by Kiki Swinson
“What’s your name?” he asked me as our eyes connected.
“Misty,” I said lightly.
“How long have you worked here, Misty?”
“Not long. A few months.”
“When did you guys notice that you had been burglarized?”
“I didn’t notice it until Sanjay went into the supply closet and brought it to my attention,” I replied, but I was nervous as fuck. Sanjay should be out here answering these questions, not me. What if Sanjay said something different to the other police officer? We’d be like a pair of liars.
“When was that?”
“A little over an hour ago.”
“Is there an alarm system in here?”
“Yes,”
“Was it activated?”
“I got here before Sanjay did. And when I let myself in, I noticed that the alarm system had been disarmed. So, I figured that either the robber disabled the system when he broke in here and didn’t turn it back on before he left, or Sanjay forgot to turn it on altogether,” I explained.
“What did I forget?” I heard Sanjay say behind me.
“We’re talking about the alarm system,” I told him.
“What about it?” Sanjay pressed the issue as he walked over and stood next to me. The other cop walked back to the other side of the counter and stood next to his partner.
“I was just telling Officer Flowers that when I came in this morning the alarm wasn’t on. So, whoever broke in either didn’t turn the alarm back on or the alarm wasn’t on in the first place.”
“Oh, the alarm was on. I made sure myself.” Sanjay got a little defensive. I could tell that he wasn’t at all happy about the answer I gave to the cop.
“How did you make sure?” Officer Cooper asked.
“Let’s just say that I never forget not to turn it on before I lock up the place,” Sanjay assured them.
“With the alarm system, you have to have a security cam, so where is that?” Officer Cooper asked.
“Yes, I do have one of those. But it hasn’t been working for some time now,” Sanjay explained. But he was lying. That camera runs every day. So, why not hand it over to the cops so they can do this robbery investigation more efficiently? Well, now I knew exactly what was going on. And what blew my mind was that Sanjay was trying to hide it.
“Has this store ever been robbed before?” Officer Flowers asked.
“No sir, it hasn’t, which is why I’m so shocked that it happened now. This is a very respectful neighborhood,” Sanjay told him.
“Have you noticed any seedy-looking characters hanging around in here or around the building?”
“Well, I haven’t,” Sanjay answered first.
Both cops looked at me next. “No, I haven’t either,” I told them.
“So, let me get this straight. You had five boxes of Lorcet stolen from you, along with seven cases of Vicodin, ten boxes of Percocet, and three boxes of Lortab?”
“Yes,” Sanjay answered.
“Would you tell me the street value for those missing items?” Officer Cooper pressed on.
“I can’t say off the top of my head, but I figure that it could be in the neighborhood upwards of a half million.”
“Wow! That’s a lot of money, and for you to know the value of it is astounding,” Officer Cooper said.
“Yes, it is,” Officer Flowers agreed.
Sanjay gave off a cheap little smile. “I guess it’s because I’ve been in the business for so long,” Sanjay explained.
“Well, do us a favor and do not touch anything else in here. I’m going to my squad car and get a fingerprint test kit. My partner is going to stay here with you guys.”
“Okay. Sounds great,” Sanjay said. But I knew he was a nervous fucking wreck. I swear, if I had the gumption to throw Sanjay under the bus, I would. He knows that I know he’s lying to these cops. First with the story that someone broke in here and robbed the place, then to setting the alarm before he locked up the pharmacy last night. But the big kicker is when he told them that our camera system wasn’t working and it hadn’t worked for a while. That was straight bullshit! There was no doubt in my mind that that motherfucker set up this whole scheme. And the fact that he was trying to pull me in made me angry. I didn’t sign up for this shit when I first took this job. All I wanted to do was make a paycheck and that’s it.
It took the cops less than twenty minutes to pull the fingerprints from the supply closet, the back door of the pharmacy, and the front as well. Before they left, Officer Flowers handed me his card, so I took it and shoved it in my pants pocket. But what was so bizarre was that after they left, Sanjay asked me to hand it to him. Right after I handed it to him, he put the card in his white jacket and continued on as if the police hadn’t been there.
I couldn’t stand there and act like everything was hunky-dory, so I turned around from the computer and said, “Why did you lie to them about the security camera? It works perfectly fine.”
“Don’t question me like I work for you.”
“Look, Sanjay, I don’t wanna get in an argument with you. I just wanted to know why you told them that the security camera didn’t work. I mean, what if they find out that it is working?”
“You just let me handle that,” he said coldheartedly.
Instead of feeding further into his bullshit, I turned my attention back to the computer monitor. I was regretting that I even brought that fact up.
“Regardless of what you think of me right now, I want you to know that I know your hands are dirty too.”
I turned back around and faced him. He stood there three feet away from me with his arms folded. “That security camera system that we have in here caught you stealing from our supply closet every chance you got. You’d steal a few pills here and there. But just recently you walked off with a brand-new bottle of Percocet. So, before you start asking me questions about my involvement with my business, make sure you have enough room to talk.”
Fear engulfed me. I swear if I could pull out a pair of wings and fly out of here, I’d do it. The tension between Sanjay and me had suddenly become so thick I wouldn’t be able to cut it with a knife. I wanted to say something to rid myself of the guilt I was feeling, but I couldn’t. This fucking guy had me backed up in a corner. “So, we really didn’t have a robbery, huh?” I finally managed to say.
“I don’t have to answer that,” he said, gritting his teeth.
I got up the gumption to ask, “Well, can you tell me why those guys that put a gun into your brother’s back also smacked you around in this store after I left?”
“What I do and who I do it with is none of your concern. Now if anything that we’re talking about goes out beyond these walls, you will pay for it,” he warned me.
“Wait a minute, are you threatening me?”
“You can call it what you may. And let me leave you with this: If you ever rat me out to the cops, you’re going down with me.”
“Yeah, whatever!” I responded after feeling a surge of anxiety. I had to play the tough role with this asshole, even though my head had started spinning in circles and the knots in my stomach started churning like a freaking food blender. I mean, did he just say that if he went down, I was going with him? The amount of drugs he pushed out of here was kingpin status compared to mine. I only made a couple of grand. He was probably making hundreds of thousands.
I wanted to say more to this idiot, but I left well enough alone. After having this conversation with him, I knew where I stood. And I knew that he was playing a very dangerous game. The fact that he was spying on me and watching me take drugs from out of here showed me that he was a heartless coward. I was sure that when he saw me stealing, he got excited about it. I felt like I was in the whole crab-in-the-bucket scenario. It was time for me to map out my exit plan. If he thought he was going to bring me down with him, he had another think coming.
11
TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT
The time for me to go to lunch seem
ed like it would never get here. When the clock hit twelve, I hauled butt out the front door. And as soon as I got into my car, I pulled out my cell phone and called Jillian.
“What’s up, Cuz?” she answered.
“You are not going to believe this shit.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Girl, my fucking boss staged a huge robbery at the pharmacy so he could sell the drugs to his connect. The cops came and took a report and they swabbed for fingerprints too.”
“Yo, that’s some bold shit to do.”
“But that’s not all. He told the cops that our security cameras weren’t working. So, after the cops left, I asked him why he lied to the cops about the cameras not working, and he looked at me and told me not to question him. He also told me that he knew I’ve been taking drugs from the supply closet, and that if I ever go to the cops and mention anything about the robbery, he wasn’t going down by himself.”
“What the fuck does he mean by that?”
“He basically said that if I snitched him out, he was going to let the cops know that I’ve stolen from the pharmacy too.”
“Oh, that’s fucked up!”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed.
“So, where is he now?”
“He’s inside the store. I’m sitting outside in my car.”
“So, what are you going to do?” Jillian wanted to know.
“I don’t know, Cuz. I do know that I gotta find myself another job. I won’t be able to survive in this place but for another week or so.”
“Did you tell him that you’re gonna leave?”
“Fuck no! I ain’t telling that piece of shit nothing, especially after telling me that if I ratted him out, he was going to bring me down too. Ratting niggas out is what a lot of women do.”
“So, what are you going to do now?”
I let out a long sigh. “I don’t know, Jillian. I just feel so violated. I always have other people’s back, but they never have mine. I liked working at the pharmacy until Sanjay started dealing with these shady-ass guys. I would do anything he asked me to do. So, to have him come at me with that bullshit earlier was not called for.” I began to cry.
“Misty, please don’t cry. Everything is going to be all right.”
“I know it is, it’s just that it’s hard to go through these motions. And speaking of motions, Terrell is starting to stalk me. He came by my apartment yesterday talking about how we’re not broken up and that if he finds out that I’m seeing someone else, he’s gonna go off on me and the guy. I swear I am so over that fucking guy. He’s been a thorn in my side for the last couple of months. I wish I could just pack my shit up and disappear.”
“Why don’t you tell him what’s going on with your boss? If he’s acting like this because he suspects you have another boyfriend, I’m sure he’ll take care of that problem.”
“Are you crazy? What if someone gets hurt?”
“Just tell Terrell to scare him.”
“Nah, I don’t like the sound of that. I’m just gonna quit and find me somewhere else to work.”
“What time you get off today?”
“At four, why?”
“Stop by.”
“A’ight,” I said.
“Keep your head up. Today is almost over.”
“Okay, I will,” I assured her and then I ended our call.
When my hour was up for my lunch break, I headed back into the pharmacy. There were a couple of regular customers waiting around to get their prescriptions, so I clocked back in and went to work. I thought Sanjay and I would have another heated conversation, but we didn’t. He kept it professional for the rest of the day, acting like nothing ever happened. That eased my nerves a bit, but my eyes were still wide open.
12
ELIMINATING PROBLEMS
I raced over to my grandmother’s house the minute I put my car in gear. I was so relieved to not be inside that pharmacy right now. A huge chunk of anxiety fell off my shoulders two miles into the drive. It felt liberating.
When I arrived at my grandmother’s house, I found her in the den, in her favorite chair.
“Hi, baby,” she greeted me right at first glance. I leaned down and gave her a kiss on her cheek.
“Where’s Jillian?” I asked her while taking a seat on the sofa on the other side of the room.
“I don’t know where she went to. She just told me she’d be back and left the house. Call her on her cell phone.”
“No, I’ll just wait until she comes back.”
“So, how’s work?” my grandmother asked.
“It was hectic.”
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing that I can’t handle,” I said, brushing off the subject.
“Now don’t let that man down at that pharmacy steal your joy,” she warned me.
“I’m not, Grandma.”
“Have you talked to your mother today?”
“No. But I stopped by her house yesterday and talked to her for a few minutes.”
“Was her new boyfriend there?”
“Yeah, but she said he was asleep.”
“Was she drinking?”
“Yeah, she was.”
“You know if she doesn’t stop all that drinking, she’s gonna end up dead.”
“I know,” I started off saying. “I asked her if she’d go to rehab, but she said that she doesn’t have a drinking problem.”
“She’s out of her damn mind,” my grandmother commented sarcastically.
“You wanna know what else she told me?”
“Yes, let me hear it.”
“She says that one of the reasons she drinks the way she does is because you never loved her as child growing up. She said that you showed favoritism to Jillian’s dad. So, when she got older and met my dad, he gave her a love that she never experienced before. But what devastated her the most was when my dad passed away, it killed her inside because the only person that ever loved her was dead.”
“That’s a bunch of baloney,” my grandma protested. “She knows daggone well that she was loved. If I didn’t love her, I would’ve gave her up to be adopted or sent her butt off to boarding school. She needs to quit it with that lame excuse. She’s drinking because she ain’t living her life right.”
“When she was telling me how she felt, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t let her feed you with that crap. She’s a grown woman trying to find excuses why she’s drinking her life away.”
“I think she’s crying out for help.”
“Help for what?”
“She sounded like she wants to build a relationship with you.”
“I tried for years to bond with your mother, but that’s not what she wanted. She’d rather go off on her own, doing what she wants to do.”
“Would you be open to sitting down and talking with her?” I wanted to know. From where I was sitting, my mother and my grandmother were some strong-willed and stubborn people. My grandmother saw their relationship one way while my mother saw it another way.
“What is there to talk about?”
“Maybe y’all can clear the air about everything that went on in the past,” I suggested.
“Trust me, it’ll be a disaster because your mother is not going to take responsibility for her actions.”
I tried to reason with my grandmother. “But what if she does?”
“Baby, just leave it alone. Your mother is on another planet, so I refuse to sit around and listen to her lies.”
“Would you be willing to try to talk to her, if I can convince her to sit with you?”
“Listen, sweetie, I love what you’re trying to do. But I’m in a good place in my life. I don’t feed into drama and I don’t get into other folks’ business. Just let me sit in my peaceful house and watch my TV shows.”
I let out a long sigh. “All right, Grandma, you win.”
“It’s not about winning, baby. It’s about keeping your sanity,” she t
old me.
I looked down at my watch and realized that my grandmother and I had been talking for almost twenty minutes and Jillian hadn’t come back to the house. I started to call her on her cell phone, but I decided against it when the idea popped up that I needed to be online looking for another job.
While I sifted through the internet on my job search, I ran across a couple of posts on the local jobs-search websites. Two posts stuck out among the rest, so I sat there on my grandmother’s sofa and applied to both jobs. Once I had completed the applications, I put my cell phone in my handbag and told my grandmother that I was going to head home.
“Well, come over here and give me some sugar before you leave,” she insisted.
After I kissed her on the cheek, I told her I loved her and for her to tell Jillian that I stopped by. “I sure will, baby,” she said and then I made my exit.
13
MAKING A CHANGE
Not too long after I got home, got comfortable and lay down, Jillian decided that she wanted to call and talk to me. “Don’t be calling me now,” I said to her while I snuggled my head into one of my bed pillows.
“Don’t be mad at me. I had to make a run with one of my homeboys.”
“Come on, Jillian, you knew I was coming. And you also know what I’m going through, so I really needed to talk to you.”
“I’m sorry, Cuz. I’m here now,” Jillian apologized and then she said, “Grandma told me you stayed here for a while.”
“Yeah, I did. I went online and put in a few applications to other pharmacies in the area.”
“Wait, slow your roll. You can’t leave just yet.”
“Girl, please, I’m getting out of there as soon as I get the chance.”
“Wait, check it out. I told the guy that bought the whole bottle of Percocet what happened to you earlier, and he said that if your boss rats you out, he’ll take care of him.”
“Tell ’im I’m good. I don’t want that motherfucker causing any more emotional turmoil.”
“Well, since you’re leaving there and going to work somewhere else, why don’t you rob his ass real good this time? Instead of taking one giant bottle, fill a box up with a bunch of shit he got stashed in that closet you were talking about earlier.”