Heist 2 (6 page)

After exhausting myself with screaming and crying, I lay perfectly still on the floor. My mind raced with ways to get Mr. Kaufman back. He had just added himself to my shit list along with Todd, Jock, and those cops. I was Shannon Marshall and I was going to get the last laugh and the last heist on all of them.

8

Todd

T
he next nigga I went to see was Billy, another one of my old partners that had thought I was going away for life. Billy and I had been boys since we were young. We didn't go back as far as Jock and I did, but I had considered Billy a pretty good friend before I got locked up. In fact, I was the one that had put Billy on to the game and helped him out of the hood. When I heard that nigga shitted on me, I was hurt but not surprised. There was no loyalty in our business. I had something a little different for Billy's ass. His betrayal was different than what Zack had done. I wouldn't say one was any worse than the other, but Billy had gone to a whole different level of disloyalty. His betrayal was the type that got niggas killed on a regular day because there were certain rules and one of them was never disrespect the next man's wife. When Shannon told me the story about what Billy had done, I could picture the whole shit happening like I was sitting right there. I could picture it every time I thought of Billy's name. Even now I could see it clearly.

I pulled up to Lola's, the strip club that Billy always hung out at with the hopes that I would find him inside doing what he loved to do best—being a pervert. I drove my Benz to the club to make it more realistic that I was attending a meeting that would get me closer to Abe. It was the story I had been selling to LaBeckie every day that I went on the streets in pursuit of my revenge.

I saw LaBeckie's crew of pigs tailing me, but I didn't care. I had already had everything set up inside of Lola's to go the way I wanted it to go.

When I walked in the club, I moved like my old self. My swagger was on a hundred and I played it cool as a fan. I saw mad girls that I knew from my days out there giving me the eye, and a few dudes, both past friends and enemies too.

I found Billy and his new crew of young heads in one of the VIP sections of the club. Of course they had some of the baddest chicks that work at Lola's up in there with them. I can't lie, if I wasn't in there handling business, I might have stopped and got some pussy or at least a quick blow job, but I decided against it.

“Ohhh, shit! My nigga!” Billy sang out when he finally moved his face from a Spanish chick's titties and spotted me. “I thought you was down for the count, my nigga!” Billy continued with a wide, phony grin on his face. He got up so he could greet me with the customary street pound and shoulder bump. I plastered a fake smile on my face like shit was all good too. I was better at playing the game than niggas gave me credit for.

“Nah, only weak niggas go down for the count,” I said, returning the fake gesture of love. “You know a nigga like me always lands on my feet. Shit is sweeter than ever, my dude,” I said, faking right along with Billy.

“Yo . . . sit down. Have a drink. Get some ass. Live it up with a nigga. You know we missed you,” Billy invited, spreading his arms like a game show host over the nice array of expensive bottles he had on the table in front and pointing out the beautiful strippers that were taking care of them in the VIP section. I was thinking,
Yeah, nigga, it must be nice to pop bottles . . . spending money that could've helped me out. You gon' learn, though.

I played it cool, though, and kept my anger at bay. I had a much more important mission rather than jumping on the nigga and wilding out. I sat down and took Billy's invitation while he poured me some Ace of Spades. I looked around at all of the beautiful women in Billy's company and that same pang of jealousy that flitted through my chest when I saw Zack's girl and his big fancy house came back even stronger with watching Billy waste thousands of dollars on bottles, bitches, and bullshit. This was what these dudes were doing on the outside while I suffered on the inside. I was the one who'd taken all of them out of the hood and showed them how to be businessmen in the street, and betrayal and abandonment was how they decided to repay me. Loyalty was bigger to me than anything . . . even bigger than money.

“Yo, Todd, man, shit ain't been the same since you been inside. Niggas all went off on their own and nobody stayed loyal to our original crew,” Billy told me. I nodded my head up and down, but couldn't help the sneer that had taken over my lips.

“I had to look out for myself, man. You gotta understand that, right?” Billy said, a quiver of fear lacing his words. I nodded again.

“I know you was looking for niggas to come together on your defense attorney, but after you left, there was no harmony among us. Niggas wasn't trying to stay together so nobody took the initiative. I was trying to get niggas together several times and shit. I even gave Shannon some paper towards that,” Billy copped his plea. My jaw rocked feverishly and I took my drink to the head. I needed something to calm the eruption happening inside of me.

“Listen, man, it's all good. What matters is I came through for myself and I'm back and even better than before,” I lied, cracking a halfhearted smirk.

“Yeah, see. I knew shit would work out. And word . . . I was about to ask how you got that paper up,” Billy said with a surprised look on his face. “I heard your wife was playing that grimy role and bounced out with Jock and shit . . . a shame. I always did think Shannon was loose like that. Beautiful girl, but she used to flirt with all us niggas,” Billy said, like he felt sorry for me. His conversation had just took a turn that it shouldn't have. I was going to let the nigga enjoy his entire night, but now it was time to put shit into play. I had had enough of his lip service and his lies. In my book niggas like Billy didn't deserve second chances because there was always going to be a need for a third . . . a fourth . . . and so on. He was one of those can't-give-a-nigga-an-inch type of dudes.

“I think any one of us could've tapped that shit out here, man. I was real mad when I found out she was with Jock . . . I'm saying how she gon' leave you sick like that?” Billy went on, rubbing it in. His words felt like open-handed slaps to my face.

I bit down into my jaw and put my glass on the table. My ears were ringing and suddenly a cloud of red shaded my vision. It took everything inside of me not to jump up and fuck Billy up. I gave the eye signal to the chick from the club that I had hired. She sauntered over and grabbed Billy by the hand. I was smart enough to get at Billy with something I knew he couldn't resist: pussy.

“Aye, papi . . . you told me you would have a private . . . just me and you,” the chick named Emmy said, licking her lips seductively. “I've been waiting for you all night, papi . . . I'm not that patient. C'mon,” she pressed Billy with a sexy groan bubbling up from her throat. Emmy resembled Shannon a lot. They both had that Halle Berry mixed chick thing going on. I chose her because she had the kind of beauty that made me want to fuck her myself.

“Mmmm, damn, mami, I would but my manz just got home,” Billy said, licking his lips like he wanted to fuck her on the spot.

“Nah. Don't turn down this beauty for me, nigga. I'll be around. Shit, I would leave yo ass sitting here in a minute if she was trying to get at me,” I said, laughing. “Go on get ya shit taken care of, man. This beauty is not to be passed up,” I urged. Billy seemed glad that I was letting him off the hook. He had probably grown tired of copping pleas to me about why he didn't assist me anyway.

“A'ight, man . . . I won't be gone all night,” Billy said as Emmy pulled him up from the couch by his hand. She was leading him away and I was thinking,
You heading to your last piece of pussy ever.

As Emmy and Billy both turned their backs and headed into one of the private champagne rooms, Emmy turned around and winked at me. I guess the ten stacks I paid her was appreciated. In my assessment that kind of paper kept her off the pole all night and would be a lot of money for what was going to be slight work for her. I loved a ride-or-die chick like that. Emmy was the kind of chick I thought Shannon would be.

I eased myself back on the leather couch in the VIP section and took advantage of Billy's high-end liquor stash with a satisfied grin on my lips. It was about twenty minutes before I heard the eruption of screams and watched the award-winning acting that took place after. Emmy should've won an Emmy award for her acting. Hah! The irony in that statement.

“Oh my God!!! He had a seizure or a heart attack or something! Help me!!” Emmy screamed, running through the VIP section and out into the club, holding her bare breasts. She had what appeared to be real terror etched on her face and she even made herself cry for good measure. I was loving every minute of it. I was definitely going to see Emmy again. I had it bad for her.

Pure pandemonium erupted everywhere. The lights came on abruptly and people were running, screaming, scrambling. Dancers were scrambling to get out of there before five-o rolled up because some of them had warrants for prostitution. The club owners and bouncers were trying to run damage control so that they didn't lose all their night's money. It was just like I had imagined it to be.

“Call the fucking ambulance!” one of Billy's little crew members shouted. Those boys looked frantic. I guess Billy was the kind of boss that fed them from his hand instead of teaching them the business so they could all learn to eat on their own like I did. Without Billy, I could tell his crew would fade away and become those little niggas that have to go crawling back to all the people in the hood they shitted on when they thought they had made it—including their mothers and grandmothers, most of the time. I sat back calmly just looking on and feeling a warm sense of satisfaction filling my belly like a good meal.