Free Larceny by Jason Poole Page A

hospitalized and she went into a coma, and then two weeks later she died. I paid for the funeral and had her buried right next to Mal-Mal.

CHAPTER 4
    â€œOnly the Worst Could Happen”
    It was October 1991, and Bilal was due to come home the next month. Jovan couldn’t wait, but what he didn’t know was that all his plans to welcome Bilal home would soon come to an end.
    In early October, there was a coke shortage, and Jovan was still getting bricks, but not as many as before. The prices were sky high, and Jovan’s connect had to divide whatever he could get with all his major clientele. The city was at its lowest point; only a few niggas had bricks stashed, and they wasn’t servin’ nobody who wasn’t in their crew.
    The only nigga out there who was still on top was Big Head Larry. Jovan didn’t know Larry personally, but Bilal and he went to school together, and they were real cool back in the day. At the time, Larry was hangin’ out with this New York nigga named Po, and Jovan didn’t like Po because he came to his city when they were vulnerable and used it to his advantage. He got up under the most feared nigga in the city at the time, a nigga by the name of Big Silk. He knew he had to get Big Silk on his team, ’cause if he didn’t, those niggas out there would have torn his ass to pieces.
    In Jovan’s eyes, Po was a bitch. He turned friends into enemies, he used real niggas for protection, and he hid behind a mask; but when that mask was pulled off, it was too late. Jovan found out that Po was down with the feds, and this bitch-ass nigga emptied his brain to the government and turned state’s evidence on all those who held him in high regard. To Jovan, Po had committed the ultimate sin.
    Niggas out there were hungry. Ounces were going for eighteen hundred a pop, and you couldn’t find nobody selling anything for less than that. Then came the break Jovan needed—at least that’s what he thought. His connect called him and told him he was back in action.
    â€œOkay, slim, I’m on my way up!” Jovan said, excited to hear from him.
    â€œNaw, money, you ain’t gotta come up. I’m on my way down there ’cause I got a few more people I gotta see,” Jovan’s connect said.
    â€œShit, cool. C’mon, slim, I need you,” Jovan said, needing to cop bad.
    He told Jovan that he only had a few bricks and that he should try to cop as many as he could get. The price Jovan used to pay wasn’t happening. It was a little higher, but not as high as niggas were paying out there. He was going to give ’em to Jovan for twenty-six. Out there they were going for thirty or better.
    Jovan went to his townhouse in Clinton to count his stash, and all he had was a hundred and eighty thousand. He usually never copped with all his bread, but this time he had to, because he was gonna make a killing during this drought. He had enough to cop seven bricks, and his plan was to break ’em down to ounces and sell ’em for sixteen hundred apiece, two hundred lower than the going price out there.
    Four hours later, Jovan’s connect called him and said that he was staying at the Ramada Inn in Virginia, across from Pentagon City.
    â€œOkay, slim, I’m on my way,” Jovan said, about to hang up the phone.
    â€œYo, hurry up, money. They’re going like hot cakes. I can’t hold ’em for too long.”
    â€œA’ight, slim, I’m on my way,” Jovan said, hanging up the phone.
    Jovan packed the hundred and eighty thousand in shoe boxes and placed them in two big-ass Banana Republic bags. He got into his MVP and popped the hydraulic stash, placing the money in there, and then he headed to the hotel where his connect was staying.
    When Jovan reached the Ramada Inn, he didn’t bother to park his mini van because he was so anxious to be copping that he just pulled in front of the hotel, put his hazards on,