Daughter of a Queen Pin Read online

  “You better get dressed too. You forgot we supposed to meet a big supplier today?”

  “Damn, yeah. Give me ten minutes.” I went upstairs and got dressed in a blue jean outfit with a big shirt that hid the holsters of my guns. Then I put on some flat shoes. I always dressed the opposite of Sable. My logic was that somebody had to be prepared in case something gangster jumped off.

  When I came downstairs, Sable was already in the car on the phone.

  We arrived at our destination and soon realized the two men didn’t have much in the way of security. I assume they felt we were women, so they could handle us if need be.

  The Ridgeway brothers let us know what their offer was. “We want you to sell crack in the greasy spoon. We’ll give you fifty thousand dollars’ worth of drugs, and you give us thirty thousand back.” This meant that we would have to give them eighty thousand dollars.

  Sable, the businesswoman that she was, objected. “That’s not a deal for us. You’re making profit on our hard work.”

  Desmond Ridgeway grinned. “You ladies are getting a steal, a real bargain. We’re letting you in the business.”

  “You letting us in? Is that right? We’re letting you in, ‘cause you can’t sell nothing in the Bottom Barrel without coming through our camp.” Sable’s voice was filled with contempt. She looked at me, letting me know to get ready for anything.

  John Ridgeway jumped up, irate. He was obviously the hothead of the siblings. “Make these bitches take the deal or else!”

  Both of my hands found the triggers of my guns. I was ready to come up firing at any sign of trouble.

  Sable grabbed her purse and remained calm. “Come on, Krystal. These guys ain’t ready for us.”

  I got up with both hands inside my shirt. Sable looked Desmond eye to eye. “Mr. Ridgeway, I’ll give you fifty thousand cash for your drugs, and we’ll be even. But you have to deliver it to the Bottom Barrel. So, let’s see if you really got balls. Here’s my card if you wish to make that happen.”

  John Ridgeway’s tone was arrogant. “So, you people got fifty large?”

  “We people, whatever that’s supposed to mean, got a hundred large. That’s if you got the balls to deliver. If not, then don’t call us no more. We good doing what we do, making money moves.” Sable headed to the door with me backing out behind her.

  When we got to the car, we sighed with relief. Any more dealings, we’d always have backup. The game was getting elevated.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When we reached the greasy spoon, Lloyd met us at the door. He had this stupid look plastered on his face as if he didn’t know what was what.

  “Dawg, what’s wrong? What done happened now?” I asked, dreading what he was going to say.

  “Hakim done messed around and OD’d,” Lloyd finally blurted out.

  “What? I didn’t know he used,” Sable fired back, shocked.

  “Where the hell is he now?” I rushed Lloyd for the answer.

  We were led back to the bathroom, where Hakim was laying on the floor with a needle plunged into his arm. Ms. Lady was trying to wake him up by slapping him repeatedly. Although I’d sold drugs for years now, I had never seen anybody like this. Hakim’s eyes had rolled to the rear of his skull. He was turning blue. His mouth was wide open, and his tongue was to the side.

  Sable, however, was not stunned. She sprang into action. “Get him up, Lloyd,” she feverishly demanded, taking control. “Put him in the shower, turn on the cold water. Krystal, go get some ice, lots of it. Auntie Charday, get some towels. Lloyd, you take his clothes off.”

  Lloyd barked, “No homo, I ain’t taking his clothes off.”

  “Then move, nigga! I’ll take them off.” Sable had no time to squabble or stand on formalities.

  While Lloyd held Hakim up, Sable jumped in the shower with him. She took off his pants, then his underwear.

  “Let him down in the water, Lloyd,” Sable ordered, not caring that she was soaking wet. Her focus was on saving Hakim’s life.

  I returned with the ice, and Ms. Lady got the towels. Sable sat in the tub with Hakim, on her knees, facing him. She took the ice and shoved it under his nuts. Wetting the towels, she put them on his face.

  “Go get a spoon so he won’t swallow his tongue,” she said to Ms. Lady. She kept rubbing the ice on his nuts as the water continued to run on his head and on her.

  She put the spoon in his mouth. “Krystal, you hold the spoon and the towel on his forehead.”

  I did what she told me to do.

  “Hakim! Hakim! Hakim, wake up!” Sable repeatedly shouted as we all stood around.

  “I had a friend name Chuckie that used to OD from time to time before you were born,” Ms. Lady told me. “But I ain’t never seen no one do all this.”

  Seeing Sable take control made me confident and glad she was there. Lloyd was terrified, to say the least. A big man like that couldn’t watch his friend and crime partner so close to death.

  Sable was soaked from head to toe. Her nice black suit was clinging to her body, and one of her black pumps was floating in the water.

  After what seemed like a lifetime, Hakim began to cough. His eyes weren’t rolled back in his head anymore, so we could see his pupils, and he was regaining his color. Still, Sable sat there putting ice underneath his nuts until he came around fully. She’d saved his life, and Hakim would be forever grateful to her for the rest of his drug-filled days.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It had been a week since Cedric and I had sat in the car talking all night. I hadn’t called him yet, but he was most definitely on my mind. My days were busy handling day to day operations, and my nights were spent thinking about Cedric. I decided I would call him the next day. My birthday was coming up the next week, so maybe we could go out and celebrate together. The thought of Cedric lured me off to sleep. Maybe he would be the one to settle down with.

  The birds were chirping and the parade of squirrels playing on my roof woke me up. On my way to the bathroom, the phone rang. I knew it was Sable or Ms. Lady. They were the only ones who had my second cell phone number.

  It was Sable. It seemed the Ridgeway brothers had called to accept our deal, and they set up a meeting for two o’clock. We both needed cash on hand to make the deal happen.

  “I gotta go the bank for some money. We got last week’s cut of twenty thousand and the five thousand safe money. What you got, Krystal?”

  “I got about forty thousand in the house. I haven’t made a deposit in a couple of months.”

  “Krystal, I told you about having all that money laying around.”

  “Look Sable, don’t lecture me. You handle the business at hand and let me worry about my money,” I shot back at her.

  “Okay, so are we doing this today, or should I call and reschedule?”

  “We good, worry wart. I’ll handle the security and will meet you at the greasy spoon. Its eight thirty. I’ll be there at eleven. Tell Ms. Lady to close up and only let in our people. Tell them to stay put.”

  I got dressed and snatched up my big purse so I could hold my two guns and the forty thousand dollars.

  As I made my way to the greasy spoon, I went over the plan in my mind. I called all my runners and all the house sitters. Usually, we had two people in each house. That was so someone was always awake and they could watch each other’s backs when they opened the door. Today, I pulled one person from each of the six houses we now had. I had two lieutenants and four enforcers. So, I had twelve guys to set up a front for the Ridgeway brothers. I called each person and told them to drive their own car. I wanted a lot of cars parked around the greasy spoon.

  When I arrived, all twelve guys were there with Ms. Lady and Sable. I sat on the counter and told everybody what my plan was. “I want four guys outside, two on each side of the street in your cars. I want to hear horns when they arrive, and not again unless the police are coming or there’s trouble. The two lieutenants and two other house sitters will be chilling.”

  Everybody nodded to show they understood their orders.

  “I want all guns visible. Everybody should have holsters. If not, put them in your front pants belt, visible. Ms. Lady, I want you on the shoeshine stand. I’ll give you an AK assault rifle.” I was in my hustle zone, wanting everything to go off without any issues.

  “Hakim, you and Tank will be at the front door. Y’all search them crackers good. I only want them to have a briefcase, no guns. Tank, you stay at the door after they are searched. Don’t let anyone in. Hakim, you lead them to me, and all the time, you are behind them.”

  “Got you.” Tank checked the bullets in his clip.

  “Lloyd, you and your boy will be at the office door with your guns out. You bring them in and lock the door behind you. I don’t want any interruptions. Everybody be relaxed, but I want you to look your usual mean-ass selves.” I cracked a halfway smile but was dead-ass serious.

  “So, it’s eleven forty-five, and I want everybody in place at one o’clock. No one getting ghost until three o’clock. I done ordered some steak dinners. They on the way. And oh yeah, Hakim, no getting high.” I singled him out because he was always getting teased about his overdose.

  “What am I supposed to do, Krystal?” Sable asked.

  “You the businessperson in this company, so handle our business, Sis.”

  After a brief time, our food arrived. We ate and talked shit as a family for the next hour. By 1:15, everybody was in place ready for business.

  I took Sable in the office, and we waited.

  “If this dope is as good as the Ridgeway brothers say it is, we gonna make a lot of money,” Sable said, and I agreed.

  We had upgraded our security system since the incident with Walter. We had cameras installed, and we could see the whole block from our office.

  My cell phone rang, making Sable and me both jump. It was one of the lieutenants on the outside.

  “We got a little problem,” he said.

  I looked at the monitor to the front door, and I saw six white men surrounded by ten black men. So much for a good plan.

  “Don’t nobody move!” I yelled through the speaker system.

  Sable and I went to the front door, closely followed by Lloyd and Tank. Everybody else was outside. When I got to the door, John Ridgeway, the brother with the big mouth was on ten.

  “So, is this how you people treat your guests? Seriously, no home training! This must be a joke!”

  “You may think this is funny, but does it look like anyone out here is laughing or playing? You breathe wrong, and they will never find your white ass again. Why you thought you could bring six white guys with guns to my business is beyond me.”

  The faces of the white guys turned beet red, but neither side moved a muscle.

  Sable broke the stalemate. “Okay look. We’ll let two of your guys inside, but no guns. The other four guys will be escorted out the perimeter of the Bottom Barrel until our transaction is complete.”

  “Okay then,” Desmond Ridgeway agreed, wanting to keep the peace and just get down to business.

  There was fear in the eyes of the four other men, not knowing if this meant their last day on earth.

  As Sable led the way back in the greasy spoon, Desmond and John came inside, followed by the two other white men. They were each searched and stripped of their guns. Desmond and John Ridgeway came into the rear office. The other two white men were sat at the bar, facing the shoeshine stand and Ms. Lady with the AK trained on them.

  I motioned to Lloyd to come over and open the briefcase. We didn’t want or need any more surprises. Lloyd opened the briefcase, which had nothing but kilos in them.

  “Shall we get down to business, gentlemen?” Sable opened her own briefcase and took out a testing tool. She also had the money in it.

  She opened one of the bags in the brothers’ briefcase. Cutting the bag, she dug out some of the product. She put it in a bottle and put in a few drops of liquid, then shook it up.

  She smiled at the sight of the color. “Yeah. Hell yeah! This looks like some good stuff,” she affirmed. Sable, being the thorough businesswoman that she was, tested each bag to the annoyance of John Ridgeway.

  “What do you people think we are, stupid?” he asked.

  “You stupid enough to bring six white men to a black neighborhood with guns. What do you think?” I fired back with attitude.

  Before I could say another word, Lloyd was behind John, his pistol to his head.

  “Hey, hold up! Just relax!” Desmond gave John a demanding look. “Like, you are going to get us killed.”

  “Yeah, relax,” Lloyd mumbled, ready to end John’s life on my word.

  “Look, ladies, we’ll finish our business at hand, and then we are gone. You got the cash we agreed upon?” Desmond asked.

  Sable threw the money from her briefcase on the desk. I reached in my bag and threw out four bundles of ten thousand each. John got up and started counting the money, but Desmond stopped his brother.

  “No need. I trust you girls. I think we’ll be back again, and we will have a good working relationship down the line.” Desmond got up and put the money in his briefcase. He closed it and headed for the exit.

  When they reached the door, he looked at Lloyd to let them out. Lloyd was in a trance. He had never seen that much money or dope before at one time. Lloyd’s eyes showed dollar signs of greed as he finally opened the door. Right then and there, I made a mental note to watch Lloyd very closely. I think Sable was thinking the same thing, as she gave me that look.

  When the door opened, the greasy spoon fell silent. The two white men were still sitting in the chairs, sweat running down their faces.

  When the men came out of the greasy spoon, all they could see was black faces, black cars, and men dressed in black. It was clear to them that we were definitely in control of the Bottom Barrel drug game.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After the Ridgeway brothers left, we had to keep the greasy spoon closed while Sable and I tried to figure out our game plan for selling the drugs. I called Ms. Lady in the office to get her advice.

  “The fastest way to get rid of that much is to sell weight, which means selling to dealers. The downfall is the dealers might try you more, knowing that you have gotten bigger than them. The other way is to continue selling at street level. It may take longer, and you will have more traffic, but you can stay a little bit more in the background. You’ll make lots of money,” she told us.

  We talked and re-bagged the drugs into smaller portions. Then Sable and I left to stash most of what we bought. We didn’t allow anymore drugs to be sold at the greasy spoon. It was our headquarters where we hung out and held meetings. The only rule was no drugs sold. We had three money stashes—Sable’s house, my house, and a safe deposit box. Could you believe that? I wouldn’t trust money in a bank, but we put our drugs in a safe deposit box in the bank. I told Sable we had to find another place. It would be a federal case if we got caught.

  Pretty soon, we had everybody wanting our name-brand drugs. Our brand name for crack was N.O.D.D. This identified us from other dealers. We split up the narcotics and divided them amongst the lieutenants. We had sworn that we would never use any drugs, smoke any weed, or drink alcohol. We wanted our minds to be totally focused on making this money. We were already at a disadvantage being females in a male-driven game.

  * * *

  It was around 9:30 before Sable and I actually had time to sit down. The greasy spoon always closed at 9:00.

  Overall, it had been a good day. I just wanted to go home and relax. Sable was meeting Tim, and she asked me if I wanted to come. I declined, but my mind immediately turned to Cedric. I didn’t want to be alone, so I called him.

  “Hey, Cedric, this is Krystal. You busy?”

  “What’s up, Krystal? I know your voice, and I was praying you called me. I really enjoyed the last time we were together. I just can’t stop thinking about you. I hope you don’t think I’m too blunt, but I’d like to see you tonight.”

  “Cedric, I’ve been thinking about you too. But it’s been a long day, and I just wanted to relax.” I had changed my mind about being with him or anyone else for the night.

  “I just wanted to take you to get something to eat and talk to you. I don’t know what you’ve done to me. I just want to be around you. Can you blame a brother for that?” he said in a convincing voice.

  “Look, I’m not at home yet. It’s late.”

  “I tell you what. You go home and shower, and if you are hungry or you want to see me, you call me. I couldn’t call you since you didn’t give me your number. It’s good you didn’t, because I would have called you every day just to hear your voice.”

  “That’s so sweet, Cedric. Did you really mean that?” I asked.

  “Would I lie to a beautiful woman like you?” he remarked.

  I told him to call me in an hour, then hung up the phone and looked at it for a minute. A smile broke out on my face, and again I got this tingly feeling in my stomach.

  I went home and showered. I usually wore big clothes that didn’t show my body lines, but tonight I wanted to look pretty. I looked in the mirror. I couldn’t remember dressing up like this since I was nine. My body was slim-thick in all the right places, making my outfit fit like it was made for me.

  After speaking to Cedric, I got in my car and headed downtown where he wanted to meet. Of course, you know I had to be fashionably late to go inside. I sat in the car and thought about my mother. She would love to see me now. Every time she saw me, I was dressed for work, with my hardcore look on. If you didn’t know me, you would think I was a dyke.

  It was time to make my entrance. Cedric was sitting toward the door, and the waitress was talking to him. Our eyes met, and I could swear it felt like something out of a movie. He looked at me while the waitress was still talking to him. He smiled as I started my long walk to his table. I hadn’t worn high heels in five years. I had to take it slow, which made it look like I was a movie star entering a restaurant with ordinary people waiting for the camera flashing to stop.