“I second dat,” War laughed as he sprayed grape seed oil sheen on Carlos head, “She said she stoppin’ to pick up her cousin, Rena too. They say that bitch can suck a bowlin’ ball thru a straw.”
“Yeah, but that bitch’s legs stay spreadin’ like cancer. You better strap up if you fuck dat bitch. I know for a fact she used to be on dat freak site
Back Passes
or some shit like dat,” retorted one of the regulars who was getting his hair cut in the chair next to War’s.
“
Back Pages
, muthafucka. Don’t act like you’on know what dat shit is,” another patron corrected as they all laughed.
“
Back Pages
? Hell, she already know what it is then. Now
that’s
the bitch I wanna fuck. Ain’t no datin’ and all that ole shit, just straight to point fuckin’. I’mma text her real quick and make sure she still pickin’ her up.” War pulled out his phone and texted the message. Moments later, his phone vibrated and he flipped it to the side and read the response from Tia. “She said she just picked her up. They on they way back already.”
“Aiight fellas, enough with the pussy talk, we need to get to some business in the back,” Carlos insisted as he stood up and looked around his establishment. He inhaled the sweet fragrance from the sheen as he took in the orange walls decorated with blue, silver, and white pinstripes in honor of the city’s NBA team. Toward the front of the shop where the salon area was located, some of the women were reading copies of
Ebony
magazine or some of the latest urban fiction or romance novels as they waited to get their hair dried under silver or white hair dryers. A few of the ladies had their heads in the blue basins as the stylists were getting ready to wash and rinse them. In the back where Carlos and his fam’ were, men sat in comfortable white and blue faux leather barber chairs getting their hair cut and talking shit.
A few weeks after Carlos stepped out of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Jail on the bogus charges with the female federal agent two years earlier, War had called to tell him that he had finished barber school and got his license. Carlos had paid for his only nephew’s school as a promise to his deceased brother that he would look out for him. Carlos also thought about old man Luther, the old man who used to cut his and his older brother’s hair back in the day. Carlos had convinced him to come back to Charlotte from Atlanta to help his nephew run the new barber and beauty shop he was opening on W.T. Harris Boulevard.
BobCutz was Carlos’ legitimate business and one of the easiest ways for him to launder his drug money. Most of the barbers and stylist either went to school with War or they once worked for and were trained by Luther, so Carlos felt confident in their barber and styling experience.
Carlos looked toward the receptionist area and watched as Luther’s granddaughter operated the front desk with efficiency. He glanced at Luther sitting in his comfortable green reclining chair in the right corner of the shop. Carlos hated that chair because it fucked up the décor he was going for with the shop, but he kept his mouth shut because he wanted the old man to stay comfortable. In turn, Luther made sure War stayed on his P’s and Q’s and most importantly, kept the shop intact. Luther was the observant one. Just when you didn’t think the gray haired, seedy-eyed man who had less wrinkles than men younger than his seventy-two years of age wasn’t paying attention, that’s when you realized he was looking right at your ass.
War had taken a brush and finished wiping off the loose hair from the apron that Carlos was still wearing. Carlos took the apron off and before he could instruct Preme and War to go with him to his office, Tia and Rena walked in. Tia carried two bags full of that Cajun-spiced chicken, southern biscuits and sides, while Rena carried two gallons of sweet tea.
Carlos realized that their business could wait until after they ate, so he motioned the ladies to follow him to the break room. He had a small lounge room in the back for the barbers and stylist to relax and take a break and where they could handle their personal business. He watched Tia walk past him, noticing how nice she filled out the pink Juicy Couture jump suit. The tight material highlighted her grade A sirloin ass that he wouldn’t have minded having a piece of.
Rena was an insult to Tia. She was almost the same complexion as Amber Rose, same body type, but her hair was just a whisper longer. Normally, Carlos wasn’t attracted to chicks with short hair, but Rena was turning him on a little. He caught himself staring at her ass in the tight jeans she was wearing.
“Los!” Tia raised her voice, breaking Carlos out of his daze.
“Yeah,” Carlos half-answered while tearing his eyes away from Rena.
“I wanted to let you know they were talking about Ms. Evans on the news again.” She was referring to Sapphire’s mother. With Ms. Evans being the founder of a nonprofit organization that helped young ladies develop an interest in math and science and then helped send them to colleges nationwide, she became well known in the city and her sudden fatal illness was a shock. “You might wanna check on ole girl.”
“Fuck!”
Carlos said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone. “Thanks for the heads up.” Carlos saw War and Preme coming in his direction. “Y’all go ahead. I need to handle something real quick.” Carlos turned around and headed toward his office. He spoke Sapphire’s name into the small mic and the phone automatically dialed the number. On the second ring, Sapphire picked up.
“Hello.”
Carlos could hear in her voice that she’d been crying. “Aye, what’s going on?” Carlos questioned as he closed and locked the door to his office and sat behind his desk. “How is she?” he asked.
“The cancer has spread to her brain—the doctors say she may not make it to the end of the week.” Sapphire sniffled. “The church is doing a prayer vigil and some of the ladies are putting together a bake sale so they can raise money to help pay for the hospital bills.” Sapphire’s voice was scratchy as she struggled to speak. “I don’t want to bury my mama!” She burst into tears and her voice was trembling.
Carlos took the phone away from his ear and put her on speaker. He took out a key and unlocked the desk drawer where he kept some of his personal belongings. Taking out a blue bank book with the Bank of America logo on the bottom right corner, he looked at the amount in the book, which was just a few thousand shy of six figures. “How much y’all trying to raise?”
“No!” Sapphire stated and then cried some more. “No—I don’t need no more of your money.”
“But I wanna help.” Carlos humbled himself, something he’d never done for a woman. “You know I got y’all. So I can either write you a check or I can send my people to the bake sale and make a donation.” Carlos regained control of his senses and got firm. “Either way, I’m giving you this money—it’s the least I can do.” Carlos wrote a check for ten grand while he waited until Sapphire stopped crying. He made the check out to her and was determined to meet with her at the hospital and give her the money.
“Okay. But you know you don’t have to,” Sapphire said. She never did answer the question Carlos asked about how much she needed. “Justice will be here in a few hours and she’s gonna help me with everything.”
“Justice is coming today?” Carlos perked up in his seat with excitement. “I can come pick y’all up and—”
“That’s all right,” Sapphire cut him off. “You and I both know she still wanna kill your ass.” Sapphire’s words were sharp but true. “Just leave the check for me at the church. I’ll be there to pick it up later.”
“Aiight, baby girl. Stay strong.” Carlos said as the call ended. He finished endorsing the check and then reached to the back of the drawer and found an envelope to place it in. He wrote Sapphire’s name in big, blue letters and sealed the envelope and placed it in a black travel-size portfolio. He got up and unlocked the door and proceeded to walk out. He went to the break room to get Preme so they could leave. On their way out, Carlos smiled inwardly as they walked past Luther assisting one of the new barbers with a fade.
Old man’s still got it
, he thought as he and Preme exited the shop and headed to his car.
***
“You need to get over that bitch,” Preme told Carlos. They inconspicuously sat in Carlos’ truck parked across the street from the church and watched Justice and Sapphire get into Sapphire’s Audi A5 S coupe. Carlos almost let an admirable smile escape his lips as he saw Justice for the first time in over two years. She had lost a pound or two, but she was still as thick as he remembered. Her beauty was still intoxicating to him.
“I am over that bitch,” Carlos lied through gritted teeth. Preme still had a vendetta against Justice because it was her brother’s fault that he was walking with a cane.
“You ain’t over that bitch because if you was, you wouldn’t get mad if I slumped her ass right here.”
Carlos saw Preme holding his cane as opposed to one of his automatics, but he knew Preme was serious.
“We out.” Carlos put the truck in drive. “Let’s go check this nigga’s temperature.” He changed the subject, pulled away from the church, and turned up Wacka Flacka’s “Hard in the Paint” allowing the melody and lyrics to get him hyped. While listening to Waka, he briefly thought back a few months to when Waka had come to Charlotte to get his tour bus tricked out and some niggas had tried to stick him up on Independence Boulevard. He looked over at Preme and asked if he had heard about the incident.
“Yeah, I heard about it. I heard them niggas pulled up and had ratchets on ‘em.”
“Did they draw?”
“Like Picasso.” Preme laughed. “Them niggas was bussin’ in broad daylight at Waka. Niggas out here thirsty. Can’t be comin’ round here flossin’ all that ice an’ shit like it’s aiight. That’s like dangling a piece of meat in front of a lion that ain’t ate in two weeks. Niggas tried to get that up off him.”
Carlos laughed, then changed CDs and bumped his favorite song by Rick Ross. By the time Rick Ross was halfway through “BMF,” Carlos felt like he was Big Meech and Larry Hoover as he pulled up to Dave’s partner, Lil’ Joe’s Trucking Company. A tow truck was just leaving the lot as they walked up to the door. They saw that Lil’ Joe wasn’t so big anymore as he’d lost a good fifty pounds from his six-foot-four frame and now looked like a respectable point guard as opposed to the college linebacker he resembled when he worked for Carlos. As far as Carlos was concerned, he and Joe had parted on good terms, but Dave’s death may have changed that.
Dressed in a dingy one piece work uniform with the name JOE written in blue script across the right side of his chest, Carlos and Preme spotted him immediately.
“Fellas.” Lil’ Joe addressed both of them with the calmness of a grown man. A far cry from the hype young nigga they once knew. Lil’ Joe had matured and changed a lot over the past two years, but Carlos and Preme knew he was still down for whatever. Carlos saw one of Lil’ Joe’s workers standing in the doorway of the garage that was attached to the front office.
“Let’s go chop it up.” Preme suggested more so than asked.
“Come on back.” Lil’ Joe stepped aside and encouraged the men to step inside the garage. “Yo, Charlie, go ahead and go home man, I got it,” Lil’ Joe told his employee as he kept his eyes on Carlos and Preme as they crossed the threshold into his workspace. The smell of oil and metal assaulted Preme and Carlos noses.
“Damn nigga, you really tryna fool them crackas like you legit, huh.” Preme said sarcastically as he hobbled around the garage, admiring the expensive tool sets and all of the gadgets that made the shop come alive.
“I heard Dave had a closed casket funeral and shit.” Lil’ Joe stated, while ignoring Preme and looking Carlos in the eye.
“You mean you didn’t go?” Carlos questioned as he debated whether or not to reach for his heat and slump Lil’ Joe right where he stood. He knew Dave and Joe were once inseparable and he figured Joe was feeling some kind of way about his death. He knew Joe didn’t know for sure that they had murdered Dave, but Joe knew Carlos and his method of madness so it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.
“Nah.” Lil’ Joe swirled the toothpick in his mouth. “I ain’t wanna see my man like that. I sent his people some money though.” Lil’ Joe looked around Carlos to see Preme admiring a brand new metal G-clamp. When he got Preme’s attention, he asked him, “Did you?”
“Did I what, nigga?” Preme was clearly agitated from the direct question.
“Did you go to the funeral, nigga? Fuck you think I’m talkin’ bout?”
“Fuck I look like goin to a rat’s funeral?” Preme retorted as he turned his back to the two again and continued to look around the garage. At first, he thought Joe was asking if he had been the one who had killed his man.
Lil’ Joe closed his eyes for a split second and shook his head.
Carlos sought to ease the tension for now and decided to cut the conversation short. “Look, I just wanted to see how you was copin’. How you was holdin’ up an’ shit. I see you handlin’ that shit.” He turned to Preme “C’mon Preme.”
Carlos reached the door and he watched while Lil’ Joe and Preme glared at one another as Preme eventually started limping away slowly. Carlos knew Preme and Joe never really liked one another and only tolerated each other for his sake. He watched as Preme kept looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t have to body this nigga.
CHAPTER NINE
To’Wanda felt a slight breeze sneak through the slit of her crème halter top that amplified her breasts as she and Tan stepped foot into Mortimer’s Café & Pub. They had decided to go out for a few drinks and watch the Bobcats play the Heat. Mortimer’s had an upscale look with a huge white chandelier in the center of the pub and eclectic, modern dining accessories. With the Bobcats playing at home, she was astonished that the line wasn’t out of the door as it normally was on a home night.
Originally, Tan had planned to stay home, but to appease her girl, she took her out. To’Wanda was a loyal Bobcats fan no matter how terrible the team played and it was too late to buy tickets with any decent seating to watch the game live at Time Warner Cable Arena. As far as Tan was concerned, if she couldn’t get a seat in one of the suites, the tables or boxes, the game wasn’t worth going to. She didn’t buy the season passes that she normally would have because she wasn’t happy with the team’s performance and she decided that she did not like the owner after meeting him a year ago.