Roy Glenn - All About The Money

“Please,” she said as stood up. “After I work him over for a few hours, he’ll be begging me to get out.” I gave her a hug and turned to leave.

Hours later, when we walked up into the place the way we do, Chante fit right in. We watched from our table as other half-naked women jockeyed for attention. Some tables were stacked with drinks. To the left of our table, a few ladies were having a divorce party, with the guest of honor wobbling in and out of her seat. A couple of her friends were doing seductive lap dances in their chairs as her friends cheered on, while another one held a camcorder.

“You having a nice time?” Chante asked.

I nodded, and then took a sip from my drink. I was having a blast. The dance floor was packed and the music was thumping. I sipped my drink again and enjoyed the atmosphere. Waiters walked around like busy mice, quickly running through the maze of a club from table to table.

It was about one-thirty in the morning when Simone and Diane walked into the place. “Hey, ladies. How’d it go tonight?” I asked as we each exchanged hugs.

“Great, Jada,” Diane said quickly. “It don’t even take me long to do what I gotta do.”

“Must not have been all that. Who comes to the club after a great date?” Chante asked.

Bella quickly looked away like she didn’t know us. Simone and Diane looked at her and then to me, with that handle-your-girl look on their faces.

“What?” Chante smiled and hunched her shoulders. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, Chante. You didn’t say anything wrong,” I said, searching for something to tell her. “A great date doesn’t mean you got to give up the goods.” Then I flipped it back on her. “I see you here after your date with Jordan.”

“That’s ’cause I checked out his package early in the evening,” Chante came back quickly.

“What you talkin’ ’bout, Chante?” Diane asked.

“When we were leaving Jill’s, I bumped into him and felt for his dick; I couldn’t find it.” Chante grabbed her head. “I started getting a headache right then.”

The bass in the music was thumping and some blinged-out baller grabbed Diane’s hand. She looked at me. I looked him over and motioned with my eyes that it was cool. Watching Diane on the floor, feeling the music, had me feeling like I needed to go find me something to rub up against-you know, let Miss Kitty out of the bag. I quickly decided against it. I hadn’t danced with anybody since we started going there and I wasn’t about to start now. I was there for business. But a few minutes later I was rocking to the music in my seat. I wondered if Chante had noticed that I collected business cards anytime we were out, and if she did, did she wonder why.

This well dressed guy came and stood over Simone. They didn’t look like they were strangers and she didn’t bother to introduce him to us. Without a word, he extended his hand to her and she accepted. Eyebrows raised and a few smirks popped up when Simone and her mystery man walked away from our table. “I guess she was bored with our company,” Chante joked.

I shook my head and got up from the table. “I’ll be back,” I said and headed toward the ladies’ room. A waitress arrived just as I walked away, and I told her to bring me another drink. I glanced over my shoulder and considered whether it was wise to leave Bella alone with Chante. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I was on my way.

On my way back, I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but the look on Bella’s face told me she wasn’t feeling the conversation.

“Hey. Everything okay?” I asked as I took my seat.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Chante answered, a little too quickly for my taste.

“You guys seen Diane?” I asked.

“Not since she left the table with that baller,” Bella answered.

Before I could take another sip of my drink, I looked up to see Diane walking toward us. “Jada, lemme holla at you for a sec,” she said.

I got up again and walked a few feet away.

“I’ve got a live one here, so I’m about to bounce,” Diane said and motioned toward a delicious looking thug who was waiting for her near the bar.

I usually didn’t allow that type of thing, but I recognized him. He was already a client, so I made sure he saw me.

“How much longer y’all gonna be here?” Diane asked.

“Not much longer. Maybe another hour. I don’t see many new prospects.”

“Well, I’ll catch up with y’all later then,” Diane said then sashayed over to her client. Again, when I came back to the table, I felt like I was interrupting something between Chante and Bella, but I wasn’t about to start trippin’. I made a mental note to get the 4-1-1 from Bella later.

Just then, Simone came back to our table. I could tell by looking at her that she’d been crying. I jumped up from my chair and rushed to her. “Simone! What’s the matter?”

“That guy was my ex-boyfriend,” she said, fighting back the tears. “He heard what-” she started, and then cut her eyes at Chante.

I quickly grabbed her hand, “Come on, Simone. Let’s go someplace quiet. Excuse us, ladies,” I said to Chante and Bella, and led her to the VIP room. Once we were inside I said, “Now, tell me what’s going on?”

“That guy who I left with, he’s my ex-boyfriend. He heard from some of his boys what I’ve been doin’,” she said and began to cry again.

“How would any of his boys know about what you’re doing?”

“He told me that his boy is a client.”

“Oh.” What else could I say?

“He came to make me stop.”

“What did you say?”

“At first I said that I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he just kept pushin’ it. Callin’ me a ho and a slut and this and that; tellin’ me I was better than this, and that he was taking me away from this life of sin ’cause I was a ho and needed to find God or whatever.” Suddenly the tears stopped and I saw the fire return to her eyes. “Then I just lost it, Jada, and started goin’ off on him. Then he grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me out the club. Well, you know security wasn’t havin’ that. They grabbed him and dragged him out the club. When they got him outside they started kickin’ his ass. I tried to stop them and tell them that it wasn’t that serious, and he just needed to go and not come back. But once they let him go, this fool spit in big Kevin’s face.”

“Wrong move,” I said, having seen how security here deals with problems.

“Kevin hit him in the face so hard that blood was everywhere, and then the police came to take him to jail, but he was trying to fight them too. He kept callin’ my name, callin’ me a ho and sayin’ that this was my fault. I swear, Jada, I didn’t want him to get hurt, and I damn sure didn’t want him to go to jail.”

“It’s not your fault, Simone. He shouldn’t have tried to manhandle you like that.” I reached in my purse and gave her the card of a bail bondsman. “But if you’re feeling that badly about him going to jail, here is the number for a bail bondsman. Let me know how much his bail is.” That was the very least I could do for her.

The next afternoon I made it a point to talk to Bella about the conversation she and Chante had the night before at the club. It must have been on her mind as well, because as soon as I sat down, Bella came to me with her concerns. “Chante doesn’t know what we do?” she asked that afternoon.

“No, what’s up?”

“Just curious, ’cause last night, she just seemed to be all up in my grill. I mean she was fishing for information; I didn’t say nothin’, though,” Bella had reported proudly.

“What exactly was she questioning you about?”

“Well, she wanted to know how we made money, what we did for a living, how we were able to buy such nice clothes and things like that.”