Natural Born Hustler Read online

  Fame held her hand and used his other hand to pull out his keys from his front pocket, then chirped the alarm and lock to his 2007, souped-up Impala.

  They drove ten minutes to a low-traffic stretch of the road just off the expressway in silence, except for the sounds coming from the new Jeezy CD. They pulled off the road onto the grass alongside a row of trees.

  Desember pushed a button, reclining her seat all the way back and pulled up her skirt. “Turnabout is fair play,” she purred.

  “Say no more.” Fame’s tongue made a dive so skilled into her goodness, Olympic judges would have scored him a perfect ten.

  Desember was the only person he’d ever gone down on, and over the past three months of their relationship, he had mastered the carnal science.

  “Oh shit!” Desember enjoyed every second of it, bucking her hips, giving him all the access he needed in the small space the car allowed.

  Fame cupped her butt cheeks with his hands so she couldn’t squirm away—not that she wanted to—and lapped at her sweetness until she damn near broke loose, releasing a river of juices. But it didn’t end there.

  They switched positions and Fame leaned back in the passenger seat, Desember straddling him. She rode his muscle like an equestrian pro trying to break an untamed beast. Every time she dropped her hips, he thrust deeper into her middle, and the louder she moaned.

  “That’s it, baby!” Fame cried out this time. “Ride that ma’fucking horse.” He could feel the pressure building up, his nuts tighter than a pocket full of money in a pair of skinny jeans and ready to explode.

  Desember felt it also, and she increased her rhythm. Then after five or six quick up-and-downs, she raised her hips, pausing at the tip, just enough to make him beg her to finish him off. And she did, slithering down his pole until he lost his load … and part of his mind. He was still trying to catch his breath when he slipped out of her warm pleasure spot. “That shit was the bomb, boo,” he gasped after a long exhale.

  She laughed. “Nothing like make-up sex, huh, baby? Plus I missed you so much. I really did.” She kissed him.

  “You been watching them porn movies when I’m not around?” he teased, kissing her forehead.

  It was hard to believe that only two weeks ago they had been at each other’s throats—literally—in a fight that not only landed them both in jail but with restraining orders to stay a hundred feet away from each other. But there was nothing on the face of the Earth—no court papers, prison bars, distance, person, place or thing—that could keep them apart from each other, because the truth of the matter was they were chained together at the heart.

  Her and Fame’s altercations were nothing at all like Angie and Joe’s, Desember thought to herself. The difference between her and Angie was that Desember was nobody’s punching bag or whipping girl; she gave as hard as she took, and since she and Fame became a couple they may have had heated arguments but it had only gotten physical once. And at the end of the day they truly loved each other. If it’s true that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction then their relationship was testimony to the rule. In their minds, they fought hard because they loved even harder.

  “Fuck, naw, I ain’t been watching no damn porn, nigga,” she shot back with a playful hit. “How about you get yo’ mind out the gutter for once and do something useful with yo’self? Try gettin’ a towel out of the trunk or something.”

  “Bet. I gotta hit my seats anyway. You got ’em all wet with that waterfall pussy of yours,” he joked, slapping her on the backside before sliding from under her and out the passenger door.

  Once outside the car, Fame pulled his jeans up, buttoned them and zipped and fastened them before heading to the rear of the Impala.

  It was ink black on the unlit road except for the moon and stars, and rare headlights from a passing motorist. That was why he picked that particular spot: it was quiet, private and dark, and the perfect place to make love under the full moonlight. But to be honest, as hard as Desember had gotten his dick in the movie, he’d been a hot minute from being willing to bust a nut on aisle seven in Wal-Mart.

  He hit the lock button on his key ring to pop the trunk; it clicked, then the lid slowly ascended, dim yellow light shining on its contents. Nothing was out of place and even the carpet in the trunk was showroom clean. He always kept fresh towels in the trunk of his car for wiping it down after he got it washed. He worshipped that car like it was his deity.

  The plastic crate he kept his clean towels in was sitting where he had left it—in the back right corner of the trunk. He checked the bottom of the crate, underneath the clean, soft, Downy-smelling towels, to make sure his pistol was still in place. The cold, hard cylinder of the barrel gave him comfort. His oldest brother, Felix, once told him that it’s better to get caught with it (by the police) than without it (by the enemy) and ever since then there was a better chance of catching Fame in the street without his pants than without his burner.

  He grabbed the top towel from the crate and headed toward the front of the Impala.

  He heard a vibrating hum from a motorbike approaching from the westbound lane, and his instincts compelled him to look over his shoulder. The one-eyed machine was a ways off, but the roar of the strong high-booster engine was getting louder as it ate up the tarred pavement. It was a little cold to be riding but Fame envied the rider anyway. He had a deep passion for motorcycles, but had yet to purchase one of his own.

  This summer, he thought, I’ma get me one. He nodded with an envious smile on his mug as the biker closed the final twenty or so yards between them, trying to figure out what kind of motorcycle it was, when the bike backfired … five times.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Or maybe not …

  They were gunshots.

  Before he could react, Fame caught the first slug in the shoulder, spinning him 180 degrees. The second bullet missed him, instead ripping a middle-sized hole through the tail end of the whip that he religiously praised.

  Startled by the first shot, Desember reacted with her gut instinct and reached for Fame’s pistol. After the second slug went into the backseat, she fell to the floor of the car, desperately feeling under the seat for the piece of cold steel that was usually there, but felt nothing. She thought of where else it could be. She knew that Fame wasn’t carrying it on his body when he got out of the car, and prayed that by the grace of God he had taken it out of the trunk when he’d gone for the towel. Still unsure of what was going on, she had no other option but to duck her head under the dashboard. The third, fourth and fifth bullets slammed into Fame’s side, stomach and back. He collapsed by the car, the side-view mirror revealing his surprised eyes as he lay motionless while the motorcycle and its rider sped off into the dead of night.

  Desember bailed out of the car the second she felt the coast was clear and yelled out, “FAMMMME!!!!”

  She prayed that he was okay, but once she made it to the driver’s side of the car where he’d gone down and found him curled in a fetal position with blood gushing out of his wounds and mouth, she feared that her prayers might be in vain.

  “Noooo!” she cried out. “Don’t die … You can’t die … I won’t let you!” she screamed, dropping to her knees beside the man she loved with all her young heart. She had to pull it together for Fame. I gotta get him some help. Where’s my phone? Dammit! What did I do with the fucking phone? Calm down, Desember. You can’t help if you’re panicking. She rose and hurried back inside the car and grabbed her cell phone, frantically dialing 911 before remembering that she had turned it off earlier.

  She punched the button to repower the phone and waited an agonizing six seconds—which felt to her like six hours—before it finally turned on.

  “What’s your emergency?”

  “I need an ambulance,” she screamed at the nonchalant-sounding voice. “My man has been shot, and I think he’s dying!”

  Minutes later an ambulance pulled up. The doors located on the rear of the vehicle
sprang open, red lights still screaming emergency. Two young EMTs jumped from the ambulance with the efficient speed and ability of the trained and familiar. Together they moved a collapsible gurney from the truck to the ground and gently but efficiently rushed Fame to the hospital.

  Desember held Fame’s hand. She hadn’t released it since she made the 911 call. The truth of the matter was that her love for him ran so deep, she felt that if he was dying she was too. When they were there on the nearly deserted road waiting for help, Fame fought for breath to speak, and she could hear the gurgling of blood in his throat. Fame had managed to say, “I … love … you … D.”

  Trying to be strong with tears in her eyes, she held it together. “I know you do, baby. But right now try to save your energy. We gonna need all the strength in both of us to get through this. We gonna make it, baby.”

  Fame was in bad shape, and Desember wasn’t quite as sure as she sounded. But she wouldn’t give up, and neither would Fame.

  At the hospital, two oversized glass doors slid open as they approached, allowing entry into the emergency room. The senior ambulance medic had already called in the situation on the way to the ER: trauma patient, black male, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, multiple gunshot wounds, critical condition. They assumed that the slug that entered from the back had clipped Fame’s lung, which could prove to be fatal.

  Two nurses met them in the ER. It had only taken the emergency vehicle six minutes to arrive at the scene, and another seven to get to the hospital. The technicans were relieved that they had done their job getting their patient to the care he needed. Now it was up to the hands of a skilled surgeon, God and Fame’s will to live.

  “We’ll take ’im from here,” the brown heavyset nurse said to the techs. The nurse standing by her side, Mildred, was a white older lady with short dark hair. Mildred’s eyes quickly assessed the situation before settling on the clasped hands: one a young woman’s and the other a young man’s, both stained with blood, holding onto each other for dear life. “You’ve done all you can do,” she said, “but you’re going to have to let go now.”

  Desember looked up into Nurse Mildred’s bright, but slightly tired, blue eyes and saw a woman with compassion to her plight, but with a job to do. Reluctantly, she pried her hand away and said, “I love you, Fame. You know I do.”

  The nurses and doctors whisked Fame away to the trauma room. “We’re going to need you to fill out a few papers, ma’am.” Desember hadn’t seen the nurse walk up. This one was tall, wearing a colorful yellow and purple smock. “Are you related to the patient?”

  “Yes, I’m his wife,” Desember said confidently. Though they were not legally married, in her heart they were. Marriage was nothing but a piece of paper and in the real world it didn’t mean shit. The love they shared meant everything; she was his partner in life, and if it came down to it, in death too. They had been living together and fully committed to each other for the past three months. In their eyes the feelings they shared for each other ran deeper than most couples’ who had been together for years. They were down for each other unconditionally.

  Nurse Mildred looked at Desember. “This is Nurse Shelia, and she’s going to take you to a cubicle and ask you a series of questions, mostly about his medical history, allergies, etc.” She gave Desember a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “I will check on you later,” she said.

  Desember went with the other nurse and answered her questions to the best of her ability, until she was distracted by a bunch of ruckus going on down the hall.

  “There that bitch go right there!” Fame’s sister, Faith, shouted, pointing at Desember so that there was no mistake about whom she was speaking.

  Desember knew that all hell was about to break loose, because Fame’s family was first-class ghetto. This was one of those times she wished she weren’t an only child, but still she’d go toe to toe with his sister or his brothers if she had to.

  The nurse could see the tenseness in Desember’s face. “Everything going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know. Those are his family members and they can be a mess.”

  Nurse Shelia responded, “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “Well, like I said, I don’t know what to expect from these fools. So, if anything goes down,” she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and jotted down a number, “I need you to call my mother and let her know if they lock me up or something, because I got a feeling this may get out of control.”

  “I won’t let that happen. It won’t come down to that,” Nurse Shelia assured her.

  By that time the police had also arrived, and they came over to Desember as she sat in the booth with the nurse, waiting to question her about the shooting.

  Faith got louder to gain the attention of the detectives. “Y’all gon lock that bitch up or not?” she addressed one of the cops, her mother, Francine, by her side. Her brothers, Fabian, Frank and Frazier, took up the rear. “She set ’im up. I know that wicked bitch set ’im up. All you gotta do is check the bitch’s fucking police record … I know the bitch had something to do with my brother getting shot.”

  “You must be crazy.” Desember got up from her seat. The shit was maddening; being accused of complicity to the assassination attempt on Fame’s life was insane.

  “She ain’t even supposed to be around him no ways!” Faith yelled. “What da fuck she doing around him!”

  “It’s none of your business what we do together,” Desember said. “Hate it or love it, your brother loves me. We love each other.”

  “Right. And you set him up, beyatch. You can try to sell that love shit to somebody else, ’cause I ain’t buying it. He’s with you and coincidentally he gets shot.”

  “Why would you think that Ms. Day is responsible for the shooting of your brother?” the older of the two officers asked Faith.

  Fabian spoke instead: “I just got my brother out on bond almost two weeks ago …”

  “And that bitch was in too,” Faith said.

  “… and the judge ordered those two to stay away from each other,” Fabian finished.

  Frank spoke. “That might be true, but shorty”—he shook his head and waved his hand at Desember—“she ain’t got shit to do wit it,” he said in a sure tone, but his appearance looked crazy; he had a cigarette behind his ear, and half of his thick long hair was braided while the other half was wild. He had on a jean jacket with no shirt underneath and wore a white gold necklace with a diamond medallion. “I’ll bet my life shorty wouldn’t cross my brother.”

  “I just want to know if my son is all right,” Francine said to the nurse, the worry in her voice and eyes clearly visible.

  “He’s in surgery now,” the nurse explained. “It’s going to be awhile before we know if … whether or not he’s going to make it. The bullets damaged a vital organ, but he has the best surgeon we’ve got doing everything possible to keep your son, your brother, alive.”

  Frazier, three years Fame’s senior, looked into Desember’s eyes for a sign to indicate that she had something to do with his brother getting shot. He almost agreed with his brother Frank, because all he saw was a young girl, in love and frightened. But that wasn’t the same as innocent. If he found out that she had something to do with Fame getting shot, she would have to pay.

  Tears crawled to the corners of Faith’s eyes. “Let me at that bitch!” she shouted.

  Her mother held her back, trying to calm her down, fighting her own tears in the process. “You’s a dead bitch. A dead-ass bitch,” Faith echoed the threat twisted with anger, pain, hurt. “I promise you, bitch: you dead.”

  Desember didn’t take Faith seriously, because everybody knew that real killers didn’t give a heads-up before they moved. She needed to focus on who tried to kill Fame. Or were they both the target? She had too much to deal with, and she didn’t need the added burden of Fame’s family coming at her.

  Officer Lyons’s left eyebrow rose about an eighth of an inch, as if his mind was processi
ng information and jotting down mental notes to review later. “Look, I can’t let you threaten her like that—or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “It ain’t no threat, it’s a promise.” Faith said.

  “Well, you are going to have to keep your promises to yourself or we are going to have to place you in custody. And under these circumstances, it’s not necessary. Everybody is under stress. You should focus your energy on what’s important: pulling for your brother to make it.”

  “Yeah but you need to lock up the motherfucking bitch who did it, instead of eating doughnuts and all that shit! Do yo’ fucking job!” Faith screamed, damn near spitting on the man during her outburst.

  “We will, but we can’t if we’re refereeing fights between the people who love him most.” He shook his head a moment before continuing. “I understand you’re upset,” Officer Lyons said to Faith, “but all of your threats and hostility aren’t going to help matters any. Everybody needs to calm down; we’re in a hospital, not a bar.”

  “Look, mister, we know where we at, and believe me, we wish we weren’t here.” Francine leveled her eyes at Officer Lyons, her voice like chips of ice. “It’s my son, their brother, on an operating table fighting for his life,” she hissed. “We know damn well where in da hell we at. Smells like a got-damn hospital to me.”

  Officer Lyons nodded to his partner. They had worked together long enough that the younger officer knew what his senior partner wanted. “I’m going to have to ask you all to have a seat in the waiting room for now while my partner and I talk to Ms. Day.” Francine and her children reluctantly obeyed the officer’s wishes.

  Officer Lyons pulled a chair up and asked Desember to take a seat. “I only have a few questions,” he said. “Basically routine. I’ll try to make it as brief as possible. Okay?”

  She nodded her head. “Okay.”