An Urban Drama (9 page)

“What’s a Blue Muthafucka?”

“It’s a Long Island Iced Tea with this blue stuff mixed with it,” she said, holding up a bottle of Blue
Curaçao
. “Now, how does that sound?”

“Great.” I smiled at
Pearl
. Even though I had been there for a few days, this was the first time I had been alone with either of the twins. There was something I’d been dying to ask. “You mind if I ask you a question,
Pearl
?”

Pearl
stopped making our drinks. “Go ahead.” She gave me this what-you-wanna-know, bitch look.

“Is your name really Pearl?”

She started laughing, so I laughed a little with her, but I still wanted to know. “Yes, Nina, my mother and father named me
Pearl
. You know, people been callin’ us that for years, and nobody’s ever asked me that,” she said, still falling all over herself with laughter. “But you asked the right one. Diamond’s my girl, but she is a little sensitive about her name.”

“So, what’s her name?”

Pearl
stopped laughing, got this real serious look on her face, and waited until I stopped laughing. “Alice
Fae
.” She busted up laughing again.

By the time
Leon
got back with Diamond,
me
and
Pearl
were fucked up—I mean giggling all over ourselves fucked up.
Leon
just shook his head and made himself a drink. Diamond, on the other hand, seemed just a bit jealous, but
Pearl
didn’t seem to care.

The next morning when I got ready to leave, I got my money together and tried to give it to
Leon
. “What’s that for?”

“For the product I’m gettin’ from you.”

“Yeah, well, put your money away. Go buy
yourself
a better looking, cheap car than the one you’re drivin’ now,”
Leon
said and laughed. “I’m just fuckin’ with you, Nina. But when you do get a car, make sure it’s nothing fancy, just something to get you around.”

“You told me that a hundred times,
Leon
.”

“And you ain’t gettin’
no
two ounces. I’m givin’ you a kilo.” My mouth dropped open. “That one is on me. Make your money, and when you come back to see me, we’ll talk about a price for the next one.”

“
Thank you
,
Leon
.”

“You don’t have to thank me. You’re family now. I ain’t ever gonna see Lo again unless we run up on each other in jail, and you know I’m never going to jail. You’re my cousin now. Whatever you need to make it, all you gotta do is ask me.”

“I will,” I said and gave him a hug.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, you’re gonna be fine. Lo always said you were the brains of the outfit.”

“What?” I asked, looking at
Leon
like he was stupid.

“He said that you gave him the best advice whenever he asked you what to do, and how he should handle situations.”

“You’re kidding.”
Damn.
I never thought he paid any attention to what I was saying. All I ever told him was what I thought would bring in the most money. Who knew the shit was working for him?

“That’s what he told me.”
Leon
turned around and started walking toward the house.

“
Leon
,” I called to him. “I don’t mean to ask stupid questions, but where is it?”

Leon
stopped and looked at me. “Strapped under the driver’s seat. You’ll need to take the seat out to get to it. If you get stopped, it won’t be easy to find without dogs. And be careful in
South Carolina
. The state patrol is hot there.”

“Good-bye,
Leon
.”

“See ya,
cuz
.”

So, I was on my way home with a kilo under my ass, feeling like I had the world by the tail. Although I was nervous about what I was carrying, I was bubbling over with excitement and anticipation about the future. Having a free kilo to go into business with was a whole lot sweeter than a couple of ounces. My mind began to open up to the possibilities that I was sitting on. There was no longer any thought in my mind of me, Teena, and Shay hustling to flip a couple of ounces so we could re-up. Now we would be able to sit back and wait on the money to come to us.

Now, all the things that
Leon
had said we could do on price would come into play. He said since I was entering a very competitive market, it would always be to my advantage to have a high-quality product and to be very competitive on price. That was how I would get new customers. They would be loyal as long as I treated them right. He told me to remember that anybody I dealt with was liable to snitch me out the first time I fucked them over, but if I gave them a good price, they would come back to buy more. The more they bought, the more I could buy. My costs would go down, but my selling price would remain the same, so my profits would go up. It was damn good advice.

I got on I-95 and headed north, staying with the flow of traffic for the most part. I got into
South Carolina
and remembering
Leon
’s warning, I made sure to do the speed limit. That was cool until I got behind this old woman coming out of
Florence
who was driving really
slow
. I took it as long as I could, then I pulled out to get in front of her. I passed her without a problem and was cruising along nicely, when I realized I was doing eighty. I took my foot off the gas to let it slow down and blew right by a state trooper. I kept going, watching the rearview mirror, hoping that he wouldn’t come after me.

“Shit. Here he comes.”

As soon as I saw the blue lights come on, I pulled over. As quickly as I could, I put on some lipstick, unbuttoned the top two buttons on my blouse, and emptied my purse out on the seat next to me. He pulled over behind me and got out of the car.
Thank God he’s black
, I thought. When he knocked on my window, I went into my act. I looked up at him, rolled down the window and started crying. Not no big, boo-
hoo
cry, but I forced a few tears down my cheeks.

“Can I see your license, ma’am?”

“Here it is,” I said tearfully.

“You’re a long way from home, Ms. Thomas,” the trooper said as he leaned on top of the car to get a better view of the cleavage I had put on display for him. “What’s your hurry?”

“I’m visiting my family in
Florence
. I didn’t mean to be
speedin
’, but I was
diggin
’ around in this junky purse for my cigarettes, but I don’t see them, so I guess I must’ve left them at Aunt
Steph’s
house, and I guess I got a little heavy-footed,” I lied. I don’t even smoke, but the plan was working. The cleavage had his ass frozen. I knew then that he wasn’t gonna search the car. Now it was time to get out of getting a ticket.

“Well, Ms. Thomas, I clocked you doing seventy-eight in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour zone,” the trooper said.

You’re losin’ him, Nina.
I knew then it was time to close the show. I began to cry a little harder and made my breasts bounce. I looked at his face: his eyes bucked wide, mouth open. He shook his head. “Don’t cry, Ms. Thomas. I’m gonna let you go with a warning this time,” he said and handed me back my license, “but just try to keep it at the speed limit. And maybe you should quit smoking. A pretty lady like you doesn’t need to smoke anyway.”

“I know. It’s a nasty habit.”

He reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out a card and handed it to me. “If you wanna get together some time, give me a call,” the trooper said. He was kinda cute for a cop, so I thought I just might. As he walked back to his car, I buttoned up my blouse and put my stuff back in the purse. I pulled out slowly into traffic and drove on, knowing that I had dodged a bullet big-time. But the fact remained that I had dodged it, and was on my way to do this thing.

Now that I had it, it was time to make it work.
Me
and Teena posted up at a table in the back of Jimmy’s, the same hole in the wall bar where Lorenzo and Chris first took us. I remembered what
Leon
had told me. “The ones that are still on the street are the ones who gave the cops something to stay out.” And here they all were.

I’d been low-profile since Lorenzo went to jail. First I was depressed, then I tried to be a dancer, so this was the first time I’d seen a lot of these people in a while. One by one, each one of them came up to me to show their respect. Their women asked me where I’d been and filled me in on all the latest gossip. Some wanted to see if I was doing okay on my own. Some of the fellas who hadn’t seen me in a good while told me how sorry they were that things went down the way they did. Some of that was sincere, some was bullshit, some of these muthafuckas were glad Lorenzo was locked up.

Some offered their help, others offered themselves. Imagine what I must have represented to them; what a prize I would be. One of them had taken my man’s position, now they wanted me.

“Look at these muthafuckas, Nina. All of them tryin’ to get with you,” Teena said.

“All of them sold out Lorenzo to stay on the street.”

“You sure you don’t wanna recruit none of these muthafuckas?”

“Yup.”

“Not even the cute ones?”

“Especially not them. I thought about it, believe me. This is where I thought I was gonna start: with these mugs. But now, looking at them, seeing how they’re trying to play me, we don’t need
none
of these sellout muthafuckas to do this work for us. No, Teena, we gotta build our own team.”

“We?”

“Yeah, we. Or were you just talkin’ that together-to-the-bloody-end shit?”

“No, I wasn’t just talkin’. You know that. But I was just thinking that since things had changed, you know, with you getting a whole lot more than you thought, and with you
handin
’ me back five hundred of the four hundred dollars I gave you, I thought maybe shit had changed.”

I looked at Teena; it hurt me a little to hear her ask me that. It was like she was questioning the strength of our friendship. “No, Teena, we’re in this together. We gotta build this team.”

“Well, maybe you should tell me exactly what
we
means
.”

“It means we’re partners.
Me
, you and Shay are partners in this. I’m distribution, you’re recruitment, and you know Shay . . .”

“Yeah, she’ll get done anything that needs to be done.”

“So, the first person we gonna go see is Kenyatta,” I said to Teena and motioned for the waitress.

“You just said you
wasn’t
fuckin’ with none of Lo’s people.”

“I know what I said, but Kenyatta is different. That’s my girl. I was the one who brought Kenyatta to Lorenzo.” I laughed. “She’s been tellin’ me since the day Lorenzo got locked down that I needed to do this.”

When I went to see Kenyatta the following day, it was like she was waiting for me. She swung open the door to her apartment before I could knock. “I hope your grand appearance at Jimmy’s last night means you’re ready to take this thing to a new level.”

“Hello, Kenyatta,” I said and walked by her. “How are you today?”

“Just answer my question, ho. What were you doin’ at Jimmy’s last night?”

“That’s what I came to see you about.”