Dirty Money Honey Read online

  Dré looked at me like I was crazy and immediately dropped his jeans and let them hit the living room floor.

  “Stand up,” I said to the girl.

  She sucked her teeth and stood up.

  I saw the name Olivia tattooed on her left thigh. “You and your stripper bitch Olivia, march your asses downstairs right now.”

  “Stripper? Please.” Olivia sucked her teeth again.

  “You think I’m fuckin’ playing games, bitch?” I was one second from whipping her ass. “Keep talking slick if you want to. Dré, you better school this ho if you want her to make it out of here alive.”

  Dré was heated on so many levels. No man wants to get caught fucking his side chick. Dré was busted and now to have me busting shots with my legal firearm was just too intense for him. He liked being in control, and standing butt-ass naked with nothing to defend himself with had aged him ten years. I could see the stress and worry written all over his face.

  “Olivia, stop disrespecting my wife. Damn! How the fuck you think she feel right now?”

  Olivia obliviously wasn’t the silent type. Nor the sharpest knife in the drawer. Despite having used my pistol only moments earlier and still having it pointed at her head, she just couldn’t police her mouth.

  “Your wife? Nigga, you disrespect her each time we fuck! Each time you eat my pussy then kiss her lips you disrespect her!” Her voice elevated to a high pitch. “You never respected her, which allowed me to disrespect—”

  Dré charged Olivia like a pro quarterback filled with rage and hostility and commenced to whipping her ass. His punches, heavy and overflowing with guilt and malice, landed on every exposed part of her body—head, stomach, back, thighs. Nothing was spared from his wrath. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to process what was happening. Yet, I didn’t intervene. She needed her ass whipped for fucking another woman’s husband in the apartment he shared with his wife. As a woman, she should have known better. Take that shit to a hotel; Dré could obviously afford a room.

  I listened to Olivia scream for mercy until finally I got bored. No way was I going to allow Dré to erase his guilt by beating up his mistress in front of me.

  “Knock it off, Dré!” I waited a few seconds and he didn’t let up. The room was now warm from all the commotion and filled with unsavory body odors. Her exposed pussy coupled with being worked over had begun giving off a pungent odor that I didn’t want any parts of. “I said knock it the fuck off!”

  This time Dré fell back, breathing heavily and looking at Olivia in disgust, as if she was the culprit. “Don’t cry now,” he mocked. “Silly-ass bitch!”

  “You two can take this lovers’ quarrel elsewhere,” I stated. “As I said, go the fuck downstairs. Now! Move your asses! And, if I have to say it again, I’ma start putting bulletholes in ankles, and you’ll have to crawl the fuck downstairs!”

  Dré shook his head and wanted to say something, but the glare in my eyes silenced his rebuttal. He grabbed the now battered and ego-bruised Olivia by the hand and almost dragged her out of our living room and down the one flight of stairs in our newly renovated brownstone apartment in Sugar Hill.

  As I followed right behind them with my gun pointed at them, I peeped yet a second tattoo on Olivia. She had two cherries on her lower back. A tramp stamp is what I call tattoos placed in that spot.

  “You on some bullshit, Dré!” Olivia said.

  She definitely is defiant, I thought. I was two seconds from whacking that bitch upside her head with my gun.

  When we made it to the bottom floor, I could tell that Dré was confused as to what was next.

  “Now I want y’all both to get the fuck out,” I said, raising my Glock and pointing it right at Olivia and Dré.

  “Get the fuck out?” Dré asked.

  “Open up that muthafuckin’ door and get the fuck out, you and your little stripper freak.”

  “Honey, it’s like zero below out this muthafucka!”

  I cocked my gun to show Dré that I wasn’t playing games. “I’m not negotiating shit. You was in my house disrespecting me with this whore, tramp bitch! So now we play by my rules. Open up that fuckin’ door and walk the fuck out.”

  “I ain’t got no fuckin’ clothes on, Honey!”

  “Do you seriously think I care about you? Either one of you? I have no sympathy for husbands who fuck on their wives!”

  Dré wasn’t moving, and neither was Olivia, so without hesitation I let off three consecutive shots right at them. Both of them began hopping up and down like something was hot under their feet. I was always on the gun range, so my aim was precise. I knew I wasn’t going to hit them. I just wanted to get their respect. In the process, I was fucking up my crib, but with the way Olivia and Dré started scurrying and scrambling, it was worth it.

  “Open that door and take your ass to Olivia’s house and don’t come the fuck back! Test me if you want to.”

  Olivia finally understood the seriousness of the situation. “Honey, honestly I—”

  I screamed, “Bitch, why are you talking to me? Walk the fuck out that front door before I pop your ass! Are you stupid or what?”

  She twisted her lips and walked over to the front door and opened it. Immediately a gust of frigid air burst through with a howling wind that could freeze your bones. Instantly Olivia and Dré wrapped their hands around their private parts and inched out the front door. Just as Dré got to the first exit step, I lifted my foot and, with all my strength, kicked him square in his ass. His body went face-first down a flight of steps and landed on the cold, hard concrete below.

  Olivia, fearing the same fate, bolted down the steps on her own and ran full speed down the residential block, screaming at the top of her lungs, “She’s crazy! She’s crazy! She tried to kill us!”

  I locked up the house and drove to my mother’s. I needed time to think things through.

  ***

  “You’re being suspended without pay until further notice. Please relinquish your gun and badge,” our commanding chief, Inspector Balthazar Snashall stated. “Now.”

  “Why am I being punished?”

  “You walked off the job during a stakeout, Robertson. Why do you think?”

  I wanted so badly to tell what really happened, but I knew I wouldn’t be believed. Not with five white smug faces sitting around the conference room. I looked at Dougherty and wondered what happened to him preaching about what occurred in the field staying in the field.

  “But I didn’t just walk off. Right, Dougherty?” My eyes cut to my left where his fat ass was propped up in an oversized leather chair. “I mean, I did give you notice. There was a great reason, right?”

  “Fuck you,” he said, words dragged out.

  “That’s exactly what you tried to do—Fuck me! You tried to rape me the other night, and that’s why I left!”

  The moment the words fell out my mouth, I knew I had fucked up. When the white faces got whiter, I knew there wasn’t any way I could take them back.

  “Gentlemen, will everyone excuse us,” Inspector Balthazar said.

  Everyone left the room glaring at me as I sat, hands trembling. I had so much at stake.

  “Is that true? The rape allegation?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you go to the hospital and get a rape kit done?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Why not? You’re a skilled agent.”

  “Well, it didn’t get that far.”

  “You said rape. Isn’t that far enough?”

  “I said he tried to rape me. He obviously didn’t succeed because, if he did, he wouldn’t be breathing.”

  “Did you go to the local police and make out a report?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well,
because—”

  “These are serious accusations, Robertson.”

  “With all due respect, sir, if you allow me to finish a sentence, I could tell you what happened.”

  “Honey, is Luther Brown your father?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Luther Brown, he is your father, correct?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “What about Corey Atkinson, AKA Chief? Is he your half-brother? You two share the same mother?”

  I began to experience a series of emotions that I couldn’t control. I wrung my hands together, and they were damp.

  “Look, sir, James Dougherty tried to rape me, and I think that I should be debriefed. All these other questions are secondary. My statement should be first.”

  “Are you telling me how to do my job?”

  “I’m asking that you stay focused.”

  “I am focused. On your application . . . you do know lying on these applications is a federal offense punishable by law.”

  Now my heart was palpitating. How did I get here?“Yes, but—”

  “Look, my time is valuable, and I’m not going to dick you around. Either resign today with two weeks’ pay or face criminal sanctions.”

  “But I didn’t do anything! What about Dougherty?” My plea almost sounded juvenile.

  “How hypocritical are you? You lied on a federal application. Our agents put their lives in your hands when they go out on these raids, and the very people you’re supposed to lock up are the very people you lied about having contact with. Your father is one of the most notorious illegal arms traffickers in the North, and your brother is a known drug-dealing pimp. You could have compromised several of our operations.”

  “I would never do that. I’m a good agent.”

  “You’re just a baby. Hardly wet behind the ears. You don’t know what it takes to be a good agent. It’s all about the brotherhood and what you did, leaving your superior alone out in the field was incomprehensible.”

  “But—”

  “There is no but! You need to grow up! In life we hardly get a do-over. You had your shot, and you blew it. You can’t make a three-point shot from under the net, Honey. I’ve been doing this for years, so I think you should take my advice. Either resign and not have any blemishes on your record, or hold out for an investigation, and I promise what we’ll dig up will prevent you from working an honest day’s work in the government for the rest of your life.”

  The angst and anguish I felt began to boil over. A steady stream of tears began to flow freely. “But what about my mother? You know she needs my medical insurance. She’s just started seeing a great psychiatrist. If I resign, I’ll lose my health benefits.”

  Balthazar looked unaffected. “I’m going to step out of the room and give you time to think about your options.”

  I walked out of Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, the unknown address of the ATF, and barely got to my car. My world was crumbling under my feet. Just then two men in worn, inexpensive suits approached me.

  Immediately I felt danger. Could this be a hit?

  “Honey Robertson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Turn around and place your hands behind your back.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of André Robertson. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you . . .”

  Chapter 1

  I knew that the nine-hundred-dollar pair of Christian Louboutin’s wasn’t even supposed to be an afterthought, let alone a consideration. The red bottoms had caught my eye as I passed by the MAC counter in Neiman Marcus, taking a shortcut through the Bellagio Hotel on my way to work. I had been working as a blackjack dealer in the hotel for slightly over a year after I’d gotten fired from the federal government as an ATF agent. The Bureau was on some bullshit and got too hyped because I’d lied on my application, and coupled with the attempted murder rap, that was enough to get me out of town, and fast.

  “Size eight, please,” I said as I handed the display pair to the salesman. I then added, “You know what? Also bring out an eight and a half. Those shoes tend to be cut small.”

  I sat back calmly, with a watchful eye on two females I’d seen around the hotel on numerous occasions. They were get-money type chicks, always running some sort of hustle on some trick’s pockets, jostling tourists, or selling tail.

  The salesman came with both boxes, leaned down on one knee and opened up the size eight. He proceeded to place the shoe on my foot as if I were Cinderella, until I stopped him.

  “I can do that,” I said, and smiled slyly. “I bet you get a lot of numbers on your knees like that,” I joked.

  “You sound like my girl. Did she put you up to spying on me?”

  “Here’s a tip,” I said then whispered, “If she’s that insecure to have spies watching you, I’d drop her.”

  His eyes widened at the thought.

  “No matter how good the pussy!”

  I stood up with the size eight Louboutin’s on and pranced to the mirror, loving the expensive piece of art on my foot. I then picked up two more displays and asked, “Could I see those as well?”

  Eagerly the embarrassed salesman complied. He’d make a hefty commission if I actually bought the shoes. In Vegas, salesmen are used to women dropping large sums of cash on designer shoes. There was so much money trading hands in the casinos that this ordinary sales job was probably earning him more in one year’s commissions than that of the previous jobs he’d held combined.

  Before he knew it, I had him running in and out of the storeroom in a dizzying combination of small talk coupled with greed. His greed had clouded his judgment, and he was unaware that I had ordered twelve pairs of shoes but only gave him back eleven.

  “You know what? I can’t decide. They’re all so beautiful. Are you working tomorrow?” I asked.

  The once accommodating salesman now had a sour look plastered on his face and was less friendly. “I know you’re not walking out of here without a pair of shoes after taking up all my time. I could have easily focused my attention on other customers.”

  Though I had stuffed a thousand-dollar pair of stilettos in my purse, I wanted to curse the greedy dude out but didn’t want to cause too much of a scene.

  “I really apologize, but I can’t decide. OK, since you’re pressuring me, did you like those on me?” I pointed toward the last pair the guy was still holding.

  “These here were my favorites on you,” he said. He glanced down at the price and was slightly heated that they only cost $675.00, a lower-end cost, but it sure beat a blank. He pushed, “Do you want to pay cash or charge?”

  “Charge, please.” I walked over to the counter and discreetly pulled out my wallet while fumbling inside to adjust the shoes. I slapped my plastic on the counter and waited.

  “This card is declined. Do you have another one?”

  “Declined?” My voice rose in a forced shock. “Try it again.”

  Once again the salesman tried to process the card. “Ma’am, this isn’t working. Do you have cash?”

  “Look, I’m late for work. I’ve been here long enough. Just place those on hold for me and I’ll come back tomorrow with cash.”

  Still wanting to be hopeful that I would honor my word, he asked for my name.

  “Honey. Honey Brown.”

  Confidently, I walked toward the front door and into the loud, obnoxious sounds of Las Vegas. The slot machines annoyed the hell out of me. But everything I hated about Vegas was everything that would assist me with my master plan.

  I slipped on my new six-inch stilettos—the shoes were my favorite color of money green, which dressed up my normal black slacks and Bellagio uniform top. Everyone knew that I always tried t
o sexy up the place. My short haircut was always styled, nails done, shoes game tight, hourglass figure toned, and bank account on E. I’d lost everything I had, including my life savings, fighting the allegations the government had lodged against me, and the trumped-up attempted murder beef my ex-husband eventually dropped. By the time it was all over, I owed more than a hundred grand on my credit cards and had spent nearly fifteen thousand dollars on attorney fees. I came to Las Vegas on a one-way ticket, with six hundred dollars in cash, and a plan that would set me up for life.

  I walked over to Carlos, who I would be relieving from his shift.

  “How did everything go on your shift?” Not that I truly cared, but it was easier to blend in if you didn’t seem standoffish.

  “I killed them, Honey! There was this couple that tried to take the house for twenty-five grand. The husband and wife were pros. We had the new girl, Samantha, shuffling. I tapped in and relieved her, and it was downhill from there. Once they were wiped out of the twenty-five grand they were up, the husband went and brought another ten grand to the table, and I brought all that home. He was so mad, he accused me of cheating and had to be escorted out. Dumb ass! Everyone knows the house always wins.”

  To hear the enthusiasm in Carlos’ voice was disturbing. I mean, who was the real dumb ass? He was getting excited over money that wasn’t his. He was making ten bucks an hour and talking like he was co-owner of the Bellagio. One day he’ll wake up and realize that him taking his job personally wasn’t worth it. Not one supervisor, manager, co-owner, or owner really gave a fuck. It was only business. And if the Bellagio had to make a choice today to fire his Mexican ass to adjust their bottom line, they wouldn’t give a damn about how loyal a blackjack dealer he was. Me, I didn’t give a fuck who was up or down. I shuffled the cards, made small talk, and kept it moving. I was in Vegas for one thing, and one thing only.

  ***

  What I liked about Vegas was that it seemed like you could work almost anywhere and still be able to afford a house or a really nice apartment for little money. Everyone I had met since moving out to Las Vegas was always telling me how bad the city had been hit by the recession. And apparently the recession had caused housing prices and apartment rental prices to hit rock bottom owing to hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.