Velvet Mafia

by Lydia L Watts

  “That’s a serious accusation, Dr. Rhodes,” said someone from the crowd.

  “It’s not an accusation. All one has to do is look at the CDC’s financial portfolio prior to the advent of AIDS. It was on the verge of being downsized.

  “Once AIDS was characterized as a single contagious disease, the biomedical establishment took note. Having failed to find a viral cause for cancer, these disease hunters needed a new disease and AIDS was it. In addition, with the growing number of gay men dying, not only did the virus hunters have a new disease, they also had a new population and a brand-new economic engine.”

  Dr. Rhodes continued, “Now to some, what I’m saying sounds absurd. But we know what governments are capable of. We have seen how far they will go for science, and we also know that science, even junk science, can be a cash cow. My main contention is that if we do not thoroughly review and vet the work we do as scientists, then we are not scientists at all; we are simply self-indulgent common criminals. Without regulation, we are nothing more than a carbon copy of the Wall Street boys who bankrupted middle-class America simply because they could.

  “For example, when the HIV/AIDS connection was first made, no proof was offered. No scientific paper had been published, reviewed or critiqued to support the claim that there was a causal relationship between HIV and AIDS. And the consequence of this failed scientific tradition placed our government in the position to allow pharmaceutical companies to replace scientific inquiry for the sake of profits. The companies became world experts without quantifiable truth and as the world’s experts, they controlled everything.”

  The crowd stood as one and started a round of applause that filled the whole room and seemed to last a lifetime before it began to die down.

  “With that, I think I have said enough. I want to thank you for your interest in seeking out the truth.”

  People in the packed room began to move around. Teddy was amazed at the energy there and like so many others wanting to meet Dr. Rhodes, she found herself interested too. As she attempted to move through the crowd toward him, much to her surprise, directly across from her over in the far corner stood none other than Isabella. Teddy couldn’t believe it. For the first time, Isabella had lied to her and she wanted to know why.

  As Teddy began to make her way over to Isabella, she saw Dr. Rhodes walking directly to her lover and watched them embrace. Now feeling even more confused, she tried to exit the ballroom but was stopped by a young man.

  “Ms. Alexander?”

  “Yes?”

  “I was sent over here to ask you to join your partner and Dr. Rhodes for dinner.”

  Feeling somewhat ashamed, Teddy turned to see the smile she was so accustomed to, and realized there was no need to feel insecure. Isabella looked radiant and Teddy could see she was really happy to see her, despite her own awkwardness. Only moments before, her mind had led her to believe there had been a breach in their trust. Now Teddy could feel how wrong she had been.

  “Hey, sweetie! Imagine my surprise seeing you here,” Isabella said, as she continued to smile from ear to ear. “Basil, allow me to introduce my partner, Teddy Alexander.”

  “So this is the Teddy you have been writing me about,” Basil responded. “I feel as if I already know you. Bella is constantly telling me about her great love and now I can see why.”

  “Be quiet, Basil,” Isabella said as she gently hit his arm. “I warned you there is more to this beauty than what meets the eye.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Basil said as he reached over to kiss Teddy on the cheek while at the same time, clearly marveling at Teddy’s unique and exotic beauty. “It’s all my pleasure, young lady.”

  For hours, the three sat and enjoyed each other’s company. It was obvious that Isabella and Rhodes were fond of each other and had tremendous respect for the work they were each doing. Even so, when it came to whether HIV was the cause of AIDS, they were polar opposites. Teddy sat intrigued as she listened to her lover and Dr. Rhodes banter back and forth about the topic. On several occasions she wanted to jump in but didn’t. Rhodes offered a perspective she had never before heard and she wanted more.

  It had been 9:30 last night when Lance got off the phone with Teddy. He’d been drinking so their conversation hadn’t gone too well. Of course, the last time they’d been together, Lance had knocked her out and left her on the ground in the park. This time, on the phone, he just listened. He didn’t say anything. Yet, even with the distance between them, he could feel the anger well up inside. All he wanted to do was knock her out again.

  For days Lance had been drinking. Unable truly to comprehend the amount of misery that lay heavy on his heart, he was falling rapidly into a depressive state. Violent thoughts about his wife and Agent Alexander consumed his every waking moment. Though he did not know definitively that Kennedy had cheated, he was convinced she had, and even more convinced she had done so with Alexander.

  Once drunk, he would rant and rave about the betrayal and what he was going to do. He was wounded and with every breath, the pain severed another emotional artery, causing him to bleed out. Then he would end up in a drunken stupor.

  This had become a ritual for Lance. He would wake up, go to work, return home and drink himself into another magnificent coma. The next day, the ritual would start all over again.

  However, on this particular morning, things felt different. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what exactly it was, but he knew something within him had changed. He was no longer interested in drowning his pain through self-induced asphyxiation. He was now determined to get to the bottom of the events that had changed his life, and he knew the first thing on his agenda had to be to stop his own self-created psychosis.

  It was in this new state of mind that he began to rethink his conversation with Alexander. Now Lance knew his only choice, if he wanted answers, was to join forces with her. He also knew that once on board, he had to be prepared for the unexpected. So it was time for him to use his own skills to navigate his next course of action and the first thing on his agenda was to find out everything he could on Alex-ander. He had to know all there was to know about her in order for him to get control.

  It had been some time since Lance had actually sat at his desk in the den and based on what he could see and the stench that emanated from every room, he needed to begin by cleaning up the wreckage of his recent past. In other words, his home was a mess and it smelled something awful. Since Kennedy’s kidnapping, Lance had basically left the house the way he’d found it. Even Lulu’s bloodstain lay untouched.

  Cleaning up the home he shared with Kennedy was hard. Every time he ran across an item of hers, he cried, always wondering what he could have done differently to prevent the rift between them, the be-trayal, and the loss of the trust they had once shared. And dealing with his emotions sober made the pain even worse.

  In an effort to fight back his feelings, Lance turned on the CD player. He needed a distraction from the chaos in his mind. His own music taste was somewhat old-fashioned but Kennedy loved everything from R&B mixed with jazz, classic rock, neo soul, gospel and even soft country rock. The CD player randomly selected songs but one in particular caught his attention. He must have heard the song a million times, but today, he found himself listening to the words for the first time.

  As Lance continued to pick up around the house, he was drawn to those words. It was as if the song had been plucked out of the sky just for him. He couldn’t believe that the music he was listening to was speaking directly to him at that moment. Could there really be hope? Could he really find peace again, as the song suggested? Not willing to go back into the world he was just beginning to crawl out of, he fought off his tears. He continued to pick things up and put them in their proper places — at least, what he thought were their proper places — but the music and the words were commanding his attention. Something unrelated to his intellect had captivated him.

  What was it? Why was he suddenly drawn to this song? And how was it th
at the song so poetically spoke to how he was feeling? He could no longer avoid the internal magnetism the song had on his emotions, so Lance quietly sat down on the old couch in his den and allowed himself to listen intently to the words that had now touched his soul.

  As he listened, he noticed a picture of Kennedy and him taken when times had seemed much better. We were happy.

  They had never argued and when they did have disagreements, they seemed to settle them with little fanfare. Not only were they in love, they were friends. But now things were different. His friend had betrayed his trust and entered into a relationship with someone else, causing the marriage to be no more. As he pondered how his life had changed, he began to shake. The more he heard the lyrics, everything got tighter and tighter, including the labor of his breath. Now he stood, hands closed in fist formation and tears rolling down his face, and realized God was the object of his anger.

  “Why did you let this happen?” he yelled as he fell to his knees and buried his face in the bloodstained carpet. “If you exist, answer me, damn it!”

  Head down, Lance waited for a response, but the silence confirmed what his unstable mind had assumed: God did not exist. God was a figment of someone else’s imagination, not his. In fact, he didn’t understand why he was even wasting his time listening to a song that professed God’s everlasting love. Not only was God a fallacy, so had been his relationship with Kennedy.

  As his anger became more present, he turned off the music and went to the kitchen to find the half bottle of scotch he had sworn off just hours before. He knew the only way he would be able to forget the betrayal that haunted him would be to bury himself in a spirit he could see … the one that flowed effortlessly from the bottle in his hand.

  For what seemed like forever, Kennedy had to bear Lance’s anger. During each of his drunken episodes, Lance called her every foul name under the sun. It was clear he knew she had betrayed their relationship. As Kennedy clapped her hands over her ears in order to protect herself from another verbal assault, she was having a hard time believing Lance had become an emotional batterer. She felt a revulsion so pro-found, her pain was now bottomless.

  Every day, Lance kept up his assault, not knowing that Kennedy was being forced to listen. To Kennedy, Lance’s words felt as if she were being flogged daily, and they left her bleeding from severe lacerations. His language cut so deep that if words alone could cause physical injury, bone would have been exposed.

  Kennedy’s days of captivity were no longer counted. She found no use in knowing how long she had been stuck in her own nightmare. As in the movie Groundhog Day, her days played over and over and over again. Every morning she would wake up hearing Lance throwing something against the wall or falling down and crashing to the floor. And if it wasn’t Lance she woke up to, it was her captors who seemed to delight in their own sense of cruel and unusual punishment. She was reminded constantly that she was a prisoner of war. She just didn’t know the reason for the conflict nor the identity of her enemy.

  But then something changed. On this particular morning, things were different. Lance was sober and he was listening to gospel music, something he had never showed any interest in. Until now.

  Hearing the music playing was confusing, especially considering the fact that she knew Lance did not believe in God. Whenever she had tried to broach the subject with him, he would either patronize her faith or ignore her gestures. As she began to fall into her captivity’s routine — flipping through the pages of men’s magazines that looked as if they had been used as props for a sperm donor service, sleeping on a bed that was simply gross, and crying and praying for someone to rescue her — Kennedy could not believe that Lance was playing her favorite song, “Everlasting Love,” by CeCe Winans. She loved the song and hearing it made her feel a sense of comfort. Lance could have chosen anything to play, but he had chosen “Everlasting Love,” the song she turned to in times of sadness and trouble. Listening to the song had always made her troubles go away and as it continued to play, she began to sing.

  Kennedy was definitely in the moment as she passionately sang out loud in her captors’ cave. She could feel God’s love ministering to her through the music … the type of love that made you want to give thanks for another day … the kind of love that made you feel connected to and thankful for your relationship with Jesus. Just as Kennedy began to accept the peace that for so long had evaded her, the song abruptly ended and based on the noise and ruckus that now emanated from her home, she could tell Lance had again lost his faith.

  Moments earlier she had been hopeful, but now her hope no longer shined. She could tell Lance was drinking again and in an instant, Lance’s brokenness became hers, leaving her incapacitated as a result of his injuries.

  The arrest of Hilario Cruz, Councilman Grey Jeffries’s chief of staff, still had the entire District buzzing. Once again, the District’s drama had become national news and everybody was on pins and needles. Rumors were now front-page news. The mayor hadn’t been dead a month when the District had been rocked with Cruz’s arrest and the possibility that Jeffries would be indicted. Many in the District be-lieved that where there were half-truths, the full truth was not too far behind.

  Rumors, especially about a high-ranking official, were believed to be a diversion, great for distracting the public, and creating collateral damage was just part of the game. Once an official was considered to be damaged goods, the future of the person or their legacy would always be under suspicion. In the District, starting rumors and innuendoes forced the alleged party to either defend or remain mute. The strategy was impregnable.

  Many Washingtonians knew the majority of DC journalists had stopped doing investigative journalism. Instead, they lay in wait for the inevitable stories and the rewards that came with character assassina-tion, knowing they, as well as their “sources,” were protected by the First Amendment. And the few journalists who actually believed in journalistic integrity went unnoticed by the mainstream press. So the arrest of Councilman Jeffries’s chief of staff meant it would be only a matter of time before all the pieces would come together.

  Despite his continued denial of knowledge of any of Cruz’s activities, Jeffries was unmistakably disturbed by the arrest of his number one confidante. Cruz knew everything and everything wasn’t all good. So, to protect his secrets, Jeffries needed an inside edge. With a case like this, Cruz needed the best representation possible and in Jefferies’s mind, client-attorney privilege was based on who was paying the bill.

  Even with the seriousness of the allegations lodged against Cruz, Jeffries knew the timing of his arrest was suspect and that the only person capable of persuading the police to arrest and charge Cruz at the height of the mayoral transition was Guy Yeager. Yeager was the only man in the District with the swagger and the bravado to pull it off and he had vowed he would see Jeffries dead before he would see him as mayor. The arrest of Cruz had clearly been Yeager’s first move in the pernicious game of political posturing and sabotage.

  Since the unexpected visit from Blake Jones the day after the mayor’s murder, Yeager had been on edge. He knew Blake was a formidable opponent and he had to tread lightly. He also knew Blake had the picture, evidence no man should have had, especially if they were outside the Velvet Mafia.

  Yeager had first been introduced to the underground cult when he’d been in Missouri working on his undergraduate degree. He had been a young loudmouth who prided himself on his good looks and his intellect. Absent those, he was just another poor kid from Columbia, Missouri.

  As a kid, Guy had done anything he could to separate who he was from what he wanted to be. He’d been a poor kid raised in a trailer park, but his striking good looks had set him apart from the rest. Tall with a slender build, a head full of wavy black thick hair, and emerald green eyes, he was also smart, cunning — and gay. All of which he used well. Guy wanted more in life than what Columbia offered and he knew that, one day, he would reach a level that would make even his stronge
st enemies take precautions.

  Guy’s first break came when he was twenty-three years old. He had received a full academic scholarship to attend Cranberry University, about an hour’s drive outside Kansas City, and the most prestigious college for men in the Midwest. That’s where he met the young Devon Yancy Laurie, heir to the Clydesdale fortune.

  Guy recognized Devon immediately in the art history class they both were taking. Anyone looking in would not know Devon came from one of the wealthiest families in the world and was the sole heir to their fortune. Nothing about him suggested he was worth billions. But Guy was a master hunter, and he took pride in studying his conquests. From his professors to his lovers, he knew more about his ac-quisitions than they knew about him. If you were in Guy’s life on any level, you didn’t select him — he selected you.

  So when one day, Guy saw Devon was being bullied and needed help, he was willing to step in despite the immediate, most likely physical, consequences.

  “Hey,” Guy shouted. “What you boys up to?” He casually crossed the street to where the two young men had Devon cornered.

  “What’s it to you?” one of them replied. “We’re just having a little fun with our friend here.”

  “He doesn’t look like he’s having fun,” Guy retorted. “Are you okay?”

  Before Devon could answer, one of the youths punched him in the stomach. Unable to catch his breath, he fell to the ground.