Dirty Work: Part 2

She didn’t like New Rochelle or New Jersey, and Devon and Papa John started to make her feel really uncomfortable. She strongly felt that being around them would increase her chances of dying. They were both marked men—but what had she done to piss anyone off? Jessica was finally dead, so who else out there would want to harm her? Maserati Meek was a man she didn’t know and had never met, and she doubted that she was on his radar.

Jessica had put herself in a bad situation and she lost her life because of it. Brandy did her dirt too, but that was when Kip was alive. She considered herself a small-time criminal with a customary life. After what she’d told Eshon that night in the car about not going back to Harlem because of the ugliness spreading, she had gone back on her word and returned. She had decided to chance things and gone back anyway.

It felt impossible for her to stay away.

Brandy took a few more pulls from the blunt, lounging in her panties and bra. The pistol was lying on the coffee table. It was twilight outside, and she could hear the madness from her open living room window—not too far from her it was ground zero with death and destruction. Her building was steady and secured though, and living on the second floor had it advantages.

She closed her eyes. But then she heard several hard knocks at the door. She jumped up and reached for the pistol on the table. There were only a handful of people who knew she was back home. Could it be danger? Brandy’s heart started to race. Was it a friend or foe? She cautiously approached the apartment door and looked through the peephole. What she saw completely baffled her. It was the FBI at her damn door.

“Shit!” she uttered.

They continued knocking. They weren’t going away. She knew someone told them that she was there. She scurried around the room, extinguishing the blunt and hiding the pistol underneath the couch cushions. She threw on a robe and quickly sprayed some air-freshener to smother the weed stench.

She was totally nervous and stunned. Why were the feds at her door? She would soon find out.

&

nbsp; She opened the door and the agents identified themselves with their unmistakable insignias. They asked to come inside. How could she tell them no? She nodded yes, and they all marched into her apartment one-by-one like machines. The look on their faces was stern. They showed some politeness, but Brandy was so nervous that it felt like her heart was about to launch from her chest and explode. She tried to remain cool, but she immediately she regretted coming back to her old place. It was a stupid mistake.

Brandy was an odd one to the agents with her blonde weave, blue contacts, and dark chocolate skin. She had ghetto written all over her. The feds, including Officer Spielberg, remained standing in the living room. Her apartment was instantly under observation; nothing much so far.

“Do you mind if we look around?” an agent asked.

“What are y’all lookin’ for?” she asked them.

“We like things to be safe for our comfort.”

She shrugged, though she was screaming on the inside. “I have nothing to hide.”

Two agents broke away from the room and went looking around the apartment. Officer Spielberg remained with the primary agent. He felt she knew something.

“Do you know an Eshon Williams and Jessica Hernandez?”

Brandy shook off the jitters that swam inside of her and knew it was game time. She didn’t want to go to jail. She felt she did nothing wrong. But somehow, she was involved with the craziness happening in her projects by association with the wrong person. The feds tracked her down. The feds were a league she didn’t want to get herself involved with.

The two agents who searched the apartment rejoined them in the living room, seeing that the place was clear: no Jessica and no threats.

“Yes, I know ’em. Me and Eshon were cool wit’ Jessica until that fight.”

“What fight?”

“That fuckin’ bitch played herself. She’s from Cali and she was cool. We looked out for her, and then that bitch started to change when she met some nigga in the club.”

“What man did she meet?”

“I don’t know his name. I don’t even know what he looks like,” she said.

“So you never met this individual?”

“Nah, Jessica kept him a secret from me and Eshon.”

“Why did she keep him a secret?”

“I don’t know. It was her business. We ain’t sweat it,” she said. “But we know he had money. She started coming around us with really nice and expensive things—clothing, jewelry, and shoes. He took her to Vegas once. And she was gone all the time, spending time wit’ him, forgetting about her friends. He changed her.”

“How did he change her?”

“She was just becoming different—you know, actin’ more like a bitch. Like she was better than us. I think that fool got into her head; brainwashed her somehow.”