Natural Born Hustler (8 page)

“Well, I’m going.” She folded her arms and gazed into his eyes.

He returned her hard stare with one of his own. “No, you are not.”

Fame pulled up in front of the beige house that needed to be power-washed to get its factory color back. The trees and the greenery that surrounded the house made it hard to see past the gates when he put the car in park.

They sat at the curb. “Remember our deal,” he said to Desember,
shooting her a look that said he meant business, “stay in the car.”

“I remember.” Desember sighed deeply. “You only told me three or four times already.”

Before he got out of the car, he said, “Good. Then we shouldn’t have any misunderstandings or problems.” She watched as he walked into the mini forest until she lost sight of him.

Her phone rang. It was Kristin, her half fake sister or whatever one would call her. Kristin was Daryl’s daughter. Daryl was the first guy that her mother said was her father.

Daryl was the only father Desember knew up until she was three years old. He loved her like only a father could love his daughter, until the whispers behind his back—and sometimes to his face—finally got to him. No one in his family believed Desember belonged to him; her dark skin and cognac-colored eyes were so different from his light complexion and gray eyes.

To put the rumors to rest, nine days after Desember’s third birthday, Daryl took a paternity test. It was a week before it was returned, shattering reality as he knew it. She wasn’t his child.

He loved Desember, still to this day, but the betrayal by Angie was too much to bear. He could have managed to get past the infidelity, but not the deception. Six months later, Darryl moved on, ending his marriage—or lie—of four years. Since then, he tried not to treat Desember any different, but you can’t fake being a daddy with a heart filled with hate and mistrust of that child’s mother.

D’s first instinct was to ignore the phone call, but since she had nothing to do but sit in the car and wait for Fame, she answered.

“Hey, Kris,”

“Hi, Sissy.”

That Sissy shit really annoys the hell out of me
. She asked, “What you up to?”

“Nothing much. I was calling you because Chelle said that you told somebody that you ain’t any kin to us.” Chelle was Kristin’s younger sister. Kristin was fourteen, Chelle thirteen.

I ain’t
, she thought, but said, “That ain’t true; I said I was an only child.”

“Why do you say that?” Kristin sounded confused.

“Because I’m my mother’s only child.” Desember knew that Kristin loved her, and she didn’t want to hurt the girl, but the truth of the matter was that
she
was hurting. Kristin and Chelle knew who their father was, but Desember might never have the luxury that other kids took for granted. It wasn’t fair … but life wasn’t fair.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make you an only child, and you shouldn’t feel like that.”

“Well, I do.”

“How come?”

“Because y’all all got the same momma, and y’all momma isn’t as welcoming to me, and I don’t really fault her.”

After some small talk about how Kristin and Chelle were doing in school, Desember realized almost ten minutes had gone by and Fame hadn’t returned. It shouldn’t have taken him this long to get in and back out.

“Look, Kris, I love you and the whole nine, but I gotta go. I need to make a call. Hit me tomorrow, I got some nice jeans in your size.” She ended the conversation abruptly and called Fame’s phone, but he didn’t pick up. Desember waited five minutes and dialed his phone again—still no answer. Somewhere in the pit of her stomach she felt something wasn’t right.

Desember had promised that she would remain in the car, but some promises were meant to be broken.

She was determined to get to the bottom of things, so she opened the car door, shut it softly and crept through the mini forest. When she got to the back of the house, she saw a few doghouses and chains, but no dogs in sight. It looked like someone was using the area to train dogs to fight. Her mind drifted to the NFL star Michael Vick’s cruelty to animals scandal. The fact that the person who owned the house was into such a vicious sport made her even more suspicious that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t the time for her mind to drift, though.

From a distance, but close enough to clearly see, Desember peered through one of the windows of the house. She wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

There were two dead bodies sprawled across what was probably the dining room floor. WOW! she thought,
This shit is real
. One had a hole in the center of his forehead, a macabre third eye looking out for him in Hell. The other looked like he had taken traumatic shots to the face, and Desember couldn’t tell who he was.

He was dressed all in black, the same as Fame.

God, no!

Fame couldn’t be dead. She hadn’t even heard any shots go off. If she hadn’t been on the phone with Kristin, she thought, maybe she would have heard something. Maybe Fame wouldn’t be stretched out on the floor in his own blood.

Then Fame walked into the room carrying a black briefcase and a gun with a silencer attached to the barrel. She looked up to the Heavens.
Alive. Thank God
.

That’s when a loud sound frightened Desember, causing her to jerk around.

It was only a barking dog.

But in the dark, she couldn’t tell where it was. Although, judging by the vicious sound of the animal, if it were free to attack, she would’ve known it already. Just to be on the safe side, however, she continued to scan for the dog … until someone put a hand on her shoulder.

Spinning on her heels, knife out, she managed to catch the dude across his upper body.

“What the fuck?” It was Fame. “I thought you agreed to stay in the car.” The knife had glided straight through his leather jacket, but missed him—barely.

“I was afraid something might have happened to you,” she said, her heart pounding in her rib cage. “When you took so long to come back, I got worried.”

Fame still had the gun she’d seen from the window … and the briefcase. “Where’s the gun I gave you?” he asked.

If I had it, you’d be dead
, she thought. Thank God she didn’t, and he wasn’t. “I don’t like carrying it unless I know I’m going to need it. You,” she leaned in and spoke quietly, “said this was just a money pickup, so I didn’t bring it.”

“You never know when you’re going to need a gun, until you need it,” he warned. “Afterward will be too late. Let’s get da fuck outta here.”

In the car D decided not to mention what she saw through the window, and instead asked, “Sooo, what happened in there?”

“Nothing happened. I got what I came for.”

A few minutes of silence passed before she spoke again. “I wasn’t afraid.”

“Fear can sometimes save your life,” he told her, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them.

“Maybe so, but I’d rather be confronted by a ski-mask-wearing goon swinging a warm gun than a bitch hiding behind an insincere smile and a concealed knife ready to twist it in my back any day.”

Fame smiled at her bravado but remained quiet, allowing her to have the last word. After all, he’d had no intention of laying anyone down when he left home tonight, but the pickup turned out to be a trap set to kill his brother. Luckily he peeped it when he did or he would have been the one lying on that dirty floor.

He also knew that Desember had seen more than she let on, but that was cool. She had proven time and time again that he could trust her … even with his life.

8.
Drop It Like It’s Hot

Desember entered the apartment after a long day of working and overheard Fame talking. He had the call on speaker, so she was ear hustling.

“Man, it gotta go down tonight or else you going to have to wait until next month,” Tommy said. She recognized his voice.

“I don’t have my shit all the way together,” Fame told him.

“Man, I’m telling you tonight is the night you gotta do it. The nigga is too cheap to get the security he gon need, so most of what he do have is gonna go to the front end of the club. Getting to him is a piece of cake, and getting the cheese from him is going to be like taking candy from a baby.”

“A’ight, I’ma make it happen. Somehow, some way,” Fame assured Tommy before hanging up.

Desember greeted Fame with a long kiss.

“So what’s good?” she asked Fame while massaging his tense shoulders.

“I’m thinking about a job I gotta do tonight.”

“Why can’t you postpone it? Do it another day?”

“Because it ain’t that easy. The nigga I got on the inside said it’s pretty much tonight or never. He’s the one that gave me the tip and tonight is the night it gotta happen, but I don’t have the help I need.”

“I feel ya.” Desember paused for a second. “Well, one monkey never stopped no show. We just have to revamp the plan and make it do what it’s gonna do.”

He turned to look at her. “No
we
, it’s me.”

“I know you can handle yours,” she said, batting her eyes, “but if you need help … you know I got yo’ back.”

Dominique Fuller owned the newest, hottest and hippest strip club in Raleigh. It was both chick- and dude-friendly. The male and female bartenders were attractive, and all were skillfully trained to prepare all the regular intoxicating drinks, along with a plethora of exotic, colorful and frozen ones. Most club owners wanted to skimp on the liquor sold to the patrons to maximize profits, but Dominique was different, because he knew the more intoxicated his customers were, the more money they’d spend on the girls.

The sex business generated billions of dollars a year worldwide and Dominque was cool with his small slice of the pie. But that wasn’t the only billion-dollar industry he had his avaricious hands in. Everyone who knew Dominique knew his strip club was established and backed by drug money, although most
thought—incorrectly—that he’d given up the drug trade years ago. He was much too greedy and his taste much too exquisite to retire from it, though.

Friday night was Ladies’ Night at Dominique’s—ladies got in free—and it was packed as usual, but this wasn’t any regular Friday night. It was the second of the month, payday for a lot of folks—the military, the government and the drug boys as well.

“Damn, nigga, this line moving slow as a sum-bitch,” complained one of the waiting customers as he looked back at the block-long, winding line growing behind him.

Two nice-looking women stepped up to the bouncers when their turn came. At least one of them was fine, the bouncer thought. The other would do, but she wore a little too much makeup for his taste.

“I’m going to have to see your ID,” he said to Desember. “You look a lil too young to drink.”

“Thanks for the compliment.” Desember smiled. “It’s in my genes. You oughtta see my mother. Unfortunately, I left my identification at work. I hope that won’t be a problem.” She batted her false eyelashes.

She did have good
jeans
, the bouncer had to admit. She was wearing a pair of distressed True Religion jeans that clung to her well-shaped apple butt and her thick legs like a coat of wet blue paint. She was rocking a pair of stylish black Ray-Ban glasses, and behind them she had in a set of hazel contacts. On her neck was a big elaborate temporary tattoo of an Egyptian cat. The bouncer paid almost no attention to the tall chick with Desember. She was wearing a silk printed flowy dress, big designer shades and a shoulder-length wavy wig.

“Nah, that’s not going to be a problem, ladies.” He put pink bands on both their wrists to show the bartender they were of
age. “Come on in. Enjoy yourself,” he said, mostly to Desember.

Once inside, Desember grinned at Fame. “You don’t look half-bad dressed like a girl. You should maybe try it more often, explore your feminine side a little,” she joked.

“I got yo’ feminine side right here,” Fame shot back. “Besides, these Spanx got my nuts jacked the fuck up.” He adjusted the tissue paper that was stuffed in his size 34-C bra.

Desember laughed. “Whatever you do, baby, don’t hurt the family jewels.”

The music in the club was banging. A girl who resembled a young Vanessa Williams with a bigger rear end was working not only the pole but the patrons. If she dropped it any hotter, they were gonna need the fire department on standby. And the excited crowd was cheering her on by the sound of the applause, whistles, shouts—and a flood of paper money carpeting the stage green.