Chapter 10 Giovani “Ghost” Baxter
Giovani “Ghost” Baxter
Sleep ain’t come easy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I slept at all.
Just when I thought I was about to get some shuteye, the sun was already pushing through the cheap hotel curtains.
After the play last night, Trigga and I grabbed a motel room not too far from the strip.
My head was pounding, and not from the liquor I had had the night before, but from the reality that was sitting heavily on my chest. We sold everything.
Every little baggie of white powder. And instead of feeling like a win, it felt like I just signed up for something I couldn’t deliver.
Ryan wanted more coke in bulk, and we didn’t have access to it anymore.
I sat on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees and my phone in my hand.
I kept staring at the same number, as if it might change if I looked at it long enough.
Ryan was really about his business. The man came out of nowhere and changed things for us in one night.
He paid top dollar for everything we had left.
Being money hungry, I agreed to supply him as if we had anything to supply.
Like we weren’t running off a one-time lick.
I dragged my hand down my face and exhaled slowly.
“Damn…”
This wasn’t excitement. This was pressure.
The kind that either turns you into something bigger or crushes you.
Trigga didn’t even know that I had taken some money for the next shipment, which wasn’t a shipment at all because we didn’t have shit.
Ryan wanted to show good faith, so he gave me 10 percent of the price of ten bricks to prove that he was serious about doing business.
Across the room, Trigga was knocked out cold, lying there as if none of this existed.
Like we didn’t just step into something we might not be able to walk out of.
I saw how he fell back last night, and honestly, I envied that for a second.
Since we were kids, I was always the one to lead.
I took that role because I was older. I took that role because his father had instilled it in me.
He had said to always look out for Tahari.
I knew his father before I even knew him because he had been in my life for as long as I could remember.
Back in the day, I used to think that he was my dad.
We favored, and I mean badly. He, Tahari, and I all had the same mole above our right eye.
Not to mention, he was always around. I remember when I was a young boy, I had asked my mother about it, and she quickly shut it down. I never asked again.
While Trigga snored beside me, I looked at him with an annoyed facial expression, but then I shook it off.
Somebody had to think for us, and right now, that somebody was me.
I was scrolling through my phone contacts when I came across just the person who could aid in this situation.
Bashar was the little homie who had put me on to MB’s Auto.
I wondered if he knew of any other work stashed away in another one of their locations.
My thumb hovered over the contact before I finally hit dial.
It rang longer than I liked. Once. Twice. And then…
“Yeah?” His voice came through low and cautious.
I leaned back slightly and made sure to keep my tone even.
“What’s good, lil’ man?”
There was silence on the line, and I had to look at my phone to make sure that he didn’t hang up on me.
“Ghost,” he said finally. “What’s up?”
“I need to know something,” I said, cutting straight to the point.
Trigga started to stir a bit in his sleep, so I stepped out of the room. I squinted when I made it outside because the sun was beaming in my eyes.
“Know what?” Bashar asked.
“I need another spot. Do MBs have any more spots holding weight?”
There was silence on the line again. But this time it felt different. I swear I could hear the nigga’s mental knobs going.
“Hello?” I asked in an annoyed tone because he was about to piss me off.
“I just put y’all on the last one,” he said slowly.
My jaw tightened slightly.
“We handled business. Now I’m asking what else you know.”
There was another pause. Then Bashar let out a quiet laugh, but it wasn’t an amusing one. He sounded irritated.
“Nah,” he said, “that ain’t how that go.”
My eyes narrowed as I started pacing outside the room.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he snapped with his voice picking up edge, “I still ain’t get my cut from the first play.”
For a second, I thought I heard him wrong.
“Your what?” I asked calmly.
“My cut,” he repeated, louder this time. “That was my info. I told you where to go, how to move, and when to hit it. Y’all don’t eat off that and leave me with nothing.”
I let the silence hang for a second, to make sure he heard himself. Then I spoke.
“Ain’t nobody promise you a cut,” I said flatly.
He was breathing heavily on the other side of the phone. I could tell that he was getting worked up.
“Man, don’t play with me,” he shot back. “You think I gave you that drop for free?”
“You gave me information. That’s it.”
At this point, there was a coldness to my tone.
If his ass wanted a cut, he should have said that before giving any info.
This dumb ass nigga didn’t even know how to move.
He didn’t know how to negotiate. I had more than enough money to break him off something, but I couldn’t see myself doing that shit.
Especially since he called himself trying to talk to me crazy.
I didn’t play when it came to pride. Tahari’s dad taught me that shit.
“That’s not it,” he snapped. “I’m the whole reason you even got in there.”
I was trying to keep my temper in check, but it was slipping.
I think more than anything, I was getting heated at the way he was talking to me.
Bashar was a little nigga that I used to slap upside the head and send to the store while me and the rest of the older niggas played ball in the park.
The thing that was making my blood spike was the simple fact that he thought he could talk to me this way.
Audacity must have been on sale, na, the shit must have been free with his broke ass.
“You got it twisted,” I said. “We took the risk. We hit the spot. We moved the product. That’s our play.”
“Yeah?” he said, his tone turned ugly. “Then break me off or I start talking.”
I stopped moving.
“Talking?” I repeated.
“Yeah,” he said with confidence creeping into his voice now. “I can make a call really quickly and let the people at MB’s Auto know exactly who hit their spot. You think they’re just gonna let that slide?”
And there it was. The threat. I closed my eyes for a second while exhaling through my nose.
“You wouldn’t do that,” I said quietly.
“Try me.”
The line went silent again, but this time I could feel his satisfaction seeping through the phone.
Right now, he had the upper hand, and we both knew it.
This wasn’t the same jit from back in the day.
This wasn’t the same boy who was eager to prove himself and desperate to be seen.
Nah. Now he was a man with leverage. And leverage in the wrong hands could get people hurt.
The thing with it is, I don’t think that he feared me.
Not anymore, at least. That is something that I had to change.
I stared straight into the parking lot beneath me.
I was so damn mad that I could throw one of those fucking cars or pull a tree out of the ground.
“Aight,” I said with a shifted tone. I had to calm down, just enough to ease the tension, “Relax. You are doing too much.”
He didn’t respond, but I could hear him listening.
“We can figure something out,” I continued. “But not over the phone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when I get back on that side, I’m going to pull up on you. Let’s talk face-to-face like men. I’ll make sure you’re straight.”
He hesitated. I could hear the wheels turning in his head, trying to decide if this was a win or a setup. Greed made the decision for him.
“Pull up on me?” he asked.
“I know where to find you,” I said with an even tone.
I didn’t even give Bashar time to respond.
I ended the line. For a second, I just stood outside the room, thinking.
We had a loose end threatening to bring everything crashing down before it even really started.
I needed him so damn afraid that he wouldn’t say a word.
The way I saw things was I didn’t need him to hit another MB’s Auto, I was going to pick the next remote one and have at it.
If there were no bricks, then so be it. Auto parts and everything else would be up for grabs.
Ryan’s ass was getting placed on the back burner because he didn’t know shit about me either.
Who told his ass to give me extra money for a plan that wasn’t even put into motion?
I didn’t even want to share this bit of information with Trigga because I knew how he worried.
I was about to go back in this room, wake his ass up, tell him that we got another location, and then drive our ass home.
I had to take care of Bashar’s ass before hitting another spot, though.
Trigga didn’t even ask any questions when I dropped him off at the crib.
The whole ride back, he was smiling on his phone, and I knew that he had to be texting Maliah.
I wasn’t a hating ass nigga, but his being in love was annoying as hell.
He second-guessed everything, and it made me damn cringe.
It was like that itch under the bottom of your foot, discomfort.
I pulled onto Bashar’s block and then parked right outside his house.
I reached into my armrest and grabbed my .
38 special. A small gift to myself with the cash we had gotten from the lick at MBs.
After leaning up in my chair and tucking it into my waistband, I exited the car.