Always Unique Read online

  “Pardon me,” he said, sliding through the gauntlet of thugs to get to the second floor. Never missing the opportunity to show that they had the upper hand on him, they acted like they didn’t want to move out of his way. They paid him as much attention as they would an annoying fly. The tension was thick as day-old oatmeal.

  Making it to the top of the stairs without incident was a chore in itself. Fat Tee quickly walked to his cell and saw that his cellie was gone. Good, he thought. Maybe he could get a few minutes of “private time” for himself.

  Inside the cell, and lying on the bottom bunk, was a Straight Stuntin magazine and a bottle of lotion. Fat Tee started to close the metal door to the cell when it stopped cold on its steel hinges. A boot had stopped it from closing.

  Then the owner of the boot, along with a friend, pushed his way in, and shut the door behind them.

  Fat Tee said, “My cellie ain’t here,” not knowing what else to say.

  One of the dudes that had bombarded their way into his cell sported a bald head, was six-foot-four or better, and built like the Incredible Hulk. His sidekick was his polar opposite. He was barely over five-foot-five and seemed childlike.

  “We ain’t checking for your cellie, bee,” the Incredible Hulk said, flexing his muscles. “We here to deliver a message to you.”

  The cell was small—six by nine—and with three people standing inside, they were already crowding each other’s space.

  Fat Tee tried to relax. The fingers of his right hand were twitching as they hovered near his waist, inches away from the knife. He hoped that he wouldn’t need it, but if he did he was ready.

  Looking the Hulk straight in the eyes, Fat Tee asked, “Who is the message from, man?”

  Hulk smiled like he’d just won the lottery and taken the one lump sum before saying with great pride, “Kennard.”

  It took a beat for the name to register, and another heartbeat before it meant anything to him. Kennard, the man whose fiancée he’d raped, blackmailed, disrespected, assaulted, and nearly killed. A frigid fear, cold as the steel under his shirt, flowed through his veins.

  Hulk said, “He wanted to send his regards … and his condolences.” The sound in Hulk’s voice had the finality of the lid closing on a casket.

  Fat Tee swallowed the lump in his throat and his fear in one gulp. Both went down hard. The line had been drawn. He knew that this altercation would only resolve itself with bloodshed. Fat Tee reached for his knife, his eyes never swaying from the dead irises of Hulk.

  Fat Tee had his blade—a six-inch piece of flattened steel—firmly in his hand before the Incredible Hulk even knew what happened. This wasn’t his first fucking barbecue. Fat Tee knew what it felt like to kill a man, and had no problem experiencing that feeling again, déjà-fucking-vu. His only regret was that he hadn’t set it off on one of these fools off the break.

  Fat Tee watched the Hulk’s eyes as they tracked the movement of the knife arcing toward his head. Hulk tensed, causing a vein to bulge in the side of his neck. Fat Tee beamed in on the vein, using it as his target. He saw fear bungee-jump into Hulk’s eyes.

  They were grossly mistaken if they thought he would lie down and be punked simply because he was outnumbered. Niggas from the R didn’t roll like that, he thought, as the knife in his hand got closer to sending its own message. Fuck Kennard and the Hulk.

  The blade found its target and went in smooth and easy.

  Shock replaced the fear in Hulk’s eyes.

  But it wasn’t the shock of being stabbed in his jugular or the shock of bleeding to death in a jail cell. It was the shock of being taken out by an out-of-towner.

  Fat Tee had underestimated Hulk’s little sidekick, who was actually the real threat.

  Though Junior was twenty-two years old, he looked to be no older than fifteen years old, and nobody on God’s green earth would judge from looking at him that he was a certified stone-cold killer. And when Kennard found out that BG was on the island, he sent word for him to do what he did best. And though it was greatly appreciated when Kennard dropped 10Gs off at his momma’s house, Junior would have killed Fat Tee for a box of cupcakes. The truth of the matter was that he got off on it.

  Junior’s ice pick penetrated Fat Tee’s side like a Ginsu knife going though warm butter. With the speed of a Chinese prep cook, Junior brought the blade end out, six or seven times, at the blink of an eye, crippling Fat Tee.

  Fat Tee tried to grab the pointed steel skewer sticking out from his kidneys like some type of sick human shish kebab, when he got hit again in the neck. Hulk had backed away to the door. How many hands did the lil dude have? Fat Tee thought as he started to lose consciousness.

  Fat Tee reached for the ice pick protruding from his neck.

  Fat Tee could feel the life dripping out of his body as the hired killers kept jack-hammering away with the two ice picks. He felt his body weakening. He was losing too much blood to survive, but that was the idea, right?

  Junior had finally stopped stabbing him. No need for the overkill, like he’d done Unique. They left him in the dark room alone.

  Fat Tee fought to stay alive but all he could hear in his head was his grandma’s voice, saying the same thing over and over like a scratched record: “Boy, if you don’t start believing in karma, you might as well go ahead and be an atheist and not believe in God. Because what you do to others will be done to you!”

  In that cold jail cell, alone, far away from home, Fat Tee fought to stay alive.

  But like premature ejaculation, death came quick.

  EPILOGUE

  BACK IN VIRGINIA

  Always something interesting in the Metro section of the newspaper, thought Took as he tossed the morning paper on the kitchen table, smirking at the fact that he did know who the murdered “unidentified men” were who were plastered over the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch. And he also knew that they deserved exactly what they got. Loose lips sank ships and theirs had gone down like the Titanic.

  He looked at his watch: 1:00 P.M. Damn the day is moving fast, he thought.

  He needed to be across town by two and wanted to stop and get something to eat on the way. After locking up his place, he made his way down the three flights of concrete stairs—two at a time—and once reaching the bottom, he stopped at the lobby’s recessed mailboxes. He wasn’t expecting anything, but the mailman had been leaving him threatening notes on his door for not cleaning out all the junk mail. In return, Took had left the mailman a note that said “Stop leaving that shit.” But at the end of the day Took knew he did too much dirt to draw unnecessary attention to himself. So he decided this was the day he’d retrieve the mail.

  Took’s box was marked: APT. 306.

  Besides the junk mail, to Took’s surprise, there was one letter addressed to him and the most surprising part was that the letter was postmarked from New York.

  The return address read:

  Rikers Island Jail

  Terrell Gump #1143667

  18-18 Hazen St.

  East Elmhurst, New York 11370

  For a minute Took didn’t recall the name, then, suddenly, it hit him. Terrell Gump was Fat Tee. But what THE FUCK was Fat Tee doing locked up in New York? And more important, why the fuck is this motherfucker writing me?

  They weren’t cool. In fact, Fat Tee and Took had shared more bad blood than good. And if Fat Tee thought that Took would come to his rescue by making his bond, Fat Tee better have had a plan B, because he was S-O-L (shit out of luck) on plan A. On general principle Took wasn’t even going to open the envelope. Then he quickly changed his mind. Shit, let me see what the fuck dis nigga talking ’bout. It wouldn’t cost him anything but a few seconds of his time to read the damn thing anyways. Maybe even get a good laugh out of it. Then throw it away.

  The letter began:

  Took:

  I know getting a fucking letter from me was the last thing you were expecting. I’ve been thinking about this shit long and hard for the past week,
and you were the one person that I knew that had as big of an ax to grind with Unique as I did …

  The mention of Unique’s name caught Took off guard, like an unexpected left hook to the dome. Unique was the first chick he ever made the mistake of trusting. She was supposed to be his “ride or die” but when Took got knocked she jumped ship. The no-good, two-bit broad jacked off the eighty grand he’d left in her care, and didn’t even have the decency to take his calls or put one iron dime on his books for that matter.

  He’d be lying if he said that he never thought about her. Sometimes, the thoughts were even good ones, but usually, not so much. He was anxious to hear what the latest news on her was; the last time he’d seen or heard anything from Unique, he’d sold her to Jose in Mexico for two chickens, a mule and a key of cocaine. The chickens, because she was a chickenhead. The mule, because she’d made a jackass out of him and the key of cocaine was just a bonus.

  That bitch is living the life of luxury with a nigga name Kennard DuVall, real made nigga—Google that nigga—and see the empire this motherfucker sitting on. I’ma fix this bitch, decided I’m going to let the state of New York deal with the bitch—but him … I will give you on a silver platter. And I’m in hopes that you will just break me off, but some of that cheddar by way of putting my finder’s fee on my books.

  MOB—all day my nigga! Let bygones be bygones and get that nigga however or for whatever you can.

  PS: I know for a fact that Unique has persuaded this nigga to get revenge on you for leaving her in Mexico. Get that nigga before he gets you!

  UNIQUE III: REVENGE

  THE EPITOME OF BALLING

  The party, hands down, was the hottest ticket in the city tonight.

  So hot that an underground bootlegger inked fifty additional invites, identical to the real thing, and put them up on the Internet and made them available to the highest bidders, who were not privileged enough to get on the guest list. The knock-offs started at $2,500 a pop … and were gone less than an hour after hitting the black market. Took wasn’t going to miss this for anything in the world. He was determined to get to the party and it was nothing but God’s grace and mercy that he managed to stumble upon one of the fakes. The bogus invite set him back five Gs. Then he forked out another G for the black-and-white mandatory monkey suit and another $800 for the Ferragamo shoes to match his tux. He didn’t complain one bit; it was the best seven thousand dollars he’d spent in a real long time. But this was one shindig he wasn’t going to miss.

  Took stood in the corner and took it all in. Roulette, slot machines, blackjack, and crap tables transformed the Icon Club into a swanky high-roller casino. Reveling among the timeless games of chance—rubbing elbows and $1,000 chips—were a combination of entrepreneurs, athletes, entertainers, and hustlers donned in tailored tuxedos at the black-tie affair. The gorgeous honeys, in full hunt mode, armed with big smiles and even bigger butts and short dresses, outnumbered their counterparts by at least two-to-one.

  Took smiled and nodded in approval. As much as he might’ve wanted to, he couldn’t deny or hate for one second that the hostess of this elaborate celebration had definitely done an opulently fantastic job of laying out the platinum carpet for the guest of honor, who happened to be her newly married husband and renowned boxing promoter Kennard DuVall.

  Took didn’t know the man from Adam, but he wasn’t hard to spot. He took another sip of his drink and checked out the birthday boy from head to toe as DuVall made his way around the room greeting his guests. Tonight was definitely his night and Took had to give it up because the dude didn’t half step. The invitation had said to come formally dressed to impress and the invitees followed the directions well. However, DuVall was definitely suited and booted in a way that nobody could steal his shine.

  Took had to give credit where credit was due: Kennard was clean as hell in his custom-made purple velvet tuxedo. It could have turned out like Prince in Purple Rain, but Kennard pulled it off, with a bow tie, and cummerbund to match. He nailed the ensemble together with some custom gator-and-ostrich-skinned shoes with different shades of purple that blended perfectly.

  Took had done his research after receiving the letter about Unique from his source, Fat Tee, and for once, he found that the no-good cocksucker wasn’t exaggerating. In fact, Took had come across a Forbes magazine piece that estimated Kennard’s earnings for the last year at $150 million. Whether in the streets or while doing a media interview, whenever Kennard was asked if Forbes’s numbers were correct, his answer was always the same: “It doesn’t matter. Regardless of what a person earns, if he spends more than he makes he’s guaranteed to go broke.”

  Then he would grace them with his trademark smile. And whoever had asked the nosy-ass question in the first place would smile along with him.

  Really? What did they think he would say?

  Hell, Kennard was born a product of Harlem U.S.A., raised in the streets among the rest of the rats. And in the streets, Took had been taught that a man who went around spouting off about what type of chips he stacked was nothing more than a clown that wanted people to believe that he was something he wasn’t. But Took wasn’t mad. He gave the interviewer the old brush-off; he knew that when a true hustler stacked more cake than anyone could even imagine, he kept it to himself. That’s what made Took get his shit right and make his way to the big city to get up close and personal, to see if it was all fluff and talk. And Took observed that Kennard was definitely the real deal holyfield.

  It was DuVall’s thirty-sixth birthday and Took was surprised that Kennard’s new wife, Unique, had every single detail in place. Between the many ice sculptures, the beautiful flowers all strategically placed around the room, the models strutting around in body paint, and the drinks constantly flowing, she had done it up for her husband. And since she was now a chef and had recently opened up her own restaurant, one that Kennard had given her for a wedding present, she didn’t cut corners when it came to the food. Before he left, Took intended on trying out every one of the gourmet food stations prepared by chefs from all around the world, which were set up throughout the club. Damn right he was going to get every dollar’s worth that he had invested in this trip.

  As he stood off near the huge ice sculpture and surveyed the room, he locked eyes with a big, light-skinned guy that looked kind of familiar to him. The world was small, but Took knew that none of the folks he rolled with, ran in the same circles as Kennard. So, he quickly dismissed him as one of Kennard’s celebrity friends’ security detail.

  After someone whispered something in the big guy’s ear and he walked off into the crowd, dude became an afterthought. Took accepted another drink off of the tray of the waitress passing by. He thought about what he had invested, it was a small amount of money to get exactly what he wanted. There was only one problem: he still wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted from Unique.

  The relationship Took and Unique had shared in the past, so many years ago, had been … eventful.

  In the beginning, they had been like Bonnie and Clyde—ride or die, living out life like the Tupac song, he and she against the world. Back then, the Unique he knew was as shiesty as she was beautiful, two lethal characteristics that had attracted him to her. Took often wondered if they would’ve still been together if she hadn’t quit taking his calls after he got pinched by the police and sent to prison. She had blown through every single penny of the eighty Gs he had left with her. At that time it was all the paper Took had to his name, and the most fucked-up part of it was that he could have left it with his mother or grandmother for safe-keeping, but he didn’t think twice about trusting his girl. When the money was gone … Unique was gone, was the chant with which his cellies would tease him.

  After Unique stopped taking his calls, all he had left was time.

  Time to plan.

  This was one instance when time didn’t heal his wounds, heart, or ego.

  “May I help you with a drink, hon?”

  The chick with the lon
g sexy eyelashes and a tray of crystal flutes filled with yellow-colored bubbly got his attention. Took looked her over from head to toe—the woman looked too good to be serving drinks. But he was familiar with her kind. It was clear she was simply playing her position as a barmaid until a better one presented itself, one that she could take advantage of.

  “Sure.” Took gloved one of the flutes from the tray, and offered the server a smile, looked her over again, and said, “Thanks,” before taking a sip of the bubbly. The provocative sway of the server’s hips as she sashayed off was her way of saying, “You’re welcome.”

  Took watched from across the room as his ex-girlfriend Unique engaged with her guests. She was dressed in a long, elegant, form-fitting, purple backless gown made out of the same material as Kennard’s tux. She had definitely evolved, but still had her same walk though she had grown into a more beautiful woman.

  His feelings for Unique were bittersweet. In one way, he despised her for always being able to survive, with or without his help. In another way, one that he’d never admit to anyone, he was proud of her, of what she’d become and how she had taken a busted hand and turned it into a straight flush. That was one of the things he had always loved about her—she knew how to take nothing and turn it into something. She knew how to play the game and knew the right buttons to push with any man. To feed his own ego, he took credit for Unique being the beautiful, freaky, charismatic, could-hook-a-steak-up, good-pussy-having, bad bitch that she was today and had always been. Damn, I always knew how to pick ’em, he thought, wanting to give himself a pat on the back.

  The promotional campaign that the makers of Virginia Slims cigarettes used to push their cancer sticks was, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” This certainly fit the little bull-headed, cat-eyed girl that just happened to be born and bred in the city of Richmond, Virginia.