“Drama, drama, drama—I can’t even begin to tell you!”
“In Vegas? What happened?”
“So I go out there with this dude named Derek McGee. He plays football for the Green Bay Packers—twenty-million-dollar contract, fine as hell, muscles, all that. So . . .”
“And when were you going to tell me about him? Hook a sister up with one of his friends!”
“No, just listen. So me and Derek are at the Wynn Resort. We chillin’, smoking good weed, good sex, eating good and all that. So we at brunch at this restaurant, and who the fuck walks in? Nico!”
“How did he know you were there?”
“I got no idea. So Nico comes to the table beefing, like, ‘who the fuck is this nigga?’ Yadda yadda yadda. So Derek stands up from the table, and he ain’t a street dude, and inside I’m saying to myself, ‘Derek, I know you got muscles and all, but I hope your ass knows how to use your hands.’”
Simone chuckled. “Nico ended up knocking his ass out, right?”
“No. So I stand up and I step in between them. But Derek starts talking shit, so next thing I know, I see Nico reaching for his gun.”
“Jasmine, no.” Simone held her hand over her mouth.
“So I screamed, ‘Nico, no!’ and I rushed him and held him so he wouldn’t do nothing crazy. So Nico is going crazy like, ‘What the fuck are you doing out here?’ and he’s snatching me up, like, ‘Come on, let’s go.’”
“And what was Derek doing?”
“He was just standing there, asking me if I was all right, so I ended up telling him that I would be right back and I was sorry and all that. And Nico marches me out of the restaurant, and it was just crazy!”
“So what else happened?”
“It’s too much to tell, but I wasn’t trying to have Nico murder my ass.”
“So you just left Derek out there?”
“Well, his punk ass ended up texting me, talking about my pussy was good and all that but for me to lose his number because he don’t need the drama. Look.” Jasmine handed Simone her phone to look at the text Derek had sent to her.
“Wow! But, Jasmine, that’s twenty million you leaving on the table.”
“I know, I know. Don’t even remind me. I am so through right now.”
Jasmine shook her head and slumped in her seat and kept quiet before turning up the volume on the radio.
“So where’s Nico?”
“He’s still out there. He had some business to take care of. And you know what? I’m glad you asked me that, because you need to come chill with me in Long Island until he gets back in a few days.”
Simone looked at Jasmine but didn’t say anything. She was well aware of what happened the last time one of her friends went to her and Nico’s house, and she wasn’t trying to end up dead.
“Okay, well, at least chill with me for the rest of the day, and then let’s hang out later tonight or tomorrow, or something.”
Simone agreed.
The two of them ended up driving to Simone’s house, where Simone parked her car and got into Jasmine’s truck, and they headed out to Bell Boulevard, in Bayside, Queens.
On the plane Jasmine had made up her mind to get a tattoo, and she wanted to do it right at that moment so she wouldn’t change her mind.
“You have got to be the wildest chick I know. You just barely healed up good and you getting a tattoo?”
Jasmine smiled and nodded, maneuvering her truck on the Cross Island Parkway toward the Bell Boulevard exit, and before long the two of them were at a tattoo shop called Murder Inc. Jasmine felt her government-issued phone vibrate, and she looked down and realized it was a text from Agent Gosling that said, That was quick.
It instantly filled Jasmine with anxiety. She knew that the clock was ticking, in terms of how much time she had to come up with the information they needed, or else her ass was going back to jail. And, to make matters worse, she had to figure out how to delete some of the conversation that she and Nico had, when he basically put Shabazz’s murder squarely on her.