Paper Chasers (11 page)

So our first deliveries were made and we were on our way back home. A feeling of ecstasy could be felt flowing through the air. Dead presidents, specifically Grant and Hamilton, would soon fill our pockets. All of the hard work had been done. Now all we had to do was kick back and relax.

Very much to my surprise, all aspects of our drug operation were going smoothly. In fact, things were flowing too smoothly. I kept thinking that something was bound to go wrong. I was waiting for friction to come from somewhere. Yet there had been no friction at all, and the first week of business was already behind us. Were our unorthodox methods of getting into the drug trade, methods of genius? Were we going to help turn Queens into the narcotics capital of America? Yes and yes.

Heaps and heaps of money filled Randy's bedroom, which was our unofficial bank. By the fifth of July we had grossed a little more than thirty thousand dollars. Of course, we had to pay our workers 40 percent, but we were still left with more than twenty thousand dollars.

Carelessly, but more so because we were constantly liquored up and more drunk than we were focused, we had let our supply of drugs reach depletion before we were able to re-up. And like we had feared it would, that in turn caused us to lose money in the sense that it slowed down our cash flow. But hey, no way on earth did we expect our product to sell that fast. See, the Fourth of July was the day that wiped out our inventory. Everyone and their great aunt were in New York City for the Fourth. We should have prepared better than we did simply because we knew that everyone liked to get high and have fun and party at cookouts on America's birthday.

When the Fourth of July arrived, it came with a bang. Our beepers were vibrating faster than we could light firecrackers. All of our workers needed more dope to sell. They were knocking off five-hundred-dollar packages left and right. And like clockwork, we kept supplying our workers with whatever they needed.

Unfortunately, by Friday, July 5, all of our stock was gone and the inventory shelves were barren.

Saturday morning, July 6, all of Fourth Crew was in Randy's basement. We all took turns counting and feeling the cash so that things would feel more tangible and real. And boy, did it ever feel real. When it was all tabulated, we realized that we had netted twenty-one thousand dollars. All of that money was ours to keep if we wanted.

“Twenty-one thousand is what we made so far,” Dwight formally informed us. “And I hope y'all realize how quickly,
easily, and effortlessly
we made this loot. Now whoever wants to get out can take their fair share right now and step!”

At that point, with all of that green staring us in the face, nobody would have been stupid enough to back out, especially with the ease in which the money had come to us. I mean, man, we had taken a little more than ten grand and managed to turn it into twenty-one thousand dollars after expenses, and that was all within one week! So, I could just imagine what the twenty-one thousand dollars was bound to return us.

Everyone in the crew took one hundred dollars just so that we would have spending money. We were so happy over how much money we'd made that no one even cared about the fact that we had let our supply run out. Yet we knew that we definitely had to make a drug run uptown as quickly as possible in order to keep the business afloat.

Dwight said that we might as well take a yellow cab uptown for the re-up run. He also suggested that we take a yellow cab, and not a gypsy livery cab on the return trip home. Dwight made those suggestions simply because he knew that Five-O was already hip to cats running drugs via gypsy cabs. Yellow cabs, on the other hand, were regulated by the city, and were usually reserved for a higher class of people, so to speak, so not that a cop would never have imagined drug runners inside a yellow cab, it's just that it wouldn't have been the most obvious course of action.

So what exactly were we gonna purchase? That was the question on everyone's mind. Earl suggested that we try to negotiate with Mob Style and see if they would sell us a kilo for twenty thousand dollars. But we all knew that even if they laced the kilo ten ways to China, they would never sell us a kilo that cheap.

We desperately wanted to purchase our first kilo, because as a drug dealer, buying a kilo meant that you had arrived and stepped up to the big leagues. It was probably equivalent to a singer or a rapper having a platinum record, or an athlete getting drafted into the pros.

Anyway we knew that we didn't have enough for a full kilo, but we figured that we would at least be able to buy three-quarters of a kilo, and one more pound of weed. Actually, we would be a little short in terms of having enough to buy the pound of weed, but we felt that we would be able to successfully bargain and negotiate buying the pound of weed.

Before we departed for uptown, we very carefully put five dollar bills with five dollar bills, twenties with twenties, hundreds with hundreds, and so on. We would count out five hundred dollars in cash before putting a rubber-band around it. We had close to, or a little more than forty separate stacks of money. Each stack totaled five hundred dollars, and all of the money was stuffed into a book bag.

“Let's bounce,” Dwight instructed as he flung the book bag onto his shoulder.

Five of us had decided to go uptown—Dwight, Earl, Latiefe, Randy, and yours truly. We made our way to Kennedy airport, which was literally ten minutes away from 234th Street. We went there because that was the closest place to our block where we could find a yellow cab.

Once we arrived at the airport we saw a sea of yellow cabs with foreign drivers who were eager to get a fare. We hopped into a cab and were on our way to Harlem. On our way there, we realized that we hadn't spoken to Bunny.

“It don't matter,” Latiefe said. “We'll just deal with anybody we see, just as long as they're down with Mob Style.”

We drove along the Van Wyck Expressway. We talked loudly and openly. We were so brash and cocky that we didn't even care if the cab driver overheard us or not.

“I can't believe that our work sold out that quickly,” I commented.

“I knew all along how much money we could make,” Earl said. I was trying to tell y'all last summer to let's do this. But y'all kept frontin'. Didn't I tell y'all our money would turn over real quick?”

“One week, though?” I questioned with cheerful surprise.

“Yeah!” Earl replied. “And what we buy today, I don't know how long it'll take for us to get rid of it, but it shouldn't be no longer than like two weeks.”

“Do y'all know how paid we're gonna be after the work that we buy today gets knocked off?” Randy asked. “We're gonna have more than six figures, easily! Yo, kid, I'm sayin', this is like some
Scarface
movie type ordeal. I can't believe it!”

“Well, start believing it,” Earl said, “'cause this is big time now. This is how all of the real live cats do it.”

“Yo, on the real, though, we need more spots to move this work,” Dwight stated.

Latiefe informed us that Gangsta was willing to give us part of a block that he controlled in Far Rock-away. All we would have to do is give him like six thousand dollars a week and the spot would be ours.

“Six Gs!” we all complained.

“That's too much loot,” I said.

“No, it's not!” Latiefe defended. “Soon that's gonna be chump change for us. Plus the spot makes mad cake and it's not that hot with Five-O.”

“Well then, why is he so willing to part with it?” I asked.

“I'm sayin', it's not like he is just giving it to us. He wants six Gs a week! Wouldn't you want six Gs a week for barely doing nothing? I mean six Gs and you don't even have to manage the block! Come on, man, that is a hustler's dream,” Latiefe added.

I definitely saw his point.

“Where is this spot?” Dwight asked.

“It's right across the street from the projects,” Latiefe replied. “Red Fern Projects.”

“The projects?” We asked, sounding very intrigued.

“Yo, Tee, say word? Word is bond?” I asked.

“Word is bond!” Latiefe answered. “Now I know y'all know how much business we'll get from out of that spot. Six thousand dollars—that'll be chicken feed.”

I had to admit, Latiefe was right. To have a spot in the projects or nearby the projects for that matter was good news. Why? Because the projects were a can't miss moneymaker. Yeah, the projects were designed for low income families, but some of the people in the projects wanted to forget about their low incomes and all of the crime, poverty, and adverse conditions that were around them. So what did they do? They got high.

Who knew where they got the money from to buy drugs, considering that their incomes were indeed low. But, yo, that was not our concern. The only thing that we knew was based on what we'd learned on the street. When it came to drugs, low income families would manage to get money from somewhere in order to support their habit, even if it meant they had to steal.

Hey, that wasn't our problem, 'cause we weren't running no rehab clinic. We were in the drug business to make money, even if it meant at the expense of the less fortunate. We couldn't worry about other folks' problems. As long as they kept giving us their hard-to-come-by money, we'd be a'ight.

Besides, we were equal opportunity suppliers. It's not like we only sold to our people. Yo, the world would be shocked if we videotaped the drug users that came to buy drugs on Merrick Boulevard. See, due to the fact that Laurelton was in close proximity to predominantly white Long Island, I would be very accurate if I said that it was the white, Donald Trump type businessmen, and the Brady Bunch housewives that were lacing our pockets with dough more than anyone else.

Yeah, the white cats were coming across the Nassau county line and entering into Queens county's middle class black neighborhood of Laurelton Queens in order to purchase drugs, and then jet back to their prissy good school district neighborhoods. We were very thankful, though, because if it weren't for them, the demand for drugs wouldn't have existed outside of the projects and the slums.

Finally, we'd made it uptown. The cabbie charged us ten dollars a piece. We gave him three twenty-dollar bills and told him to keep the surplus as a tip. Yeah, we had tipped him because we knew that he'd done us a big favor by actually driving to Harlem, which was something very few yellow cab drivers did out of fear that they might get robbed.

We got out of the cab and walked toward the entrance of Bunny's building. As usual, a lot of wannabe tough guys were standing outside in front of the building as well as in the building's lobby area. They were all quiet as they tried to intimidate us with hard stares. They did that because they knew we were not from Harlem or any of the other surrounding neighborhoods.

Like thug-hounds, they probably smelled the borough of Queens all over us, the same way Queens thugs could smell Long Island on a Long Islander from a block away. So what if them Harlem niggas thought Queens niggas weren't hard, 'cause we had heat on us and we were ready to put it on cats in their own backyard if we had to, especially with over twenty Gs on us. Yo, there was no way in hell that we were gonna get played like suckers! We had worked entirely too hard for our money just simply to let it get jacked from us.

The heads in front of the building didn't say anything to us and we made our way to the elevator. We went up to Bunny's apartment. We knew that she wasn't expecting us, but we decided to take a chance anyway. We rang her doorbell and surprisingly she answered right away.

“What's up?” she screamed excitedly. “What are y'all doing here?”

Dwight winked his right eye, and she immediately knew why we had come to visit.

“Oh, oh,” she said. “I was just about to leave, but y'all come in and sit. Chill for a minute.”

“Bunny, you didn't go out partying last night, did you?” Randy asked her.

“Nah,” she replied, “That's why I'm already up and dressed, 'cause I'm not tired. Dwight, come over here for a minute.”

Bunny and Dwight talked in private in the kitchen of Bunny's apartment. Then Bunny went to her room and got her shoes. When she came back to the living room she told us that she and Dwight were stepping out.

“Yo, Earl, walk with us,” Dwight ordered.

Earl got up and the three of them left. As for the rest of us, we raided the kitchen. Soon both of Bunny's sisters woke up. The smell of burnt pancakes must have woken them. I don't know why Randy had tried to cook pancakes. I mean the nigga couldn't even boil water without burning it.

“What are y'all doing to my kitchen?” Bunny's sister, Cheryll, hollered. “And what the hell are y'all doing here anyway? It's like what? One in the afternoon?!”

“Yeah, we knew that y'all would just be waking up and we wanted to see how y'all looked in those short, little nighties,” Randy said jokingly. “And yes, yes, yesss,” he added, “y'all do look damn good! No doubt about that!”

“Shut up, Randy,” Cheryll said as she laughed and playfully slapped him. “I'll cook y'all something too, just let me take a shower and get dressed first.”

“Can I take a shower with you?” Randy asked.

“Oh, of course you can, baby.”

We all knew that she was only joking, but we still all lusted after her as we watched Cheryll seductively walk off to take her shower.

In the meantime we watched television in order to kill time as we waited. Surprisingly, Dwight, Earl, and Bunny returned rather quickly. They hadn't been gone longer than thirty minutes.

After their return we joked with Bunny for a little while longer, but we managed to leave in a somewhat hasty manner. Bunny told us that even though she was about to go out, she was still getting tired of us always coming and jetting so quickly.

To tell the truth, none of us wanted to leave, especially not Randy, because he wanted to stay and wait for Cheryll to cook us some food. But we had to stay focused, and unfortunately we had to go because we knew that another treacherous day of work lay ahead of us.