Greed the 3rd Deadly Sin KINDLE Read online

  “The hard way? You go down for theft, transporting drug money, money laundering, and every other RICO charge we can strum up against you. Plus, we’ll take our special protection off you. You’re a fine ass chick. Every dyke in the joint will be looking to wife you. And at some point, during the middle of the night, somebody might wanna have a little conversation with you. You know, some of that pillow talking y’all ladies like to do. Ain’t no telling who might slip in your bed and get comfy under your covers. Now, did you catch all that, or do you need to write it down?”

  My situation was real clear and I submitted to it real quick. His way sounded a whole lot better than the hard way, and when he finally turned me over to the Black female correction officer I kept my mouth shut and walked inside the facility, not as Juicy Monique Stanfield, but under the bogus name of Yvette Williams.

  $$$$$

  “This shit is just unbelievable,” Salida snapped as she paced the floor in the cut room. Her strides were long and measured, like a panther that was just about to fuck up its prey. She lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out her nose.

  To say she was pissed off wouldn’t have been saying shit. Salida hated stupid bitches. She could work with ignorance and she could even overlook incompetence, but stupidity just fucked her up all the way around.

  It had been a real smooth plan, using Rita to get to Juicy. They’d had cars full of hoods at the airports, and almost a hundred young come-ups from the G-Spot roster had been spread out all over town just a’ waiting for Juicy to hit the streets. They had sent crews to every business that G had either owned or shook down. Pizza shops, cleaners, bodegas, restaurants and check cashing places, they’d put the word out on Juicy everywhere. The order was to snatch up any chick that so much as looked like Juicy and bring her ass in and collect a cash reward.

  But even with all that street power they’d failed. Juicy had slipped through their fingers and was now locked up in jail, where not even they could get to her.

  Salida smirked as she paced. They had already gone over the scenario three or four times, but she kept on grilling Monique because she knew the stripper was lying out of her ass.

  “So,” she went in again on the greased-up bitch sitting next to her desk. “You’re trying to tell me that Rita spotted Truth right before Juicy’s plane landed?”

  Monique nodded as Salida sat down at her desk and unlocked her top drawer and slid it open.

  “I swear that’s what happened,” Monique said. “I warned him to fall back so she wouldn’t see him but that niggah is young and hardheaded! He was driving all up in their trunk on the way there, and when we got inside the airport terminal he was damn near stepping on the back of Rita’s shoes.”

  Salida stared at her. She didn’t know what the hell G had been thinking when he hired Monique, but everything about her idiot-ass was completely wrong for the new direction Salida planned to take the G-Spot in.

  There was no denying that Monique’s lush chocolate body was fuckable and built for comfort, but Salida was trying to create a whole new image for the G-Spot. She was about to brand that baby. Make it a real franchise. Get some white pussy up in the house. Some Puerto Ricans and some Asians too.

  Monique started flapping her gums some more. “And you know what else, Mizz Salida? That dumb-ass boy got the nerve to holla about how he wanna be equal partners with us. You just can’t tell these lil pissy-tail niggahs nothing these days, ain’t that right Mizz Salida? These lil niggahs think they got the plans all figured out.”

  Partners? The older woman glared at Monique with a look of pure disgust on her face. With us?

  Salida lost it. She reached over and mushed the shit outta Monique. She rammed her dome so hard Mo’s neck snapped back and her head cracked against the wall.

  “It was your stupid-ass who fucked up the plan!”

  For a second Monique looked stunned, and then her hood instincts kicked in. She jumped outta her seat and reached down in her back pocket at the same time. She was about to flick her pocketknife open, but she pulled up short when she saw Salida’s hand resting on something cold and black in her top drawer.

  “Oh, so you strapped, huh, Mizz Salida?” Monique breathed heavily. She wasn’t nobody’s punk, and bitches didn’t mush her everyday and get away with it. Not even old bitches. But Monique was a lot smarter than Salida thought she was. She knew if she bucked she was gonna be in a gunfight, and the only thing she had on her right now was a pocketknife.

  Danger danced in Monique’s cold eyes, but there was a shred of fear there too. And it was that tiny slice of weakness that Salida honed in on.

  “You don’t want none of this,” Salida said calmly. Even if she hadn’t checked Monique with her piece, Salida would have taken the young hoe’s pocketknife and stuck it down her throat. “I swear to God you don’t want none.”

  Monique nodded as she stared at the .38 Special that was now in Salida’s hand. The door to the cut room slam-locked from the inside, and the only key that could open it was on a bright pink coil around Salida’s wrist.

  But the old broad had it right. Monique didn’t want none. Salida had a crazy bug crawling around in her head. Monique could see it shining bright in her eyes, and regardless of her personal pride or anything else, Monique wanted to live to see another day.

  Salida smirked as she waited for Monique to make a move. She nodded when she saw the survival senses creep into Monique’s eyes as the girl sat her ass back down in the chair.

  Things had just changed drastically between the two women and both of them knew it. Salida knew she still needed Monique to do some things, and Monique damn sure needed her. But a mush wasn’t something most Harlem girls could brush off and forget about. Salida had disrespected Monique in a major way, and she was gonna have to play her extra close from now on. But she was good with that. There was more than one way to cook a bitch’s coochie, and later, when the time was exactly right, Salida was gonna burn Monique’s ass like a cat on a hot tin roof.

  CHAPTER 6

  “This shit is all fucked up,” Ace muttered under his breath as he sat tossin’ ‘em back at the bar Saturday afternoon. It was a good thing he hadn’t put Pluto down on the little side deal he had cut with his cousin Rabbit. Not only had his plan gone bad, but Juicy had gotten knocked before Salida’s plan could work too, and now they were ass-out all the way around.

  Ace shook his head and tossed back another shot of Hen-dawg straight-up. He had hesitated in going behind Pluto’s back and cutting the outside deal, but his son was on some other shit these days and they just didn’t see eye-to-eye the way they used to. Salida had convinced him their situation was too critical to wait around for a buster to see the light, and Ace had agreed. He’d kept his manz in the dark, and that had ended up being a good thing because his Cali niggahs had messed shit up again.

  “This shit is all fucked up,” Ace muttered again. And he meant that shit.

  $$$$$

  “Oh, so you mean between the two of y’all smart mouth bitches y’all couldn’t come up with one solid plan?”

  If Monique thought she had been hot when Ace and Pluto came up short when they went out to Cali, that was nothing compared to the way Pluto clowned now that the shoe was on the other foot.

  They were driving through Harlem and all Monique could do was stare out the window as her man beefed so hard spit flew outta his mouth with each word. She hadn’t even told him that she had gotten her forehead mushed, or about the gat Salida had pulled on her either. She was saving that bomb so she could drop it during another battle.

  “It was your nephew’s fault,” Monique lied. “He got too damn hyped and he didn’t follow the plan.”

  “Truth is a tyke!” Pluto came at her. “You gonna send a young’un like him to put in a man’s work?”

  Monique shrugged. “Salida told me to send him.”

  “I don’t know why you listened to Salida’s psycho ass anyway!” Pluto fumed. “You thought getting that money was g
onna be easy didn’t you? What? You thought you and Salida was gonna do something me and Ace couldn’t do?”

  Monique watched the urban scenery flash by as the big fella pushed the whip down the avenue at top speed.

  “I bet that greedy bitch sent your dumb ass inside to make the pick-up too, didn’t she? That way, if somebody got caught holding all that dirty loot it wouldn’t be her!”

  The same thought had crossed Monique’s mind too, but it was a risk she had been willing to take. She’d reasoned that it was better to make the run herself and get the money in her hands, than it was to trust Salida to bring the money back and dish her off a fair share.

  “That bitch got you and Ace both eating out ya own asses! I keep telling y’all G stuck her ass up on a high shelf for a reason! The bitch is throwed-off! 7:30! Straight-up crazy!”

  Pluto jerked the steering wheel and took a corner so hasty it felt like the car was careening on two tires. Monique reached up and held on to the overhead handle and prayed he didn’t clip no old-ass lady tryna cross the street and bounce her off his bumper.

  “I’m telling you, Miss Dumbness,” he warned, spinning the steering wheel with one hand so he could shake his fat finger in her face with the other one. “You better stop following behind Salida’s ass, ya heard? She’s gon’ fuck you up, Mo! Word. That bitch don’t even like you. I see the way she be grilling you when you ain’t looking. It’s ill, man. You keep running your mouth to her and doing whatever she says. She’s gonna walk your clueless ass right off a cliff!”

  Monique knew better than to challenge Pluto’s theory. He would open the car door and toss her ass out so fast she’d be eating concrete for dinner. Instead, she tried to soothe him the best way she knew how. She catered to his ego and most of all to his stomach.

  “Yep, you been telling me,” she said in an agreeable tone. “And I been listening, Daddy. I know you’re way smarter than Mizz Salida is. And I’ma be real careful around that bitch from now on,” she said. And she was dead serious about that shit too.

  Monique had seen the future when Salida got her up in the cut room and bitched her out for messing everything up. Monique wasn’t the type who could take a whole lotta down-talking from no female, and she hadn’t liked the way Salida had flashed that tool on her not one bit either.

  That bitch was deranged, and she was getting stranger every day. Monique had figured since their plan was shot she could send Nooni back home, but that nut had damn near cracked open at the suggestion of cutting the young girl loose.

  “Hell no! Nooni ass ain’t going nowhere! She still has work to do. Home, hell. If she goes anywhere it’ll be right downstairs on that mattress in the Dungeon!”

  Monique couldn’t tell if Salida was serious about doing Nooni like that or not, but she didn’t put it past her.

  Pluto sped up through an intersection and ran a red light. Tires squealed loudly as a transit bus hit its brakes as it tried not to crash into them.

  “How about this,” Monique suggested, giving Pluto a big smile. He was still furious and breathing hard. “I’ma run you a nice hot bath later on tonight when we get home, and while you in there having fun with your bubbles I’ma make you some fried potatoes with onions, and some of them real spicy shicken wings you like so much.”

  Pluto poked his bottom lip out and frowned. “You gone put some honey on them shicken wings?”

  “Uh-huh,” Monique giggled and nodded. “I’ma put some honey on them, some Lawry’s, a little garlic salt, and some Texas Pete’s too. You gonna love ’em.”

  Pluto cracked a small grin.

  “Yummy,” he said in a little boy’s voice. “I love your shicken wings, but I don’t think I can wait until tonight, though. I’m hungry right now. You hungry, Mo-Mo? You feel like eating you some shicken sausage?”

  Monique knew the drill.

  “I’m starving, Daddy,” she said sweetly. She reached over and felt around under his massive stomach until she found his belt buckle. Expertly, she got it loose and Pluto jumped in quickly to help unbutton his pants.

  Monique reached into his drawers and extracted his sticky dick. It was already wet at the top, and it felt like a hot pickle in her hand.

  “Eat it,” Pluto urged as he stepped on the gas and the whip lurched forward even faster.

  Monique knew she had a dilemma. The last thing she wanted was for this fool to lose his top and go crashing into a damn building. But she was worried about something else, too. There was only about two inches between Pluto’s bulging stomach and the steering wheel. Where the fuck was she supposed to put her head while she sucked his stank dick?

  Make do, Monique, she told herself. She was a real creative bitch at heart. Just make do.

  Taking a deep breath she jacked Pluto’s dick to the side, then stuck her head down into funky land and got to grindin’ his nasty sausage.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jail was a grimy, cold place to be.

  I didn’t care how they tried to dress the joint up with a mildewed mop or a fresh coat of paint. It was nasty. The food was shitty, the showers were dirty…the whole scene was a lesson on how to live like a dog.

  I had grown up in Harlem so I was used to junkies, hoes, and thieves, but nothing in my life had prepared me for the hopelessness that hung thick in the air at Rikers.

  Being G’s woman had made me soft. He had gotten me used to sleeping on plush mattresses and bathing in deep tubs filled with hot, bubbly water. Coming up in here was like being dropped onto another planet. I felt like an alien who didn’t understand the language, the reasoning, or the rules.

  Right away I noticed that the guards did a whole lot of barking. Most of them were just regular dudes and chicks who had probably grown up in the projects too, but right now they were roaming around and flossing large and in charge, and they looked down on the inmates like we were some gutter scum that had come up out of a clogged toilet.

  My face burned with embarrassment as they fingerprinted me and made me strip naked and squat down to the floor. The humiliation alone was enough to make me break down and cry, but I knew I had to be strong. Predatory bitches were probably already scouting me for signs of weakness, and I forced myself not to show them none.

  One thing I knew for sure I wasn’t gonna do was be nobody’s damn jailhouse wifey. I wasn’t a fighter, and I had never started trouble in my life, but when this grimy-looking trick with buck teeth and bumpy skin rubbed up against me as we waited on line I told her I would beat the brakes off her ass if she touched me again, and I meant that shit too.

  Almost everybody around me seemed real comfortable and familiar with the procedures. Like they had been here before and none of it was that big of a deal. Some of them went through the line doing what they needed to do without even being told. I didn’t wanna ask any stupid questions and let everybody know it was my first time being locked up so I just followed directions and kept my mouth closed.

  I did my best to stay to myself but you know how it is. People don’t never wanna just let you be. I had so many hood chicks coming at me asking who I was, what I was in for, did I have a man, did I have a bitch, did I have any money, was I looking for a good lawyer, did I know a good lawyer…that shit was exhausting.

  They put me in a cell that was so little I could almost stretch my arms out and touch both walls. It had a thin, plastic-covered mattress on an iron rack, a small closet, a desk, a tiny sink, and a dirty white toilet with half a roll of tissue sitting on the floor next to it.

  I sat down on the hard mattress and looked around. The floors were nasty, the walls were grimy, and all I wanted to do was go home. I closed my eyes and started praying for help. Why, I don’t know, because it seemed like God had forsaken me a long time ago.

  “I need to talk to somebody,” I told a Puerto Rican CO later that night when it was time for us to take a shower. “I didn’t get my mandatory phone call when I came in here.”

  He grinned like I was a real comedian.

  “Y
eah, okay,” he said, ushering me along with a bitch-be-for-real smirk on his face. “I’ll make sure I tell somebody about that.”

  The showers were the free-for-all type, where everybody and their mama could peep your naked ass. I ran through that water like hot lightening. I barely stopped to rub the rough bar of soap under my arms and between my legs, and I know for damn sure I didn’t get a good rinse off.

  That first night of being locked up in a small, musty cell damn near killed me. I was too freaked out to lay down and sleep, and I couldn’t keep still neither. That locked door was fucking with me. What if there was a fire and nobody let me out?

  I was so scared. I dropped down to the floor by the door and started crying. My tears just fell. I balled up in a knot and thought about Gino. I was so ashamed of myself, and I was glad he couldn’t see me like this. Me and him should have been buying baby clothes and cribs and all that type of stuff together, instead he was in the ground and I was sitting up in jail.

  I rocked back and forth on my hands and knees on that dirty-ass floor, and I cried and I prayed, and then I cried and I prayed some more. In the deepest part of my grief I coulda sworn I heard Gino’s voice. My man was whispering to me, trying to comfort me. Stay strong, Juicy. Hold on, baby. Just stay strong…I cried so hard that I fell asleep with my mouth open and my face wet.

  I must have stretched out on the floor at some point because in the middle of the night my mind started playing tricks on me. I was dreaming again, and this time instead of running, I had already been caught. I was locked downstairs in the Dungeon at the G-Spot, beaten and tricked out with my arm chained to a pole.

  I woke up in a panic. The floor was cold and hard. Terror jumped up in my throat and my swollen eyes darted all around the tiny cell. Sweat covered my body as I stared up at the door. A thin rectangle of light came in from the tier outside, and I shivered in fear as I waited to hear G coming after me with a bunch of horny gangstas who were all just dying to fuck me. I jumped up and started banging on the door as hard as I could.