—
The next morning I was up before seven.
I checked on Sandra, let her take care of her morning routine, told her today was the day she was going home. Something shifted in her face when I said it. Relief first and then something more complicated underneath it that I didn’t want to look too deep into.
Street picked me up at nine and we rode to Tavarus’s spot on the east side in Street’s car with the money in the bag in the backseat. I kept my face neutral the whole ride but my mind was running everything in parallel. I was thinking about the call I had made that morning from the burner with the instructions Ihad given Tavarus bitch ass about the pickup I had set in motion on the other side of town while we were doing this.
Street was quiet most of the ride. Jaw tight, eyes forward, doing that thing he did when he was thinking heavy about something hard without letting it show. When he did speak his voice was flat and final.
“I’m paying this nigga and I’m done,” he said. “After today I don’t do business with him again. What he had his people do to me, you don’t come back from that. What if my brothers would have been with me? I’m a man. I pay my debts. But I’m also a street nigga and what he pulled was out of line and I’m gonna make sure he knows that.”
“And them three niggas,” I said.
“They getting dealt with too. Separate conversation for a later date. But definitely handling that shit.”
I nodded and looked out the window and didn’t say anything else because there wasn’t anything to say that wouldn’t have required me to tell him things I wasn’t ready to tell him yet.
Tavarus’s spot was a warehouse on the east side that he used for meetings. Nothing fancy, nothing that advertised what it was. Just a building that looked like every other building on the block. We pulled up and got out and two of his men were outside. The niggas walked us in without speaking.
Tavarus was sitting at a table in the middle of the space when we came in.
I clocked him the second I saw him and made a mental note of how he moved and everything. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Eyes tight, jaw twitching, the kind of tension in his body that a man carried when something important to him was outside ofhis control. He was doing a good job of keeping it off his face but I had been reading people my whole life and he wasn’t doing a good enough job.
His wife had been missing for four days now, and he was sitting here counting money from a man who owed him a debt, trying to pretend that today was a normal day. His ass didn’t know — couldn’t know — that the same person who had his wife was sitting six feet across the table from him right now watching him pretend to hold it together.
I kept my face empty and sat back while Street handled it.
Street dropped the bag on the table without putting on a show, but that nigga stood his ground. “Thirty thousand. Every dollar.”
Tavarus looked at the bag and then at Street, then unzipped it and started counting. The room was quiet except for the sound of bills moving through his hands. One of his men was posted up near the door. Another one near the back wall. I had already mapped both of them when we walked in out of habit.
Street stood with his arms crossed and let him count and when Tavarus looked up Street spoke before he could say anything.
“I want you to know something,” Street said. “I pay my debts. Always have. You’re getting every dollar I owe you and I’m doing that because that’s who I am as a man.” He paused. “But what you had your people pull up on me and do, coming to where I lay my head, putting a gun to my head — that’s not something I’m gonna let slide just because I’m paying you. Those three niggas are gonna see me again and when they do it’s not gonna be a conversation.”
Tavarus looked at him for a long moment. The stress was right there underneath the surface of his face fighting to get out andhe was pushing it back down and it was costing him something to do it.
“Business is business,” he said. “When people owe me and they go quiet I have to send a message. It’s not personal Street. You know how this works.”
“I know how it works. How the fuck was I quiet when I told you I would be a lil late?I’m telling you how I work.” Street’s voice didn’t change. Didn’t get louder or more aggressive. Just stayed flat and final. “After today we’re done. No hard feelings on the money side. But we’re done doing any kind of business nigga.”
Tavarus leaned back in his chair and looked at Street and then his eyes moved to me for just a second and I held them without blinking and without expression and he looked back at Street.
“You want out, you’re out,” he said. “But right now I got bigger things on my plate than going back and forth about something that’s already done.” He zipped the bag back up. “We’re square and I wish you nothing but luck young nigga. Oh, I see that after I put some fire under yo ass, you went and got that bag and that title off Champ. Looks like a win to me!”
I almost smiled.
This man was sitting here with his wife zip tied to a headboard across town trying to hold himself together and talk business like his whole world wasn’t quietly on fire and he didn’t even know that the person responsible for it was sitting in the same room watching him do it.
I stood up and Street dapped him once out of respect for the history even if the relationship was done and we walked back out to the car.
I kept my face straight all the way to the street.
Kept it straight getting in the car.
Kept it straight for the first two blocks.
Then I let out a slow breath and leaned my head back against the headrest.
