Page 7 of Virgo Type Sh*t
I sniffled.“No, I haven’t talked to her or James’s bitch ass. The only reason I know is because they snuck away on a trip or something to Vegas together, and now, they’re missing. Faheeta’s mama, TorTela, told me because she thinks it will come out. She didn’t want me to be blindsided.”
There was silence on the other end for a second.“Did you just say her mother’s name is TorTela? Do they have Mexican descent? There is no way someone named their child TorTela, then that bitch said well, fajitas are made with tortillas. Wait, then the daughter’s name is Pepper. They do go in fajitas. Yeah, their names are suspect as hell.”
I wanted to laugh so damn bad, but I had to stay in fucking character. I planned to kick Fiona’s ass later for her stupid ass comment.“Fiona, really? What am I supposed to do? I don’t want people to ask me about them. I can’t believe I was concerned about that bitch because I hadn’t spoken to her, and she was in Vegas fucking James. Wait, no, they were there to get married.”
“I’m sorry, Mekole. They say laughter is good for the soul. I mean so is beating a bitch’s ass, but we can’t do that,”Fiona said with no emotion.“Um, just come here. You were talking about moving here before you got pregnant. Maybe this is a sign.”
As planned, I huffed, then asked what if the cops thought it was suspicious that I left like I did. We went back and forth about it and other bullshit before I agreed to go see her. She was right. Before I found out that I was pregnant, I had plans to make my house a furnished rental property and move to Charleston, South Carolina.“Okay, I’ll come, but I have to see if I can get a job down there if I want to stay.”
“Be happy that you have a cousin with connections. Croy and I are friends with someone who owns a manufacture home business,”she said.“We’ll reach out to him. Plus, Galiana’s husband’s best friend owns an all-inclusive apartment complex. I’ll reach out to him if you decide to stay long-term.”
Fiona and her friends had no idea how much I appreciated them for everything. They didn’t have to implicate themselves in two murders, but they did. I was the type of person that never bothered anyone. I loved who I loved, liked what I liked, and was loyal to who was loyal to me. I cared until I couldn’t care anymore. Once I stopped caring because of betrayal, then that was when I became a problem.
Some Time Later . . .
Charleston, South Carolina
“Man,I told you not ta hire dat girl when you had hire her,” Casey, my best friend, jested. “Nah, you thought it been ga becool ta have dat girl work here. I tol’ you to keep boppas off our payroll.”
I dropped my head into my hand. “Man, I ain’t think that girl was ca do all that dumb shit. I mean, I happy da shit ain’t had shit to do wit’ me, but again, I can’t have dat shit mixed up in my business.”
Casey and I were sitting on my back deck, smoking a blunt. It was finally the weekend, and I couldn’t have been happier. It had been a high productivity week for my family company, Burke Manufactured Homes. After high school, I went to Trident Technical College for Civil Engineering Technology. From then on, I became a general contractor, just like my dad, Jethro Burke. I made good money as a general contractor, but it wasn’t enough to keep my ass out of the streets. I was hell in those streets too.
My father went to my older brother, Odafin or O.J. as we called him, for help. My parents set my and my brother’s middle name as Jethro in honor of our father. My dad said that he didn’t want a junior. Where and why they came up with our first names should be studied. My first name, Tumnus, has something to do with a wardrobe and a lion or some shit. Odafin came from that detective in the sixteenth precinct on that damn dun, dun, dun show. My mama was wild for that one.
My brother was older than me by two years at thirty years old. When he got into trouble, my father reached out to one of his friends that he grew up with, Fabuloso. My father had the thought process ofif you’re going to do the wrong thing, at least let me show you how to do the wrong thing right.He and my mother went back and forth about my father’s decision to connect my brother with Fabuloso, until my brother was shot four times and almost died at twenty-three. After that, my mother was amenable to anything that would keep her son alive.
Two years later, O.J. worked for Fabuloso’s daughter, Galiana. He now ran one of their family’s mortuaries and was a certified mortician. When they said that my brother knew where the bodies were buried, that had dual meanings for him. Well, when I got into my shit, that mortician shot wasn’t for me, so Galiana thought a better fit for me would be with her husband’s company, Christianson Enterprise. I joined them at the tender age of twenty and had been with them since. When I was twenty-three, I teamed up with my father to start our own business in construction, but we went the manufactured homes avenue.
Casey sucked his teeth. “I’on know how you ain’t think that girl was not gonna come to a job where it’s basically a dick buffet for a boppa and not think her ass wasn’t gonna gobble some up.” His hard ass stare told me what I already knew that I knew what it was.
“Bubba, I ain’t ga say I ain’t think she was ga come get full, but I thought her ass wouldn’t be messy about ’em,” I admitted. “How da fuck you outcha fuckin’ on somebody husband when his wife work here too?”
I foolishly hired this girl that I fucked with in the past. She came to me with her baby daddy problems, so I looked out and gave her a desk job at our manufacturing plant, where we built the homes that we sold. Her damn job was to sit in the front office, answer the damn phones, set the showing for the agents who showed the homes, and file papers. There were more duties than that, but that was the gist of them. Unfortunately, her unprofessional ass spent more time with dick in her on the clock than she did doing her actual job.
Today, Casey who managed the plant, had to fire her, the wife, and the husband. The women fought on the production floor which was a major risk and hazard. Casey chuckled. “Now, you know there’s very few hoes dat got self-control. Let’s jus’ not do dat shit again.”
I showed him my middle finger before we both laughed. “What the fuck eva, man. Now we gotta backfill those positions.”
Casey snapped his fingers. “Oh, speakin’ of hiring, Croy reached out ta me dat other day to ask if we were in the market for an electrician. Fiona’s cousin lookin’ fa a job.” He took his phone out and tapped on the screen. “I just sent it to your email.”
I picked my phone up and went to my email to pull up what more than likely would be a résumé. I would look at it as a formality, but I’d hire whoever it was because of where the referral came from.Mekole Henderson.I skimmed the résumé and was impressed by the experience. “This looks good. I’m cool wit’ it if you wanna hire ’em.” I looked at the time on my phone. “Shit, let’s get outta here so we can get to his house.”
Once a month, Croy had a kickback at his spot that he invited select individuals to. I’d only been invited for about a year. Casey wasn’t directly connected to Christianson Enterprises, but he knew what it was. Although he wasn’t connected, my best friend ate exceptionally well. It was always the same people at these kickbacks, which was cool because the tighter your circle, the harder it was to break it.
I lived in North Charleston, and Croy lived in Summerville. It wouldn’t take me a long time to get to his house since it was a straight shot down D Road to there. Casey and I were the last to get there. The kickback was always on his back deck. That was one thing that everyone that I hung with had in common, nice ass back decks. My father, some of our workers, and I had built many back decks. We didn’t only build manufactured homes.
“What’s up, Bubba?” Croy greeted me and Casey when he opened his front door. “We all outcha.” We followed him through his house.
He and his wife, Fiona, recently became empty nesters when their twins went to college. Both of them followed their oldersister, Croya, to South Carolina State University. Croy loved that shit because it made it easier to stalk his kids on one campus.
The usual suspects were here: Mega, Ned, Draco, Jacob, War, and Yetti. “What’s up, y’all?” I greeted everyone.
I’d worked on missions with Ned and a few times with Mega before he retired. Draco was what I called a sole survivor because it was like they sent his ass in and only he came out. Jacob was my boss, but he was cool as fuck. War was Jacob’s best friend, and Yetti was War’s brother. The circle was tight. It was so tight that all their women were close friends, if not best friends.
When Ned asked what was up with us, Casey’s ass told their asses about our ho ass receptionist. “Man, I don’t wanna talk about dat ho. Croy, I looked at da résumé you sent ova for Fiona’s cousin. Ole boy got a lotta experience.”
Croy had just pulled from his blunt when I made my statement. He didn’t speak until he took a sip from his cup. “Ole girl. It’s a female.”
