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Thirty-Nine
The raid on Ish’s house and his arrest made the television news and the local newspapers. It was becoming clear to everybody that Ghetto Mafia was falling apart and was at risk of becoming extinct.
Homicide read some of the newspaper stories about the raid and couldn’t believe how fucked up his luck was. But the story had energized him to continue to target Ghetto Mafia. He knew they were vulnerable, and he was just waiting to see who was going to step in with Ish now locked up.
During the two weeks that followed the raid on Ish’s house, Homicide spent a lot more time with Jasmine. He was genuinely starting to like her, so he wanted to be around her more. And the feelings of love were definitely mutual and growing on Jasmine’s part.
Homicide also wanted to stay close to Jasmine because he wanted to know everything about Ghetto Mafia as soon as she knew. His trust in Jasmine was growing with each passing day, but part of him still wondered just how much loyalty for Nico remained in her.
To test Jasmine, one day out the blue, he had her take him to Nico’s house in Long Island. Homicide wanted to see if she would put up any resistance to him, and also what vibes he could get from the house. He wanted to know if Nico really had been out of town in Miami. Homicide figured he would be able to tell if the house looked like it had been lived in recently.
Jasmine was caught off guard but didn’t resist. “You want to go there now? As in right now?” she asked, as they sat inside the Shark Bar eating.
“As soon as we leave here,” Homicide replied.
Jasmine put a forkful of food in her mouth and nodded. Jasmine was starting to come to grips with the fact that Nico had probably written her off for Mia, and therefore she didn’t care where she was seen with Homicide or who was reporting what back to Nico. As far as Nico was concerned, Jasmine had nothing to lose. Agent Gosling really trusted her now because she was making him look so good, so he had lowered the pressure on her to hurry and get information on Nico.
It was about ten o’clock on a Thursday night when Jasmine and Homicide left the Shark Bar in Manhattan and headed out to Long Island. Homicide had a gold Yukon Denali with dark-tinted windows that he always drove, but whenever he was going out with Jasmine, he always preferred for her to chauffeur him around in her BMW truck. So Jasmine drove while Homicide reclined in the front passenger seat, his snub-nose revolver in his waistband.
At that time of night, the roads were not congested, so it didn’t take any time at all to get to Nico’s Long Island estate. She pulled up into the circular driveway and turned off the engine. The house was pitch-dark.
Homicide was used to being in the city where there was always some kind of lights on. But at Nico’s remote estate there was no streetlights to help illuminate the property. It was so dark, Homicide could barely see his own hands when he held them up in front of his face.
“It’s black as shit out here,” he said to Jasmine.
It was also eerily quiet. Jasmine was used to the darkness and the quiet because she had experienced it so many times. She could have walked to the front door of the house with her eyes closed if she had to.
She made it to the front door, let herself in with her key, disengaged the alarm system, and turned on the light. Homicide was thankful for the light that came from inside the house because it allowed him to see where he was walking.
“This shit is like living out in the country or some shit.” Homicide walked inside the house and looked around.
“You ain’t lying,” Jasmine replied, wondering why Homicide wanted to come ther
e. She scooped up the pile of mail that had accumulated and placed it all on the kitchen counter.
Homicide took notice of that. He also took notice of how good Nico appeared to be living. Having finished a five-year prison sentence just over a year ago, he knew he couldn’t come close to balling on Nico’s level. Homicide felt the envy starting to build up inside of him, but he didn’t say anything derogatory about the house.
While Jasmine looked through the mail, Homicide opened up the refrigerator and looked around. He saw that the refrigerator wasn’t that full and the expiration date on the gallon of milk had long since passed, giving him further confirmation that the house had not been lived in as of late.
“You want a drink or something?” Jasmine asked.
“I’m good.” Homicide walked out of the kitchen and walked into the den and looked around in there.
While Homicide was in the den, Simone called Jasmine. Jasmine wondered about Simone’s timing, but she dismissed it as just a coincidence.
“No sob stories,” Jasmine said to Simone. She was getting tired of Simone calling her and telling her how much she missed Ish, how Ish wasn’t calling her from jail, how he had flipped out on her when she went to visit him in jail three days after he had been arrested.
“No, I promise. No more ‘Depressed Debbie talk’ from me,” Simone replied.
“Thank you. You understand what I was saying, right?”
“Yeah, I get where you’re coming from.”
Jasmine had been telling Simone that death and jail was part of the game; if she was going to mess with drug dealers, she had to get used to that. She reminded Simone how her ex-boo Shabazz had been killed, and she quickly got over it and moved on to Nico.
“So we hanging out tomorrow?” Simone asked.
“Yeah, if you want to.” Jasmine smiled, glad that Simone finally seemed like she was ready to move on.
