The city was fienin’ for a huge event, and the town’s internationally bestselling author, Nikki Turner, blessed the city of Richmond with a series of activities celebrating the launch of her latest masterpiece, Forever a Hustler’s Wife. She wanted to raise money for the G-Unity charity, so she played off the theme of her street life books and decided to have a “diamonds and furs” party to raise money to help increase literacy and advertise her new book at the same time. It was promoted as a Baller’s Ball, challenging rappers, ballplayers, shot callers, bosses and all the Robin Hoods of the hoods to show up, floss and ball out of control for a good cause. The author made sure there were a limited amount of tickets available, which created an even bigger buzz for the event. People always wanted what they couldn’t have.
The crowd came in sellout numbers. Lloyd Banks from G-Unit was one of the MCs. Olivia from G-Unit hosted along with radio personalities Mahogany Brown and Wendy Williams. They each claimed a spot on the red carpet and interviewed the celebrity guests as they arrived. Although many limelight celebrities came out and showed love and unity for the author and her cause, her hometown big hats, fans and ghetto celebrities didn’t disappoint.
Trill and his boys did it up real big in the gear department for Ms. Turner. Trill was wearing a simple, well-tailored black suit that complemented his sexy frame. While his suit may have been simple, there was nothing ordinary about the full-length chinchilla that he sported. The coat made the one he shed while running from the police look like child’s play. He was carrying a black marble cane with his name embedded in diamonds down the side.
His crew held it down as well. None of them came half-ass. Trill’s cousin Noc-Noc, who had come from Detroit about a year ago when Trill needed a thoroughbred player on his team, was used to sporting different animal skins to keep warm. So getting dressed for this event came natural to him: He wore a three-piece chocolate-brown suit with the mink jacket and hat to match. Though Trill and Mont had been down since the sandbox, blood was always thicker than mud any day. Noc-Noc believed that family was all he had, and his mother and three little sisters were what he went all out for by any means necessary. He knew if he didn’t get paid, they didn’t eat, so him being in Richmond for his cousin was a lot of hard work and hardly any play.
Mont believed that his light, reddish complexion, curly hair and hazel eyes were God’s gift to women. So he decided to keep it basic; he sported a black leather suit with a full-length Alan Fur to match.
Trill’s other boy, Seven, had on a tight-fitting shirt to show off his penitentiary build. It made the females approach him and ask if he was a personal trainer. He carried his fur in his hand. His iced-out necklace complimented by Austrian crystal frames had plenty eyes on him. They all were playing their position. Not only were they out flossing, wanting to be seen, but in their camp, it was always work first and play later. Trill’s first priority for his crew was to case the place to find out what potential victims were worth their time. That was why the only person in the crew in costume working was Jon-Jon.
Jon-Jon had been Trill’s cellmate for three of the five-year stretch Trill had done. He was clean-cut, brown-skinned and slim, standing six feet tall and sporting a bow tie. Jon-Jon wasn’t a killer, but he was a genius when it came to computers, security codes and any other technical task that required computer savvy. He hated blood, but he loved money, and that was what he and Trill had in common.
A few days before Trill was released from jail, Jon-Jon made a pact with him.
“Look, Trill, this is the deal,” Jon-Jon said from the top bunk as he stared at the ceiling. “I ain’t coming back here, but I don’t want to be broke, either.”
“No shit,” Trill agreed from the bottom bunk.
“You got the heart to kill for what you want and the know-how to execute the plan. I got the heart to rape a computer and the brains to get away with it before anyone ever figures out that sucker is bleeding from all the info I’ve stolen.”
“What you trying to say?”
“Well,” Jon-Jon said and jumped down from his bunk, “if you do what you do best and I do what I do best, together our potential is damn near unstoppable.”
Jon-Jon extended his hand to Trill. They shook, and they’d been working together ever since.
On this particular evening, Jon-Jon was posing as a photographer from an overseas magazine that had a catchy name, but no one had really heard of it. Nonetheless, they were much obliged to have him there for some international press. Jon-Jon was slick with his game. Bruce Willis in The Jackal didn’t have shit on him
As soon as Trill and his crew stepped off the red carpet, they were greeted by a fine Asian chick, gracefully extending a sterling silver tray with champagne-filled glasses surrounding a bottle of Dom. They each helped themselves to a glass, Noc-Noc helping himself to the entire bottle. Trill then placed two bills on the tray and shooed the girl off.
Trill looked around for Sunni as he mingled a bit and then made his way into the party to their reserved booth.
Soon after Trill arrived, the only person who did it bigger on the red carpet than Trill and his crew showed up on the red carpet. Diego arrived in a four-door Maserati, sporting a flamboyant sky-blue suit that was the same color as the foreign car. And just to be certain that he wasn’t half doing it, but whole thangin’ it, on his pinky he wore an eight-carat, custom-made blue diamond ring. He sported a pair of exotic-looking petite twins whom he’d flown in from Miami just for this event. They were holding on to his arms like he was a clutch bag, and both beautiful women wore blue contacts to match their blue diamond necklaces. Diego had another girl close on his heels who was wearing a blue fox jacket and pulling a Louis Vuitton roller suitcase.
“What’s in the roller?” Mahogany Brown asked Diego.
“It’s for da kids,” he said in his Cuban accent. “We’re here to support d’kids. It’s a charity and we intend to spend lotta money for d’kids.”
Diego was born to a black father and a Cuban mother. His ties to the Cuban Mafia were bound by his mother’s blood. He possessed no love for nothing, besides his own bloodline. By the time he was sixteen, he had his hands all over South Florida’s drug trade, and by the time he was twenty years old, he had three more states under his belt. Hearing the rumors of all the money that there was to be made in Virginia, Diego put his foot in the door and had a great thing going on. It was something about Richmond that made him get the urge to not only work hard, but to play hard as well—not all the time, but he would on occasion let his hair down, unbutton his collar and just shit on niggas, and this just happened to be one of those times. This was an event that he definitely pulled out all his toys for and amused not only the town and his workers, but himself, too.
As Diego entered the party, Trill studied everyone that Diego gave dap to and watched closely who ordered how many bottles. Trill’s comrades knew what had Trill’s attention.
“Look at dat nigga,” Seven said as they observed Diego making his way down the red carpet. “Best believe that’s a mark that we can probably retire off.”
“Sheeit, man, the streets are talking and if you believe what the streets say, that nigga is supplying over sixty percent of the city and got his hands in three different states.”
“All money ain’t good money,” Mont said and looked at Seven then at Trill.
“Man, if I ain’t learned nothing from watching The Godfather, a million times I learned one thing, and that’s anybody can be hit,” Noc-Noc interjected.
Trill digested the comments from each of his comrades and drained the last of his drink before he spoke.
“There’s a time and a place for everything.” Trill smiled.
Diego spent quite a great deal of time with one particular set of guys. It didn’t take Trill long to figure out that some were local and the others were out-of-towners. Trill continued to observe them until he saw a local chick approach one of the fellas. In a moment a lover’s quarrel erupted. Trill silently stood by and watched as the girl got madder and madder. That’s when he tapped Mont on the shoulder and motioned to him to keep his eyes and ears on the situation as it unfolded.
Mont inconspicuously cruised until he was within earshot and could hear everything that was going down between the couple.
“Lee, I’m sick of this shit!” the girl yelled, her long black ponytail swinging from left to right with every snap of her neck. “I was the first person you met when you came down here and I’ve held you down ever since. All yo’ shit is in my fucking name. I sacrificed e’rything for you, and every time I turn around, some no-good bitch is in your face.”
“Damn, Tiffany. Don’t come up in here and start with that same ole shit,” Lee said, putting his hand up in ol’ girl’s face as if she wasn’t shit. “Save it,” he said, and then took a sip of his drink, pointing out his pinky finger as if he was sipping tea.
“Muthafucka.” Tiffany pushed his hand from in front of her face. “This is how you gon’ try to play me in front of them bitches? You gon’ spare their feelings when I’m the one that’s always there for you? You know these washed-out hos don’t mean you no good.”
“And you do? You mean me some good by nagging the fuck out of me?” He dug down in his pocket and pulled out a two-inch stack of money. He handed her a couple of hundred-dollar bills and then looked over her shoulder. “Take this. Who you here with? Go buy you and your girls something to drink, something to put in your goddamn mouth, that way you won’t have to come up over here runnin’ it.”
“Leeee!” she cried out in shock, unable to believe he was actually talking to her like she was a nobody. “What’s this about? Your boys?” She looked around, knowing that Lee was trying to front off the embarrassment of his girl getting in his ass around his boys.
“Go ’head now,” he said, giving her another bill. “And that’s it. Take that, and bounce. I ain’t trying to have no bitch on my back constantly bothering me about another bitch.” He pushed Tiffany out of the way. “See ya when I see ya.” He then walked away.
Tiffany stood there looking like she was ready to cry. She tried hard to conceal the tears in her eyes but she couldn’t keep them from filling up. Trill could see the hurt and the pain, and his gut told him she was ripe to be exploited
He motioned with his head for Mont. Mont then made his way back over to Trill.
“Yo, what’s up?” Mont asked Trill.
“Go ahead and handle your business,” Trill said to Mont as he nodded toward Tiffany. Just then he noticed someone he recognized heading across the room.
“I got her,” Mont said, looking at Trill with a cocky expression.
“Make moves then,” Trill said as he took a final sip from the glass of champagne he was holding and made his way through the crowd to the room where the book signing was going on, the same room where the familiar face faded off to.
Sunni cut the line to get her book signed. She was looking good in her mink miniskirt and a matching fitted mink jacket. Trill couldn’t recall all that cleavage she was flashin’. The wonders a Wonder Bra could work.
“Yo, what’s up, Sunshine?” Trill asked, creepin’ up from behind.
She didn’t recognize the voice, but when she turned around, she saw a pair of eyes she’d never forget. “This long line that hasn’t moved in the past ten minutes, that’s all,” she tried to sound nonchalant.
“You ain’t been standing in it.” He smiled. “I just saw you cut the line.”
“That’s because I had to sit down. They ran out of books because some Cuban motherfucker gon’ pay for like ten cases of books so that he could donate them to the charity. He went so far as to get some goons to take the books now like he gon’ donate them tonight. We’ve been waiting for them to bring some more books in.”
“You bullshitting?”
Trill had completely ignored Cher, Sunni’s best friend, who was standing in line with her, until she added her two cents. “That nigga, Diego, is really getting money,” Cher said. “I don’t know what that nigga’s story is. That motherfucker rolled up in here in a blue Maserati with three bitches and done bought up everything.”
“Don’t get any ideas, Cher,” Sunni warned her friend. “He’s either the Feds or the Feds is on his trail. In this town with a blue Maserati, you can best believe it’s one or the other.”
Trill laughed at the irony. “Sunni and Cher? That’s funny! You kidding me, right?”
“Nope, that’s exactly how we became best friends. The white Sonny and Cher was together for years so we decided so would we,” Sunni said defensively.
“So, what about Trill and Sunni?” Trill asked.
“What about it?” She threw the question back at him.
Trill cut to the chase. “When can I see you again?”
“With all due respect, we fulfilled each other’s needs.” She looked into his eyes. “No further obligations are needed. And before I forget, I’m going to need you to return my merchandise to me at your earliest convenience.”
For a few seconds, Trill was at a loss for words. Rejection wasn’t something that he was used to.
“So, it’s like that?” he replied.
Without hesitation she assured him, “Straight like that.” She answered without a second thought.
“I’m peace wit that right now.” And he walked away like he’d just won a prize.
He turned and peeped in the other room. Leaving his embarrassment in the book-signing room, he focused in on Mont giving Tiffany a hug, and he knew that Mont had the info they needed.
A scorned heart always needs an ear to listen, Trill thought, displaying a smile as he walked away from Sunni. His work was damn near finished; he just had to make his charitable donations and arrange to get some books and then head to the lab to conjure up his next get-rich-quick scheme.