Betrayal

by Dwayne S. Joseph

  He’d taken her out the night before to prepare her for what was to come. Dinner, movies, dancing, passionate sex in the middle of the night. Things had been strained for a few days between them, and he wanted that mood changed. The things she was about to go through emotionally . . . Taking her out, making her smile, laugh, pleasing her physically, this was his way of reminding her that he was there for her. He needed for her to be reassured of that, because she was going to need him like never before.

  “Jewell, what’s wrong? Don’t you think you should lie down?”

  Jewell grabbed a pair of Mavi jeans and a light blue sweater turned inside out. “I . . . I need to find my father.”

  Sam went to his wife as she turned away from the closet. Tears were falling from her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?”

  Jewell looked up at him. Her bottom lip was quivering. Sam enveloped her in his arms. “What’s wrong?” he asked again as she trembled against him. His heart began beating heavily.

  “I . . . I did something, Sam.”

  Sam kissed her on the top of her head and inhaled her Herbal Essences shampoo. “What, baby? What did you do? Talk to me.”

  Jewell cried, trembled.

  Sam’s heart beat harder, faster.

  He hadn’t been bitten by a radioactive spider, and he couldn’t climb walls or fire webs from his wrists, but his spider sense was tingling like crazy. “Talk to me,” he said again. “What happened between you and your mother? Why do you need to find Zeke so badly?”

  “A . . . a few weeks ago, I saw my mother with . . . with another man. They were at a restaurant. She was kissing him.”

  Sam’s heart beat skipped a beat. The tingling of his spider sense, warning him of danger, increased in intensity. He looked down at the top of Jewell’s head. “What did you do, Jewell?” he asked, his tone ominous.

  Jewell sniffled. “I waited until my mother left, and then I . . . I . . .” She paused.

  “You what?”

  “I approached the man. I spoke to him. He’s a gigolo, Sam. A goddamned gigolo. Can you believe it?”

  “What did you do, Jewell?”

  Sam barely breathed as his heart rate increased.

  “I . . . I paid him . . .” She paused, took a breath.

  Sam closed his eyes slowly and released an oh-shitfilled sighed. He grabbed Jewell by her arms and held her out in front of him. “What did you pay him to do?”

  Jewell looked up at him. “Sam, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “What did you pay him to do, Jewell?” Sam asked again, ignoring her questions.

  “I paid him to . . . to have pictures taken.”

  Sam’s heart fell into the pit of his stomach.

  He let go of his wife’s arms, backed away a couple of steps, and clamped his right hand down over the back of his neck. “Oh, Christ,” he said. He looked at Jewell, who was looking back at him, confused. “What were the pictures of?”

  “Sam? What . . . what’s wrong?”

  “Just tell me what the fucking pictures were of.”

  “Sam?”

  “What were the fucking pictures of, Jewell!” he yelled.

  Jewell jumped a bit, his outburst shocking her. “They were pictures of them . . . together.”

  “Of them together? Of who together?

  “My mother and her gigolo.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Having sex.”

  Sam squeezed the back of his neck, paced around, let go of his neck, squeezed his temples with his thumb and middle finger. “Oh Christ,” he said, the entire time. “Christ! Christ!”

  “Sam?”

  Sam looked at her. “What did you do with the photos?”

  “Sam . . . what’s wrong?”

  “The photos!” Sam yelled. “What did you do with them?”

  Tears fell down Jewell’s cheeks. “I had copies made. For me, the gigolo, and . . . and for Dad.”

  Sam paced. Dragged his hand down over his face. “Shit! Shit!”

  She knew.

  She’d had the pictures taken.

  She’d sent them.

  Everything that was happening.

  She’d been the catalyst.

  “Shit!”

  It would all happen soon.

  “Shit!” he said again. He looked at his wife. Shook his head. “You have no idea what you’ve done, Jewell!”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Sam paced. “You have no fucking idea what you’ve done!”

  He dragged his hand down his face again.

  Soon Ty would have Loc’ and G pay a visit to Sapphire and her lover. Soon they would both be dead.

  He looked at his watch.

  “Goddammit, Jewell! What the fuck have you done?”

  Sam ran out of the room.

  Jewell called out his name, yelled for him to stop.

  Sam ignored her.

  He raced out of the house, hurried to his car, started the engine, and sped out of the driveway.

  He grabbed his cell. Was about to make a call when it rang.

  Jewell.

  “Shit!” he screamed.

  He pressed ignore and dialed Ty’s cell number.

  He was going 50-mph in a 30-mph zone as Ron Browz’s single “Pop Champagne” went off in his ear, until Ty answered.

  “’Sup, nigga. You got the other half of my money?”

  Sam had given him half during their first meeting. Ty and his boys weren’t going to get the rest until the job had been completed. Random home invasions, that’s how the killings were supposed to look.

  Sam said, “Ty, man . . . we gotta call this off!”

  “Call it off? Nigga, shit’s already in motion.”

  “Shit! Ty, man . . . call your boys. Tell them it’s off. You’ll still get your money!”

  “Sorry, nigga, but I can’t do that. They ain’t roll with no cell phones. They went clean with no chance to leave shit behind.”

  “Shit! Shit!” Sam yelled as he ran a red light.

  “A deal is a deal, nigga. You know how I do. There ain’t no callin’ shit off.”

  “Shit!”

  “Don’t fuck wit’ my money, nigga. You fuck with my money and we’ll be payin’ yo’ ass a visit.”

  Ty ended the call.

  Sam cursed again and then dialed Zeke’s cell.

  It rang once and then Zeke answered. “Can I come home?”

  “Zeke, listen—”

  “Can I come home, Sam?” Zeke asked again, cutting him off.

  “No! But—”

  “Then why are you calling me?”

  “Zeke—”

  “Don’t call me until it’s done and I can come home.”

  Zeke ended the call.

  Sam hit his steering wheel. “Shit! You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” He dialed Zeke’s cell again. The call went unanswered this time. Sam cursed again and then dialed Sapphire’s cell phone. He had to warn her. She had to get out of the house.

  Her cell rang and went to voice mail.

  “Sapphire . . . please . . . if you get this . . . please get out of the house! Please! Some guys are coming there to hurt you. You’ve got to get out of there now! Please!”

  He ended the call, dialed Sapphire and Zeke’s house number, and thought about leaving a message, but decided against it. The police would check the answering machine. He slammed his phone down on the passenger seat.

  “Fuck!”

  He pressed down hard on the brake and fishtailed as he made a U-turn. He was forty-five minutes away from Zeke’s house.

  He slammed down on the gas pedal and raced toward the highway.

  His cell phone rang.

  He looked at it.

  Jewell again.

  He ignored it and kept driving.

  Chapter 27

  Not again. Tre sighed.

  He was on his couch, playing a game of Madden ’09 on his Xbox 360. His team, the New York Giants, were ahead by
four touchdowns in the third quarter against the Dallas Cowboys. He hated the Cowboys. Hated T.O. Picking him up was the best thing they could have ever done as far as Tre was concerned. T.O. was like a virus. Inject him into the program and the whole system went bad. Tre was murdering T.O., intercepting every pass thrown his way.

  He was playing the full regular season. Going for another Super Bowl. After the game he would switch over and join his friends online to play Gears of War 2. Friday nights were his night. He never took a client on this night. It was just him on his couch and a couple of friends he still kept in contact with on theirs. Some were in Texas, others in Maryland, one was even in Japan. On Friday nights they’d play and talk shit with their headsets on until one, two, sometimes three in the morning. No money spent. No female drama. It was the ultimate guys’ night out.

  Tre paused the game, put the controller down, and went to the door. He thought about his past client and the accident that had gotten her off of his back. He wasn’t wishing for the same thing to happen now, but he damn sure didn’t want the same bullshit. He thought he’d made things very clear the last time. His services were no longer available, not to her.

  He stood by the door, shook his head, and wished he could make Sapphire and her banging on his door go the fuck away.

  He opened the door. He was about to tell her to leave when he was smacked hard across his face.

  “You son of a bitch!” Sapphire smacked him again. “You son of a bitch! How could you do that?”

  She raised her hand to slap him again. Tre grabbed her by the wrist before she could.

  “You goddamned asshole!”

  Tre ran his tongue along the inside of his left cheek, the one she’d hit. Now he knew what Jewell had done with the pictures. He said, “So I guess the restaurant hadn’t been a coincidence.”

  “You asshole!”

  Sapphire tried to pull her hand away to slap him again, but Tre’s grip was solid. She made an attempt with her other hand. Tre grabbed that too.

  “Cut the shit, Sapphire,” he said, his voice low, calm, and very stern.

  Sapphire called him an “Asshole!” again and pulled her hands away.

  “How, Tre? How could you do that to me? I was paying you. How could you take her money over mine?”

  Tre folded his arms across his chest. “She was paying more,” he said easily.

  Sapphire’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly. His callous words had been a retaliatory slap. “You jerk. I thought we—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Sapphire. There is no ‘we.’ I’m a fucking gigolo. You paid me to fuck you. Your daughter paid me more to fuck you. End of goddamned story.”

  Tears ran down Sapphire’s face.

  They meant nothing to Tre.

  “You’re a piece of shit, Tre! A trifling piece of shit!”

  Tre nodded. “Yeah, but you never screamed that when I was in that pussy of yours.”

  “Asshole!” Sapphire tried to smack him and again he caught her by her wrist, only this time after grabbing hold of her with one hand, he took the other, grabbed her by her throat and spun her and slammed her back against the door. Sapphire cried out.

  Tre glared at her. “Our arrangement is over, Sapphire.”

  She sobbed. “Don’t you even care?”

  Tre shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

  “I can’t believe I ever got involved with you.”

  Tre laughed. “It was never me you got involved with. It was only my dick.”

  “Fuck you!” Sapphire spat in his face.

  Tre clenched his jaws, and tightened his grip around her neck. Respect is very important in the Japanese culture. He hated being disrespected. “You have to pay me if you want to do that. You know the rules.”

  Sapphire cursed him again.

  Tre laughed and then pushed her into the middle of the hallway. “Go and deal with your dysfunctional family, Sapphire. And don’t come back here anymore.” He stepped back into his apartment and slammed the door shut.

  Sapphire cursed him out from the hallway.

  He stood still for a moment and waited. A few seconds later, he heard Sapphire crying as she shuffled away from the door.

  He took a breath, held it in, then released it slowly. He went back to the couch and looked at the time on his cable box. “Damn,” he said. He’d be at least a half hour behind meeting the guys online by the time he finished his discarding of the Cowboys, to be 6-0 for the season.

  He grabbed his controller, restarted the game, and ran a quick slant route to Kevin Boss for eleven yards. He ran another play, a run up the middle with Brandon Jacobs. He gained four yards on that play. He threw another quick strike for four yards to Steve Smith. “Yeah, baby!”

  Third and two.

  He’d get Derrick Ward to bounce to the outside for that one, maybe even break it for a touchdown run.

  He chose the play.

  Hit the right button to fake the hike, trying to draw the Cowboys offsides. They didn’t bite. It didn’t matter.

  His thumb was about to press down on the A button to snap the ball, when a knocking came from the door again.

  “Goddamn.”

  He paused the game and slammed the controller down so hard it bounced from the sofa to the floor. “Fucking bitch.” He stood up and went to the door. This would be the last time she’d bother him.

  He pulled the door open.

  Before he could speak, someone wearing all black, with a ski mask revealing only a pair of steel-grey eyes, plunged a knife deep into his belly. Once, twice, and then a third time.

  Tre gasped as his midsection stung. He looked down at the blade stuck inside of him, and then up at his assailant, who immediately hit him hard in the face. His nose broken, and blood flowing, he grunted and fell hard to the ground onto his back.

  His attacker slammed the door shut, rushed and kicked him, and then bent down and stabbed Tre again in his stomach and side.

  Tre rolled over and tried to crawl away from his attacker, who was standing, watching him.

  He gasped for air.

  Everything around him was spinning.

  He coughed up blood.

  Felt his body burn.

  He crawled.

  Toward his controller.

  He hadn’t meant to let it fall to the hardwood floor. Something like that could make the controller defective.

  He gasped again.

  Wheezed.

  Blood bubbled from his broken nostrils.

  Without question, he was dying.

  Who was his attacker? Why was he there?

  Tre wanted to ask, but couldn’t find the strength to speak.

  He crawled, the controller so close, yet so far away, but before he could reach it, his attacker stepped past him, picked it up, and sat down on the couch.

  Tre gasped again.

  Everything was fading.

  He was getting cold.

  Death was about to claim him.

  Whenever people came close to death, they always mentioned how their whole lives flashed before their eyes. Bullshit, he thought. He wasn’t thinking about his whole life as his world became black.

  As his attacker restarted the game and the crowd roared, Tre wondered if Derrick Ward would get the first down.

  Chapter 28

  Jewell couldn’t sit still. What had she done? Sam’s words repeated themselves over and over again. What had she done? She tried calling Sam again. No answer. She tried her father. No answer. She tried her mother’s cell. Again, no answer. Jewell ran her hand through her hair, and again wondered what she had done.

  She needed answers.

  She threw on her Mavi jeans, her sweater.

  She retched. She ran to the bathroom. Made it this time to dry heave into the toilet she still hadn’t cleaned. She’d had steak the night before. That would be the last time for a while.

  She washed out her mouth and went slowly back into the bedroom. Her body felt fatigued, her stomach queasy. She w
anted to lie down so badly. But she couldn’t.

  She had to know what it was that she had done. What it was that made Sam run out of the house and ignore her calls. She grabbed her purse, went downstairs, grabbed her car keys, and then went to the car.

  Her mother.

  The last person to speak to her father.

  She had to know something.

  Jewell pulled out of the driveway, sleep and a toilet beckoning her. Neither would be pacified.

  Chapter 29

  Sam. Jewell. Sapphire. Calls from all of them.

  Sapphire’s constant calls meant Sam still had not made things happen. He wouldn’t answer Sam’s calls until Sapphire’s ceased completely.

  As for Jewell’s calls. Having Sapphire killed was going to please and satisfy him, but her death was going to hurt his little girl. He didn’t want to have to deal with that on his mind until everything was done. So he refused to take hers, too.

  He downed the rest of the Jack and Coke he had sitting in front of him, and made motion to the bartender for another.

  He was in Virginia Beach at the Marriott.

  He’d had a meeting a few hours earlier. The meeting had been unplanned. An emergency meeting to take care of an emergency situation. It started at eight in the morning and went until six in the evening. He’d booked the hotel and driven in the night before, because he wanted to get a decent amount of sleep. He was supposed to drive back home afterward, but he was exhausted, so he decided to stay an extra night and leave in the morning.

  That was his alibi.

  He had purpose. He had witnesses.

  The bartender brought him another glass. He looked at the bartender. Female. Latina. Looked like a thirtysomething Rita Moreno. He’d never dated a Latina. He’d always found Latinas attractive, but he’d never made an attempt to date one, not because he couldn’t catch their eyes, but because he didn’t have the moves. He grew up listening to Motown and seventies funk. He had learned and mastered the Grind, the Hustle, the Electric Slide. He never listened to Salsa, Merengue, or any other type of Latin music. To be with a Latina—a real Latina—you had to have the moves. Zeke had the moves now. Something he’d acquired as he’d gotten older. But he was married. At least until her phone calls stopped coming in.