by D D Bridges
"Yeah. He told us to invest in that new line of home appliances instead," Walter said. "It turned out to be a good move."
"Exactly. So why are we stalling on this?" Jeff asked. "He sent his proposal over weeks ago, and I promised him that we would have a response by the end of this week. Besides, he’s the chairman of our board of directors. He’s going to be offended if we don’t go through with this deal."
"And that’s understandable. But all I'm saying is that he's asking for a lot of money this time around, but it really doesn't matter what we do here, boss," Jai said, focusing his attention on me. "Even if we do this deal with him and it doesn't work out, it's not like it's going to sink our ship or anything. But in spite of that, we should still want to make a smart decision."
Jeff and Jai both had good points, but as CEO decisions like these were left up to me. We had established ourselves so well that, as Jai said, we really didn't have anything to lose in this situation. Yet and still, I wanted to make a respectable and advantageous decision. I looked at Walter who had been my mentor over the years. In the past I always consulted him on any decisions that I made concerning the company and even concerning life. He practically co-founded this company with my father over twenty-five years ago and they had been best friends since college. Everything that I ever wanted to know about my father Walter was able to tell me. Not only that, but he had become the only true father-figure that I ever had in my life. But I could tell by the encouraging look in his eyes as he stared back at me that the time had come for me to make a decision on my own.
"Our line of work is all about taking risks, right?" I said looking around at each one of them. "Doing business with Ziegler Corporations has always been good for us, so let's give Mr. Ziegler the benefit of the doubt on this one. But I do want to set up a face-to-face meeting with him, so Jeff..."
"Say no more. I'm on it, boss," Jeff said with a smile. "As a matter of fact, I'll go get on that right now." Jeff was like my right-hand man. He and I were the only two that knew the "perks" of having meetings with Mr. Ziegler.
"Great," Jai said, his voice lacking enthusiasm. "I'll prepare the preliminary documents to send to their offices and then have Juanita bring them over to you for your signatures."
"Great. Thanks Jai." Even though I was closer to Jeff, Jai was definitely worth his hire. Jeff was more laid back and we connected more since he wasn't that old, only 34. Jai at 42 is a cool guy too, just a little banal. Nonetheless, they both did a great job at helping me run this business as our Funding Managers. It was their responsibility to make day-to-day decisions about the stocks and other investments that our company should buy and sell. They would usually report to the CFO, but that position was now open since the former one recently resigned. I wasn't oblivious to the fact that both Jeff and Jai wanted the position, and the truth was that they were both qualified. With that being the case I knew that I would need more time to think about who I would promote to that position.
We all stood and prepared to go to our separate offices. I followed them out but stopped when Walter closed the door and turned to me.
"What is it now?" I said.
"Nothing," he said with a shrug of the shoulders. "I just wanted to tell you that you're doing a great job."
"Oh really? You sure that's it?" I said, only messing with him.
"Yes, Darius," Walter said with a chuckle. "You act like I never tell you that you're doing well; like I'm so hard on you."
"That's because you are hard on me. But that's okay though because I need it," I told him. "Walter, I wouldn't have been able to do what I've done these past five years without you. You’ve helped me develop the discipline that it takes to be in this position. Not only that, but you know the ins and outs of the business better than anybody here, and you've been more than willing to teach me."
"Well, I'm just doing what your father would've wanted me to do. I know he would have wanted to be here to see how good you're doing," he told me. "Besides, I'm just here for guidance. You've worked hard every day to continue the success of this company."
"Yeah, well still, I'm grateful," I said as he and I shook hands. "I better get to work before people start thinking that I don't earn my pay."
Walter smirked. "Alright then. Give me a ring if you need me."
I headed back to my office which was situated in the corner of the top floor of one of the tallest buildings downtown. It was the type of office that you would expect a millionaire CEO to have. Two of my four walls were ceiling-to-floor windows and the other two were marble. Looking out through my windows I could see all of the eastside of Atlanta, even out past Edgewood which was close to where I grew up. My office was plush and prepared for a king with a large chrome desk which was complimented by the modern layout and furniture of the room.
The sound of my phone ringing caught my attention. I walked over to the desk and hit the speaker button since I saw my assistant's extension on the display.
"Yes, Juanita," I answered.
"There's a Derek on the line. He said that he needs to speak with you right away," she informed me.
"Send it through." I waited for the call to ring in and then picked up the cordless office phone. It was unusual for one of my boys to call me at work so I knew that something had to be up. "Derek, what's going on, man?"
"Yo, what's up, D," he answered. "Look man, I hate to call you at work, but we got a situation. You know that I don't even like calling about this kind of stuff, but it’s kinda serious."
"What is it?"
"Terry just called me and told me that he got arrested," he said.
I sighed as I sat down in the chair behind my desk. "What did he do?"
"Technically, nothing," Derek said. "You know the cops been coming down hard on KaRon and his boys lately."
"That's exactly why he needs to get off the corner for good," I said. “Terry has no business working for KaRon.”
"I know, but Terry ain't tryin' to hear that. He's all about making money, bruh."
"How much is his bail?"
"A thousand," he said. "I would have paid it but money is tight right now. I don't get paid until Friday. I really didn't want to have to call and ask you this."
"Hey, who else you gonna call," I told him. "Y'all are my boys so I got it."
"Thanks man."
"Come by the office and I'll have a check for you at the front desk. I would go get him out myself, but you know that I don't want my name getting tied up in this stuff. If he ends up going down later and they see that I bailed him out then it won't look good."
"You don't have to explain. You know I get it." Derek was the most level-headed of my friends. Like me, he was a college graduate and was one of the smartest people that I knew. If I needed to be real with somebody, I knew I could with him and he would understand.
"Alright, cool," I said just as Juanita walked into my office carrying a handful of documents that needed my signature. "So come by and pick it up and I'll catch up with y'all later."
"Cool, boss. I'll holla at you later."
I ended the call and turned my attention to Juanita whom I hadn't been able to take my eyes off of since she walked into the room. As if she wasn't already one of the sexiest women that I knew, she made it even harder to keep my focus by wearing those tight-ass skirts and low-cut blouses. If she were a toothpick-sized woman this wouldn't have presented a problem, but Juanita was what us brotha's called "thick." She had a healthy dose of curves in all the right places.
To make things worse (or better, depending on who you asked) Juanita was on a mission to get me in bed with her. She had done just about everything a woman as fine as her could do in order to get a man like me, and how I had resisted her for all this time was beyond me. Sure, I had fantasized about fucking her in every position right there on top of the desk that she was now standing in front of, but honestly the opportunity hadn't presented itself. Besides, it was fun playing hard to get with a woman that you knew you could have whenever you want
ed. Keeping Juanita at arm’s length was in my best interest for the time being. Walter had adamantly warned me about mixing business with pleasure, and I was choosing to take his advice for now.
“Jai asked me to bring these to you. They need your signature," she said as I approached her, coming from around my desk. It amazed me how even when she was trying to be professional she still looked at me with that look in her eyes that made my manhood hard.
I took the clipboard from her and carefully scanned each of the seven pages before signing and initialing each one.
"My, my. You sure do look good today," she said in a low sensual voice as she circled me like her prey, her body brushing lightly against mine with each move that she made. "And you smell good too. You wouldn't be trying to seduce me, would you?"
I signed the last page and then held the clipboard at my side as she resumed her place in front of me, only this time her body was touching mine. Her breast were against my chest and she seemed not to care that I could feel her semi-hard nipples through the thin material of her blouse and bra. Not that I was complaining, but the professional in me knew that this was highly inappropriate.
"I see that you still seem to think that office hours are the time for fraternizing," I told her.
"No, but when I see something that I like, I make my intentions known," she said.
"And what exactly are your intentions?"
"First, I want to help you realize that I always get what I want," she said as she placed a hand on my chest.
"And what do you want?" I asked, cocking my head to the side.
"I can show you better than I can tell you," she leaned in and said into my ear. "It's only a matter of time." She took the clipboard out of my hand and then left to deliver the papers to Jai. I watched her hips sway from side-to-side as she walked away. She was definitely a slick one and I laughed to myself as I thought about her antics. I was sure that her words would prove to be true; it was only a matter of time.
Chapter II
A few hours later I took a long lunch and headed to my old ‘hood. I wanted to drop in and see my boys, but I had to see my girl Kenya first. Kenya and I were high school sweethearts. Back in the day we used to talk about marriage, but a lot had changed between us over the years. As one could imagine, my life had taken me in a completely different direction than I ever expected. I no longer looked at the world the same, and the life that I thought I would have when I was in high school was no longer what I aspired to have.
My taste in women had changed too. Kenya was a pretty girl, dark-skinned with the finest grade of natural hair that I had ever seen, but she was nothing more than a hood-rat. She was loud in the streets and a freak in the sheets. She had no career goals or any other aspirations. But in spite of the fact that I was this big-time CEO with my name on a building downtown, I was still a man who had needs. That was the only reason that I continued to hook up with Kenya. I saw her once or twice a week and every time it was the same thing; we’d kiss, she’d take my clothes off, then her clothes, she’d go down on me, I’d hit it from the back, and then we’d finish it off with her riding me. Sad to say, but our “relationship” had become more of a business transaction than anything. She gave me what I needed and I used to throw her a few dollars every now and then before she started flaking on me. Even though I had put a virtual chain on my wallet, that didn’t stop her greedy ass from asking for money.
I cleaned myself up in her bathroom and then came back into the room to get my clothes. Her naked body was now at the edge of the bed by the nightstand. She was rolling up a blunt and I already knew what she’d be doing for the rest of the day. I put on my boxers and pants, and then sat near her on the bed so that I could put on my shoes.
“You wanna hit this before you go, baby?” she said, offering me her blunt. If it were the weekend then I’d be down, but I didn’t need to be high when I went back to work.
“Nah, boo. That’s all you,” I told her. She took a few puffs and then got up to go open the window while I continued to get dressed.
“There’s something I need to ask you before you go,” she said as she watched me fasten my cuff-links.
“What’s up?” I said even though I already knew what was coming.
“I need some money,” she said.
“For what?” I said, only giving her half of my attention as I stood in front of her mirror and buttoned up my shirt.
“I got bills,” she said after a moment.
“Oh yeah? Why don’t you just ask your man?” I said as I turned to face her.
“What?” she said, trying to look confused but failing. “Baby, you are my man, you know that.”
“You really think I’m stupid,” I said. “I already know about you and Lonnie. Kenny told me how you were giving the money that I was giving you to him. Something about him trying to run KaRon and his boys off the streets so that all the crack-heads would buy from him.”
“Kenny don’t know shit,” she said getting upset.
“So he’s lying on you?” I asked. The expression on her face gave away the truth before she even said anything.
“Darius, Lonnie and I are just chillin’, that’s it,” she explained weakly.
“And you and me are just fucking, right?” I said. I walked over to her and got right in her face. “If you don’t want to see me anymore then that’s cool. I can get pussy anywhere. But you are not my lady so don’t ask me for money anymore.”
Kenya had nothing to say. She just stared at me angrily until I turned away from her. I grabbed the rest of my stuff and then left.
As soon as I walked out of Kenya’s building I spotted my boy Terry standing on the corner. Walking in the opposite direction of my car, I headed toward him. Terry was a straight up thug and niggas in the ‘hood feared him. He spent his days standing on the corner slinging for KaRon. KaRon was the real kingpin on the eastside, but everybody knew that Terry wasn’t nobody to play wit’. He was always strapped and it was even rumored that he had a couple of bodies on him. Every time that I asked him if it were true, he refused to talk about it. He’d say that the less I knew, the better. He wasn’t the type of nigga that needed to brag and I respected that.
I snuck up on him and grabbed him from behind only to have him spin around on me and pull his gun. He stopped when he saw it was me and I busted out laughing.
“See, look at you. ‘Bout to get yo’ ass shot out here,” he said as he put his gun away and then slapped my hand.
“What’s good, man? I scared you, huh?”
“Nah, you ain’t scare me. You was about to get popped,” he said as he reassumed his position on the corner. “What you doin’ out here in the middle of the day? You just came from Kenya’s?”
“Yeah, I stopped through there for a minute,” I replied. “But I really came out here to check on you. What’s up? You get out of jail and then you right back out here on the corner?”
“Where else I’m gonna be?” he said as I watched him dig a stack of money out of his pocket. He peeled off ten one hundred dollar bills and tried to hand them to me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“This is me paying you back for gettin’ my ass out of jail. Derek told me that he called you for the money.”
“You really think I’m gonna take that from you?”
“Take this money, man,” he said, pushing the money into my hand. I pushed the bills right back into his.
“Look, you my boy so I got you. We don’t even gotta talk about it no more,” I told him. I knew that Terry’s pride as a man wouldn’t let him just accept the money from me and that he would find some other way to make it up to me. My boys knew that I had their backs and I knew that they had mine. We had all been tight since the fifth grade and when I hit it big I didn’t forget about them. But me and Terry had a history that went deeper than my other friends.
“You know I don’t like takin’ shit from anybody,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. But I owe you,” I said, lo
oking over at him. His gaze met mine, his eyes filled with mutual understanding. “I will always owe you, T.”
“That was a long time ago. Somebody had to take that charge and it might as well have been me,” he told me as I dropped my head slightly.
Near the end of our senior year of high school, Terry and I got ourselves into some trouble. We were running from the police and we both hid our guns in a dumpster, but they found mine. Terry told the police that it was his and they charged him.
This was before I found out about my father and the money, but Terry knew that I had plans to go to college so that was why he took the charge. He ended up doing only three months since it was his first arrest. Ever since then Terry never brought it up and he would always squash it when I did.
“Come on man. Look at you,” Terry said. “Had I let things go the other way back then, you wouldn’t be who you are. You wouldn’t have what you got, ya’ feel me.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, looking up again. “But sometimes I look at your life and I wonder what could’ve been.”
“Stop worrying about me, Darius. I’m good. Besides, if you ask me, everything worked out the way that it should’ve,” he said before putting a cigarette between his lips and then lighting it. “Still though, good looking out, man,” Terry said as he stuffed the money back into his pocket. “You know that nigga KaRon don’t give a damn about a nigga gettin’ locked up. When he roll through here at four o’clock, niggas betta have his money.”
“Yeah, seem like KaRon always been running things in these streets,” I said. “But it’s better ways to make money, man. How many more times you gotta get arrested before you realize that?”
“Look, I’m too deep in this shit to go legit now,” Terry said. “Besides, I got three kids by three different baby momma’s and they all be askin’ for money every week. I gotta handle my business.”