“I don’t want to deal with nobody but Darkside. Ya’ll don’t hook me up like he do, “ said the Caucasian hooker with the heavy make-up.
“He aint here ma, but I gotchu, “ said the young Puerto Rican worker under Dante’s employ.
“Well when will he be back? I got $700 and I know you aint gonna hook me up like he will, “ she stated looking defeated.
K looked back over his shoulder at Dante AKA Darkside.
“Yo, one of your regulars is out here and she don’twanna deal with nobody else.”
When they first got to town, K shouldn’t have been surprised that Dark had rented an apartment on a block with the heaviest drug traffic in the city. Never send a stick-up kid to do a hustlers job. Fortunately for the duo, one was a thinker. There was an eight unit building on the opposite side of the street. The building had off street parking. It also had a rear entrance and windows that faced the main strip. After scouting the area for two days K approached an elderly couple that lived in the building across the street. He made them an offer to relocate them to wherever they wished, plus $1500 which they happily and immediately accepted. K rationalized that this was a small price to pay for the cause. Now as they stood in the small but nicely furnished two bedroom apartment listening to the conversation outside, K realized it was money well spent.
“Let me go handle this. She always spends heavy. I wanna make sure we don’t lose her,” Darkside said as he quickly headed out of the apartment.
As K heard the door close he took a look around the apartment. He figured if he was going to spend a lot of time here, he might as well make it comfortable. The thick dark green carpeting he’d had professionally installed was offset by the cream colored Italian leather sofa and loveseat combo. Two newly purchased oil paintings of abstract art hung on the walls of the living room. 70 inches of widescreen television, which played every cable channel available occupied the wall opposite the sofa. He dropped onto the couch with the remote and began flipping through channels. He looked at his watch noted that he would need an upgrade soon from his plain faced Rolex.
Where is this goddamn bitch? He thought calling Mattie’s cell phone for the 40th time. He had also made numerous calls to the apartment which went unanswered as well. This sent his imagination on overdrive. Becoming frustrated with the unanswered calls to the apartment as well as the ones to Mattie’s cell phone, K turned off the TV and hit the streets to see what he could find to occupy his attention. He remembered a local spot at a hotel on Hamilton Street that he’d heard Dark say was a hangout for the locals. K was far from being blind to the large number of cuties that were in the town, but he was more focused on taking his hustle game to another level. He exited the apartment and headed down the back stairs that led to the alley where the rental was parked.
As he headed to the rental he noticed the locals, a few elderly couples, sitting on their porches living life and was slightly consumed by quilt. This place was nothing like his hood in NY which he had left. This was a quiet place where people felt comfortable letting children and grandchildren play outside without the threat of violence. But on the front side of the building in an apartment across the street, he and Dark were contributing to the destruction of their community. He pushed the thought out of his mind knowing that if he wanted to get where he was trying to be, he had no room for empathy. He could hear the sounds of salsa music playing a few doors down from where the elderly couple lived as he hit the button on the key ring releasing the automatic locks on the rental.
K slid in the brand new champagne colored Cadillac that he’d rented from Enterprise. He smelled the new car scent mixed with the smell of the tan leather interior. Shit was flowing real decent so he felt entitled to treat himself to this small luxury. His Acura was also sacrificed as one of the losses from his last incarceration. Another casualty which he knew when his pockets got right, he would replace. K pulled up to a club called HARRYS which was attached to a hotel called The Traylor. As he cruised the parking lot looking for a space he noticed various groups of honeys in all flavors making their way to the entrance of the club. He saw a few dudes here and there, but the numbers of cuties were far more than dudes. He smiled to himself considering the possibilities. He pulled into a spot next to a green Navigator. He was familiar with the car and the driver because he was one of the cats Dark had put him onto who had been copping weight. You would have thought by his car game that dude was doing big things, but he turned out to only be an ounce copping niggah. K turned off the caddy and exited the vehicle. As he started towards the entrance of the club, he felt the weight of the snub nose.357 magnum that was tucked in his waist. He had close to 7G’s in his pocket, which when he thought about it, wasn’t a real good idea to be carrying going into a hood spot for the first time. He returned to the passenger side of the caddy and checked the parking lot carefully. Seeing that the coast was clear he peeled $1500 off his bank roll, which was more than enough for Henny and Heinekens.
He locked the rest of the money inside the glove compartment. Next was the issue of the hammer(gun). He wasn’t sure what the security was like or the atmosphere in the club. Just because he didn’t see niggahs, didn’t mean that they weren’t inside and on some bullshit. Still observing his surroundings, he slid the heavy steel from his waistband and slipped it under the wheel well and sat it on top of the back tire. This was an old trick that he’d learned coming up in the hood. If shit popped off it was always easy access to get to his piece.
Just As he was starting towards the club, he heard female voices coming up the parking lot. He turned to to see four cuties headed towards the club and dressed to impress.
“Hi,” one of the honeys said catching K off guard.
Upon further observation he noticed that all four of them were bad as a motherfucker.
“What’s good gorgeous? How you?”
This piece of eye candy was giving K some mean eye contact; leaving no room for dispute that she was interested.
“What’s your name? I’m Trish. I saw you in the diner with Skulls the other night,” she said in a seductive Latino accent.
“This is Jeanette, Julie, and Heather,” she added introducing another Puerto Rican and two white girls.
The statement about Skulls put K on point to what type of chicks he may be dealing with. If they knew him they were probably, hoodrats in Diva disguises. Good enough to freak with, but you probably didn’t want to put too much time in with them. And you definitely didn’t want to wife one. He had seen the type before. The who these new niggahs? Bitches. Most of them had been run through by all the out of town hustlers, and most of the dudes in town.
But K wasn’t looking for a relationship, just something to do to occupy his time and take his mind off Mattie.
“I’m K. What’s up, yall trying to hangout wit a niggah?” he said returning the same eye contact she was giving him. “Drinks on me.”
That pretty much sealed the deal as they made their way to the club. After paying for everybody to get in and passing security, he realized that he had just found him a new hangout spot. Of course the grimey cats he anticipated might be inside were there, but he could deal with them. He had been dealing with them all his life. The part that officially locked him in was the wall to wall to wall honeys that filled the spot.
K headed straight to the bar with his newfound friends close on his heels.
“Get what yall want,” he told them over the loud music.
K noticed a couple of cats who he’d met since he’d been in the town and dealt with on a business level. He also noticed all the chicks that came by the bar trying to see who the new niggah was hanging with Trish and her crew. A few shots of Hennessy later and K felt a tug on his hand. He had been deepin thought after hanging up his cellphone with yet another straight to voicemail call to Mattie. Trish’s smile combined with cognac was all that was needed to stitch up the wound in his heart that was reopening.