He was told that Felix was dealing with Cuba and I need you to trust me when I tell you that we had no other way to do this. We had to move fast.”

“Well ... I guess I should understand ... I'll make the call,” Lofton said as he slowly sat back down. At least he was the only one who had Scorpion's number, but after thinking about it, he knew the CIA had it also. “What about the drugs on the island? I swear I can bring him in with no problem. Felix has to go down for his crimes.”

“The President wants a full blackout. We'll make a deal with Mr. Marchetti to quickly remove the NBC from his Island,” Ellis said.

“Christ, you can't be for real. How much of it is on the island, and what is it anyway?” Lofton asked.

“It's—” Ellis started to answer him but Troublefield coughed and he got the message. Lofton hadn't been authorized to receive that information.

“Uh, it's a massive amount, and it has go down like this. I'm sorry, but we must all follow the President's orders. And keep in mind that this is still a matter of national security, Mr. Lofton, and cease your operation as soon as possible,” Ellis said.

“Yes, sir,” Lofton said. He was heated that all of his hard work was going down the drain. The only connection he had to Scorpion, his so-called man, was his cell number, but no one knew his cover—not even the CIA. All he knew was that the man named Scorpion was in Miami. Lofton knew there was a lot that Ellis and Troublefield hadn't told him, and he sensed that Troublefield was not a man to be trusted. The men left the office and Lofton called Scorpion when he got outside. He was tempted to ignore his orders and take Felix down anway, but this was a serious matter involving the Joint Chief of Staff and the President. Lofton was definitely no fool.

* * *

“So what happened girl?” Benita said sitting on the couch watching Lisa take off her shoes. She had just gotten in from spending the night with DJ.

“Yeah, you was right and guess what?”

“Girl, stop playin' games and just tell me!” Benita said with excitement.

“Okay, chill. Tina is the one you saw at the club that night wearing the bracelet. That's Dwight's girl. Dwight's the guy who brought you home from the hospital that night. And she remembered you when you got your hair done, but I didn't tell her I was your cousin.”

Benita's eyes widened. “Did ya even ask about Menage?”

“No, but DJ did on our way over to Dwight's place. Dwight said he was still in the hospital but he didn't say how he was doing, though.”

“Damn,” Benita said sitting back and folding her arms.

“Chill out. I might be able to find out something when I go in later. And yeah, I'ma call to let you know if I find him, so don't call my job buggin' me!”

Benita looked at her watch. It was almost ten. “Girl, you trippin',” Benita said.

“Nah, I'm just playing. You know I don't get down like that. That's triflin' and that's not me. Do you have to work tonight?” Lisa asked. Benita shook her head no. “Well, DJ is taking me to work. If you're up, you can come and pick me up after my shift. But I might stay with DJ tonight—depends on if I feel like being with him.”

“Yeah, right!” Benita said.

“Whateva! Anyway I'm going to bed, and if he or anyone else calls, don't wake me.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

When Lisa left the living room, Benita thought about everything that what was going on. Tina and DJ were at the club that night. Maybe it meant nothing, like Lisa had suggested. All Lisa's silly ass had to do was tell Dwight, DJ or even Tina that her cousin was with Menage when he got shot at Bayside. Well, Dwight knew it, but he didn't know that Lisa and Benita were kin. She thought of calling Tina and telling her who she was, with the hope that she could tell her something—anything about Menage—the man who saved her life. What was he doing at this very moment? Why hadn't he called? She couldn't answer these questions. Any other man would do anything to be with her. She finally got the picture that Menage Unique Legend wasn't the average man.

* * *

It was almost eleven thirty and Menage lay on his stomach, floating on a water raft in Felix's Olympic size pool. He let one arm dangle in the water, moving it around in a slow circle. Felix was next to him in a chair-shaped raft smoking a Cuban cigar. Chandra and Rosita were sitting on the far end of the pool with their legs in the water. Both women wore skimpy swimsuits, but Menage didn't mind. Chandra wore a two-piece Baby Phat swimsuit. She remembered putting it on and catching Menage looking at her flat stomach. “In due time, baby, I'll be swoll,” she had said playfully.

“You sleep, Menage?” Felix asked glancing at him.

“Hmmm ...” Menage murmured.

“I like your crazy ass, 'cause I can be myself with you. It's like with everyone else I gotta be big-time mafioso—never smile—business twenty four/seven ... hey, are you listening to me? You can't be still sleep!” Felix snapped.

“Nah, I'm just looking at my eyelids,” Menage said hoping Felix would let him relax, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. All morning and even at breakfast, Felix was acting kind of strange.

“Smart ass. But anyway, let's talk about this country ... good ol' U.S. of A. Hey, do you know that the Star Spangled Banner was—”

“Written by Francis Scott Key when black folks were slaves. He might have had some slaves himself, talkin' 'bout the land of the free. And he was a lawyer; that should speak for itself—fakeass bullshit,” Menage said.

Felix was surprised. He took off his shades and smiled. “So you know a little history, huh?”

“Yeah, if you say so.” Menage turned toward Felix and told him about the tape under his sink.

“Do you think it'll show anything?”

“All I think it'll show is what y'all said DJ did to that guy in the driveway,” Menage said. Little did he know that the tape would reveal something more important than that. It had recorded every word between DJ and the hit man.

“I guess so. Anyway, I'll have my nephew stop by and check it out. He'll let us know if he finds anything.”

Menage yelled suddenly as his raft was flipped over, sending him under the water. He quickly came back up, treading water to find Chandra gripping his mat. She smiled and dove back under the water. Menage took a deep breath and felt a slight pain in his chest. He went after her anyway. Felix laughed, but not for too long as Rosita gave him the same treatment. Menage finally caught up with Chandra and pinned her back to the edge of the pool. She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck as her legs encircled his waist. Her hair flowed over her shoulders like a silk waterfall, and since she put on some baby oil before she got into the pool, the water ran off her glistening, smooth skin. At that moment, according to Menage, she was the complete definition of beauty.

“I love you, Chandra,” he whispered, his lips only inches from hers. She leaned sideways, looking past Menage and laughed.

“Girl, what's wrong with you?” he said. He turned his head to see Felix butt-ass naked, bending over to pick up a towel. Rosita was still in the pool with his trunks in her hand. Felix put on the towel and looked back at Menage and smiled. Menage shook his head and chuckled. He turned back to Chandra.
God she's so beautiful,
he thought. He knew she was the one and only woman for him and even if she weren't having his baby, he would still want her in his life. She closed her eyes and kissed him. He moaned deeply as her tongue ran across his upper teeth. He knew she felt his erection through his trunks, but she didn't stop him when he cupped her ass and brought her closer to his body. And he knew not to get carried away since she didn't want to have sex again until they were married, but by her body movements he knew it was hard for her to say no also. He could never get enough of her, and that night they shared a month earlier brought back a special warmth between them. They'd always used protection when they had sex, but that night things changed.