WILD THANGZ by Winston Chapman (An Essence Magazine National Best Seller)

Chapter 21

The four of us all took deep breaths, as we sat in my car that was parked in the front lot of the building. I couldn't believe it had come to this.

It was the middle of Saturday night. Technically, it was 3 A.M. on Sunday morning. I'd just gotten off a plane less than 10-hours ago, returning from the California movie shoot.

We'd just completed Phase-1 of Brea's plan and it was too late to back-out now.

Especially, when we knew that there was just 3-days left of the Vinetti's deadline.

"Let's just go!" Trina said, not being able to take the wait any longer, and recognizing that we only had 90-minutes in our window of opportunity.

"Wait," I said, wanting to make sure everything went smoothly. "Trina, do you have the bags?"

"Yes," she sighed, while holding them up.

"Brea, are you sure you remember the ....," I attempted to ask. "Yes! I got it!" Brea cut me off. "Just relax, Jaz!"

Her abrasive tone of words made me angry. I wouldn't even be here tonight if it weren't for her. But I swallowed my fury, knowing it was best to focus, rather than argue.

We opened all four doors at the same time and got out of my car. Each of us tried to close our door quietly, but the combined sound of them closing together, at the same time, echoed louder than expected in the still night air.

Even with something as minor as a little extra unexpected noise, I began feeling like it was a sign that our plan was already doomed. All four of us were rookies.

"Jaz, did you just lock the car doors?" Brea asked.

"Oh, shit! Habit," I tried to explain apologetically, as the three of them had to wait for me to walk back to my car and unlock all four doors.

"Hurry up, Jaz!" Trina whispered, mindful of the time on her watch. "We only have 86- minutes left"

In my haste, I damn near broke my neck, as I slipped when I accidentally stepped into a spot of oil that was on the ground.

"Shit, Jaz! Be careful!" Brea berated my misstep. "C'mon!"

We all put on our latex gloves provided by Trina and pulled down our masks, as Brea unlocked the front door with the key. The alarm blared so loudly, that I began sweating. It was just a matter of seconds before Brea had quieted the alarm by punching in the code.

Now inside of R e f l e x , we waited for Brea to punch the code in to the vault, as Jamal stood guard at the front door until it was time to open the heavy vault door.

I'd strong-arm-recruited Jamal into our plan, threatening that he'd be in jail on statutory- rape charges for having sex with Tyisha if he didn't help us.

After Jamal used his muscles to open the vault door, Trina and I hurriedly began stuffing cash into our bags, as Brea found the surveillance tape recorder and Jamal resumed his look- out post.

Once Brea had retrieved the tape, she handed it to Jamal, which freed her hands to help stuff the bags.

The filled-bags were heavier than we'd thought, which made it necessary that Jamal would have to carry all four bags to the car, which wasn't the original plan.

"Jaz, leave the bags right here. You just go get the car and pull it right up to the door," Jamal instructed.

As I got into the car, a police car was doing a routine drive-through of the parking lot.

"Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!" I nervously chanted to myself while leaning down in the front seat out of view.

Just before leaning down, I was glad to see that Jamal, Trina and Brea had seen the police car as it pulled into the lot, as they scurried to hide behind the wall inside of R e f l e x .

The police car rolled agonizingly slowly through the lot as it shined its spot light into the windows of each business window along the strip-mall.

My heart was pounding so loudly, I thought the noise of it beating would give me away.

While the police officer's attention was focused on the store-windows, a few doors down from Reflex, I peeked my head up to notice that one bag of money was suspiciously sitting in the front of the store, directly in view.

The police car slowed for a moment as his light shined on the bag. The officer exited the car and started walking to the window.

Just as the officer reached to check the door, that I knew was unlocked, the officer's hand went instead to the walkie-talkie hooked to his shoulder and spoke into it.

I couldn't watch anymore, as I re-ducked my head and used my ears as my eyes.

I heard the sound of a door closing, which made me look-up again. Thankfully, the officer was in his car and speeding out of the parking lot. Apparently, he'd just gotten a more urgent call.

Even after I was pretty sure that the cop was gone, I remained slumped in the car, doing a body-check to see if I was having a heart-attack or not. I was having trouble getting a sufficient amount of air in my lungs, my armpits were dripping with sweat and my chest was pounding. I closed my eyes to try to calm myself.

Clack! Clack! Clack!, I heard the sound of a flashlight banging against my window.

Any progress I'd made towards subduing myself was now lost, as I jerked from the noise.

Whew!, I exhaled. It was Jamal.

"Jazmyn! Bring the fuckin' car around!" he said irate.

"Okay!" I screamed back, but wasn't at all as cool about the situation as him.

Once I pulled the car in front of the building, Jamal loaded the heavy cash-filled bags in the trunk, while Trina got in the back seat.

Brea locked the front door of Reflex and also got in the car, as Jamal left the front passenger door open. He took a crowbar out of the trunk, cocked his arm back and smashed the front door glass to make it look like a random robbery, before hopping in the car.

"Let's go!" he said, as I pulled off before he'd even closed his car door completely. I didn't turn the headlights on for at least a block.

We'd driven about ten minutes when Jamal nervously twisted in the front seat, reaching under it and said, "Oh, FFFFF-FUCK!"

"What?! What?!" I spoke with concern.

"Pull over, NOW!" Jamal demanded and I did as told. "Pop the trunk!"

Jamal got out and looked in the trunk for a minute before returning disappointed as he plopped into the front seat.

"What's wrong?" Trina leaned forward to Jamal.

"After that cop came around, I forgot the tape!" Jamal admitted his blunder.

"It don't matter. We had masks on," Brea began arguing for us not to go back.

"Yeah, but how's that gonna work with the plan?" Jamal said, with concern for him.

"We can't go back! That's just asking to get caught. We got the money, let's just keep going!" I urged.

"No!" Trina screamed her opinion, not wanting to leave evidence, even if our faces weren't shown on the tape. "We GOTTA get the tape!"

Brea and I wanted to keep going, while Jamal and Trina were adamant about returning to the scene of our crime.

After 3-minutes of loud conversation, we compromised that we'd drive by R e f l e x to check it out.

Just as we rolled past the strip-mall, Brea and I were proven right, as three police cars were already investigating the scene with their lights flashing on the squad cars.

All of our heads faced forward, as I drove right by without drawing attention because the strip-mall was set-back a nice distance from the street.

We were very silent on the way to drop Jamal off at his car, so that he could transfer the bags of money into it that we'd retrieve from him later.

Trina was still nervous because we were late in getting back to Hung and Sumy's house, which was Phase-3 of our plan.