Connie smiled when she saw C-Mann, and the saloon illuminated.

  She stood and two of the biggest bodyguards in America rose with her. She smiled, and her smile seemed out of place in that hole in the wall.

  “Right on time,” she said. “Good.”

  Connie was wearing a short dress that highlighted her long, perfect legs and full ass. She had to adjust it when she got up for her kiss. When she sat back down on the bar stool, her meaty thighs were revealed.

  C-Mann checked her out, head to toe, and quickly got back to her eyes.

  Connie blushed. “Thank you,” she whispered in acknowledgement. “These men, somehow, don’t see me as a woman.”

  Connie’s extraordinary beauty always threw C-Mann off. He first thought, what would she be doing hanging there? And then he realized, shit, she’s a big‐time drug dealer who had killed more people than C-Mann had tackled during his four years playing high school football.

  “Give C-Mann a Johnnie Black,” she announced to the busy barmaid. “A double.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Think I don’t know you? I know what you drink.” Her Spanish accent was as sexy as her smile. “Sit. Relax.”

  Her tone changed instantly as she ordered her men to disappear in Spanish.

  C-Mann went around her and sat facing the door, where the bar bent into an L into the dark corner.

  She nodded at his wisdom: Never have your back to the door. “I have bad news,” she said.

  C-Mann thanked the aged, hardened barmaid for his generous double. She nodded and only gave him a split second of eye contact. In that second he could feel the shit she had been through in her long life.

  He took a sip.

  Connie continued. “We are pulling out.”

  The words were no shock but her lipping a stirrer caught his eye. He unconsciously licked his lips. “It’s business,” she added.

  “Shit getting tough and y’all dipping...I guess that’s professional. You know what? Like I really want to hear this shit now.”

  “Profanity is the sign of an unintelligent man.” “Well shit, I ain’t fucking smart.”

  Connie laughed the laugh of an heiress; a carefree chuckle with all her pearly whites beaming. She said, “The bill is due.”

  “I have two weeks,” he took another good sip. “That was our agreement. You pull out and I have time to get the final bill paid.”

  She shook her head. “No, papa.”

  “Fuck.”

  “The Montenez brothers are opening a club up on forty-fifth.”

  “A hundred and forty-fifth?” C‐Mann scoffed. “Where?”

  “Near Lenox. And it will work, maybe for a short time as greedy as those putos are. But it will work.” “When will this shit come about?”

  “Very soon. We are moving with them.”

  C-Mann sighed. “My dad is missing. I don’t need this shit right now.”

  “Grow up,” she touched his hand lightly. “Excuses are for babies.”

  C-Mann glared at her. Her eyes were soft and eased his annoyance.

  “Your father. That is why it is going down like this. You are going to be tempted to use our money for ransom, and more than likely, lose it. Payment is due now.”

  “You’ll get your money.”

  “My boys will follow you to the club,” her eyes grew fierce. “They will wait until four. If one of your men does not come to their car with the loot, it will be danger.”

  “Danger?” C-Mann scoffed. “There is no more club. Tabu is no more.”

  He dug into his jacket and caused Connie’s men to alert. He handed his keys to her. “There’s about six million dollars in my car.”

  She handed the keys to one of the guardians. He went to C-Mann’s ride.

  “What did you do, Charlie Mann?”

  “Fuck the club and all of y’all with it.”

  She reached out to touch his face and he bucked her hand away. The lone protector stood. Their side of the bar fell silent. Connie signaled she was okay; her eyes never came away from C-Mann.

  “I don’t want this,” she said, “the bitterness.”

  She got closer and her soft, pink hands gently took his wrist and pulled him into her space. He moved to her.

  “I always liked you, Charlie Mann. You are a good person in a business of assholes. I want to help you. I cannot.”

  She reached behind her to where the bar ended at the wall. She brought her dainty purse; it was the size of a paperback novel. She dug in it and came out with a slip of paper.

  “You need help. Take this number.”

  C-Mann put it in his pocket without looking at the paper. Yeah, he was thinking, he was going to trust somebody he didn’t know at this point. That wasn’t going to happen.

  She moved back. “My papa once told me that if you want to make real money in this game, you can’t ever be afraid to die. He said you are born waiting for the bullet; so when it does come - that second before it hits you and dulls your life force ‐ it is not a surprise.”

  C-Mann sighed, his fingers and attention touching his glass.

  She asked, “Have you ever shot a man?”

  C-Mann sipped the scotch. The question embarrassed him.

  “It is not an easy thing. Young fools do it all the time, but they are animals. A person like you ‐ it takes anger, it takes reason. You have reason now: your life, Penny; and those are two things worth living for. The rest of it, the club, the money and even your father, are all objects on their own. Be wise.”

  Her words were needed. He soaked them in, wishing she had his back in this war. She was right; he had to have help to survive.

  “Everybody thinks I am a lame? A punk?”

  “No lame runs a club like that for that long.” C-Mann’s mind eased. His body relaxed, his weight shifting to his arms as he rested on his elbows. “No, Charlie Mann, you are a man all the way, just not the type of man who can survive a war like this.” “I will though.”

  “No one wants to help you. You do not get friends like that now. You develop friends who go to war with you.”

  He thought of Chuck. Maybe he should’ve visited the ʹhood more often. Fuck it, he decided. He turned to Connie and her two-toned, blood-red lipstick altered his thoughts for a second.

  He said, “You know what’s fucking me up? Why don’t you back us?”

  “You do not have enough to pay me to fight them. When I win, what do I get when I win? I have no use for a club. If I want to run a club I would have had one.”

  The guy who fetched the money returned. He nodded at Connie.

  She said to C‐Mann, “Count to make sure we only took the right amount?”

  “No. We straight.”

  He downed the final sip of the drink.

  “Come home with me.”

  His first thought was that she didn’t say what she had. Then he considered she wanted him to get high with her. C-Mann looked to her and she was not smiling. She repeated the invite.

  “I don’t get down like that. Just weed for me, no coke, but thanks.”

  “I don’t need company to get high. I have people for that. I want to fuck.”

  “Shit. I have been trying to hit that forever. Now you want to fuck?”

  “I am so horny,” she giggled. “A desperate man turns me on. The worry, the fear.”

  “Connie?” C‐Mann shook his head in disbelief. “Shit. Nice that my fucking dilemma turns you on, but you know, I am a little busy right about now. I got things to handle.”

  Connie shifted her legs and crossed the bottom leg to the top.

  She said, “Yes. All men are busy if they are men. Men make time for what they want to do. You have time. You can hit it and quit it. You can fuck me with no love. You cannot kiss me. But you cannot say no.”

  CHAPTER 30

  C-Mann followed Connie’s white on white Jaguar.

  Her men sat up front, and the driver was in no hurry, moving deliberately through the silent, darkened Harlem streets and stopping for yellows.

  C-Mann sought out Connie’s head of hair but all he could see was the bodyguards. Maybe she was taking a nap. Maybe she wasn’t in the fucking car. Maybe she had done some slick James Bond shit and only appeared to have gotten in. Maybe he was being led to his death.

  This was crazy.

  But maybe if he fucked her, she would help him. She had some of the best soldiers in the city at her beck and call.

  The Jag twirled into the half‐moon parking lot, and the doorman came to her car.

  Connie went into her tiny purse and took out a folded bill. She handed it to the doorman and told him to “please take care of both cars.”

  The white man smiled and said, “Yes, of course, Ms. Lopez.”

  C-Mann looked back at his car, remembering the

  money.

  “Come,” Connie said. “The car will be fine.”

  He walked behind them into the building. The elevator was ridiculously small. The men squeezed together and allowed Connie to be comfortable.

  Once inside the apartment Connie’s bodyguards went left while Connie went straight into the sunken, spacious living room. She spoke to them in an authorative tone in Spanish but seemed unfazed that they were gone. C-Mann followed his hostess. She went to the white wooded wall unit and opened its glass casing.

  “Take off your jacket. Relax, poppa.”

  He dropped his jacket on the white leather sofa and noticed he was standing on a white plush rug. He looked at the bottom of his Tims, praying he hadn’t tracked dirt into her home. He hadn’t.

  “It’s cool I sit on the couch?”

  “Sure. Sit.”

  C-Mann took in the lack of color in the apartment and he had to ask.

  “You like it white, huh?”

  “Only the color. Not the people.”

  C-Mann smiled in agreement.

  “Ice?” she shouted as she left his eyesight.

  “No, just let it sit in the glass.”

  She returned and handed him a drink in a nice

  tumbler. He could tell instantly the scotch was the good shit. The smell heated his nose.

  “Come with me.”

  He got up and followed her. The place was big, many rooms and many doors.

  Of course the color white ruled the bedroom as well. The walls were mostly bare; just one framed picture above the bed. C-Mann would have wagered a large sum that it was Jesus. He would have lost his money.

  “Sit on my bed.”

  “Who is that up there?”

  “My father.”

  “He’s watching over you?”

  “Always, all the time. Sit down. I will be back un

  momento.”

  Being alone for a few seconds put C‐Mann on edge.

  Now he was aching for a drink to fight off the worry that he was about to be wacked. What if Connie was down with his sister? What if she was down with Miami? What if she just wanted to kill him? And he thought if he were about to be killed then he would be at rest.

  When Connie returned, C-Mann was just about sleeping. A dream was coming to him, a dream of resting, chilling out, in Florida, on the beach.

  She returned in a red, classy nightie with red pumps posing as slippers. She dropped to her knees and took his drink. She put it on her nightstand.

  Connie worked to open his jeans without ruining her impeccably manicured nails with the soft pink design. She used the pad of her fingers to unbuckle and unzip.

  “Um,” she sighed when his Johnson was unleashed. “I knew it.”

  “You were right.”

  C-Mann smiled as she started giving him head. He liked how she got down; she was the greedy, wet mouth slobbering type. Looking down on that sexy head of hair along with the feel of her soft mouth, she had him on the verge of exploding instantly.

  “God, what the fuck?” she said, her hand still at work stroking him large, “It is so big, poppa.”

  “Shit, you doing that.” C-Mann put a hand on her soft, jet‐black hair, expecting her to protest. He couldn’t see a woman of her stature letting some regular nigga face fuck her. But he wanted her to go deeper. And she was with it. Sucking nice and hard, C-Mann almost blew his mind at the incredible polished expertise of Connie’s deep, warm, sucking mouth and teasing, flicking tongue. She felt him brutally driving his penis deeper into her already crammed mouth, and she liked it, taking him deep and twirling her tongue as it withdrew.

  That feeling sliced through him and there was nothing he could do but ride along. She took him to the verge of nutting and he stopped her. What a woman she was, so sensuous and sexy. She stood up, smiling, and C-Mann took her hand. “You sit down,” he ordered as he rose.

  C-Mann was not into giving oral sex; he fucked too many questionable women for that luxury, but sometimes he just had to. Besides, he thought, she had earned it.

  For Connie it had been a long time since she had enjoyed a male tongue. She had plenty of females to take care of that, and, of course, a woman can do a woman better. But having a man on his knees doing it right, that was heaven.

  Connie beckoned; her flesh moist with the scent of the tropics.

  C-Mann licked slowly. He used his thumbs to open her drenched tight, sweet opening. In only seconds his French kiss had coated her love with hot wetness. He sent his fingers to play with her swollen vaginal muscles and then pushed inside. Her moans changed to a low groaning animal sound that filled the intimate little room with her enchanted delight.

  “Stop, fucking stop,” she said suddenly. “Oh, God. You gave me an orgasm.”

  She spun off the wet bed and got C-Mann to sit.

  Connie climbed aboard, setting her hot sex down on C-Mann. She started pumping, sitting in his lap, impaled on his glorious manhood. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she threw back her head and bit her lip to keep from screaming. As her body arched in ecstasy, he had his hands on her ass and he was maneuvering her at his will with each stroke.

  Connie looked at C-Mann, her eyes glazed by lust, a mirror image of his own. She was in his ear, hot whispers of passion laced with his full name.

  “Um,” she moaned. “It’s growing. Charlie Mann. Getting thicker, harder.”

  He was too deep into the feelings to respond.

  Suddenly she felt his thick penis quivering as he came in a blasting fury. It caused her to scream wildly from the delight.

  When the magic bliss of their mutual orgasms had faded, and they caught their breath, he held her close on top of him.

  “Um,” she whispered with a contented smile. “That was good, papa.”

  All he could do was nod in agreement.

  CHAPTER 31

  In the morning, C‐Mann couldn’t believe he had fallen into a deep sleep.

  He had awakened in horror. In a vivid visual he saw that Penny was dead and he had fucked Connie while she had been brutally murdered.

  His senses, dulled by half‐sleep, detected shadows moving in the distant reaches of the room. He was wrapped in the sheets, sprawled on the bed, feeling the cool air of a New York, high‐rise morning.

  He sat up and tried to take in deep breaths and ease his guilt. The sun coming through silk curtains into the white room made the room feel mighty heaven‐like and bright as hell.

  In the room with him were two of the finest‐ looking Latinas God had created. He blinked in the sight to focus and see both were young and firm and wearing white linen pants and wife beaters.

  “Sleepy man awakes.” Connie’s voice seemingly came out of nowhere.

  She was sitting in a soft pink lounge chair, one sexy leg bouncing on the other, drinking from an elegant mug. Her eyes were locked on C-Mann smiling. In Spanish she thanked the girls and sent them away.

  “My girls washed and pressed your clothes.”

  “Your girls?”

  “My girls. They work for me. Clean up, cook and hang out. Work for me.”

  “Cool, I mean, you ain’t gotta go into details.”

  C-Mann swung his legs off the bed. The bright daylight outside the window finally registered. “What time is it?”

  “Almost ten.”

  “Shit. Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You were tired. Eat, poppa. You’ll need the strength.”

  The smells of the serious breakfast made his alcohol soaked guts ache; his belly needed the food. The rich aroma of the Cuban coffee was nice to his senses as well.

  “Charlie Mann.”

  He paused his mouth full from devouring the cheese eggs and the heavily salted and paprika‐seasoned potatoes.

  “Don’t leave today.”

  “Like I can do that?”

  “You are up against it.”

  “A nigga is up against it when he is born. Shit is uphill. Ain’t nothing to fucking talk about. Everybody fucking wants me to just dip, run like a bitch.”

  “It’s not that from me, not me. Not after last night.”

  C-Mann blew a harsh sigh. “Whatever.”

  “Whatever?” Connie angered. “It’s not whatever. You think I just fucked you like it was nothing?”

  “Wait,” he was shocked that he had hurt her feelings. “Didn’t you? I mean, what are you saying?”

  She jumped up.

  C-Mann watched her pace the hardwood floor, that figure.

  She said, “I could kill you right now; I am so angry, you asshole. You don’t know what you are walking into. You will be dead by nightfall. I don’t want that. I can’t do anything. I just don’t want you to walk out that door. I want you here, with me alive, okay? Okay? Shit.”

  Connie stopped at her windows, opened the curtains to look out across the river to Jersey.

  C-Mann said, “Look, I mean, what the fuck? What you want me to say? I got shit to do. It ain’t like this is some movie and I am trying to be heroic. I got to do this shit.”

  “You are so fucking stupid,” she said from the window.

  “Don’t call me stupid.”

  She closed her eyes. She looked back to C-Mann. “You are,” she said softly.

  “What’s up with you? What you trying to tell me? Warning me? An ambush and shit? I know that. You know, shit, I know how serious this shit is.”

  C-Mann sighed and shook his head. A sick feeling was building in his stomach. He looked over what’s left of the delicious breakfast. His appetite was gone.

  She moved slowly away from the window. She was hiding something, holding something in. He thought it was his death. He thought she knew exactly what he was about to face, and he didn’t know how she knew.

 

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