Payback

'If people are gonna steal from you, they’ll find a way to do it,' Mike said and passed the statement to Bobby. 'But I think it’s a good idea.'

'Glad that’s settled,' Bobby said and got ready to leave. 'I got something that I need to take care of.'

'Before you go, Bobby, there’s one more thing.'

'What’s that?' Bobby asked impatiently.

'This funeral home that you said we needed, Mike.'

Mike and Bobby looked at one another. 'What about it?' Mike asked.

'It’s losing money. In fact it’s never made any money. I think that we should cut our losses and sell it,' Wanda advised.

'No, Wanda,' Mike said. 'That funeral home provides a valuable service to the community,' he said and followed Bobby out of Wanda’s office.

After the registers were counted down, Tara went to the front door and counted that drawer down as well, before returning to the office just before the show started at midnight.

'Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Thursday night live at Impressions. Is everybody havin’ a good time?' the MC asked the crowd, but got only a weak response from the crowd. 'I don’t believe you heard me, I said is everybody havin’ a good time?' this time the crowd of nearly fifteen hundred people roared. ‘Is everybody ready for P-Harlem?' and the crowd roared again. 'That’s good, that’s good, cause we gonna bring him out in just a minute. But, before we do that, I wanna remind you all to be sure to tip your bartenders and your waitresses, they are here working hard to take care of you, so you take care of them.'

The crowd began to chat, 'P, P, P. .'

'A’ight, a’ight. You’ve seen him on 106 and Park and his new single is blowin’ up ya radio everyday! Impressions very proudly welcomes to the stage, New York’s own, P-Harlem!'

The crowd went wild and continued to chant, 'P, P, P. .' as P-Harlem slowly walked across the stage, escorted by two of his dancers and struck a pose for the crowd as the chanting continued, 'P, P, P. .'

'Thank you, Impressions, thank you' P-Harlem said as he grabbed the mic. 'Y’all too good to me.'

The chatting continued, 'P, P, P. .'

'Y’all ready to set this bitch on fire!'

The crowd continued to chat, 'P, P, P. .' and the beat began.

Niggaz ain’t shit to me, truth is, ya crew ain’t hot,

Y’all boyz are sloppy and ya crew don’t pop

We can bang out, Let them things out, my crew don’t stop

How you gangster, runnin’ for safety like Ronnie Lott

Meanwhile, outside the club, in the parking lot the argument had begun as planned. 'Who the fuck do you think you talkin’ to me like that?' the woman yelled. 'I’m a muthafuckin’ lady, you sorry ass muthafucka.'

'I’m talkin’ to you, bitch!' the man yelled back.

'I know you don’t think that just because you bought me a few drinks,that mean that you gonna get some of this pussy! It takes a whole hell of a lot more than a couple of drinks to get this pussy!' she screamed.

'What do it take then, baby?'

'It takes a lot more than you got,' she said and laughed in his face.

'How the fuck you know what I got?'

All I’m tryin’ to do is make that cash, put it in my stash

But I see niggaz want me to fail

I can’t do that homie, thought I proved that

New coupe, same color as a taco shell

Hop out nigga with the stroke, bitches ready to fuck

Outside the club, the argument was beginning to get loud and as expected one of the officers walked over to see what all the noise was about.

Niggaz looking from the side

Hatin’ approach me on that battle shit

I was like what go on fear factor nigga

And eat some buffalo nuts cause this shit not for you

See my life, look at the obstacles of Oz

'Get your muthafuckin’ hands off of me!' the woman yelled. As the officer approached, the woman took out her gun, a 22 caliber automatic, 'I’ll kill you!' she screamed and fired two shots at the ground.

Hearing the gunshots, all three officers ran toward the sound, leaving the front door unprotected. The cop, with his gun drawn yelled 'Drop the gun!' The woman dropped the gun and put her hands up.

'What’s goin’ on over here?' the cop asked as the other two officers arrived on the scene.

They immediately separated the woman from the man. 'Y’all need to lock her up! That bitch is crazy.'

'I ain’t crazy and I ain’t no bitch. This sorry ass muthafucka was trying to feel on me!'

'So you shot at him?'

'No, I was just trying to scare him with the gun and it went off by accident.'

Back inside the club, four armed men in ski masks came though the front door. 'Nobody moves and nobody gets hurt.' One of the men stayed near the door so he could watch the cops. One of the men moved quickly down the hallway leading to the club. Since the show had everybody in the clubs attention, it was easy. One of the robbers put his gun to security’s head. 'Get down on the floor and don’t move or say shit,' the gunman instructed.

Youngin’ making power moves, Johnson and Johnson

You see what that powder do

Help a nigga stack some frito lays,

You need to put ya punks away

Pitching on the block so long, I call him Satchel Paige

The fourth man shoved his gun in the face of the woman who was working the register. 'Put all the money in the bag and I won’t kill you.'

The woman quickly complied with the gunman’s orders and filled the bag with all the money that was left in the register and handed the bag back to him. With the money in hand, all four bandits backed out the door. Once they were gone, security got up from ground and called the office on his head set. 'Tara, Tara!'

'This is Tara; what’s up?'

'We just got robbed.'

Chapter Twenty-five

Mike and Bobby made their way through the crowd at Impressions and went up stairs to Bobby’s office. The club was still packed. Since the robbery took place during the show, none of crowd knew about it.

Once they got to the office, Tara explained to them how it went down and how much the bandits came away with. After Tara left the office, they reviewed the front door security tapes It wasn’t too long after that that Nick and Wanda came into the office together, laughing. It raised an eyebrow, as both Mike and Bobby wondered what they were doing together at this hour of the night.

'What’s goin’ on?' Nick asked as he and Wanda sat down.

'We got robbed tonight,' Bobby answered.

'How much did they get?' Wanda asked.

'Two grand,' Bobby told them.

'That’s all?' Nick asked.

'Yeah, we got lucky,' Bobby said. 'Just before the robbery Tara took twenty thousand dollars off the front door register.'

'Any idea who they were?' Nick asked.