The Darkest Hearts

by Nelson George

  HUMBLE.

  D sat on his black Ikea sofa, looked at the time on his cable box, and flipped over to VH1. Before Mama’s Daye made its debut, a commercial popped up with Lil Daye sitting on a throne, then in a red Ferrari, then on a Japanese motorcycle, and then helming a catamaran. In each incarnation, Lil Daye was accompanied by an unobtainable woman of a different ethnicity and held a bottle of Sinsere. He was lip-synching the words to his single “Toss It Up,” inviting folks to enjoy the grand life with every sip. In the final section, Lil Daye sat at the head of a board of directors’ table. Mama Daye walked over and poured Sinsere into two tall crystal glasses. The last image showed the digitally enhanced glasses looking like they held golden honey.

  Right after the commercial came a high, wide drone shot of an Atlanta McMansion. It zoomed in to a large front door, which opened to reveal Mama Daye, resplendent in a simmering Sinsere-colored gown with a little girl on her hip and a little boy holding onto her leg. Lil Daye walked up the steps, decked out in a white Ducati motorcycle onesie. As the instrumental of “Toss It Up” played, the title card for Mama’s Daye popped up on-screen. D watched the first scene, in which the Dayes had breakfast and argued over marijuana smoke’s impact on the kids. As soon as his executive producer credit appeared, D clicked over to the NBA channel. The enterprising Daye family shot the whole series before they sold it, controlling every frame of the mythmaking process.

  Text messages flooded in. Social media was lit with praise, snark, and GIFs. The verdict was that Lil Daye, Mama Daye, and their managers (namely D Entertainment) had pulled off some pop-culture magic, taking the Atlanta MC (and his family) from rap star to pop phenomenon in the space of one TV spot and a half hour of heavily scripted “unscripted” cable.

  D sat there a bit stunned. It felt like D Hunter, the Brooklyn security guard/bodyguard/crisis manager, had just died and been reborn as a powerhouse Hollywood manager. It was a heady feeling. Industry heat blazed off his phone like the sun at Joshua Tree.

  Then it hit him. D felt fear. Fear that he’d become addicted. Fear that he could never go back. He’d been around other peoples’ heat scores of times, so he knew nothing was more fleeting than a sense of total victory. In the moment of triumph, all D could think of was Ice, and Conrad, and the ghosts of the plot against hip hop. His mind wandered to an odd place: the White House. D wondered if Trump, ambling alone past portraits of former leaders at night, recalled all the mean, heartless, and criminal things he’d done in the name of “winning.” Did he wait for the bodies of the abused to rise up and grab him? ’Cause D, in this moment of outward triumph, could feel danger nipping his heels like a hungry dog.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  N.Y. STATE OF MIND

  Maggie rubbed sweat off her forehead with her right hand and flicked it at D while he tried to maintain a straight face. They were breathing deeply in tandem, their bodies wet with moisture as they twisted their limbs and torsos. “Reverse warrior,” said the petite blond yoga instructor, and both of them, along with the twenty-five other people in the class, bent backward, one arm reaching for an ankle, the other in the air.

  D had practiced yoga for many years, but Maggie had convinced him that “hot” yoga was the next level in terms of increased flexibility and fitness. This was D’s second class with her at Modo Yoga. During the last, he’d felt his body overheating, his eyes irritated by dripping sweat; his flexibility left so much to be desired.

  But no matter how challenging the class, Maggie was always smiling. She had a cheerleader’s wide-eyed animation tempered by a realness that D admired. She’d seen quite a few unpleasant aspects of human nature in LA, but there was an essential goodness to her that cut through that darkness. When he’d told Maggie of his HIV status (apparently dormant, though caution was required), she’d asked a lot of pointed questions about his love life and previous partners. They hadn’t yet been lovers, but after kissing deeply one night at a West Hollywood party, D felt he needed to be up front before things escalated.

  The HIV revelation had definitely made Maggie take a step back, rightfully so. When she’d invited him to join her for hot yoga that evening, he’d canceled a business dinner. Despite all the buzz about his business and the money coming in, D was lonely. He longed for the stability of a serious relationship.

  After class, Maggie suggested they eat at Café Gratitude, a Beverly Hills restaurant for health-conscious yogis with disposable income. D hoped for an intimate conversation about their relationship, but they ran into a couple members of Travis Scott’s team and D got sucked into a dialogue about endorsement deals. Then Maggie saw a fellow dancer-turned-actress, and suddenly it was a five-way dinner.

  Nas was doing a few of tracks from Illmatic at a Hennessy promotional event at a private Hollywood members club called NeueHouse. So despite his still-damp body, D found himself in a crowd of LA industry types listening to “N.Y. State of Mind” with vegan cuisine in his belly. When Nas had released Illmatic in ’94, it was inconceivable that D would evolve into a talent manager invited to a Hollywood event alongside a woman as beautiful as Maggie.

  He watched Maggie sway to the hypnotic DJ Premier production, the piano sample of Joe Chambers’s “Mind Rain” fueling the vibe. Maggie knew some (not all) of the words and was mouthing along with Nas, who sported a fresh, deftly tailored beige silk suit onstage. D looked at her with adoration and then with sadness. He whispered to her, “Be right back,” and walked out of the ballroom and out of NeueHouse onto Sunset Boulevard.

  Nas’s song had caused old demons to rise—the insecurity that had defined D’s young life swelled up like a storm, reminding him of his brother’s death on a nondescript ghetto street corner in a city that never slept, never expressed regret, and never let you forget. Maybe his damn chakras were just too far open. Whatever brought this on, he’d felt uncomfortable in that room. He had so many things to handle. He had New York, specifically Brooklyn, drawing him back to old, unburied drama. If D’s life was a play, he could feel his role being rewritten.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

  As soon as D landed at JFK, he felt he was in danger. He absolutely loved New York. Whoever he’d become was still rooted in the city’s concrete subway rumble and the chatter of 1,001 passing conversations. D had never felt New York’s particular energy anywhere else and wondered if an ancient race had left some pulsating orb right where 42nd Street crossed Broadway.

  But, like the title of David Cronenberg’s film, to D, the city invoked a history of violence. Three dead brothers. Father run off by their ghosts. Mother suffocated by mourning. Then there was D, who for years wore black, even on the hottest summer day, becoming a pallbearer to his own life. So New York, the vibration in his soul, was also the darkness in his heart.

  New York was never static. The constant was subways, cars, and people. Then there was the motion of a history that could be as subterranean as the A train and blunt as a Daily News headline. He remembered the city when white people fled to Long Island and New Jersey, when ethnic tensions were inflamed by blockbusting. He’d seen the city when Wall Street flourished and coke had been franchised into crack; the money generated created bottle service, champagne rooms, and crack houses.

  Later he’d watched Times Square become Disney. AIDS evolve from gay plague to black tragedy. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk become a tool for population control. D’s old apartment on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan had been located in a two-story building with a bar on the ground floor. Now that structure was gone, replaced by a glass-and-steel high-rise. The current rewhitening of New York was amusing because, in many cases, it was the grandchildren of those who had escaped, returning to the streets their clan had once abandoned.

  An Uber SUV awaited him curbside. He was going to Brooklyn, like he had for a lifetime, but the hotel he was heading to had only existed for a few years. It was in “new Brooklyn,” and D was from another country.

  * * *<
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  D sat in the roof bar of his hotel, sipping a green juice, eating a shrimp salad, and watching Manhattan’s lights twinkle, when a call came in.

  Without any foreplay, D jumped right in: “You got something for me, Amos?”

  “I found some things out about agent Conrad. It may be important; it may not.”

  “Go on.”

  “It turns out that Conrad was tight with James Comey,” Pilgrim said. “They came up together and Conrad was promoted through the ranks by him.”

  “So you’re suggesting he doesn’t have much time at the agency ’cause Comey’s gone? That he’s trying to tie up some loose ends before he goes? Did he and Comey know about what you had Mayer and his ex–partner in crime Jackson doing?”

  “I don’t have answers, but these guys are kinda like spies. What they show you may not be what you should be looking at.”

  “That’s a riddle, Amos.”

  Pilgrim sighed like D was a rookie who needed more seasoning. “What I’m saying is that Conrad may not really be after whoever killed Mayer and that he probably has a deeper agenda.”

  With a smile in his voice, D said, “He wants me to help get you?”

  Pilgrim didn’t swallow the bait and said evenly, “Could be, but I don’t think so. I think he’s after bigger fish than me.”

  “That sounds like wishful thinking.”

  “I didn’t make all the money I’ve made being wishful, D,” Pilgrim replied, sounding cocky as hell. “These FBI people are smart. He wouldn’t be meeting with you unless he already knew the answers to whatever questions he’s gonna ask you. So this meeting isn’t to get facts from you. It’s about something else, so prepare yourself. Don’t get emotional. Just be calm and call me when it’s over.”

  “Don’t get emotional? You don’t get to tell me how to act.”

  “No. I’m just the man advising you.” Pilgrim’s tone changed. Coming through the phone now was the voice that had closed a thousand deals. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you this, but I’m impressed by you, D. Look at your journey. From doorman to bodyguard to manager to dealmaker. You learned from Walter Gibbs, who sat across from me many times seeking advice. Gibbs could have been bigger—bigger than me because of the opportunities that have opened up for black folks. Yet Gibbs, as you well know, he didn’t have the laser focus. But you are smart, a learner. Plus, you ain’t pussy crazy, which is what pulled Gibbs’s ass down. You could be an asset.”

  “Don’t try to mentor me, Amos. We are never gonna have that relationship. Amina is dead because of your moves. I had to kill a man because of you. I’m in shit with this FBI agent because of you. So don’t kiss my ass.”

  “All right,” Pilgrim said, clearly miffed. “Just call me after you talk with Conrad.”

  D clicked off first, satisfied with that small verbal victory over the old man.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  FINESSE

  The text was simple and chilling: I’m back in BK too. It was from a blocked number, which meant it wasn’t Fly Ty or a relative. It meant it was Ice.

  Ice in Brooklyn wanting to see D was not a good thing. Not for D. Not for Brooklyn. Not for anyone who Ice felt, rightly or wrongly, threatened by. You never wanted to run into Ice unexpectedly. You wanted every encounter with him to be well-planned and in a brightly lit place.

  But that was not to be. “I need to see you tonight,” Ice now said over the phone. “I’m going to see someone and you should be there.”

  “I won’t be free until after ten,” D said.

  “That works. Where you staying? Downtown or Williamsburg?” Ice said Williamsburg with a sarcastic inflection, as if the idea of D in hipsterville-turned-yuppieland was a joke.

  Confirming Ice’s suspicion, D suggested they meet outside the Wythe Hotel across from the Brooklyn Bowl, a block that epitomized the new Brooklyn as much as any. Ice didn’t know where that was—he’d left Brooklyn before condo-mania remade WillieB—but said he’d roll through around eleven p.m.

  * * *

  At the appointed hour, D stood in front of the Wythe Hotel, looking over the salt-and-pepper crowd lined up across the street in front of Brooklyn Bowl, where Questlove was doing his weekly residency. It wasn’t very many years ago that D would have been standing at the head of the line, checking IDs, shining a flashlight into purses, and keeping an eye out for people on the no-admittance list. D wasn’t nostalgic for those nights, but he did marvel at how foreign that life seemed now. It was like standing across from your old high school and remembering squeezing your pimples.

  It was in his doorman nights that D came into regular contact with men like Ice. No matter what they wore—tracksuits and Adidas or crisply tailored Armani—their eyes always gave away their souls. Cops’ eyes were wary and observational, looking for faces from bulletins. Killers’ eyes were different. They saw inside you. They saw your entrails and organs, your veins and muscles. Anything that could be hurt. Anything that would stop you cold.

  It was these eyes that gazed at D from the backseat of a black Nissan Rogue before the mouth attached said, “Hop in.” In the front seat were two burly black men, one of them in his twenties and driving. A man closer to Ice’s age sat in the passenger seat. No introductions were made. The men stayed silent as the car navigated its way across Brooklyn.

  Ice asked, “Would you like a pickle?” A jar of pickles sat between his legs.

  D declined.

  Ice reached down, pulling two moist pickles out of the jar. “Yo,” he said to the men up front, “there are only a few left.” The two men traded a Damn, I’m tired of these fucking pickles look, but those words did not pass their lips. Instead, the man in the passenger seat took the pickles, handing one to the driver.

  “D,” Ice said, “I know you remember when Junior’s used to have a big jar of pickles on every table.”

  “Yeah,” D replied, “they used to have beets and coleslaw in glass jars too.”

  “Yeah. I used to love eating them pickles. Big and juicy. Liked them better than the cheesecake. People told me I was crazy, but the truth is the truth. Sure you don’t want one? Got two left.”

  The man’s jovial storytelling attitude felt creepy to D, like sitting next to a happy grim reaper. “Nawn, Ice. Not hungry. So where are we going?”

  “There’s a guy here that the FBI agent spoke to. He was once affiliated with me. I don’t know what they talked about or how cooperative he was.”

  “Why am I here, Ice?’

  “’Cause you are involved, D. Very involved.” Ice smiled.

  D glanced over at the door even though he knew the child lock was on. “If you plan to murk this man, you can let me out of the car right now.”

  “No,” Ice said calmly. “Ain’t nobody gettin’ murked tonight.” Then he bit into a pickle and looked out the window as the car passed Empire Boulevard in the Caribbean area of Flatbush.

  “So,” D said, “what are you gonna do, Ice?”

  “Ensure our safety.” Ice finished his pickle and closed the jar.

  D said, “You keep eating those things and you’re gonna turn green.”

  “We all have our vices,” Ice said. “So you’ve been talking to that FBI agent?”

  “That’s why I’m in Brooklyn. You know that. But I haven’t had a sit-down with him yet.”

  “When’s the meet?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Keep my name out your mouth.”

  “Of course.”

  A few more blocks past Empire, the car turned left and rolled by well-maintained brownstones and then made another left, this time onto Rogers Avenue, an architectural dividing line between the brownstones and much less elegant buildings. Rogers was home base to storefront churches, ugly rental apartments, and the odd hipster artisanal coffee shop. They parked in front of an apartment building that defined the word modest.

  The younger of the two nameless men stepped out of the car and opened the building’s front door. Ice got out
with the pickle jar still under his arm. He came around and opened D’s door. “Don’t be rude, D,” he said.

  The apartment was in the rear on the first floor. The furniture was clean and sparse. A bachelor’s place. A blend of curry chicken and roach spray filled the room. A$AP Rocky’s voice came through the wall from another apartment. A muffled voice could be heard from the tiny bathroom where the two thugs stood in the doorway. A man sat on the toilet seat with a gag in his mouth. His hands and feet were tied. Sweat streamed down his face. The man’s anxious eyes bugged out when Ice entered his vision.

  “Long time, Fade,” Ice said. “I hear you and the FBI have been talking. No need to deny it. I still have friends in this bitch. Believe that. So what I need to know is what he asked you.”

  Ice turned and handed the pickle to jar to D. He then moved over to the captive and pulled the gag out of his mouth. “So,” he said softly, “let’s hear it.”

  Fade spoke haltingly with a Caribbean accent, though D couldn’t place the island. “He wanted to know who this guy Mayer used to buy guns from. He said he thought the man was murdered. Told him I didn’t know shit about that. He was here and then he wasn’t. Think I worry about some Jew tryin’ to act black? I didn’t tell him nothing ’cause I know nothing.”

  “So that was it?”

  “That was it, Ice,” Fade said shakily.

  Ice leaned close, his spittle showering the man’s face. “Then why you asking about me at the old-school barbecue? Asking about where I be at? Well, I’m here now. Whatchu wanna know?”

  Fade talked fast and furiously: “All I was saying was how dope it would be to see you at that event. Like old times in the hood. That’s all. I know better than to be nosy about you.”

  Ice leaned away from Fade and slowed the pace of his words. “That’s sweet of you to remember me. Real sentimental. Except I think that FBI agent offered you something or threatened to pull you into some situation. You felt squeezed. I feel that. But he got to you by asking about me. That concerns me and I don’t like being concerned.” Ice turned to D and said, “My man.”