Birthright, p.14
Birthright, page 14
“Yeah, Rah. I got you. I’m in the middle of something right now, but you can come by the crib later and I got you.”
“That’s cool. I’m out in Queens, so it’s gonna take me a minute to get there.”
“I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.” Cairo ended the call. He glanced over at Butch as he drove. “I’ma fuck Rah-Rah’s muthafuckin’ ass tonight.”
“Soon as we take care of this business, you can fuck the shit outta her,” Butch said and pulled over in front of an abandoned gas station. There were two cars parked outside.
“I thought you told Morgan to come alone,” Cairo said.
“I thought that too. Some niggas just don’t listen.”
Butch and Cairo checked their weapons before they got out of the car and approached the building. As they got closer, the garage door opened.
“Come on in,” Kurtis, Morgan’s right-hand man, said as he waved them in.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” Cairo said as they went inside and Kurtis closed the garage door. Inside, another man was leaning against a car.
“Where’s Morgan?” Butch asked, looking around.
“Morgan?” Kurtis chuckled. “He ain’t here.”
“Where’s he at?” Butch asked.
“There’s been a change in plans,” Kurtis said.
“Gun!” Cairo yelled when he saw a third man with a gun in the shadows. The man began shooting as Cairo and Butch ran for cover.
Butch hit the floor and fired at Kurtis. He shot him in the back as he turned to run for cover. Cairo hit the one by the car with two shots to the chest. The third man stuck his head out and began firing. Cairo and Butch returned fire. He came running out, fired a couple of shots at them, and ran. Cairo reloaded his weapon and was about to go after him, but he didn’t see that another man had come out the door and prepared to fire.
“Behind you, Cairo!” Butch yelled and took aim.
Cairo turned in time to see Butch drop him with a shot to the head before he went after the one that got away. That man ran out the back door, firing shots the entire way, then reloading his weapon on the run. He fired a few shots at Cairo and Butch, who were coming fast and firing at him. When he turned to fire, Cairo and Butch lit him up.
They walked over and stood over the body. Each shot him once more before they went back to the garage to look for the money that Morgan had told them to come pick up. They didn’t find any money, but they did find Morgan. He was dead, shot execution style: on his knees, hands tied behind his back, and shot in the back of the head.
“Damn. That’s fucked up,” Butch said.
“Fucked up for him.”
“Fucked up ain’t no money here,” Butch said, and they left to the sound of police sirens in the distance.
“What’s up, Cairo?” Rah-Rah answered.
“I’m on my way home. Come on through.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Rah-Rah said, ending the call and driving faster.
When Cairo and Butch arrived at their apartment, Butch said that he was tired and went to bed. Cairo straightened up the apartment a little before Rah-Rah got there. It was after two in the morning when Rah-Rah rang the bell.
“Sup, Rah,” Cairo said when he opened the door.
“Hey, Cairo.”
“Come in and make yourself comfortable,” he said, stepping aside to allow Rah-Rah to come in. She came sauntering in. “You look nice.”
“Thank you,” she said and swung her hips a little harder for Cairo.
She was wearing the same black Cinq à Sept Giles Twill cargo jogger that she’d had on for the last two days, and she hadn’t bathed. But Cairo didn’t seem to care because Rah-Rah was fine, and he wanted to fuck her. He had wanted to for a long time, and now she was in his apartment.
“So, what can you do for me?” Rah-Rah asked, kicking out of her shoes and tossing her purse on the couch. She followed Cairo into the kitchen, where he handed her a small bag of rock.
“You learn how to cook yet?”
“No,” she said, going back to the couch to get her purse.
“You get started on that,” Cairo said and prepared to cook some cocaine for Rah-Rah to smoke.
Rah-Rah took the pipe and a lighter from her purse and returned to the kitchen. She sat down at the table, put a rock in the bowl, and lit up.
“Here you go,” Cairo said, setting a plate with rocks on the table in front of Rah-Rah. Once she let the pipe cool, she put a big piece in the bowl.
“You not smoking?” she asked.
“Nope. But you go ahead and enjoy yourself,” he said and went into the living room.
Cairo picked up his gaming remote to play Doom Eternal, one of the hottest games out. He assumed the role of Doom Slayer to protect the Earth and went into battle against the demon spawn.
The sun was just about to break the morning sky when Rah-Rah put the pipe down. She got up from the table and went into the living room. Cairo was gone. She went to the bedroom and looked in. When she saw Butch sleeping, she closed the door and went to the next room.
Cairo was in bed asleep when Rah-Rah came into his room. “Cairo,” she called to him, but he didn’t move.
Rah-Rah walked over to the bed, pulled back the covers, and saw that Cairo was sleeping naked. She pulled the cover back a little farther. “And you got a fat, juicy dick too.”
She lay down on the bed next to Cairo and shook him. “Cairo.”
“What’s up?”
“You got any more?”
He opened one eye and looked at Rah-Rah, who was lying on the bed, leaning on her elbow with her breasts spilling out of her jogger top.
“Take off your clothes.”
When he saw that Rah-Rah had gotten up and was taking off her clothes, Cairo sat up and pulled back the covers. He started stroking his dick while Rah-Rah got undressed.
“You are sexy as hell. I’ve been wanting to get with you since the first time I saw you.”
“I’ve been checking you out for a minute, too.” Rah-Rah crawled up on the bed and quickly took Cairo’s dick to the back of her throat.
Rah-Rah teased his head with her tongue, and then she slowly worked her way down his shaft. She slid her soft, wet lips and tongue up and down his length, and then she relaxed the muscles in her throat and used the roof of her mouth to apply a little pressure on his shaft.
“Damn, Rah-Rah!”
She straddled his body and lowered herself onto him. Rah-Rah rode him slowly at first, and then she began to move her hips back and forth.
When Butch woke up, he sat up in bed and stretched. After a good yawn, he got out of bed, thinking that his shoulder felt better. He was glad he had gotten some rest, but he was hungry, and there was never any food in the apartment. Butch got dressed and came out of his room. He knocked on Cairo’s door.
“What?” Cairo shouted as he arched his back and began pumping his dick into Rah-Rah as deep and as hard as he could.
“I’m going to get something to eat. You want something?”
“Yeah! Bring two of whatever you get yourself!” he shouted as Rah-Rah put her hands on his legs, her feet on the bed, and she bounced up and down on him.
“You got company?”
“Yeah!”
“Rah-Rah still here?”
“Yeah!”
“Hey, Rah-Rah,” Butch said and peeped into the room to watch. “I’ll be back,” he said and closed the door.
When Butch came back, Cairo was back in the living room, back on the couch, playing Doom Eternal. Butch handed him his food.
“Rah-Rah still here?”
“She’s in the room.”
Butch got the food that he brought for her and went toward Cairo’s room.
“Don’t fuck her in my bed!” Cairo shouted as Butch went in.
A few minutes later, Cairo’s bedroom door opened. Butch came rushing out, leading a naked Rah-Rah to his room and slamming the door.
Cairo smiled. “Yeah, we’re keeping her.”
Chapter Twenty-six
After visiting eleven ports of call aboard the Norwegian Prima, Duncan Garraway returned to New York from the fifteen-day Caribbean cruise he took with his new girlfriend, Capria Reynolds. She was thirty years younger than him, and they admittedly had little in common due to the age difference. However, they thoroughly enjoyed one another’s company, and these last fifteen days confirmed what he had been thinking.
Garraway had never been married, never had found the so-called one. He’d had six children by six different women. Garraway was a good absentee father, as absentee fathers go. He took care of his children, and their mothers never wanted for anything. He got along with all of them, but relationships were never his thing.
It was different with Capria. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but he was enjoying being with her more than he had any woman in the past. He thought that he might grow tired of her, having to spend fifteen days together, but he didn’t. The time was wonderful, but now it was time to get back to business.
He glanced over at her, sitting next to him in the limousine, before taking out his phone and turning it on. It began ringing right away.
“And so it begins,” Capria said, patting his hand.
“Hello.”
“Good. You answered,” Marques Jorell, Garraway’s right-hand man and adviser, said.
“I just turned on the phone, and here you are.”
“You on your way here?”
“I am. In the limo.”
“Good. I’ll see you when you get here. We got … issues.”
Garraway chuckled. “Issues? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Would you rather I said we got a lotta shit going on we gotta deal with?”
“No. I’d much rather hear everything was quiet and peaceful while you were gone, Dee. You could have gone on another cruise.”
Marques laughed. “I wish I could see some shit like that, but I can’t. So, I’ll see you when you get here.”
Garraway ended the call and looked at Capria. “Do you remember when we were in Willemstad, Curaçao, at Kenepa Beach, and you were saying how beautiful it was there?”
“And you said we should never leave. But we got back on the boat anyway. I remember.” She squeezed his hand.
“Keep that thought in mind.”
“Is it too soon to start planning our next trip?”
“It certainly isn’t. You wanna take another cruise?”
“I don’t know—maybe.”
“If we did, I wanna take a European cruise.”
“That might be cool. Start making it happen.”
“Really?” Capria questioned excitedly.
“Yeah, why not?” Garraway leaned over and kissed Capria on the cheek.
He had reached a point in his life where he had everything he ever wanted or needed, and the game no longer posed a challenge as it had in his youth. Enjoying life and all it had to offer had become more important lately. Garraway looked at Capria and once again thought about walking away from it all.
Maybe it’s time, Garraway thought as they made the drive to Cecilia Drive in Syosset.
The limousine pulled into the driveway in front of the five-bedroom house that had a fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, a beautiful gourmet chef’s kitchen, and a home theatre room. One of the five bedrooms had been converted into a game room and home gym. The property also had a heated in-ground pool.
The driver got out. “Too late to turn back now,” Garraway said.
“No, it’s not. We can go right back to the port and get on whatever cruise is leaving next.”
“That’s a thought.” The driver opened the door. “Let me see what issues Marques has for me, and then we’ll see.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Capria said as Garraway got out of the limousine. He extended his hand for Capria, and she got out.
“I’m serious. Unless Marques tells me we’re at war or something like that, you and I are going on another cruise,” Garraway said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. Then he walked hand in hand with Capria into the house.
Marques Jorell was standing in the foyer when they came through the door.
“Hi, Marques,” Capria said.
“Couldn’t even let us get in the house good?” Garraway said.
“Hello, Capria.”
She gave him a polite, sisterly kind of hug.
“How was your trip?”
“We had an amazing time. Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, was beautiful, and I really liked Oranjestad, Aruba.” She started up the stairs. “I’ll show you the pictures if you wanna see them.”
“Can’t wait,” he said, watching Capria until she was out of sight.
“Really? You can’t wait to see our vacation pictures?” Garraway said.
“Gonna be the highlight of my day,” Jorell said and followed Garraway into the game room where he liked to do business.
“So, what’s going on that got you meeting me at the door?”
“We have a problem, and her name is Nikki Marx.”
The mention of the name brought back memories of his friend Eddie. “Nikki? How is Nikki Marx a problem?”
“She’s been going hard at Tyrone Wilkes for a week now.”
“What’s that about?”
“Somebody killed J.R.”
“J.R. is dead?”
Garraway knew that Naomi must be taking it badly. Garraway thought about calling her, but they hadn’t spoken since Eddie was murdered. Although she didn’t believe he was involved, Naomi was angry because Garraway seemed unwilling to do anything about it.
“Somebody shot him at Red Hook. Since then, she’s been at Wilkes. She killed his brother, Cedric, and then she robbed his cook spot.”
“I don’t understand why Pete would break the peace that’s existed for years.”
“They’re not going all out against us. It seems like it’s just Nikki, and it’s about J.R.”
“I need to talk to Pete.”
“He called when it first jumped off. I told him you were out of the country and couldn’t be reached.”
Garraway nodded. “Okay. I need to talk to Wilkes.”
“He’s here in the living room.”
“You thought of everything.”
“I want to get past this as soon as possible.” Jorell chuckled. “Honestly, Wilkes is getting on my nerves.”
“Okay, Marques. Bring him in,” Garraway said, and Jorell left the game room to go get Wilkes.
Garraway went behind the bar, got the landline phone, and set it on the bar. It had been years since he had spoken to Pete Barlowe, and changing that hadn’t been on his mind when he woke up that morning. Since it had been years, Garraway wondered if his number was still the same.
He picked up the phone and was about to dial when Jorell came back into the room with Wilkes.
“Good evening, Mr. Garraway,” Wilkes said respectfully.
“Tyrone. How are you?”
“I’m good, sir.”
“Marques told me about your brother, Cedric. I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Mr. Garraway.”
Garraway came from behind the bar and stood in front of Wilkes. “Nikki Marx. What’s going on with you two?”
“She thinks that I had something to do with her brother getting killed.”
“Did you?”
“Sir?”
Garraway looked frustrated. “Did you have anything to do with her brother J.R. getting killed?”
“No, sir.” Wilkes raised his right hand. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Garraway shook his head and glanced at Jorell. “How did J.R. meet his maker?”
“He was in Red Hook, and somebody shot him in the head,” Jorell answered.
“Funeral?”
“Closed casket.”
“Yeah, she’s pissed,” he said, thinking about Naomi. He turned back to Wilkes, who was literally standing at attention. “What have you done?”
“Sir?”
Jorell and Garraway glanced at one another. “You said you didn’t kill her brother. What have you done?”
“I tried to hit her outside Marquee, but she got away,” Wilkes said. “Other than that …” He looked at Jorell. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Why is that? She killed your brother, and Marques tells me she robbed your cook house. And you haven’t done anything. Why is that?”
“Mr. Jorell told me that we got some kind of arrangement with her people.”
“Good man. At least you know how to follow orders,” Garraway said.
Even if you ain’t the brightest bulb in the bunch.
“Thank you, sir.”
“What would you like to do now?”
“I would like for you to take these handcuffs off.”
“Okay.” Garraway walked away. “Thank you for speaking to me. I will let you know what I want done.”
“But—” Wilkes began.
“He will let you know what he decides,” Jorell said and extended his hand toward the door. Wilkes dropped his head and left the room.
“You say Pete ain’t going all out on this?” Garraway asked.
“Nope.” Jorell went to the bar and poured a drink. He held up the bottle. “You want one?”
“No. We did enough drinking on that ship to keep us drunk for another week. I need a day to dry out. But you say it’s just Nikki?”
“Seems that way to me.”
“And you’ve been doing this long enough to know.”
Jorell had worked for Garraway for the last twenty years.
“You calling me old?”
“Yes. But old has its advantages. And, yes, I am talking about Wilkes.”
“He’s a little slow-thinking sometimes, but he’s a good soldier, and he follows orders.”
“It’s the slow-thinking thing that concerns me.” Garraway stood next to him at the bar. “The handcuffs are off. You have my blessing to handle this any way you see fit. You see fit, not Wilkes. I get the feeling he won’t make the best decision on how to retaliate without drawing us into something that Pete will have to do something about. I am in no mood to fight a war with Pete Barlowe.”
“Neither am I.” Jorell chuckled. “That old shit you mentioned.”
