seen the dirt roads and barns on the way up, but trust me when I tell you these pink mothafuckas holding,” said J-Bo.
“Bo, I need to get out the street, baby,” Gator said. He was pacing the floor, geeking like shit.
“Let me get that so I can get this nigga something before he paces a hole through the floor,” said J-Bo.
Wink nodded at Trey, then toward the bathroom. Willie and Krazy snickered and hit each other as Trey bull-walked for the bathroom.
“You two niggas is silly. What y’all laughing at?” asked J-Bo, pulling back a wide grin.
“You got them two niggas stuffed like a turkey.” Krazy laughed.
“You’ll get your turn,” said J-Bo.
Willie and Krazy’s smiles disappeared at the thought of having to suitcase some dope. A few minutes later, Trey and Wink came walking out the bathroom with their packages.
“That shit on one thousand,” Willie said of the smell coming from the two shitty packages.
J-Bo took a deep breath, then said, “Ahh... that’s the smell of money.” He strapped on some latex gloves and took the packages from Trey and Wink.
“Gator, why don’t you take them to get something to eat while I put this together,” said J-Bo from the small makeshift kitchen where he stood, unwrapping the coke.
“Y’all heard him. Let’s go,” ordered Gator. He was getting agitated because he hadn’t had a hit all day.
Wink was standing over J-Bo’s shoulder at the stove, watching him like a hawk as he emptied the coke into a Pyrex jar. J-Bo turned around and saw Wink and stopped what he was doing.
“Why don’t you go with them to grab something to eat?” he said.
“Nah, I want to watch you,” said Wink.
J-Bo smiled, then wrapped his arm around Wink’s neck, all the while leading him out of the kitchen. “This game cost me ten grand to learn. When you get ten grand, come holla at me and I’ll show you all you need to know.”
J-Bo opened the door and patted Wink on his back. “But I tell you what. Grab a couple boxes of baggies, and when you get back, I’ll let you help me bag up.”
Wink was thirsty for any game J-Bo was willing to sprinkle him with. His brief disappointment was replaced by a huge Kool-Aid smile. He turned to hurry up and catch Gator before he pulled off.
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