Trickery (16 page)

The men stared at each other like they were playing a game of chess. They were like two wild dogs with their dicks hard and their tails sticking straight up in the air. Neither was willing to give up an inch of their square.

“I tell you what,” Flex relented with a grin. “How about we come up with a little compromise?”

Trey tilted his chair back on two legs.

Flex leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. He spread the fingers on both his hands, then pressed the tips together. He rested his chin on his middle fingers like he was deep in thought.

“How about I give you Maleek,” he offered slowly. “And you give me something I want in return.” 

Trey chuckled mirthlessly. “Yo what the fuck is up with that you’ll “give” me Maleek shit?”

“That’s what I said, niggah. I’ll give him to you. I’ll toss his ass off. He won’t be down with my crew no more, and he won’t handle no more of my product. I’ll cut him off. That niggah won’t even be allowed to walk on my side of the street ever again.”

Trey frowned, but the fact that he was still listening told Flex he was interested. Straddling his seat, Trey leaned forward until the front legs of his chair were once again on the floor. “And what would I have to give you in return?”

“A name,” Flex said simply. “Just a name.”

Trey looked suspicious. “All you want is a name? Niggah, who’s name you looking for?”

“The name of a connect. G McKay’s main connect.”

Trey stiffened deep inside. This was the second time he’d heard this request made. Keeping his cool, he remained perfectly calm and unfazed on the outside as he said, “Man, you must got me confused with my brother Cooter. G was Cooter’s pizo. Not mine. How the fuck I’m supposed to know who them slimes did their business with?”

“I ain’t sayin’ you know who the man is personally,” Flex conceded. “But I bet your ass knows how to find out.”

Trey made a cold, disrespectful sound in the back of his throat.

“Muh’fucka if you know what the fuck I know then why can’t you find out ya damn self?”

 “Because your fuckin’ brother wouldn’t tell me, that’s why!” Flex shot back. He sat up straight, fuming as beads of sweat dotted his forehead. He had known this fuckin’ question was coming and he should have been better prepared to answer it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to find out who G’s main manz was on his own. He had. But the only niggah left in Harlem who knew the answer to that question had refused to give it up. No matter how hard Flex’s boys had kicked Cooter’s face in on that crowded street that day, that stuttering fuck had refused to give up the name.

A small smile spread over Trey’s handsome face. He had kept his head and Flex had clearly lost his. Round one was under his belt.

“So,” Trey said, pushing past the cloud of anger that now surrounded the baby-faced killer sitting across from him.

“Let’s get this straight. You think I’m the man sitting next to the man, who’s sitting next to the man?”

Flex nodded once. “That’s right.”

Trey stared at him.

“So who you
really
looking for, Flex?” he asked, knowing he already knew the answer.

“Moonie,” Flex barked out the exact name Trey had expected to hear. “I’m looking for Moonie, ak. Hook me up with that niggah real quick and Maleek is all yours.”

Before Trey could respond, Flex’s dun dun Dre came over and spit something in his ear. Like the stupid kid he really was, Flex looked puzzled for a second, and then that niggah bust out laughing.

“They put ’em out there
naked
?” he asked his boy, unable to contain his glee and surprise. “
Butt-ass
naked?”

Dre nodded and went back to Flex’s ear. But now the laughter on Flex’s lips dried up and his eyes were filled with a look of cold rage. “Fuck you mean they got my drop bags, niggah?” he growled in a deep, deadly voice.

Dre backed off like he felt an ass whoopin’ coming on, and Flex jumped to his feet like he was ready to wild out. He glared at Trey as he knocked his chair over and it fell to the floor with a loud clang.  

“It’s time to dip my niggah. So now you know what I want, and I know what the fuck you need. I’ma hafta holla at you later though ’cause I got some bizz to take care of.”

I bet you do, niggah
, Trey muttered under his breath as he leaned back in his chair and watched Flex and his flunkie jet toward the door. A robbery for a robbery, he thought with cold amusement. Fuck with a niggah’s pockets and it would get his feet moving every time.
Damn right you gotta get going, niggah. I bet the fuck you do
.

CHAPTER 18

I was polishing my toenails in a real nice shade of baby blue when Trey walked up and stood in the doorway to my room. He wasn’t even dressed up but he still looked good as shit. Like he could have been one of those fine-ass male models in a photo spread. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, he just stared at me with an easy expression in his eyes.

“How you doin’?” he finally asked quietly.

I shrugged. “I’m good. You?”

He nodded and pushed his hands down into his pockets. “Chillin’.”

I nodded back. I hated that the air was all thick and awkward between us. Ever since I’d talked to Pluto and asked Trey to help me Nooni out of the G-Spot, it seemed like our love thang had cooled off.

“You hungry?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Chiney brought me a slice of pizza earlier. But thanks.”

He lifted his chin, then nodded real slow.

“Yo, check it out, Juicy. I wanna apologize to you, okay?”

I shrugged. “It’s cool. I understand how it is between you and Maleek.

Trey shook his head. “Nah, I’m not talking about that. I’m handlin’ Maleek. I’m talking about how I behaved when we came home after the D.I.V.A. Day at the center. I pushed up on you in a way that made you uncomfortable, and I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize. I shoulda had more control.”

I stared into his deep brown eyes, and shook my head quickly.

“Uh-uh, Trey. That wasn’t your fault. It was late and we both got carried away, that’s all. It’s okay. I’m good with it. For real.”

“Nah, it’s not okay, Juicy. Not for a woman like you. You already been through enough and I ain’t tryna put you through nothing else. Trust me, it won’t happen like that again.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Of course I had wanted him to fuck my brains out that night and I couldn’t hardly even look at his ass without my pussy getting wet.

But I had also confided in Trey a little bit about me and Gino. About how we’d both gotten shot on our wedding day, and how hard it was for me when I ended up losing him. Of course I had left out some parts of the story, especially the ones that had anything to do with G’s crazy ass, but this was Harlem. It was Trey’s town. He probably already knew a whole lot more about me than I had told him.

Since I couldn’t just come right out and tell this man how bad I wanted to fuck him, I just nodded and accepted his apology. I couldn’t hardly get no sleep for laying in the bed and fantasizing about Trey right there on the other side of the wall. I wanted to ride his dick, suck him off, and spread my legs so he could eat the shit out of my pussy, and here he was feeling bad about pushing up on me.

Men
, I thought as I dipped the brush back into the small jar of polish and started putting another coat on my toenails. Dudes could be a real trip sometimes.

$$$$$

Trey had made a bogus deal with Flex to exchange Moonie for Maleek, but when it all played out neither one of the Harlem killers was gonna hold true to his word.

“You still wanna go see Moonie?’ Trey asked Juicy the next morning as he chugged back some orange juice and plotted his next move. The smack-down that he had put on Maleek just stayed fuckin’ with him. And not because he felt bad for manhandling the boy, but because he was afraid he hadn’t fucked him up good enough.

Juicy nodded. “Yeah, I still wanna go. Cause if we don’t give Moonie up then I don’t see no other way of getting Nooni outta the G-Spot. Do you?”

Trey shrugged. He cared about Nooni and no matter what Juicy thought, he really was down for getting her back, but right now it was Maleek’s fate that weighed heavily on his mind. Trey knew these streets. He knew their paths and their pathology. Even if Flex stood tall on his word and tossed Maleek off, it would only be a matter of time before the boy worked his way back into the click and was back out on the corners starting trouble and wrecking shit again.

Trey had been crushed by what Maleek did to Taleah, and he’d come real close to cutting him off for good. But then he remembered the promise he had made to Mayhem. And the one he had made to himself. As bad as he wanted to make Maleek suffer for his sins, he had decided to give the boy one more chance. One
last
chance.

And that’s why he needed to find Moonie. Not so his manz could give up G’s connect and flood the streets of Harlem with more illegal drugs. But so him and Moonie could come up with some intellectual trickery that would shut Flex, and maybe even the G-Spot too, down for good. Because if Trey had even the slightest chance of saving Maleek’s life, that’s what it was gonna take, and that’s what he was gonna have to do.

“A’ight, cool,” he finally answered. “I’ll take you to talk to Moonie, but we gotta roll out fast. I’m about to take a shower. Go ‘head and get your stuff ready so we can get outta here as soon as possible.”

CHAPTER 19

The air was stale and musty in the little Spanish store on the corner. Lil Lee was standing in a long line to buy a bag of Wise Onion & Garlic potato chips and some squirrel nuts for her daughter, when her big opportunity walked in the door.

Her heart started pounding as she stared at the light-skinned chick with the short, curly hair. She knew exactly why this bitch was on this side of town and what she had come around here to cop.

Chiney grabbed her crotch and hiked up her imaginary dick and Lil Lee scoffed inside. Fuckin’ poser! This bitch’s gear and her swagger mighta made her look like a man, but Lil Lee knew she bled from between her legs once a month just like every other female.

She turned her head and watched as Chiney Jackson walked toward the back of the store and started talking to a chick who had a cute little toddler with big eyes and long hair riding on her hip. The chick was posted up in front of Chiney and grinning like it was a dude tryna hit up on her or something. Even though she was now up at the counter, Lil Lee stepped out of line and darted down an aisle where the household cleaners and bug spray and stuff was kept.

Her eyes quickly scanned the shelves as she looked for something that almost every resident in Harlem had in their cabinets. Chiney was still throwing her rap down on the girl when Lil Lee paid for her purchases and jetted back to her car. She climbed in her backseat and opened up her package, and then she took out five of the vials that Freeze had stolen from the G-Spot and handed off to the Divine Nine crew.

Lil Lee knew Flex had already had his street pharmacist spike their bogus Strawberry Snake with a little extra bang for the buck, but for the type of satisfaction she was seeking, that little bit wasn’t gonna be enough.

She sat in the backseat of her whip grinning like crazy as she mixed up some special shit just for Chiney Jackson. She had to force herself not to add too much to the mixture because she wasn’t tryna take Chiney out fast. Nah, she wanted that bitch to suffer first.

It had blown Lil Lee’s mind when she had read down the list of ingredients that Freeze had given up in exchange for his Gramma’s life. Lil Lee knew for sure that Salida was a mad-ass beast when she saw the words rat poison written on the piece of paper.

“Rat poison?” she had asked Freeze in surprise.

“Yep,” he’d said. “It’s like a boosting agent. It dilates the blood vessels and gives a killer high.” He shrugged. “The toxic ingredient in that shit comes out as a byproduct of cooking meth anyway. Salida just adds a little bit back to the mix so it can give them fiends a bigger rush. That’s why they keep coming back to get more.”

That shit had seemed real risky to Lil Lee, but she’d shrugged it off thinking, what the hell. Fiends didn’t give a fuck what they smoked. As long as it made they hearts pound and their heads swirl, they were on cloud nine. Besides, this was Harlem, and some rats could take a lot more shit than other rats could.

Lil Lee giggled as she shook up the vials and made sure everything was mixed in good. “That dyke bitch wanna act like a fuckin’ man,” she muttered under her breath, “let’s see if she can handle her poison like one then.”

$$$$$

Ten minutes later Lil Lee was up in her boy Fitted’s grill. “Here,” she told him as she passed him the vials full of potent pink shit. “This here product is only for Chiney, you hear me? If that feen comes to buy one, then you give her two. If she comes to buy two, you give that dyke bitch all four. I want her to get double what she asks for, and you make sure you tell her she can always get more. You got that?”

Fitted nodded.

“Good,” Lil Lee said, as she walked away looking sexy-scrumptious and completely evil at the same time. “Make that shit happen.”

$$$$$

Chiney Jackson was feeling herself as she walked out of the corner store. She had just run into her old boo-thang Lincy inside and they had a real long conversation. Mami had been looking fat in the ass and sweet in the lips, and they had agreed to hook up for a little booty call. Chiney was in mad love with her girl Venus, but she couldn’t help remembering how that nasty chick Lincy used to eat her pussy out until her walls were bone dry. She figured she could bang Lincy on the sneak tip for a few minutes before going home to her real boo.

Chiney walked around the corner and headed up the street where she planned to score her some shit. Today was Venus’ birthday, and since Trey and Juicy were going outta town Chiney had a nice lil romantic surprise planned for her girl.