Chapter 6
Cashmier
The next day
My plan was to get Crew over here today so that he could spend time with me and King.
I cleaned up the house, or the apartment, I should say, and made sure King had on the cute little outfit I got him from the Gucci store yesterday.
Brushing his hair was always difficult because it was so straight that it would never lay down.
I put baby oil in it, added lotion and kept working at it until it finally stayed, making him look like a little Hispanic Papi with a part on the side.
I walked around the apartment, making sure everything was in place before I called Crew and demanded that he came over. Just as I was about to reach for my phone, it rang on the counter. I was a little irritated because it disturbed my little Papi, and he didn't like being woken up from his sleep.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said softly as I rushed over and grabbed the phone. When I saw the number, my irritation doubled. It was Nurse Alana who I’d already paid for her services, so what more could she want from me at this point?
“Hello?” I answered.
The way she took forever to speak let me know some shit was about to go wrong.
“Hey, can you talk?”
“Yes, I am alone. What’s up, girl?”
“I just looked over the office reports, and y’all are on the retake list.”
“What do you mean retake list?”
“Apparently, your test and results got flagged. The DNA profiles came back too similar to one another.”
“What, so you’re saying it didn’t actually work?”
“I mean, it worked for the time being. Yours was flagged when the system reviewed the submitted DNA profiles. I pushed your positive results email through on my end, but I wasn’t aware that the lab flagged it and it bounced back for retesting until I saw your name on a call back list this morning.
The retesting has never happened since I been here the past year.
I thought I could send the samples off and days later mark them as a match manually in the system.
I didn't know that they would pick up on that and flag them.”
“That is complete bull shit. So, you got paid, and nothing actually went through?”
She got quiet on the phone.
“So, what does that mean about the payment you received from me? Since everything is fucked now? I paid you fifty thousand dollars for this. You said it was going to work.”
“It did work. I mean, I don’t really know what to do at this point. I've already paid the tuition for my daughter’s school, and you can’t get a refund for it. I called you as soon as I saw the the callback list.”
“Fuck a heads up, you need to figure out how the fuck this is about to work, because once they call us in for a retest, if Crew decides to go through with it, then I’m fucked.”
“Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.”
“Listen, I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, but you need to figure this shit out ASAP or find a way to get me my money back!”
I hung up the phone.
Why is it that every time I hire somebody to do some snake-ass shit, it ends up fucking me in the long run? I swear, being dirty is almost just as hard as being clean. Maybe that’s the whole point. It takes more effort to be a snake than to actually be decent.
I sat down on the couch, mad as hell that my opportunity didn’t turn out how I thought it would. Here I was, preparing for family day, and Alana was calling to tell me this whole shit could blow up in my face any day now.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “I can’t let another bitch think for me.
What can I do? What can I do?”
I rocked back and forth on the couch like King was in my arms, only he wasn’t.
I knew the only way this shit was going to work was if they didn’t do the test again at all, but how the fuck was I supposed to stop that?
“Man, all of this is literally about to blow up in my face.” I kept speaking to myself out loud and that’s when it hit me.
Blow up in my face.
They can’t contact us about retesting if they don’t have an office to do it in. And they can’t care about what’s flagged if the entire place is up in smoke.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Tech’s number, and it rang a few times before he answered.
“Yes, Cashmier?” he said, already sounding irritated.
“Don’t use that tone with me. Where the fuck are you at? With your fat wife?” I asked, talking my usual shit.
“Cashmier, just because you and I have sex sometimes doesn’t mean you get to throw shade at my wife every time you open your mouth. Do I talk shit about your nigga or niggas I should say?”
“Tech, shut the fuck up and listen. I’m calling you because I have a job for you.”
“A job?” he laughed. “I thought you didn’t need me anymore since you got your prized baby daddy, Crew.”
“I thought I didn’t either, but I do. So you should be happy to know you’re about to get paid again.”
“To be honest with you, I don’t even care about getting paid by you anymore. This job I got at the security firm in Manhattan is paying me well, and I don’t have to worry about gangster ass niggas popping up and trying to hurt me while I’m there because I was doing what I was told.”
“Well, had you helped me come up with better plans, it would have never happened with me either.”
“Whatever you say, Cashmier. What do you want?”
“Look, I need you to handle some shit for me. It’s actually quite simple. I need you to find someone to make a bomb to blow up this clinic in-.”
He cut me off before I could finish.
“Cashmier, I don’t need your money anymore, and I really want to stay clean and be there for my family.
My wife and I are good, no I don't make as much money but it's clean, and I’m not getting mixed up in whatever shit you have going on with Hov or anybody else anymore. That man beat the breaks off of me to where I couldn’t breathe without my ribs poking me from the inside.
I’m done doing that kind of shit for you. ”
“This has nothing to do with Hov Tech. Just listen.”
“No Cash, you listen. I’m done. Find someone else to do it.”
The line went dead.
That pissed me off so bad that I wanted to blow up his house and have the whole block smelling the scent of his fat, greasy ass wife burning up, but fuck Tech.
I didn’t need anybody to cover for me, or think for me, or even build a bomb for me, because Google is right there to give me the answers I need. I went to college, and I am not stupid.
I grabbed my phone and went searching for answers immediately, making sure to use a proxy server so nothing could get traced back to my phone.
I typed in "how to make a quick bomb" and found a few different options; the winner was using fire, a water bottle, and alcohol as an accelerant. I didn’t want to put this shit off too long, so I packed up the baby and a bag to handle my business right away.
With the plan I had, I knew I couldn’t take King along with me, so when I got in the car, I called my mother.
“Hello?” She answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Mom. I need you to keep King for a couple of hours.”
“For a couple of hours? What do you have going on? I’m about to go get my hair done.”
“Reschedule it until tomorrow, Mom.”
“Reschedule it, Cash, are you crazy? You know I hate to reschedule my appointments.”
“Please, Mom. I really need you.”
“And I really need to get my hair done.”
“Damn, mama, you can’t even come through for me for a couple of hours. I know my daddy would’ve kept him.”
She sighed on the other end.
“Lord have mercy, alright, Cashmier. Bring him to me. I will just take him to the shop with me and let him lay in his car seat while she’s working on my roots.”
“Okay, fine. Thanks. I’m on my way.”
I hung up the phone and whipped through the streets to her.
Once I dropped King off with my mom, I went to one store for one item, then another store for another, and then another, so I wasn’t getting everything from one place. I’d watched enough crime episodes to know that a trail of receipts was mistake number one when trying to commit a crime.
Once I got back to my place, I shut myself in the kitchen and went to work, cracking a window because I didn’t need the chemicals to cause me to pass out.
My heart was beating fast, but my hands stayed steady.
The whole time, I kept thinking about how wild it was that I was in my apartment tonight trying to make a homemade bomb to blow something up.
By the time I was done, the sun had already gone down, but I waited it out, contemplating my decision up until night really settled in, and at that point I knew for a fact I was going through with this.
I changed my clothes, grabbed my keys, and headed out.
It took me a minute to get on that side of town, but it gave me time to think of all the details.
Arson is a serious charge and being outed to Crew would be an even more serious one.
That boy will probably kill me if he finds out, so I have to be smart, sneaky, and efficient if this is going to work.
I parked a few blocks away from the facility so that I could run up on foot. I learned a lot just by listening when Hov and Crew would be talking, and they thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I was wearing all black, my face covered with the Ski mask I’d worn on a ski trip a few years ago.
I ran all the way to the front of the clinic, and within seconds, I was throwing the bottle through the window along with the flame coming behind it.
BOOM!
The explosion was so big that it shot my body back like I came out of a cannonball.
“Fuck!” I yelled once I got up, feeling my face hot, almost crispy in a way.
I ran back towards my car, and when I got inside.
I hurried the mask off and saw that the front of my hairline was gone, as well as portions of the ski mask and every ounce of my eyebrows.
It looks like the bomb I made worked a little too well because not only did it blow the clinic up, but it also took all the hair off my face and my edges away in the blast.
“Oh no, no, no!”
I whimpered looking at my appearance. After I am in the clear for this, I am going to kill Alana. Had she just made sure everything went through correctly, I wouldn't be in this position to begin with.
.