The Grind Don't Stop (10 page)

With her fingers trembling, she reached inside. Her heart deflated when she pulled out only four bags. She knew they only contained a half-ounce apiece from when she had helped him bag them earlier. There had to be more than that. She spotted a black metal box, which had to contain loads of money. Her heart deflated again when she realized there was another huge problem. It had a digital lock on it. She had no idea what the combination could be. She'd have to take it and figure a way to bust it open later.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a red light blinking from the bottom of the pool table. Now that she knew where the money was, she'd be able to snatch it up on her way out. She'd have to pack all of her stuff because there was no way she'd be able to return.

“Damn, when his ass coming back?” she muttered. For a brief second she stared at the floor lost in her thoughts before remembering the blinking light. She quickly crossed the floor and bent over to check out it out. It was only a blinking light. There had to be more to it so she ran her hand along the bottom of the table. Bingo, the shiny wood slid in. It was right under the glass enclosure that held the balls. Reaching her hand inside, she felt several cool bags of plastic. Her eyes brightened because she'd found bricks of kilos of dope. A meager two ounces would have been nowhere near enough to support her and her sister. And that small money box couldn't be his only loot, either. Hell, she might as well go for the whole enchilada. There had to be some big thousands stashed somewhere else.

Slowly the low whirling sound came back to her consciousness and she remembered the room under the floor. That's where the big stash had to be. She stood up and rushed back over to the jukebox. There it was; another button beside the first one she had pressed. Without a moment's hesitation, she pushed it and the whirling sound turned into a slightly louder humming. Her head snapped back to the pool table as it started to slide along the floor.

She got so happy that she dashed to the opening. She pulled up short when she could only see as far as the first couple of steps down. Even though she was scared to death of the consequences of being discovered, she had come too far to turn back. She slowly eased down the stairs, step by gingerly step.

Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest when the light suddenly flicked on when her foot hit the floor. She momentarily went blind from the sudden glare and stumbled back on the stairs. She arched her back from the pain of thudding her ass against the metal steps. She looked around wildly for a second or two and blinked at the three monitors stationed on the wall.

This sneaky bastard's been spying on everything.
She looked at the two chairs in front of the screens. A flurry of butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she thought about what the monitors might contain. Her curiosity got the better of her as she sat down and began fidgeting with the roll of buttons on the arm.

Mona let out an involuntary shriek when the screens came to life, showing the various rooms in the house. Using a trial by error method, she figured out how to rewind the middle monitor, stopping at the scene of her little act with Stacy. She sped the film up until she saw she and Don facing each other. She sat there stunned as Don stood up and pulled out his horse dick and slowly started grinding it into her waiting mouth. She was so mesmerized that she didn't even remember sliding her hands into
her pants. By the time that she got to the part where he was sliding all that dick to the edge of her pussy—doggy style and slowly, ever so slowly pushing it all into her trembling body—she was moaning through a nut.

Mona was actually reliving the feeling of all that monster male meat all the way up in her stomach. By the time the picture switched to Al and Don talking, she was sweating profusely. She pulled her sticky hand out of her pants. Her mouth flew wide open. She could not believe how much cum was all over her hand. She scooted back in the chair and looked down. The chair was glistening with her slippery juices. She grabbed the waist of her lacy panties and pulled them away from her sticky hairs. There was a puddle of woman cum saturating her crotch. She shivered at the sight of all that cum and the image of that horse dick sliding between her bouncy-ass cheeks.

She wiped her hand down her sweaty face, flinched at the odor of her heated pussy before she gathered her senses and looked at the clock above the monitors. Damn, she had been down there way too long. She had to get out of there before he came back. Looking down at the buttons, she couldn't figure out how to erase the film. Breathing heavily through her nose, she got up and got some tissue from the Kleenex box on the counter under the monitors, wiped the juices out of her crotch and then off of the chair.

She rewound the tape back to where she thought she had turned it on. She started back up the stairs knowing she had to get out of the house as soon as possible. There was no telling whether he had seen the scene. Or whether he'd it set up to witness her doing what she was doing.

She was halfway up the stairs when she looked back down and noticed a piece of paper laying beside the chair in which she'd been sitting. She didn't know if she had left it there. She hurried
back down to get it. It had CeeDee's name, address and phone number on it. She sprinted back up the stairs. Rushing over to the jukebox, she quickly pressed the button, pushed it back against the wall and sprinted up the next flight of stairs to pack her clothes. She stepped to the closet and bent down to pick up her suitcase and froze. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder into Al's smiling face as he stepped out of the bathroom. Her heart sank into her stomach.

Sparkle turned away from Rainbow in time to see Yolanda's head swerving back and forth. She had a look in her eyes that made him feel uncomfortable. He grabbed her by the elbow. “Damn, Yo, why you looking all fucked up? You act like you done seen a ghost or something.”

He looked over her shoulder and saw the tail end of a car pulling away from the curb as the door was closing behind her. His intuition told him that something was amiss. He couldn't put his finger on it though.

Yolanda, being the strong woman that she was, couldn't understand why Beverly was so afraid to see Sparkle.
Damn, my girl is really messed up about seeing dude,
she thought as she turned to face him. “Hey, man, a bitch can't be feeling all fucked up with woman problems or something?”

She wasn't about to tell him that it was Beverly who had sped off. She'd let her deal with their situation when she felt up to it. After all, that's what friends were for.

Sparkle frowned and hunched his shoulders.
Woman.
He turned to Rainbow. “Yo, dog, why we hanging around this hole for anyways? Things be popping against us from every which way. We
need to get out this bitch and find out who do all this fucked-up shit to you, to us.”

Rainbow turned his mouth down as he frowned in concentration for a few seconds. “Yeah, dog, you right, let's roll.”

They pushed past Yolanda without muttering a word.

She grunted, “Well, I'll be damned.”

Rainbow sneered over his shoulder on the way out the door. “Hell, you'll be whatever, bitch.” He slammed the door behind him, not giving her a chance to respond. They jumped in his car and sped down DeKalb Avenue. Things had to be answered. Some- body was gonna supply those answers.

Several hours later, they were leaving Princess's room at the Motel 6 when his cell phone buzzed at his side. Rainbow looked down at the blinking light and then at his boy. “Damn, man, that's Duke right there. I wonder what took him so long to call?”

“Hell, I don't know, man; whatcha gonna do, answer it or what?”

Rainbow debated for a moment and finally, he pressed the button.

“Yeah, big fella, what's up? When? Where? Well, we're heading that way now. Okay, see ya in a few then.” He hung up and stared out of the window.

Sparkle let him drive aimlessly for awhile before he spoke. “Okay, nigga, what he have to say?”

Rainbow didn't take his eyes off of the road as he continued to drive in silence. Finally, he pinched his nose. “Wants us to meet him at the Lounge, dog. For some fucked-up reason, he didn't want to talk about it over the phone. Shit don't sound too kosher to me; ya feel me, partner?”

Sparkle, knowing that they were in the middle of re-upping his crew, merely nodded. “So whatcha gonna do about Clara and Sissy?”

“Whatcha mean?” Rainbow replied, hunching his shoulders.

Sparkle ran his tongue across his lips. “I mean they just got robbed, my nigga. And beat up on top of that. You gonna leave them dealing in the same hole, partner?”

Stuck in his icy-chilled pimping role, he replied in a frosty tone, “Why the hell not? Them bitches are used to the rough shit that goes with this turf. Besides, that's where their customers come to score. Shit, partner, this ain't the first time some of my whores done got their asses kicked, know what I'm saying. Shit, that's why I allow them to stay in the clique. The hoes got heart, dog; the hoes got heart.”

Knowing his boy's coldhearted attitude toward hoes that had fallen into his love trap, Sparkle hunched his shoulders, laid his head back on the rest and remained silent for the rest of the ride.

Duke's ride was nowhere to be seen when they pulled into the club's parking lot. But they did see three girls raising holy hell in ‘B'‘s New Yorker. Sparkle leaned toward Rainbow's side of the car. “Man, who are those loud-ass hoes making all that racket in our boy's ride?”

Rainbow shook a cigarette out of the pack on the dashboard and lit it up before he answered through a haze of blue smoke and between long drags. “Bro, them bitches is Yolanda's sisters; your girl Violet's crazy-ass nieces.”

Sparkle leaned back in the seat and folded his arms across his chest. “Man, you mean you telling me that Violet's got some crazy-ass nieces to boot? Come to think of it, that little red one, the one that looks like that honey Dawn Robinson who sings with En Vogue, was with her that night I met her at Dee's the day I got out. Uh-huh, that saucy little thing has got one jazzy-ass mouth, dog.”

Rainbow tilted his head to the side. “Hmmphed, my nigga, all them hoes there has a jazzy-ass mouth. Shit must be deep in the
genes or something, especially that dark-skinned one. Man, oh man, that bitch Nita Bug, my nigga, that ho there's got the nastiest mouth I've ever heard on a bitch. And you know that I done known my share of bitches, partner.”

Sparkle turned his head back toward the arguing trio. “Damn, that ho must be really foul, for sure then.”

“She is dog, she certainly is.”

The girls walked away from the car and headed toward the club's entrance ahead of them, still raising holy hell.

As soon as they walked through the door, they spotted ‘B' in a conversation with Big Bertha, Junior, Laurie and Pinkie. The three sisters strode right up to his table still spitting some dumb female nonsense.

‘B' must've been into some serious kicking it because no sooner had they reached him, he gritted on them and slammed the beer mug on the table to get their attention. “What the fuck y'all hoes think this is? Bringing y'all asses to my table with all that clucking bullshit up in my ear like I need to hear that shit, for real.”

The two redbones shut up, but Nita Bug, true to her nature, had to speak. “Nigga, we…” That's all she got out before ‘B' dashed the mug of beer in her face, followed quickly by a backhand upside her head.

Nita Bug, the true warrior princess that she was, stumbled back a few feet, yelling, “Muthafucka, who the...” He cut her short when he stood up like he'd been shot out of a cannon and hit her with an elbow straight in the nose, grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her head first into the side of the stage.

“See there, bitch, always running your stanky mouth when you know that nigga there, stupid.”

Baybay, the older and thicker of the three, hollered at her baby sister in a much too gravelly voice for a girl. She was about to add
something a little nastier before Rainbow came up from behind and slapped her upside the head, grabbed her by the back of her neck and yelled in her ear, “Biatch, that goes for your stank ass, too; shut the fuck up.”

Baybay was not only the oldest; she was the most timid and got the message real quick, put on the chill and slunk over to a nearby table and sat down. She knew from past experience of being one of Rainbow's hoes that he would break her down real fast. She'd said enough. Nita Bug was definitely on her own as far as she was concerned.

Joyce, the cutest and smartest with the most sense and courage, went over to the stage to help Nita Bug up, who was dizzy and quiet as a church mouse. Warbling to her feet, she reached over the shoulder of one of the male patrons, picked up a napkin off the table and began dabbing at the blood pouring out of her nose.

Joyce grunted with the effort it took to lift and carry her groggy sister to the table with Baybay. When she was straightening up, she bumped into Sparkle's chin, causing him to bite his tongue.

He groaned and leaned back holding his mouth and mumbled, “Godayum, girl, shit, watch where the fuck you going, damnit.” He touched his tongue gingerly with the tip of his finger several times to make sure it wasn't bleeding.

Joyce, who had bent forward from the impact, spat angrily, “Damn, man, why the fuck you standing right behind me for?” He rubbed the back of her head vigorously. She turned around and gritted on him something terrible. Those brilliant green eyes of hers froze him to the spot.

Sparkle arched his brow and grimaced, but before he could think of something nasty to retort, he heard Duke's booming voice roaring from the entrance. “Whatz up, y'all? Big Duke's in the muthafucking house.”

He was smiling brightly as he twirled his huge hands wildly over his head. All three amigos could tell something was bothering him. By the time he reached the counter, his girl Cynt, hips swaying with rip the runway model swagger, came busting through the door clutching her ever-present gigantic purse. Damn thing was nearly bigger than her. She was a really cute little pixie who reminded most people of Jada Pinkett. Actually a lot of her friends called her “Little Jada” because of the resemblance and stature. She couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, with real bushy eyebrows and big dark brown eyes that looked even bigger behind a pair of round granny glasses that stayed perched midway down the bridge of her nose. What most people remembered most about her was her pouty red lips that always looked glossy and fit perfectly with her spunky attitude—one which made her the perfect little sparkplug to keep Big Duke grounded. And grounded was how she definitely kept his usually obnoxious ass.