The Nine

Chapter 4.2: Cayman

It was two when I pulled the Charger in the garage of Ronovan's house blasting some old Birdman, his favorite. Ronovan was a seller of mine, a street pharmacist if you will. Ronovan wasn't his real name; I had never known, just as he never knew mine. He must've been in his fifties, had a fake eye, and a hefty criminal record, but the nigga was cool people. A cardinal rule of being in the game was don't put nothing past nobody, but over the years I had grown real close to the nigga. He was almost like a daddy to me. I could trust him with my life.

"Yo friend Amber came by looking for you, Bishop," he said as he puffed smoke from his driveway, calling me by the name my dealers knew me by.

"Aw shit, what she want?" I asked as he passed the blunt. I hit it. Damn, this shit was strong. Normally he'd have me on some keisha so I could get through the rest of the collection without much problem. I had to always be on alert being in the game, it was only natural.

"To fuck, I reckon," Ron's real eye faced down the street but his fake eye remained fixed toward the empty, sunny street.

"Nigga whatchu mean? That's my baby cousin," I shoved him and we both laughed.

"My bad," he apologized, "she is a fine la'sumn though. Think she'll let me fuck?"

"She don't go for no old bloke," I said, using a word he always used.

"She will after this old bloke pipe her right."

I puffed one last time. I couldn't get no higher than what I was already, or it'd jeopardize my agenda.

"Nigga if you don't getcho gahdamn old crusty ass in there and get my money," I laughed, "tryna fuck my cousin. Fuck around and break your back tryna long dick a hoe."

He stepped inside with the blunt and brought back an old, worn Bible. "It was for my ole lady," he once told me. His wife was a diehard Christian woman who died before we'd met. Her Bible was one of the only things he had left of her, but this nigga hallowed that bitch out and kept his drug money in there. I counted forty fifty dollar bills sloppily thrown in there, clipped them, dapped him down and left.

Six more niggas to get my money from.

I had two and a half hours to collect from all these niggas before Sweet's guy swung around my place to pick up all the money. It was a very efficient process.

I tackled three more niggas in an hour. Two had the money ready for me as I entered their spot, but one of them niggas was a couple hundred short. I told him I would stop back by in three hours and he'd better have the shit ready or it wouldn't be pretty.

I got extra bad news when I got word that one of my dealers, Antonio, had been robbed and shot down during a bad deal about two or three days ago. That was two stacks Sweet would never see, and that I ain't have the money to cover. That wasn't good for nobody.

I was still cursing about it when I spotted Tara rounding the corner of a street I was passing by. I pulled over, rolled the tinted window down and cruised at her pace.

"Well my my, if it ain't Tara Spencer herself. You on a mission or something love? Why you walking?"

She stopped at peered into the window. When she recognized me, she beamed.

"Hey Cayman," she said, still walking up the sidewalk carrying a few grocery bags. Her long, nappy hair was tied back and her light caramel skin was glistening with sweat. She had been walking for at least two blocks.

"Where you headed baby girl?"

"Back home," she dropped her bags to massage her ankles. "I was just at the fruit stand a couple corners from here."