The Cocaine Princess Part 5 (Cocaine Princess Series #5)(31)

“Nothing important,” Blake said. “Check this out, though. I need y’all to seek out all the niggas that look like real dope boys tonight. Pull ‘em to the side and holla at ‘em. Ask other niggas about ‘em. Shit, Birdman and Ross’ll be there; ask them about ‘em. Find as many real niggas as possible and tell ‘em they can get bricks from us for fifteen-a-ki, ten if they cop at least a hundred of ‘em. And we got bricks of boy for fifty, pounds of Kush for twenty-eight hundred. Next day delivery, too.”

“Man,” Fly said, “I done already hollered at some Top Six and Zoe Pound niggas, bruh. All you gotta do is kick back and let me handle this shit. I’m guaranteed to get rid of two or three hundred bricks this week.”

“I got seven hundred and fifty thousand for fifty mo’ bricks right now,” said Bam, a five-star branch elite of the Traveling Vice Lords. He was tall, dark brown, and heavy-set, sitting in the driver seat of the drop-top Phantom that sat in the parking spot to the right of Blake’s convertible. Rubbing a hand over his bald head, he added, “And Reesie Cup want a thousand mo’.”

The two other TVLs, Sawbuck and Tweet, nodded their heads. Both of them were tall and brown, but Sawbuck was darker and skinnier than Tweet. Like everyone else in the group, they were certified bosses, million dollar niggas with droves of young gunslingers working beneath them, all thanks to Blake and his seemingly endless supply of kilos.

“Let’s go on and hit up K.O.D,” Blake suggested, opening his driver door and getting in. “I’m ready to make it thunderstorm.”

Leaving the American Airlines Arena, Blake dropped the top on his Bugatti and turned on his CD player. “Donald Goines,” the third track on his almost triple platinum debut album, began to blare from the speakers.

‘Like Donald Goines, I’m a storyteller of the streets

No narrative needed, I’m the fella with the heat

It’s like his troubled soul done somehow drifted into me

God gave a gift to me to set the realest niggas free

When I’m deceased, the realest street nigga I still’ll be

Neva snitchin’, neva runnin’, gutta ‘til they finish me

Kush replenish me, gives me an omnipotent energy

Feel like I’m rich as Carnegie, ‘cause big money befriended me

Couple enemies, tell them niggas shoot if they carry it

Buncha frenemies, yeah I’m talkin’ Judas Iscariots

So in the custom Louis duffle I be carryin’s

Enough money to have a few of my niggas bury ‘em

I got a dope house, and an AK house

Publish bestsellers in the booth, Holloway House

Give me a sick beat, and I promise you I’ma go in

You’ll think Big Meech wrote it…wit’ Donald Goines…’

The warm Dade County air felt good on Blake’s face. He inhaled a deep breath of it. Relished it. He loved the Midwest, always would, but there was no weather like Miami weather. And the scenery—palm trees, scantily clad women baring their curves for all to see, perfect azure waters stretching beyond sandy beaches—it made him want to stay here forever.

Fly and Sawbuck were trailing him in the two Bugatti coupes, and behind them were the three Phantom convertibles. The fleet of luxury cars had cost Blake $8.5 million altogether, including what he paid to get them bulletproof and equipped with stash boxes, their paint and interior jobs, and the black-painted 24-inch rims on the Rolls-Royces.

Hundreds of awestruck eyes ogled the Veyron’s and Phantoms as they zoomed toward North Miami Beach. Thrice, when they were stopped at red lights on Collins Avenue, Bulletface Fans leapt from their vehicles requesting autographs and pictures, and he graciously obliged every time, signing albums and breasts, smiling for the photos.

‘This is the life,’ he thought. ‘I wish all real niggas could ball like this.’





Chapter 20

Chicago…

MBM Music Manager Fredrick Douglass steered his brand new 2012 Cadillac XTS down Lake Shore Drive, occasionally glancing over at the dark, rippling waters of Lake Michigan. Intent on impressing his dinner date, he had put on his best tuxedo—a black Armani ensemble—before leaving his three million dollar condo at the Trump International Hotel & Tower.

When he made it to Great Aunt Micki’s, the upscale soul food restaurant on Michigan Avenue where his date was waiting, he parked behind a coal-black Maybach—hers, he presumed—and took a deep breath to calm the butterflies that were flapping around in his stomach. Then he stepped out of the black XTS, straightening his bow tie, and entered the opulent restaurant holding a dozen red roses in one hand.

Tall, light brown, and well-dressed, with wooly African hair, prudent brown eyes, and a confident gait, Douglass was an intelligent, successful black man from Baltimore, Maryland. A veteran in the music industry, he was accustomed to mingling with some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in America.

But never anyone as powerful as Rita Mae Bishop, the top executive of Costilla Corporation—a corporation that included a newspaper, magazine, and book publishing company, three TV and CATV stations, a film production and distribution company, a billion dollar resort in Cancun, Mexico, and a social networking website.

A female host led Fredrick through the dimly lit restaurant to a door at the back wall. Two burly black CPD officers stood on either side of it.