“What’s good, lil’ man?”
There was silence on the line, and I had to look at my phone to make sure that he didn’t hang up on me.
“Ghost,” he said finally. “What’s up?”
“I need to know something,” I said, cutting straight to the point.
Trigga started to stir a bit in his sleep, so I stepped out of the room. I squinted when I made it outside because the sun was beaming in my eyes.
“Know what?” Bashar asked.
“I need another spot. Do MBs have any more spots holding weight?”
There was silence on the line again. But this time it felt different. I swear I could hear the nigga’s mental knobs going.
“Hello?” I asked in an annoyed tone because he was about to piss me off.
“I just put y’all on the last one,” he said slowly.
My jaw tightened slightly.
“We handled business. Now I’m asking what else you know.”
There was another pause. Then Bashar let out a quiet laugh, but it wasn’t an amusing one. He sounded irritated.
“Nah,” he said, “that ain’t how that go.”
My eyes narrowed as I started pacing outside the room.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he snapped with his voice picking up edge, “I still ain’t get my cut from the first play.”
For a second, I thought I heard him wrong.
“Your what?” I asked calmly.
“My cut,” he repeated, louder this time. “That was my info. I told you where to go, how to move, and when to hit it. Y’all don’t eat off that and leave me with nothing.”
I let the silence hang for a second, to make sure he heard himself. Then I spoke.
“Ain’t nobody promise you a cut,” I said flatly.
He was breathing heavily on the other side of the phone. I could tell that he was getting worked up.
“Man, don’t play with me,” he shot back. “You think I gave you that drop for free?”
“You gave me information. That’s it.”
At this point, there was a coldness to my tone. If his ass wanted a cut, he should have said that before giving any info. This dumb ass nigga didn’t even know how to move. He didn’t know how to negotiate. I had more than enough money to break him off something, but I couldn’t see myself doing that shit. Especially since he called himself trying to talk to me crazy. I didn’t play when it came to pride. Tahari’s dad taught me that shit.
“That’s not it,” he snapped. “I’m the whole reason you even got in there.”
I was trying to keep my temper in check, but it was slipping. I think more than anything, I was getting heated at the way he was talking to me. Bashar was a little nigga that I used to slap upside the head and send to the store while me and the rest of the older niggas played ball in the park. The thing that was making my blood spike was the simple fact that he thought he could talk to me this way. Audacity must have been on sale, na, the shit must have been free with his broke ass.
“You got it twisted,” I said. “We took the risk. We hit the spot. We moved the product. That’s our play.”
“Yeah?” he said, his tone turned ugly. “Then break me off or I start talking.”
