Heartbreak of a Hustler's Wife: A Novel (21 page)

Yarni wished that she had her gun inside the office, not in her car, because she would have shot him dead on the spot. But then she thought again and realized he wasn’t worth it.

“I see you are a little worked up. I just came to give you fair warning.”

“Say yo’ prayers, you rat bastard,” Yarni screamed at the top of her lungs, and Layla rushed into her office. Cook’em-up smirked and walked out the door. Layla didn’t know what was going on, although she had heard about this side of Yarni but never witnessed it for herself.

“Do I need to call 911?” Layla asked.

Yarni’s eye caught the chessboard she had set up in her office and tried to regain her composure. She’d heard loud and clear what Cook’em-up had said, and to the best of her knowledge he was not one for making idle threats. From what she had heard, he was a man of action. At that second, she realized that this was all a chess game. Cook’em-up had delivered his message to force Des to make a move. But what Cook’em-up didn’t know was that in chess, it wasn’t the king who controlled the board—it was the queen. She was the most powerful player, and she always protected her king.

Giving Back to the Game

Des’s old friend Carson was in town and had called him for a meeting. They had known each other since Des was eighteen years old and over the years what started out as a business relationship had grown into a friendship. They decided to meet at a sushi restaurant on the National Harbor in DC.

Initially when Carson called, Des had no idea why he wanted to meet with him. A little over a year ago, Carson had approached Des about one last good, hard run, after which they could both kiss the game good-bye, but Des had to respectfully decline the offer because he already had his hands full with the church and his own side hustles.

The entire time over lunch they were basically catching up, and reminiscing over the good times they’d had over the years, which had Des puzzled that that was all Carson had to talk to
him about. On one hand, it was good for Des to just take a breather, escape to the old days and not have to focus on what was going on in his world. But on the other, Des never lived his life looking in the rearview mirror. He liked to keep his eye on the road and right now any time away from his real world, not on the hunt for the people wanting his demise, was a minute wasted.

“Man, did you hear that a few of my major moneymaking spots got hit, including the one where I lay my head sometimes?”

“Naw, man,” Des said. “I swear, it must be something in the air.”

“Turns out the nigga that been getting me was a young punk, not even twenty years old,” Carson said.

“Damn, they getting younger and bolder, huh?” Des said, shaking his head.

“I came eye to eye, just waiting for the right time to kill him.”

Des nodded, thinking of what he’d do if he’d caught the people who were behind his misfortunes. He wasn’t sure exactly how it would go, but one thing he knew was that the bastards who robbed him and tried to take his life from him would be dead.

“So, you got any leads on who got you?” Carson asked.

“Not yet, but I’m burning the streets up trying to get to the bottom of this.”

“How’s the wife?” Carson asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“She’s being wifey. Just called, as a matter of fact. You know, she’s always holding it down. They say behind every hustler stands a strong woman. She’s mine.”

“Who’d thought that the young girl who was a wild card would be the one always by your side?” Carson said. “And how’s the baby girl?”

“She’s good.” Des smiled. “She’s my little genius.”

“I was shocked to find out that you had a grown daughter.”

“Where did you hear that?” Des was surprised and wondered where Carson had gotten that information. He hadn’t shared it with anyone outside his circle, and for a second he wondered if Carson was a part of the conspiracy against him.

“Long story.”

“Well, share it over dessert.” Des wanted to know why Carson would wait until the end of their meal to mention it.

He saw Carson tense up as he began to tell the story. “Apparently your daughter’s boyfriend, Fame, robbed three different people who were all connected to me. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that you sent them, but I know you didn’t,” he said with a tense smile.

Des leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He stared at Carson as he kept on with his story.

“With the help of your daughter, this Fame character dressed up like a broad and robbed the front man of my strip club.”

“Really?” Des had figured that Desember was into some bullshit but had no idea it was this heavy.

“According to my people, apparently she was only there to watch his back, but when she thought he was in trouble, she came to her man’s rescue and laid both guys down, tied ’em up and had them scared for their lives. Now that I know her pedigree, they had great reason to be.”

Des nodded his head. He’d always wanted a son, and with the
kind of stunts that Desember had pulled off, she was like the son he never had. Des knew that Carson was a heinous man and his methods of revenge were extreme, and though he wasn’t afraid—he feared no one but God—he really didn’t need a war with Carson at this point in his life. “Let me apologize for my daughter’s actions and—”

Carson cut him off. “Don’t worry, she’s in no danger. As a favor to you, I’m sparing your daughter’s life. But that favor doesn’t extend to that pussy-ass motherfucker who stole from me.” Carson took a deep breath. “And gangsta to gangsta, you should be able to respect that.”

“I do.” Des nodded.

“As if getting away scot-free with my money wasn’t enough, a few days later the son of a bitch was bold enough to come to one of the places where I lay my head and look me in the eye and tell me that he didn’t care about the consequences of stealing from me.” Carson was still pissed that Fame had told him this to his face.

“Clearly the young fella didn’t know who he was dealing with,” Des suggested. “He couldn’t have known.”

Carson took a deep breath. “You are right, he didn’t know.”

“Well, my man, you know everybody wasn’t sat down and given the rules of the game like we were. And it’s up to us—not just as old g’s, but true g’s—to pass the game along.” Des knew he had Carson’s attention. “I don’t know the youngin—never met him before a day in my life—but apparently he got the game fucked up. I don’t know why.”

“He got it real fucked up,” Carson agreed with Des.

“But can I make a suggestion?” Des asked.

“I’ve never stopped you before.”

“Maybe instead of killing him there are some other drastic measures that could be taken.”

“Like what?” Carson was hell-bent on killing Fame, but respected Des enough to hear him out.

“Like I said, I never met the lil homey, but from what you saying he seems good at what he does. So make ’im pay back the money, take him under your wing, show him the game, and he’ll be in debt to you.” Des ran it down like it was common sense. “If he has any kind of morals, he’ll reciprocate it and be loyal to you. From what little I know about my daughter, I don’t think she would be involved with anyone who didn’t have any. But again, intellect and emotions are two different things.”

“True.”

Des knew Carson was considering what he said, so he continued. “If the guy has any kind of principles, you got you a lil soldier who feels he owes you his life, and he’ll be loyal. You can use his skills to the best of your advantage.” Des knew that Carson was partially sold. “But the sweetest part is that you’ll find out how he was able to tap into your spots. You’ll discover who is disloyal in your army.”

“But I tried to kill him. Nobody forgives the man who tried to kill him. This could backfire.”

“You tried to kill him and your guy missed. It’s taboo for you to try again. There are no mistakes when it comes to divine intervention.” Des noticed that he sounded like the pastor he’d been pretending to be but he kept going. “There is a reason,” Des mentioned, “Fame is alive after your guy unloaded a clip in him. Also, he knows now that you can touch him anytime you
want to, but you haven’t. You know there comes a point in this life for niggas like us who have been through the fire branded by the game that we have to give back.” Des shrugged. “It’s the law of physics: you can’t give shit to the universe and expect sugar back. You have to sometimes give sugar to keep your flow of sugar coming.”

Carson grabbed the check off the table and peeled off a few bills to take care of it. “You definitely paid for the meal with your food for thought, so I’ll pay for the food.”

“I appreciate it, man. I gotta get back to my war zone before something else erupts,” Des said, getting up from the table.

“So one favor deserves the next: I spared Desember and now you have to be the mediator between this Fame and me.”

“Give me some time.” Des chuckled as he wondered what in the hell else didn’t he know about his daughter.

The Bombshell

Des walked away from the meeting with Carson feeling optimistic and was thinking that he couldn’t wait to get home to see his daughters, but mainly his wife. He made a mental note that he had to start sending Yarni flowers, but more, he had to stop taking their quality time together for granted. His thoughts prompted him to call Yarni as he walked to his car.

When she answered, he started singing, “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” by Stevie Wonder.

He could feel her smile through the phone, and knew she was about to join in with him, when she received another call and said it was probably the news she had been waiting on. “Hold on real quick, baby, let me see why Layla is calling after hours. Give me one second to make sure she is all right.”

Layla asked if Yarni was sitting down. After Yarni assured her
that she was, her assistant dropped a bombshell on her: she had the name of the person who received the call from Roxanne’s cell phone.

Yarni was dumbfounded by what she heard and wondered why she hadn’t put two and two together herself. She couldn’t click back over to the other line fast enough to tell Des what she’d discovered.

“Babe,” she said to Des, “you ain’t gonna believe this shit.”

“You ain’t gonna believe this either,” he said into his Bluetooth. “I’m surrounded by the Feds!”

That was the last thing she heard him say before the phone went dead.

The Feds

It didn’t matter if they were from the DEA, FBI, ATF or IRS; Des hated all the alphabet boys with a passion. In his opinion they were arrogant and overrated. They loved to throw around the fact that they had a ninety percent plus conviction rate, but failed to mention that they wouldn’t know jackshit if it wasn’t for cowardly, cheese-eating rats telling on anybody to save their own ass.

“You’ve done quite well for yourself, Mr. Desmond Taylor,” said Barnes, the agent who appeared to be in charge. He was tall and gaunt, wearing a cheap gray suit and loafers with rubber soles that squeaked. Des counted six Feds. He recognized four of them—they’d been inside of his gym when he was working out.

“Shit!” Des cursed, disappointed in himself for not penning the spooks earlier. “If you don’t mind taking that bullshit off of
my phone, I’d like to call my lawyer,” Des politely stated. They used some kind of device to shut off the connection to Des’s cell phone.