Free Larceny by Jason Poole

two bricks a week from me, straight money not a dollar short. That was what scared me about those niggas. So when I served them, I made sure they brought their asses across the bridge to Washington, D.C. because if any funny business was to happen as far as the police was concerned, I’d have a better chance of getting away.
    My connect also told me about the hydraulic stash spots, that James Bond shit. So what I did was go to the nearest Mazda dealer and buy myself a brand new MVP van. Then I sent it up to New York, and my connect had his man make me a spot that could hold at least eight bricks. That shit cost me ten thousand dollars, but it was worth it. I also bought a new silver 535 BMW with chrome BBS wheels.
    At the time, I was renting a townhouse out in Clinton, Maryland, ten minutes outside the city, and everything was going good for me. I was anticipating my man, Bilal, coming home, and whatever I had was going to be broken down 50-50. Half of this shit was his. We’d both be getting money together, doing all the shit we dreamed about; but for right now, I was the man of the hour. I traded my old Rolex in for a new one, an 18K Presidential with a diamond bezel and diamonds flowing through the middle of the band. Bitches would go crazy when they saw me rocking that joint. I also had a three-carat earring that I rocked on occasion, and a plain Rolex band bracelet.
    My style of clothes also changed. It was no longer Polo. I had switched to Gianni Versace, Gucci, MCM, and Ferragamo. I was getting too much money to be dressing like I was still some corner hustler. The more money I made, the less sweat suits and tennis shoes I wore. I started going to all the main events: fights, lavish parties, and social functions, and I was fucking the baddest broads in the city. I had more clientele than I could handle. I was holdin’ around a hundred thou plus assets.
    At the time, I was involved with the prettiest up and coming youngin’ in the city. Her name was Barvette. She was brown-skinned with a milky complexion, nice hair, a nice body, and a walk that made her look sexier than she really was. The pussy was on one thousand. It was Barvette that hipped me to all the finer restaurants in the city. She also hipped me to all the boutiques on Wisconsin Avenue: Neiman Marcus, Gianfranco Feree, Versace, Gucci, and Everett Hall. In fact, I think the first time I ate at the Cheesecake Factory was with her—or was it with freaky Tracey? I don’t know, ’cause I was fucking both of ’em at the same time.
    We also went on trips together to Negril, Vegas, Cancun, and a couple of other places. Although she wasn’t officially my girl, we were still cool as shit, so if there was anything I could do to help her out, I didn’t have a problem with it—until she started asking for that Chanel shit. Now, that shit was costly. They wanted three thousand for a pocketbook, so instead of breaking her off a nice bank for that Chanel shit, I broke off the relationship. I hustled too hard to be giving up that much bank to a broad who wasn’t officially my girl.
    Damn, I wished Bilal would hurry up and come home. All I kept thinking about was how comfortable it was gonna be for him when he got there. I was Bilal’s only family besides Aunt Gloria, and she was at the St. Elizabeth Mental Hospital. After Li’l Gweene died, Gloria wasn’t the same, and Ms. Cookie had passed away a year ago.
    When Ms. Cookie went into rehab, she discovered she had full-blown AIDS from shooting dope. I saw Ms. Cookie after she got out of rehab. She looked bad because the disease was killing her. I used to take her to the doctor and to the pharmacy to pick up her medicine, and sometimes I’d take her to lunch and we’d talk about Bilal and Mal-Mal.
    Before Ms. Cookie died, she finally, for the first time, went to visit Bilal. I don’t know how that visit went because right after that, Ms. Cookie was