Read Online No Room for Mercy by Clever Black - Free Book Online Page B

Carmella went ahead
with her promise. She had the little girl wait outside and she
returned to the safe house in order to notify Toodie and Phoebe of
the change in plans.
    The Perez sisters remembered the little girl as well; they’d
surmised what they’d done and what the conversation was about
as they watched Carmella and the little girl converse from inside the
home through the kitchen window just before Carmella reentered the
front yard.
    “Boss,” Toodie said through light laughter as she and
Phoebe stepped out of the house, “I swear on all I love I ain’t
know that was that girl momma out there last night.”
    “I take responsibility for this, Kathy. But we have to take
care of her now because she hasn’t a mother anymore,”
Carmella responded softly as she placed her hands on her hips and
stared back at the little girl, who was kicking over rocks with her
dirty sneakers as she clung onto the fence, staring pitifully down at
the ground beneath her feet.
    Toodie looked over to Phoebe, her eyebrows hanging low and her face
wrinkled looking perplexed. She felt felt nothing over shooting the
little girl’s mother; it was all business as far as she was
concerned.
    Phoebe wouldn’t have cared about the dead woman either had not
the full scope of the shooting be thrown at her feet. She looked at
the little girl standing outside the gate and felt pity. The Perez
sisters’ mother had died in a bus crash back in the city when
Toodie was thirteen and Phoebe was eleven.
    Phoebe and Toodie had grown up on their own. She understood how rough
things were on the streets of Valle Hermoso. She and Toodie were
lucky to have survived, having met Carmella and her brothers a year
after losing their mother. They were able to make their own money and
raise themselves working in the tomato fields until they moved over
into the Lapiente` family’s cocaine operation. Phoebe, like
Carmella, felt the least she could do was help the little girl out in
her plight because it was a good chance she would not make it on her
own.
    “The boss wants us to bring the little girl with us, Toodie,”
Phoebe said a few seconds later as she eyed the little girl, feeling
a little sorry that she’d lost her mother. “No big deal,”
she shrugged.
    “What are we gonna do with that girl, boss?” Toodie
asked, all the while wiping the constantly reemerging smirk on her
face that was hard to suppress.
    “We will look after her until she can fend for herself. We’ve
killed her mother and it is the least we can do.” Carmella said
in a near whisper.
    “Fuck her and her mutherfuckin’ momma! They asses
shouldna been out there!” Toodie snapped.
    Carmella hauled off and punched Toodie in the mouth, knocking her to
the ground. No podemos hacer
nada, de veras!” ( You
don’t run shit, I do!)
    Toodie backed away from Carmella and leaned against the side of the
house and wiped her bloody mouth. She was stunned by Carmella’s
reaction to her statements. “Carmella, I’m sorry. I never
knew you to care about shit !” she said in shocked
manner.
    “I don’t care about shit! But this isn’t shit ! She’s a human being, Toodie,” Carmella said
under her breath as she pointed back at the little girl. “This
is a child whose innocent mother we’ve killed. She was a woman
I had promised to help. I’m going to keep that promise. If
anything happens to this child during my absence you will have to
answer, Toodie.”
    “I’ll, I’ll look after her, boss,” Phoebe
replied as she helped her sister up from the ground, trying to
reinstate the peace.
    “You both will look after her. She needs a surgery. Her Ma-Ma
told me that a few days ago. Wait here,” Carmella said as she
walked back to her Jaguar and went up under her seat and opened a
duffel bag. She reemerged a couple of minutes later and gave Phoebe
thirty thousand dollars, all in hundred dollar bills. “Take her
to a hospital in Saint Louis and get her the help she needs. Buy her
clothes.