Page 5 of ‘Til I Say When

E ric’s funeral was just as sad as I imagined it would be.

For some, there was no real closure since there couldn’t be an open casket.

The picture of him that rested off to the side of the casket made it worse, because he looked so happy and full of life in it.

But, I knew what was inside that coffin.

I saw it every time I closed my eyes. I almost hated Pierre for even telling me to open the car door that day.

I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing Eric like that.

I knew Pierre was going through it as well.

He was the one that had to find his brother like that.

The pastor that preached during the funeral reminded me too much of my father.

They all stood in front of the church, yelling and saying what sounded good, but I stood on the fact that most of them didn’t live by the scriptures they were preaching about.

And I couldn’t respect it. I refused to respect it.

I had no desire to sit around talking and eating fried chicken, so it was my choice to skip the repass.

Misha had been blowing me up, saying she wanted to see me without Lonna around.

I was contemplating sliding through, so she could take my mind off what I had just sat through.

Before I could make it to my car, my homeboy, Jermaine, called out to me.

I had known Jermaine since we were in middle school.

“What up, G?”

Jermaine scratched the back of his neck, making me aware that he was feeling uncomfortable about something, and I doubted it was the funeral. “This might not be the best time to bring this up, but I’ve been holding it for over a week, and I need to know. You fucking with Dashay?”

I stared at him blankly for a few seconds. I stared at him until he uncomfortably let out a small chuckle. I wanted him to feel stupid for the dumb shit he’d just confronted me about. “The stripper, Dashay? The one with three kids?” He knew what I was alluding to with the questions.

“Yeah man. I know she dances, but she makes good money, so I don’t knock her hustle. And I know a few niggas have had her, and I might look like a sucka, but we like that. We were like that. And you knew I fucked with her. So, I just want to hear you say you pushed up on her.”

Disgust made my upper lip curl. He was confronting me about a female that flirted with me every time she saw me, despite knowing that me and Jermaine were friends.

This was a female that got mad when I came in the club and other dancers flocked to me.

He was coming at me after my cousin’s funeral over a female that had fucked almost every baller in the city, from athletes to drug dealers.

I ran a hand down my face. “I’m gon’ give you a pass for coming at me with this shit today because I’ve known you for a minute, and you’ve always been emotional.

The crew passing around pussy has never been an issue before.

I didn’t know you were lame enough to try and cuff the hoe.

That’s my bad. I won’t let her suck me off again.

” I walked away, not giving a damn about how my words made him feel.

Just to be spiteful, I thought about hitting Dashay up as soon as I got in my BMW, but if he was that pressed, he could have her.

I had more women on the team than I knew what to do with, and I was never pressed about one.

Hell, I wasn’t pressed about any of them.

Women were one thing I never had an issue with getting.

A chuckle pushed from my throat when I thought about the fact that this man was salty enough about a hoe to confront me at my people’s funeral.

Glancing over at my passenger seat, I sucked my teeth when I realized that I had to take three cases of promethazine to the crib.

I couldn’t keep riding around with the shit.

In the hood, promethazine was like liquid gold.

I could make more off one bottle than some people made in two weeks from working.

Mazi had been selling the cough syrup for me for almost two years, and we’d never had an issue.

A few months back, the fat fuck claimed he had to pay $12,000 for his grandmother’s funeral, and it put him in a bind.

I was kind enough to front him a case of syrup and told him he could just pay me later.

Kind wasn’t a word that anyone ever used to describe me, and Mazi reminded me why.

You give a person an inch, and they’d take a mile.

He’d been owing me for six weeks, and he wasn’t getting any more syrup from me.

On top of that, he was going to die because I was tired of him playing in my face.

People didn’t suddenly stop drinking lean.

That was one thing that wasn’t hard to get off.

He made the mistake of getting comfortable enough to think he could finesse me, and I was about to send him with his granny.

At home, I stashed the cough syrup and changed my clothes.

As I was rolling a blunt, my doorbell rang, and I frowned.

Only a few people would stop by my home unannounced, and my mother was one of them.

I wasn’t in the mood to see her. My mother still drank too much, and she still occasionally sold pussy to any man that was willing to pay for it.

She obviously sold it for scraps, because she was always broke.

Since the age of seventeen, I’d given her more money than she’d ever spent on me.

I tolerated her because she was my mother, but I didn’t deal with her like that. Same way I didn’t deal with my father.

After checking the peep hole, I was relieved to see that it was Pierre at my door. He obviously skipped the repass, too. “What up, G?” the blunt dangled from my lips as we slapped palms.

“I know who killed Eric.”

My brows hiked, and I turned around as he walked over to the couch.

“It wasn’t hoe ass Drew. It was his homeboy, Boone.”

I drew back. “Boone? Why would he do it?”

“Check it, he was saying that Eric robbed him. Eric supposedly broke into his house and tied his baby moms up. She claimed that she recognized Eric’s voice because they used to work together at Burger King in high school, and whenever she ran into him, they talked.

The only thing this nigga had to go on was her saying she knew it was my brother’s voice.

Eric told me everything. If he robbed that pussy, he would have told me.

That bitch is lying. Or, she didn’t really say that, and Boone put it on her for the same reason Drew was calling him a snitch.

They were just salty that he was getting money. ”

I could practically see steam coming out of Pierre’s ears. He was pissed and Drew not being the one to kill Eric didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t speak for Pierre, but he still had to see me for lying and calling Eric a snitch.

“You sure it was just Boone? What if it was both of them?”

“Nah. Niggas claim the hoe Ashley was posting pictures the night before and the day we found Eric. The two of them were in Chicago. She’s pregnant by that nigga.

Unless they killed him and set him on fire days before they brought him to the spot, but I doubt it.

I got word that Boone been acting all jumpy and weird and shit. ”

Sitting down across from him, I flicked the lighter and sparked my blunt.

My eyes narrowed as I took a long deep pull.

Holding the weed smoke in my lungs, I passed the blunt to Pierre who looked like he needed it badly.

His hands were clasped together, and his left leg was bouncing anxiously.

He accepted the blunt and hit it feverishly.

“It’s all good. We gon’ see that pussy. Diamond Cove isn’t but so big, and we gon’ get that ass,” I promised.

The next day, I lifted my Timberland clad foot and kicked Mazi’s door as hard as I could.

The flimsy wood cracked, but the door didn’t open.

One more kick, and the door swung back, granting me entry to the house.

Mazi was sitting his wide ass on the couch with a look of horror on his face.

The dummy had a gun in his lap and was still shaking like a leaf.

“What the fuck, man?” his voice quivered as he spoke. “That wasn’t even necessary, Wilde. I’ll have your money tomorrow.”

“And you still playing with me?” I barked as I shot him in the knee. My nostrils expanded with anger as he howled in pain. “Shut the fuck up!”

Walking over to the couch, I kept my gun trained on Mazi.

Snatching the gun off his lap, I gripped it in my free hand as I did a quick check to make sure there was no one else in the house.

I wasn’t worried about Mazi. He couldn’t walk fast on a good day.

He damn sure wasn’t getting away from me with a bullet in his knee.

Once I was satisfied that the house was clear, I ambled back into the living room and sat down beside Mazi, who was whimpering like a hoe.

A quick glance at the coffee table made me aware of the two bottles of cough syrup, a glass jar filled with weed, some money, and some kind of pills in a Ziplock bag that he had laid out.

With a snarl, I cut my eye at Mazi. “You really thought I was a joke, huh?”

“N-n-no, Wilde. It’s not even like that. I had to p―”

I stood up because I didn’t want blood on my clothes or my face.

Squeezing the trigger, I sent a bullet flying into Mazi’s chest. His eyes widened, body jerked, and mouth hung open.

He was dead. Eyes still wide open. Someone stepped over the threshold of the house, and I swung my gun in their direction.

Finger caressing the trigger, I damn near pulled it, and the person that had just entered the house screamed.

“Shut the fuck up!” I warned. It was her. Drew’s ex, Wonder. A grin eased across my face. “Fuck you doing here?”

The terror in shorty’s eyes spoke volumes. Holding her hands up in surrender, her chest heaved up and down. “I was just coming to get some syrup. M-Mazi told me the door would be open and to just come in. I swear to God, I won’t say anything. I promise,” she damn near whispered.

“I know you won’t,” I was still grinning.

“Come here.” I jerked my head in the direction that I wanted her to walk, and her brows furrowed.

Shorty’s panicked expression turned to one of confusion.

“I don’t like repeating myself, G. Come here,” I commanded.

My tone was low, but I knew she heard the seriousness lacing my tone.

Wonder walked in my direction at a snail’s pace.

I gritted my molars together as she took her time getting to me.

Fortunately for her, the room wasn’t that big, and she made it to me before I snapped.

Patience wasn’t my strong suit. When Wonder was close enough, I used my gloved hand to extend the gun toward her. “Hold this.”

Her eyes darted downward, and she eyed the gun in my hand before looking back at my face.

I inhaled deeply through my nose. “Fuck did I just tell you, G?”

Wonder took the gun with trembling hands.

“Hold it tight,” I ordered. “Aim it at Mazi.”

Wonder’s throat bounced as she swallowed hard. The clean scent wafting off her body infiltrated my nose. Shorty smelled like baby powder and flowers or some shit. After she did what I told her to do, Wonder glanced over at me. I reached for the gun.

“Your prints are on it. Mine aren’t. You won’t say shit and you’ll do whatever it is that I tell you to do because if you don’t, this gun just might find its way to the police station.”

Something flickered in Wonder’s eyes that looked a lot like anger. She was more than likely wishing she’d used the gun to off my ass. I placed Mazi’s gun on the arm of the couch and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. “Call my phone.”

“My phone is in the car.” Wonder’s tone was flat. “I was just coming in here to get one thing and leave.”

“Yeah, the syrup. Go ahead and grab a bottle. You wrap cars, right? I know where to find you. Don’t do anything stupid, G,” I warned.

Wonder glared at me for a few moments before she took a bottle of cough syrup off the table and got the hell out of dodge.

Which was exactly what I planned to do. I left Mazi’s gun, grabbed the money, weed, and remaining bottle of cough syrup off the table and left out through the back door.

My car was parked one street over. On the way to my car, I couldn’t help but grin again. I had some plans for Wonder’s ass.