“I went to Ghana to pick up and purchase some art work from my contacts there.” Portia grinned. “It was beautiful. The people are beautiful. We have to go there together. What? Did you miss me?”
“Yeah… somethin’ like that,” Mars said, smacking her on the butt.
She set the food on the living room’s huge, abstract-shaped, cracked-glass table and went out to the kitchen to get plates and silverware and flutes for the champagne she’d brought. Mars turned on SportsCenter and steeled himself for the evening ahead.
Portia returned to the living room, kicked off her Gucci heels, went over to the stereo, perused Mars’s carefully organized CD collection, and put on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew. Mars looked at her back as if she was losing her mind.
“Portia,” he said, “I’m watching the highlights of the game.”
“Yeah, yeah, sweetie,” Portia said quickly, turning down the volume on the television set, “and those highlights will be on at least three more times before the weekend is over. How can you possibly say no to Miles?”
She turned up the stereo volume, lit some freesia incense, and poured Mars a glass of champagne. Then she hiked up her skirt, sat down Indian-style on the floor at the cocktail table, and commenced to roll a joint from the ounce of premium, Indonesian marijuana she pulled from her purse.
“I brought you something back from my trip,” Portia said.
“Oh, yeah? Where is it?” Mars asked, his attention never leaving the basketball highlights.
“It’s a piece for your bedroom. You can pick it up from the gallery sometime next week or have the housekeeper or your secretary arrange to pick it up.”
“Thanks,” Mars said absently.
He gulped down his champagne, and then poured himself another. Portia took a deep drag on her joint, and then passed it up to Mars. He hit it and passed it back to her. He served himself a dish of the steamed broccoli and pan-fried dumplings she’d brought and dipped one of the dumplings into the spicy, Szechuan sauce. Portia put her head back on Mars’s knee and vibed to Miles Davis’s horn and the intricate rhythms of Bitches Brew. Mars popped a bit of dumpling into her mouth and she smiled at him as she started to get herself completely faded on the thick, pungent smoke of her joint and the expensive champagne.
“How’s work?” she asked.
“Fine,” Mars responded.
“You really should go ahead, take that leap of faith, and start your own firm,” Portia said. “You’ve talked about entertainment management and legal representation for too long. It’s time to put your plans into action.”
“Not yet,” Mars said. “I’m still doing some fine-tuning.”
Mars finished eating and poured himself a third glass of champagne. He had no idea why he was downing so much of the bubbly liquid so fast. Perhaps, subconsciously, his drinking was an escape tactic. He couldn’t be held totally accountable for whatever happened that night if he was drunk.
He knew that he should initiate dialogue with Portia as soon as possible that established some parameters between them. He had serious intentions of pursuing a relationship with Keshari Mitchell, despite the way that she had run out of his apartment, and he did not need Portia to be functioning on any mixed messages nor continuing to show up at his home uninvited. But, knowing Portia’s typical mode of operation on her surprise visits on nights like this one, the totally male part of him, his little head doing all of the thinking while his big head took a lunch, would not allow the logical, rational side of him to speak, to clear the air once and for all.
The next thing Mars knew, Portia was tugging down his Sean John sweats and Calvin Klein underwear. She took his manhood into her mouth before he could utter a single word. The only sound that he could muster was a deep groan. She caressed and teased his male part with her tongue until he was as hard as solid rock. He reached for her and she stood up, shedding expensive, designer garments like leaves from a tree in fall.
Her body was the perfection of an African goddess and she was not very big on foreplay. She straddled Mars as he sat there with his sweatpants around his ankles. She took him inside her in one, smooth glide and began to rock slowly back and forth, up and down with the expert precision of a woman who knew exactly which buttons of his to push.
Mars worked his hips to thrust himself deeper into her. He squeezed her perfect, round ass and guided her up and down on his male part aggressively. She pulled Mars’s face into her ample breasts and he took an erect nipple hungrily into his mouth.
“Fuck me like you mean it, sweetie,” Portia moaned.
Mars was more than happy to oblige. He maneuvered the two of them onto the floor and, with Portia on her knees, took her from behind doggystyle in deep, shuddering thrusts that she loved.
The intensity of their lovemaking quickly built to a crescendo. Portia dug her manicured nails into the plush, gray carpet as she screamed out in ecstasy and Mars gave her what she’d come for faster and faster. He shuddered deeply as he climaxed and collapsed onto Portia’s back. Portia smiled at him as she got up and went to the bathroom.
The unbelievable sex was the one thing that kept Portia Foster in Mars’s life. Sexually, the girl had mad skills. She was as uninhibited as they come and she turned him out every time that they connected.
He went into his bathroom and watched her as she soaped herself with his loofah from her breasts to her ankles in his shower. Watching her bathe was a sensual event in and of itself. He stepped into the large, glass compartment with her and took her again, her back pinned against the black-tiled shower wall, her legs in a vise-like grip around his waist.
When they made love a final time in the wee hours of the morning in Mars’s huge bed, the face that Mars saw in place of Portia’s was Keshari’s. As he fell asleep with Portia lying contentedly asleep beside him, vivid dreams of Keshari drifted about in his mind.
“What the FUCK is the matter with you?!” Keshari yelled. “What the fuck would make you do something like that?!”
“Ma’am, I am going to have to ask you to quiet down or I’ll have to ask you to leave,” the sheriff’s officer standing guard across the room advised Keshari.
She nodded in acknowledgment without looking back at him and lowered her voice to an embittered whisper. She was positively livid and couldn’t even contain her fury when she arrived at Men’s Central Jail to see Ricky that morning.
“You know, that was some hot-headed, immature, patently dumb shit that the junior gangsters on the street corners do. I would think that, after all these years, you would be a lot more evolved than this brand of shit. That IS what you’ve always upheld, that The Consortium is composed of the ‘thinking man’s’ gangster.”
All four of Keshari’s tires had been slashed and the body of the Range Rover from the hood to side panels to the rear had been very badly damaged with something that had to have been like a power drill. The gas tank had been filled to overflowing with some sort of a sugary substance. Keshari had had to call a tow truck and a car. She sat, fuming, inside the vandalized Range Rover and waited nearly an hour for it to be picked up before her chauffeured car dropped her at home. She wasn’t about to go back up to Mars’s apartment and have to reveal to him what had happened.
Despite the many heinous acts of extortion, revenge and intimidation that Keshari had seen in action over the years, it never ceased to dumbfound her the kinds of things that Ricky and those he employed could pull off and get away with. The maneuver implemented was one that The Consortium had used many times. The vandal had been a police officer from the local precinct who’d “come to respond to a resident’s call” for which the security office, who typically handled calls pertaining to residential problems prior to involving the police, would have no record. The officer was, undoubtedly, on The Consortium’s payroll, had received instructions, some promise of monetary compensation, and had done the damage himself. He’d left the premises after carrying out his mission without a moment’s suspicion because he was operating und
er the color of law.
“To protect and serve” was nothing more than a farce. Police officers, in growing numbers, were mainly in the service of usurping their authority and corruptly lining their own pockets. The Consortium had so many police officers regularly in its employ that it would make the Los Angeles Rampart scandal look like a typical day of the secretary making off from work with a purse full of the business’s office supplies.
The security guards at the gated entrance of the condo community didn’t question a thing when Keshari told them that she was having car trouble. They provided courteous access to her tow truck and her chauffeured car, notated in their logs the resident that Keshari had been visiting, and then bid her a good evening.
All night long, Keshari tossed and turned in anger until she finally gave up on sleep and sat in the solarium on a slow fume with her two Rottweilers at her side, barely able to wait until visitation hours commenced at the jail so that she could confront the sadistic asshole who’d orchestrated what had happened. She asked herself over and over again how she had ever been in love with him. She’d now received two warnings. Most people in her line of work were never as lucky. She knew that there would not be a third.
“So, what’s next, Ricky?” Keshari snapped venomously. “You gonna order a hit on me?”
Thus far, Ricky had not responded. He’d sat quietly and allowed her to vent.
“That’s a funny question,” he responded. “What do you think?”
“It was a rhetorical question,” Keshari said.
“Of course, it was. You really, really, really have allowed the history of our personal relationship make you forget what the hell you’re fucking with, what the fuck you’re involved in. This is not just about me. And now you’ve gone and gotten some square-assed, pretty boy caught up in your shit. Are you losing your mind?!”
“Is that what this is about?! You had my car vandalized because of him? I’m NOT involved with him, Rick. We JUST had dinner!”
“Yeah, you’re involved. You just don’t know it yet. It’s written all over your face. But don’t be stupid. What happened to your car had absolutely nothing to do with him. For the very last time, you’d better wake up and snap yourself back into the nature of this business. You keep trying to play Little Miss Roberta Regular Life and it’s going to get you and other completely unassuming people in a very bad way.”
“Rick, I want out of this,” Keshari reiterated in exhausted exasperation. “Right now, there is NOTHING that I want more in my life.”
Ricky gave her a look so scathing that it was clear that he would have hit her had the venue been different.
“Do you really think that you would be having this conversation a second time if it were anybody other than me?” Ricky asked. “What I strongly advise is that you set aside whatever it is that has been troubling you ONCE AND FOR ALL, contact your insurance company and take care of the damages to your Range Rover, or take yourself over to the dealership along with your checkbook and purchase yourself a new one. Then put your mind back on the fact that I’m in here preparing to go to trial on murder one charges and you need to be out there with your A game in place to handle my fuckin’ business affairs. If I hear one more word about your desire to leave this organization, I’m gonna sink your beautiful ass in a hole in the ground. Do we have a full understanding?”
“Of course,” Keshari replied succinctly. “I got a call from Javier,” she said, changing the subject. “They want a meeting.”
“When?” Ricky asked.
“Immediately… I told him tonight.”
“I hope it has nothing to do with the upcoming shipment.”
“Come on, Rick. It has everything to do with this trial. Javier already expressed that his bosses are extremely concerned.”
“I want you to follow up with me as soon as that meeting wraps. Get a message to me through my attorney. Today is your last visit. The media scrutiny is steadily increasing and we need to take all safeguards now. I need to know, Keshari…particularly with what I’m currently facing and all that I stand to lose…are you with me?”
Keshari looked him directly in the eye and answered without hesitation, “I’m with you, Rick.”
“Are you sure?” Ricky asked.
“Yes,” Keshari responded. “I’m with you.”
Just after Keshari walked out of Men’s Central Jail and sped off up Vignes Street, a young man who didn’t appear to be much older than twenty-five approached the sheriff’s officer at the counter.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Wasn’t that Keshari Mitchell just leaving?”
“Who?” the sheriff’s officer responded.
“Keshari Mitchell…the record mogul. What was the nature of her business here? Was she visiting Richard Tresvant?”
“Sir, that is not public information. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
The sheriff’s officer moved down the counter to assist the next person.
Javier had driven up to Keshari’s home in Palos Verdes by himself to meet with her. He sipped his espresso thoughtfully after delivering his mind-blowing message—Machaca would not be transacting any more business with The Consortium until Ricky’s trial had ended and he was no longer the focus of media attention.
“This decision will be absolutely detrimental to our business, Javier,” Keshari said. “There must be some means of compromise. Perhaps, until the trial concludes, we can renegotiate our terms… say, a twenty percent increase on the product price in your favor.”
Javier shook his head. “The bosses are firm. There will be no compromise.”
“Javier, if Machaca cuts The Consortium off like this now, you must know that it shall adversely affect ALL of our future business together.”
“Believe me, Keshari, the bosses have turned all of that around and around to review it from every angle and, just as you want us to understand your position, surely you must understand our position as well. The risk is too great for us to jeopardize our interests. If federal law enforcement launches an investigation, a lot of people will get hurt.”
“The Consortium is connected at the federal level, Javier. I gave you my assurances before and I assure you now that we are covered.”
“Machaca is connected federally, Keshari. Yet, we take nothing for granted. Nothing is a hundred percent. Ultimately, and I do extend my apologies, this is not a negotiation. I was advised by my superiors to deliver the news. We will complete the upcoming delivery and then our business relationship, for the time being, must be terminated.”
“Do you know what you are starting here, Javier? This could result in a turf war.”
Javier shrugged.
“That is not our concern, Keshari. Your turf wars would in no way involve our organization.”
It had been a week since the night they’d had dinner. Mars hadn’t called Keshari Mitchell and she had not called him. Mars cancelled all of his morning meetings and decided to stop by Keshari’s office in Century City. He had no idea what had come over him. He had no idea what Keshari’s schedule was like that morning, whether she was in meetings, whether she was even in town. He needed to see her and he had decided that he intended to remain at her office until he did.
Mars arrived at Keshari’s office at 9:30 a.m., like he was going to work for Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment. Terrence, Keshari’s assistant, seated him in the huge, ultra-modern reception area and had the label’s in-house catering service bring him coffee and a scone. Ten o’clock came and went without Keshari’s arrival.
“You know, I can take a message from you and relay it to Keshari once she arrives,” Keshari’s assistant told Mars. “I’ve tried reaching her a couple of times on her cell phone and she’s not answering. I honestly don’t know when she’s coming.”
“Nah.” Mars smiled. “I’ll wait.”
“O-kayyyy,” Terrence said, heading back to his workspace.
Ten thirty rolled around and Mars started to get a little antsy. It began to dawn on him how presumptuous
it had been for him to show up at this very busy woman’s office without an appointment, or an advance phone call or anything, and expect to see her without a problem. He checked his watch and considered leaving. He decided to wait a few more minutes.
At 11 o’clock, Keshari strode through the reception area. She was as beautiful as always in a single-breasted, black, Armani pantsuit, black flip-flops exposing a diamond toe ring, and dark, Cartier sunglasses. She had a Starbucks latte in one hand and she was pulling a large, rolling briefcase behind her. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Mars seated casually on one of the sofas thumbing through a Billboard magazine. He looked up and felt his mouth spread involuntarily into a huge smile.
“What are you doing here?” Keshari asked abruptly.
“I thought I’d stop by and check on you. I didn’t like the way things ended the other night. I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
Keshari looked around her, self-consciously. Terrence poked his head around his computer monitor and grinned at her. She rolled her eyes. She refused to allow herself to become the hot topic of water cooler gossip. The receptionist at the front desk sat, ogling Mars from a distance. The brotha was FINE, she thought. He looked just like the attorney’s sexy boyfriend on SHOWTIME’s Soul Food.
“Come on into my office,” Keshari said and closed the doors behind them.
Mars sat down on the office’s leather and chrome sectional. Keshari set her briefcase down and glared at him with her hands on her hips.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Doing what?” Mars asked innocently.
“Pursuing me…relentlessly.”
“If I was absolutely certain that I had no reason to be here, I wouldn’t be here,” Mars responded.
Keshari thought of what Ricky had told her when she had gone to confront him at the jail: “Yeah, you’re involved. You just don’t know it yet. It’s written all over your face.” She quickly dismissed the thought.
“I’m probably the last person in the world who needs to be getting romantically involved with anyone right now. I don’t have time for this.”
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