Scandalous Heroes Box Set (69 page)

She didn’t tell grandma about her plans either. This part saddened her because she knew that her grandma would disapprove. But she couldn’t risk her interfering until after she was eighteen and it was too late for her to do anything about it. This meant that she had never even discussed Scotty her, or how much she loved him. It made her feel like a liar and a sneak, but she and grandma just didn’t see things in the same light. Grandma would only see a young white man that had been sent to jail for selling drugs. God forbid if she ever discovered that he was still in the life. Yeah, it was best to keep them apart until it was too late for her to do anything about it.

~***~

“Why would she say no?” G asked.

Scotty gave him a long look. “Why would she say yes?”

G chuckled. “Man if you don’t put that girl out of her misery and marry her then I’m going to shoot you myself! She practically stalked your ass when she lived out here; following you around, showing up where you said you’d be.”

Scotty smiled at the memory. The thing is that he would throw hints of what his plans were in hopes that she would show up.

“She loves you. And that’s why she won’t say no.”

He was being stupid, he decided. He had no doubt that Vanessa was in love with him, every bit as much as he was in love with her. But sometimes he thought about her being seventeen and filled with so much innocence, while he was a seasoned criminal. There was no other way to put it. He really wasn’t good enough for her. She was so talented; she could walk into any music producer’s office and become an immediate star. She had the talent and the looks. If he wasn’t around, then that’s exactly what she would do. The thing is that he wanted her in his life too. He had to find a way to take care of them all without being a criminal.

They pulled up to the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Dayton. Scotty reached down and removed the gun from his ankle holster and placed it in the glove box of Gary’s Lincoln Town Car. G liked big cars about as much as he liked big women. He removed the pistol from his waistband and did the same. No need for them to bring their guns inside while doing a pick-up. Their supplier would have armed guards both hidden as well as in full sight. Supposedly it was to protect their mutual investment but the young men knew that it was to make sure they stayed in line.

They got out the car and walked to the door where a middle aged, over weight dude guarded the entrance. Twenty years ago he might have been intimidating—now he was just a sad reminder that the game would continue, even when the old players were replaced by new ones.

The goon gestured with his head for them to go in, although they had already opened the door and were heading inside. Scotty’s eyes scanned to the left while G’s scanned to the right. Neither man expected anything to go down; this was just a routine exchange, but they had learned a long time ago to be conscious of their surroundings.

Three men stood on the catwalk, holding high powered rifles, while two other men were stationed at either side of the large empty room, their guns holstered but on the ready to be drawn. Each man in sight had to be in his late fifties, which Scotty found curious. Why were these men still doing this gangster shit at that age? They all had to be holding a great deal of money by now and if they weren’t then they needed to find a new profession.

But they weren’t his concern, nor did their stories interest him. Scotty figured that a smart man made his money and then got out of the game quickly and that was his plan. They were picking up more dope than they had ever requested before.

“Hello gentlemen.” Mr. Dawson spoke. He wasn’t the supplier, but the go-between, meaning he was just a pawn, no different than the old dudes standing around the room in boredom holding guns that hadn’t been fired in years.

“Evening.” G said.

“Hello Mr. Dawson.” Scotty said. The older man was sitting behind an old desk, in a rickety wooden chair and wearing a thousand dollar suit. He stood and placed a duffle bag on the table and G placed a small brown paper bag next to it. Mr. Dawson opened the bag and looked at the bundle of bills contained in it. He never counted it in front of them. No need to. They didn’t work for the supplier—or the supplier’s boss. They worked for themselves purchasing their products free and clear of any strings.

Some drug dealers worked directly for their suppliers, but juvie had served to teach Scotty a thing or two about the drug world. Mr. Dawson wanted to partner up with them, offering them protection and all kinds of shit that they already had. Mr. Dawson wanted them to think that he owned the board. But all men like him knew how to do was to please their bosses. They certainly didn’t know how to take the drugs they had and go out into the streets to turn it into cash.

There were a lot of thugs that knew how to do it—but not many of them could do it as well as Scotty and G’s crew. Therefore he knew that Dawson desired them for himself, but they didn’t need him. What Scotty knew that gave him an edge is that if he located another connection than there was absolutely nothing that Mr. Dawson or his boss could do about it. And that was because all of the suppliers in this territory had the same boss. And it was that individual that was heavily invested in the services that Scotty and G provided.

Which is why they were pawns and Scotty wasn’t. They didn’t own their product and they had no choice but to bring in cash or it was their heads that would roll. Oh yes, the world was a finely orchestrated series of never ending secrets and figuring out those secrets was the key to survival.

“Thank you Mr. Dawson,” Scotty said politely while turning to leave. No need to ruffle feathers. He stayed under the radar that way.

“You boys interested in something new?”

They stopped and G gave the man a curious look while Scotty hoped not to have to hear another appeal to partner up. “Something new?”

Dawson smiled. “Yeah, there’s something new on the scene. I know you don’t do much with coke but this stuff is cheaper and the high is dynamite. They call it crack cocaine.”

Later G was in the car talking excitedly while Scotty listened. “Man, if this crack shit is everything Dawson says it is, then we can cut it down and end up selling more of it like we sell the joints.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble. Who’s going to be cooking this shit up?”

“We set up a house where all we do is cook crack. We can even cook up enough in one day to last a few days.”

Scotty didn’t say anything, but he didn’t like it. It gave him a bad feeling. It was making things too complicated. Right now everything was simple. But having a house set up with drugs and drug paraphernalia was trouble waiting to happen.

When Scotty got home he placed his gun in the drawer of his bedside table and then checked his messages.

“Hi baby,” Vanessa’s voice came from the machine. Scotty smiled. “When you get this message you can come get me, I’m back from visiting my grandma. Love you…” Scotty picked up his car keys and headed out the door. He spent as much time as he possibly could with Vanessa—but never at that crazy bitch’s house.

He had never forgotten how Vanessa had described her aunt’s cruelty back when she was younger and the memory of the way the woman had yelled at Vanessa the day she had found out about her mother’s death was one that he would not soon forget.

The aunt acted friendly enough to him now that he was a man that would come and pick up her niece in a BMW. She was suddenly friendly, as if she wanted him to forget that years before she had slammed her door in his face. And though it was possible that she might have forgotten that she had left her niece and her own daughter home alone crying that day, he hadn’t. He said as few words as possible to her and would sit politely and quietly waiting for Vanessa to come downstairs.

The only comfort he had about the situation is that it wouldn’t be too much longer before Vanessa would have her very own home with him. And then she would never have to suffer that woman again. He smiled as he thought of the ring that he planned to surprise her with on her birthday. His smile grew even brighter as he imagined how he would make love to her, but more importantly, how it wouldn’t crush him that she would have to get up and then return to a life that didn’t include him. When he finally made love to Vanessa he was letting her know that neither of them would ever have to be without the other again.

He already had the reservations made for a small chalet in the Smoky Mountains. And then would end the torment that he had been experiencing for the last few weeks. No more cold showers and jacking off like he was a pre-teen. There were no regrets, though. Because he knew that it could be no other way. If he touched her now, then he would never let her go back to that apartment in Winton Terrace. Once he entered her body, she would never live anywhere but with him. Right now there were two people who would probably object to that; an aunt and a grandma. But all he had to do was wait two more months—and spend as much time with her as he could find.

~***~

Vanessa liked being in Scotty’s kitchen and cooking for them. She would much rather do that than to go out to dinner. She would pretend that this was their home—even though it wasn’t exactly what she had pictured in her childhood fantasies.

Scotty obviously had no decorating style. He had a few posters of Heavy Metal groups on his walls as his only means of decoration. And while he did have a large, roomy living room, his furniture lacked style, plus he stored his workout equipment right in the middle of the floor. His bedroom held a large bed and matching furniture, but nothing else. Although it was always tidy and was obviously a very nice apartment, it held no warmth.

Well she refused to mentally decorate it. She wanted to put money down on their very own house. She sliced vegetables for a salad and hummed the soundtrack to SPARKLE, while she imagined their home and how each room was decorated down to the wall-to-wall carpeting.

Scotty was in the living room writing in his ledger. Vanessa knew it had something to do with his drug business but he never tried to hide what he was doing. She respected him for that. One day when she had looked over at what he writing she saw that she couldn’t make sense out of it. It wasn’t even English…or she didn’t think it was. She determined that he had taught himself some strange code. She never asked. She really didn’t want to know.

Scotty was indeed writing in his ledger, but he was peeking at Vanessa more than anything. He loved when she hummed to herself whenever she thought no one was watching. It was late July and even though his apartment was comfortably air conditioned, there was a heat wave taking place across the city. She was dressed in a tank top and cut-off shorts. There was nothing innately provocative about it, but to Scotty she looked incredibly sexy.

It turned him on more that she pulled her hair up into a twisted ponytail at the top of her head, and wore a faded DY-NO-MITE! shirt and jeans that she had cut into shorts herself--than if she had slapped on a ton of make-up and dressed in clothing that was too tight and too short. He loved the sight of her sleek tanned legs and the way her bottom swelled surprisingly large on such a small frame. She thought she was too thin because she compared herself to so many people that she knew who were thick and sexy. She didn’t seem to think that her athletic body was just as sexy; she just kept referring to herself as skinny. Nothing could be further from the truth. He took a deep breath, suppressing his desire and counted down the days until he would claim her completely.

Vanessa tasted the spaghetti sauce and then added some dried basil. She’d had to stock Scotty’s kitchen because all he had was salt, sugar and a box of cereal. Although she loved playing house and cooking for them, it was hard to leave each night. Not that her aunt would have cared one way or the other if Vanessa spent the entire night at his house—it was Scotty that had a problem with it. She thought back to when they had first began dating and once again things had gotten heated between them--and once again Scotty had put on the breaks.

As he had gotten up to put on his sneakers so that he could take her home, she had shyly offered to spend the night, explaining that her aunt wouldn’t care. He had given her a surprised look and then she’d seen something like fear cross his face before he came over to her and kissed her sensually. ‘I can’t take it. It’s too much for me.’ He explained. She whispered that she was ready but he interrupted her and said that he wasn’t talking about sex. ‘If you spend the night you’ll have to move in with me because I won’t let you go home.’ She was almost ready to agree, as if it had been an invitation—but she then realized with embarrassment that it had not been an invitation. So she had dropped it. Sometimes it hurt her feelings, because rejection even for a good reason was still rejection.

She didn’t push things once she had figured out his plan. She had waited this long. She could wait a little bit longer.

Vanessa glanced into the living room at Scotty who was absorbed with that ledger and suddenly it reminded her back when he used to do his homework while sitting in her kitchen. She would make them snacks and imagine a time when she was his woman and they were living their lives together. A swirl of emotion suddenly hit her and the love that she felt for him was suddenly so large that she barely knew how to contain it. She caught him peeking at her and knew with certainty that he was thinking the same.

Softly she began singing Giving Him Something He Could Feel. She turned her back to him, knowing that he was watching her. The lyrics spoke of life in the ghetto and how people thought that the singer was too young to realize her dreams…but she was far from too young. This was what Vanessa wanted him to understand, that her inexperience had nothing to do with how deeply she could love her man.

She was so into the song that she didn’t even hear Scotty coming up from behind her until his body was pressed against her back. She sighed.

“Don’t stop.” He said in a husky voice. Her singing had forced him from his seat just like a magnetic force.