“It’s official.” Bella was surprised at how vain Black Jus was. She had been around a lot of thugs in her short lifetime, but Black Jus was definitely more preoccupied with his appearance than any other dude she knew.
Bella made her way out of the house and into her Mitsubishi Galant, and she headed to her Harlem apartment.
Black Jus ignored the missed calls he had on his phone from about five different chicks and called Jasmine.
“Hey,” Jasmine replied after answering on the third ring.
“What’s good?”
She stretched and yawned at the sa
me time. “Nothing. Just woke up.”
“So, yo, I’m heading to the barbershop. What you doing later? Why don’t you come through?”
Jasmine didn’t respond.
“Hello?”
“Come through where?”
“To the crib.”
Jasmine knew that if she went to Black Justice’s crib that he would make a move on her and try to fuck her. She remembered Gosling’s warnings about no sexual involvement with any of the targets. “Jus, I told you I got a man. I can’t disrespect him like that.”
Black Jus was quiet.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, yeah, so just come through anyway, so we can chop it up about what we was talking about last night.”
Jasmine knew she had to get something incriminating on Black Jus, and therefore she had to play the game on his terms. So she got his address and made plans to meet up with him at his crib at four o’clock.
***
At four o’clock Jasmine found herself at Black Justice’s huge New Rochelle home just off North Avenue in Westchester County.
Black Jus opened the front door to his house. “You found it okay?”
“GPS.” Jasmine smiled while her Blackberry lay in her bag recording everything that was said. “You have a nice house.” The house was nice, but it couldn’t touch Nico’s estate.
“Yeah, it’s cool. It’s quiet up here, you know, when you want to get away from all the noise and drama.”
Jasmine nodded. “Does Irv Gotti live around here?”
“Yeah, that punk-ass nigga live about two blocks away.”
Jasmine chuckled. “I thought so.” She had been to a party before at his house and thought the area looked familiar.
“So them Ghetto Mafia niggas is dropping like flies,” Black Jus commented. He was referring to Lorenzo, who had succumbed to the gunshot wounds.
“Yeah, that’s so fucked up.” Jasmine had always thought that Lo, like BJ, was so cool.
Jasmine hadn’t spoken to Nico, but with Lo’s death, she knew she would hear from him soon and, at the very least, would find out about funeral arrangements and would run into him at Lo’s funeral.
“So shit is fucked up with them?” Black Jus asked.
Jasmine caught on really quick to what Black Jus was saying. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t exactly know what’s going on. I mean, they can get product, but the shit is just real weak, you know?”