Carl Weber's Kingpins Read online

  “Like I said earlier, be ready to pull your daddy’s heat out on this bitch as soon as she answers the door.” Temper gave instructions in the slot where saying, “Thank you for having my back,” should have gone.

  Despite their frightening circumstances, Kei’Lani felt that a little gratitude would have been nice. If it weren’t for the murderous look Temper gave her with the demand, “Bring yo’ ass on!” she would have played taxi by dropping Temper off and cycling away.

  The entire situation was more than Kei’Lani could manage, though it seemed to be as normal as starching khakis to Temper. Temper loved dangerous situations and found comfort in drama no matter whose drama it was. She wasn’t enjoying the problem she was currently facing because this situation came with a level of uncertainty. Would she live to laugh about it another day, or would death headline an impromptu show? She didn’t know, and the pain didn’t ease to give her a chance to find out.

  When they made it up the steps to the barred door, Temper let out her fears and frustrations on it through her knocks. “Don’t act all weak and shit. Get yo’ ass up out of yo’ feelings, Kei-Kei. We made it and I’m still alive. All you have to do is keep the heat in this ho’s face until she does everything I need her old ass to do. But if that ho acts crazy, pull the trigger!”

  Kei’Lani nodded her head in understanding despite the fact that she didn’t comprehend anything that was happening. The girls always toted guns and only planned on using them if they had to. To Kei’Lani, this didn’t seem comparable to one of those forced times, though she knew it was always easy for Temper to make something out of nothing.

  Temper pounded on the door harder and then lay on the bell.

  “Who in the hell is banging on my screen door like they’ve lost their damn mind?” Lena yelled, pushing her window curtain back. She wasn’t shocked to see Temper wearing an oversized khaki shirt and pants and looking every part the gangster bitch she yearned to be. What was surprising was that she dared to bring one of her little gangbanging friends with her, a fat one weighing 200 pounds or better and wearing too much black eyeliner.

  Kei-Kei, which was the only name the hood knew Kei’Lani by, had the shit swirled around her eyes to accent absolutely nothing, and she’d heavily lined her plump, weed-stained lips. If her skin tone were half a shade darker, you wouldn’t be able to tell she had any makeup on at all. Seeing that it wasn’t, she looked a fool with thinning edges, wearing a Dickies jumpsuit and a one-inch ponytail to the side gelled with Pro Styl.

  To make it worse, she stood next to a skinny, half-Asian, half-black girl almost twice her height who must have gotten lost in the hood and dressed consistently with the locals. She looked like she should be doing nails or ringing customers up for a pack of cigarettes and some lottery tickets. You could see the traces of black in Temper’s DNA. Even so, the Asian was dominant. Everyone around Temper could see it, and she didn’t care, because nothing inside of her felt Asian.

  Lena grabbed her metal bat from its place next to her front door with the umbrellas, and she opened the door, prepared to swing. “I thought I told you that Khasema is in jail. Whatcha gon’ do? Make him—”

  Guns cocked in her face, forcing her to swallow her next words.

  “Bitch, I’m not here for K-Mack. I came for you!” Temper said, moving the gun closer to her ex-boyfriend’s mother’s temple. “Now let us in so you can help me!”

  “Help you with what?” Lena’s heart hammered against her chest, causing her sagging C-cups to shake in her support bra. She’d warned her son not to mess with the neighborhood scraps, and now she was going to lose her life over the mistakes his dick had made. He’d better be glad his ass is in jail. If he weren’t, I’d kill him for this shit here, she thought as she eyed Temper from head to toe, not seeing a cause for her to be asking for help.

  Temper waved her bloody hands erratically in Lena’s face.

  “Oh, God, sugar, where are you shot? I heard the shooting but didn’t think nobody was hit.” She gasped and then gasped again as the smell of malt liquor and vomit invaded her nose.

  “I’m not shot. I’m in labor with your weak-ass son’s baby.”

  “Wha . . . what?” Lena stammered.

  “There ain’t no time for explanations. This is how this shit is about to go down. You’re going to deliver this baby as if you’re working labor and delivery, or my bitch Kei-Kei is going to put a bullet in the back of your head. So you can stop clutching your imaginary pearls as if you didn’t know me and your son were fucking and get to work.” Her demand came from gritted teeth as the contraction she tried to breathe through, as seen on TV, finally subsided.

  “Since you put it that way, come on in,” Lena said, making a mental note not to inhale through her nose. She looked from Temper to the gun Kei-Kei was nervously waving in her face with her right hand. Kei-Kei’s left hand was up to her face as her thumb rested in her mouth while she sucked it. Lena cleared the entrance and then double-locked the door before she spoke again. “Kei-Kei, that’s your name, right? Get your thumb out of your mouth and look in that hallway closet. Bring me every big towel you can carry.”

  Lena ran to the kitchen, began snatching every pot in view, and filled them with water. Even after years of working in Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital’s trauma ward, she feared for her life. The hospital, better known by its street nickname of Killer King, had gotten a bad rap sheet over the years. It became known as the go-to hospital for victims of gang shootings. Lena had grown accustomed to working under hostile conditions. This wasn’t the first time a patient’s loved one had pulled a gun on her, demanding that she play God, and since she was far from retirement, she knew it wouldn’t be the last. Despite her experience, Lena couldn’t help the urge to run out the back door and risk being killed as she prepared for the delivery. She told herself years ago, when she realized that Khasema had sold his soul to the streets, that it was only a matter of time before his street life would find its way into her house.

  Nonetheless, she never imagined it would be in this form. She assumed the police would be at her door to arrest Khasema for the dope he was pushing around the neighborhood, or one of those Crips he hung around with would be banging on her door to collect money he owed them. Having a young, worthless girl in labor, claiming it was her son’s baby and forcing her to deliver it, was never a thought.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Lena heard Temper scream as the water began to boil and bubble out over the pots. She had another thought. This time it was about getting help. She could snatch the phone off the kitchen wall and dial 911 the next time the girl yelled in agony. She wouldn’t need to say anything to them. All she had to do was speak loud enough to Temper or Kei-Kei about what they were forcing her to do at gunpoint so the operator could get the gist of what was going on. After a moment of giving it thought, she concluded it was too risky. What if the girls catch on to what I’m doing, or the police show up at the door? Lena didn’t know a thing about the two thugs in training who’d invaded her home to judge if they’d shoot her before the police made it inside. I should’ve taken my ass to bingo like I started to.

  “Kei-Kei, go see what she’s in the kitchen doing. I want this baby out of me now,” she heard Temper yell. Lena quickly turned the gas to high on another eye of the stove as she struck her match.

  “What are you in here doing, Ms. Lena?” Kei-Kei questioned loudly enough for Temper to hear, while holding the gun in her shaky hand.

  “I had to light the pilot to boil another pot of water. These pots aren’t enough. There’s more to delivering a damn baby than her pushing and me catching.” She rolled her eyes and managed to catch the scared look on Kei-Kei’s face. The girl’s fear didn’t go unnoticed, and Lena was ready to test her luck on it. Fuck it, she thought as she built the momentum to give it a try. “How old are the two of you?”

  “Sixteen. Why?” Kei-Kei asked with her thumb back in her mouth.

  “Because I don’t think you understand
how serious all of this is. Do you know how dangerous it is to deliver a child into this world even at a hospital? Women die during deliveries. Her chances of survival are slim to none having the child here. Are you ready to lose your friend because you didn’t have the strength to put your foot down and take her ass to an emergency room? Yeah, if this goes wrong, I want you to know it falls on your shoulders, not mine. When the coroner comes for the body, he will want to know how she made it here while in labor. Are you ready to go down for her and the child’s deaths?”

  “This is what she wanted to do. I said, ‘Let’s go to the hospital,’ and then she said you were the fucking hospital. Hell, I didn’t even know my boo was pregnant for the past year or however long it takes to have a baby until she started leaking while we were smoking and shit. I hit the ground trying to dodge the bullets, and then my bitch screamed out her water broke.” Kei-Kei couldn’t hide her fear of possibly losing her best friend. Since kindergarten they had been besties, and they even went so far as making a blood pact when they were in the fourth grade.

  The girls waited until recess and snuck into the bathroom with paper clips. It was Temper’s idea, of course. “I’m tired of people saying we act like sisters. We will be sisters after this.”

  Temper retrieved a paper clip out of her faded denim skirt pocket and began to straighten it before speaking again. “We have to cut ourselves until we bleed. Then we have to mix our blood, and that will make us blood sisters for life.”

  Kei-Kei was scared of the effects of her blood mixing with that of a person who wasn’t black. It was the nineties, and she’d heard the life-taking and career-ending impacts of HIV and AIDS. Uncertain of the outcome, she put her fears aside. There was no doubt that she loved Temper, and if hurting herself meant they’d have this special bond for life, she was ready to do it.

  She didn’t go through the trouble of straightening her clip. Instead, she pressed the point against her middle finger, closed her eyes, and twisted it until she was sure she had broken through the skin. Temper followed her actions, and then their middle fingers kissed as they recited the words Temper had told her earlier that morning had to be said.

  “I will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to protect my sister. We are blood sisters for life.”

  Those words they recited meant more to her than they had in the past. She erased her fears of her fate and had her sister’s back.

  “Well, bitch, we’re here now, and you’re going to deliver my niece or nephew.” She reenforced her words by pointing the gun against the middle of Lena’s forehead. “If she dies, you die, and it’s as simple as that. Now what else do you need me to do?”

  Lena hesitated as she stared into the eyes of the little girl standing before her. All she saw was pain. She didn’t know if the pain was from the current situation that faced them. Nevertheless, she was sure there had to be multiple sources mixing in with it, judging by her lifestyle.

  “You don’t have to do any of this, Kei-Kei. You can get help with whatever or whoever is hurting you. Is she hurting you and forcing you to do all this bad stuff? I can help you get away.”

  Lena stopped talking as Kei-Kei rammed the mouth of the gun against her forehead.

  “Okay, I’ll just help you with this then. Grab the box of gloves and those silver scissors out of the medicine cabinet in the hallway bathroom, and let’s deliver this baby.”

  Kei-Kei returned to the kitchen with the items, and Lena lit another eye on the stove. Kei-Kei stood back and watched Lena grab the dish towel by the sink and wrap it around the scissors’ handles before placing the scissors over the bluish part of the flame. Once she noticed the scissors’ legs turning black, she removed them from the flame and walked into the living room to a fully naked Temper with the head of the baby crowning between her open thighs.

  “I need to shit!” Temper yelled to no one in particular.

  “Not just yet. Hold on a second. I’m almost ready. Kei-Kei, look in my bedroom closet for a duckbill hair clip. It’s in a black duffle bag.”

  Kei-Kei heard her, yet she was too shell-shocked to move. The smell itself was enough to bring the remaining beer in her stomach up and out of her mouth. There was no way to describe the poisonous scent in the air besides labeling it as fishy sewage. She didn’t know if it was supposed to smell that way, and she sure as hell wasn’t sure if it was supposed to look that way. She was sure the dark mass was the baby’s head making its way out of her best friend. Then again, that wasn’t the way it looked. There was hair freckled with blood, a thick, creamy off-white substance, and slime leaking from a hole she had seen in its normal state and even had her tongue in a few times for the right amount of money. They weren’t prostitutes. They just had prostitute tendencies. If their “get high” funds were low, they’d do what was necessary to get them back up. In those cases, for dollars from a dope boy or two, the girls would awaken their lesbian tendencies. To see Temper’s pleasure tunnel stretched to fit a ripe cantaloupe, coupled with that smell, sent her into shock.

  “Kei-Kei!” Temper yelled. She didn’t get a response.

  “Kei-Kei, don’t forget our talk. Now go get the clip!” Lena said.

  “No, you don’t forget our talk. Black duffle bag in the closet,” Kei-Kei repeated as she disappeared down the hallway. It took her a second or two to find one under all the sponge rollers in the bag, and when she did, the sound of a baby crying sent her rushing toward the living room. In a smoke ring that looked similar to a tribal ritual were the pots of boiling water around them. Temper had a big baby covered in blood and cream lying on her stomach.

  “Congratulations, Auntie Kei-Kei. It’s a boy. Now I need you to put that clip in the fire exactly how I did the scissors, and once you come back, you can have the honor of cutting the umbilical cord. Now hustle up. We’re not done yet.”

  Kei-Kei was so excited that the metal burnt her hand. Lost in her thoughts, she placed the clip into the fire without shielding her hand from the heat. She sucked on her fingers except for one—her middle finger. It stole her attention as she stared at the spot where she’d punctured her finger so many years ago, earning her the right to be called auntie. She could still see the old wound.

  “Auntie Kei-Kei,” she mouthed with a smile.

  Kei’Lani cut the umbilical cord, and Lena opened the clip. Using the fingers of a glove as if they were condoms, she covered the bills and clipped the baby’s soon-to-be belly button. After that, Lena wrapped the baby in three towels and then handed him to Kei-Kei as she coached Temper through the removal of the afterbirth. Immediately after, she left the room with the baby to clean him up.

  “Bitch, you did that shit like a pro,” Kei-Kei cheered, and she even gave Temper dap for a job well done. “What’s my nephew’s name?” she asked, considering Temper’s face for the first time since this began. She blinked twice. Her eyes had to be deceiving her. It wasn’t her best friend looking back at her. It was a replica of the young woman she’d loved all her life. Temper never smiled to begin with, and knowing all the bullshit she had been through in her life, Kei-Kei understood her frown. On the other hand, the expression she was wearing now was one she had never seen. Temper looked like a pot as the water boiled away to nothing, leaving the whitish satin of the once-clear substance as a dusty coating.

  “Whatever you want to name the little fuck boy. I don’t care.”

  “Bitch, what’s your problem? I know you’re not going hard on your child because of his sorry-ass daddy. That’s your fault for letting him nut in you, not my nephew’s.”

  “Fuck him and his seed. Do you think I wanted to have his baby? When I found out I was pregnant, I put a gun in my mouth and—”

  “Temper!”

  “Don’t ‘Temper’ me. I did, and the only reason you’re not rocking an RIP shirt is because I thought about me. I didn’t want to miss out on growing old, and it was too late to abort the mission, so I sat it out. He’s here, that bullshit pregnancy is over with, and by force, I did my part.
You and nobody else in this bitch or on this earth can force me to play mama to him. Help me sit up.”

  “I don’t know if you should. I’ll ask Ms.—”

  “Bitch, help me sit up,” Temper demanded, already trying to do it herself. After Kei-Kei propped her back against the plastic slip covering the couch, Temper grabbed her khaki pants and retrieved a joint. She sparked it and hit it three times before offering it to her makeshift sister, who declined. “I’m trying to get this money, and playing mama ain’t for me. I’m not about to let a baby I didn’t want by a nigga I don’t want slow me down.”

  “So you’re just going to do my nephew the same way your parents did you? What about when he grows up?”

  “What part of ‘little fuck boy’ are you not hearing? He has that bitch in there and his ho-ass daddy whenever he gets out of jail. He’ll get one of his hoes to play mama. This baby is his problem, not mine.” Temper stopped talking. She heard Lena returning with the baby.

  “Oh, hell no. I did my part. You will not smoke that shit in my house.”

  “I’m going to smoke this shit in your house until I leave this bitch, and you’re not going to say a damn thing about it,” Temper corrected her as she grabbed her gun off her clothes. “Kei-Kei, help me get dressed so we can leave this bitch’s house. This ho got everything covered in plastic like she’s painting the walls year-round.” Temper chuckled at her own words as her high brought on humor.

  “You think you can just throw your bloody, throw-up-and-beer-soaked clothes back on and walk right out the door with your ass all open? You need to rest, little girl. You got an infection in there”—she nodded toward Temper’s baby exit—“that I’m going to get you antibiotics from work for. In a day or two, believe me, I won’t try to stop you from getting the hell out.”