I perked up again and served another smile, this one with teeth and gums. I wanted to look like the perfect pupil or someone who was a believer. I was ready for the conversation to end. I didn’t want to go deeper. Be pushed deeper by Kent and his suggestions. When I agreed to come, I knew that was as far as I’d go. On the other side of me agreeing to stop drinking for a little while, hearing myself agree in front of Kent, was the empty bottle of Jameson falling out of my trash bag at the incinerator the night before. The old judge from up the hallway with his gray toupee and arthritic limp bending over to pick it up even after I told him to leave it alone. Him doing it anyway and looking at me oddly. Judging me with his old-fart ass. Like there was something odd about a woman finishing a bottle of Jameson. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. But I settled on an exaggerated eye roll that stopped at my nude navel. That was when I felt the wind whipping through the hallway, hardening my nipples. And they were bare too. Somehow, I’d forgotten to put on my shirt when I’d taken out the bag of glass. I cursed the old judge out for looking at my nipples. And inside the apartment there was no relief. After I got myself calm from the incident in the hallway, I rocked myself to sleep and met in my dreams what was becoming a recurring theme—Kim 2 and me in that car headed into New York at sunrise. Only in the dreams everything was furry. I was in the driver’s seat instead of sleeping. Kim 2 was awake. I was screaming. She was covering her ears. Trying to grab the steering wheel.
“I understand if that’s all you want to share right now. Maybe you’ll share more with me later?” Kent said distantly before adjusting his motorcycle helmet under his arm to let me know he was ready to go too. He looked into my eyes. “I love you, Sis.” He turned away.
Chapter 9
I was sitting in the backseat of the dollar cab for ten minutes before I realized it was the same Indian driver who had taken me to King’s house. When Kent pulled off on his motorcycle, the cab showed up seemingly from nowhere. I told him my address after he’d started driving.
“I know you,” I said just a few blocks from my house.
“Yes, miss. I am Baboo.”
I sat back perplexed for a minute, deciphering the pattern in his colorful, gold-tubed turban that made him look too regal to be sitting in the front seat of a squalid New York City dollar cab. There was no permit posted on the dashboard. Just little bottles of dried-out air freshener and pictures of a little boy and woman with long black hair taped to the glove compartment. What sounded like Indian pop music played a little too loudly on the radio.
“You know him?” I asked vaguely, looking out the window.
“Yes.”
“Really?” I sniggered, uncomfortable but sort of charmed at the thought that maybe King had sent Baboo to come get me. Then I asked, “Did he send you there tonight? To get me?”
Baboo nodded.
“Okay. So he knows where I was tonight? Where I am?” Suddenly, every image I saw outside the window in the night looked like a spy, someone watching my movements. I didn’t know if I should feel stalked, but mostly I was intrigued. Who was this man of such mystery and power? I felt myself blush, my chest heat up. It was the unmistakable feeling of being made special.
Baboo didn’t answer my other questions.
“Okay, you can’t say anything, I guess. Makes sense.” I watched spies outside watching me. Wondered where King was in the crowd crossing the street. The car beside us? I turned to look for the silver Bentley. “Well, you can tell him that I don’t need any cab rides from him. And I don’t need you following me around. That’s actually kind of creepy. You got that?”
He nodded again but I could tell he was smiling.
“Yes. You tell him all of that. And make sure you add that I’m very sorry but I’m not interested in him.” I poked my nose into the air like a woman who was offended. King had called and texted me a few times. I didn’t respond. I’d meant what I’d said to Tamika. Our night together was all that, but it was just a night. Just a one-night swirl. I mean, what else could it be? I deleted his number, erased my call log and his messages.
“Yes. Will do,” Baboo said.
The car stopped outside my apartment.
Pier, the doorman, approached the car to open my door. I looked up at the building, so many flights up to my floor, to my dark apartment, curtains drawn and no one inside. I remembered King’s kisses up my spine.
“No!” I said impulsively, holding the car door closed before Pier got his gloved hand on the handle. “Wait one minute!”
Baboo turned to me.
“Can you contact him?” I asked quickly. “Can you—do you know where he is?”
“Whatever you like, miss. We go. Baboo can do it.”
Pier watched me, waiting in his white shirt and black vest from the other side of the window, like I was a fish in an aquarium.
“You getting out?” he mouthed.
I shook my head no and waved good-bye as my tattered chariot started rolling away before making a wide and illegal U-turn to head to Brooklyn.
Sitting in the backseat, I felt exhilarated, like I was sneaking out of the house with fast-ass Melissa Montgomery, doing exactly the opposite of what I’d just promised myself. I covered my mouth and chuckled in a way that I hadn’t in so long. What was I doing messing with that white boy again?
As Baboo talked on the phone, I heard him call out “Queen,” and I wondered how many times he’d done this same thing for another woman King found interesting or had invited to his home after meeting her at Damaged Goods. I told myself this was nothing. Just some fun. Something to do to get myself off the couch and away from thoughts about Paul and work, Ronald with Kim 2, Kent and my parents.
“Sooo . . . remember those famous last words?” I whispered into the phone to Tamika after Baboo informed me of King’s instructions to bring me back to the Clocktower.
“Biiiiittttccch!” Tamika shot back theatrically. “Shut the front fucking door!”
“No, I can’t close the door because I’m about to walk into it!” I cracked.
“I knew it! I told you your ass would be back swirlin’,” Tamika teased. “Pink diznic got you sprung!”
“I ain’t sprung. Just bored. Need a little excitement, like you said.”
“Tell me about it, girl. I’m over here looking for some new-new online. Blackfolksmeet.com is like a prison hookup site right about now. I could use a little David Beckham of my own.”
“You’re an ass.”
“Yes, but I’m also honest,” she said. “But be safe and savor every detail, so I can get a full report in the morning. Okay? And don’t forget to wrap it up. Last thing we need is some curly-head baby fucking up our Afro family pictures.”
I laughed so hard, it turned to a deep chortle that made Baboo look at me over his shoulder.
“Oh, yeah,” Tamika started again. “And ask Jungle Fever about Vonn—that dude Monique was fucking with. I’ve been calling you. She asked me to have you ask your friend if he’s heard from Vonn.”
“Why?”
“She said he disappeared. He was supposed to show up at her house that night before you came to my job I think,” she explained. “He never showed up. Ain’t answer his phone. Typical nigga shit. But then when she checked, like, two days later, the phone was disconnected.”
“That just sounds mad random. I’m sure it’s nothing for her to worry about.” I remembered the guy with the baby face walking into the bar when I was talking to King. How he looked at me. Him sitting in the backseat of the Bentley.
“Oh, I know that. Shit, I told Monique that Vonn ain’t want no more of that old wrinkled pussy. Fool had to change his number to escape.”
I chatted with Tamika the rest of the way to Brooklyn to calm my nerves and stop myself from thinking.
When we got to King’s place, both Baboo and the doorman at the Clocktower rushed to help me out of the cab. Each took one of my hands and smiled meekly without looking into my eyes, nearly bowing his head to me a
s he pulled me from the car like a royal thing. I felt like the moon was shining down from the sky on me alone.
I forced Baboo to accept the cash in my wallet before the doorman, who’d introduced himself as Frantz, insisted I take his elbow to be led into the building.
“Will you be needing any help upstairs?” Frantz asked with high spirits, as if we’d taken part in this routine for a very long time.
“I think I’m fine,” I said. “Wait, isn’t King here?”
“No, miss. Mr. McDonnell sent word that he will be here shortly. He has advised me to allow you into his home.”
Frantz pressed the button to call the elevator for me and asked again if I needed his assistance.
I refused and headed to the far corner of the elevator, where I watched the door slowly close out Frantz and the lobby.
As the elevator ascended, I tried to think of every reason I had to turn around and go back to my place. Every reason why what I was doing was wrong and maybe even reckless. Random sex with a random man was just wrong for me—no matter how bored I was, no matter how pissed off I was, no matter how hurt and lonely I was. What was the point?
My cell phone buzzed. There was a text message from a number with no name that I’d later lock in for good.
917-555-1212: I see you made it home, Queen. I’m finishing up some work. Try not to have too much fun without me. See you in a few. Relax. I’m rushing home to be with you.
The elevator opened with me feeling like King was reading my mind. I even looked up to make sure there wasn’t a camera spying down on me.
I stepped out and stood there for a minute, looking at my cavernous surroundings. From floor to ceiling and wall to wall, the space felt more magnificent than a home. More like a museum.
I tried to look casual, walking around touching things with open, anxious palms. I felt like Little Orphan Annie entering Daddy Warbucks’s estate.
For a few days I’d been trying to remember why the last name Frantz had used to refer to King in the lobby that first night I’d visited sounded so familiar and stayed in my brain even though I was halfway out of it. I’d heard it so many times, but I couldn’t place it until Frantz had said it again downstairs. Then it all came back to be. There was this documentary I’d watched on the History Channel in March when I was home sick in bed with a cold the day of the St. Patrick’s Day parade. I remembered that day because Paul called me early in the morning all worked up about Chief Elliot arresting some Irish gang members who’d actually tried to buy enough dye to dump into the Hudson River to turn it green for the day. After getting off the phone with him, I couldn’t sleep, so I turned on the History Channel to see that they were featuring a documentary on Irish families of New York. It sounded like great sleeping material, but I got caught up in it because the narrator kept saying one of the family’s names the way Robin Leach would have on that old television show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous—“the McDonnells of New York.”
The narrator documented a history of New York that many people both outside and inside the Big Apple didn’t know. Apparently, for a long time, the Irish ran the city. They were the mob, the gang leaders, the businessmen and moguls. There were still dribs and drabs of that old Irish glory in New York, in finance and law enforcement and even in the Catholic Church, but most of the treasure that remained of the Golden Clans was seen in wealthy real estate deals where descendants locked up chunks of upper Manhattan soil along what came to be known as “the Irish Gold Coast.” The McDonnells were the wealthiest, most public clan of New York’s old Irish.
While I knew plenty of people in New York had that name and there was little chance some guy I’d met at a bar in Brooklyn was the descendant of rich white folks the narrator claimed moved out to Rye, New York, and changed their names, King was fully a mystery to me. Not that we’d spent so much time together that I should know a lot about him, but Tamika was right—some things didn’t add up. So when I heard his name and remembered about the New York McDonnells, my mind couldn’t help but make fanciful conjectures.
My eyes darted about in search of anything holding a clue to who King was; then I gave in and decided a full-on snoop wouldn’t hurt anybody. I was just being safe.
I tiptoed around the place, turning over this and that, going through the garbage cans in the kitchen and bathroom (Tamika taught me that), while listening for the elevator, talk, shoes scraping the floor . . . any sign I was busted.
My little investigation led me in so many directions in the sprawling triplex, I felt like I was lost and that King would pop up at any moment. Then I imagined him watching me like a CIA agent on one of those hidden spy cameras and started looking for those, too.
My quick search resulted in no information and no cameras—nothing. Not even a photo album or piece of mail. The place was clean.
My heart racing, I sat on the couch to catch my breath and consider what one of the detectives from downtown would do. Just as I leaned into the cream-colored leather, the cables hanging over the elevator started turning and twisting.
“Be cool,” I told myself, switching positions two or three times to try to appear as natural as possible. I tried to slow my breathing to stop my heart from pounding, but once the cables had pulled the cab into position in the all-glass elevator bay, I lost my total cool again.
There stood King, strong, legs apart, shoulders relaxed, and hands folded in the center of his pelvis. He wore a black suit and gray shirt that fit him so well, I knew quickly that no matter how cool I was, this night would be a repeat of the last time we were together.
He stood erect like a model used to the spotlight as the doors rolled open in enthralling slow motion.
He stepped out like he was going to say something subtle but memorable. And he did: “Welcome back, Queen.”
To that, I answered with a grin: “Not like I had a choice.”
“Not like I had a choice,” he remarked, climbing two steps to the platform where I was sitting on the couch and kissing me on the forehead like he was blessing me in a ritual. Even with inches between us, I could smell the hints of pepper in his cologne, strong and bold. It made me want to hike up my skirt and remind him of what had happened the last time I’d been here. But the shy girl in me made me do otherwise. As he walked to the kitchen, I crossed my legs and led us into conversation more natural to friendly strangers—the weather and recent changes in Brooklyn.
It was interesting to hear him talk about simple things like cloudy days and those annoying bike lanes taking over the streets in Brooklyn. As he took off his cuff links and excused himself to get out of his suit, walking in and out of his bedroom, I did my normal basic-knowledge test to size him up—see how informed he was, throwing in ideas and facts from a few articles I’d recently read in the New York Times or features I’d listened to on NPR. I could hear King chuckle like he knew exactly what I was doing, then he’d mention the journalist and give a little bit of information that wasn’t included in the story. And of course he’d do it in his gruff King, Brooklyn accent, sounding like an educated mafioso.
“Wine?” King asked on his final exit from the bedroom, wearing jeans and a polo. He headed toward the kitchen. “I’d offer to make you a drink, but I don’t know shit about mixing drinks and I think Terra’s been getting me for all the good liquor anyway.”
“Terra?” I repeated, sure he’d slipped his lady’s name by mistake.
“Yes. That’s my cleaning lady.” He grinned. “I hate to call her that. Makes me sound like a bitch. Right? Maid and shit?”
We laughed, and King went on about how easily some men he knew carried on about their “maids” like they were old white women.
“So, what do you want?” he asked, standing beside the bar separating the kitchen from the living area, where I was still on the couch. Looking at those jeans sitting on his waist just right and the tattoos peeking out from beneath the polo, I thought of so many ways to answer that question. “Queen?” he called with a slight smi
rk. “What do you want . . . to drink?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking off the images from the bathroom in my head.
“Nothing to drink?”
“Yes. I’m kind of pulling back on the alcohol,” I pointed out nonchalantly. “Maybe just a little water.”
“Got it.” He headed toward the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water. “Think I’ll have a little agua myself. Got to keep hydrated.” He brought the water over to me and sat down beside me on the couch.
We smiled at each other for a second like we were impressed and maybe surprised to be sitting so close again.
“Any reason for getting on the wagon?” he asked.
“Just getting a little chubby in the stomach area,” I lied.
“Chubby?” King looked at me like I was delusional. “Not to be too blunt, but I was holding on to your stomach for a long time the other night and I didn’t feel anything out of place. Now, a sister has to have a little thickness on her, that’s what I like, but ain’t nothing chubby about you.”
King’s declaration turned the water I was sipping on into wine. It went right to my head, where it exploded like eight shots of Golden Grain alcohol. I licked my lips really hard and gulped down some water.
“Good to see you feeling better,” King said, watching me drink.
“Feeling better?”
“Last time I saw you—every time I see you—you seem stressed. No?”
“It’s nothing really—just family stuff. Work. Bullshit.”
“I feel you. We all get fed up with the bullshit sometimes,” he said.
“What bullshit do you get fed up with? Like, at your job?” I asked.
“At my job?” He looked surprised.
“Yes. Where you work . . . Where do you work?”
“You said it before.”
“Damaged Goods? So you do work there?”
“From time to time.”
I laughed and looked right into his eyes. “Come on,” I said, switching to my Harlem accent. “Stop playing me like I’m from someplace in Arkansas. I know ain’t no way someone who just works at a bar in Brooklyn can afford a place like this.”
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