Numbers (15 page)

Numbers and Waketta were in the window fighting back their laughter. It was hilarious to see the fat white cops scatter for cover thinking they were dead. Waketta felt relief wash over her body. She was vindicated. She had made the cops feel the humiliation she felt. It was
grand!

Numbers had exacted his revenge, but to see Waketta’s reaction was more than he had bargained for. It really made it all worthwhile. They sat, waiting to see what would happen next. They’d gambled that the pigs would be too embarrassed to call for backup, but if they did, it would be okay, too. Numbers and Waketta could wait it out making love to each other. It was a good night.

“Room service,” a voice chimed from outside room 3208 of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. Waketta got up off the king-sized bed in her bra and thong, her ass bouncing all the way to the door. She opened it and a middle-aged white room-service attendant stood there with their order. He looked like he had been doing this job way too long. At the sight of Waketta’s five-foot-nine chocolate, voluptuous body standing there half-naked, he damn near went into heart palpitations.

“You just gonna stand there or you gonna bring it in?” She turned around, letting the door go and showing him her pretty phat round ass. He tried to avert his eyes, but they weren’t following instructions.

Numbers was in the bathroom taking a shower. “Baby, the champagne and food here,” Waketta called to him.

“Where would you like this, miss?” The old man’s face was red, and he almost tripped over the carpet.

“Anywhere is good.” Waketta jumped onto the bed, covering her lower body with the sheet and leaving her upper body exposed.

The attendant rolled the tray near the foot of the bed and set everything out.

“Would you like me to pop the champagne?”

“Nah, that’s cool,” Waketta answered, holding out two $100 bills. She was more concerned with the movie she was watching on the tube.

He walked over and collected the payment from Waketta, transfixed by her breasts. He could only dream of touching this young beauty with vibrant eyes and juicy, full lips. But for all her beauty, she was still ghetto.

“Aiight, duke, keep the change and beat it.”

“Anything else, miss?” he asked, hoping he could find a reason to stay or at least come back.

“We good,” she replied without looking up from the TV.

The attendant exited and closed the door behind him, peeking one last time before it completely shut.

Numbers came out of the bathroom wearing paisley boxer shorts. He locked the dead bolt and privacy latch, not wanting to be interrupted by housekeeping. Then he placed his damp towel near the bottom of the door to stop any smoke from seeping out.

“Light up, Ketta.”

Waketta slowly took her eyes off the TV to reach into her purse and pull out a ready-rolled blunt. Numbers walked over to the dinner cart and unwrapped and popped the Moët. He poured two flutes, handing one to Waketta. “A toss to my ride-or-die chick,”
he said, and smiled at his sexy honey dip. She was at the edge of the bed on her knees, smiling back at her man as she took a sip.

“Till the wheels fall off!” she said, reaching out to Numbers, signaling for him to come closer. He could tell she meant every word. She extended the blunt to his lips. He inhaled and exhaled several times, looking in her pretty marble-brown eyes, knowing he was going to serve her his hardness all night long. She placed her flute on the nightstand, rested the blunt next to it in a makeshift ashtray, and moved closer, kissing Numbers on his neck. She slowly began to move her luscious lips down his torso. Waketta knew what Numbers liked. He’d been training her for six or so years. She could have had just about any man she chose in and out the hood, but she wanted Numbers. She knew she was the side piece, and she accepted that it was what it was.

Waketta sat on the edge of the bed with Numbers in between her legs. She kissed his tight stomach, making herself wet as she anticipated his manhood in her mouth. Unable to wait any longer, she placed two fingers inside the elastic of his boxers and pulled them down.

Before she could go down, Numbers grabbed her around her neck. She gasped in excitement as he placed his lips on hers, kissing her passionately. Her nipples hardened. When he released her neck, her head drifted back down past his abdomen. She wrapped her mouth around his throbbing penis and began rotating her tongue around the tip of it. He breathed deeply, enjoying her initial touch, knowing it was going to get better. She moaned as she slurped his dick vigorously, massaging his balls with one hand.

“Come in my mouth, baby, please.” She spoke with her mouth full. “I want to suck your dick forever. Let me taste it.”

Numbers’s legs trembled with bliss. He wanted to satisfy her desire. “Yes, Ketta, you know you mines forever. Make it cum,
baby. Ooh, you got it. Make it cum,” he said, panting. She stroked, massaged, and slurped him, making his dick hard as a rubber dumbbell. She could feel the babies pulsating and pounding, trying to break out. She deep-throated his cock, making herself gag on it. She knew Numbers loved when she tried to swallow his large muscle even though she couldn’t. This was it. He could no longer contain himself. She knew it was coming. She spoke almost like a ventriloquist, still slobbering on it, “Yes, baby, cum.”

Numbers complied.

Waketta let the semen shoot off the back of her throat, savoring every trickle. Numbers yelled with fulfillment.

“Ssshhh. Security gonna think I’m killing your ass up in here,” she said, giggling, kissing the tip of it until she was sure she’d swallowed every bit of him.

Numbers climbed into the bed with Waketta and gave her what she deserved for the next hour and a half. She came until she almost passed out. After she had taken all she could handle, she lay in Numbers’s arms caressing his chest. They both looked up at the ceiling, in their own separate worlds.

“Baby, can we talk?” Waketta said, not sounding like her usual loud self. Numbers had a way of making her feel like a woman, soft and feminine. That’s why she loved him so much. She didn’t have to be strong around him—she could be a girl. Numbers sat up and took a long swallow of his room-temperature champagne, then puffed the blunt.

“Yeah, Ketta. I want to talk to you, too.” Waketta sat up against the headboard. Curled up under the plush hotel bedding, she looked around trying to find a way to start her conversation. He saw that she was having a hard time finding the words, so he started. “Ketta, you know I love you … and care about you … and I would do anything for you.” He looked at her to make sure she understood he was sincere.

Waketta knew these things without him saying them, but it
sounded good coming from his mouth. He was her rock, her friend, and her lover.

“Well, me and Ro—”

“I know about the baby,” she said, cutting him off.

Numbers searched his brain trying to figure out how she knew. Who’d told her? Was it Rosa? Mad questions ran through his mind. “I apologize, Ketta. I was gonna tell you sooner. I just didn’t know when the right time was to do it.”

“It’s okay … I mean … I knew what I was getting into when we started this. I wish it could be different, but …” She began to tear up and the words got lost in her throat.

Numbers couldn’t help but feel like a fuck-up. Like he was leading her on. He should just break it off with her, but that was really not an option, truth be told. He loved her as much as he loved Rosa. He wanted them both in his life and would do whatever it took to keep them. “If you don’t want to fuck with me anymore, I understand,” he said to her, lying to himself.

“Numbers, I could never stop being with you, I love you too much,” she confessed, straining to get her words out. “Why would you say something like that? It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

She hesitated, then asked, “What’s going on with you and Jar?” She looked at her man to see how he took her question.

“What you mean, what’s going on?” He looked at her curiously.

“I’m saying, I know that’s your boy and he’s been your boy way before we became friends, but I was wondering if everything’s all right between you two.”

“Yeah, we cool. Why?” Numbers didn’t say it, but he felt like Jarvis had been acting a little distant too.

“’Cuz I think something’s going on with him. I seen him fucking with dude from the third side, that nigger Crush. I’m like
Why he fucking with that dude, knowing you and him got beef?”
Waketta paused, letting Numbers take it all in.

He took a few more hits from the blunt, thinking about what she said. Some funny shit was going on. Jarvis had just told him something similar about Waketta.
What the fuck?

“Word? Don’t worry, baby. I got it.” Whatever it was, he intended to get to the bottom of it.

Crispy Carl had warned him about getting money.
Remember this, young hustler: mo’ dollars, mo’ deceit, and the deceit will usually come from the people closest to you.

Numbers’s beeper went off. It was two-thirty in the morning. Who could it be? Looking at the screen, he saw Crispy Carl’s code.
Must have thought him up,
Numbers believed. But Crispy Carl would have to wait until he woke up in the morning. There was more head to get tonight.

“Enough talk for now, Ketta. It’s time for round two.”

She obliged.

After being released from the hospital a week earlier, Crispy Carl heard about the two dicks being shot up with paintballs in front of his building but had no idea Numbers was responsible and his pad was ground zero. His health was declining rapidly, but it tickled his fancy to hear the story of the coppers running scared for their lives.

After parking his car on Carlton Avenue, Numbers sent Waketta on a run. His mind was still reeling from the conversation they’d had earlier that morning. He needed to talk with Crispy Carl. He knew Carl could help him figure it out or least give him some advice on how to move forward. It was cold outside. Numbers zipped his Woolrich snow coat all the way up but left the hood down. He didn’t trust not
being able to see his peripheral. After all, this was still the Fort Greene projects and niggers were grimy.

He entered the building and collected his mail. He pressed the elevator button, then decided not to wait and climbed the stairs to the third floor. He knocked on the door of apartment 3D as a courtesy, unlocking the door with his key at the same time. As soon as the door opened, he was assaulted by the smell of urine and shit. The place was in complete disarray.

Numbers called out, “Carl, where you at?” No answer. “Carl, you okay?”
Something isn’t right. I shoulda answered Crispy Carl’s page when I got it this morning.
He blamed himself.

He heard a soft moan coming from the bathroom. Rushing toward the sound, Numbers found Crispy Carl sprawled out on the cold tile, lying in his own feces. He was alive but barely. He looked weak and fragile. Numbers ran to the phone and called 911, opened all the windows, then hurried back to Crispy Carl’s side. Every day of Crispy Carl’s sixty-odd years of hard living showed on his face.

If someone would have told Numbers he would be washing excrement from a grown man, he’d have bet his life to the contrary. But he couldn’t let his mentor and friend be seen like this. Crispy Carl prided himself on being sharp—shit, he was Crispy Mother-fucking Carl. So Numbers set aside his ego and did what he had to do. It was a filthy, nasty task, but Crispy Carl was like a father to him. Nothing could change that, so the least he could do was keep the man’s dignity intact.

Crispy went in and out of consciousness as Numbers cleaned him up, then the apartment. The ambulance took so long to arrive, he could have cleaned the whole apartment twice. He moved Crispy Carl to the couch while they waited. He noticed that his mentor’s breathing was even more labored now.

“Mr. Carl, can you hear me? It’s me, Numbers.” Numbers’s eyes welled up. “Sip on this,” he said, raising Crispy Carl’s head in
order to give him a sip of water. He kneeled in front of him on the couch so Carl could see him.