“About this business. Now, tell me why you needed me to come collect money your young hitters supposed to be collecting?” he asked.
“Club owner gave my people a hard time. Said he wasn’t paying shit. His exact words were ‘tell Demi to suck my dick. I don’t pay niggas I don’t know,’” the man said.
iiiii-eyeeeee-eeee give my alllll to loveeeee tonightttt
What the fuck, man?He thought, eyes pulling to the sound before cutting them away.
He wasn’t a man who lost focus easily. He forced himself to face his mans instead. Kirk sat stone-faced.
“Exact words, huh?” Demi asked.
“You know niggas hate to feel like they not running shit. My young gunner would have laid him down but you said you wanted to keep the club clean,” Kirk said. “Too much money being made to dirty it up, and I don’t really do the diplomatic approach, so I thought I’d let the boss handle it.”
Demi had been moving weight through this club for two years with no issues. It wasn’t until the new owner stepped in did things begin to go awry. There was always an issue. The money was always late or short, and this time it hadn’t been accounted for at all. He didn’t get his hands dirty often but he didn’t do blatant disrespect.
“I’ll straighten it out. Your people won’t have no more problems with collecting from now on,” Demi said. “Take the nigga tongue out his mouth or something. Teach him a lesson.”
Demi lifted a bawled fist and Kirk tapped it with his own, knowing better than to expect a handshake. It wasn’t something Demi did. The touching rule went for everybody.
“You a nutty-ass mu’fucka, my nigga,” Kirk said, snickering and eliciting a smirk from Demi.
Kirk took both the women off Demi’s hands and Demi moved to the bar. The crowd was slowly growing scarce as patrons downed their last drinks. Demi’s eyes scanned the room.
The song ended and the lights came on, pulling groans from those who weren’t ready to go home.
The songstress spoke in the microphone.
“Y’all know the rules. You ain’t got to go home but you got to...”
“Get the hell out of here,” the crowd joined. Her voice surprised him. It was sultry. Warm. Like homemade biscuits on a Sunday morning. It didn’t match her at all. There was so much gravity in her tone for such a small woman. She was too thin to pull from such depths to produce that sound.
She probably say a nigga name real proper,he thought.
The club emptied and the band began to pack up, as waitresses cleaned around him.
“You know we’re closing,” the waitress who had served him said.
“What’s her name?” he asked, nodding toward the stage. He was unfocused, a rarity for him, and he knew this was not what had brought him here. He knew he was deviating from the plan, letting distraction pull him away from making this clean and swift. Yet, he had to know. A name said so much about a person. He wanted her name to speak to him. If it was Keisha or Tanisha or something he had heard before, he would be able to fill in the lines. He would be able to assume some things; whether his assumptions be right or wrong, he would get the curiosity out of his head.
“Who? Charlie?” she asked.
He scoffed at the discovery of her name. Now that fit her fine, and just like that, he couldn’t assume shit. A pretty girl with a boy’s name. His intrigue grew.
“She always look that mean?” he asked.
The waitress glanced to the stage. “Pretty much.”
“You tell her to sing that song again and I’ll give her ten bands,” he said.
“You’ll give her what now?” the waitress asked.
He snickered at that, running his tongue on the inside of his jaw as he found amusement in her reaction. “I’ll make it worth your while too.”
“Consider it done,” she said. The waitress walked up to Charlie and Demi took a seat, knocking a fist against the bar subtly as the waitress whispered in Charlie’s ear. Her head snapped up, looking in his direction in astonishment.
Are you for sale, Ms. Charlie?He thought. She would be crazy to turn down the offer, but silently, he hoped she would. It was just like Demi to set unrealistic expectations on someone he didn’t even know.
“Hey, you, Mr. ATM by the bar! Can you come here for a minute?” she asked.
