She was also making some money going in Max’s safe. One time Max was so shit-ass wasted he gave her the combination, so she was going in, taking fifty, a hundred bucks, figuring the man was so high he wasn’t gonna keep count.
The money was good but, no, it wasn’t worth being around Max, twenty-four-seven.
She was all set to quit-go back to dancing or whatever-when one day Max sent her out to buy some Cuban cigars and a white guy in an ugly-ass plaid suit-shit went out of style in 1974-came up to her and went, “Hey, Felicia.”
Just like that, like they was old friends and shit. She never seen him before in her whole damn life but, shit, all you had to do was look at that motherfucker and know he was a cop.
Pretending she didn’t know what was going down, she went, “What the fuck you want?”
And then he laid the shit on her straight up. His name was Detective Joe Miscali, NYPD, and he was gonna bust her ass hard for prostitution, possession, whole mess of charges, if she didn’t give him some shit on Max Fisher.
She was like, “Shit about what? I don’t know shit about nothing.”
Playing hardball with the cop, waiting to see if he was for real or not.
Turned out the motherfucker wasn’t playing. Said he was on to Max, was ready to take his ass down hard, and he gave her two choices-cooperate or go away. Shit, she didn’t want to do no jail, so she said, Yeah, she’d help. What the fuck? She didn’t like helping cops, but she’d love to see Max go down, give the old bald-headed bitch some payback for the way he been treating her.
She started trying hard as she could to get Miscali some shit on Max. She was listening in on conversations, trying to always be by him all the time, whatever. Then, one night, he came into the shower, pointing the gun in her face. She thought, Fuck, he musta found out I’m gonna snitch on his ass. Then it turned out it wasn’t about that at all; it was about the stupid money from the safe. Played it right, denying all the shit he was saying to her, and he finally left her alone.
Later, she heard him talking to his boy Kyle on the phone about some drug deal was gonna go down with some Colombians. He told her to get out of the room, but she was listening in on the call on the other line in the bedroom. Okay, so now she had the info for Joe Miscali and she could stop being Max Fisher’s ho-praise the Lord.
But then she got to thinking-a drug deal, and didn’t they say it was twenty thousand dollars? There was gonna be product there too and she was thinking, Why I gotta tell that shit to Miscali? Felicia been thinking about getting away, leaving New York. She was tired of ho’in, being worried about money all the time. She had her friend Ramona in St. Louis, was always calling her, saying they should open a beauty salon together. But she need money to do that and no bank was gonna start giving no stripper no loan. But maybe if she could figure out a way to get that twenty grand she could go half with Ramona on the salon, get a whole new life started.
Shit, she barely slept the whole night because she was thinking about one thing-how to get that old stinkin’ crackhead’s money. Then it came to her-her cousin Sha-Sha from Brooklyn. Damn, why didn’t she think of that shit straight up?
Sha-Sha was her second cousin on her mom’s side. Felicia was six years older than him and funny shit was he was the first trick she ever turned. Happened when she was nineteen and he was thirteen. He was just hitting puberty and he was a horny little thang-nasty too. He was always walking around, touching his dick, asking her to do shit with him. Finally, sick of hearing him talk, she went, “You wanna fuck, I’ll fuck, but it’s gonna cost you five bucks.” He must’ve gone and stole five bucks from his momma, Felicia’s aunt. Was the fastest five dollars she made her whole life.
Felicia told Max she needed to go get a haircut. Meanwhile, she was really going to meet Sha-Sha in Brooklyn, in Canarsie. She took the L train out there and maybe she should’ve worn some different clothes. In this short leather skirt Max had bought her every guy on the train was wanting to bone her.
Sha-Sha was living in Breukelen Houses, off the L train. It had been a long time since Felicia had been back to the projects and she wasn’t missing none of it. When Sha-Sha answered the door she didn’t even recognize the nigga. She went, “Sha-Sha here?” and he went, “The fuck you talkin’ ’bout?” Yeah, that sounded like Sha-Sha, but what happened to his body? He used to be fine looking-well not too fine, he wasn’t no Denzel-but he was big and strong and his face wasn’t too bad either. But now the man was fat. She was talking Rerun fat, like the man be eating ten meals a day.
She looked around at all the pizza boxes, Chinese containers and shit and said, “Damn, how much you be eatin’?”
Sha-Sha went, “That how you say hello? How’d you get so rude, bitch?”
“Fuck you,” Felicia snapped. After listening to Max call her bee-atch all the time she wasn’t gonna take that shit from her damn cousin.
“Sorry, baby,” Sha-Sha said smiling. “Come to me.”
He held open his arms for a hug but, damn, Felicia felt like she was only getting her arms around one-quarter his body. She was glad she wasn’t hookin’ no more, havin’ Sha-Sha-size men on her body. Nigga that big fall on a girl’s body he kill her and shit.
Then Felicia felt one of Sha-Sha’s hands grabbing her ass and she shooed it away.
“Don’t be grabbin’ my ass,” she said.
“Shit, you lookin’ good,” Sha-Sha said. “Smellin’ good too. I bet you nice and tasty.”
Listen to the nigga, talkin’ to her like she was food. She better watch out-the fat motherfucka might eat her.
When he started kissing her neck-sucking on it more like it-she pushed him away. Tried to push him away. Nigga didn’t budge.
“The fuck you doin’?” Felicia said. “Ain’t you forgettin’ we cousins?”
“Shit never stopped you before,” Sha-Sha said.
Sha-Sha grabbed her ass again. She slapped his hand hard and went, “I ain’t playin’,” and he finally let go.
He moved some pizza boxes off the couch and they sat down, got caught up and shit. He asked her if she was still dancing and she said “Yeah,” leaving out that she was Max Fisher’s ho. Then she asked him if he was still dealing and he said, “Yeah,” and she was thinking, I wonder what shit he’s leaving out.
Felicia didn’t want to spend her whole damn day bullshitting in the projects. Yeah, Max was a bitch-ass motherfucker, but living in a penthouse-shit, she could get used to that. So getting right down to it, she went, “Yo, there’s this white motherfucker I know. You know, I dance for him and shit. Motherfucker’s dealing rock.”
“Who’s he with?” Sha-Sha asked.
“Ain’t with nobody,” Felicia said. “See how stupid his ass is? He don’t even know he keep it up the gangs’re gonna be coming down on his ass. His clients-yeah, motherfucker calls ’em clients, are all rich-ass white people like he is. Nigga’s getting’ all the white people in Manhattan smokin’ rock and shit.”
“Damn,” Sha-Sha said smiling.
“So I be thinking,” Felicia said. “Why wait till the gangs come down on him, know what I’m sayin’? How ’bout I find some way to get down on his ass first?”
“Shit makes sense,” Sha-Sha said.
“Shit makes lotta sense,” Felicia said. “So nigga’s on the phone last night, talkin’ about this deal’s gonna go down with these Colombians, for twenty thousand dollars and shit. Then I think about you and your boys and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we can get in on that shit.’ Know what I’m saying?”
Sha-Sha was into a pack of Chips Ahoy, eating the shit two at time. Piling that shit down his throat like his damn life depended on it.
“Shit, you eatin’ or listenin’?” Felicia asked.
Sha-Sha gave her a long look, swallowing cookies, then said, “Keep talkin’ to me.”
“What I been saying,” Felicia said. “All I gotta do is find out where the drug deal’s at, right? Then you and your boys, whatever, bust in on that shit, know what I’m sayin’? I get the money, you get the rock. Shit, Max-that’s the nigga’s name-payin’ twenty for it, shit’s gotta be worth forty, right? You know how much pizza and cookies and Pringles and whatever the fuck else you been eatin’ make you so damn fat you can buy for forty thousand dollars?…A lot, that’s how much.”