“And we ain’t going back to Sway. I don’t care what celebrities be up in there. I just don’t really click with that environment.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Now let you be the first one who found out about Sway and you had took me there, then Sway would be the bomb and you would be loving it and wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”
“That is not even true, and you know it.”
“Whatever. I ain’t even gonna argue with you. So how are your teeth? They look good?”
“They look amazing! Oh, my God! I went back the other day and got the veneers bonded. Wait until you see me. I look like a Hollywood actress.”
“Okay, so you pick the spot, and we’ll go wherever you want to go. And, no, we’re not going back to Sue’s Rendezvous, so get it out your mind.”
“I ain’t even thinking about Sue’s.”
“Okay, so just call me tomorrow.”
***
Simone was mad at herself for not having the courage to mention to Jasmine what she really wanted to tell her. Regardless of the front that Simone was putting on, it was really bothering her that Ish didn’t trust her and that he really thought that she’d staged the home invasion as a setup to him getting busted by the feds.
As much as she had pleaded with Ish and sworn to him that she had nothing to do with either the robbery or the raid, Ish wasn’t buying it, and he promised Simone that he was going to handle her. He also reminded her that it was her name on the FedEx package.
Simone was desperate to prove her innocence and would stay up at night trying to figure things out. She would brainstorm things on paper. She would replay events in her head, but she kept coming up blank. But three nights ago, she had finally come up with something she thought was concrete.
Simone figured that the masked gunman who’d had his hand around her mouth had to have a full, bushy beard because she remembered seeing what looked like black hair sticking out from the base of the ski mask he was wearing. She also remembered that Ish had told her that BJ was saying that Jasmine was playing Nico by going to a Knicks game with Homicide.
Simone had never said anything to Jasmine about what Ish had told her. She wanted to see if Jasmine would voluntarily bring it up. Since Jasmine never said anything, she kept her mouth shut about it because she didn’t want it getting back to Ish that she couldn’t hold water.
Simone was now convinced that it was Homicide who had robbed her. She had asked around about how Homicide looked, and people who knew of him all knew that he rocked a full beard. Simone couldn’t wait to tell Ish exactly what she was thinking, but she was debating if she should first try and get more confirmation somehow.
Ish was all Simone thought about day and night. She had to have him back in her life. She was even willing to do his bid with him if he was to get convicted. That’s just how strongly she felt about him.
Simone felt equally confident about the other concrete thing that her brainstorming had revealed to her, and that was that her friend Jasmine’s hands were dirty. Simone couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, but she knew that Jasmine wasn’t a psychic. Yet to her it was like Jasmine had warned her that Ish’s crib was going to get raided.
She replayed Jasmine’s words in her mind. “Simone, trust me. Let things cool off first before you go back to Ish’s house. Don’t be hardheaded.” She knew the only reason Jasmine had said to trust her was because she knew what was about to go down the next day. Simone had played detective by agonizing over all of the details. She was certain that she had come to the right conclusions. She knew she had to relay that information to Ish and then hope that he would relent and forgive her, and start to trust her again. She couldn’t wait to vindicate herself.
***
While Jasmine was on the phone with Simone, Homicide had taken himself on a tour of Nico’s crib. Homicide had a photographic memory and was memorizing the entire layout. He didn’t know when, but he was definitely going to pay another visit, and he wanted to make sure that he first knew the lay of the land.
Forty
The day after Homicide and Jasmine were at Nico’s house, Jasmine was kicking herself for forgetting to bring some more clothes to her SoHo loft. She and Simone were going to be hanging out later that night, and there was a brand-new outfit and a pair of brand-new shoes she had over at Nico’s house that she wanted to wear. Although Jasmine would have wanted to spend her Friday afternoon sleeping and relaxing, she decided to drive back out to Long Island during the early part of the afternoon to avoid the crazy Friday rush-hour and late-night traffic.
She hopped in her truck and made her way out to Long Island by herself. The ride alone did her a lot of good because it allowed her some time to just think about things and to clear her head. It was rare for Jasmine to get quality time by herself because her life was in constant turmoil.
Jasmine made it there relatively quickly. After she parked her truck and went inside, she instantly had a flashback to the time she almost got killed in the house by Bebo. Though a good amount of time had passed, she was still afraid to be in the house alone, even during the daytime.
After closing the door behind her and making sure it was locked, Jasmine quickly went upstairs and grabbed the outfit and the shoes she had come for. She also grabbed a couple more outfits to take back with her to Manhattan and threw them on the bed.
Jasmine entered her walk-in closet and searched for more shoes to take with her. While looking around, she heard the front door close. Her heart dropped, and then it quickly started beating again. She froze dead in her tracks and kept still, not wanting to make a sound.
Jasmine was certain that her snitching had caught up to her and that either Ish, Black Justice, or even Nico had someone following her, and they had followed her to the house to kill her as payback for all of her snitching.
“Fuck! Shit!” she said softly. She cursed herself for being so stupid to come alone and without a weapon. She could hear the person downstairs
moving around. She felt that she had no choice but to hide in the closet.
As quietly as possible Jasmine started taking clothes off the racks they were on and created one huge pile about three feet high. She sat down in it and pulled clothes over her so that her face and body were completely covered. The whole time, her heart was racing a thousand beats per second. Now that her head was covered and her heart was beating so fast, it made it very hard for her to breathe, and she started to feel claustrophobic. Even though the claustrophobic feelings were making her panic even more, she knew she had to keep her head under the clothes if she wanted to stay alive.