“No, but Ray-Ray was tired, so we decided to give her a break. How’d it go at central booking?” Tamika asked, linking her arm through his.
“Isn’t Charles with you?” Regina asked before he could answer Tamika.
“He had me drop him at the airport so he could rent a car. He should be here soon,” David answered. “I’d better call him and tell him to meet us at the house.”
“How’d it go at central booking?” Tamika asked again.
David shook his head. “It was a mess. Robert was slobbering and clawing at us, telling us how sorry he was and how he couldn’t even remember what had happened.”
“Yeah, right.” Puddin’ sucked her teeth. “I bet that muthafucka remembered that knife I stuck between his shoulder blades.”
“Then he started talking about how his life was so messed up, and that he knew he’s going to straighten up and kick his drug habit,” David continued. “And the crazy bastard asked if I would represent him at his arraignment hearing and get him released on his own recognizance so he could try and square everything with the Bronx D.A. so he won’t lose his job.”
“Get the hell outta here!” Regina said in amazement. “What did you say?”
“Hell. I was going to punch the shit out of him, but I couldn’t because I was too busy holding Charles back,” David said with a snort.
“Do you think he’s going to get out?” Brenda asked nervously.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about.” David put his arm around her and drew her close to him. “We’ve already called the Manhattan D.A.’s Office and talked to the ADA who’s caught his case. Believe me, he’s not going to get out on bail; they’re charging him with three counts of assault, three counts of attempted murder, two counts of attempted rape, and one count of breaking and entering. And they’re not going to offer him a plea, either. That boy’s going to do some real time behind all this shit.”
chapter nineteen
Police report that the body of a nineteen-year-old man was found early this morning in Harlem. The man, who has not yet been identified, was shot once in the back of his head, according to police officials. His body was found on 123rd Street on a known drug corner, around 4:30 a.m. Police say they have no suspects at this time, and they don’t know if the shooting was drug-related. In other news . . .”
Regina clicked off the radio and pulled her car over to the curb. One Hundred and Twenty-third Street. Wasn’t that the street Tamika said the thugs who had been harassing her family hung out on?
Regina bit her lip and tapped her fingernails against the steering wheel as she stared out the window at nothing. Little Joe couldn’t have done it because he wasn’t in New York until 2:30 this afternoon, she tried to reason to herself. But she knew that didn’t mean he didn’t have it done; he had enough practice doing that when he was on the council. There was only one way to find out for sure, she decided as she put the car back into gear, and that was to ask him. She’d have the opportunity to do just that in a few minutes, since she was only a few blocks away from the Flash Inn, where she had agreed to meet Little Joe for dinner.
Little Joe was already seated at his usual table when she walked in. He smiled when he saw her, but try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to return the smile.
“You’re looking good. California must agree with you. You look all relaxed and everything. And I can’t believe you actually managed to get a tan,” she said after she gave him a quick peck on the lips and sat down. “You were only there two days.”
“Well, like they say, when in movieland, do as the movie stars do, so I spent a little time at the beach frying myself up.” Little Joe looked at her quizzically. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing,” Regina said as she placed her napkin in her lap. “Just had a hard day is all.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” Little Joe nodded. “How’s your niece?”
“She’s going to be fine.” Regina opened the menu the waiter handed her. “Do you know what you’re going to get yet?”
“Gina, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why you rushing and shit?” Little Joe’s lips curled as he talked. “You act like you don’t wanna be here.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Regina put the menu down and smiled at Little Joe. “I am being rude, but I don’t mean to. Like I said, I’m just out of it. I probably shoulda canceled. I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I woulda understood, but I still woulda been pissed off,” Little Joe said coldly. “Your man just got back in town, you’re supposed to want to spend a little time with him, ya know. Or don’t you know?”
“I do know, and like I said, I’m sorry.” Regina reached over the table and took Little Joe’s hand. “How about we order a drink and maybe an appetizer and you tell me how it went in L.A.?”
“It went good. It went real good,” Little Joe said after he ordered Regina an apple martini and a shrimp cocktail and a whiskey sour and an order of fried calamari for himself. “They had a limo waiting for me and my boy at the airport, and they put us up in a suite at the Ritz Carlton.”
“Ooh, must be nice,” Regina gushed.
“And I thought I was supposed to be just meeting with Tecumseh Joseph, but when I got to his office, he was there with a producer and a screenwriter. He said he wanted them to meet me because they would be the ones helping to develop the screenplay if we decided to go ahead and do a movie based on my life.”
“Wow. So what did you guys talk about?”
“They musta done their homework, because they knew a lot about me. Or at least about my street life. They did ask me a few questions about my life growing up, though. And they asked me how much I would be comfortable having put into a movie. Like would I be willing to name names and shit.”
“What did you tell them?” Regina asked excitedly.
Little Joe took a swig of the whiskey sour the waiter had put in front of him. “I told them that I might be willing to name a few names—”
“You’re kidding!” Regina’s eyes widened.
“Calm down.” Little Joe chuckled. “You know I wouldn’t give ’em any names that ain’t already been made public, and I wouldn’t connect them names with any crimes that they ain’t already been convicted of.”
“Okay.”
“And I told them I ain’t fessing up to no shit that’s gonna put my ass back in jail.”
“I hear that,” Regina said as she sipped her martini. “But then again, you ain’t never been stupid.”
“And I told them that I wouldn’t tell them shit about shit unless the price was right.” Little Joe grinned. “But you know that.”
“So how much are they talking?”
“First they said a flat ten grand, but when I started to get up and walk the fuck out, they started talking a little bit a sense. They said they’d pay me fifteen thousand to sit down with them and give enough to do—what’s that called?—a treatment, and then fifty thousand if they show the treatment around and get some bites and then write a script. That only comes up to sixty-five grand, and I wasn’t really feeling that, but then they said they could hire me as a consultant for the movie, so I could make another eighty or ninety for that.”
“Oh my God.” Regina leaned back in her chair. “You’d be making some dough. So are you going to do it?”
Little Joe shrugged. “I told them I’d think about it and get back to them in like a week.”
“Yeah?” Regina said as she bit into a shrimp.
“Yeah, and I also told them two more things.” Little Joe grinned.
“What?”
“I told them that if I let them make the movie, they had to have Jamie Foxx play me, and that if I decided not to do the movie and they went ahead with it anyway, I was gonna come back to L.A. on my own dime and personally fuck all of them up.” Little Joe’s grin widened. “We all laughed, and then I said I was only kidding about the Jamie Foxx thing, but I was dead serious about the fucking people up.” Little Joe laughed.
Re
gina felt a knot in her stomach at his words, because they served to remind her about the question she promised herself she was going to ask. Now, she decided, was as good a time as any. She took a large sip of her martini for courage.
“Listen,” she said as lightly as she could. “Remember you asked me if there was anything new with the Tamika thing?”
“Uh-huh,” Little Joe said in a nonchalant tone.
“Well, would you believe that one of them left a message for Tamika and apologized for bothering her family and promised there wouldn’t be any more trouble?”
“Good,” Little Joe said as he picked up his menu. “You decided what you want for an entrée yet?”
Regina stared at Little Joe’s expressionless face. If he had something to do with the turnaround, he wasn’t giving up the info.
“And I heard on the news that the police found a body up on 123rd. It was one of the boys that was messing with Tamika,” Regina lied in an attempt to get a reaction. “Ain’t that some shit?”
“Ain’t it, though?” Little Joe put down the menu and looked at Regina. “I’m getting the Creole chicken. What you want?”
Regina looked Little Joe straight in the eye. “So did you have anything to do with it?”
“With what?”
“With those boys changing their minds?” She caught herself before she could add, “and getting the boy killed.”
Little Joe leaned back in his chair, but his eyes never wavered from her. “Why you gonna ask me some shit like that?” he said softly.
“’Cause I wanna know.”
“You know I was in California. So how could I have something to do with it?”
“I didn’t say you did, I’m just asking.”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I want to know.” Regina bit her lip. “Because I’m hoping you didn’t, but I need to be sure. We both have a past, but I’m hoping that it is our past. I’d hate to find out that you’d be involved in someone getting hurt or getting killed.” Regina paused. “I don’t think you’d be involved or that you are involved,” she lied, “but I just want to ask to be sure.”
“Is that a fact?” Little Joe’s lips curled into a sneer. “You wouldn’t want me involved in someone getting hurt, huh? Was you fucking thinking like that when you dragged my ass out to Brooklyn to clean up that shit for your girl Puddin’?”
“That was different,” Regina said quickly. “I knew that your just being there was going to cool that out, and that you wouldn’t have had to actually do anything.”
Little Joe suddenly leaned over the table and grabbed Regina’s chin in his hand. “Don’t play me, Regina. We both know if some shit had went down, I woulda stepped up to the plate. And we both know that you was counting on that shit. Don’t fucking play me, now.”
Regina tried to wrest her face from Little Joe’s grasp, but he squeezed harder.
“Don’t think you can have me step into a role and then step out at your fucking whim, hear? I’m not your fucking puppet. And I’m not some little punk you can try and make feel bad just ’cause you do. You got that?” He let go of her and leaned back in his chair. “You should be glad someone took care of that shit for Tamika.”
Regina jumped up from her seat, grabbed her purse from the table, and all but ran out the restaurant.
She fumbled with her keys before unlocking the car door and jumping in. She was getting ready to pull off when her cell phone rang.
“Hello,” she said as she wiped away tears she hadn’t realized were streaming down her cheeks.
“Gina? Where are you?” Charles asked urgently.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Oh shit, she thought, please don’t tell me the hospital called to say something’s wrong with Ray-Ray.
“Look, I’m here at my hotel, and I just got off the phone with the Manhattan D.A.’s Office. Robert’s dead.” Charles’s voice cracked as he talked. “They got a call from Rikers.”
Regina almost dropped the cell phone. “Oh my God,” she said softly. “He committed suicide?”
“No,” Charles said, tears evident in his voice. “They don’t know for sure if it was a guard or another inmate, but someone attacked him.”
“Attacked him?”
“They castrated him, Gina,” Charles said through soft sobs. “They castrated him and stuck his genitalia in his mouth.”
Regina’s head started whirling, and her stomach lurched violently. She dropped the telephone on the seat and barely got the driver’s door open before she vomited.
chapter twenty
Regina paused in front of Charles’s hotel room at the Plaza and took a deep breath. She had called him back after she had pulled herself together in her car, and the pain in his voice was so acute she knew she had to be there for him, just as he’d always been there for her. But the closer she got to the Plaza, the worse she felt for herself; she was racked with guilt. The words she had told Little Joe kept playing over and over again as she drove.
Little Joe, Robert simply can’t get away with this shit—beating up a kid and then trying to rape her. He just can’t. Someone needs to catch him, cut off his dick, and shove it up his fucking mouth.
If there was the least bit of doubt about Little Joe’s involvement in Tamika’s situation, there wasn’t the slightest when it came to Robert’s death. Little Joe must have called in some favors or paid someone to do the dirty deed. The bottom line was he was directly responsible, although no more responsible than she. She should have known better than to say some shit like that to Little Joe.
She called Tamika while driving to the hotel and found out that David had already informed her of Robert’s grisly death. They were both on the way to Mama Tee’s to break the news in person to Yvonne. Regina contemplated telling Tamika she’d meet her there so she could also show her support, but she decided against it. She also contemplated telling Tamika of her suspicions about Little Joe’s involvement in Robert’s murder but decided against that, too. She might share it with her later on, but for now it was best to keep her mouth shut.
She took another deep breath, then finally knocked on the hotel room door.
“Regina. Thanks for coming,” Charles said when he opened the door. “But you know what? Why don’t we go downstairs to the bar? I really need a stiff drink. Maybe two or three.”
Regina shook her head as she walked into the room. “Charles? Would you mind much if we had room service bring us up some drinks? I’m not really up to being in public right now.” She looked at his red eyes and worn face. “You don’t look like you need to be in the public eye, either, Congressman.”
Charles nodded, then bent down to give her a peck on the lips, but she averted her face. “Sorry,” he muttered, and backed away.
Regina caressed his shoulder. “It’s not what you think. I was sick to the stomach after you told me what happened to Robert, and I didn’t want to make you nauseous.”
“Damn, Regina, I’m sorry.” He grabbed her in a bear hug, pressing her face hard against his chest. “I shouldn’t have told you on the telephone. And I sure as hell didn’t have to go into graphic detail like that. That was just inconsiderate of me. Are you okay?”
Tears sprang to Regina’s eyes as she inhaled Charles’s musky cologne. Here he was in pain because of the death of his childhood friend, and he was worried about her. Oh God, she thought, I can’t ever let him know what I did. He’d never forgive me. And I don’t know if I can live without Charles in my life.
She pulled away from him and flashed a weak smile. “Please! I should be asking if you’re okay, Charles.”
Charles turned and walked over to the bed and sat down, hunched over. “You know, I hated him because of what he did to Renee. I really wanted to hurt him. Hurt him bad. But at the same time, he was my oldest friend. He was like a brother.” He covered his face with his hands, and Regina could see him using his index fingers to wipe the tears that formed in the corners of his eyes. “I guess I’m conflicted. He was rea
lly messed up, but it’s like we were saying just this morning . . . he was a big part of my life. He was there the first day we met. He was my best man and our daughter’s godfather. And I loved him.”
Regina sat next to him and started rubbing his back.
“I would never have let him near me or my family again,” Charles continued, “but God, I didn’t want him to die. And especially like that.”
“I know, Charles,” Regina said soothingly. “I know.”
“I’ll be okay.” Charles lifted his head and openly wiped his tears away. “This has just been a hard couple of days for all of us, hasn’t it, baby?” He grinned. “Oops, that’s right. I’m not supposed to call you baby, right?”
Regina smiled and put her head on his shoulder. “Well, I guess I don’t mind right now, sweetheart.”
Charles put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the forehead. “Have I thanked you for coming over here tonight?”
“Yep.”
“Have I told you I still love you? That I’ve always loved you and that I always will love you?” Charles asked gently.
Regina looked up at him. “Not in so many words, but I know.”
“Did you know that I’ve always thought, always hoped, that you and I would get back together?”
Regina looked down and said nothing, not knowing what to say.
“When I left your house this morning, and then I knocked on the door and you wouldn’t let me in . . .” Charles took a deep breath. “Well, I was coming back to apologize, because you were right. Or partially right, anyway. I do think I have a right to not want that Blayton character around Camille, but I think I really just as much don’t want him around you. And not just because he might hurt you—although I’m not as clear-cut that he’s not capable of doing so—but because I don’t want any man around you like that.
“I know we’re divorced and that you can see who you want, and I’ve always assumed you have gone out. But it’s one thing to assume it. It’s another to see it,” Charles continued. “And as for his past, can I tell you the truth about something? To be honest, I don’t think it bothers me as much that he has a criminal past as the fact that he has a past with you. I know I can stand my own against any Johnny-come-lately that tries to step into the picture, but I mean . . . I don’t know . . . you might have loved him as much as you loved me. I don’t know if I can handle that.”
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