Durty South Grind (24 page)

Reluctantly, they all rose, mumbling amongst themselves and headed for the door. Stack-a-dime was the last to leave. He turned to face Rainbow as he was about to close the door and said angrily,
“My man, I don't know exactly what you're doing but you're doing
something.
”

Rainbow pinched his nose and rubbed his chin as he stared the youngun down. Seeing that tactic wasn't doing any good, he forced a smile. “Youngun, I'm betting my scheme; that's all.”

The anger in Stack's voice was undeniable, as his eyes narrowed and his nose flared. “Scheme, my ass. Sooner or later, I'm gonna bust your ass and when I do…” He edged a little closer to him.

Rainbow stepped toward him and gritted. “And then what, muthafucka, and then what?” He inched his hand to the small of his back for the ever-present Glock braced in his waistband. Instant death stared at the youngun.

Stack instantly knew that he had overstepped his boundaries and recoiled as his eyes lowered to Rainbow's hand movement. Despite his tingling fear, his gangster wouldn't allow him to be outright punked, so he maintained his menacing stare. “Just keep your shit tight, partner; just keep it tight.” He gently backed out of the door.

Rainbow knew that he was scared and was maintaining his killer swagger for the sake of his crew and his own self-esteem. “Whatever dog, whatever,” he spat with fire in his eyes as his hand eased off the trigger.

“Uh-huh, yeah, whatever,” Stack spat back and spun around to follow his buddies with his coattail swinging angrily in his wake.

Rainbow slammed the door behind the angry stud and thought,
Man, these muthafuckas must think that I've gotten soft or something.
He headed for the bedroom. With the same steam boiling in his brain, he rapped sharply on the door. There was a quick muffled reply. This fired him up just that much more and he kicked the door, shouting, “Girl, what the fuck you got this damn door locked for? Them younguns are gone. Bitch, open this muthafucking door.” For a brief second he considered kicking the door in.

There was a shuffling of feet and more mumbling before the door was snatched open by Princess, her face creased in a frown.

“Splack,” the sound of the slap upside her head echoed in the hallway, as Rainbow viciously slammed her against the door. She boomeranged from the force of the blow into him like a rag doll. Still very much pissed off, he grabbed her around the neck and hair and slung her into the bedroom dresser.

His longtime pimping instincts had his foot raised in the air to deliver more punishment as Lady screamed out at him, “No, Rainbow, no!” She rushed over to grab him by the waist. The pleading look on her face curbed his anger. He took a deep breath and gently lowered his leg. Still, he felt compelled to let Princess know that he wouldn't put up with any defiance whatsoever.

“I'm chill, baby. I'm chill,” he said evenly. Lady looked up with tears running down her cheeks to see the calmness on his face and unwrapped herself from around his waist and placed a trembling hand on his shoulder.

He gave her a weak smile, gently brushed her hand off of his shoulder and bent down to carefully lift Princess's face. His smile was warm but his eyes were blazing fire. “Baby girl, don't ever approach me in that manner again.” Her ogling fear let him know he was in full control. “You feel me, baby girl? I said, do you feel me?” She nodded shyly. Grimacing, he lifted her up by the armpits and walked her over to the bed.
Damn, why these hoes got to keep testing a nigga? Why?
He gently sat her down on the bed and left the room.

He walked calmly into the living room and took a seat on the couch, picked up the remote and clicked on the porn video. He unzipped his fly and motioned toward his newest addition to his constantly revolving stable of hoes. As she gently wrapped her juicy red lips around his massive dick, he casually succumbed to the sensation, thinking,
Damn, playa, you must be getting too old for this game;
you can't even remember this bitch's name.
He wiggled his ass enough to unstick his nuts from his thighs, smiling at her bobbing head.
What the fuck difference does it make? A nigga can't be expected to know all these muthafuckas' names, as long as they prove to be money-making machines. Aaaaaah, do your thang, girlie; do your thang.

Beverly was consumed with pleasant thoughts of preparing a scrumptious meal for her beloved nana, as she watched the elevator lights blinking down to the garage floor. It had been a pretty okay workday, except for the disturbing report of the overzealous Lt. Woo on her drug excursion into DeKalb County. She felt sorta icky because it was one of the areas her boys operated; she really didn't want anything to do with it. True enough, Woo had curbed the drug traffic in a positive sense in Fulton County. Even though she was a bit uncomfortable with some of her tactics, she had to smile at the results. From the police's point of view, the little monster's tactics definitely worked.

Her thoughts shifted to Sparkle when the doors opened and she headed toward her car. As she cruised along the pavement in her pigeon-toed stride, she wondered when she would get the chance to see him. And as usual she felt her heart flutter with the excitement of possibly feeling herself melt in his embrace.
Why can't that fool see that I love his hard-headed ass? Whew! I pray to God that I can convince him to give up the street life this time,
she thought as she inserted the key into the ignition.

Plack, plack, plack.
She jumped nervously from the sudden rapping on her windshield. Before she could adjust her senses, there was another.
Plack, plack, plack.
A second tingling ran down her spine as she swerved her head to locate what was causing the noise. Her
anger surfaced immediately when she recognized the face of the deputy chief, looking like Norman Bates, smiling dumbly at her.

The nerve of this mutherfucker.
She reached for the door handle and intentionally shoved the door hard into his midsection. “Man, what the fuck is wrong…” She caught herself before she could finish the statement and got out of the car. She stood there for a moment, pinching her eyebrows to regain some of her composure. She responded in a chilly tone and with clenched teeth, “What is it, Deputy Chief?”

R.J. Madison III set his briefcase on the pavement, then rotated his neck and shoulders backward. “Chief, please excuse me for scaring you like that. I didn't mean to upset you, but you did tell me to keep you abreast on the townhouse you were interested in.” He leaned his elbow on the roof of the car. “I tried to catch you in your office but your secretary told me that you had already left. And when I saw the elevator door closing, I guess I got a little overanxious and ran down the stairs. I certainly didn't want you to leave before I let you know that one will be available in about three weeks. Most of them are going to be furnished, but I figured that you'd want one that you could do yourself. Am I right to assume that?” He blinked several times, looking very sincere.

Only then did she notice that his chest was still heaving from the exertion of running down the stairs to catch her. That made her start to feel sort of guilty for slamming the door on him so abruptly. She ran her hand from her forehead down to squeeze her neck before she shut her eyes tightly and took a deep breath. “Excuse me, R.J., for being so jumpy. I've been through a very stressful day. I'm sorry for blowing my fuse on you like that.” She was too damn tired to smile.

He hunched his shoulder as if to say that's okay, that he understood, before he adjusted his tie. “Yes, ma'am; apology accepted.
I surely can understand the stress…hell, I go through it myself, but anyway I wanted to inform you that you can at least start the paperwork whenever you want to. I realized how badly you want to move your grandmother out of the hood.”

This pompous bastard. How dare his pampered white ass talk like my old neighborhood ain't fit for living?
she thought. “Uh, thank you, Mr. Madison. I'll get my banker on it first thing in the morning. Uh, please don't let me forget, okay?” she said sweetly with a glittering smile that she was finally able to force, even though she didn't feel it. She closed her door, put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking facility.

As he watched her drive away, he reached into his suit pocket to get his cell phone and punched some numbers. When the phone wasn't picked up right away, he immediately repunched the numbers. He waited five more rings and was ready to snap, when he heard a soft female voice answer demurely, “Excuse me, but Al is rather busy right now. May I take a message?”

R.J. held his face away from the slightly familiar voice and contemplated delivering a threatening message before he thought better of it and clipped the connection. He mumbled to himself as he headed for his car on the far side of the garage, “That motherfucker knows godayum well he was supposed to let me know about that furniture delivery today. Who the hell does he think he's playing with? Black bastard's probably got his ugly-ass face stuffed up in some stanky whore's pussy. Damn, I should've known better than to trust a bastard like him,” he mouthed angrily as he snatched open the door.

As he was pulling out of his parking space, he spotted that bitch Lt. Woo walking toward her small compact car with her head bent down as she dug into an oversized purse. He smiled at himself as he felt a sudden impulse urging him to drive right over her
publicity-seeking ass. Instead, he honked his horn and waved at her. At least he got to enjoy the look of shock on her face from being caught in his high-beam headlights. He veered around her and out of the garage, pleased with himself for letting that little bitch know that she was vulnerable.

Lt. Woo squinted at his departing car, wondering what she'd done to him to encourage him to try to scare her like that. The little smirk he had on his face as he drove by certainly gave her that impression. Little did he know that she wasn't the least bit scared of his antics. After all, she was extremely confident in her ability to avoid danger. Little did he realize that he had really piqued her curiosity, which was really dangerous on his part. Now she had to investigate his ass as a promising enemy. It'd only prove to sharpen her wits when it came to dealing with him from now on. She smiled as she settled behind the steering wheel, knowing that she always came out on top of all of her enemies.

S
parkle had little time to admire the lavish surroundings of Al's game room when Debra led him to where the poker games were really getting it on. The aroma of the combination of cocaine and reefer assaulted his nostrils immediately as they entered the room; bringing back memories of the other night when he had banged Al's head real decent. The three poker tables were full of players chunking money and talking shit.

In the center of the room, sitting up tall in his bamboo chair shaped like a throne, was Big Al in a black fedora munching on a big cigar jutting out of the side of his mouth. Percy and one of the twins, along with three other people, were bunched around the table concentrating on the cards they had been dealt. It was evident who was doing all the winning because of his cheerful attitude, much different from the last time that Sparkle was over there kicking his ass.

An over-smiling Al greeted them with a cheesy grin. “Well, how ya'll doing? About time ya'll jive asses got back. My man, Sparkle, let's see how your luck runs tonight. I'm on a real roll here. As you can tell by the look on some of these folks' faces, they're probably wishing they asses had chosen something else to do instead of fucking with Poker King Al,” he finished in a husky Barry White tone.

JJ saluted him. “Do your thing, big man; do your thang. I'll be there in a few to rattle your money chain; believe that there.”

“Yeah right, like you hope to do every time you enter my lair,” he groveled like Vincent Price in one of those old monster movies before his attention was drawn back to the action at the table.

“Godayum, a nigga's luck be running like donkey shit around this here bitch.” The familiar voice of his nephew, Stacy, drew Sparkle's attention to the far end of the room, as he slammed his cards on the table.

Sparkle shook his head.
Damn, this boy ain't learned a thing I've taught him.

Then he looked around the table and spotted his boy “B,” which got him to thinking about Violet. He smiled as he watched him pick up the deck and start to shuffle the cards, talking plenty of trash. Moans and groans erupted around the table as one of the two girls at the table snatched up the deck from him and started reshuffling them.

Sparkle walked up to stand behind Johnny B. “Yo, black, I don't appreciate folk taking advantage of my nephew again.”

“Who da fuck,” he said before he looked over his shoulder and recognized his boy. He put on one of his most brilliant smiles. “Nigga, I was wondering when your ass was going to get back around here. Fuck this game; we need to talk.”