Читать книгу The Good Life - Dorian Sykes - Страница 12

Chapter Six

When Wink got back to the motel, J-Bo was waiting on him in the kitchen.

“Come on. Time is money,” shot J-Bo.

Wink rushed over to the counter, setting the two boxes of baggies down. He waited like an eager third grader preparing for a science project.

“A’ight, here’s what we’re doing. You listening?”

“Yeah.”

“A’ight. We got two scales here. I want you to weigh out exactly .50 grams, a half of gram. Not a pinch more or less. Use this razor blade to cut it. Once you get .50, put ’em into a baggie and tie ’em in a knot.”

“That’s it?” asked Wink.

“That’s it,” said J-Bo. He cut a chunk out of the crack cookie and showed Wink an example.

“Once you bag it up and put it back on the scale, it’s gon’ weigh a little more. We could use the weight of the bag to get over, but these crackers is paying so good, ain’t no sense in beatin’ ’em over the head anymore.”

Gator promptly got his boulder from J-Bo, then disappeared into the bathroom. Trey, Willie, and Krazy were all in the front room, smashing their White Castle burgers. Wink was the only one focused on learning.

The shit was easy. Just cut and weigh. A first grader could do the shit, thought Wink.

Every so often, J-Bo would put one of Wink’s rocks on the scale. He nodded and said, “You got it.”

Now all Wink had to do was learn how to cook. Ten thousand was a lot of money, though, to be learning how to cook crack, he thought.

“How much one of these go for out here?” Wink asked, holding one of the packaged rocks.

“A hun’d dollars,” said J-Bo.

“For this? This is like, what? Two, three at the most dimes back in Detroit.”

“Yeah, but we ain’t in Detroit. You’ll see there’s a big difference in outta town hustlin’. It’s spots like this that’ll put a nigga on his feet.”

Wink looked at all the rocks before him and the chunks of crack yet to be weighed. That was a whole lot of hundreds.

“How long it’s gon’ take us to move this?”

“No more than a week. It’s gon’ move itself.”

Everything was on a need-to-know basis with J-Bo. He never just gave you his whole plan. He’d give it to you in pieces once you got to that point.

“Here’s the deal,” he said, stepping in front of the TV.

Wink, Krazy, Trey, and Willie all sat up at attention for J-Bo.

“Y’all gon’ be out here for a week. I already got everything set up. All y’all gotta do is sell the work. My man Jason is gon’ be runnin’ all the clientele through. He’s in a red pickup truck. You’ll know him when you see him. He’s an old white dude with a long, dirty white beard. Each one of these is a hun’d dollars, not a dollar less,” J-Bo said, holding up one of the rocks.

“So, we ’pose to just sit in here for a whole week?” asked Trey.

“Yeah. But I got another room right on top of this one. That’s where the money and all the work will be kept. Come on and follow me.” J-Bo led them into the small bathroom. He stood on the toilet seat with his hands reached up to the ceiling.

“Y’all see this?” he asked as he pushed up one of the drop ceiling boards. There was a large enough hole in the floor upstairs for a hand to fit through.

“Wink, you’ll be upstairs with all the work. You and whoever else you pick. It’ll be two of y’all down here. When a custo comes through, bring the money back here and send it upstairs. In exchange, Wink gon’ pass down the order. Make sure y’all close the door, though. We don’t want nobody knowing where we keeping everything at,” said J-Bo. He closed the ceiling and jumped down from the toilet.

They all walked back into the living room, where J-Bo continued to run down the operation. “It’s real easy. Everybody stick to the script, and in seven days, we’ll be back home breaking bread,” he said. This, of course, brought smiles to all their faces.

Willie’s funny-lookin’ ass was rubbing his fat, greedy fingers together. “How much we gon’ get?” he asked, his beady little black eyes peering over at J-Bo.

“Ten grand, minus what was lost the other day,” said J-Bo. He could see dollar signs light up in Willie’s and Krazy’s eyes.

Trey wasn’t impressed. He was only doing it because Wink kept pressing the issue. Soon as they had enough of their own money, he was cutting J-Bo off. Trey wasn’t even sure if he really like J-Bo neither. Something just wasn’t right about him.

“Have you decided who you want upstairs with you, Wink?” asked J-Bo.

Wink looked at his crew. His first thought was to pick Trey because that was his best friend, but he looked at Willie and Krazy and knew it’d be a disaster if he left them two together.

“Yeah, I’ma take Willie. Trey, you and Krazy post up down here,” said Wink.

J-Bo nodded his approval. He put his arm around Wink’s neck and they excused themselves from the room.

“Help me carry this stuff up,” J-Bo said as he grabbed up one of the grocery bags full of rocks. “I’ma clean up on this residue before I leave.”

“Leave? Where you gon’ be at?” Wink asked as he followed behind J-Bo with both hands full of grocery bags.

“I’ma be in the city. As long as y’all stick to the script, everything is gon’ be straight.”

The thought of J-Bo leaving them out of town had Wink a little nervous, but he wouldn’t show it. He had to show J-Bo that he could handle it and that the last fuckup was a fluke.

The room upstairs was identical to the one below. In the living room sat a small table, sofa, two stiff wooden chairs, twenty-inch Zenith television, and a queen-size bed. Wink made mental notes of all this as J-Bo led him through the room back into the bathroom.

“Com’ere, I want to show you something.” J-Bo pushed open the bathroom door and walked over to the window. Tied around the base of the toilet was a rope.

“You see that rope?” J-Bo nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Well, just in case the police hit the downstairs room, I want you to pack everything up and use that rope to climb down. Look, there’s an alley right through there.” J-Bo moved to the side so Wink could see. “There’s a Denny’s about a square mile down. If something happens, just call me from the Denny’s and I’ll have you scooped up.”

“A’ight.” Wink’s lips said one thing, but his mind was filled with all kinds of scary questions. He hadn’t planned on no raid popping off. He’d seen them in action almost every week growing up, watching niggas on his block book down the street with police on their heels. It was funny to watch, but the thought of it being him made his stomach turn.

“One more thing.” J-Bo stopped in the living room and dug in his pocket. He handed Wink a business card with some woman’s name and address on it.

“There’s a MoneyGram inside the motel lobby. Every three thousand that you make, I want you to wire the money to that name A.S.A.P. And don’t worry. The little redhead working at the desk knows the business.

Wink stared down at the card. “I got it.” He tucked the card into the pimp pocket of his Guess jeans, and then followed J-Bo to the front door.

“One week and you’ll be home countin’ ten grand,” said J-Bo as he stopped on the balcony just outside the room.

Wink pulled back a smile, and for a second, the butterflies disappeared. He couldn’t believe that he was actually out of town on a mission with J-Bo, not to mention J-Bo leaving him in charge.

“One week,” J-Bo said again, then walked down the two flights of stairs.

Wink watched as Gator backed away from the motel with J-Bo riding in the back seat. The van turned into a speck on the dirt road, then disappeared into the horizon. He stepped back inside the room and closed the door, leaning against it.

Suddenly, the butterflies were back as Wink looked at all the crack sitting out on the bed. “One week,” he told himself, then pushed off the door and over to the phone. He flopped down on the bed and called downstairs. Trey answered the phone.

“Y’all ready to get this money?” asked Wink.