Alibi II

by Teri Woods

  And just as she was about to hop onto I-76 and head downtown she realized she had left the key she needed to unlock the cabinets in her office. Damn it, I left my file cabinet keys.

  Why didn’t I grab them before I left the house, she seethed as she turned down a one-way street behind a trash truck. She looked in her rearview mirror as another car turned down the same street behind her, blocking her in. What could have taken five minutes now took her ten.

  By the time she got back to the house she was definitely late and definitely preparing herself to hear Deputy Stevens’s mouth when she finally arrived.

  “What the fuck?” she gasped, needing air as she opened the door to her bedroom and looked at Tommy, his pants and boxers dangling around his ankles, and in front of him, the babysitter, down on her knees, wearing no shirt, no bra, no socks, just light blue lace panties. He didn’t even see her standing in the doorway of their bedroom.

  Unable to move, she stood still and calm, watching and wondering what it was she should do. Calmly, she closed the door behind her. She breathed a deep and heavy sigh, tears beginning to stream down her face. She could hear Gabby moaning now, their mattress squeaking from movement. He’s fucking her? Great, he’s fucking her, like right now in my bed…at that.

  Vivian quietly made it down the stairs as the sounds of Gabby getting pounded by her husband got louder and louder with every step. She grabbed the knob to the front door of their home but she couldn’t turn it, she couldn’t leave, she froze as she flashed through her mind her life as she knew it with Tommy. It was a life that would be no more. How could he? She’s the babysitter, she’s in our home. What the hell is wrong with him? She couldn’t believe he would stoop so low. She’s a little kid, for Pete’s sake. The thought of him sleeping with a girl only fifteen left her hollow. The thought of him sleeping with her in her bed disgusted her. Vivian was incredibly angry, but she didn’t want to show it. She had learned to stay calm and never let them see you sweat, never show your true face. Vivian ran back up the stairs and, as if it was nothing, barged into her bedroom and stormed over to her closet as Tommy continued fucking Gabby doggie style, not realizing the vision of his wife was reality.

  “Vivian, what the fuck!” he yelled, pulling his dick out of Gabby, exposing both himself and her to Vivian.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I distract you from fucking our fifteen-year-old babysitter?”

  “Vivian, I’m sorry,” said Tommy, grabbing part of the blanket to cover his lower body. Gabby was behind him, using him for cover as she covered her naked body with Vivian’s sheets.

  “Aren’t you twelve? Do your parents know what you’re doing, little girl, fucking a forty-year-old married man with a child in the other room that you’re supposed to be babysitting?”

  “I’m turning sixteen next week,” Gabby began before Vivian attacked her, smacking her in the face, pulling her hair, yelling and screaming for her to get out of her house.

  “Vivian, stop, what the fuck is wrong with you,” said Tommy as he pulled Vivian off Gabby.

  “Get off me,” said Vivian, struggling with Tommy. “You fucking piece of shit, I fucking hate you,” she screamed, and of course by now, Gabby had grabbed her things and was hightailing it down the stairs.

  “You little fucking whore,” said Vivian as she threw the girl’s shoes down the flight of stairs, trying to hit her in the head with them, missing her by the hair on a toad’s ass as the shoes slammed into the front door.

  “Please, Vivian, I’m sorry,” said Tommy, never in a million years having thought that he’d ever get caught.

  “You fucking disgust me. I will never trust you, in our house, in our bed. I swear to God, I fucking hate you. I want a divorce!”

  It was twenty years later, and nothing had changed. She still despised him, and he despised her for all the shit she had done to hurt him over the years. Twenty years later and here they were, still hating.

  “Yeah, so what’s this about?” he asked as he approached the table. “Shit, better be good, too,” he added, not wanting to be bothered with her at all.

  “I tried to tell you, just sign the papers,” she said, pointing to admission forms for their son’s entrance to college.

  “I’m not signing shit,” said Tommy, refusing the papers as he pushed them back at her.

  “They’re for college for Tommy, Jr., Tommy. Stop being such a fucking asshole and sign them,” she said, shoving them back in his face.

  “I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re the fucking asshole. Where the fuck is my brother, Vivian?”

  “Don’t ask me that!” she said, not wanting to hear it for the ninety-ninth time.

  “No, where is he? All because I fucked our babysitter, you fucking put my brother in jail?”

  “Tommy, he was robbing banks, he shot at the police, he would have been caught anyway. At least I helped him.”

  “You fucking helped him all right, you helped him go to jail.”

  “Fuck you, you were so busy fucking cheating on me with our fucking babysitter,” spat Vivian, wanting to choke the life out of him.

  “So what, so what?” he said.

  “So what, she was our fifteen-year-old babysitter, you asshole. You fucking cheat on me with a fifteen-year-old, then turn around and marry her, and you’re mad about Sammy? I did my job. Now do yours and pretend you’re a father and sign the fucking papers so I don’t have to take you back to court again.”

  “Fuck you,” said Tommy, hating everything about Vivian. “I don’t know how I ever loved you. How did I even fuck you?” he spat at her, trying to figure out what the fuck he had been thinking. The entire time they had been together, she silently had him under investigation. She had all the proof the department needed to implicate Tommy Delgado in a number of felonies. And she always made it perfectly clear that if anything were ever to happen to her, he could kiss his sweet ass good-bye.

  “Umm, let me see, you put your penis in my vagina and humped really fast. Fuck you, I should have arrested you along with your brother for fucking a minor, not to mention the rest of your criminally insane family.”

  “Yeah, you ain’t that fucking stupid. You know what the fuck my criminally insane family would do to you. You fucking know, don’t ya, Viv?” He smiled at her, wanting to fucking choke her like a bird, just as her phone rang.

  “I’m on my way, I’ll be right there.” She hung up and looked at Tommy. “I have work to do. I have to go. You signing for Tommy, Jr., or do I have to contact Uncle Carmen and get him to get you to sign?” she asked, smiling as if she didn’t care what it would take. She and Carmen had always remained close; he still made her his famous chicken a la Rocco sandwich.

  “You’re a cunt. I swear to God, I just want to…” he said signing the papers as she stood above him, waiting for her paperwork back.

  “Want to what, Lieutenant?” she dared him. “You’ll fucking do nothing to me, and you fucking know it. You’ll go home and you’ll keep pretending, that’s what you’ll do,” she said as she bent down and whispered in his ear, threatening him with a life in prison if something happened to her. “Don’t even think about anything happening to me or I will fuck you like you never been fucked before. You got that, asshole?”

  “You’re a fucking cunt,” said Tommy, knowing that Vivian’s FBI ass could take him and his family down in a blink of an eye, but she never would, for the sake of Tommy, Jr.

  “And you’re an asshole,” she added, snatching the paperwork he had finally signed from him. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you, fucking idiot,” she mumbled as she walked away.

  “I don’t know what I ever saw in you, fucking bitch!” mumbled Tommy, thinking of how she had ruined his life.

  “True, so true.” Vivian smiled as she sashayed out of the café and down the hall.

  Nard made it home from work the next night a little early. The six boxes he had gotten from Ms. Kay were still stacked in his room. He felt good to ha
ve finally found some real-life memories from his past. He was anxious to see his charitable donations from Sticks’s mother and what Sticks had in the boxes. With his luck he might find at least a sweater or maybe even a jacket he could wear. Little did he know, he would find much more than that.

  He went through the box of clothes, holding up shirts and pants, remembering his old friend. He thought of that night so long ago. How they had killed Poncho and almost killed him. That night surely changed the rest of his life; that night was a night he would never forget as long as he lived. As far as he was concerned, Lance Robertson and Jeremy Tyler got exactly what they deserved. And he should have never had to serve one day in prison for murdering them. If I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me, for sure. I did what I had to do, what anybody would have done.

  A taped-up sneaker box was hidden under a sweater. Nard anxiously removed the tape, opened the box, and revealed scattered photos and several VCR tapes.

  What we got here? Nard asked his growing penis. Oh, my God, I remember this.

  “Yo, Sticks, I swear on my moms. Oh, my God!” an overly excited Nard jumped up and circled the room, talking to his dead friend.

  “You okay?” asked Beverly, peeking in the door of the room where Nard had taken up residence.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m good,” said Nard as he stopped himself from pacing, stood still, faced his mother, and calmed himself, folding his hands in front of him.

  “It’s a lot of noise coming from in there, jumping around and what-not,” said Beverly, shaking her head and making her way downstairs to where her uncle was sitting watching Jeopardy.

  “What’s all that noise; sounds like a kangaroo jumping around,” said Uncle Ray Ray, looking at her over the top of his bifocals.

  “I don’t know, but there’s something wrong with Nard. I feel like we need to do something to get him some help.”

  “Ain’t no help for him, just leave him alone,” said Uncle Ray Ray before busting out in a Michael Jackson verse and singing to his niece.

  “I’ma leave you alone all right, leave you right in here by yourself,” she said, getting up and going in the kitchen.

  Upstairs, Nard was going at it, stroking his dick as he sifted through picture after picture. This was actually just as good as the XXX store he went to. Sticks’s pictures were as graphic as graphic could get. He laid the top photo down, revealing the next. It was like a freeze flash from a moment in time. His hand slowly moved from his penis to the photo as he took it from one hand to the other and held it under the light. That’s that bitch right there. He saw her face, clear as day, just as he remembered in the courtroom. The photo was from the night Sticks’s man was having a bachelor party. Nard didn’t attend but he knew the groom and most of the others. Sticks and the guys planned on celebrating and needed some strippers, because what was a bachelor party without strippers? He called Daisy, a stripper from the Honey Dipper, a strip club he frequented. Sticks got her and her friend Trixie and took them to a hotel. He put them in a room and told them to order what they wanted to eat and brought them a bottle of champagne. Unknown to them, the champagne was spiked, and after some chicken wings and three glasses of champagne, they lost their motor skills and their bodies became limp. While aware of their surroundings, both girls were unable to function. Daisy had impaired sight and was unable to lift her arms, stand, or walk. She knew she wanted to say “no” or “stop” but was barely able to speak, letting out a soft whisper, raising her arms in protest, but unable to hold them up, and unable to resist being bound and held down. But she could hear clearly. Daisy and Trixie had sex with God knows how many different men that night and it was all caught on video. That night was right there in the palm of Nard’s hands in living color. Not only did Sticks take photographs, he videotaped the whole thing. Nard quickly popped the VCR tape into the VCR machine, turned on his television, and pressed play. He locked the bedroom door and sat on the edge of the bed, his manhood growing as he grabbed the shaft of his penis and began moving his hand slowly up and down as he watched Daisy giving fellatio to one guy while another hit her in the ass. She looked as if she wanted it. She wasn’t screaming or crying, she was taking it like it was nothing.

  This fucking whore could fuck these niggas like this, but she couldn’t say I was with her. I wish I was there that night, I would’ve fucked this bitch and busted her fucking ass. Nard stroked himself, squeezing a little tighter around his dick as his hand guided itself faster and faster until he came, his semen shooting everywhere.

  Nard fantasized so much about fucking Daisy he had to catch himself constantly. Just thoughts of fucking her, for payback if for nothing else, made him explode. His sexual thoughts were one thing, but deep down, he hated Daisy. He wished nothing more than for all the pain he had suffered to be passed on to her. She had ruined his life. It was because of her he went to jail in the first place. He got jammed all because of her. Had she come through, it would never have gone down the way it did. But in the end, Nard would see to it that she’d pay with her life, one way or the other.

  I wonder where this bitch is at? She’s out there somewhere, but where? I got to track this bitch down, got to, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

  A Gangster’s Reunion

  The next week, one night after Nard got off work he called Liddles.

  “I been getting everything ready for you all day, man, where you been? You got me sitting here taking every call that come through,” he said jokingly.

  “What you getting ready for me?” Nard asked, feeling real special.

  “Yo, I got you, I told you last week.”

  And Liddles did. He rounded up everybody he knew that Nard knew, everybody from back in the day that rolled with his brother, Poncho. All those still out in the streets that they kicked it with, and he invited them to Ruth Chris. The bill would be on him tonight and just as dinner was complete, a brand new Cadillac Escalade, snowball white with black interior, pulled up and parked outside the restaurant on Broad Street in downtown Philly.

  It was a night to remember. Nard mingled with folks he hadn’t seen in over twenty years. How Liddles managed to round everybody up, he didn’t have a clue. And Liddles pulled out all the stops, making sure he was treated like a king. And when dinner was complete, the dinner party made its way outside to watch Liddles give Nard his brand-new truck.

  “Yo, Nard,” said Liddles, throwing him the key to the Escalade.

  “What’s this?” asked Nard, rolling the funny-looking black object around in his hand.

  “It’s the key to your truck, nigga,” said Liddles, smiling.

  Nard looked at the Escalade, unbelieving.

  “What, you looking like you forgot how to drive,” joked Liddles.

  “Shit, this motherfucker so pretty,” he said, slapping fives with Liddles, “I’m scared to get behind the wheel.” Looking at the car, just the thought of it, had him under pressure.

  “Don’t worry, I’m rocking with you, I’ll drive,” said Liddles, taking the key from him and ordering him to get in.

  “Umm, Nard, excuse me,” said a soft voice behind a sweet smile.

  “Hey, Lisa, thanks for coming out,” said Nard.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t miss seeing you for the world,” she said. “Here, take my number, call me any time, okay?” She smiled as she passed the number to him.

  Nard smiled back, his dick harder than it had ever been.

  “Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Okay, maybe we can get together for dinner or drinks or something,” she said, happy to have made contact with her long lost daydream.

  “Come on, playboy, you got time for all that,” said Liddles, breaking their moment.

  Shit, no I don’t, thought Nard, following behind Liddles, wondering if Lisa was as soft as she looked.

  Liddles hopped in the driver’s seat as Nard rode shotgun. He went down to the water at Piers Landing and parked the Escalade in a vacant parking lot.

  The two
men sat talking for hours. Nard listened to everything Liddles told him, taking him back twenty years ago all the way to his trial, when he had his sister Karla-Jae wearing wigs and reporting back to him as he sat outside the courthouse in a beat-up, dusty van. He told Nard how he had followed Wink, and the other families. How he gunned them all down, and how Wink had pleaded for his life. How the police had questioned him, had a statewide manhunt for the murderer, but couldn’t tie him in, and never made an arrest. Nard sat and listened to every word.

  “I swear on my moms, I ain’t never told nobody this shit,” said Liddles as he continued. “See, the nigga, Wink, said he had fifty thousand in the basement. But I was there on some murder shit, know what I mean, and I killed him. But that fifty rang in my head all night. So, bong, the next day I went back to their block and I waited out there with the neighborhood, like an innocent bystander, and after all the police was gone and the neighborhood was quiet and the house was empty, I bought a flashlight from the corner store, broke into the house through the basement window, and don’t you know, this nigga really did have two trash bags filled with ones and fives. I swear to God, he had fifty thousand in two trash bags right next to some boxes. This was the thing, though, I had to go back out the window, ’cause I didn’t want to get caught going out the front door and I ain’t have nothing to put the money in.”

  “What did you do?” asked Nard, really into the story.

  “Went back out the fucking window.” He laughed, slapping high fives with Nard. “I took the two trash bags and threw them on my back, baby, and walked down the street with my nine in my hoodie so if I had to pop the fuck off, I’d be ready, and I got in my car, fifty thousand dollars richer. You know, Poncho had a stash in our moms house, and she gave everybody a little piece, but that wasn’t nothing. Once I got that fifty out that basement, I went to Simon Shuller and the nigga put me on.”