Thug-A-Licious Read online

  “Yo,” I said, walking toward the stairs. “I’m out. I’ll meet y’all downstairs.”

  Pimp laughed. “What? You don’t want next on none a this?”

  I pushed on the door that led to the stairs. “Nah, dawg. I don’t hurt females, man. They got what I need.”

  I was downstairs on the porch for about fifteen minutes when the elevator came, and Smoove got out. That niggah’s whole head was sweaty and he was breathing real hard.

  “Where’s Pimp?”

  He looked up. “Still up there. He can’t get him no nut, so he prolly gone be a little while.”

  I left Smoove standing on the porch and walked up to the avenue and ordered me some chicken fried rice and a Pepsi from the take-out Chinese joint. That chronic had me munched out, and I ate that shit right there standing up in the store. When I got back to the building a crowd of people was standing outside staring at something.

  At first I thought some shit had gone down with Pimp and his boys up in that drug spot, but when I asked a little kid what happened I found out it was much worse than that.

  “Somebody died,” he said. “They think she got pushed off the roof.”

  I walked around the edge of the crowd and pushed through until I could see what everybody was looking at. It was a body, all right. Laying on the side of the building not far from the back stairs. Somebody had thrown a blanket over it, but the arms was showing and I could tell the hands belonged to a young chick. She had cheap rings on every finger too.

  I turned right around and stepped. Got the fuck outta there without looking back. I didn’t need nobody to pull the blanket off to figure out who the young girl was. And I didn’t have to be standing there when she sailed off that roof to know who had tossed her ass neither.

  There was a subway station not far away, and I calmly walked my ass toward it and got on the train. I didn’t even worry about where Pimp and Smoove was, because I knew the deal. Both of them niggahs was long gone. Pimp prolly jetted before the girl hit the ground good, and if Smoove was still standing on the porch when his brother got downstairs, he’d taken off with him.

  I was walking down 125th Street shaking my head as I remembered all that shit when my cell phone rang. The ring tone told me who was calling, and I already knew why.

  “Whaddup?”

  “We need to be about some business, son. Where you at?”

  “On the avenue.”

  “Meet me at the crib.”

  I didn’t rush to the building, but I didn’t take my time neither. When I got there Pimp was smoking a blunt with Muddah’s brother, Rome, and just by the way them niggahs was vibing I knew Pimp had put him down.

  “Don’t tell me you bringing this cat in?” I said, staring Rome down.

  Pimp nodded. “Yeah. We need a lookout, man. You got a key, and you know how to get in the safe. I’ma have your back on the inside and both of us can carry the package out. Rome ain’t gotta do shit but watch the fuckin’ door. That’s all.”

  “Motherfucker, is you crazy?” I grilled Pimp. “Can’t no base-head niggah be depended on to watch nothing!” I paced the room shaking my head. “This ain’t gone work, man. You gone fuck around and get Smoove killed. Shouldn’t nobody be down with this shit but you and me. Cutting a deal with Rome’s stupid ass is like calling the fuckin’ po-po and telling them to come lock us up.”

  We argued for hours, cursing and almost throwing up blows over that shit. Pimp swore we needed Rome. I said he wasn’t nothing but a fuckin’ leech. Always trying to skim somebody’s game after they had already stacked it. I wanted to leave that grimy motherfucker up on the roof sucking on his hot pipe.

  “It don’t even matter now,” Pimp pointed out. “The niggah know everything so he might as well be there. Believe me, man. This is my brother’s life we going after. I wouldn’t do nothing to fuck with that.”

  “But what if something goes fuckin—”

  He cut me off.

  “If something goes wrong,” Pimp said, taking a shooter from his pants and making sure it was loaded. He looked over at Rome, who just sat there like it wasn’t no thing. “Just let something go fuckin’ wrong. I’ll blast me a motherfucker myself.”

  It’s just a day in the life

  I’m doing wrong/all along/tried making it right

  Pay the cost to be the boss/it’s the ultimate price

  We in the dark/look how easy we can stray from the light

  God strengthen my sight

  It’s just a day in the life

  We stayed up arguing over our plan all night long, and by the time we left the building at 4:00 A.M. both of our tempers were on boil. Pimp was taking shit too far. He wanted us to roll with like two gats each, and I said hell the fuck no. For one thing, we was just gone slide in and glide right back out. Nobody was gone be downstairs in the pool hall so it wasn’t necessary to carry no guns anyway. I tried to tell his hot-headed ass how stupid that shit was.

  “Ain’t gone be no Rikers Island for you next time,” I warned him. “You get tapped on another gun charge and you looking at some upstate time.”

  “Don’t worry about me, you soft motherfucker.”

  I shook my head, wondering if I was gonna have to knock Pimp on his ass. “I don’t know where,” I flexed on him with my height advantage, “you getting all this ‘soft’ bullshit from, dawg, but you just keep fuckin around. I can show you gangsta better than I can tell you.”

  He pushed past me on the way out the door with a killer look in his eyes. I made sure that all that motherfucker saw in my eyes was some cold killer too, because showing an ounce of weakness with a niggah like Pimp was just like copping your own death warrant.

  Pimp had wanted to walk up in T.C.’s Place earlier and just hang out and gamble the way we usually did, but I refused. I was a hard niggah, but not twisted enough to eat and socialize with my peeps knowing I was planning on robbing them before the night was over.

  So we waited on the rooftop of a tenement building across the street, watching high-rolling hustlers swing in and out of T.C.’s Place and listening to the music pumping each time the door popped open.

  I had a lot of time to think while we was waiting for 6:00 A.M. to come, when T.C. would lock up his joint and head upstairs to his apartment for the night. I had time to think, to change my mind, to figure out some other way of getting that money for Smoove, and time to try and talk Pimp out of what we was about to do, but I didn’t. I wasn’t normally the type of cat to just roll with a situation and let it handle me, but this time my black ass was getting swept along with the program and as hard as I tried, I didn’t see no way out.

  “Let’s bounce,” Pimp said about fifteen minutes after we watched T.C. lock the front door. Rome was sitting with his knees bent and his back against the ledge, snoring like wasn’t shit in this world weighing on his mind.

  I kicked that niggah’s foot out and shook my head when his leg hit the ground.

  “Get the fuck up.” Yeah, I knew I was taking my frustration out on him, but so what. I was swole up with a mad amount of anxiety and guilt, and I had to put that shit somewhere.

  The sun was just about to come up and St. Nick was mostly quiet. We crept across the street and Pimp and Rome stood to the side as I used my key to unlock the front door, then used the back of a pen to quickly punch in the security code that would turn off the ten-second alarm. Pimp didn’t know it, but the alarm wasn’t nothing but a front. All it did was make a lot of noise. T.C. wasn’t running the kind of business where he wanted his shit connected to no precinct. That was real obvious.

  It was dark in the foyer. Quiet too.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Rome had come inside behind us.

  Get that motherfucker outta here! I mouthed to Pimp, who shrugged and mouthed back for me to just chill.

  Already shit was deviating from the program, and I didn’t like it.

  We crept through the main poolroom without making a sound.

  I knew every inch o
f this joint. I had come of age up in here, and it was more of a home to me than the crib where I rested my head each night.

  I led them in the back past the kitchen and motioned for them to wait there.

  The plan was for me to get into T.C.’s office and pop his safe, then pass whatever cash that was in there out to Pimp. If shit went right, we would go back out the same way we had come in, and I’d reset the alarm and lock the door behind us. But if we fucked around and heard somebody coming down the stairs, we’d hit the kitchen door and disappear down the alley right outside.

  I started toward T.C.’s office and Pimp moved with me.

  “Wait here, motherfucker!” I barked through my teeth. I wasn’t about to let him get up in T.C.’s office and start sticking shit in his pockets. Or worse, start scoping it out so he could hit it again without me being there to regulate shit the next time.

  That motherfucker Rome was up on me too. Closer than Pimp. Lookin’ all happy with his fuckin teeth showing in his face.

  Both of them breathed down my neck as I rolled up on the office.

  But the second I opened the door shit changed in a hurry and I froze.

  T.C. was in there. Standing up, facing his desk.

  His pants was down on the floor around his ankles, and his naked ass was pumping pussy. He moved hard, growling and slamming his dick up in Vyreen, who was sprawled on his desk with her red skirt pushed all the way up around her stomach and her thick thighs wrapped around T.C.’s waist.

  I prolly coulda backed up and eased the fuck outta there without being seen if it wasn’t for Rome.

  That niggah was dead on my ass, and before he could move Vyreen busted us, staring up at me with confusion in her green eyes.

  “Dre?”

  Life got wild.

  T.C. whirled around, and the second he spotted Rome he went for his shit.

  A boom rang out near my right ear and I almost went deaf.

  “Rome!” I screamed. “You stupid motherfucker!”

  But it wasn’t that grinning niggah Rome who had fired. It was Pimp. He was standing there looking murderous as T.C. stumbled forward, then tripped over his own pants and fell to the floor.

  My mind went on automatic.

  T.C. was hurt real bad, I could tell. The bullet had hit him in his chest, and he lay on his back half-naked with his dick wet with pussy juice and his feet twisted up in his drawers.

  Somebody screamed behind us, and I turned around like I was in a dream.

  Miss Lady musta heard the shot, cause she’d run down the stairs in just a bra and a half-slip. She had a scarf tied around her hair, and I noticed how smooth her face looked without all that makeup.

  “T.C.!” she screamed and tried to push past Rome and Pimp to get to her man, but Pimp grabbed her and yoked her up before she could reach him.

  “WHAT THE FUCK YOU DOIN’ MAN?” I jumped at Pimp, but Rome checked me with his piece.

  “Back up, Thug,” he said, and his grin was gone. “We puttin’ in work, motherfucker, so do your fuckin’ part.”

  I looked over at Pimp.

  Miss Lady was trying to scream, but he was choking the shit outta her. Vyreen was still sitting on T.C.’s desk with her legs open. She had on that same red skirt she was wearing when she braided my hair earlier in the day. She was staring down at T.C.’s body as he bled out all over the fuckin’ floor.

  “Go ’head and get what the fuck we came for, man,” Pimp said, looking down at Miss Lady.

  She was bent over at the waist with her knees sagging, and it was worse than seeing my own mama with her ass hanging out in front of a bunch of black-hearted fools.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, moving toward T.C.’s safe. Miss Lady was gurgling now. Whispering too. She was saying my name. Over and over and over again. “Dre…Little Dre…help us, baby boy. Little Dre…”

  I didn’t have a gat on me and wasn’t nothing gonna stop Pimp except money, so I jumped on opening that safe. I wouldn’t even let my motherfuckin’ hand slip. Wasn’t no time for that.

  I cracked that bitch on the first try, and it was full too.

  “Here!” I passed out stacks of money. T.C. hadn’t had time to batch it up, so some of it was just laying loose in money bags and I passed all that shit out to Rome while Pimp muscled Miss Lady around.

  When I had the safe empty I turned around to face Pimp, still on my knees.

  “You might as well let her go now. Ain’t no fuckin more. Just let Miss Lady go.”

  That niggah glared at me, and I knew I’d just made a grand mistake. Never, never let a killer like Pimp look down on you. I jumped to my feet real fast and stepped toward him. I knew better than to show too much emotion over Miss Lady, though. Pimp fed on shit like that and wouldn’t hesitate to use it against me.

  “Come on, man. Just let her go. You ain’t got shit on your hands, dawg,” I said, making my voice stay cool. “Neither one of us do. We can swing by the G-Spot and pick up Smoove, then walk away from this the same fuckin’ way we walked into it.”

  Pimp shook his head and nodded toward T.C., who was laying there stiller than a motherfucker and not even moaning no more.

  “We got a body on us, man. We still got shit to handle.”

  I shrugged. “Naw, dawg. We ain’t got shit. This niggah here”—I swung my head toward Rome—“got him a fuckin’ body. This his fuckin’ fault! If he hadn’t been right up on me like that then they never woulda seen us! Me and you is straight. We can rise and fly out this motherfucker and be good all the way around.”

  “Niggah, don’t be so fuckin’ stupid,” Pimp said, shaking his head and gripping Miss Lady even harder. “This bitch here ain’t never liked me. Even when I was just a fuckin’ kid. She always said I had hell in my eyes.”

  “That’s crazy, man! Miss Lady fed you, man. She fed all of our asses. While Noojie was out there getting high left and right, we was eating outta Miss Lady’s fuckin’ kitchen!”

  Putting Noojie in it was a bad move. I busted that right away. Pimp’s face got even harder, and I knew he’d fight me for talking about my own mother.

  “She’s a fuckin’ witness, Thug. And if we leave her here, she’s damn sure gonna talk. On me and on your stupid ass too. I ain’t gone back to jail cause of this bitch.”

  “She ain’t gone say nothing, man! Trust me. I know her. We straight.”

  Pimp stared at me, and I could tell he didn’t buy it. But he surprised me though. He uncurled his arm from around Miss Lady’s neck, and let her go.

  Miss Lady gasped and stumbled, then fell against Rome, who yoked her right back up again.

  “What the fuck you doing!” I yelled, lunging toward him, but it was too late.

  Rome had reached in his pocket and came out with a knife.

  Miss Lady was smart. Unlike me, she saw the writing on the wall. With her last bit of breath she tried to spit on Pimp. “Hell is in your eyes, motherfuckah, cause that’s where your evil ass is going!”

  Rome tighted his arm and jerked Miss Lady up until her legs was almost straight, then swiped the knife across her throat and slung her body to the floor.

  “No…,” I whispered and dropped down to my knees beside her. Miss Lady grabbed her neck and tried to scream, but no sound came out and blood shot through her fingers instead.

  “Oh, no…,” I whispered again. I held her in my arms and pressed my hand over her throat, like the love in my fingers could somehow stop the bleeding. “Call a fuckin’ ambulance!” I screamed over my shoulder. “We gotta get her to the fuckin’ hospital right NOW!”

  Nobody moved. It was too late anyway. Miss Lady was almost gone. All I could do was hold her and grieve as she wiggled weakly in my arms without making a sound. The only noise in the whole joint was of gurgling and bubbling blood coming out the deep gash across her throat and the sound of our breathing.

  I knew Miss Lady was dying, and I couldn’t think shit and didn’t wanna let myself feel shit either. It just hurt too damn bad. I just moaned an
d held her real close to me. The same way she used to hold me when I was a hungry little boy who needed somebody to love me and take care of my raggedy ass.

  Pimp broke my trance.

  “It’s your turn, niggah. And don’t be slow.”

  I didn’t move. Miss Lady’s movements were fading, but her eyes were still clear. They stayed locked on mine until the second she passed away.

  Vyreen moaned when Miss Lady’s body shuddered, and I finally looked up. I had forgotten all about her, and when Pimp spoke again I felt sorry for her because she had to know what time it was.

  “It’s your turn, Thug. Do this bitch real quick so we can bounce.”

  I looked at my cousin and shook my head.

  “What? You crazy, man.”

  “Dawgs-4-Lyfe, remember motherfucker? We all gotta be down on this shit.”

  Pimp pulled out his gat and let it hang in his hand. His message was clear.

  Rome laughed and just put it right out there.

  “C’mon, Thug. Do it, or get done. Ain’t nobody got time for no soft niggahs. If two of us in it, we all in it.”

  Pimp nodded and brought his gun up. Just enough.

  I stared at my cousin, and in his eyes I saw some shit I’d been trying to deny for years. Pimp was soulless. The niggah’s heart wasn’t nothing but a black piece of rock.

  The scene flashed in my head like a snapshot, and I knew it would stay with me forever.

  T.C…. Trust Chambers. A motherfuckin’ man. The realest gangsta on the planet. It was a crying shame. A baller like him was gonna get found dead with his dick hanging out. They’d see Vyreen laying there with her fine legs cocked open. Them same legs I’d sat between less than twenty-four hours earlier as she scratched my scalp and braided my hair. She was about to be laid the fuck out. Blasted on T.C.’s desk with a pair of red panties hanging from her right ankle. And Miss Lady. My Miss Lady on the floor! And with her slip pushed up and her business out in the open. Her butter-cream thighs gaped open in her violent struggle with death.

  Pimp stared back at me too, and his next words came out cold, but also sad.