by Carl Weber
“I . . . I’m good. How are you?” I tried to catch my breath.
Back in the early days when Sam ran the place, Eric was his best friend and my best customer. He lived in Atlanta, but he’d come down every weekend up until a few years ago. Sam told me he stopped because he got married and his wife didn’t like him hanging out with a pimp; however, they still hung out when Sam made his bi-monthly trips to Atlanta. I hadn’t seen Eric in so long that he had become a memory in the back of my mind until now.
“I’m good. Been thinking about you ever since I saw you at Juan’s wedding last month.”
That surprised me. I had no idea he was there. But then again, there was a big crowd there, and I pretty much stayed by Levi’s side all night. “You was at the wedding? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I kept my distance because you was with some giant ass motherfucker who must have been seven foot tall.”
I laughed. “Oh, that was just Levi. He might look scary, but he’s a pussy cat.”
“Well, anyway, I figured I’d stop by on my way to Jacksonville. Come see if the prettiest girl in South Georgia still worked here,” he said as he took a seat beside me. “And now I’m glad I did.”
“Prettiest girl in south Georgia? You always were a smooth talker, Eric,” I said with a smile. “You make lies sound like the truth, and I appreciate it.”
“It’s not a lie. I do think you’re the prettiest girl in south Georgia. That’s why I’m here.” He held up two fingers toward Moe, who poured us a round of drinks. “Seriously, you’re looking good, Shirley. Fine as ever.”
I turned away slightly, trying to hide the scar on my face, which I was sure was the first thing he’d noticed when he saw me. “Another lie. I’ve had a couple of rough run-ins, as I’m sure you can see.”
“You’re still looking like the same beautiful Shirley to me. Run-ins or not, that ain’t changed.” He touched my cheek, and a shiver went down my spine. It might sound like a funny thing to say about a paying customer, but he had always touched my spirit and brought out the woman in me.
“Can I take you upstairs?” he asked.
I let out a long exhale as I took this man in. He was well dressed, well spoken, and smelling good. I had often wondered why he always seemed to ask for me. Although I was good at my job, I wasn’t naive to the fact that there were younger, prettier, skinnier girls than me. And when we would go upstairs, he never treated me like a whore. He would talk with me and make me laugh. I almost felt bad for charging him, because in addition to having some good-ass dick, Eric got off on pleasing me with his mouth, something men rarely did when they came to see me.
“Shirley, did you hear me?”
“Yes . . . Well, I . . . That’s not what I . . . I don’t really do that kinda work anymore, Eric,” I said.
“I’m not just any customer. Money ain’t an object.” Eric reached for his pocket like he was going to pull out his cash, but I stopped his hand.
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m no longer working.”
“Well, what are you doing here then? I gotta have some time with you, Shirley. You know that’s why I came here.”
“Didn’t you see the sign out front? I’m the boss now. This is Big Shirley’s place. I run things,” I said with pride.
He leaned back with a look of amused surprise on his face. “Well, I’ll be damned! Congratulations, Shirley.” The way he said it let me know that he really meant it, and I felt a surge of happiness that I hadn’t felt in God knows how long.
“Thank you. So, that’s why I said I don’t really—”
“I get it,” he said. “No need to explain.”
We dropped that subject then sat together for a while, talking and laughing like old times. For a second, I thought about telling him I had a man in my life, but ultimately, I didn’t divulge that information, nor did I mention the baby I was carrying. It felt good to have someone paying me compliments the way he was, and I knew if I told him about Levi, it would put a stop to it. I figured that as long as I didn’t have any intention of acting on it, what was the harm in sitting there and soaking up his admiration for a while?
Then he decided to get serious again.
“Shirley, we really can’t go upstairs? You don’t even have special customers?”
“No, I don’t have special customers. I’m sorry. I just don’t. I can get another girl for you. I’ll get someone real special. I know what you like.... Dana, come over here!” I yelled over the music and called one of my best girls, who was sitting across the room. She was a thick girl, like I was, with full breasts and wide hips.
“That’s not what I was getting at, Shirley.” Eric grabbed me by the arm and stared at me. “I just wanted to make sure before I ask you . . .”
“What?” I said. He was so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“I don’t see any rings on your finger, so how about we go out on a date?”
“A what?” I frowned.
“Can I take you out? We can go to dinner, maybe check out a movie if you’d like. When was the last time you went on a real date, Shirley?”
A date. A real date. I had never been on a real date. I had been fucking for money since the age of seventeen, and no one had ever asked me out. Hell, I’d been with Levi for almost four years, and we’d never gone on a date. Now, here was this tall, dark, and handsome man, asking to take me out. I didn’t know what to say.
“I . . . uh . . .” I eased away from him, hoping that taking a step back and not having him touch me would help me think clearer. My heart continued racing, and my nerves caused my stomach to flip.
That’s not your nerves, fool. That’s your baby. Levi’s baby. Levi Duncan’s baby. And if Levi or any other Duncan finds out you went on a date with another man, you’re gonna end up just as dead as their momma.
Eric pressed on as I fought internally with my conscience. “Come on, Shirley. I can pick you up tomorrow night at seven.” He flashed a sexy smile. “I been wanting to take you on a date for a long time.”
I thought about a proper answer; how I needed to tell him that I couldn’t go because I had a man and a baby on the way; how as much as I would love going to dinner and a movie, I just couldn’t. It wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I stared at all six feet three inches of him, with his smooth chocolate skin and perfect teeth, dressed like he had stepped out of the Ebony magazines I read when I was in my office sometimes. This was a dream come true and a nightmare all at the same time. I had to say no.
I closed my eyes and told myself to respectfully decline his offer, but as I opened my mouth, the words came tumbling out before I could stop them. “Sure. Why not? I’d love to.”
Bettie
27
“Are you hungry?” I asked Lisa. We had been in the same room for a week now, and I had been trying to nurse her as best I could. The physical bruises were healing, but the ones I was most concerned about were the ones on the inside. I knew the young girl had been beaten and raped repeatedly to the point that she wanted to die. I had only been in this hell for a few weeks. To know that she had survived for a year showed me that she was a much stronger young woman than she thought she was. Until she could believe in herself again, I was determined to fight for both of our lives.
Lisa mumbled something in response to my question and shook her head, then lay back down in the corner of the room. She had barely eaten anything in the past few days.
“Hey.” I crawled over to her and held out a slice of cheese that had been tossed into the room along with a few slices of bread a little while earlier. “You’ve gotta at least eat a little bit. We gotta get your strength up and get you well.”
She looked at me with her eyes full of sadness. “Why? So I can be full of energy the next time he rapes me? No, thank you, I’d rather be dead.”
“I’m not gonna let that happen again. I’m gonna protect you,” I assured her, pulling her to sit up. “You can’t protect me. You can’
t even protect yourself. They beat you too.”
“You’re right, they do beat on me.” I sighed. “But you’re in here with me now. You ain’t alone.”
For a split second, Lisa looked over at me with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. I smiled at her, and she took the cheese from my hand. She winced as she bit it and chewed.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie.” I watched her take another bite as I asked, “So why are you here? Why have they been holding you for so long?” I passed her the cup of water that I had saved for her, and she drank from the metal cup.
“Have you ever heard of J. Michael Miller?” she asked.
I nodded. I used to know the crooked son of a bitch. “Yeah, every black person in Georgia knows who J. Michael Miller is. He’s big time.”
“Well, he’s my father, and he’s not quite as big time as you think.”
This information shocked the hell out of me. The J. Michael Miller I knew would have tore up the state to find his daughter.
“Not big time? Doesn’t he own Georgia Star?” I asked.
“On paper, maybe, but he was in so much debt to the Georgia underworld that he gave me to them as collateral.”
My stomach dropped. That was about the worst thing I had ever heard. “Get the fuck outta here. What kind of a father does that?”
“Well, I can’t blame it all on him,” she said with a sigh. “When those men came to the house with guns to kill my daddy, I told them to take me until he could pay them back.”
I straightened up. “That’s admirable.” And a little crazy, I wanted to say.
“No, it wasn’t. It was stupid. I should have let them kill him after what he’s let them put me through.” She was starting to cry, and this time it was because of even deeper wounds. “For the first few months, they had me living in a condo over in Buckhead. They let me go shopping, took me out to a couple of clubs. They treated me good. That is until dear old Dad decided to play games with their payments.”
“Oh, no he didn’t!”
She nodded. “Oh, yes he did, and that’s when they threw me down here. But that’s not the worst of it. He really must have pissed them off about three months ago, because that’s when the rapes started.”
“Does he know what they’re doing to you?” My own eyes were welling up with tears after hearing this story.
“They take Polaroid pictures of me once a month and send them to him and my mom to remind them to make their payments. I should have been out of here after a year, but he’s screwed up the payments so bad that the guy who takes the pictures said it’s going to be at least another nine, ten months.”
“Damn, that’s fucked up. I’m sorry.” My words were inadequate, but I had no idea what else to say to someone whose family had betrayed her so badly.
“It’s okay. I just try not to think about it.” She took one last sip of water and laid her head down. “I probably won’t be alive in nine or ten months.”
Donna
28
“Donna?”
“Yeah?” I looked up and saw Eddie frowning as if he could read my mind. Thank God he couldn’t, or else he’d probably want to kill me. I was thinking about Lou. As big of a pain in my ass as he was, he was starting to grow on me. Not that I even understood what that meant. I just knew I was thinking and worrying about him a lot.
“Pay attention. You’re the one who said you wanted to understand my world.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I gave him a fake smile then turned my gaze to the big house we were parked diagonally across from. Eddie had decided to take me out with him to show me what he did for a living. Believe it or not, he’d shocked the hell out of me by proposing with a big-ass ring the night before. I hadn’t even done more than let him kiss me a few times, yet he actually got down on one knee and said he wanted to marry me. Of course, you know I said no, coming up with the excuse that I couldn’t marry a man if I didn’t know everything about him and how he was going to provide for me. Well, that prompted him to pick me up from work and drive over here. “But we’ve been out here two hours just staring at an empty house.”
“It’s not empty.” He pointed at the side door, where a woman in what looked like a maid’s uniform was placing a bag in a garbage can. She began dragging it down the driveway. “In my line of work, you have to be patient.”
We watched the woman place the garbage can at the curb and walk back up the driveway and into the house. The second the door closed, Eddie hit the gas, pulling up next to the trash can. He hopped out of the car, popped open the trunk, and placed the entire garbage can in it. Five seconds later, he was back in the car and we’d sped off.
“Mission accomplished,” he hollered.
“So you steal garbage cans for a living?” I asked sarcastically.
“Well, no . . . but yes. Well, sometimes,” he replied, sounding crazy as hell. “Stealing garbage can be part of the job in my line of work.”
I was starting to think Eddie really was nuts. “What exactly is your line of work, Eddie?”
“Information.” He said it proudly. “People will pay a lot of money for information, Donna. Now, take that house I just took that garbage can from. That’s the house of Dwayne McCarty, an influential man looking to run for congress. His opponents are a little afraid of him because he comes from money and his father used to hold the seat, so they’ve hired me to find out as much as I can about him.”
“What’s his garbage got to do with it?” I asked, and Eddie laughed.
“You ever think about the things people throw away in their garbage?”
“Yeah, and they are disgusting.” The things I put in my own garbage can made me cringe, so thinking about going through someone else’s made me want to hurl.
“Some of them are nasty, but what about the other things, like credit card bills, phone bills, medication bottles, letters, notes? You can find out a whole lot about people by looking through their trash. Trust me.”
I considered what he’d said for a minute. It actually made a lot of sense. It also was a good opening for me to try to pry more useful information out of him. After all, that’s why I was spending so much time with this cretin: to get information for Lou.
“So, is that why you’ve been avoiding Lou Duncan? Did you go through his trash?” I laughed, hoping to make it sound humorous and not like I was prying.
“No, Lou wanted information about his momma. He paid good money for it, too, only the people who are involved in her abduction aren’t the type I wanted to cross.” Whoever these people were, they were clearly no joke. I could hear the fear in Eddie’s voice. “So, at their suggestion, I returned his money. I’m sure he wants to kill me, but there are worse things than death.”
“These sound like some scary folks.”
“They are about as scary as they come in this part of the country. But I been getting a lot of work from them since. They’re the ones paying me to get the information on Dwayne McCarty and a whole slew of others.”
“My God! Who are these people?” For a second I thought I was close to getting some truly valuable information for Lou, but Eddie dashed those hopes real quick.
He shook his head. “Nobody. Forget I even said anything about them. I forgot you had history with the Duncan boys. Running my mouth like this could get us both killed.”
I knew I had to be very careful about how I handled this moment, but I still felt like I was on the verge of getting what I needed as long as I didn’t blow it. Eddie may have had the manners of a barbarian, but he wasn’t a dummy. I had to play it cool.
“I don’t give a fuck about them. I’m more concerned about you and your safety,” I said, appealing to his ego.
I reached for the radio and turned the volume down then grabbed Eddie’s hand. He seemed surprised by my actions, because I never initiated any type of physical contact with him. When he looked over at me, I stared at him intensely and licked my lips slightly before speaking.
“Listen, Eddie, you know that I am starting to have feelings for you. But it’s moments like this that show me that maybe you don’t feel the same way.”
“What the hell does that mean? You know I have feelings for you. I take you out every week. I buy you whatever you want, take you to the nicest restaurants . . . Shit, I gave you a ring. Doesn’t that prove how I feel?”
I shook my head. “You did that because you wanna fuck me, Eddie. Come on now. That doesn’t have shit to do with how you feel about me. Here I am asking you about what’s going on with you, and you’re acting as if you can’t trust me. If you were digging me like you say you do, you would be able to tell me.” I gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Shoot, I was almost ready to give myself to you, but if you don’t even trust me, then I don’t know.”
Eddie sat back and stared at me. “You really digging me, Donna?”
I nodded.
“Does this mean you’re ready to give me some of that sweet thang you been holding on to?” His expression was serious.
“When you show me that I can trust you and you trust me, you can have all the sweetness you can handle. But I don’t think we’re at that point yet, Eddie. I thought we were, but—”
“I trust you, Donna.” Eddie inhaled deeply and remained quiet for a few seconds, his eyes focused on the road.
“Then tell me what’s going on. LC used to tell me everything.” I was hoping that would get in his craw and his ego would force him to tell me what I needed to know, but something else seemed to be more important than what I had to say.
“Shit!” He kept looking to the rearview mirror.
“Oh my God, is someone following us?” I glanced back and saw that there was someone close behind us with their high beams on.
“Just stay calm and let me handle this.” He opened the glove box and retrieved a pistol, tucking it into his pants.
“What are you going to do?”
Eddie didn’t answer the question. He turned into the parking lot of a corner store and parked. The car that had been behind us, an older model green Cadillac, parked right beside us. Inside was a scary-looking man, smoking a cigarette and looking anxious.