Sins of a Siren

by Curtis L. Alcutt

  According to the recorded message, on Monday nights they featured an amateur exotic dancer night from nine to closing. She hung up her phone—ignoring the many missed calls and voice mails—and put it in the bag, then stood. The bus was a block away. I bet money that cockhoundin’ bastard will be there.

  After taking her seat on the bus, she pulled her phone out of the bag and scanned the missed calls. She exhaled loudly at the five calls from her parole officer. Ain’t no need in me callin’ her back now; she told me after I missed my first two meetings with her that she was gonna do everything in her power to put me back in the pen if I missed one more.

  The monkey on her back morphed into King Kong. She grimaced as she listened to her voice mails. She deleted the ominous messages from Mrs. Kennedy, her parole officer, as soon as she heard her voice. Two other messages were from some of her underground cronies back east offering her big bucks to do some “work” for them. Trenda almost choked up after listening to the worry in Lollie’s voice in the messages she had left.

  The bus passed a familiar sight, which made her do a double-take. “Oh, shit! There goes the motel me and Eli went to.”

  Reaching up, she pulled the cable signaling the driver she wanted off at the next stop. Once off the bus, she turned and walked back to the Come On Inn.

  Half a block from the motel, she walked past Solar Beauty Supply. She paused to look at the goods on display in the huge plate-glass window. “Cool. They have just what I need.”

  The sign on the window told Trenda she only had about ten minutes before they closed for the day. “Hello, how can I help you?” asked the fast-talking, cheery, middle-age Filipino woman. Her hazel eye contacts gave her an exotic look. The tight jeans and form-fitting purple blouse she wore did wonders for her petite frame.

  Trenda walked over to the wall of wigs on display. She touched a black, shoulder-length curly wig. My hair ain’t been this long in years. The store was stocked with a high percentage of African-American hair care products. Trenda picked up a bottle of hair shampoo and looked at the black woman on the label. “This is a damn shame; all these black hair products, in this all-white neighborhood, sold by a Filipino woman.”

  The clerk stood a few paces behind Trenda. “That curly wig would frame the shape of your face nicely.”

  Trenda put the shampoo down and let her bag slide down her arm and rest by her feet. “Can I try it on?”

  “Sure!” the clerk said. “I’ll be right back.”

  As the clerk went behind the counter to get a disposable stocking cap, Trenda noticed the row of colored eye contacts in the glass counter next to the cash register. I’ll need a pair of those, too.

  “I can’t believe you are serious about killin’ a preacher…this shit is way outta hand now,” Tyrone said as he and his partner, Darius, stood on the deck of the beachfront vacation rental owned by Darius’s brother.

  The smell of the Atlantic Ocean air usually relaxed Officer Darius Kain, but tonight, with the cloud of doom hovering over his head, it made him want to upchuck. “Relax…I’m just gonna use him for an insurance policy. I’m sure that once Trenda finds out I’m putting a contract out on her daddy, she will turn herself in to me.”

  A pair of stray dogs descended from a sand dune, onto the beach, in search of a meal in the trashcan, ten feet from the deck. Tyrone flicked his burning cigarette butt at them. “Have you considered how many fuckin’ felonies we are now mixed up in behind that ho?”

  Darius looked into the red eyes of his dark-skinned partner’s worried eyes. “Look, once she is dead, it’s over. So go find yourself a pair of balls and quit whinin’ like a lil’ bitch.”

  Tyrone grimaced at Darius. “Fuck you! I ain’t tryin’ to go to jail. And what makes you think she’s gonna turn herself into you just because you are threatening her father? From my count, she ain’t had a relationship with her family in years.”

  Darius took a swig of his Corona beer and eyeballed his partner. This fool is scared as a ho in church. I gotta calm him down before he does somethin’ stupid. “ Check this out, Tyrone; how would you feel if I told you I had somebody trackin’ Trenda right now?”

  Just as Tyrone’s beer touched his lips, he paused. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  Darius set his beer on the railing of the redwood deck. His gift of being a world-class liar served him once again. “I wasn’t gonna tell you until I got the first update from him,” he gave Tyrone a sympathetic look, “but I said to myself, ‘I can’t hold out on my partner.’”

  As he had done for many years, Tyrone bought Darius’s line of bullshit. A pound of stress fell from his face. “Say what? You have somebody tracking Trenda?”

  The sound of an oceanliner’s horn sounded in the distance as Darius crafted his lie. “Yeah…as soon as my flight landed in Jersey, I called up a private eye in Oakland, gave her all the info I had on Trenda and told her to go to the hospital where Trenda is and keep an eye on her.”

  Forty-Eight

  “Wow! Between this cute wig and these new dark-brown contacts, you will look like a new woman!” the Asian clerk said as she rang up Trenda’s purchases. She looked into Trenda’s green eyes as she handed her, her change. “If I had eyes as pretty as yours, honey, I would definitely show them off!”

  “Thanks,” Trenda said as she pocketed her change. “But you know it’s good to switch up every once in a while, give the fellas a treat.”

  Game recognized game as the clerk smiled and winked in agreement. “Yes…you give one treat, get many in return.”

  Trenda smiled on the way out the door. “I’m counting on that.” As the first stars began to twinkle, Trenda walked over to the Come On Inn motel and entered the lobby.

  The smell of the incense in the air reminded her of the fucking she and Eli had done in the same motel a few days ago. Damn, I love the way his weight felt on me while he was cummin’. Moisture formed in her vagina as she relived the way she had handled Eli’s heaviness. Thick men seriously turned her on. Being forced into submission by the weight of a heavy man made her insane with orgasmic desire.

  She was shaken out of her reminiscence by the sound of an Arabic voice. “Can I help you?” the Arabian man behind the registration counter asked. His eyes locked on Trenda’s body like a pit bull.

  Homeboy is mighty bold now that his wife ain’t around, Trenda thought as she approached the lusting man. The last time I was here his wife had his ass in check. “ Yeah, I need a room for the night.”

  The balding, fifty-something, olive-skinned man placed both arms on the counter and leaned over toward Trenda. The black chest hair climbing out of the throat of his multicolored Hawaiian shirt made her think he was part werewolf. “I have room for you, my pretty friend!”

  The three missing teeth in his smile was a bad look. “Your rooms are still forty-five dollars, right?”

  He broke eye contact with her bosom and glanced down at the laminated room price sheet on the counter top. “Yes…yes.” He went to the rack of keys on the pegboard behind the desk. “I have a vacancy on the second floor. Will that do, pretty lady?”

  Trenda set her bag on the counter, removed her wallet and the cash. She looked at the black cat clock on the wall. Its eyes moved back and forth as the tail swung like a pendulum. It was nearly seven. Weary of his lustful gazes, she slapped the cash on the counter. “Can you just give me the key? I am in a real big hurry.”

  Realizing his flirtatious moves had no effect on the green-eyed honey in front of him, he picked up the cash and handed her the key. “Checkout is eleven in the morning.”

  I’ll be gone way before then, asshole, Trenda thought as she headed for her room. The next few moves she had to make consumed her thoughts. After entering the room and tossing her bags on the desk, she paced back and forth as she did when she was scheming. Stress caused the knot on her head to throb. I need some Motrin and a nap.

  Seeing she had a couple of hours until amateur night began at Fats, she set the alar
m clock on the nightstand to go off at ten, then stripped and got in bed. I wanna be nice and rested when I see the King.

  After fifteen restless minutes tossing and turning, Trenda hopped out of the bed, naked, and paced the floor. “I can’t even relax knowing that bastard tried to kill me.”

  A little past eight in the evening, in his office on the third floor of the Oakland Police Department building, Detective Winslow took a sip of his vending machine coffee. Twelve-hour days were the norm for him as the city’s crime rates continued to climb. “Something here is definitely strange.” He stared at the day-old newspaper story in the Oakland Tribune about the tragic murder of a prominent Baltimore businessman’s daughter who was visiting the Jack London Square area.

  He then turned his attention to the report he’d just received. The fingerprints he’d lifted off the plastic cup he’d retrieved from Mya Collins’ hospital room belonged to a felon named Trenda Fuqua—coincidentally from Baltimore also. “One woman visiting from Baltimore gets shot to death; another woman who just arrived from Baltimore damn near gets killed by a car bomb. What are the odds of two women from the same town, on the other side of the country, being attacked less than one hundred yards apart, minutes apart?”

  The ringing of his fax machine broke his concentration. Rising from the worn, wooden desk he had occupied for twenty-two years, Detective Winslow walked across the room and watched as the cover sheet informed him there was a three page fax to follow. While waiting for his faxes to finish printing, he stared out his corner office window at the nightlife in the Oakland streets below him he had patrolled and protected for his entire adult life. Please don’t let this be another, senseless, stupid black-on-black crime. The act of murder is unforgivable enough; but throw in black folks committing self-inflicted genocide, and that’s when I really wonder if we will be around another hundred years…

  After briefly glancing at the wall full of accommodations he’d earned over the years, he turned his attention to the now silent fax machine. “Let’s see what we have here.”

  Removing the reading glasses from the breast pocket of his crisp white dress shirt, he began reading the first sheet. He shook his head. “Son-of-a-bitch! No wonder she was in such a hurry to get out that hospital; she is wanted by the Baltimore PD for aggravated assault on Ms. Langford.” Removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose, he looked at the third sheet, which was a mugshot of Ms. Trenda Fuqua. Damn, she is one gorgeous criminal.

  He carried the papers to his desk, sat down and took a sip of his tepid coffee. While staring at Trenda’s mugshot, he wondered, could she have shot Piper, then had her car blown up as she was trying to get away?

  “That makes no sense,” he said as he read Trenda’s rap sheet. “There is a major piece of this puzzle missing.”

  Dressed in black jeans and a tight, black blouse, Trenda stood in the bathroom of her motel room, putting in her new dark-brown contact lenses. Damn, these things are uncomfortable as hell. She ran her finger over the healing scar underneath her eye. I hope I can hide this cut under my cover-up makeup.

  Fifteen minutes later, the cut was nearly invisible. “Now for the final touch.” She went and picked the wig and her purse off the desk and carried them to the bathroom. After pulling the curly wig on her head, she saw an entirely new person in the mirror. Whoa! Is that me?

  She opened her purse and removed Baby. She flicked the butterfly knife a few times. It worked flawlessly. “Now, let’s see if I can hide my Baby.” Closing the knife, she slid it underneath the wig, on the right side of her head. She examined herself in the mirror again. Cool…these curls cover up Baby just right.

  Forty-Nine

  “What’s wrong, baby?” Walter asked as he stopped kissing Lollie’s navel. “This is the first time I have ever felt you not grab my head as I go for a clit meal.”

  Rolling over on her side, she scooted back against him. “I’m sorry. But I can’t stop worrying about Mya. I wonder why she ain’t returning my calls. She didn’t show up for work and today is payday. What if somebody kidnapped her?”

  He draped his arm over her and kissed her bare, chocolate shoulder. “I know what you mean.” He paused to reflect on how nervous Mya seemed to be during their visit. The soft gong of the grandfather clock in his spacious living room chimed half past nine. The tone seemed to resonate throughout the silent, five-bedroom home. “Have you heard back from that Detective Winslow?”

  Lollie breathed in bit of the sandalwood incense fragrance from the stick burning in Walter’s fist-shaped incense holder on his expensive oak dresser. “I think he tried to call me today but the call dropped and I had to start my shift at work. I might try and call him back tomorrow.”

  He moved a lock of her long, soft hair and kissed the back of her neck. “That’s a good idea. Did she ever give you any indication she was in trouble?”

  “Well, she did tell me she came out here to get away from her crazy ex-boyfriend. She said he’s the one that gave her that cut under her eye…”

  “If he’s crazy enough to do that, he might be crazy enough to try and kill her.” He rolled Lollie over to face him. “I think you need to tell Detective Winslow about her boyfriend. No woman deserves to be treated like a fuckin’ punching bag.”

  The blooming feelings she had been growing for Walter blossomed when she saw the genuine care in his face. She pulled him onto her, between her warm thighs, rubbed the back of his neck and whispered, “Make love to me Walter, please?”

  After leaving her motel room, Trenda walked southbound on San Pablo Avenue—toward Oakland. No one that knew Trenda would recognize her as she now appeared. The wig, eye contacts and slightly less sexy clothes than she normally wore transformed her into a different woman. A homicidal woman.

  The slight ache in the small lump on her head and the uncomfortableness of the bandaged stitches on the wound nurse Gloria repaired for her helped fuel the growing rage inside her. With each step she took, she dove deeper into her old self; the hardcore, down-for-whatever, Trenda Fuqua.

  Most of the East Coast underworld was aware of her no-nonsense attitude. She had learned her enhanced survival skills from the dangerous and ruthless criminals that orbited her world. Right then, as she inspected the vehicles she walked past, those skills were being put to the test. I need transportation.

  The fluorescent, red-and-white Albany Bowl sign glowed a block ahead of her. She picked up her pace and entered the overflow parking lot, half a block away from the bowling alley. She stopped at the darkest corner of the parking lot and walked over to a white, early-model Toyota Celica. This will work. After taking a good look around, she removed Baby from under her wig, curled the closed knife in her fist—with about an inch of the knife handle sticking out—and slammed it into the driver’s side window.

  The window shattered, spilling hundreds of pieces of safety glass to the floor and the black driver’s seat of the car. Trenda looked around, saw no one noticed her, unlocked the door and wiped glass off the driver’s seat onto the floor and ground. She tossed her Travelin’ Bag on the passenger seat and pulled Baby from under her wig. “I hope I don’t break my fuckin’ blade doing this; I usually use a screwdriver.” She flicked open Baby and jabbed it into the keyhole on the ignition switch. After a few minutes of twisting and turning the knife, the ignition switch popped out the steering column.

  About fuckin’ time, she thought as she cut the ignition wires and searched for the two she needed to start the car. I’m sure glad I paid attention when I was rollin’ with that fool Danny-Boy back in the Bronx when I went with him to hustle stolen cars back in the day.

  After the first two sets of wires failed to work, she found the right pair. “Yeah! There we go!” She closed Baby and tossed it into her bag. Shifting the car into reverse, she eased out of the parking spot, and checked to see if anyone noticed her. Once she was clear, she drove out of the parking lot and halfway down the block before she turned on the headlights.

  Fif
teen minutes later, she entered the crowed parking lot of Fats. A surge of adrenaline shot through her body like a bolt of electricity. “I knew his bitch-ass would be here,” she said after spotting King Gee’s convertible Saab parked next to a gold Mercedes. Since the parking lot was packed, she ended up parking around the corner.

  Squads of women—as well as horny men—headed for the club to attend Fats’ Monday amateur exotic dancer night. After watching what the women were wearing, Trenda went into her bag and swapped her white Adidas for her only other pair of shoes; a pair of black pumps. This should be enough to get me inside.

  Using the inside trunk release, she popped the trunk and tossed her bag inside, next to a large, black, bowling ball bag. Before going inside the club, she pulled Baby out of the bag and tucked it back under her wig. As she walked toward the entrance, she saw a familiar face; it was the thug, Peanut, whom she had checked into the Waters Edge Hotel a week ago. She had a hunch he was the one that informed King Gee where she worked. I wonder if this fool is gonna recognize me.

  Standing next to the same “thugged-out” Buick he had driven to the hotel, his eyes went from her face to her tits with light speed. “Hey, sexy! Come holla at a playa!”

  “I wish I had the time, baby,” she said with a forced smile and well-practiced Southern drawl. After successfully fooling Peanut, she moved to the end of the admission line. She studied how the bouncers were scanning the incoming guests. Cool; they are still just barely waving the metal detectors on the women.

  The husky, West Indian bouncer smiled as she approached. “How you doin’, sista?”