Chapter 17

After getting no response from Carmelo, Zetta thought about him. She didn’t know what made her feel worse, teasing him earlier in her provocative bodysuit or deceiving him to come out to the game where he got kidnapped at gunpoint.

When she saw Carmelo talking to the skinny guy who had tried to talk to her, Zetta eased off her motorcycle. She couldn’t deny her attraction for Carmelo, even though she had told him they had a straight business relationship. Carmelo fit every quality she looked for in a man. He possessed a swagger befitting a man with sexy looks. Unlike most men, Carmelo didn’t even attempt to crack for the pussy, respecting her wishes. And he worked hard, trying to secure a bright future of financial comfort.

Zetta’s brother always taught her to have sex for financial gains, not for love, because she’d get hurt every time. Zetta believed Carmelo was the ideal man to share her body with for financial gain and love. All she had to do now was seduce him and get him under her spell.

As Zetta parked her motorcycle down on Delaware Avenue and N Street, she got off her bike and began heading for an apartment building around the James Creek Dwellings. While walking, Zetta thought about Poobie, a lover she was en route to meet. They had an arrangement that worked out well during the three years after losing her virginity to a cheating dog of a man who crushed her little heart. When Zetta needed maintenance on her coochie, Poobie had always come to her rescue. Zetta loved the way Poobie’s horse dick stretched her pussy out of whack. Poobie’s good sex game made her keep the weekly sexual therapy appointments, never missing her fix of Poobie’s good loving.

As soon as Zetta hit the projects in James Creek, she got bombarded by lustful stares from a group of thugs loitering on the block getting their grind on. Zetta counted eight males and one dyke female, but only one guy caught her attention. Zetta modeled the intricacies of a nasty strut as she sauntered pass them - something she learned by watching several fly-dressing gold diggers from her neighborhood who used to visit her house on her brother’s arm.

Zetta saw the dark-skinned guy she was attracted to with huge diamonds in both ears pass off the bottle of Remy he was drinking from and head in her direction. Zetta knew she had him caught in her web when he nearly choked on the drink to check out her jiggling ass while she walked towards the building. Zetta pretended to bend over and tie up her Nike Shock jogging shoes to give him a better view of the size of her ass. As she raised back up, Zetta caught him licking his lips as he approached her, holding his dick through his sweats. Zetta smiled politely at him when he grabbed her arm gently.        “What’s up, Shorty?” he greeted, biting on a plastic spoon. 

“Why you gotta put cho’ hands on me to talk to me?”

“I just couldn’t resist. I may never get to touch another angel again in this lifetime, so I just had to see if you were real.” He smiled.

“I hear you, smooth operator.” Zetta liked his come-on line, so she played easy to get and gave him her phone number. She figured if the bling-bling in his ears repped the money he was making on the streets, she couldn’t let him get away from her until she made a withdrawal from his bank account.

Zetta could smell his weed and alcohol-scented breath as he stepped closer to her. “Look, I’m tryna take you out tonight, what’s up?” 

“I don’t even know your name. How you gon’ take me out somewhere?”  

“Shit, you ain’t tell me yours, so that makes us even.”

“Check your phone, I put it in there along with my number…duh!” Zetta teased, sticking her tongue out at him.

“My name’s Sean Bullock. Everybody hip to me. So what’s up? Can I take you out or what?”

“I’m kinda busy tonight, boo-boo, but you can call me tomorrow so we can hook up.”

“Damn, Shorty, I might not be alive tomorrow. You know that shit ain’t promised.”

“Well, I suggest you pray real hard tonight then before you go to sleep so you can make it to see another day.” Zetta grinned and walked off, switching extra hard, heading inside the building, leaving him with a lustful gaze and his mouth hanging open.

Sean couldn’t take his eyes off all that ass walking away from him and he made a mental note to follow up on their meeting as soon as possible. He wanted to tap that ass and he didn’t care how long it took him. He would make that dream come true.

 

I steadied my trembling hands against the steering wheel, wanting to get control of my anger and fear so I wouldn’t lose it and kill this bitch-ass nigga for coming to fuck with me at my home. Some things you just don’t do, and I could see this son of a bitch didn’t care how disrespectful he was being to my way of living.

He waved the gun, beckoning me to shut down the engine and get out of the car. Even though I hesitated for a second, I obeyed out of force and shock. Obeying him caused my body to cringe. I still couldn’t believe he didn’t have anything better to do than to come to my house. I had to crush this nigga - no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

“You have a really nice home here, killer…real nice. I guess crime really does pay, huh?” he quipped, which I didn’t find funny at all.

“Long hours of working legally paid for that house, Detective,” I emphasized, leaning back on the Beamer.

I could tell that he didn’t take kindly to my response. His face contorted into a mask of rage. He even placed the gun against my chest before placing his cards on the table. “So you’s a smart guy, right?”

I didn’t understand where his anger came from, considering he held all the trump cards. He knew where I lived and had enough dirt on me to send me back to prison for life and then some. “Never, Detective. I’m just tryna live, that’s it, that’s all,” I replied calmly as I tried to ease the tension beginning to develop.

He laughed belligerently. “Don’t give me that bullshit! Motherfucker, you kill people for a living,” he said in a sly tone. “You have no regard for life, so why should I care about destroying yours?”

We both exchanged mean mugs while he waited on my response. I was becoming anxious because I had far more pressing business to attend to than going back and forth with this lame excuse of a dirty cop.

“’Cause I can pay you,” I stammered, feigning nervousness, all the while imagining that I had a .44 Bulldog aimed at his head and squeezing the trigger until his bitch ass bled.

He lowered the gun. “You’re going to pay me regardless. Here’s the deal, Mr. Glover. I want $20,000 a month from you, and in return, I’ll let you stay on the streets.”

“Don’t let that house fool you, Detective. I’m up to my ass in bills,” I lied, trying to get him to lower his extortion fee. Damn, he’s really trying to tax my ass, I thought as he laughed again.

“Tell you what. You do a little favor for me and I’ll consider lowering my initial price down to, let’s say, $15,000 a month, non-negotiable.”    

“How long do I have to pay you all that money to stay free?”

“Let me see…” He paused, looking up in the sky, placing the gun on his cheek like he was deep in thought. “Murder carries sixty years easy in D.C., right, so I’m going to let you off with a thirty year payment plan.”  

“What!” I snapped, unable to keep my cool any longer.

“Don’t have a baby on me, Killer,” he grinned. “All you have to do is carry out this little job that I need done and I’ll look at it as a favor, and I’ll reconsider my offer,” he said in a sly tone, causing me to wonder what he wanted me to do.

“Listen, if you want me to snitch on anybody or help you build a case on anybody, that’s a dead issue. You might as well slap the handcuffs on me right now,” I said, looking around my prestigious neighborhood, feeling hot around the collar. I wanted to try his bitch ass so bad and scream self-defense to the first officers on the scene, but I didn’t know if I could get the jump on him and take the gun before he got off a few shots. I decided not to risk it.

Detective Gamble shifted his eyes and pursed his lips. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just need you to do what you do best!”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this crooked bastard, a sworn peace officer who got paid to uphold the law, was asking me to commit murder.