Hold Me in Contempt

by Wendy Williams

  Then he stepped back from the table and said good-bye and the sunlight returned.

  The women at the table behind us watched him walk away and get into his illegally parked police wagon right at the curb. By how he moved, I could tell he was aware of their gawking.

  “Didn’t like the sandwich?” the waitress asked, appearing at the table.

  I looked at the table where my untouched salmon and Paul’s empty plate sat in contrast.

  “Just not hungry,” I replied.

  “Oh. That’s too bad. After he already paid.” She smiled before digging, “Us girls got to eat free sometimes. Want me to wrap it up for you?”

  I waited for her to return with the bagged salmon and left a tip on the table before walking to the curb to catch a cab back to work.

  I felt like the sun followed me from the chair to the cab, beating down on me so hard, it felt like the middle of July. Opening the back door of the cab, I looked up at the sun and said, “Damn!”

  I slid my left leg into the backseat and had started telling the driver where to take me when I felt the door handle tug back from me. I looked over my right shoulder.

  Pulling back on the door was a black woman with a slender frame in a bright yellow Tory Burch brunch dress that screamed “housewife in the city.”

  “Sorry, this cab is taken,” I said to her huge sunglasses and tight frown. I tried to pull the handle again, but she wouldn’t let go, and moved in between the car and door. “Umm . . .  , ​I said, this is taken,” I said sarcastically. “No worries. It’s New York City. Another cab will be along in a minute.”

  “I know it’s New York, bitch!” she said sharply, snatching off her sunglasses.

  “Lawanna? Oh . . . ” I shrank recognizing the face I’d studied so many times in pictures in Paul’s office and at events where she was glued to his arm.

  “I knew if I followed that nigga around long enough, he’d lead me right to his new pussy. Fucking liar,” she said, looking like she was about to spit on me.

  I stuttered out, “I-I know what it looks like, but he’s my boss—that’s all,” while the driver, who should’ve been telling Lawanna to get the hell away from the car, was peering nosily over his shoulder, enthralled by the exchange.

  “Bitch, please! There’s nothing stupid about me. You don’t stay married to a nigga like Paul for that long being stupid. I know his moves like clockwork. And I know for sure that you’re the bitch he’s fucking,” she said. “Just own your shit. You know, I was born and raised in 40 Projects. And where I’m from, a bitch fucking your man is grounds for a fast beat-down. And it’s even worse when she denies the shit.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I was going through a lot,” I whispered, seeing in her eyes the same rage I felt when I discovered Kim 2 and Ronald were together. “It didn’t start the way it ended up. I was having a hard time.” And then I heard myself sounding like Kim 2.

  “Well, I hope you don’t mind having a hard time, because that’s all you’re gonna get with Paul. He don’t make shit easy, and he made my life a fucking hell. All these clothes and cars, and the houses—and we ain’t nothing but two hood rats playing dress-up.” She came in closer to me and looked into my eyes. “Oh, you didn’t know that. You think Paul is some fucking Alpha-Kappa-Omega-bitch boy?” She laughed. “Oh, no. He’s a nigga in a suit. Don’t be confused. Think I let him get off so easy in this divorce for nothing? Please. I just wanted my house and my kids and for him to go away. Now he’s your problem.”

  Lawanna stood at the car door without moving for too many seconds. She didn’t say anything. She just watched my face like she was trying to remember it or share something else with me.

  At first it was awkward and I heard the cabbie cough to signal that it was time for her to go. But then it was chilling, scary. Almost made me want her to curse at me some more or haul off and slap me like angry wives did in the movies.

  “It’s over between us,” I said, deciding that was why she was still standing there studying me—she wanted to hear that, but it was the God’s honest truth.

  Her response turned her voice so dark and macabre, the sun seemed to black out, as if Paul was standing over the entire city watching us. “It’s never over with Paul,” she uttered. “Not until he says. Thanks.”

  Lawanna stepped back from the door like a zombie, put her shades back on, and waved good-bye with a cryptic smile when the cab took off.

  “Ay, Dios mío! What the fuck was that?” the driver said in a thick Spanish accent while making the sign of the cross.

  My heart was beating too quickly for me to respond. I just pointed straight ahead and ordered, “Drive!”

  “That puta was crazy as hell, eh?” he added, looking back at me. “You sleep with her husband? Shit! That’s nothing to play with, mami. Bad blood. You know. As we say in DR, ‘Karma is a bitch’!”

  “Thanks for your solid advice, cabdriver man,” I said, still pointing ahead. “Just drive.”

  “Whatever you say, mami. Just don’t put that woman on me,” he said. “Hey, if you need some help, maybe you can go see my cousin Demaris in the Bronx. She crazy as hell, but she got the Santería. Sell you a candle or something. Right?” He looked back at me again.

  “I don’t need any candles. I just need to get back to my job,” I answered, though candles and Santería did sound pretty comforting after Lawanna’s hard black-girl stare.

  When I got back to the office, I was still worked up and scared and I headed straight to Carol’s desk, where she was playing Spider Solitaire.

  “Carol,” I said, startling her from behind.

  “Oh, shit!” She jumped and turned around to face me. “I know what this looks like”—she nervously pointed to the computer screen behind her—“but I’m really just on a break.”

  “I don’t even care,” I said. “Look—”

  “You don’t care?” She looked at me like I’d gone crazy.

  “Carol, listen, I don’t want to see Paul at all for the rest of the day. Okay? If he comes around, you say I’m not here,” I said. “I need you to do that. And I’m leaving early.” I looked around at the other ADAs who were walking in the common cubicle area, looking at me but pretending to be doing something else. I wanted to scream out that I knew that they knew what was going on. I wondered if Lawanna had come to the office in her yellow dress before I’d gotten there. Maybe plastered up a poster in the bathroom with the word “Ho” beneath my picture.

  Carol sighed and said in a low voice, “Is something going on with you two? People are talking. And I know things have been strange around here, but I need my damn job. You know I just bought that condo in Jersey.”

  “You’re not going to lose your job,” I assured her, but really, with the day I was having, I couldn’t guarantee anything to anyone. “And what are people saying?”

  Carol stood and whispered to me, “That Paul got a divorce and that you”—she looked warily over at the assistant in the cubicle beside hers and lowered her voice more—“you might be the reason.” She then quickly snapped back and smoothed out her shirt like she was detaching herself from the guilt of office gossip. “Now, I’m not the one to judge. The baby Jesus knows for sure I’ve done my share of dirt with the married kind, hoping it would all turn out in my favor, but”—she looked at me the same way Lawanna had—“all us grown women know that it never works out the way we hoped and prayed it would. Seems our grandmothers were right—the beast you free from the swamp is that beast you have to take home.”

  “I’ve never heard that before,” I said.

  “Oh, well, my grandmother was Geechie with one good gray eye, so who knows what she was talking about. Point is, I don’t care what decisions you make. I just need to make sure I’m okay. You know?”

  “You’re fine, Carol. We’re both fine.”

  “Whew! That gives me relief. And hand to God”—she kissed her right palm and held it up to the ceiling—“I’ll never play Spider Solitaire
at work. Don’t want people to think our little team isn’t doing any work.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear.”

  Carol’s focus moved from my face and bounced over my shoulder and up above my head like there was an ugly gray cloud hovering there about to storm down acid rain that would burn me alive. And I felt it too. In seconds, I felt what was written on her face and I knew it was the last straw for me. I didn’t want to turn around and face whatever monster storm was brewing behind me. Was it Paul? Lawanna back to give me more of the evil eye? I didn’t care and I didn’t want to know. I wanted to knock Carol down, jump over her desk, and run right out of the office without ever looking back to see what was lurking.

  “Detective Strickland? From Brooklyn, right?” Carol said with a crinkle between her brows.

  “Yes. It is I.”

  Carol smiled. “I remember you from that albino drug murderer case you solved years back. Totally weird. Was all over the news. Folks were talking about it all around here. I’m Carol Southland, Counselor Kind’s assistant. Pleased to meet you.” She extended her hand to shake Strickland’s, and I saw his brown hand slither past my waist to meet hers.

  “Great to meet you, too,” Strickland said. “And to run into Counselor Kind on this beautiful day. I thought for sure you’d be out and about in the city,” he added into my ear. “Shopping or getting your nails done. You know how you womenfolk get during the spring—taking care of all your little beauty secrets.”

  I turned to face Strickland as he and Carol laughed. “I don’t have any secrets,” I said.

  “Really?” He grinned at me in his maroon suit. “I never took you for the type who didn’t have secrets.”

  After reminding Carol of my explicit instructions, I led Strickland to my office and offered him a seat.

  Sliding behind my desk to sit opposite him, I asked, “How can I help you, Detective?”

  “Let’s not be so formal,” he said. “You don’t want this to be a formal visit.” He peered into me and I knew what I’d feared was true. “In fact, before you take that seat, you may want to go and close your door. Wouldn’t want any prying ears.” He nodded at the door.

  “Okay.” I walked and closed the door and stood behind him looking at the flatness of his bald head, the little ant-shaped shaving bumps at the base of his skull. “So, what’s going on?” I asked, walking back behind the desk and finally sitting. I struggled to sound calm, but I already heard my voice shaking.

  Strickland gave a short and wicked laugh before talking about Delli’s suspicions about King’s alibi the night of Vonn’s murder. How at first he wasn’t going to make a move on the psychologist’s suspicions, but soon he found himself asking the same questions, and those questions led him to the Clocktower.

  “You’ve been very busy, Counselor,” Strickland said, looking at my degrees on the wall.

  My hands on my lap behind the desk, I fought trembling that shook me from my ankles. “I didn’t do anything,” I said, hearing in my voice the panic I would’ve read as fresh blood on the lips of any guilty person I was interviewing. I told myself to shut up and be calm and look forward without moving.

  “Maybe you didn’t. But this isn’t about what you did. I already know that. It’s about where you were and why.” He paused to clear his throat. “See, my sources put you right at the Clocktower on the day of Vonn’s murder. Seems, in fact, that you were there for a few days. Been keeping company with the suspect—the suspect in a major investigation that’s currently on my desk.”

  “What’s your point?” I asked, determined not to admit to or deny anything Strickland was implying. We both knew the game.

  “Look, I don’t care who you fuck, Kind. With all of the single and desperate black women in this city, you’re bound to fuck a white guy . . .  ​or a criminal . . .  ​or a white criminal, in your case, at some point. But when you fuck with my case, you fuck with me. And you being at the Clocktower the night of the murder and not telling anyone and that white bastard protecting you, that’s fucking with my case.”

  “You have no proof of any of this,” I said.

  Strickland’s laugh was long and wicked. “Oh, sister, I’ve got plenty. You know the doorman? The one your little hood-rat cousin volunteered to suck off? He’s blue.”

  “Frantz?” I let slip out, and I felt those razor blades scraping up my spine again.

  “He’s talking. Told me all about your little visit. Even you and McDonnell cuddling in the elevator. How sweet.” Strickland batted his eyes mockingly.

  “That doesn’t mean King did anything,” I said.

  “Oh, now you motherfuckers are on a first-name basis?” he asked. “And none of that interests me anyway. As I said, I’m on to the why. Why would a woman like you fuck a man like that? Why were you with him the night of the murder? And why wouldn’t you tell authorities when you realized we were on to him?”

  Strickland leaned forward and tapped his nails on the wooden desktop. I knew this was to mash at my nerves. I tried to breathe to ease the pain in my back, but it was only tightening with each tap. “See, I’m a detective and I’m naturally curious. Want to know things. Understand. And what I came up with is that you didn’t tell my team about your involvement with McDonnell when you were in Brooklyn because you and that snake you call a district attorney were trying to ruin our investigation so you can have McDonnell for yourself. Or, you had no clue who McDonnell was and you were too afraid to tell us anything because you wanted to protect your little career. I hear you have your eyes on being the next DA?”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I said, trying not to leave any traces of alliance with Strickland’s words. I knew what he was looking for in me, a lean-in to admit to his theories.

  He sat and stared, waiting for a move.

  “Yeah,” he said after a while. “I guessed those were both wrong. Then I came to my next hypothesis. Want to know what it is?”

  “What is it, Strickland? Humor me.”

  “Well, maybe you know everything and you’re playing the game for McDonnell. That’s where your interest is. Isn’t it? Protecting him? Hiding his secrets? You’re just playing us. Been siding with McDonnell the whole time.”

  I looked down at my purse on the desk where the memory stick with King’s audio file was.

  Strickland caught the glance and looked there too.

  He said, “Who knows where your filthy hands have been. What evidence you’ve hidden. Information you’ve stalled. I know your kind.”

  “I haven’t been hiding anything for anyone,” I stated adamantly.

  “Oh . . .  ​not you . . .  ​right?” he said. “Please. Drop the good-girl routine. I looked into your past. I know about your parents, that alcoholic father of yours, who stumbles down your old street every day crying about his lost wife.” Strickland smirked. “And that mother? A straight crackhead. A rock-smoking homeless prostitute.”

  “My mother is not a prostitute!” I said, getting up with tears in my eyes.

  “Oh, did I pluck a nerve!”

  “Get out of my office!” I said.

  “You don’t want to hear the truth about your mother? How I found her sucking dick on the side of the road for five dollars?”

  “No! That’s not my mother!” I screamed. “You don’t know anything about my mother. Now get the fuck out of my office!”

  Strickland stood, but his face was unaffected by my orders.

  “Oh, I do know the truth about you, Counselor Kind. And soon everyone else will, too. That you can take the girl out of the projects but you can’t take the projects out the girl. You’ll be subpoenaed. That face will be on all the newspapers. You’ll be ruined. The only place you’ll be able to work is on that show Mob Wives,” he said. “Now, you do have a choice.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, fighting to keep back my tears. I refused to let him see me breaking down.

  “You tell me all about McDonnell’s operation. What he
’s doing. And I’ll keep your little Clocktower dick ride a secret.”

  “I can’t do that. I don’t know anything,” I pleaded.

  “Kind, you don’t expect me to believe that. I know about pillow talk. I know he’s told you his story about the Irish mob. About his father living in Belize.”

  “I told you I don’t know anything,” I said. “Now, would you just leave!”

  “Fine, Kind,” Strickland said, walking toward the door. “I’ll go now, but I’ll be waiting for you,” he added, opening the door. He nodded and tipped an invisible hat before walking out.

  I let out my breath like I’d been underwater. And the pain in my back was ornery. I was standing, but I had to look at my hands to make sure I hadn’t fainted. The tears I’d held back now dripped to my palms, and I screamed so loudly I saw red streaks in my eyes. “Shit!” I walked back to my seat and tried to think of what to do. If there was anything I could do. I thought to call King, but if Strickland was on to me, he’d probably had my phone tapped.

  “What is it?” Carol said, rushing into my office. She quickly closed the door on the prying eyes of people who’d heard my scream.

  “I can’t do this!” I said to myself, standing in the middle of the floor afraid to move.

  Carol came to my side. “What did he say? I knew that Strickland was bad news. Was it about Paul?”

  I heard her but I wasn’t listening. I was being pulled right back down that mountain with the weight around my waist.

  “You need me to call someone? An ambulance?” Carol asked. “I don’t think you’re well. I think you need an ambulance.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I need to get out of here. To get home.”

  “But you’re not well,” Carol said. And then she looked at the little slip of paper on my desk with Dr. Davis’s name and number on it. “Maybe we should call your doctor—Dr. Davis,” she said, handing me the paper.