Roy Glenn - The cost of vengeance

Nina Thomas

The grand jury didn’t return a murder indictment against me. I was so relieved I cried. Now that that was behind me, I had something else on my mind-the women who robbed me. They didn’t follow me from Jimmy’s; they were there at my apartment waiting for me. They had to know that I would be at Jimmy’s, and where I lived. I looked at Teena and wondered how they knew that.

I went home with Shay and Teena. They had a surprise party waiting there for me. “Surprise!” Even though I wasn’t in the mood for a party, I acted like I was having a good time, but my mind was focused on how them women knew where I lived. Sometime during the party, I sat down and watched Teena. She was all over the place, like she always was, being the life of the party. After awhile, Shay came and sat with me. “Something bothering you?”

“Why you say that?”

“This is your party and you’re the only one that’s not having fun.”

“Just got a lot on my mind.”

“That why you been sweatin’ Teena all night?” Shay asked.

I didn’t answer.

Shay stood up. “Come on. We need to talk.”

Shay led me by the hand into the bedroom. We sat on the bed and I ran it all down to her. How no matter how much we talked about not doing business at Jimmy’s, Teena called me to do business at Jimmy’s. I told her about the two women who were watching me, and that it was those same two women that robbed me. “They didn’t follow me from Jimmy’s; they were waiting there for me, Shay. They had to know that I would be at Jimmy’s that night, and they had to know where I lived.”

“Wait here a minute,” Shay said and left the room. When she came back, Teena was with her. “Tell her what you just told me, Nina.”

I ran through it again.

“Hold up. You think I set you up?” Teena asked.

“We just talkin’, Teena,” Shay said.

“I ain’t talkin’ to you, Shay. Nina, you think I set you up?”

“Like Shay said, we just talkin’.”

“You do think I set you up. That hurts bitch. Long as we’ve known each other, as much shit as three of us have been through together, you think I would do some shit like that? That shit hurts,” Teena said, and I could see the hurt on her face.

“If you would stop being so hurt and think about it, you’d understand why we had to have this conversation,” Shay said.

“Why?”

“Think about that shit, Teena. Nina don’t go to Jimmy’s, that’s your spot,” Shay began. “You call her up there and there are two women watchin’ her. The same two women that are waiting at her apartment to rob her. How did they know where she lived? How did they know she would be at Jimmy’s that night?”

“Okay, okay; when you run it down like that I can see why Nina’s lookin’ crazy at me,” Teena said.

“In case you ain’t noticed, it ain’t just Nina lookin’ at you crazy,” Shay said.

“I get it, Shay, I get it. But believe me; I didn’t set you up, Nina. First of all, Shay, didn’t I call you first and you said you didn’t have it?”

“Shay?” I asked.

“True, she did call me.”

“Was I gonna rob Shay’s ass too.” I wanted to say maybe, but I didn’t. “How did I know you was goin’ back to your apartment? You was on some dick when I called you, and you said that you were in a hurry to get back to that dick.”

“Nina?” Shay asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” I had to laugh at myself ’cause I got a little wet just thinking about gettin’ some more of that dick. But for reasons that I understand, Victor didn’t want to see me anymore.

“And if I was gonna set you up to get robbed, why wouldn’t I set it up so you would have to go get the stash where the real weight is, instead of at your apartment, where I know for a fact that you got a key at best?”

Me and Shay looked at each other. “I’m sorry, Teena,” I said.

“You ain’t gotta be sorry, Nina. I understand why y’all had to come at me like that. Shit, if it was either of you bitches, I woulda pulled the same stunt.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry too,” Shay said. And we had a group hug.

“I love you two bitches. I would never do nothin’ to hurt you,” Teena said.

“I’m glad that’s settled,” Shay said.

“No, it’s not,” I said and Teena and Shay looked at me. “The one thing we agree on is that it was a setup, right?”

“Right,” they both agreed.

“The question is: how did they know where I live?”

“Who knows where you live?” Shay asked.

“Not many people know where I live. At least that was the case before this party,” I said and thought about moving.

“So who?” Teena asked.

“You two, Kenyatta, Leon, and Cedric knew, but he’s dead,” I said.

“I think we can eliminate him.”

I thought about that night and that’s when it hit me. “There is one more person that knows where I live.”

“Who’s that?” my girls both asked simultaneously.

“Victor.”

“Victor?” the both asked in unison, again.

“Victor.”

That night we decided to watch Victor. It felt like we were cops as we took turns sitting outside his house and following him wherever he went. I followed him to a house and waited for him to come out. When he came out, my two female bandits came out with him. When I told Teena and Shay about it, we argued about what we were gonna do about it. “We kill them,” I said quietly.

“We?” Shay asked.

“Yes, we, Shay. We gotta do this,” I said.

“What; now that you’ve killed somebody you’re a killer?” Shay asked.

“That’s not it, Shay. I don’t think I’m a killer, but we gotta do this. We can’t let this go without us doing anything about it. We can’t have people thinking that they can just rob us and we let it go.”

“What you say, Teena?” Shay asked.

Teena looked at both of us. “I agree with Nina. We gotta kill them. Three of us, three of them.”

We planned how we’d do it. Shay was shaky. “We’ll do it together,” I said.

“We’ll both be right there with you,” Teena promised.

That next night, I drove to the house I saw the women with Victor and waited. The three of us sat in the car and talked about everything, except what we were there to do. The only thing that was different was that we all had on bandanas and gloves. We had been there for a couple of hours when the front door opened. “There go one of them,” I said as she walked out of the house and locked the door.

“Which one is it?” Shay asked.

“She’s mine,” Teena said and got out of the car.

I grabbed my gun and got out of the car as well. Shay got out, too, but she didn’t bring her gun with her. Teena walked up on her so fast that we had to hurry to keep up with her. She got to her just as she made it to her car.

“Hey, bitch,” Teena said, and she turned and looked at Teena. “Time to die.” Teena raised her gun and pulled the trigger. She fired three shots and hit her with all three.

Now the plan was that Teena would kill one woman, Shay would kill the other, and Victor was mine. This way we were all in it together. But Shay left her gun in the car, so when Teena took care of hers, Shay froze. I ran to the door and waited with my gun raised. When the other woman came out to see what was going on, I put my gun to her head. I thought about just going ahead and shooting her, but I thought it was important to stick to the plan. I walked her at gunpoint to the car. Once she was inside, I said to Shay, “Find something to gag her with.” Shay took off the bandana she was wearing and shoved it in her mouth. Teena drove off. We took her to Kenyatta’s dope spot.

When we got to the spot, I called Kenyatta and told her to come to the car. “Here she comes,” I said, and Teena got out of the car and walked up on her before she got to the car. She told Kenyatta that we needed a vacate apartment. “What’s goin’ on?” I heard Kenyatta ask.

“Never mind all that. You got a spot or not.” Teena said.

Kenyatta led Teena toward the building and ten minutes later, Teena came back and we took her inside to a vacant apartment on the third floor. As soon as we got in there, we made her get down on her knees. Both Teena and I looked at Shay.

Shay stepped up to her and pointed her gun at the woman’s head. She closed her eyes and got ready to die. We all stood there watching Shay, as she lowered the gun.

“I can’t.”

“Gimme that,” Teena said and took the gun from Shay. Without another word Teena shot her point-blank in the head. She looked at Shay, handed her back the gun, and walked away.

Shay looked at me. “I’m sorry, Nina.”

“Come on,” I said and followed Teena out of the apartment. There was only one thing left to do. There was nothing said while Teena drove us to our next spot. When we pulled up outside, Teena put the car in park and her and Shay started to get out.

“Let’s go get that nigga,” Teena said.

“No. I gotta do this myself,” I said.

“What?” Teena asked.

“No, Nina. You shouldn’t go in there by yourself,” Shay said.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I have to,” I said and opened the car door. I got out of the car and started walking toward the house. Teena jumped out of the car and ran up to me.

“Why you doin’ this, bitch?”

“I need to do this alone, Teena,” I said and started walking toward the house again.

I rang the bell and there was no answer. I walked around the house looking for another way in. I found a window in the back of the house that was cracked open. I went in and made my way to the living room. I got a chair and pulled it in front of the door. I sat down and waited, knowing that when he turned on the lights, the first thing he would see was me.

I had been sitting there for over an hour before I heard the key hit the lock. I raised my weapon. Victor opened the door and turned on the light.

“Nina?” His eyes opened wide when he saw the gun. “What are you doing here?”

“Come in and close the door,” I said. I should have shot him on sight and been done with it. But I didn’t.

“What’s this about, Nina?” Victor asked.

“Don’t play stupid. You know what this is about.”

“’Cause I wouldn’t go out with you again,” Victor said and laughed a little.

“Very funny. Chose your next little joke carefully, ’cause it will be your last.”

“Can I sit down?”

“Go ahead,” I said, and Victor sat down on the couch. When he sat down, I stood up.

“So, you wanna tell me what this is about?”

“You set me up.”

“What?”

“You were the one that sent those women to rob me that night.”

“And I suppose that I set it up to get beat to death?”

“There was no way you could know that Cedric would be there, or that I would have to call you to untie me.”

“This is crazy, Nina. What makes you so sure that I did it?”

“I been following you.”

“Now you stalking me, Nina? This is ridiculous.”

“I followed you and you led me right to the two bitches that robbed me that night.”

The look on his face changed completely then. Up to that point, I guess he thought that he would be able to talk me out of killing him. Now, for the first time since he walked in the door, Victor looked scared. “So, let’s start again. Why you set me up?”

Victor looked around the room, and then he took a deep breath. “It wasn’t anything personal, Nina. That’s just our hustle. One of us gets the mark out of the house and the other two rob them. LeSean and Shantia scouted you out.”