Read Forever a Hustler's Wife for Free Online Page A

minute?”
    “Considering that pretty soon here I’m going to have to be all right for more than a minute, I guess I can handle it,” Yarni said sarcastically.
    Des kissed her on the cheek and said, “I love you.” Then he followed Rico out of the hospital room.
    As Des walked through the long corridors of the hospital, he realized that although his wife and daughter had very private quarters, the rest of the place looked like the scene from
The Godfather
when Don Corleone’s daughter got married and everyone who was anyone showed up to pay their respects to the don and to ask for favors. Even the maternity floor had players and ballers standing in the hallways making deals on their cell phones, which they weren’t supposed to be using, as they waited for their ride-or-die bitches to give birth to the next generation of thugs. If the Feds wanted a who’s-who list of all the high-profile drug purveyors in Virginia, as well as some on an international level, the hospital was the place to be. In the lobby he saw mothers wearing two-and three-carat diamond earrings and tennis bracelets, waiting to hear if their drug-dealing sons would survive knife wounds, gunshots, or old-fashioned beatings. Girlfriends were there with teddy bears and flowers, hoping to be the first thing their men saw when they came out of surgery, and a few devoted junkies skulked around praying their favorite dealer wouldn’t die.
    Des and Rico had walked outside to find a place to talk without all the intruding ears, when Des saw his nephew, Nasir, coming toward the entrance. “So you decided to show up, I see,” Des chided Nasir, the teenage son of Des’s deceased older brother, Les. Des loved Nasir like a son.
    “Wouldna missed it for all the dope in Afghanistan, Uncle Des,” Nasir said, smiling.
    “Go check on your aunt Yarni and your new cousin, Desi,” Des shot back. “Your uncle Rico and I got something we need to discuss in the car.”
    “Sure, Uncle Des. Peace, Uncle Rico.”
    “Wa ’Alaykum As-Salām, young Nasir,” Rico returned the greeting.
    As they walked, they slowed their pace. “I’m sorry to ’ve had to bother you on such an auspicious occasion,” Rico expressed, “but I’m in trouble, and I need your professional help and expertise.”
    “Tell me what you need me to do,” Des said. “Or, shall I say,
who
you need me to do?”
    “You know me too well, brotha,” Rico said, sighing. “Too well.”
    “The feeling is mutual,” Des responded.
    “Enough of the small talk, though,” Rico said. “Let’s get down to business. His name is Jarbo Classettes.” Rico pulled out a picture and handed it to Des.
    “I’ve heard of him,” Des acknowledged. “Don’t he work for you?”
    “He did…well, he thinks he still does—”
    “But?” Des cut in.
    “But I don’t like the company he’s been keeping these days.”
    “Such as?” Des inquired.
    “Such as the police.”
    “I see,” Des said. “And what brought this unsavory relationship about?”
    “He got tore off with twenty keys of soft white and decided he’d rather be an informer than an inmate. I got an inside tip that says he’s supposed to meet with the grand jury the first session of next month to give a deposition.” Rico looked at Des for his reaction.
    “So I got eighteen days to eliminate this…problem,” Des calculated. “Where is he staying?”
    “Saratoga Springs, New York,” Rico answered, “with a stripper named Twinkle.”

CHAPTER 3

    The Two-Step Viper
    D es arrived in Saratoga Springs, New York, twelve hours after his conversation with Rico. Following almost nineteen hours with Yarni while she was in labor, until finally the doctor decided to do a cesarean. He was dog-tired, but he decided to go ahead and make the drive without resting. He didn’t fly because he didn’t want his name in the airline system, so he had hopped into his seven series BMW without so much as yawning. But after a couple of hours on the highway,