Dollar Bill (2 page)

Dollar portrayed himself to Cartel to be this eighteen
-
year
-
old kid from Indiana who jacked cars on a regular. Dollar had never stolen a bike, let alone an automobile. He convinced Cartel that he could present him with a white Benz with a gold kit and honey leather seats. He ran down his bogus resume of a life of carjacking and won Cartel's greedy ass over.

Dollar's reminiscing thoughts of growing up in Gary, Indiana, were interrupted by Woody's Garage's door suddenly flinging open off of its hinges. At the same time, this startling occurrence would finally bring about some relief to Dollar. Two persons dressed in all black with black ski masks made their way through the doorway. It was Tommy and Ral. Dollar's backup had finally arrived. Cartel and his partners' hands were damn near touching the ceiling now.

Without taking his eyes off of his targets, Dollar said through gritted teeth, “Where the fuck y'all been? Eleven o'clock, muthafuckas. Eleven o'clock.”

“Nigga, we here now and that's all that matters,” Tommy replied while pulling out a 9 mm with Ral close behind following suit. They each stood next to Dollar like statues with their leather glove–covered hands gripping the guns pointed at the designated targets.

In the midst of their captor's brief spat, instead of taking their chances and attempting to gain control of the situation, Cartel and his partners decided to remain submissive. If Dollar had planned on killing them he would have done it by now. They had a better chance of staying alive if they just waited this thing out and did as they were told.

“Strip,” Ral yelled to Cartel and his partners as he walked toward them. The three of them looked at each other with their hands still in the air.

“Did you hear my boy?” Tommy asked. “Strip, take your muthafuckin' clothes off. What y'all niggaz waiting on, for us to throw y'all some dollar bills or some shit?”

“Yeah, to make it rain.” Ral laughed. “Take all your clothes off and put them in a pile in front of you. Start by removing those pieces y'all carrying one at time. And don't try no funny shit either.”

The three men slowly removed the guns they were carrying from either their back, hip, or calf holster.
Thank God.
Dollar hadn't slipped up and given them a chance to go for their shit. Time and circumstance was on his side after all.

The men laid their guns on the ground as Ral stood behind them with his gun to their backs. “Now the clothes,” Ral said.

“Oh, y'all some faggots, huh?” Tone said as the men began to peel their clothes off slowly.

“Duck that ho right there,” Dollar said to Tommy. “He talks too fuckin' much. As a matter of fact, duck all three of 'em. I don't want to hear their voices anymore.”

“Quack, quack,” Tommy said, obediently following Dollar's orders, pulling out duct tape.

Cartel laughed. “Perhaps you should have finished school. It's duct tape, not duck.”

Tommy walked in close to Cartel, not happy at all that he was trying to clown on them. “Duck, duct, whatever. It's all interchangeable.” Tommy tore off a piece of tape and threw it over Cartel's mouth. “See, I just ducted this duck's beak.” Tommy let out a chuckle.

After a few minutes, the three men stood buck naked displaying only their jewelry and a strip of duct tape across their mouths.

“Trick or treat, muthafuckas,” Ral said as he walked in front of them carrying a brown paper bag he had removed from his jacket pocket and popped open. “Check all that shit in.”

The men began to drop watches, necklaces, and rings into the bag. They removed their diamond earrings and bracelets as well. That's what they got for trying to show off. Bling blinging and ching chinging was one of the tactics Cartel used to lure his employees into his ring. He wanted to show them the things they could end up owning. The bling ching to the baby thugs was the dead, raw fish being thrown to the killer whale to calm him into doing tricks. Dollar had studied Cartel and his crew's game like it was a textbook. He knew their steelo and was prepared to get paid off of their vanity.

Tommy went through every pocket of the pile of clothes on the floor. Some contained money clips filled with one hundred dollar bills. There were loose wads of money, also. The clothes were thrown to Dollar after they had been successfully raided by Tommy.

Dollar balled the clothes up under his armpit and headed toward the exit door. Tommy scooped up anything that slipped from Dollar's clutches.

“I want all of you to count one hundred Mississippis before you even consider moving. I mean, your dicks better not even get hard and start to rise or you're dead,” Ral shouted. “Start counting now!”

Dollar, Tommy, and Ral looked around making sure they hadn't overlooked anything of value. Ral spotted what looked like a couple of cell phones lying on the worktable behind the men so he fell behind to go back and retrieve them.

Ral picked up the cell phones. As he skimmed over the worktable, Cartel looked to make sure that Dollar and Tommy's backs were still toward them. They were pretty much walking out of the door at that point. Cartel knew that between him and his two dudes, they could be quick enough to overpower Ral, take his gun, and use him as a shield to escape, after getting their shit back. Cartel couldn't risk word getting out on the street that some young punks robbed him for some jewelry and chump change. That would make the real niggaz think they could test him.

It was a risk to go after Ral, but it was one Cartel was willing to take. No way was he going to have his street reputation tainted by some punks. If Cartel allowed Dollar to get this one off, every little nigga Cartel had working for him would end up tryin' him and his crew. This was the last chance Cartel saw visible to eliminate future scenarios. So in his mind he said,
fuck it!
It was worth the risk.

Cartel ran toward Ral in attack mode. His partners were right behind him. They had only gotten to twenty Mississippi, but this was their chance to beat Ral down for his gun, pump lead into Dollar and Tommy, and get their money, jewelry, clothing, and egos back.

Dollar held the door for Tommy to come through and Tommy did the same for Ral. When Tommy discovered that Ral wasn't there, Tommy looked just in time to see the three men dashing toward Ral. Not one of the parades of bullets Tommy let off hit Ral, but Cartel and his dudes dropped dead like flies. Obviously someone had studied the old Western movies and practiced in the mirror.

“Whoa wee! Hell yeah!” Ral shouted as he looked at the three bodies piled up on top of one another. “Didn't I tell y'all fools not to move until you got to one hundred Mississippi?” he said to the corpses. “Perhaps you the one who should have stayed in school.” He kicked Cartel's dead body. “You would have learned how to count to one hundred, fool, and that shit would have kept your asses alive.”

“Let's get the fuck out of here,” Dollar shouted as he snatched the cell phones from Ral and threw them on the ground. “Who the fuck was you going to call, man? Ghostbusters?” Dollar gritted his teeth in anger. “We got bodies on our shit now and for what, some fuckin' cell phones?”

“Fuck,” Tommy yelled, still in shock at the sight of the dead bodies, one suddenly grasping for one more chance at life. Tommy began to wipe down the place with a shirt collected from one of the dead men, making sure that not a single smudge of evidence was left behind.

Tommy threw Dollar the car keys and all three of them ran out of the garage to the rental car that Dollar had some chick back home cop for them. They sped off, leaving nothing but tire prints and three dead men full of bullet holes.

“That could have been my ass lying back there fuckin' 'round with you two late-ass niggaz,” Dollar said as he consistently looked in his rearview mirror for any sign of the police or someone following them. “I ought to fuck y'all up.”

“Did you see that shit, man?” Ral asked from the backseat, still hype from the gunfire. “Tommy laid them sons of bitches out flat. Holy shit. I could hear those caps poppin' they asses. Pop, pop, pop!”

“Tommy Gun to the rescue,” Dollar said. “But I still ought to beat the both of y'all's asses for showing up late. Ral, you need to take your own advice about staying in school. You learn how to tell time.”

“You need to quit talking to me like I'm some dude,” Tommy, who was sitting in the passenger seat, said, removing the baseball cap from her head and allowing her long, jailhouse braids to fall down her back.

“Aw, you know you like one of the guys, Tommy, so quit trying to play all sensitive,” Dollar said, lightly punching her on her shoulder with his fist. “I consider you to be one of my boys. You've always been one of the boys, you know that.”

Dollar loved teasing Tommy about being a tomboy. She tried to act like it didn't bother her, but Dollar knew it did. Nonetheless, he still teased her. The only time Tommy ever looked like a girl was when she was defending her womanhood. All that neck snappin' was a given.

“Well, I got the goods to prove I'm all woman,” Tommy said, rolling her eyes and snappin' her neck out like an ostrich.

“Don't talk like that. I'm not trying to visualize you with a pussy,” Ral yelled from the back seat as he and Dollar began to laugh.

“Both of you can go to hell. This pussy done saved y'all's life many a time,” Tommy replied. “Besides, I'd rather be a chick than a trailer park trash lookin' white boy.”

Dollar continued laughing, but Ral's laughter faded quickly.

“Why you gotta make racial comments and shit?” Ral said, getting an attitude as he ran his fingers through his orange-red hair. “That's why I hate when a muthafucka save your life a couple of times. They think you always owe them something and that they can talk to you anyway they please. They be throwing it up in your face and shit.”