Money Over Everything

Money Maker

Moette

We all sat at the kitchen table staring at the five perfect stacks of $3,000. Two registers that had nearly ten stacks each. After paying off the guy that got us cars and bribing the cashiers, we each had three grand for fifteen minutes of work. Damaris slid her cut towards her, ran her hand over the edge, and placed it into her pocket before chucking us the deuces and heading upstairs. Poochie watched her with her brows furrowed, shaking her head back and forth.

"I'm worried about her," Poochie muttered. "Is she seeing someone new?"

"Yeah, some guy she met at a liquor store. Roni, you know anything about him?" I asked Roni, who was staring straight ahead as if in a trance. "Roni?"

"I mean I met him, but I didn't get his name," Roni replied with a shrug. She picked up her share of the money as she rose from her seat. "He was cool. I'd love to stay and talk about Damaris behind her back, but I gotta get to class."

"I see someone's under Damaris' spell," Poochie said, still shaking her head as she lit a cigarette.

I waved a dismissive hand at the pair. "I have my own life to worry over. Roni's a grown woman. She can handle herself."

Juju looked like she wanted to say something and changed her mind, instead replying, "Being that we pulled off the store with no problem I think we consider handling First Continental in like two weeks. I know the protocol like the back of my hand and I've been timing it in my head for the past week."

"I've been mulling it over and Juju...I think you should sit First Continental out," Poochie said, treading lightly. "You'll still get an even cut for coming up with the plan, but for something this big everyone needs an airtight alibi."

"I can come up with an alibi!" Juju shouted. "The only reason I agreed to any of this was for the chance to get back at First Continental for playing me. You can't kick me out of plan that I created."

"Juju—"

"Fuck this, I'm out," Juju said, snatching her share of the robbery off the table and leaving me and Poochie sitting there staring at each other.

"Moe," Poochie started, but I held my hand up.

"For the first time since we started this, I can actually agree with you. I'll give her a couple days and then approach it differently. As much as I love money, I love my freedom even more. We've been lucky the past two times, shit might go left on the third time."

I slid my cut towards me and was halfway out of my seat when Poochie said, "Damaris told me he...he touched her too. Did you know? Is that why you—"

"Do you really want the answer to that question? Because it won't change anything," I said, running my thumb over the edge of the bills and staring at Poochie.

Poochie took a took a pull of her cigarette and said, "I'm inviting Darion back home. I'll make a special dinner. It should be ready around eight."

"See you at eight," I replied, stuffing my cash into my pocket and heading upstairs.

Once I was in the privacy of my bedroom, I pulled up Facebook to see whether or not we were being talked about. I was thinking maybe one or two people might have posted, but we filled the timeline.

TARGET BRAWL COVERS UP ROBBERY

THREE WOMEN AND ONE MAN WANTED FOR ROBBING TARGET

Pictures of everything from our entrance into the store to our getaway were all over. I clicked on a few of the links and read up on what the police had so far. Everyone was being questioned, and leave it to the Facebook conspiracy theorists to accuse those innocent women of being down with us. My heart stayed in my chest when I saw that none of the pictures they posted looked anything like us, most of them blurry as hell.