by Lamar Giles
Lil’ Redu plopped on the nearest seat, and scrolled through an extensive on-screen movie library. “What y’all haters want?”
Really. Dude was like Jekyll and Hyde.
Fuse popped him across the back of the head. “Use our names. And we’ll use yours. Reggie.”
While he growled at her, I gently removed the remote from his hand, undividing his attention. “The older man. He’s Redu and you’re Redu. How is that?”
“Reginald. DuPree.” He patted his chest. “The Third.”
Fuse said, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
“He’s my grandpa. He doesn’t know about me rapping, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Fuse was giddy on this. “You mean fake rapping! I knew you weren’t street.”
“I am street.”
“Wall Street?”
One of the dining room servers poked her head in. “Mr. DuPree, would you and your guests like popcorn? We have regular and caramel.”
“Caramel. Thank you.”
The server disappeared while Fuse laughed into the back of her hand. It wasn’t funny to me. “The stuff you rap about, slinging, gangsters. There are people who really live that life. Some have to live that life. You’re okay taking their stories and pretending they’re yours. How?”
He sat forward, indignant. “My money real. One hundred percent. That’s all people really care about.”
Fuse was on her phone, googling. “Ah yes. Got it. Reginald DuPree the First, partner in Saunders, Vivendi, and DuPree, Attorneys-at-Law.”
“Vivendi?” Visions of a stout, angry man screaming and pointing at me through my TV screen while horrific car accidents spooled behind him came to me. “Vito ‘the Sledgehammer’ Vivendi? The personal injury guy with twenty commercials a day?”
“He’s part of the firm, but no one likes to claim him. Too gaudy.”
Fuse said, “About as gaudy as a gold grill and face tattoo of a tiger’s mouth, right. Let’s get to it. When you threw your little studio tantrums, you threatened to kill ParSec. Nobody believed you, but she’s dead anyway. So we gotta ask. How invested were you in this whole gangster image?”
His face twisted, lips spread showing spit-slick teeth, some approximation of the eternally tough scowl he wore in his videos. “You two got to be messing with me. You’re trying to say I offed her.”
I said, “Maybe all the murder you rap about is as real as your money?”
From me, to Fuse, to me, his gaze bounced. His face smoothed, no longer acting or amused. “I didn’t kill anybody. Yes, I wanted my music back. She was holding my tracks because some dummy in that day’s entourage spilled sweet tea on the soundboard.”
Fuse said, “About that. Who were those people you’re always with? As fake as you are, you rolled with some intimidating folks.”
“I found them at the mall. I’d go in, wait for some people to recognize me. Then ask if they wanted to hang. All part of the costume.”
Fuse scrutinized that. “No one saw through you? I mean, besides me?”
“You bought it. They did too. All they saw was a credit card and free food.”
Fuse said, “So you were paying for studio time with your allowance?”
“Pretty much. Grandpa’s big on personal growth. So he gives me and my cousins an annual stipend to pursue stuff we want. So I used my fifty thousand to—”
“Fifty thousand!” I might’ve shouted. My voice went into a different register for sure. “You got fifty thousand dollars and used it to make garbage trap music.”
“Garbage? The world would disagree, string bean. I got eighty thousand followers on SoundCloud, two hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. You don’t even want to know what I’m doing on the Gram. My fans hold me down, and I don’t worry about fools. Like you.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Since you brought up your social media, worry about this: The night Paris died you were offline the entire time. No new pics, no new posts for a solid eight hours. We checked. The next time you posted, you were offering condolences plus some shade.” I held my phone like badge, the screenshot tweet on display.
Don’t Make Me Chin Check You @LilReduDaGod
Heard @DJParSec caught a bad one. Wack yo! Done lost too many in these streets. Know her fans gon miss her, tho. Somebody got to, I guess. #RIPParSec #ParSecNation
“I wasn’t being shady. Yes, I wanted my music. And no, we didn’t get along. I didn’t want her dead.”
Fuse said, “So why were you mysteriously absent from the internet at the time she was killed?”
He groaned and twisted to reach his own phone in his back pocket. He woke it, tapped open his Photos app, and swiped to an album called “Hello World.” Then said, “I was here at Bay Breeze that night.”
Fuse took the phone, held it so I could see too. A series of pictures flickered by. Redu—Reggie—in a classic tuxedo, with a pretty girl in a froufrou ball gown at his hip, their elbows interlocked. More pictures showed more black boys and girls in formal wear. In some pics, they lined up, as if being inspected. In others, spread out and caught mid-motion in some sort of group dance. We waited for his explanation.
“It’s my beautillion.”
I thought he’d stuttered. Our confusion must’ve a showed.
“It’s a ball, you classless scalawags. An introduction to society. Like a cotillion, but for guys. My granddad’s fraternity organizes it every year for the urban kids they mentor.”
“You’re not urban,” I said.
“My stipend doesn’t come free, whoever you are. Grandpa wanted me in it, so I participated, hung with the guys from time to time. They have some hard lives.”
“That you probably lifted for a track,” Fuse said.
“Judge my music all you want. That alibi is the same one the cops got. You can’t dispute it.”
At the top margin of each picture was a date and time taken. Learning what a clown he really was, I had no reason to think he’d doctored these somehow. No way he was anywhere near the warehouse with Paris.
“I would never have hurt ParSec because, for real, she made my stuff better. What you don’t know is we’d squashed that beef. No need for either of us to go into a new situation with baggage.”
“New situation?” I asked.
“We both signed new management deals with VenueShowZ. Messing with Paula Klein was counterproductive.”
I’d stopped listening after VenueShowZ.
Fuse said, “When and how did VenueShowZ approach you?”
“Maybe three months ago.”
“Who was your new manager going to be?”
He shook his head. “It don’t work like that. VSZ a big company. They have teams. The marketing team. The booking team. The travel arrangements team. You got a problem, it’s not one person’s problem, so no one’s ever more valuable than the other.”
“That sounds like the formula for incredible once-in-a-generation music, for sure,” Fuse said drolly.
“Some assistant put me on the phone with a guy and another guy. We emailed back and forth, I let one of the paralegals at Grandpa’s firms look over the paperwork. It wasn’t messy like dealing with sketch-queen Paula. I had money in the bank and show dates booked for the summer”—he snapped his fingers—“like that.”
“How’d they find you?”
“Assumed they knew about me because of ParSec, since they signed her first.”
“Did you mention that to the police?”
“Why? So they can mess up the deal?”
I couldn’t believe this guy. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“She’s gone. You don’t think she’d want one of us to go on and keep the music alive?”
Fuse slow-nodded. “Here’s your phone back.”
Reggie reached and she let the device fall off his fingertips a good two inches shy of his hand. It cartwheeled to the floor, smacked tile with a flinch-worthy crack.
“Yo!” He was on his knees, flipped it over. Th
e screen was black, with a spiderweb crack orbing out from its center. He mashed the wake button. Nothing. “It won’t even turn on.”
Fuse said, “Use your stipend to fix it. Let’s go, Kya.”
With that, we left. Destroying a bit of that poser’s property was only a small consolation. We sat in the car but didn’t move. Where was there to go when we’d reached another dead end?
“This mean we’re back to Paula?” I asked.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She tapped her own phone screen.
“What you doing now?”
“Give me one second.” She jabbed her tongue from the corner of her mouth, like a painter deciding the right color and stroke for a troublesome work in progress. Then she tapped some more. This went on for two silent minutes, then she chuckled and poked the screen with one final tap. “Check this.”
She showed me a tweet. Before I’d read the whole thing I was grinning.
“His phone’s broken,” Fuse said. “No notifications. He’s going to be so surprised by how much the true Lil’ Redu fans love him.”
Fuse Is Determined @FuseZilla14
People saying @LilReduDaGod is throwing a pool party at Bay Breeze Country Club. Free to all #ReDuvenators. Ask for Reggie at the door. #popupparty #RIPParSec
It was at fifty-four likes and thirty-two retweets when I passed it back to her. Unless he could change into his costume like Superman, Lil’ Redu’s getting exposed.
Our consolation just got bigger.
Fuse thumbed the engine start button and took us off the swank country club’s property. We rode high in the moment. Didn’t notice the car tailing us until its emergency lights flared and we heard the siren.
Hidden lights flashed behind the grill of the unmarked police car. The sun backlit it, all we saw was alternating red-blue, red-blue. Like lewd winks from a creeper you didn’t want to be left alone with. It sped up, tailgating. Close enough that if I slammed on my brakes, there was no way it wouldn’t slam into us. Riding my bumper, almost connected, it hit the siren again. A short burst—whoop-whoop—that translated to pull over.
I rarely drove with both hands, but I went to the driver’s manual mandated ten o’clock–two o’clock involuntarily, my eyes darting from the road to mirror. Kya’s hands went flat on the dashboard. She was as still as those passenger dummies solo drivers used to cheat the HOV lane.
We’d been searching for the person who killed our friend. Searching for a legit murderer. Through the entire ordeal—the Dark Nation, Shameik, Paula, and Redu—I wasn’t as scared as now. “Where should I pull over?”
If was never on the table. I wanted to drive to Dad’s office, park in the lot, and call him down to be with us. Then dragged the idea to the trash, imagining him bursting out of his building worked up and drawing a cop’s attention in the worst way.
“Ahead,” Kya said, “the gas station.”
Yes. That was the right answer, I’d have thought of it too if I wasn’t concerned with not swerving into a ditch. Apparently, Kya had gotten the same instruction I had. I doubt there were many black kids who didn’t.
Not after Sandra Bland. Not after Philando Castile.
Not after the dozen other names I could list from memory because they’d been seared there while me, Mom, and Dad watched the same news stories on different dates and in different states.
Black person dead because cop got scared. Or angry. Or felt disrespected.
I turned into the lot and parked in an empty space on the side of the station. It wasn’t crowded. The only other person present was a white man at the pump, filling his pickup truck. He left the pump on automatic and leaned against his truck, stared our way as if watching a show. The prominently flown Confederate flag in the truck bed got me thinking we’d picked the wrong gas station.
The unmarked car parked at an angle behind us. Blocking us in the space.
Kya freed her phone from her back pocket and started recording. She pointed the camera at me, spoke crisp and loud. “I’m Kya Caine, and I’m with Fatima Fallon. We’ve been pulled over by an Ocean Shore police officer in an unmarked vehicle for reasons unknown. I will continue to record the stop to its conclusion, and if this recording is interrupted in any way, it is not voluntary.”
Staring straight ahead, hands in plain sight, the only movement I dared make was another glance at my rearview mirror. I heard the cop’s door open, caught his midsection in the mirror—plain white button-up, dark slacks, a huge pistol on his hip. My grip tightened, threatening to tear the steering wheel off its column.
Kya was sideways in her seat, going for the best shot. Her shoulders dropped, relaxed. Relieved. “Oh.”
Oh?
My side mirror offered a better, full-body view of the approaching officer. His hands were raised, far away from his gun. In one he gripped his badge, its golden glow magnified by the sun. “Kya, Fatima. It’s Detective Barker. Don’t be afraid, girls.”
I didn’t release the wheel, though my grip relaxed. “Detective.”
He stood at my window, blocking the light. “I need to talk to you two. Not here.”
Kya said, “What’s going on, Detective?”
“Oh, I think you have a strong inkling. If you don’t mind, let’s do this over lunch. I’m going to get in my car, and I want you to follow me. Are we clear?”
Neither of us answered quickly.
“You could run,” he admitted. “But I know where each of you live, so let’s just keep this cordial.” He took a step toward his vehicle, then returned. “Kya, you shooting all this right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You kept recording? Even after you knew who I was and I told you not to be afraid?”
Kya was defiant. “Yes, sir.”
He tapped my doorframe lightly. “Good girl.”
We followed the detective to a place called Evangeline’s Kitchen, where he got us a corner booth close to the window and away from the other lunchtime diners. He let us order what we wanted, did most of the talking between bites of his patty melt.
“Let me tell you what I know so far,” he said. “You two have been reinterviewing persons of interest in Paris Secord’s murder. You’ve been running into dead ends. Whatever trail you pick up stops cold. How close am I?”
We were in so much trouble. Kya wouldn’t look up from her pecan waffle.
Barker chomped more sandwich. “You don’t have to answer that one. I understand if you’re feeling queasy about all this. My next question I’m going to have to insist you answer. Have you two lost your minds?”
“No,” Kya said, frowny and mean.
Barker peered at me.
I said, “Someone’s got to do something.”
“Someone is doing something. The police.”
I laughed. Didn’t mean to and promptly said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I mean I’m sorry we’re not sitting on our hands and trusting this to you. We know who the police prioritize, and ParSec was no Adelaide Milton.”
Kya jumped in. “It’s been almost a month, Detective. We’ve heard nothing about any new leads, or suspects, or anything.”
“Girls. I want you to think about what I’m going to say really hard. Why would you hear anything? Seriously? You’re high school kids. It’s routine for us not to go blasting every detail of an investigation for the world to see. Like that Reggie DuPree kid you dropped in on—I’m guessing he told you about his beautillion. Rock-solid alibi we knew about weeks ago. I guess our mistake was not posting it on Twitter and tagging you, right?”
Kya leaned forward, matching his intensity. “How did you know we were at Bay Breeze?”
“You led me there. Last we spoke you’d acted so strange, I became concerned. I swung by your school one day and saw you leave with this one.” He pointed at me. “Considering the last time you two were together in my presence it was a UFC fight, I found the whole thing curious. I’ve kept an eye on you, off and on.”
Kya
squirmed. I made myself not squirm. What did off and on mean? Did he know about the secret apartment at the Savant? It got worse.
“Tell me about ParSec Nation,” he said.
My appetite vanished.
“Let me elaborate. Tell me more about the kooky online fan base that was more than obsessed with your friend and known to pull sometimes violent pranks when they didn’t get what they wanted.”
I said, “You don’t think—”
“I think a lot of things, Fatima. The idea that an obsessive personality in a horror movie mask dropped in on your pal and acted erratically is something I think about often. Particularly once we ruled out the most obvious people closest to Paris.”
“They’re unstable and stable,” Kya said.
“What’s that even mean?”
“You shouldn’t lump them all together. It’s not fair. ParSec Nation is like any other group, anywhere. Some are well-meaning, casual listeners. Some take it too far, the ones who do call themselves the Dark Nation. We don’t know much about those more extreme members. Do we, Fuse?”
“Nope.”
It was mostly true. We only knew Florian, and she was a straight-up coward without her mask and muscle. The last thing I wanted was police blindly coming down on Paris’s fans with nothing to go on other than their use of a hashtag. If the police had something there, they wouldn’t need us to start a witch hunt.
Barker sat the last third of the sandwich on his plate. “I hope you’re telling me the truth. You’re only making it more likely we never get to the bottom of this thing if you’re not.”
Kya got bold. “Have you searched Paris’s place?”
“Yes. We were made aware of the apartment by Paula Klein early on. I hope you haven’t been there, since there’s an evidence seal on the door. That’s a crime, girls.”
“No, we haven’t been to that place at all.” Kya was 100 percent honest. We hadn’t been to that place. Now we knew he was unaware of the Savant.
“Why shake us down now, Detective?” I said.