Heartbreak of a Hustler's Wife: A Novel

by Nikki Turner

  “Do she even go to the church?” Des asked, handing Slim his drink.

  “I never saw her,” Slim replied, shaking his head. “But your people held you down. Nobody had a negative word to say about you.”

  “For sure,” Des agreed. “Not that any of them would have anything on me. Turn that shit off, I’ve seen enough.”

  Slim was about to turn the television off when Detective Columbo popped up on the screen, preparing to make a statement. This, they both wanted to hear.

  “We are looking for the assailants and we will catch them,” Columbo stated. “But unofficially, it is still unclear if this is a retaliation based on Mr. Taylor’s past as a drug dealer. Whatever the case, I assure you that the Richmond Police Department, in conjunction with the state police, will get to the bottom of it,” Columbo finalized his tough-stance words with a nod and a false smile for the television camera.

  Slim hit the off button on the remote and took a hard swallow of his cognac. “This shit is already getting out of control.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Des, still in disbelief, sat down next to Yarni on the couch. “On Friday a sniper took a shot at me and two days later everybody in my church is robbed at gunpoint and my bank account is ten mil lighter. To top all that shit off, Tony is dead.” Des shook his head. “Damn.” He couldn’t believe his boy was gone.

  “It was no less than nine to ten people down with the robbery,” Slim surmised. “At least that’s what I counted. But I believe there had to be others behind the scenes. It’s almost impossible for that many people to keep something this big a secret. The streets are going to bust that one wide open for us. It’s just a matter of time.” Slim swallowed. He took a deep breath. Exhaled. “I’m more concerned about who tried to put the slug from a high-powered rifle through your heart. That shit seemed a lot more professional, if you ask me.”

  “You might have a point there, man,” Des had to agree. “I still can’t believe how lucky I was a Bible saved my life.” All of their eyes rested on the book that sat on the table. Des kept it in plain view as a reminder of how his life had been spared.

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Yarni said. She’d given him the small customized Bible as a present, and for no explainable reason Des had placed it into the inside pocket of his coat moments before the shot was fired. If the Bible hadn’t absorbed the impact, he would’ve been dead. The bullet itself was still embedded in the pages. “It was more like divine intervention.”

  Like Father, Like Daughter

  A few days later, Yarni’s mother, Gloria, dropped an atomic bomb on her. “What did you say?” Yarni said into the phone. She was sitting on the bench at the foot of her bed.

  “My biopsy came back,” Gloria repeated, “and they’re saying that they found some cancer cells.”

  This can’t be happening, Yarni thought. “Did you get a second opinion?”

  “Yes, and a third.” Gloria’s voice sounded strong, but worried.

  Yarni’s mother had always been her rock. Gloria had been there for Yarni through thick and thin, when she was at her best and even more so when she was at her worst. It was Gloria’s strength that had always kept Yarni strong.

  “Mommy, I’m here for you and you know that we will get through this together.” Though tears rolled down her cheeks, Yarni tried to hold back her sobs as she comforted her mother. She had relied on her mother for so much over the years, and she was ready to step up and be Gloria’s source of support.

  “I know we will, baby. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’ve already consulted some of the best doctors Florida has to offer.”

  “Mommy, you know money is no problem. I’ll go in debt if need be, so don’t hesitate for a minute to ask if you need anything.”

  “I know.” Gloria sounded like she was handling her diagnosis better than her daughter. “I’m confident in the doctors I’m working with. They’re gonna take good care of your momma, girl.”

  “I think you should come stay with us. At a time like this, you should be with family.” It had been seven years since Gloria had moved away to Florida and started her restaurant franchise.

  Gloria objected to the idea immediately. “My doctors, husband and business are all here.” Yarni knew her mother and could sense that there was something she wasn’t telling her.

  “We have doctors here, and Sam can come with you. With all the technology at hand, he can work from anywhere. And as far as your business, you have people in place that can run the restaurants.”

  Gloria was adamant, not willing to budge.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be just fine, baby. Don’t worry.”

  “Mom, this is crazy for you to have to go through alone.”

  “I’m not alone. Sam’s here.”

  “I mean, without me. You shouldn’t be going through this without me.”

  “I’m trying to figure out who needs who more here,” Gloria sighed, “with everything going on in your life.”

  “I do need you, Mom, which is why I want to make sure you’re here on Earth for as long as possible.”

  Usually Yarni told Gloria everything. She wanted to share what was going on in her and Des’s life with the robbery and all, but this one time she kept her own problems to herself.

  Just then the bedroom intercom came to life with Des’s voice. “Baby girl, I need you to come down here.”

  Yarni responded, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Go see what your husband needs. I’ll be fine. Baby, don’t worry, everything will be okay.” Gloria tried to sound convincing, but Yarni could hear the uncertainty in her mother’s voice. “We can finish this debate later. Go check on Des.”

  Yarni didn’t want to hang up, but before she could protest, her mother had already told her that she loved her and said good-bye. Gloria had hung up the phone.

  Yarni was devastated about her mother’s biopsy results. It’s all she thought about as she walked down the stairs to be by her man’s side.

  “It’s called covering my ass,” Des explained to Slim as Yarni walked into the great room. “I plan on the po-po not givin’ a fuck and doing nothing. But if somewhere down the line I have to rubber-band a cat and they find him stretched out, I can say I was in fear for my life. And to better my defense, I would have already created the paper trail to back me up when I’m facing those twelve on the jury.” Des turned and winked at Yarni, letting her know that he’s paid attention to her work.

  Yarni rolled her eyes. Des was always finding a way to make things work in his favor. His own favor, mind you. This had nothing to do with the favor of God.

  Putting dirt in the face of the person responsible would come naturally, Des thought, but first they had to find out who the person or people were who were fucking with his life and livelihood. It was like trying to figure out when a prostitute contracted HIV: the possibilities were endless.

  Des had put his hands on over a million dollars before his eighteenth birthday. Being from the hood in the eighties with that type of cake behind a man’s mitt brings lots of enemies. And the list didn’t end with his foes. If Yarni wouldn’t have run across the paperwork naming his boy, Rico, as a federal witness against Des in a CCE case, Des never would have believed it. Rico was his street brother, loyalty bound by blood. Betrayal of that loyalty cost Rico his life. Could Rico’s Colombian family be out for retribution? They definitely had the money and the resources. And everyone knows that on the streets, the desire for revenge often never goes away. Like a family gene, it’s passed on from one generation to the next.

  “I’ma get a shower and some rest,” Des said to Slim. “Think about this shit some more. Hit me if something comes up before morning, a’ight? Besides, I think Yarni and I need some alone time.”

  Slim understood. He gave Des a pound and a brotherly hug and hugged Yarni before leaving.

  Yarni and Des, worn out both physically and mentally from the past days’ events, retreated up the stairs. In the master
bathroom, hot water pelted Des from all directions in the shower. The multiple-positioned shower sprayers were earning the mint he’d put out to have them installed. He soaped up his hand and slid it across the large bruise on the left side of his chest from the impact of the bullet that unsuccessfully tried to take him out a few days ago. He silently thanked God.

  Yarni was sitting crossed-legged on the bed, netbook on her lap, when Des walked into the bedroom still dripping from his shower. She was wearing a black negligee that rode high up her well-toned thighs. Desi was asleep in the nursery.

  “Don’t that thing burn your legs sitting on you like that?” he asked.

  Yarni didn’t reply. She was too focused on the information on the screen. “Huh? What? Did you say something, honey?” she asked, realizing that Des was not only out of the shower and standing in their bedroom, but that he’d just asked her a question.

  “I said, doesn’t that thing burn your legs?” He nodded toward the netbook.

  “Oh, no, it’s fine. That is the least of my worries right now.”

  Yarni hadn’t yet shared her mother’s bad news with Des. “Gloria has breast cancer. She just told me about it this evening.” Yarni’s eyes were still glued to the 9-inch LED screen while she spoke. She’d been Googling information on the disease.

  Des, who was putting on his pajamas, paused in mid-action. “Damn, baby, I’m so sorry to hear that. I—is there anything I can do?” Des felt horrible for not noticing that something was wrong. He was so caught up in his own mayhem, he hadn’t paid Yarni much attention since he came in.

  “Not right now. I asked her to come back to Virginia, maybe move in with us, to be closer to family.”

  “Good idea,” Des agreed. He loved his mother-in-law; she was the one that had come up with the information that was ultimately used as leverage to get him out of prison.

  “Yeah, but she turned me down.” When Yarni looked at Des, she saw something else on his face besides concern for her mother. “What’s on your mind? Is there something I need to know?”

  “You mean besides getting shot and the church being robbed?” he joked.

  The slight hesitation and uneasy glimmer in his eyes confirmed Yarni’s suspicion.

  “Okay, baby, what is it? Spit it out and get it over with.” She looked at him skeptically.

  “My mother told me that I may have another child.”

  “Come again?” Yarni put her hand up to her ear. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  “Look, I am just as surprised as you are.”

  “I’ve never known you to be stupid, Des, so don’t play now. The only way you may have a child, as you put it, is if you’ve been putting your dick where it doesn’t belong. Or you somehow got the millennium Virgin Mary pregnant.” Yarni was floored. Not in a million years would she have expected this.

  “It’s not like it sounds, baby.”

  “Then how is it, Des?” she mocked. “Just tell me exactly how it is.”

  He began to tell her everything he knew. “The child is eighteen years old. I kicked it with her mother in North Carolina before I ever met you. I never even knew this kid existed until this evening.”

  Yarni sat outdone as he told her how the child’s mother must have kept contact with his mother, Joyce, but made her promise not to tell him about the possibility that he was a father—until now.

  Yarni interrupted Des’s explanation as if she was making an objection in court. “And your mother just kept this secret to herself?” Before he could respond, Yarni further dissected his excuse. “When has Joyce ever held her mouth closed long enough to keep a secret? When, Des? Really, when has she ever kept a secret? Tell me one time?” She put her finger up. “Oh, but I keep forgetting that when it comes to her family, the secrets are endless. As a matter of fact, that shit is like the Mafia.”

  Yarni was getting so worked up Des cut her off. “Look, baby, I’m just finding out about this too. I’m just as surprised as you are. I came in the room earlier to tell you as soon as I got off the phone with my mom, but you looked like you were having a pretty intense conversation with your own mother. And then the police came. After Slim left we came up here. You went and got Desi ready for bed. And I took a shower.” Des threw his hands up. “This is the first time I’ve really gotten a chance to talk to you.”

  “The story is not quite making sense to me. I understand me and your mother don’t always see eye to eye, but why now?” she wanted to know. “Why tell us now? Why not eighteen years ago? Why today?”

  “The girl’s boyfriend got himself shot up and her mother thinks she may be in some type of trouble and someone might be trying to kill her.”

  “Well, damn, ain’t that a chip off of the old block? Like father, like daughter, huh?” she quipped.

  Des ignored the sarcasm coming from his wife. “Her mother thought it would be wise to get her out of town for a while,” Des explained. “Baby,” he reached out and took her hand in his, “I really don’t know if this kid is mine or not. That’s the truth.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But she could be.”

  “What’s her name?” Yarni asked, thinking how could this be happening?

  “Desember,” he said. “That’s what my mother told me. But there’s something else.”

  “How can you possibly top that?” Yarni asked.

  “My mom is with her now and is driving her back here. She will be arriving in town tomorrow, and I said that she could stay here with us.”

  With her hands on her hips, Yarni shook her head. “Well, got-damn, when it rains it pours. I just hope your ass took out flood insurance.”

  What’s Done in the Dark … Will Come to the Light

  The recent declining state of the economy pounded the stock market almost into submission while the housing market was buckling at the knees. And employment was harder to come by than the highly coveted seats at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. The prices at the local supermarket were through the roof.

  Strange as it may seem, through all of this financial uncertainty, the murder rate in Richmond, Virginia—a city that was once known for one of the highest homicide rates in the country—had also plummeted, to a fraction of the reckless and lawless bloodbath numbers it had a history of putting up in the nineties. In fact crime as a whole was down. It was enough to make some people wonder: if the crime rate was declining in the city, then how come the rate of people going to prison was at an all-time high? The state of Virginia, in conjunction with the U.S. government, spent upward of three hundred million dollars on a brand-new state-of-the-art Federal court facility amongst blighted storefronts and struggling businesses on Broad Street in downtown Richmond. If the deficit had swelled to astronomical figures, trying to revitalize the economy, why would this type of money be wasted on such a grand piece of architecture that wasn’t needed? It may not pay to break the law, but it’s a known fact that crime paid, and it paid well. And as long as they were building courts, Yarnise Pitman-Taylor, Esquire, would always have employment.

  All hell had broken loose in Yarni’s personal life, and while a part of her wished she could crawl under a rock and hide, that wasn’t the reality of the superwoman that she was.

  Des had promised his congregation that he’d make everything all right, that he’d make them whole again, which meant he’d replace whatever was stolen. If Des was nothing else, he was a man of his word. The church had an insurance policy, but there was no telling what it would and wouldn’t pay. Whatever the case, Yarni knew this incident could possibly send them into the poor house, but she wasn’t going to let that happen if she could help it. So she was ready to pitch in by taking on a day of saving the world and her clients.

  The lobby of the circuit court building was brimming with activity as folks of all walks of life—hustlers, prostitutes, robbers, pedophiles, lawyers, police and any- and everything in between—filled the open space. “No cell phones, cameras, Bluetooths, Ipods, combs, brushes, nail files or clip
pers or anything of that sort is allowed inside this building! If you have these items take them back to your car now!” Deputy McCall made the routine announcement in a firm, clear, no-nonsense voice. A twenty-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, he’d been at John Marshall Courts Building for the past twelve years.

  “Make two lines,” he continued after observing a few people pat their pockets, turn and walk out with frustrated grimaces just thinking about having to go back out in the below-freezing temperatures. “One in front of each of the two X-ray machines, and place everything in your pockets into the tray when it’s your turn.”

  Yarni, bundled up in a long full-length fur coat glided past the two long lines. With the swagger of a woman who was clearly used to VIP treatment, she walked straight to the express lane that was designated for court workers, police officers and attorneys. McCall’s voice instantly transformed from stern to familiar and polite. “How are you this morning, Mrs. Taylor? Cold enough for you yet?”

  Yarni couldn’t help noticing his toothy smile, dingy from years of smoking. She removed her butter-soft, calf-skin gloves, revealing her perfectly manicured minx nails. “I’m doing fine, Fred,” she said, “thanks for asking. It’s plenty cold all right. So cold I wasn’t sure if I should wear my boots or my ice skates this morning.” The two of them shared a slight chuckle, but Yarni kept it moving because she was running late. Traffic had been ridiculous and the clock was working against her this particular morning. The line for the elevator was at least two loads deep, so Yarni used her time wisely, since she didn’t have much to spare. She took the steps.

  Not many people had believed she could achieve the level of success that she had. With her own checkered past it was only by the grace of God and a lot of hard work that Yarni was a working member of the judicial system. Who could have imagined? After all of the trials, tribulations, perils and pitfalls, cat fights and tightropes that Yarnise Pitman-Taylor had been through that she would have made it to this stage in life?