Chapter 6
six
“The fuck you been?” Nate asked once Cairo arrived at the stash house they kept a few blocks over. “What is that smell, nigga? You wearing perfume?”
“Both y’all shut the fuck up,” he grumbled, lowly inhaling the lingering scent on his tee.
“Let’s focus on this shit. I looked this nigga up.
Robert Baldwin, owns Baldwin Industries.
And can’t stop announcing every move he makes on Twitter.
He’s in Asia for the next ten days. The house has no security because he’s arrogant to believe niggas like us stay in our place. ”
“How you find this spot?” Tiny Tone asked.
“I made a drop to some nigga name Fahaad. Ray da Don’s manager,” Cairo shared.
“That’s who we should be hitting. Ol’ lying ass nigga. I know that nigga an easy mark,” Nate whooped.
Cairo nodded. “He is. Too easy. And he’s seen my face. Fuck I look like leading y’all into a prison bid? That nigga will definitely sing to twelve with tears and snot. While eating a sandwich.”
That was part of the reason. Fahaad came with opportunity. An opportunity for Cairo was an opportunity for all of them.
Nate and Tiny chuckled. Cairo was unintentionally funny.
It was a part of the fabric of who he was.
He never found the humor in his words or the humor in anything, for that matter.
Cairo had spent the better part of his twenty years about business.
He saw the outcome when there wasn’t any structure.
“Y’all goofy ass niggas done or I need to wait some more for this giggle fest to be over?” he quipped.
“Why so serious?” Tiny asked. “If you didn’t get no pussy, you need to go back and get you some. Do you even smile, my nigga?”
“Nah, his face might break,” Nate chimed.
“Y’all gon’ be cracking jokes or are we running up in this nigga spot? If not, I can bust a move alone and kick it with my damn self,” he shot back.
“That’s the problem, it’s too much self-love happening over there. You gone be taking bubble baths soon,” Tiny said.
“With duckies and shit,” Nate added.
“Aight, y’all niggas playing,” Cairo huffed, plopping down on the worn couch. Dropping his body sent mango wafting directly to his nose. While Tiny and Nate joked, his eyes closed; his mind committing the tiny moments with Kamilla to memory. She was invading his system faster than he’d realized.
“Aight our bad,” Nate spoke, settling and zapping the image of Kamilla’s flushed cheeks from his head. Cairo swiped a hand over his face and leaned up. “How we hitting this shit?”
“There’s two access points to the house, a service entrance and the main entrance.
I’ve spent hours watching the videos he’s posted on IG.
He’s ripped all the security shit out and replaced it with some system that’s had more issues than stated.
The business is going belly up and left all its initial investors out to dry.
He posted on his way to the airport. It’s an easy mark.
Leave the art, that shit is traceable. By the time he realizes we got him, those bills will be washed three times over.
I pulled up the blueprints submitted to the county. He installed three wall safes.”
“Let me guess who researched how to crack them?” Tiny quipped and Cairo offered him a smirk.
One thing Cairo could do with his eyes closed was remember a sequence of numbers and sounds.
It came to him naturally. He was a methodical genius draped in blue.
Had he stayed in school, he would’ve graduated the top of his class; gotten him a full ride to some college and been running a business with his eyes closed.
“Yeah, nigga. We shouldn’t be in there more than ten minutes. Tiny, you got the bags, Nate, you’re in the van,” Cairo directed.
Nate’s face frowned. “Nigga, I want action.”
“Nigga, you got the car,” Cairo spoke again, giving him a pointed look. “If shit goes left, it’s on me. Not you niggas. Ten minutes. We moving fast; in and out. Back down the coast, aight?”
“Aight,” Tiny said, tossing Nate the keys as Cairo stood to move to the closet where the guns, duffle bags, and masks were stored. When the men were ready, they filed out the house to the back alley where they kept the unmarked van.
They drove in silence mostly. Each focused on something different. Nate – Dania’s pregnancy with no solid plan on how they were moving. Tiny – how he was spending the money they hadn’t even stolen yet. Cairo – Kamilla and the risks he was ready to take for her.
Up the service road, Nate parked the van and Cairo and Tiny hopped out, gathered the necessary bags and pulled the ski masks over their faces.
All identifying markers on their bodies were covered.
Navy blue dickies and Chuck Taylors were traded out for black air forces, black Dickies suits and black bandanas. The pair eased up the path.
Cairo hopped the gate, unlocking it from the inside to let Tiny in.
Through the back of the house popping the lock, Cairo scanned the area for any cameras he missed in his six-hour study.
Spotting none, he moved deeper into the house, still scanning, still listening.
If he had no other passion in life, this would be his bread and butter.
Cairo hit the two safes with ease, dumping the stacks of cash into the duffle bag. On to the third, he got into it without issue. What he found inside: gold bars.
“Nigga, we up!” Tiny whooped.
“No, we aren’t,” Cairo hissed, looking at the stamped gold bars. “Fuck!”
“Nigga, we got to come back,” Tiny urged.
Cairo shook his head and closed the safe. “Nah. Times up, let’s go.”
“Cuatro, you tripping,” Tiny pressed.
Cairo saved his pushback for the van. Tossing the bags in the back of the van and climbing inside, Tiny followed and Nate backed out of the service road and headed back to L.O. When the van was in the clear, Cairo snatched his ski mask off.
“Got damn it, nigga, when I say nah, it’s fucking no,” Cairo bellowed, irritated that Tiny even went back and forth with him.
“The nigga wasn’t going to miss none of them bricks,” Tiny shouted back.
“They’re fucking stamped. There was over a hundred. We don’t have no type of connect to melt that shit down. Meaning, we would have to find a nigga that knows a nigga that knows a nigga and when the shit goes left, they’re pointing at us. That’s the risk you want to take?! Gahdamn!”
Cairo rarely yelled. The aggravation with Tiny’s greed ran deep. Since younger, most of the things they could’ve gotten away with, they’d gotten caught up behind because Tiny always wanted more.
“Aight, nigga, damn,” Tiny huffed.
Cairo eyed him, knowing his friend better than he knew himself. “Hear me clear, nigga. You take your ass back up there to hit that safe, you’re on your own.”
“I said aight, nigga,” Tiny huffed.
“Mom and dad, stop fighting,” Nate lightly joked, hoping to cut the tension. Cairo cut him a look, unzipped his jumpsuit and sighed when the mango scent hit his nose and instantly calmed his system.
The money heisted was split four ways, to the gang and amongst the three of them, Cairo sat in his spare bedroom rebuilding the beat with all of Kamilla’s feedback.
By the time Jason Lowell texted him back about Kamilla’s schedule, the sun was already starting to peek over the horizon.
He set his alarm to ensure he was up and to her spot by eleven. No exceptions.