“Did he ever tell you to stay away from it?”
“Girl, yeah. There’s another computer in Jimmy’s room that G brought for us to use. He told me to stay my black ass away from his because he changes the password every time he signs on.”
Rita’s eyes looked all funny. “Is that right?” she said, already on her way over to the desk. “We gone see about that shit.”
Rita worked on G’s computer for over two hours. I kept running back and forth between the window and the front door, scared Pacho or Ace or one of G’s other flunkies was gonna come in and catch us. I was paranoid and spooked by every little sound I heard. When the phone rang it scared me so bad I caught an instant headache.
“Hey girl.” Gino’s easy voice met my ears through the line. “Shit is smooth over here, so we coming home early. We’re on our way back. You want us to bring you anything?”
I felt happy that Gino was thinking about me, but I was even happier for the heads-up. I hurried up and told Rita to get her bony black Puerto Rican ass up and out of G’s house.
“But I need more time,” Rita complained when I insisted she had to stop. She’d been banging on the keyboard like a crazy woman, determined to crack G’s code. “There’s something on here, Juicy. I can feel it. The answers we need are right here on this fucking computer!”
I thought about Dicey and the way she’d looked the last time I’d seen her. “Nah, Rita,” I said, pulling her up from the chair. “We gotta pick this shit up another time, my sister. Right now you gots to go.”
By the time G turned his key in the lock Rita was long gone and I was laying on the couch with a cloth over my eyes like I had a headache. I peeked out and saw G walk right past without even looking at me, but Gino nodded and smiled and I smiled back.
I mighta looked all sweet and innocent, but deep inside I was scheming like a mother trying to figure out how to do like Dicey had said and get my own damn money. G had already proven he was crazy and didn’t give a fuck about me or my brother. Now I needed to figure out how to get some of his ends, for me and for Jimmy, and if Rita could just get past that password on his computer, then nothing else in the world was gonna stand in my way.
Gino and I had already agreed not to even try to hook up in the apartment. We walked around each other barely speaking, trying hard not to give our true feelings away. We hardly had any time alone because G wanted Gino with him wherever he went. Gino was already getting mad props and respect from niggas on the street by virtue of being G’s son, but G wanted him to learn everything about his operations so he could take over one day. Gino wasn’t really down, but he went along with the program. Once or twice we managed to sneak in a few quick kisses when G went out alone, and we found ways to touch each other on the sly when we met in the kitchen or walked past each other in the halls, but there was never enough time for me to get some real dick, and with Gino sleeping on the other side of me and G’s wall, he was getting frustrated too because of all that noise G had me making.
“Don’t believe it,” I told him. “Your father wants you to think he’s getting mad pussy, but don’t believe none of that shit cause I’m faking like a mother. That’s the only reason he got you sleeping in that room anyway, so he can make sure you hear me hollering. But don’t believe it, Gino, because G ain’t got nothing on you.”
Over the next few days I tried to lay low and play it cool at the Spot. They found Dicey’s body on a Monday, and G had the nerve to say a prayer for her and donate some money to give to her sister for the funeral. He even told the day staff they could take off a few hours to go to her service, and while a lot of them went, I sure as hell didn’t. The casket was gonna be closed, thank God, but the picture I still saw of Dicey in my mind was the last way I would always see her. It was a picture so foul that it made me cry every time I thought about it, but Dicey also made me stronger, too. That tongue in her hand reminded me to watch what I said around and about G to everybody, and that slit across her throat bore witness to just how far-reaching G’s hands really were.
They buried Dicey out at Heavenly Works, but of course I didn’t go to the cemetery. I still had flashbacks about falling into my mother’s grave, and not even Dicey could make me go back there.
Two weeks later G and Gino took a trip down to B-More. They’d only been gone for two days when I saw Jimmy packing himself a bag.
“Where you going?” I questioned him. I’d been mad at him ever since we got back from Hawaii because he didn’t believe me when I told him I thought G had got Dicey killed. I was so pissed off with his hardheaded self that it wasn’t funny. Jimmy knew how much Dicey had done for us over the years, and he loved her as much as I did. Why he couldn’t see that it was G who had her killed was beyond me.
He shrugged. “I’m heading upstate. Gotta make a run for G.”
“What kind of run?”
He kept stuffing things in his bag. “A business run, Juicy. You know business. The shit men like me and G take care of so you can live in a house like this and walk around styling gear that cost more money than Grandmother ever saw in her whole life. Business. Where you think all this change comes from? A niggah gotta work for it.”
“Not you,” I said. “You ain’t gotta work for G’s business. Let him send some-fuckin-body else! Let him send-”
“Like who? Gino? You want him to send Gino out to handle this shit? Or you scared to let him be a man, too?”
I swallowed hard. “What are you talking about, Jimmy? Gino’s already out. He’s out in B-More with G right now. Why you trippin?”
“Ain’t nobody stupid around here, Juicy. Blind neither. Both of y’all are wrong. You better get your shit together and stop worrying about mine. Get your shit together before G wakes up and smells the fuckin coffee.”
“You know what?” I said, pointing at him. “G got your black ass brainwashed. You believe everything he tells you, don’t you. Since when you started trusting him more than you trust me? Huh? Loving G more than you love me?”
Jimmy picked up his bag and pushed past me on his way out the door. “It ain’t about loving him over you, Juicy. It’s about staying in the game and staying alive. Watch yourself, big sister. Your shit is wide open.”
“Fuck you!” I screamed, wondering if he was right and if G suspected something was going on between me and Gino. “Just fuck you, Jimmy!”
“I love you too, big sister,” he said, and slammed out the door.
Chapter Nineteen
About a month later G called me into his office. By this time Jimmy was making regular trips both upstate and down to A.C., and he had even taken a few trips to B-More with Gino. I wasn’t happy about none of it because I could see my brother sinking fast, getting deeper and deeper into the street life, but there wasn’t much I could do to stop it. He had stopped taking his medication and I was looking for signs of that crazy bug to come out of him again. Rita was working on busting G’s computer code as often as she could, and if I brought her around more frequently even the doormen were liable to get suspicious. So I chilled. I prayed for Jimmy and Gino, and kept my eyes and ears open.
“I need you to do something, Juicy,” G said. He was sitting behind his desk, and that picture of Gino’s mother was still there, turned facedown.
“Okay,” I said, stepping inside. With him gone up and down the road so much we had kinda settled back into our routine, and he hadn’t even threatened me since we came back from Hawaii. “What you need, G?”