“You don’t look a day over fifty, Matilda.”
“I know I don’t child. I just like making them feel bad for treating me like an old lady. I gotta do something to keep myself feeling young you know.”
“I bet you were hell back in your heyday, excuse my language.”
“Oh my goodness, yes. But it’s so funny that heydays don’t end.” She was giggling and I walked to the back of her truck as I heard her fidgeting with her keys.
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, you said back in my heyday I was hell. Darlin’ heydays don’t end. It’s like wine, it gets better over time. Or maybe more like vinegar. It gets more potent the longer you let it sit. Starts mild then ends up near caustic. Flavor profiles just builds and builds.”
She’d rambled and I wondered if she was sundowning or whatever that shit was that senile people did.
“Sure, Matilda.”
Instead of raising the lift gate immediately she went on rambling as she took a step closer to me and the SUV.
“It just builds and builds. Kinda like the anger that people have been feeling with having to look for you, Jury.”
The congenial, almost motherly tone had dropped out of her voice and it was now stronger as she stood up to her full height. The hump I thought was in her back was nonexistent and her face seemed to look younger than it had a few minutes before.
“What the fuck?”
She raised her keys and opened the hatch, and I was ready to get away from her. She had me trapped between the cement divider of the parking lot and her SUV. I was going to have to barrel her over if I had to in order to get away.
“Somebody would like to have a word with you. I was more than happy to be the one to come and get you, since you were such a pussy about taking your punishment like a man.” That grandmotherly tone was gone and her voice was hardened with disgust.
“Bitch, who is you?”
I got ready to brush past her but she hit me in the back of my leg with something that had me falling to my knees. I struggledto get back up but I couldn’t as she grabbed me by my collar and spoke directly in my ear.
“Just think of me as your taxi driver to hell.”
CITY
“YO, WHAT THE fuck?”
I grinned as I watched this nigga, who was currently chained to a chair, struggle to break free. It had been a minute since I needed to use this warehouse, but it felt like a homecoming to me. I’d done a lot of dirt in this place and it seemed fitting to end the last of our enemies out here.
“Jury, I was wondering if your ass was actually gone wake up. I thought Mother Henry might’ve knocked your ass out a little too hard. Wild how you’ve been trying to shake me. I thought for sure you were the same bitch that talked all that shit about me and mine. Surely you couldn’t be trying to run away from fate. Not big, bad and bold snitching ass Jury.”
Jury shook his head slightly like he was trying to clear the cobwebs that punch in the back of the head gave him.
“The fuck you on? The last thing I remember I was helping some old bitch—”
“And that old bitch got the drop on you didn’t she? You’re heavier than you look, boy. I see stress eating isn’t something that only women do. I’d advise you to slow down and think of your health but since you’re finna die today there’s no need.”
Mother Henry was grinning from her spot near Jahmir. He and Yacouba were here to bear witness on behalf of theConsortium.
“Die?” How this man woke up in a warehouse tied down and was yet surprised by the idea of death was beyond me.
A look passed between Travis, Jahmir, Yacouba, Mother Henry and I before we all cracked up. “What did you think we were gonna do? Ask you for restitution? You might be aLawand like cooperating with them, but this ain’t a court of one, bitch. This is the streets, and that’s the only type of justice being served. Your ass should’ve never dabbled in this shit cause it’s clear you ain’t built for it. They will happily chew you up and spit you out, especially cause you bitch made. But nooo, you just had to try me. See, we started asking around about you, Jury. Even more than before. We thought you were just two square ass niggas who started a label. Talk about it but not really be about it. But it seems along the way, the niggas around you having street cred and y’all lacking it really started fucking with you. Ain’t that right, Jury?”
We were all standing around giving them their day in street court so they wouldn’t feel like they died without a fair trial. Judge’s face was swelling up from the blows he’d taken in the parking lot. Mir might’ve been right about that kick in the head because that lump was swelling up something serious.
“The fuck is he talking about, Justin?” Judge looked at Jury because he was confused about my words. After I beat his ass we drug him into the car and brought him here where his brother was already waiting for him.
“He just talking to talk, bro.” Even now he didn’t want to be honest with his brother but I wasn’t going to let him keep lying.
