Page 14 of Just Like Summer

“Lock this shit up,” he ordered before closing the metal screen door. When the door closed and the lock turned, he looked at Martez. “You can choose if you want your ass beat with an audience. I’ve already put two of your boys through the concrete.”

“Nigga, you ain’t going to do shit. If I touch you, I’m bringing the whole hood out,” Martez spoke, looking at everything but Cairo. Kamilla lowly watched from the small opening in the living room curtain.

“You gon’ need them, too. You know these niggas had your cousin held up at gunpoint two days ago at the corner store? Look on your face tells me you don’t. Now, between you and Kamilla, which one of y’all is really moving with the opps?” Cairo proceeded down the steps without defense. “Whenever you ready for me to end this feud with your funeral, let me know. I’m ready.”

“Do it right here,” Martez taunted, finally standing once Cairo’s back was turned.

Cairo rounded his car, offering Martez a soul-chilling smile. “Nah, today was a good day. Eyes up, nigga, I’m coming.”

six

“The fuck you been?” Nate asked once Cairo arrived at the stash house they kept a few blocks over. “What is that smell, nigga? You wearing perfume?”

“C4 got him a little piece of ass,” Tiny Tone spoke with a chuckle. He wasn’t tiny by any measure of the word. Tiny Tone was at least six-feet eight and pushing three and fifty hundred pounds.

“Both y’all shut the fuck up,” he grumbled, lowly inhaling the lingering scent on his tee. “Let’s focus on this shit. I looked this nigga up. Robert Baldwin, owns Baldwin Industries. And can’t stop announcing every move he makes on Twitter. He’s in Asia for the next ten days. The house has no security because he’s arrogant to believe niggas like us stay in our place.”

“How you find this spot?” Tiny Tone asked.

“I made a drop to some nigga name Fahaad. Ray da Don’s manager,” Cairo shared.

“That’s who we should be hitting. Ol’ lying ass nigga. I know that nigga an easy mark,” Nate whooped.

Cairo nodded. “He is. Too easy. And he’s seen my face. Fuck I look like leading y’all into a prison bid? That nigga will definitely sing to twelve with tears and snot. While eating a sandwich.”

That was part of the reason. Fahaad came with opportunity. An opportunity for Cairo was an opportunity for all of them.

Nate and Tiny chuckled. Cairo was unintentionally funny. It was a part of the fabric of who he was. He never found the humor in his words or the humor in anything, for that matter. Cairo had spent the better part of his twenty years about business. He saw the outcome when there wasn’t any structure.

“Y’all goofy ass niggas done or I need to wait some more for this giggle fest to be over?” he quipped.

“Why so serious?” Tiny asked. “If you didn’t get no pussy, you need to go back and get you some. Do you even smile, my nigga?”

“Nah, his face might break,” Nate chimed.

“Y’all gon’ be cracking jokes or are we running up in this nigga spot? If not, I can bust a move alone and kick it with my damn self,” he shot back.

“That’s the problem, it’s too much self-love happening over there. You gone be taking bubble baths soon,” Tiny said.

“With duckies and shit,” Nate added.

“Aight, y’all niggas playing,” Cairo huffed, plopping down on the worn couch. Dropping his body sent mango wafting directly to his nose. While Tiny and Nate joked, his eyes closed; his mind committing the tiny moments with Kamilla to memory. She was invading his system faster than he’d realized.

“Aight our bad,” Nate spoke, settling and zapping the image of Kamilla’s flushed cheeks from his head. Cairo swiped a hand over his face and leaned up. “How we hitting this shit?”

“There’s two access points to the house, a service entrance and the main entrance. I’ve spent hours watching the videos he’s posted on IG. He’s ripped all the security shit out and replaced it with some system that’s had more issues than stated. The business is going belly up and left all its initial investors out to dry. He posted on his way to the airport. It’s an easy mark. Leave the art, that shit is traceable. By the time he realizes we got him, those bills will be washed three times over. I pulled up the blueprints submitted to the county. He installed three wall safes.”

“Let me guess who researched how to crack them?” Tiny quipped and Cairo offered him a smirk.

One thing Cairo could do with his eyes closed was remember a sequence of numbers and sounds. It came to him naturally. He was a methodical genius draped in blue. Had he stayed in school, he would’ve graduated the top of his class; gotten him a full ride to some college and been running a business with his eyes closed.

“Yeah, nigga. We shouldn’t be in there more than ten minutes. Tiny, you got the bags, Nate, you’re in the van,” Cairo directed.

Nate’s face frowned. “Nigga, I want action.”

“Nigga, you got the car,” Cairo spoke again, giving him a pointed look. “If shit goes left, it’s on me. Not you niggas. Ten minutes. We moving fast; in and out. Back down the coast, aight?”

“Aight,” Tiny said, tossing Nate the keys as Cairo stood to move to the closet where the guns, duffle bags, and masks were stored. When the men were ready, they filed out the house to the back alley where they kept the unmarked van.