Chapter 6
Jerome ‘Rome’ Jackson
Ilooked back one time through the rearview mirror and watched Navy and Lulu watching me.
Lulu had her arm wrapped around her as they walked toward the front door when I got closer to the end of the street and only God knows what they were talking about.
I watched until they disappeared inside before shaking my head and pressing harder on the gas.
Something about the last couple of days didn’t sit right with me because Navy had been too calm and agreeing to whatever I said and if anybody knew Navy they knew my wife always had a mouth on her.
If she was mad, you knew it and if she was happy you knew that too but Lately she’d been smiling when she should’ve been cussing my stupid ass out.
She was playing nice when I knew damn well she wanted to tell me to go to hell and that wasn’t like Navy, that was somebody plotting, and I couldn’t put my finger on what the fuck she was plotting.
I reached over and turned the volume up until BossMan Dlow started blasting through the speakers as the bass rumbled through the truck while I cracked the window just enough to let the smoke out after taking another pull from my joint.
The new Escalades looked like Bently trucks, just straight pressure and I enjoyed every bit of this one although I had quite a few toys.
Miami was always a sight to see while riding through it with good weed and loud music.
Before I even cut the engine off, Bill was already making his way across the street with a black backpack hanging off one shoulder while Dre and Lil Cee followed behind him.
I climbed out and shut the door. Bill was the oldest out the bunch, damn near pushing forty with dark skin and grey hairs starting to show up in his beard.
Meanwhile Dre was built like he lived in the fucking gym with that thick ass neck and Lil Cee was the youngest and still had that hunger in his eyes that reminded me too much of myself before prison taught me patience although I was only a few years older than him.
“What it do?” Bill asked, reaching his fist out.
I used my own fist and bumped it. “Y’all making me money today or wasting my damn time man?”
Lil Cee laughed showing a mouth full of gold teeth. “We already know how you coming.”
“Hell, you should.” I replied waiting for them to show me the money but deep down inside Navy was still in the back of my mind.
I didn’t mean to keep putting my hands on her, she just had a way of testing my patience.
We’d been together since forever so how the fuck was I supposed to let her just leave? No other female knew me like she did.
Bill unzipped the backpack just enough for me to see the stacks inside before zipping it back up. He never stood there flashing money around like a rookie that’s why I trusted him like an older uncle.
“We had a good week,” he said, handing me the bag.
I took it from him, walked over to the front of my truck, and placed it on the hood before I opened it back up.
My eyes roamed over the stacks held up in rubberbands while I separated a few of them.
Of course, I wasn’t counting every dollar but after enough expertise in this shit you could tell when money looked right and when somebody had been dipping their hand where it didn’t belong.
“You short,” I said calmly without looking up.
The smile disappeared off Lil Cee’s face and then Bill frowned. “Nah, Rome.” He shook his head.
I finally looked at him as my eyes met his. “I wasn’t asking Bill.”
It got real quiet for a few seconds because nobody was trying to rush to speak and nobody got defensive either. Instead, Bill took one step closer to the truck and looked down into the backpack himself before rubbing the back of his neck.
“It ain’t what you thinking.” He told me.
I raised a brow. “Shit, I hope not. You ain’t never been short so what’s up?”
He nodded toward Lil Cee. “The short money ain’t on him. We had to pull fifteen off the top yesterday.”
“For what?” I frowned trying not to get irritated.
“Cuzzo got picked up.” He informed like I knew who the fuck cuzzo was.
I closed the backpack. “Who?” I asked.
“Paper.”
My expression didn’t change but I was wondering why the fuck nobody informed me. “What he get picked up for?”
He looked around and then adjusted his gun on his hip. “It was a traffic stop, but they found his pole.”
I leaned against the truck and folded my arms across my chest. “And?”
He shrugged. “They still got him.”
I frowned once again. “For a gun?” Florida was an open carry state, and Paper been got his rights back to carry.
Bill nodded. “Yeah man, you know he got all those priors too plus he had an out-of-town hold for some shit in Brevard.”
I took a deep breath and slightly cocked my head to the side. “Ain’t nobody calling me over no damn gun charge.”
“He on probation too.”
I looked over at Lil Cee, who hadn’t said shit since we started talking about it. He kept looking everywhere except at me, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like this wasn’t his lane. Lil Cee wasn’t no scary ass lil dude though, he just knew better than to challenge me.
“You knew that?” I asked him.
He nodded his head. “Yeah.”
“And you waited until now to say something?”
Lil Cee shrugged. “I thought Bill told you.”
I looked back at Bill. “Dre knew?”
Dru stared me dead in my eyes and frowned. “I found out this morning.”
I was quiet for a second. Not because I was mad.
Because I was thinking. Every decision cost money.
Every mistake cost more. Paper sitting in jail on a probation violation wasn’t just Paper’s problem.
It was everybody’s problem if people started talking when they got scared.
I tapped my fingers against the backpack before looking back up at all three of them.
“Aight,” I finally replied. “We’ll deal with Paper.”
I zipped the backpack closed before sliding it back across the hood.
Bill caught it with one hand, but I never took my eyes off him.
Being in the streets since fifteen years old taught me one thing and that was the money talked long before people did.
You could tell when a count was right by the way a man stood and Bill usually stood tall but today his shoulders had dropped enough for me to notice.
“What else?” I asked ready to get the fuck on and check on the rest of my lieutenants.
Dre looked relived as he shifted his weight and adjusted the fitted Miami Heat hat on his head before answering. “Everything else straight through and the south side been moving. We had one lil’ issue on 36th, but it got handled.”
I looked over at him. “What kind of issue?”
“Some crabs in the bucket from across town thought they was gone post up over there.”
“And?”
He grinned all proud and shit. “They ain’t there no more.”
I nodded. “Good.”
The smell of barbecue suddenly filled my nostrils from across the street making my stomach rumble and remember the steak I still needed to finish from lunch.
One of the little kids riding his bike yelled, “What up, Rome?” before popping a wheelie down the middle of the street.
I lifted my chin at him, then looked back at my people.
“Every dumb decision cost money and every unnecessary body bring police, then the police bring attention, then attention slows money down. I don’t like shit slowing my money down.”
They all agreed in unison. Bill spoke up. “You right, but between you being out of town and whatever else you got going on, it be hard to get you on the phone lately Rome, so as the LT I been handling shit.”
“I know I’m right, but that don’t mean you ain’t right either.” I told him without explaining further because he was right. I had shit going on with my wife and other females too.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a fresh stack of hundreds wrapped in a bank band, and peeled fifteen thousand from it without bothering to count twice.
Money only made people nervous when they didn’t have enough of it.
I folded the stack in half and held it out toward Bill to match the other fifteen.
“Get Paper a lawyer.”
He looked at the money, then back at me. “You still gone cover it?”
I frowned. “He my people, ain’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why we still talking?”
He quickly took the money and slid it into the backpack. “I’ll handle it.”
“I know you will.”
Just then my phone ring and I glanced down at the screen. For a second I just stared at it before I swiped my thumb across the screen without taking my eyes off Bill.
“What?” I asked her.
Her voice came through the speaker loud enough to make me pull the phone away from my ear for a second. “So now you answer?!”
I turned and started walking away from them, stopping near the front of my truck where nobody else could hear the conversation. I leaned one forearm across the hood, rolling the unlit joint between my fingers while looking down the block ignoring the hot ass sun.
“I told you I was handling business.” I replied unbothered by her urgency.
“And I told you I needed to see you.”
I closed my eyes for a brief second, already knowing this conversation wasn’t about to be simple. “What happened now? You know what, never mind, I’m coming.”
Before she could drag the conversation any longer, I ended the call and tossed the phone into the passenger seat.
Whatever she wanted could wait until I got there.
Fifteen minutes later, I turned into her neighborhood and turned the engine off without getting out right away.
When I finally did climb out, I straightened my shirt and walked up the cracked sidewalk.
Before I could knock, the front door swung open and Tasha stood there wearing a pair of black biker shorts and an oversized University of Miami T-shirt that hung off one shoulder.
Her hair was twisted into a messy bun, but she was still fine as hell.
She looked at me for a second, stepped back from the doorway, and left the door open.