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.
Chapter Seven
Five minutes after Gator and J-Bo left, Jason pulled up in his beat-up Ford pickup. He climbed out the truck exactly how J-Bo pegged him—dingy-ass mothafucka with a long, white dirty beard. Jason tapped on the door with his keys a few times. Trey and Krazy both looked at each other like, It’s on, but still, neither really wanted to budge from their spots on the sofa. They were kicked back, watching a special on the Greek mafia.
“Why don’t you get it, my nigga? I’ll get the next one,” said Trey.
Krazy reluctantly popped up and walked over to the door. “Who is it?” he yelled.
“Um, Jason.”
Krazy undid the chain, then the locks. He cracked the door, peeking out at the old white man.
“J-Bo sent me.”
“A’ight,” Krazy said as he backed away, allowing Jason to enter the room.
“How’s it going?” Jason asked, sounding country and friendly as hell. He rocked back on his heels while fiddling with a roll of money in his hands.
“We chillin’. What can we do for you?” asked Trey.
“Whatever you can for five hundred.” Jason unfolded the dirty bills and handed them to Trey.
Trey’s eyes bucked at the sight of all that money—and off of just one sale! “I’ll be right back,” he said, then shot to the bathroom. He climbed up on the toilet and pushed the ceiling aside.
“What he want?” asked Wink. He was already on point.
“Five hundred. Here.” Trey passed Wink the bills and waited for the order.
A few seconds later, Wink passed the five little rocks down and said, “Y’all niggas stay on point.”
“A’ight.” Trey closed up the ceiling, then rushed back into the front room. He handed the work to Jason and awaited his approval.
Jason didn’t even look at the rocks. He already knew J-Bo kept some good stuff, so he just stuffed them inside his old, stained, no-name jeans pocket and turned for the door.
“Like I said, my name’s Jason. I’ve been knowing J-Bo for a long time. If y’all need me to make a food run or something, just give me a holla. It’s not a problem.”
“A’ight, that’s a bet,” Trey said, walking Jason out to the parking lot.
“See y’all in a bit.” Jason climbed in his truck and handed the young blonde riding shotgun one of the rocks. Trey watched as the woman packed her pipe and set fire to it. Jason backed away.
Before the night was out, Jason had made at least thirty runs, and each time, he was spending no less than five hundred dollars. Word had gotten out that J-Bo’s good crack was back in town, and that was all the reason for every redneck in a twenty-mile radius to hit up the bank and make a withdrawal. As they made withdrawals, Wink was making wire transfers through MoneyGram.
Sleep was impossible for all of them. They tried working in shifts, one sleeping while the other served, but it was just too much traffic, to the point where they were all scared to close their eyes. Money was changing hands too fast, and none of them were used to seeing that much money in their life.
Willie would be standing in front of the bed, counting and recounting the money, pretending it was all his. “What we gon’ buy once we start gettin’ our own money like this?” he asked.
“Shit, the first thing I’ma buy is some game. I want to learn everything, so we can have niggas sittin’ in a motel somewhere. Feel me?” asked Wink.
Willie hadn’t thought that far ahead, but he nodded as he daydreamed and envisioned everything Wink had said. “Yeah, I feel you, my nigga.”
“I was thinking, too. When we do get straight, maybe we can shoot down to Mississippi and set up shop. I know they probably paying just as much as these crackers since it’s the South. You know y’all niggas slow as shit down there,” Wink teased.
“Fuck you.” Willie laughed. “I’ll see what’s up,” he said. Willie was originally from Mississippi, but he moved to Detroit when he was ten to live with his moms. But every once in a while, he would go back down south to visit his grams.
“Yeah, right now we just stackin’ and learning. Pretty soon we gon’ have all this shit, and some,” Wink confidently said as he waved his hand at the crack and money sprawled out across the bed.
Downstairs, Trey and Krazy were making short-term plans on how they were going to run a train on the white chick Jason kept pulling up with. The only problem was she never got out the truck.
“Let