by RM Johnson
“And don’t you think Daphanie loves the child too?”
Trevor appeared troubled. He stood up from his desk and walked over toward his office windows. “I don’t think about that, and I don’t have to. She signed the contract, and if you’ve read it, you’ll see there’s nothing she can do. Nothing anyone can do.”
“I know that, Mr. Morgan,” Austin appealed. “But is this really what you want, for Daphanie not to know her own son? For your son not to know his mother?”
Trevor stared silently out the window. “You know I loved her once,” Trevor said, facing Austin again. “My wife didn’t want any children. When Daphanie said she was pregnant, I gave it a lot of thought, and decided I could leave my wife for her if it came to that. But then she pulled that stunt.”
“Do you still love Daphanie?”
Appearing tortured by the conversation, Trevor said, “How could I after what she’s done? She didn’t want me. She wanted Nate. And how fitting that Nate was the one that got her to sign over our child to me.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Austin said, standing. “Do you still love Daphanie Coleman?”
Trevor’s jaw tightened. “I don’t want to, but yes, I do.”
43
Daphanie rose from her bed, stretched, and felt hopeful for some reason. Last night, she’d gone to bed thinking how much fun she had with little Nathaniel. While asleep, she dreamt that she had gotten her son back. In her dream, she had taken her baby everywhere she had taken Nathaniel yesterday. She cradled him in her arms, kissed his cheeks as he laughed and kicked and used his little hands to grasp at her face.
Daphanie lowered her legs over the edge of her bed, wondering why she’d had such a dream. She knew it was because of those brief moments of thought Nate had last night after she’d asked him what he’d do if he thought he’d never see Nathaniel again. She’d reached him. She had penetrated the man’s cold, hard armor and reached the man she used to know and love.
Of course there was no guarantee that Nate would help Daphanie, but something deep inside her told her he would. She smiled at the thought and stood up from her bed feeling better than she had since the day all of this had started.
She grabbed her robe from the foot of her bed and pulled it on, when she heard a knock at her front door. It was odd, considering she lived in a condo building and anyone visiting her would have to buzz from downstairs in order to be let up.
Daphanie stepped out of her bedroom and headed toward the front door, telling herself that it had to be her neighbor from down the hall, considering her alarm clock had only read 8:01 a.m.
At the door, she looked through the peephole and was surprised to see two uniformed policemen.
Her heart skipped and she tumbled away from the door, obviously making enough noise to prompt one of the officers to knock again.
“Miss Coleman, this is the police. We hear you in there. You need to open the door.”
She held her breath. She felt trapped. The thought of running out the back occurred to her, but that was ridiculous. She wasn’t a fugitive. “What … what do you want?”
“Open the door, ma’am.”
Daphanie walked back to the door and, with a trembling hand, opened it. “Yes,” she said to the two officers, “how can I help you?”
“Daphanie Coleman,” the mustached, dark-haired officer said, “we’re here to arrest you for the kidnapping of Nathaniel Kenny.”
44
Caleb had been consumed with worry over what he needed to do to help his son, but he could not lose sight of the fact that in three days, he would owe Kwan the money he had borrowed from him.
Kwan’s men had made their threats, but Caleb was not as worried as he felt they wanted him to be. He had known Kwan since grammar school, and he had borrowed money and returned it late before. Yes, that was ten years ago, when the man didn’t have such a ruthless reputation to uphold, but if Caleb didn’t get him the money the second he needed it, he was sure Kwan might cut him a little slack.
Caleb felt uncomfortable in the tie he was wearing. He hated ties, never wore them, but today he was waiting to hear if he had gotten the cleaning contract for the small paper company whose offices he was in now.
Mr. Butler was the name of the bookish-looking man that walked into the office and greeted Caleb.
“Have a seat, Mr. Harris,” Mr. Butler said. He sat on the front edge of his desk and pushed his glasses back up on his nose.
“So did you have a chance to review my offer?” Caleb said, hopeful. “I know it’s the cheapest one around.” If Caleb were hired, he would work a deal with Butler, give him like ten percent, maybe even twenty percent off if he agreed to pay Caleb for the first six months up front. This way he would have no problem paying Kwan on time.
“I did look at your offer,” Mr. Butler said, “and you’re right. You do undercut everyone else, but I’ve decided to go with a more established company.”
“What?” Caleb said, surprised. If he didn’t get this contract, he would only have one chance left with a small building that housed a nursery school and day care center. The woman he spoke to there initially was named Mrs. Jackson. She had stared at Caleb as though she didn’t trust him, so Caleb didn’t have a good feeling about winning that contract. “It’s cleaning,” Caleb finally said to Mr. Butler. “Can someone be more established at cleaning a toilet or sweeping a floor?”
Mr. Butler smiled, extended his open hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harris, but I’ve made my decision.”
Caleb stood outside on the street corner, squinting against the sun, and yanked the tie from around his neck. He would have to start knocking on company doors again.
He looked up the block, trying to remember where he had parked his van. He saw it across the street. He stepped off the curb but was almost run over by a black Dodge Magnum that sped up, then came to a screeching halt beside him.
The driver’s window, tinted as black as the car’s paint, powered down a crack, and Caleb saw Charles, Kwan’s flunky, staring out at him.
“Get in the car, fool,” the man said around the toothpick sticking from his mouth.
“But I got three days. I said I’m gonna have—”
“I said get in the car. Or I’m gonna have my man get you in the car,” Charles said, lowering the window so Caleb could get a look at the same heavyset man that was with Charles last time they’d found Caleb. The man held an Uzi in his lap, pointed up at Caleb.
Caleb pulled open the back door and climbed into the dark cabin. “Where you taking me?”
“Where ever the hell we want,” Charles said, shifting the car in gear.
Kwan was a short man. He stood five-five if he stood an inch. He compensated for his lack of height by lifting weights, which gave him the stance of a VW Beetle.
Kwan walked around the large back room of the small building where he operated a corner candy store. From the front of the building, he sold treats to the neighborhood kids, and from the back, he did his loan-sharking, drug dealing, and whatever other dirt he conducted.
Wearing a skintight T-shirt to show off his cannonball biceps, he leaned on a baseball bat like a cane.
Caleb stared at Kwan from the wooden chair he was told to sit in. His hands had been tied behind his back, and Caleb could feel sweat accumulate at his brow as he glanced at the frightened-looking man who sat tied to the chair ten feet in front of him.
“Why am I here?” Caleb said. “I got three days.”
Kwan looked up at Charles. “Does he know that, Charles?” Kwan questioned. “Does Caleb really know he got three days?”
“I don’t know,” Charles said. “He sho’ ain’t acting like he do.”
“How is that?” Caleb said, trying to pull his hands free. They were tied tight. “I don’t gotta act no way. All I gotta do is give you your money back on the day it’s due.”
“Naw. That’s where you wrong,” Kwan said, walking over, placing his face just in front of Caleb’s. “I been
doing this for a long time. And there’s a way a man act when he got the money to give back, and the way he act when he ain’t. That’s why I have my boys watch my indebted clients. When the clock winds down, the men who ain’t got my money often take off, get lost.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Caleb said.
“I know, because I got you here, and I’m gonna let you know what happens to men who consider skipping without paying me my money.”
Kwan stood up, swung the bat over his shoulder, and walked over to the other bound man.
The man’s eyes ballooned and he started to struggle, trying to free himself from the ropes that tied his wrists and his ankles to the chair. “I swear, I was just going to my cousin’s to get yo’ money,” the man said, tears coming to his eyes.
“Your cousin in Philly, right?” Kwan said, smiling at Charles and Lamar. Both men chuckled.
“What are you going to do to him!” Caleb yelled.
“Same thing I’m gonna do to you if you try getting over on me,” Kwan said, grabbing the bat with both hands and swinging it with all his might. The motion was sweeping and powerful, and the bat didn’t come to a halt till it struck the bound man’s right shin. There was a loud crack, and the man screamed out like a tortured child.
“What are you doing!” Caleb yelled, kicking his feet, rocking on the legs of the chair.
“Work, motherfucker,” Kwan said, walking to the other side of the man, pulling the bat back up over his shoulder. “I’m doing work.” He swung the bat again, snapping the man’s other leg. Again the man cried out, but the scream was clipped. The man’s eyes rolled in his head, and he looked to have passed out from shock. His head fell limp, his chin resting on his chest.
Caleb sat quiet, dumbstruck by all that was happening. His pulse raced, and sweat poured from his brow into his eyes as Kwan stepped over to him.
“I’m gonna have your money,” Caleb said. “I swear. I’m gonna have it.”
“I know you will, or we gonna have to go green on your ass,” Kwan said.
“What? I … I don’t know what that means,” Caleb said.
“Before scooping you, Charles and Lamar went to the store and bought me some Hostess cupcakes,” Kwan said. “Got my cakes, Charles?”
Charles grabbed the plastic bag off the counter behind him, reached into the bag, and tossed Kwan the package. Kwan took out one of the cakes and ate it.
“White folks always talk about recycling plastic, use it over for different things. That’s what we do around here. Give him an example, Charles.”
Charles took the handles of the plastic bag in each of his fists, walked around behind the unconscious man, threw the bag over his head, and pulled back on the handles.
“No,” Caleb said, horrified. “No!”
The man sat unconscious at first, but then, under the plastic mask, he sprung, howling to life. Caleb could see the bag draw into the man’s open mouth, muting him. It shrunk to the contour of his face, his nose, his eye sockets. The doomed man whipped his head frantically back and forth, lurched forward and back in his chair. Grimacing against the man’s efforts, Charles continued to pull on the bag, suffocating him till there was no more fight. After another moment of struggle, the man’s body went limp. Charles stood, a smirk on his face, leaving the bag over the man’s head.
“Well done, Charles,” Kwan said. He looked over at Lamar, nodded the man an order.
Lamar walked over to the back of Caleb’s chair. Caleb’s heart skipped until he realized Lamar was knifing the ropes away from his wrists.
“Get me my money,” Kwan said. “Or you gonna experience this firsthand.”
45
Monica heard Tabatha’s words echo in her head as she was led down the long hallway by the white-jacketed counselor.
“Are you out of your mind?” Tabatha had said, last night. “He tried to kill you, and you’re fool enough to go there and visit him?”
The counselor, a young woman with red hair pinned up in a bun, stopped and opened a door with the word VISITATION painted in small black letters on it.
Monica stepped into a room that looked more like a 1950s grade school classroom, with its old vinyl tile floors and ancient light fixtures, than the visitation room at Oak Park Psychiatric Institution.
There were four identically upholstered sofas that sat against each of the four walls, and at least a dozen wooden chairs were scattered about.
“Have a seat anywhere,” the counselor said, smiling at Monica. “We’ll bring Mr. Ford right in.”
The door closed, and Monica felt trapped. She wondered if she had made the right decision. She told herself to relax and lowered herself onto one of the sofas.
A moment later, she was startled by the door opening again. A large, square-shouldered man walked in, wearing a white uniform. Behind him walked Freddy Ford.
Monica shot up from the sofa, wishing she had never come.
The uniformed man held Freddy high by his arm, leading him over to the chair nearest Monica, and helped him into it.
Monica looked not at Freddy but at his handler.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
Monica managed to speak. “Yes.”
“I’m not leaving the room. I’ll be right there by the door. If you need me, just say.”
“Okay,” Monica said, feeling herself trembling. She sat back down as the man took his place by the door.
Monica stared at Freddy’s feet. He wore beige house slippers and what looked like white pajama pants. Her eyes moved up to a red T-shirt. A peeling, iron-on decal of a white rabbit was on the front. TRIX ARE FOR KIDS was written under the picture. Freddy was thinner than she remembered. His hair was shorter, and he had a full, curly beard that looked as though it had taken months to grow.
When Monica finally found the courage to look into Freddy’s eyes, they gave no insight into what he was thinking.
“Why you here?” he said. “What do you want?”
Monica felt her lips trembling. “You … you shot me. You tried to kill me.”
“I was there for your husband.”
“But you shot me. You—”
“You came outta nowhere. I ain’t know what was happening. I turned, and the gun just went off,” Freddy said. He looked away, scratched his beard.
“Do you want to kill me?” Monica said, looking over at the uniformed man near the door.
Freddy laughed a little. “You having dreams. Post–traumatic stress disorder, or some shit.”
“Something like that,” Monica said. “I just need to know.”
Freddy leaned back in his chair. “Just said shootin’ you was a mistake. Never wanted you dead, don’t want you that way now.”
Incredibly, Monica felt as though the weight of a lifetime of fear had been lifted from her shoulders. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“But your ex-husband needed to die. I’m sorry I couldn’t make that happen.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Who you talkin’ to? My mom’s living in a room, sleeping on a twin bed. Her house, my house, been torn down. My girl left me, killed our baby. And Joni, the girl I still loved, never stopped loving—Joni is dead. And it’s all because of Nate Kenny. So who you talkin’ to?”
“I understand how you feel.”
“You don’t understand shit, Monica, so don’t say that to me.”
“I do,” Monica said. “There are times when I wish I could kill him myself for what he’s done to me, but I would never try it. Look where it’s gotten you.”
“I won’t be here forever,” Freddy said under his breath.
“What? What was that?”
“I said I won’t be in here forever, and when I get out, all the motherfuckers who went against me gonna pay. They need to be looking over they shoulders now. Even from here, I got pull on them streets.”
“I don’t understand,” Monica said, starting to feel uneasy.
“It’s not for you to understand. Just know I’m making my
list,” Freddy said, lowering his voice again. “Nate, he’s number one. I saw his brother in Atlanta where my girl got shot. Don’t know his name, but he gotta go down too. And Lewis, it might be over for him, and maybe his little girl. Just depend on how I’m feelin’.”
“What! No!” Monica said, shocked. “You wouldn’t!”
“I have nothing, because of—”
“I’ll tell the police,” Monica said, standing.
“Sit yo’ ass down!” Freddy said, his voice hushed.
Monica glanced at the man at the door. The man raised his brow, as if asking if she needed him. Monica shook her head, then slowly sat back down.
“Tell the police what?” Freddy said. “That I want Nate Kenny dead? They already know that. I tried to kill his ass, remember? And even if they believe you, which they won’t, ’cause I’m supposed to be crazy, what they gonna do? Put me in jail for something I say I’m gonna do? I’m already in jail.”
Monica sat there speechless, feeling helpless, the room starting to spin around her. “Then I’ll tell Nate, I’ll tell Lewis so they’ll know to—”
“Then I’ll have to rethink what I said a minute ago.”
“Rethink what?”
“The part where I said I didn’t want you dead,” Freddy said, standing up from his chair. He looked over at the uniformed man at the door, then leaned over to Monica. “You safe as it is. Say one word and that shit might change.” Freddy straightened up and turned to the guard. “Yo, I’m done. Get me the fuck outta here.”
46
Bug and Toomey sat parked outside a small apartment complex just outside the Beverly area.
The buildings looked clean, the grounds kept neat, and no one hung around outside the front doors looking like they were ready to mug the first person that walked in or out. There were a couple of little white kids in the park across from the building that Jahlil had just walked out of. This spot was nothing like anything Bug or Toomey had ever seen.