Shannon

I saw Todd calling my phone, and I ignored his call. Right now I didn’t want to speak to him. Lately, all he wanted to speak about was the fucking Bobby Knight shit. In the past couple of days, I don’t think he has even asked about Lil Todd. I had thought about this shit long and hard. I had talked it over with Satanya, and she had said, Shit, girl, if I could just set a nigga up to be robbed and get my fucking husband outta prison, I would do that shit in a minute. I thought about her words, and I felt like if I didn’t do this shit, I would be shitting on Todd after he had taken my ass up out of the hood and given me the good life. That’s not to say I haven’t been down for him when he had done bids the other times. I had always sacrificed and stayed loyal to the nigga.

After our conversation, me and Satanya had it all planned out that we were going to Bobby Knight’s known hangout spot that Dray had given Todd. We would go check out this Bobby Knight cat and then get started with the plan. I didn’t need to tell Todd shit. What I needed was a fucking drink to get my mind right.

“Satanya, let’s go get a bottle of Goose before we get dressed,” I said somberly.

“Girl, you know I keeps a bottle of that shit handy. Drink all the Goose you need, then get the fuck dressed so we can get this shit on and popping,” Satanya said, walking away and coming back. She handed me some Grey Goose and cranberry juice in a martini glass. I grabbed that shit and gulped it down real quick. It wasn’t gonna be no sexy sipping tonight. My fucking nerves needed calming down. Satanya and I sorted through what was left of my high-end outfits—there had been some shit I just wasn’t parting with. Satanya picked me out a dark purple Diane von Furstenberg minidress and a pair of thigh-high Lanvin boots.

“Girl, ya ass is phat as hell in that dress,” Satanya complimented.

“I heard this cat is attracted to a nice big ass,” I said, laughing out loud in an attempt to relieve my fear.

When me and Satanya pulled up to Blakelys, it looked packed. All kinds of high-class cars were up in front of the spot. The one that caught my immediate attention was the Mercedes Maybach with the presidential tint on the windows. This spot was strictly valet only, so we hopped out and let them park my shit. The one fucking thing I was glad to see was that my BMW 745i was able to hang with the cars at this spot. That was the one fucking thing I wasn’t trying to sell or give up. Todd had bought it for me outright as an anniversary gift a year ago when life was good. I had been so happy that day. He was always doing shit like that for me. Now shit had drastically changed.

I walked into the dimly lit club, and it was immediately apparent that this place was a league above what me and Satanya were used to. There were men in there dressed in fucking tailor-made suits and shirts that required cuff links. I peeped more than one pair of diamond-encrusted cuff links. There were absolutely no big chains, jeans, or baseball cap—wearing niggas up in this spot. The music was that slow-jam, mellow type of shit.

“Mmmm, girl, what the fuck?” Satanya asked, noticing the same things that I had noticed. All I could do was shrug my shoulders. We certainly recognized that we were two reformed hood chicks in a place that was out of our league. We found a table and sat down. There were eyes on us for sure, but it wasn’t the usual all-eyes-on-me attention I got in the regular clubs. There were a lot of beautiful women up in there, and their gear was tight. Todd had described Bobby Knight to me, but I didn’t see anyone fitting his description—tall, really dark-skinned, big-lipped, and always wearing dark glasses and hanging with a group of niggas.

A girl in an all-black leotard came over to me and Satanya. “What can I get you ladies?” she asked, smiling.

“Um, can I get like an amaretto sour?” Satanya ordered.

“Oh, miss, I’m sorry. We only serve top-shelf liquors. Mostly things that cost over three hundred dollars a bottle,” she said smugly.

“She’s new here. Give us a minute,” I said, fronting like a motherfucker. When the girl left, I looked at Satanya and she looked at me.

“What the fuck? I’m new here all fucking right. Girl, I don’t know about this shit here,” she whispered.

I was thinking the same thing. We sat there for a while before I heard a rowdy crowd coming into the place. When I looked over, I saw an entourage of people flanking someone like the person was a celebrity, and everybody up in the spot started turning toward the door. Girls started fixing their makeup and moving closer to the noise. My heart started thumping wildly, and something inside me told me that it was Bobby Knight coming up in here. Sure enough, I heard one of the waitresses tell the other one, “Get ya shit together. Bobby just stepped up in here, and if you want to get paid, you better be looking good.”

I strained my neck to get a glimpse of him, but he was surrounded on every side. Every now and then, I caught a quick glimpse of his face, which was covered by dark-ass glasses as he shook hands and exchanged pounds with a few dudes.

There was definitely a lot of fanfare surrounding Bobby Knight. They changed the music in the club, waitresses neglected everyone else to pay special attention to him, and even grown-ass men seemed to stop in their tracks for him. Bobby kept his dark shades on, and from where I sat after he took his seat, I could peep his getup. He wore a purple-label Polo button-down with French cuffs and some hot-ass cuff links. On his feet were a pair of Salvatore Ferragamos that I’d seen in Neiman Marcus two weeks ago for $1,600. And that ring. A huge diamond pinky ring, not diamond chips like those wannabe niggas in the hood. That was a solitaire as big as a gumball on his pinky. I couldn’t tell where he was looking because of his shades, and I was hoping he couldn’t tell how hard I was scoping him out.

I turned to Satanya and said, “Let the games begin.”

She just smiled, and we both got up and moved toward the bar. We had to be seen or this night would be a complete waste of time. I switched my ass as hard as I could, and Satanya kept an eye out to see if Bobby was taking notice.

“Girl, it’s so many bitches around him he ain’t even got time to look over here,” she said disappointedly. I didn’t let that stop me. Once at the bar, I wedged myself between two guys I had seen in Bobby’s crowd, and I ordered the most expensive shit I could.

“Whew, damn, baby girl, you got expensive taste,” one of the men whistled and said. I looked up at him, winked, and licked my lips seductively. For real, it was like somebody else all of a sudden was living inside of me. I understood what Beyoncé was talking about when she said that her alter ego was Sasha Fierce and comes out when she was onstage performing. It was kind of like that for me. The usually laid-back Shannon was gone; I was now a bitch with a mission.

I knew I had gotten up in their heads, because when Satanya and I returned to our table, I noticed one of them pointing us out to Bobby. Of course, he was going to play it cool at first, but that didn’t last long.

It was about thirty minutes later when Satanya’s eyes grew wide, and she bent over to me. “Girl, one of his dudes is coming toward the table,” she whispered.

“Bitch, play it cool. Don’t let them see you whispering like we desperate and shit,” I whispered back, making sure to keep a smile plastered on my face. Sure enough, a tall Tyrese-looking dude came to the table.

“Excuse me. Sorry for interrupting. On behalf of Bobby Knight, I wanted to ask if you ladies would like to join us,” he said, all polite.

“Who?” I asked, acting like I didn’t know who the fuck Bobby Knight was. The dude looked a little thrown off.

“Bobby Knight,” he said, clearing his throat as if to say, Bitch, don’t act like you don’t know. “The owner of damn near every club in the Tidewater area,” he continued.

“We can join you. But for the record, I had no clue who Bobby Knight was,” I explained indignantly. Satanya was looking at me like Bitch, you crazy as hell.

Walking over to Bobby Knight’s section of the club seemed to take forever. I could feel every step, hear every syllable of the music, and all of a sudden I started thinking about Todd and the plan, and sweat just broke out all over my body.

“Ladies, this is Mr. Knight,” the guy introduced us.

Bobby Knight stopped talking, stood up, grabbed my hand, and kissed the top of it. I was shocked and had a fake smile plastered across my face. He then extended his hand to Satanya for a handshake. I guess he was telling us which one he preferred.

“Please, have a seat,” he said, putting out his arm like an usher. Satanya and I sat down. The fact that this dude had money was evident. Champagne flowed like a river, and I was blinded by all of the bling around the table. I sat there thinking I could get used to some shit like this. Todd was caking a lil something, but we never did it up like this. Bobby turned out to be very polite and well spoken. Although I could tell he was from the South, he didn’t use that broken-ass slang like these niggas around here. He asked a lot of questions, which I expected. I guess you could say talking was his strong point, because we did plenty of that. Satanya took particular interest in the Tyrese-looking dude, whose name was Captain. I had to ask if his momma really named him that, and Bobby interjected, “I named him that. When you’re down with me, what your momma named you don’t matter. Got it, sweet pea?” He had given me a pet name already.

After that first night, it seemed like we were in like Flynn. I gave Bobby Knight my phone number. He told me he didn’t own a cell phone. He said he was more of a face-to-face person and that he’d be in touch. When he asked me if I was married or in a relationship, I almost choked on my champagne. I couldn’t tell a complete lie, because the tan line on my left ring finger told the story. “I’m recently divorced,” I said deceitfully, the lie burning on my tongue like the sting of a poisonous insect.