The Cocaine Princess Part 5 (Cocaine Princess Series #5)(21)

“I’ll go and do that now.” Tootie folded the cash, strolled quickly across the street to her dark gray Durango, got in, and drove down Willard to the liquor store two blocks away.

Still holding the thick pile of hundreds in his left hand, Blake moved through the crowd of familiar faces, shaking hands with the real niggas, hugging the ‘hood chicks, ignoring the lames and fakes. For the most part, everyone was silent, with only a few susurrant voices here and there. A lot of them were wearing black hoodies with MBM GANG stretched across the chests in big gold letters.

“Y’all need to lighten up a li’l bit,” Blake said loudly. “Lil Mike wouldn’t want us out here lookin’ all sad. Celebrate his life. We finna get f*cked up and kick it like we always do, and when I find out who did this shit, y’all know what it is. Make sure they know, hundred-thousand for anybody that can tell me who did it.”

Everyone started chatting and drinking and reminiscing on the fun times they’d shared with Michael “Lil’ Mike” Lane and Terry Morehouse. Blake had not really known Terry that well—they’d always run in different circles—but he always heard good things about the young nigga, so he decided right then to pay for Terry’s funeral expenses as well.

The crowd moved to Blake’s newly-built four bedroom house on the corner of Patrick Street. He owned two other houses on 7th and Lincoln, but this one was his kick it spot, which he’d had built for the measly price of $256,000. Since his Bugatti was already parked in the alley out back, he left it there and preceded everyone into the house via the back door, his cash-filled duffle in one hand, a blunt of Kush he’d gotten from Fly in the other.

The house was fully furnished, thanks to his interior decorator. Hardwood floors rambled throughout the first floor, from the kitchen, to the dining room, and into the living room. But no one was granted access to the first and second floors; Blake opened the basement door and led the mob down stairs, to the place he’d dubbed the “LV Room.”

A long, U-shaped, brown leather Louis Vuitton sofa wrapped around half the room, the carpet was also brown Louis Vuitton. There were four stripper poles in the middle of the floor, an equal number of eighteen-inch speakers fit into all four corners of the ceiling, and the walls were lined with 55-inch flat screen televisions, two on each wall.

“Y’all niggas bet’ not start spillin’ drank all over my carpet,” Blake warned as he sat down on the sofa, taking a deep drag on the blunt and dropping the heavy duffle onto the carpeted floor between his LV loafers. Fly sat beside him, already rolling another Swisher full of Kush.

A minute later, Rick Ross’ “Rich Forever” mix-tape was blasting from the overhead speakers, and the movie Scarface was playing on the televisions.

Blake took a pair of gold-framed Louis Vuitton sunglasses from his hoody’s belly pocket and put them on; he didn’t want anyone seeing the intense pain in his eyes as he thought about his murdered friend.

“Lil Mike can’t be dead,” he murmured, more to himself than anything. “Not my li’l nigga.” He couldn’t help but think of all the men he himself had gunned down. Was Lil Mike’s death a simple case of karma?

The mere notion made him shudder.

“I wonder what they was lookin’ for you for,” Fly said curiously. Like a lot of urbanites, he was completely unaware of how broken his English was, and Blake was in no mood to correct him.

“T-Walk had somethin’ to do with it,” surmised Blake.

“Why you say that?”

“Cause…I just know. That’s how he is. He had me shot ten times, and he sent some niggas to do it. Anybody else would’ve come through and looked for me themselves.” Blake was watching Tootie saunter toward him with four bags full of boxed Ciroc; three girls were walking with her, holding more bags, chattering excitedly, and smiling wantonly at Blake.

Tootie and her friends sat the bags on one of the four short mahogany tables (each one covered with a brown Louis Vuitton tablecloth).

“I bought forty bottles of Ciroc instead of twenty,” Tootie said stepping forward and mounting Blake on the sofa. He was not surprised to see that she was wearing a halter with his album cover—a picture of him standing on the hood of his Bugatti Veyron SS, iced out, counting through a pile of hundreds—airbrushed on the front of it. “I hope you know how hard it was carrying all that Ciroc down here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He rubbed her thighs, her ass, her back. “I owe you for the trip?”

“You damn right. And you can take me upstairs to one of those bedrooms and pay me right now.”

He was contemplating paying her in full when suddenly his iPhone’s “Kiss Me Through the Phone” ringtone started playing. He had assigned the ringtone to the phone line in his and Alexus’s bedroom, so he knew who was calling. Tootie moved to sit beside him.

“I gotta take this call,” he said, getting up. He grabbed his duffle and cut through the crowd of admiring eyes. Looking back, he saw that two of his guys—Fly and Lil Chris—and Tootie were trailing close behind him.

As soon as they made it up the stairs and into the kitchen, Blake answered the phone.

“What’s up, baby?” He asked glumly.

“Are you”—Alexus sniffled—“coming home tonight? I need you to hold me…make me feel loved.”