Dirty Rotten Liar (4 page)

G
utta was digging all up in my ass. I mean he was getting beastly with it. I was begging for mercy like he was Jesus in the flesh, and to say that nigga was stomping a mudhole in my yellow behind wouldn'ta been saying enough.

That fool was straight up
punishing
me as he slapped me from wall to wall in that lil-ass office. He didn't have a damn bit of mercy on me neither, 'cause I had fucked with his paper and he was teaching my ass a lesson!

“Gutta please!” I mumbled as I staggered back and forth between his front hand slaps and his back hand whaps. The room was heating up and it stank like gas fumes and fried Glama-Glo wig up in that bitch. “I swear to
God
I was gonna pay you back! I was gonna
pay
you!”

“Nah,” he said, steady swinging. “No you wasn't, Mink. You wasn't gonna pay me shit 'cause you just slick like that, baby!”

The face I used to think was so damn gorgeous, and that sexy Haitian accent that used to keep me moist between the legs, was looking like a gigantic nightmare right about now.

Gutta threw a hard left that caught me dead in my chest.

“Omph!”

I sucked my breath in and farted, and I just knew he had cracked my chest bone.

He capped me with a right on my jaw after that, and his next blow was an overhand punch that slammed into my back as I was on my way down to the floor.

And that's when the Haitian in his ass came out.

Gutta kicked me all up in my guts and ribs like he was playing soccer for the national team. It was stomp-the-thief time up in the house, and all I could do was roll and dodge as he punted me all over that room until he was breathing hard and sweating like crazy.

“You's a nasty liar, Mink,” he drawled in his singsong accent.

I didn't even tryta dispute that shit. I couldn't. I was too busy hugging that floor in pain and fear.

Gutta bent over me and I heard a click. I froze and then peeked out the corner of my eye and saw a shiny foot-long switchblade glinting in his hand. I almost peed as he pressed the tip of that big-ass knife under my left ear and drew a smiley face across my throat and all the way over to my right ear.

“You thought you was out-hustling me, didn't you?”

I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I was trembling like a muthafucka when he pressed the point down so deep I felt a sudden burn, and then he scratched the tip of the knife from my ear all the way over to the corner of my mouth.

“The whole time I was locked up you was out here spending my money and lying your ass off, Mink. Just wait. When I get through fuckin' you up I'ma cut that little pink snake right outta your mouth. And then I'ma wrap some cement around ya big head and plant your greedy ass in the bottom of the East River.”

For true, for true, Gutta
meant
that shit, and I was wheezing in fear when he stood up and turned to the limo driver, who had been standing in the corner all this time and said, “Put your foot on her neck until I get back, Petro.” He passed dude his bear-skinning knife. “And if the bitch gets stupid or makes a slick move, buck-fifth her grimy ass.”

 

My entire body was throbbing in agony as I laid sprawled out on that damp concrete floor. The salt from my tears rolled down and stung the shit outta my busted lip. I reached out to lick it and that baby was swollen like I had a big fat grape stuck up underneath my split skin.

For the first time I was able to take a look around, and what I saw shocked the shit outta me. There were mad hundred-dollar-bills laid out everywhere, like a big green load of laundry that had been spread out to dry. The scent of Tide laundry detergent was all over the place, but the smell of gasoline was strong in the air too. I thought about some crazy shit that I had seen on the news.

A car full of money had blown up in Harlem a couple of days ago. They said some white nigga had been driving around with damn near a million dollars in his whip when a crowd of hoes jumped on him and beat his ass down to the ground. Ol' boy had scrambled behind the wheel and tried to jet, but his gas tank blew up and mad dough rained down on the streets of Harlem like a gift from the ghosts of every drug kingpin who had passed.

The TV cameras had been on that shit. Niggas had swarmed all over that whip, damn near killing each other tryna scoop up all that half-burnt cheese. And now, stretched out on the cold floor and sniffing gas fumes, I didn't have to be a genius to figure out that Gutta had washed him some of that loot and stashed it away in this warehouse.

My brain was steady calculating the sum of all that dirty money when somebody banged real hard on the door. The dude who was standing watch over me looked up and frowned.

“What up?” he barked.

“It's me!” some chick said all happy-like. “Open up dammit!”

“Me
who
?”

“Stop playin', nigga,” she giggled, “and let me in!”

Dude got right up on the door as he unlocked that shit. He opened it just a crack, and even with all them gas fumes in the air the sweet smell of Pure Poison by Dior at a hundred smacks a bottle still rushed into the small room.

I tried to peer through the door crack, but from where I was laying the only thing I could see was a big foot and a long, sexy calf. The foot was perched in a hot-pink open-toe stiletto, and I heard bracelets and jewelry tinkling out the ass.

“What the fuck—” was all dude got out, and then I heard a smashing sound and the door busted open wide.

“Fool!” I heard a grown man growl, and the next thing I knew Peaches' big gorilla ass was up in the room. He swung his muscular arm and bashed dude in the face with his gat, and when dude stumbled and reached for his busted grill, Peaches kneed him in the mug and slammed his burner down on the back of dude's head hard enough to crack his skull.

Ol' boy hit that concrete floor like a dropped rock, and I was already up on my knees by the time Peaches scurried over and reached for me.

“Get up, Madame Mink!” he growled as he stepped over dude and yanked me to my feet. “We gotta get the fuck outta here!”

He had that shit right! I forgot all about the pain in my bones as I held on to P's strong arm and he half-carried my broke-down tail outta that warehouse and back through the alley as we hauled ass toward freedom.

D
ie, Viceroy, Die!
Dy-Nasty thought wickedly as she fantasized about all the fly shit she was gonna buy when that trust fund paid out and she got her three hunnerd large!

She had been laid up in the crisp king-sized bed with her fake mama watching reruns and eating Ritz crackers outta the box when a call from the hospital down in Houston came in and messed every damn thing up.

Selah had sounded shook right off the bat, and Dy-Nasty was all ears as her fake mama hit the PAUSE button on the remote and clutched the blanket up to her chest.

“Oh my
God
!” Selah's voice was screechy and high-pitched. “What do you mean my husband's condition has changed drastically? Did something go wrong with one of your new procedures? Please, just tell me. Are you trying to say his life is in danger? Okay. Okay, yes! I understand. Yes! Yes, of course! I can get there right away. Just let me alert my pilot and I'll be there in an hour.”

Selah slammed the phone down and jumped straight outta the bed.

“We have to get to Houston,” she told Dy-Nasty breathlessly as she scurried toward her huge closet filled with endless shoes, jewelry, and designer clothing. “Something's happened to your father. It must be pretty bad, because they won't tell me anything over the phone.”

Dy-Nasty rolled her eyes behind Selah's back and checked herself before she could suck her teeth out loud.

We gotta get to Houston?
She thought, twisting her lips up real stank.
We?

Why in the hell did she have to go? That old rich gangsta didn't need her to be there so he could die! Besides, she hated flying on that scary-ass jet, and she wasn't
even
tryna get up outta his big old comfy bed!

Dy-Nasty was scandalous and greedy but she wasn't no fool. She had been performing like a muthafucka up in that mansion while Mink's stupid ass was gone to New York, and she wasn't about to fuck herself up now that she was just days away from hitting the jackpot of her gutter life!

Maids, drivers, credit cards, every luxury in the world had been at Dy-Nasty's grimy little fingertips ever since the moment she'd kicked Barron in the face at that strip club in Harlem. And now that the board at Dominion Oil had finally met, and her tight-nut “big brother” Barron had gone to get the final paperwork signed, she was ready to collect her three hunnerd bills and get the fuck up outta Texas!

She pushed the plush blanket back and poked her lip out. Instead of actin' funky like she really wanted to, she made all the right noises and said all the comforting shit that Selah needed to hear as she jumped her frauding ass outta that bed and threw on her gear like she was rushing into a bank to throw a bucket of water on a burning stack of cash!

Since Jock was at football practice, Fallon was at the beauty parlor, and Dane was prolly somewhere getting high and digging up in some college girl's twat, Dy-Nasty went ahead and played her role as the dutiful daughter and held Selah's hand as they flew down to Houston in the Dominion's private jet.

They landed at a local heliport and then hopped in a limo for the short trip over to the hospital. A team of doctors rushed out to meet them as they pulled into the private parking area, and their faces looked so stone-cold serious that Dy-Nasty figured Viceroy's black ass had already kicked the bucket.

The doctors whisked them inside the building without saying a word, and after dropping Dy-Nasty off in the waiting room, they escorted Selah down the hall to the intensive care unit.

“Die, you old muthafucka, die!” Dy-Nasty whispered under her breath as she plopped down sideways in a chair and propped her feet up in the seat next to her. She sat there twirling a few curly strands of her brand-new weave around her grubby little fingers as she fantasized about the three hundred thousand big ones these fools was about to deposit in an account for her. She giggled inside as she thought about that meeting they'd had at Uncle Suge's house and the fifty-fifty deal that she had cut with Mink.

Sheiit!
Dy-Nasty laughed her ass off. Fifty-fifty
hell
! If that dumb Harlem broad was counting on getting half of that moolah when she got back to Texas, then that bitch's big head was sho'nuff
bumped
!

Dy-Nasty pulled out her phone and started texting back and forth with plottin'-ass Pat back in Philly. Pat was a master fraudster, and Dy-Nasty loved that chick with all her heart! Between the two of them they was gonna blow the City of Brotherly Love right off the map when she rolled back in town with all that Dominion cash!

Dy-Nasty couldn't wait to get her ass back home and get out there on the hot Philadelphia streets. Her name was gonna ring some real big liberty bells when she switched her booty up on the block with cream oozing all outta her pores, but first she had a sweet lil Dallas hustle she needed to handle and a few more Texas two-steps she needed to make!

Selah felt frozen inside as she walked down the hallway flanked by the stern-faced crew of doctors who were about to lay some real heavy news on her about her husband.

“I must tell you that your husband's mental status has changed drastically, and so has his appearance,” Viceroy's chief neurosurgeon said as he led her down the long hall toward her husband's private ICU room.

“We wanted to call you sooner,” Viceroy's chief internist added, “but we had to be sure his condition was permanent and that there were no other treatment options left.”

“Please don't be alarmed,” the neurologist soothed her, “but as you might recall, you granted us permission to proceed with any treatment we deemed necessary in Mr. Dominion's care and recuperation.”

Selah nodded as she listened to the doctor trying to cover his wide-open ass. She knew the deal. They had fucked up. After all those experimental treatments with stem cells and placentas and monkey brains and whatnot, the doctors had fucked up, and now they were trying to prepare her for the hot human mess she was about to see when she stepped inside that room.

She took a deep breath.

Twenty-five years. She had been with Viceroy for over twenty-five long years. A few of them had been pretty good, and a whole lot of them had been pretty damn bad. But none of that mattered right now. After living with a man for twenty-five years the thought of losing him forever was hard as hell. In the back of her mind Selah had been prepping herself for life as a single woman ever since she got the news of Viceroy's accident and found out the extent of his injuries. For months he'd been hanging on by a thread, with every slight improvement countered by several backward steps. Selah had thought she was ready for the inevitability of losing him, but now that the time was here, maybe she wasn't.

The closer they got to his room the shorter her breaths became. Her throat felt like it was closing up and her heart felt swollen in her chest.

Selah gripped the surgeon's hand tightly as they pushed through the door of her husband's room. And the sight that greeted her as she stepped inside was enough to buckle her knees and send a small scream tearing from her throat.

“Hey, baby,” Viceroy croaked in a voice that sounded like it came out of a cold, gravelly grave.

Her man was sitting up in bed, with a slew of pillows propping his frail body in place. “Damn. What the hell took you so long to get here?”