He looked at me real hard. “Okay, Juicy. You ain’t gotta prove nothing to me. I’m not here to make no waves. I’m just a temporary fixture. Give me six months, and I’m out.”
For the next three days Gino and I toured the island together. G’s boil wouldn’t come to a head no matter how much he soaked in the tub, and I couldn’t convince him to let me squeeze it either. It was red and pus-filled and still hurt him like hell. He stayed in bed ordering room service and running things in Harlem from his cell phone, while Gino and I worked Justin overtime by combing every inch of the island.
Being up under Gino had my pussy on fire. He was so damn smart and sexy I masturbated every chance I got, which was mostly at night in the shower. We hung out 24/7 doing things I’d never even imagined myself doing. Didn’t even know I had the heart to do. We swam and snorkeled at eighty-leven beaches and I even surprised myself by climbing on the back of a Jet Ski and letting Gino take me so far out on the ocean I was scared we’d run out of gas.
“Go back!” I was screaming, dragging my feet in the blue water and punching his hard back with one hand while hanging on for my life with the other. I just knew the damn engine on the thing was gonna sputter and die, then send us tumbling into the ocean waves. But then I had a really scary thought. Jaws. Sharks like a mother. I jerked my feet out of that water and wrapped my legs around Gino’s waist so tight we were like Siamese twins.
He called me a punk when I wouldn’t go parasailing the next day, so you know I had to swallow my fear and take the challenge. Getting strapped into a harness positioned between his strong thighs felt like heaven, but once that wind lifted us almost up to the clouds I couldn’t care less how fine he was-he didn’t have no wings. By the time we came down and made it back to shore I was so airsick and seasick I had to go into a bathroom and throw up.
I couldn’t believe I was having such a good time on a vacation I didn’t even want to come on, especially since I hadn’t been able to catch up with Jimmy. Gino had let me use his cell phone for the last two nights, but for some reason nobody picked up at the apartment. I’d broken down and called the Spot, and Cooter told me Jimmy had been in off and on, but spent most of his time upstairs supervising the workers in the cut room.
You should have seen how I was steaming as I hung up. I was mad as hell that Jimmy was working that close to drugs, and somebody was gonna have to explain that shit to me when I got back to Harlem.
Justin was taking us to a tourist spot called the Polynesian Cultural Center when I decided to call Jimmy again. We’d stopped at a roadside truck that had big shrimp painted on the sides, and Justin assured us that local gut trucks like these were the best-kept secrets on the island. Gino ordered fried shrimp and I ordered garlic prawns, and then sat down on an empty bench and Gino passed me his cell phone.
I dialed the Spot, but the line at the bar just rang, so I clicked over and dialed another number. A female voice answered the phone in the cut room. “Jimmy there?” I demanded before she could get her “hello” out good.
“Nah. He left.”
Too late, I recognized the voice. “Dicey?”
Click.
I pressed redial and the phone just rang and rang. But Dicey had answered that phone. Sure as hell, it had been her. I called the line at the bar again and this time Cooter picked up. I gave him a message for Jimmy saying he’d better call me at the hotel within twenty-four hours or his ass was gonna get kicked when I got back home.
I was so stressed when I hung up that I couldn’t eat my prawns.
“Worried about your brother?” Gino asked.
I nodded. I was fronting like I was mad, but worried was a lot more like it.
“Don’t be pressed. He’ll be okay.”
I shook my head and pushed my plate away. “I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel right to me. I don’t know why he had to stay back anyway. He should have came with us from the door.”
“G had other plans for him,” Gino said. He opened a pack of hot sauce and squirted it all over his shrimp. “But if I was you, I’d watch that shit. Limit all that control y’all done gave him. Motherfuckers like G don’t mean you no good.”
I stared at him. This was the first time he’d said anything negative about his father and I wanted to hear more. “Why you say that?”
“Come on, Juicy. Why do you think?”
“G’s been good to me. To Jimmy, too. I just have to convince him to keep Jimmy out of the Spot and let him go to college. Just like he did for you.”
Gino laughed like crazy. “Oh, so you think G let my ass go to college? Let? ‘Let’ didn’t have shit to do with it. I was going. One way or another, I was going.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Besides, he felt guilty behind the way he fucked up my life. If he didn’t pay my way through school my grandmother woulda worked some Santeria roots on his ass that would make his dick fall off.”
“Ain’t like he’s using it anyway,” I mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.
Gino laughed again. “Aiiight, now. Don’t be putting the man’s business all out in the street. I don’t want to hear shit about what you do with him.”
“There’s not much to hear, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Whatever, Juicy. Do you, sister. Just watch your back. You better watch Jimmy’s back, too.”
Now I was really worried. Gino sounded like he knew something I didn’t know.
“Can I ask you something and have it stay between us? You know, something you don’t go running your mouth off to G with?”
His face got real serious and he put his hand on my arm. “Dig, I don’t tell G shit. We don’t roll that way. Anything me and you toss back and forth is strictly between us. Word.”
Something in his eyes told me I could trust him. Besides, I needed some info and who better to put me down on G’s true nature than his son. “Okay.” I nodded. “I believe I can trust you, and even though you think I’m a chickenhead, you really can trust me, too. Tell me,” I said, looking so deep into his eyes I could see his heart. “Tell me what happened to your mother.”
Chapter Fifteen
Gino had some love in his heart for G, but judging by the things he told me, he had every right to hate him, too. Chills ran through me as I sat listening to him talk about the way G treated and controlled his mother. He had done her the exact same way he was doing me, only I didn’t have a child to worry about protecting the way Gino’s moms had. It always messed me up when I heard about foul stuff people did to their kids. It took me right back to that cold December night when a junkie ho tried to trade my life for hers.
“My mother was special,” Gino said. “Not only was Salida the finest Puerto Rican chick in Harlem, she was smart, too. Her father died young and her mother was poor, so she thought she’d hit the jackpot when my father took her in, but G is a crafty nigger and when she stepped out of line he broke her down, mentally and physically.”
I shivered and picked at my prawns even though the sun was roasting my back and neck. “I know what you mean. Whatever G wants, G gets.”
“That’s right. But what’s worse, Juicy, is, G’s truly cold. There’s no margin of error with him when it comes to shit like loyalty and respecting his word. When you fuck up with him, you fuck up. It’s all or nothing. He don’t even know what it means to forgive.”