Last Bitch Standing (4 page)

"Then stop running yo' mouth about bullshit and
tell us what the fuck you know... now!"

Curtis swallowed hard before speaking. His body
was trembling, so I knew he was shook and really believed
I didn't give fuck about blowing his brains out.

"You gon' still give me the money though, right?"
he finally said.

"Yeah, the fuckin' money you originally agreed to,
you greedy motherfucker!" I said jamming the gun harder
to his head.

"Devon is in Philly. He came back to do some work
for my cousin. `Cause like I told you, my cousin believes
you got to earn your money. He ain't giving you shit."

"You got an address on him?" Nico asked.

"Yeah, it's written down on a piece of paper in my
pocket."

"Stand up!" I ordered. "Which pocket?"

"The back one on the left hand side." I reached
inside his pocket and pulled out the paper and handed it
to Nico.

"Now can I get my money?"

"How do we know we can find him here?" Nico
asked, looking up.

"I promise you it's good. But if I was you, I would
catch him alone. My cousin surrounds himself with a
lot of men that are paid to shoot first and ask questions
later, Devon being one of them."

"Who is your cousin?"

"His name is Delondo, and right now he got most of
Philly on lock. Just be careful, especially running around
with this firecracker you got right here," he said, nudging his head in my direction.

"Nico, give this nigga his money so we can get the
fuck outta here."

"Listen, if this shit turns out to be garbage, we will
come back for you, and this time I'll let my girl have it her
way," Nico stated before handing Curtis his dough.

"It's good, believe me."

"And don't go running your mouth letting anybody
know what went down here," I added.

"Are you crazy? My cousin would have my ass! But
I don't like Devon... never have, so I don't give a fuck
what happens to him. His punk ass always thought he
was better than me, but he had to come back begging my
cousin for a job. That's what the nigga gets. He deserves
whatever he got coming his way!"

I could have not agreed with that statement more.
Devon was sitting almost right next to Maya on the loser
totem pole.

"Devon here we come," I smiled, finally feeling we
were making some real headway in our quest to find and
destroy Maya.

Determined not to let Supreme call my bluff, I did
exactly what I said I would-moved into one of the guest
bedrooms. I really didn't have a choice. After our initial
conversation in the car, I thought Supreme would make
an effort to get closer to me, but he didn't change up shit.
I was sleeping on one side of the bed, and him on the
other. If I stayed, then he would believe I was just running
off at the mouth and had no backbone to stick with what
I threatened to do. So, a couple of days ago while he
was out, I got my belongings together and moved to one
of the bedrooms down the hall. When Supreme came
home and realized what I did, even though he didn't say
shit, I could tell he was surprised. I peeped him checking
the closets to see if I had really taken everything, and
motherfuckin' right, I did. I took it all, even down to the soap I liked to use.

He could act hardcore if he wanted to, but he would
eventually miss me, if only because he no longer had a
warm body next to him in bed. Hell, I missed him already,
but this had to be done. Yougotta fuckin' do ww,hatyougotta do
to get mAatyou mmnt. I mean, isn't that what Precious would
say? As much as I couldn't stand that bitch, I still found
myself using her play book with every scam I tried to
run, especially on a man-her man in particular.

As I started thinking about what my next move
should be, the ringing of my cell phone distracted me. I
looked to see who it was, and immediately recognized the
number. "Hey, I've been waiting to hear from you. Any
news?"

"Nothing on Precious, but I do have a lead on
Devon."

"Where is he?"

"On the East Coast."

"Steve, can you be a little bit more specific?"

"I last tracked him in the Bronx, but I don't believe
that's where he's residing. I think he was only visiting. By
the time I found out where he was in the Bronx, he had
already left, so I lost track of him."

"Yeah, he got family in the Bronx. He was probably
visiting them. But fuck, he can be anywhere now!"

"I'm working on some leads. I've been asking some
questions to the neighborhood people, but you know I
don't want to scare them off because they think I'm the
police or something."

"Whatever to that! With the money I'm paying you,
I just want you to get an exact location on him, and let
me know the minute you do."

CCI will."

"And what's the hold up on Precious?"

"She must be staying on the move, because I can't
get a lead on her for nothing."

Yeah, she's probably too busy looking for any ass to stay still,
I thought to myself. "Night, just keep me posted," I said
before ending the call.

I was putting the money I took from my brother
after I killed him and burned the house down to good
use. Once I was certain Precious was alive, I paid a pretty
penny to have Steve track both Devon and Precious. I
wanted to find them before they found me. The only
downside was that Steve wasn't an assassin that I would
have to handle personally. Although someone who could
execute both was ideal, I didn't want to take a chance
and get swindled by an undercover cop and end up in jail
behind a murder plot. At this point in the game, I had to
be very careful with every move I made, or all eyes would
be on me.

Knock... knock... knock

"Come in."

"Hey, I have to run out for a couple of hours.
Aaliyah is sleep, but can you watch her in case she wakes
up?"

"No problem." Now this motherfucker wants me to be his
personal babysitter ii)ith no benefits! This some straight bullshit!

"I appreciate that."

"I know you do. So go `head, take your time, do
what you need to do. I'll be here when Aaliyah wakes
up," I smiled, trying to sound sincere. This was all about
who could outwait who without snapping. But those
who are patient usually win it all, and that's what I was
counting on when it came to Supreme. He figured that
since I wasn't getting no dick and moved to the guest
bedroom, I would turn on him and not want to watch his
prized daughter anymore. But no, I planned on doing the
exact opposite. I mean, being a nurturing mother figure
to Aaliyah after I had Precious chained up in a basement,
was how I suckered Supreme in the first place. Shit, I was
willing to take it back to the basics and start over again.

"Thanks, Maya," Supreme said, sounding surprised
by my gracious behavior. Clearly my act worked. He left
my bedroom, and I went over to the window and watched
him make a call before he got into his car.

"I wonder who Supreme is calling. It's probably
nothing," I thought out loud, but the curiosity was heavy
on my mind.

I left my bedroom and decided to take advantage
of being alone with only a sleeping baby to worry about. I
went downstairs to Supreme's office, and of course it was
locked. But unbeknownst to him, one afternoon while he
was taking a long nap, I took the key and had a duplicate
made. I even let Aaliyah tag along on my adventure to make sure she didn't disturb her daddy and wake him up
before I finished doing what I needed to get done.

This would only be my second opportunity to use
it, as I was hardly ever in the house alone. Supreme rarely
went anywhere, and if he did, it was never long enough
where I would feel comfortable doing some serious
snooping.

When I opened the door, I headed straight for his
mahogany desk. There were a lot of folders and a ton
of paperwork, but it was mostly business contracts,
legal correspondence-nothing I gave a fuck about. I
continued to go through his drawers, being very careful
to leave everything in place. Luckily, Supreme wasn't one
of those anal types that had all his shit in perfect order.

Finally, something caught my eye, the reason being
because it was bank documentation, but it wasn't in
Supreme's name. It was some company called Direct
Express Enterprises. There were a ton of large deposits
being made, but the bizarre part was that they were all
going to the same account, to a person by the name of
Arnez Douglass. It was as if a dummy account was set up
just to transfer money to this one individual. Hmmm, who
in the world is Arne Douglass, and why is Supreme giving him all
this fuckin' money? I wrote the dude's name down and the
address associated with his account on a post-it, because
he was clearly somebody of importance if Supreme was
hitting him off with this sort of cash. I checked around
one last time to make sure everything was in place before
leaving. After locking the door, I went back upstairs to my bedroom to make a call.

"Hey, Steve."

"You can't possibly think I have some new
information for you already. I just got off the phone with
you less than an hour ago."

"No, of course not. I need you to do something else
for me."

"Is it pertaining to the case I'm already on?"

"No, it's something different."

"Different case, different money."

"Have you had any problems getting paid from me
so far?"

"No, and I want to keep it that way."

"You worry about doing what I've hired you to do,
and let me worry about the money. Are we clear?"

"We're clear. So, what do you need?"

"You have a pen?"

"Yep."

"Okay, write this name and address down," I said,
speaking slowly and clearly so he wrote the shit down
accurately.

"So, who is Arnez Douglass?"'

"That's what I'm going to pay you to find out."

"So, you know nothing about him?"

"Nope. How long is it going to take you?"

"Not sure, but give me at least a couple of days."

"I can do that. IT be waiting."

When I got off the phone, I laid back on the bed
and stared up at the soaring ceiling. I was now consumed with knowing everything I could about this Arnez guy.
I had a feeling that whoever he was, Supreme would've
preferred it if he remained a secret. But secrets are never
safe with me, and I was determined to get to the bottom
of it.

We had been by the spot Curtis gave us for a few days
straight, and there was no sign of Devon. After the
second day, I was ready to go back to Curtis' crib and
stomp his ass, but Nico convinced me to make sure we
had been conned before lashing out. So, by us staking out
the location each day all day, we pretty much knew the
routine of mail delivery.

On the fourth day, since we knew the mail person
was a middle-aged woman, we decided to use Nico as
bait. I hid in the car while he pretended to be going into
the building where Devon supposedly lived. He turned
on his charm and flirted with the mail lady. She ate that
shit up. Nico convinced her that he was a family member
who was now staying at the apartment, and he would be more than happy to take the mail. From what I could see,
he didn't have to do too much convincing. She practically
stuffed the mail down his shirt, along with her phone
number. And to my surprise, Curtis had told the truth,
because the mail was addressed to Devon. We figured
Devon was out of town, either for business or personal,
and we would have to wait it out.

"Yo, I was considering doing something, but I
wanted to see how you felt about it first," Nico said, as
we sat in the rental car across the street, watching Devon's
crib.

"Ask me."

"I wanted to call CoCo and see if she knew any
information on this Delondo cat, since Devon work for
him. I mean, if he's supposed to be a major nigga in the
drug game for Philly, and she's in the same business,
maybe she can be helpful."