“Bitch, stop being so paranoid,” Rhonda said. “Y’all ready to go back to the city? I wanna get high.”

“All you ever think about is weed,” Yoshi said.

“And dick,” Billy mumbled.

“At least I’m getting some,” Rhonda shot back.

“Why don’t y’all two knock it off? I wanna check one last store before we head back.”

“Well, let’s hurry up and do it, then. I still got shit to do before we head out.” Rhonda brushed between Yoshi and Billy and started across the street. Billy gave Rhonda a disgusted look that Reese mistook for something else. As Rhonda’s earlier accusations replayed in her head, she made it a point to walk behind Billy.

16

Slick was a man in his midthirties, but could still pass for twenty-something. He wore his hair in a short afro and you could never find him with a hair out of place. From his expensive clothes to his jewels, Slick was a man who prided himself on being fly. Everyone in the St. Nicholas projects knew him, but his weeded-out brain and supersize ego told him that he was an international nigga.

He was a nobody who always wanted to be somebody. Being that his uncles had been heavy hitters, he tried to build a rep off their name. Slick had established himself as a respectable hustler, but in essence he wasn’t really built like that. Still, he was the nephew of two killers, so niggaz let him live, and eventually found a friendly respect for him.

Slick had never been a very good hustler, fucking up more money than he made. This all changed about two years back when fate finally swung in his favor. His uncles, with a friend of theirs, had robbed these white cats out of Long Island for some dope. They thought they were just putting the gorilla on some lame white boys, but one of them happened to be the son-in-law of a Mafia capo. The Italians tracked the brothers to where they were hiding in Connecticut and executed them. They searched high and low for the dope, but there was only one person outside the brothers who knew where it was stashed. When Slick hit the block, the fiends were falling out off his shit. Everyone in the hood wanted to fuck with Slick and his dope, but he only let select people into his circle, mostly his closest friends and members of his uncles’ old crew. He had halfway gotten his weight up, but still didn’t have the common sense to know how to really capitalize on his good fortune. His saving grace was the fact that he had steady clientele. No matter how much of a knucklehead he might’ve been, no one could deny the fact that he had good dope, and good dope always equaled profit.