Wifey, Part 1 Page 2

  “Poota, what up, baby pa’?” I gave him a pound.

  The sexy chick Shabazz was with extended her hand to me and introduced herself. “How you doing, Nico? I’m Jasmine,” she said without a hint of a smile.

  I shook her hand and said hello and I was trying to figure out what vibe she was on.

  “Yo, Nico, let’s get these bottles poppin’!” Shabazz shouted.

  I looked at Shabazz and was a split second from snatching his ass up and pimp-slapping him. I thought his girl sensed what was up by the look on my face.

  “Excuse him for being so rude,” Jasmine said. “You see I had to introduce myself. Where are y’all at?” she asked me, vying for a distraction. “Upstairs or in the back?”

  I replied and told her that we had the whole club but that we were about to do a toast for Bebo in a private lounge in the back.

  “Poota, take Jasmine with you to the back. I wanna holla at Shabazz real quick.” Poota gave a head nod and walked off with her.

  “Yo, they got nothing but asses up in this muthafucka!” Shabazz said to me while looking at a girl in a tight dress walk by.

  “Shabazz, I killed niggas for showing me less respect than what you showing me right now!” I barked.

  Shabazz frowned and had a look of confusion. He held his hands up as if to ask what I was talking about.

  “How the fuck you coming up in here fucked up? What the fuck is you thinking?”

  “We partying!”

  “Nigga, you supposed to come up in here on the humble. Skeen got murked on your watch, your numbers is down, and you coming up in here high like shit is all good? Word up you better drop all that animated shit and sober up real quick and maintain, muthafucka!” I barked. “The wolves could be up in here itchin’ to put your fuckin’ lights out and you’re ready to give them your head on a platinum platter! You a hard-headed muthafucka.”

  Shabazz still had that confused look on his face, but I said what I had to say. I walked off to find the promoter. I was done with explaining and talking to that nigga. We were partying for Bebo’s homecoming, but that didn’t mean we could afford to be reckless. A party like that was intoxicating for all stickup kids from the Bronx to Brooklyn, just waiting for a quick come-up. Our soldiers—such as Shabazz—had to always be alert. But that dumb muthafucka comes in the spot high as a kite and all off-point and then sits up next to the nigga whose nephew he let get killed?

  Everybody in Ghetto Mafia knew how I got down. I ruled with an iron fist, but that didn’t mean that niggas didn’t try me. Goons were always lurking just waiting to catch me slipping, but I rarely, if ever, got caught without my burner.

  I found the promoter, and he told me that the girls were coming in from New Jersey, that he had just spoken to them and they were about twenty minutes away.

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “Nico, I got it. I’m on it. I’m good money,” the promoter replied.

  “Twenty minutes?” I asked and I glanced at my Audemars Piguet. “Get them bitches here in ten,” I demanded.

  “OK,” the promoter said, and without hesitation he got on his cell phone and started making phone calls.

  After I had squared that away, I went back to the lounge we had. Now it was twice as packed as it had been before I’d left. People were snapping pictures, and cocktail waitresses were taking orders.

  Bebo was sitting down on a couch, next to Shabazz. From a distance I could tell that Shabazz was back to his drunk, animated bullshit and was trying to be the center of attention.

  I had already had the promoter set up a wireless mic for our area, and the mic was linked to the speakers in the lounge Once the wireless mic was turned on, it would override the music coming out of the speakers so that only what was coming out of the mic would be heard. I turned on the mic and got everybody’s attention.

  “Yo, Bebo, come to the mic, homie!” I shouted into the mic.

  Bebo stood up from the couch and came over to me, and he gave me a pound.

  “Everybody know why we here. We all in here celebrating this dude Bebo right here. Fuck all them fantasy stories and lies that these rappers be talkin’ in their music about so-called gangstas and all that Hollywood shit. When you talkin’ ’bout New York, there ain’t no name that rings out more than Bebo. And that’s because Bebo is the realest nigga in New York. He’s the best whoever did it! This is a real G right here, and we celebrating his homecoming. And be clear, so everybody understands, he just did seven years and he did them numbers with honor! A lotta niggas nowadays be snitching, and copping pleas and all that bullshit, but that ain’t even in Bebo’s DNA! Believe that! So everybody get a glass, a bottle, a drink or something, so we can do a toast to my nigga.”

  I reached and a grabbed a bottle of Dom P champagne. I waited and watched as other champagne bottles were popped and liquor was poured into all the glasses in the room. After about two minutes I popped open the bottle of champagne I had in my hand, and Bebo popped open the bottle that he had, and we tapped bottles.

  “Welcome home, fam!” I said into the mic.

  Everybody started to tap their champagne glasses and bottles.

  Some chick screamed out, “Welcome home, Bebo! I love you, baby!”

  I then turned off the wireless mic, and the music came back blasting through the speakers.

  “I got some shorties coming through for you real soon,” I said directly in Bebo’s ear and I handed him a brand new $800,000 watch that was worth more than the one that I was rocking.

  Bebo hardly acknowledged the expensive gift. He nodded his head, and then he took me off to the side and we started to talk.

  “You on that shit with my nephew, right?” he asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “This party, the Bentley, the Audemars Piguet, the chicks, that’s all good, but I wasn’t supposed to come home to no news like that.”

  “I gotchu, man. I’ma handle it,” I assured him. “I put that on my life.”

  Bebo nodded his head, and then he pointed out the two dudes who came to the club with him.

  “What you think about eating off the same package with different crews?”

  I hesitated for a second because that wasn’t something that I expected Bebo to say.

  “You talkin’ ’bout them cats right there?”

  Bebo nodded his head and placed a toothpick into the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I mean, I don’t know. Why? What’s up?”

  “We’ll talk. Just think on that,” Bebo replied, the toothpick still resting in his mouth.

  I turned and saw Shabazz with a bottle of champagne in his hand, two-stepping to the music.

  “Yo, I gotta put this nigga the fuck out,” I said to Bebo. “The muthafucka coming in your shit fucked up. I already told this nigga to sober up and maintain. The hit squad could be in this bitch! Everybody needs to be on point.”

  Bebo cut his eyes toward Shabazz. “I thought this was my muthafuckin’ party?” he asked. “This dude actin’ like he got something to celebrate.”

  I nodded.

  “We might have to count down his days…” Bebo continued.

  I was way ahead of him. “Let me go holla at Mia. Enjoy your party. I got this.” I walked over to Mia. “You see that chick over there?” I pointed in Jasmine’s direction.

  Mia nodded yes.

  “Her name is Jasmine. Go holla at her, introduce yourself to her and walk her out to the bar upstairs or to the bathroom or something.”

  Mia knew not to question me about any moves I was making. Flashing her supermodel smile, she walked over to Jasmine and held out her hand. Jasmine smiled. The two of them began talking after shaking hands. After about three minutes I saw Mia walking out of the lounge area with her.

  I be
gan pushing my way aggressively through the crowd until I found Shabazz.

  “Yo, get your shit and get the fuck up outta here!”

  “What?”

  “Shabazz, you heard what the fuck I said! Bounce, muthafucka!”

  “I been maintaining.”

  “Muthafucka, I already told you your numbers is down, Brandon is still breathing, so you don’t need to be partying. You need to bounce and go put some work in. Ya feel me?”

  Shabazz looked at me. Then he started to look around as if he was looking for his chick, or for somebody to come to his aid.

  “My girl will make sure Jasmine is a’ight.”

  Shabazz quickly nodded his head once, and then he slowly backed off and put the champagne bottle down on one of the tables before walking off.

  Not much longer after that, the promoter arrived with the stripper chicks from Jersey.

  “That’s you right there,” I said to Bebo, pointing in the direction of the scantily clad girls standing across the room.

  Bebo gave me a pound. “That’s what’s up. You know I don’t need no introduction,” he said before grinning and walking over to the other side of the room.

  I wasn’t a big champagne drinker, so I got the attention of one of the cocktail waitresses and asked her to bring me a bottle of white Hennessy. After a few minutes the waitress came back with my bottle, at almost the same time that Mia and Jasmine returned. Jasmine wasn’t immediately looking for Shabazz, so I played everything cool and didn’t mention anything about me putting him out of the club.

  I nodded my head to the music and thought about the moves I had recently made and all of the new moves I had to make to stay on top.

  CHAPTER 3

  Mia

  It had been a little over a week since Bebo’s homecoming party, and during that week, nobody had heard from or seen Shabazz. We didn’t know if he had been murdered or if he had gotten locked up or what. I had met and exchanged numbers with Jasmine at Bebo’s party. Nico wanted me to reach out to her and try and feel her out to see what was going on with Shabazz, telling me not to make things seem obvious or make her suspicious, just in case her man was talking to the feds or something.

  I dialed Jasmine’s number, and she picked up after the fourth ring.

  “Hi, Jasmine. This is Mia,” I said, trying to sound as cheery as possible but still sound like my normal reserved self.

  Jasmine paused for a second and didn’t say anything at first. I could hear music in the background. She turned the music down and then started to talk.

  “Oh, Mia, what’s up? I’m sorry. I thought I had locked your number into my phone, but I must not have, ’cause I’m lookin’ at the number like, ‘Whose number is this?’” Jasmine said with a tone that sounded genuine.

  “Mmm-hhhmm. Let me find out you screening calls,” I joked and said softly.

  Jasmine laughed.

  “Listen, I was calling you because I wanted to find out about the nursing program that you in. You was saying it’s only a fifteen-month program?” I asked.

  “Yup, fifteen months, but it’s full-time though. Why you ask?”

  “’Cause I need to get off my butt during the day. I mean, after I leave the gym in the morning, I’m home all day, and it’s not like I got kids or anything, so I was like, I should just look into it and start it and try to just knock it out.”

  Jasmine seemed distracted and was quiet for a second before responding. “Yeah, you should. ’Cause if my non-studying-always-partying ass can pass these classes, you’ll be fine.”

  “OK, so listen, you said you in SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, right?”

  “Yup.”

  Jasmine put me on hold for about a minute because she had another call. And while I waited I started to fix myself something to eat.

  “Mia, let me call you back in about an hour,” Jasmine said to me when she came back to the phone.

  “All right, but real quick, do you have class today? Because I wanted to drive down there and speak to somebody in admissions or something, but I won’t have a clue where I’m going.”

  “Wow! You really ain’t playing,” Jasmine said to me. “Yeah, actually I have a class that starts at eleven, and I’ll be out at twelve fifteen, so if you want us to link up, that would be the best time.”

  “That’s perfect.” I told Jasmine I would get dressed and head to Brooklyn and hit her up when she got out of class.

  After I hung up the phone, I ate and then got dressed. I chilled with Nico for about an hour before I hopped into my Range Rover and headed over to SUNY Downstate. I was coming from the North Shore of Long Island, so by the time I got to Brooklyn, it was just approaching twelve noon. When I got there, I sent Jasmine a text message, so she would know where I was at.

  Jasmine sent me a text right back and told me to just chill in my car on Clarkson Avenue and that she would be there in ten minutes. So, to kill time, I went to Starbucks and got a caramel macchiato and some shortbread cookies, and then I headed back to Clarkson Avenue and waited for Jasmine.

  After about five more minutes of waiting I saw Jasmine looking around, so I rolled down the passenger side window and tapped on my horn until I got her attention.

  “Jasmine!” I shouted out the window.

  Jasmine saw me and came over to my truck.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” Jasmine said, mockingly. “Do you always speak like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “So softly…almost like a baby. I gotta strain to hear ya ass.”

  “Excuse me? Am I missing something?”

  Jasmine gave me a half smile. I didn’t know what it was, but it was like I could sense some kind of mood change or some kind of hate on her part. I wasn’t sure what it was, but she definitely was coming across different than when we spoke on the phone earlier.

  “Nah, you good. I’m just busy.”

  “I really appreciate this. I didn’t mean to catch you off guard and just call you out the blue,” I added.

  “No, it’s OK,” Jasmine said to me, not looking me square in my face. She rolled down the passenger side window and stuck her head out of the window and she looked into the side view mirror and began examining her eyebrows.

  I discretely sent Nico a text message and told him to call me in five minutes.

  “This your truck?” Jasmine asked, a hint of stankness in her voice.

  I looked at her and nodded my head yes. Jasmine didn’t say anything else after that.

  “So, you were saying it’s a full-time program?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Jasmine said, sounding totally uninterested, looking at her cell phone and chuckling before sending someone a text message.

  “Listen, I got my next class in twenty minutes, but you don’t really need me. All you have to do is go into this building right there. Find a legal place to park first, of course, and then go into this building and ask the security guard where the admissions office is at and then get a brochure of the program and an application,” Jasmine stated.

  “Oh, OK,” I replied, trying my hardest to figure out why Jasmine’s mood had changed.

  Right then my cell phone rang and it was Nico and I picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, honey,” I said into the phone.

  “Everything good?” Nico asked.

  “I’m good. I’m here at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn with Jasmine.”

  “I’m not on speaker phone, am I?” Nico asked.

  “No, but listen, let me run in here and get this stuff, and I’ll call you back when I’m heading back out.”

  “You straight?”

  “Yes, babe,” I replied.

  “You can’t really talk right now?”

  “No.”

  “A’ight, so h
it me back.”

  “OK, I will,” I said before hanging up.

  “Nico told me to tell you what’s up,” I said to Jasmine as soon as I hung up the phone.

  Jasmine quickly asked me, “So you good?” totally ignoring what I had just said, preoccupied with her cell phone.

  “Jasmine, are you OK?” I asked.

  Jasmine nodded her head and looked at me. She had her hand on the door handle as if she was ready to bounce.

  “Hold on, Jas.” I reached over and grabbed hold of her arm. “Everything good with you and Shabazz?”

  Jasmine paused in her tracks. She looked at me as if she was now trying to figure me out. “It is what it is. Why you ask?”

  “I asked because I haven’t seen him around, Nico hasn’t seen him or heard from him, and I’m just sensing that you and him might be going through something, that’s all.”

  From the look of her body language, Jasmine seemed to relax somewhat. She took her hand off the door handle, which I used as my opening to keep talking and prying for information.

  “So y’all are going through some shit, right?”

  “I mean, we ain’t really goin’ through nothing major, but it’s just that the nigga be on some bullshit sometimes, and I can’t figure him out.”

  “On some shit like what? What do you mean?”

  “Like the other day he was talkin’ ’bout how the game ain’t in him no more and how he wants to leave the streets alone. And I’m tryin’ to talk to him like, ‘Nigga, what the fuck!’ It ain’t like he can just up and get a corporate job somewhere or something. He keeps saying he wants to leave the streets alone, but he don’t have no plan B. I can’t figure the nigga out, but it’s like he ain’t the same thorough-ass dude I met.” Jasmine shook her head. “This is just between me and you, right?” she added.

  “Jasmine, you don’t even have to say that to me.” I reached and grabbed hold of the Macchiato I had been drinking and drank some before continuing. “I’m so rude! Excuse me,” I smiled and said. “Do you want something to eat? Something to drink? My treat. I’m in here just steady munching and drinking in your face.”