* * *
“Why would you want to do that to Scooter?” Mila hit the back of their child’s back to burp him before passing him to Levi. “That’s foul. I’m not with that.”
“I didn’t even have to tell you.” Levi played with the baby and kissed him on the forehead. “Don’t worry about your best friend. She won’t be a part of it. I promise.”
Mila sat on the white leather Italian couch as she thought about how close they all were. They were family. She couldn’t believe what was coming out of Levi’s mouth. Aphtan had enough on her plate. What Levi was trying to do to Scooter would do nothing but add more than what she could handle right now. It would break her.
“Boss isn’t even in the ground yet.” Mila put her legs underneath her body and sat on them. “Everybody plotting for his spot, and the man hasn’t even been put to rest.”
“That’s the streets for you.” He rocked the baby in his arms. “Now is the time to make the move. Don’t you want your man to run the streets? Don’t you want our son, and the seed baking in your oven, to have a secure future?”
Mila rubbed her belly. “Yes.”
“Then get on board with me, Jamila. I don’t want to hurt you and Aphtan’s relationship.”
“What about your cousin?” She held her hands up. “What about the bond that y’all have? You two have been so close for so many years.”
“I know.” Levi sat down on the end of the couch and put their now sleeping son on one of the soft cushions. “He’s like a brother to me. Don’t get me wrong, Jamila. It’s just that I have kids now. I can’t be second fiddle to no one anymore. Being a lieutenant isn’t good enough anymore. I need to be king.”
Born two weeks apart, Levi and Scooter had been joined at the hip since birth. They were closer to each other than anyone else. They knew things about each other that would go to the grave with them. Levi was willing to give it all up. Scooter was sure to run the streets after Boss’s death. He needed to do whatever it took to do it before him; even if he had to go through him to do so. Timing was everything.
“Nobody will get hurt?” Mila slid over on the couch and got on top of him. “Tell me no one will get hurt.”
“Aphtan will be safe.” Levi grabbed her waist and kissed her stomach. “You and my kids will be safe.”
“What about Scooter?”
“What about him?”
“Will he be safe?”
“If he’s smart.”
“What if he’s dumb?” Mila ran her acrylic nail through his beard.
“Let’s just say, your friend is going to need your shoulder.”
“Levi,”—she put her finger over his mouth—“don’t say that.”
“You’re my wife.” Levi kissed her finger. “I can tell you anything, right?”
“Always.” Mila hugged him.
Mila’s facial expression changed when her face disappeared from Levi’s view. She loved him, but deep down she wasn’t down for betraying the people that she considered family. Scooter was their son’s godfather. He wasn’t just another dude from the block. He was family.
She looked into his eyes when the hug subsided, and she saw someone she had never met before. His eyes begged for power, for respect. It made her wonder what else he was willing to give up for that power.
“You all right?” He noticed her face changing.
“Yes, I am. I was just thinking about what Tsunami called and told me,” she lied.
“What did she tell you?” he asked out of curiosity.
“She told me that Scooter killed Boss.” Mila looked at his face as it changed a little. “Did he kill Boss?” She hit his chest softly.
“Yes, he did.” He nodded his head up and down.
“No, Levi.” Mila looked off into space.
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Should I?”
“She’s your friend.” He picked her up and sat her beside him before getting up. “That’s your call.”
Mila thought about how she would want Aphtan to tell her news, good or bad. As her best friend, it was her responsibility to tell her. Blood couldn’t make them any closer. She was going to be the shoulder she leaned on. She had to tell her who killed her father.
CHAPTER 26
“Rude ass motherfucker,” Aphtan said to herself, referring to Cole as her gas light came on. Her car cut her music to a halt and beeping sprouted from her speakers letting her know that she had ten miles left. “Shit,” she whispered as she zoomed into a gas station.
Aphtan pulled up to a pump as she grabbed her credit card from her Celine bag. She got out and walked inside of the project store, ignoring countless men’s advances and comments. She gave her card to the Iranian working the counter through the gate that separated him from the customers and walked back to her car.
“Ms. Epps?” A man in a tailored suit asked as Aphtan put the nozzle inside her gas tank.
“It’s Mrs. Dixon now, but who wants to know?” Aphtan studied him up and down.
“We do.” A woman approached the other side of Aphtan.
“Who the fuck is y’all?” Aphtan asked with an attitude.
“We are detectives for this beautiful city of Dallas that your father singlehandedly destroyed.” The woman held her identification up so Aphtan could see. “I’m Detective Stead and he’s Detective Gomez.”
“My father hasn’t even been dead a good week and y’all already fucking with me.” Aphtan spoke with malice in her voice.
Aphtan checked out the identification and the female detective. The tall, light-brown-skinned woman looked to be about twenty-eight and of Cuban descent. She could tell that underneath her clothes, she had the body of a goddess. She was a very beautiful woman.
Detective Stead looked as if she’d only had timid, gentle kisses so far, never being in any real danger. But there was a tiger inside her, a tiger who wanted a long, hard kiss; a tiger who wanted to be in the line of fire. She’d show a little protest, but only to convince herself she was still a lady. But then she’d start to melt and let herself settle like soft-serve ice cream.
Detective Gomez was a different story. He had been in his profession for over half of his fifty-something years. He would know bullshit whenever he heard it. He got his kick from intimidation, and they were a bad cop, good cop duo.
Aphtan studied his knock-off designer suit and his salt-and-pepper hair and goatee. She looked at his eyes, which were partly shut, but were the color of the ocean on an autumn’s evening. She noticed every scar and every mole on his pale, pink face.
“Y’all might as well get out of my face, because you won’t get anything from me.” Aphtan looked forward, ignoring their presence.
“We got so much on your father, little girl, that we don’t need shit from you.” Detective Stead laughed. “We were just trying to offer you immunity if you could help us further with our investigation.”
“Somebody that is innocent does not need immunity. I haven’t been here in years. Y’all ain’t got shit on me or my father, so cut the shenanigans.” Aphtan continued to look forward.
“You don’t know what we got,” Detective Stead said in a serious voice as she noticed that Aphtan wasn’t shaken at all by their presence.
“If you did have something on me, I guarantee you that we wouldn’t be talking about it here. Get the fuck out of my face.” Aphtan took the nozzle out and placed it back on the gas pump. “As far as my father goes, he’s dead. A dead man can’t tell you anything. You two are out of luck.”
“We still can get all of his property seized.” Detective Gomez walked closer to Aphtan. “Your car, your fancy clothes, your jewels were all purchased with drug money. We can have all of this stuff taken away from you, little girl, and it would shatter your world. We know your father was the drug lord of Dallas.”
“You don’t know shit.” Aphtan smiled at him and blew him a kiss. “If you did, you wouldn’t be trying to push up on me. And for the record, my husband buys me whatever I
want. Also, my daddy owned many companies. If I did get anything from him, who’s to say the funds didn’t come from one of his lucrative businesses.”
“Your husband is Christopher Wayne ‘Scooter’ Dixon, son of Loon ‘Money’ Dixon. Trust me, we have enough on him, too. We can get him as well,” Detective Gomez assured her.
“Aphtan, if you help us, we can turn an eye on everything your father has ever bought you. We don’t have to know about everything your husband has bought you,” Detective Stead said in a pleading voice. “We don’t want you, we just want the organization.”
“What organization?” Aphtan played dumb. “What are you talking about?” She opened up the door to her car to get in.
“Your father trained you well to keep your mouth closed.” Detective Gomez grabbed her arm. “But you know we have something on him and Scooter. You’re not dumb, so remember that.” He let her go. “Nice car, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Aphtan got in, closed the door, and rolled her windows down. “If you work hard enough you might get one—well, probably not.” She waved at the detectives, put her shades on, and drove off.
“That was not how that was supposed to go,” Detective Stead told her partner as they walked back to their car, which was parked on the side of the convenience store.
“I know,” he agreed as they got inside the car. He pulled his cell phone out and dialed a number as Detective Stead started the car and eased through the alley. “She didn’t take the bait.” He rolled down the passenger-side window. “She’s her father’s child, after all. She’s going to be hard to break. I can see that now.”
* * *
Cole stood at the front of the projects with his phone glued to his ear. He couldn’t get Aphtan out of his mind. He paced back and forth, hoping something would distract him, but nothing worked. Everywhere he looked, he could see her face.
He finished his phone call and put his phone in his pocket. Noticing an unmarked car driving by slowly, he put his hand on his gun. When the window rolled down and he saw it was Money, he let go of his grip.
“I used to protect these same projects.” Money got out of the car. “This was my duty as well. This brings back memories.”
Cole never looked at him. A simple, “okay” left his mouth.
“Are you going to Boss’s funeral?”
“I don’t know,” Cole answered slowly as his father stood next to him.
“I’m going.” Money took a blunt from the pocket inside his blazer. “I want to say goodbye to an old friend.” He turned his hand sideways until the face of the watch he wore fell into place.
“You could have done that when you killed the man.” He looked over at him. “Aphtan is not going to want you or Scooter there.”
“Aphtan doesn’t run shit, Cole. This is my city now.” He opened his arms as wide as they would go. “This is my fucking city, and I’ll go where I please.”
Cole put his hands in his pockets. “All I’m saying is that she’s been through enough. Why upset her more? The girl isn’t stupid. She knows y’all killed her father.”
“There it is.” Money winked at him. “Your brother told me you had a weak spot for his wife, and now I see it.”
“Your son,” he said, referring to Scooter, “need not worry about me.”
“What is it about her that drives you two so crazy?”
“I guess it’s in her genes. I heard you were the exact way about her mother. You should know. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”
“Aphtan isn’t half the woman her mother was.” Money looked at the ground. “Don’t talk about shit you know nothing about.”
“I know you didn’t come here to tell me this wild love story between you and Aphtan’s mother. What do you want, Pop?”
“I want you to work for me.”
“Work for you? No, thank you.”
“Why not?” Money asked, the blunt being abused by his lips.
“I rather not.” Cole put his hand on Money’s shoulder. “One of us will end up dead.”
“You’re going to work for a dead man?”
“I still have some work I have to do.”
“What kind of work?” he asked as Cole walked away.
“You’ll see soon.” Cole disappeared in between the abandoned buildings.
Everything he was planning to do was for Aphtan and no one else. He could easily ignore what Boss had asked him to do. No one would ever know if he didn’t do it. The job was more for his satisfaction. He’d been waiting a long time to get Scooter out of the way. There was no way he was going to pass up an opportunity to get it done.
CHAPTER 27
Aphtan arrived in the area of South Lake, a rich subdivision where her father’s home was located. She looked throughout the neighborhood. Her father’s promise to move to a rich white neighborhood had come true; all she saw were stuck-up white folks. Even the air that traveled inside her car smelled stuck-up.
She wasn’t too fond of the neighborhood, even though she had stayed there for a little in her adolescence. Nothing changed; the white women were still walking their show dogs. White men in their too-short shorts were still walking around with the exact same smug facial expressions they had since her family had invaded the neighborhood and changed their white to black ratio from a thousand to zero to a staggering thousand to three.
Aphtan pulled up to the colonial-style house and noticed six cars parked in the large driveway. Three of the cars that lined the circular driveway with its moat with a fountain in the middle of it belonged to her father. The other cars she had never seen before.
Aphtan got out of her car and walked up to the tall white door of her father’s house. Without knocking, she walked in; the scent of him lingered in the foyer. She continued to walk through the bottom level of the house to see who all was there. To her knowledge, no one was supposed to be there.
“How are you?”
Aphtan turned around in a jump. Her eyes dashed into the face of her doctor, Verna Coffee. She was confused as to why she was there. It was clear that she wanted answers, from the look on her face.
“How are you holding up?” Verna wrapped her arms around her. “Your father is in a better place.”
“Verna?” Aphtan welcomed her hug. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my home.” She stepped back and grabbed her face. “Come with me, and I’ll explain everything to you.”
Aphtan followed her through the dimly lit house. Everything was the same as the last time she was there. She admired the simplicity of the décor as they made it to the all-white family room.
“Please, take a seat.” Verna pointed to the seat next to her after she sat down.
Aphtan sat down slowly, reluctantly even.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me.” Verna picked the gold-plated bell from the table in front of them and rung it.
“I do.” Aphtan looked around and examined the room like she’d never seen it before. “Why are you here? What do you mean, this is your home?”
“Your father is—” She looked down. “—was my lover. We were about to get married.”
Aphtan laughed. “Lover? Is this a joke?”
“This of all times is no time for games.” She crossed her legs as the housekeeper entered the room. “Would you like something to drink?”
Aphtan nodded her head up and down.
“Bring us a glass of wine,” Verna told the housekeeper before giving her attention back to Aphtan. “Your father and I have been in love for so many years. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you this. It was hard being your physician and keeping this from you.”
“How many years are we talking? My father was incarcerated for so long. Where could you have met him?”
“In prison.” Verna grabbed the glass from the housekeeper when she entered the room. “Be careful,” she told Aphtan as she grabbed her glass full of red wine. “This is a white room, after all.”
“I’m aware.” She
sipped from the glass. “I have one of these rooms as well.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Back to this.” Aphtan crossed her legs. “You met him in prison?”
“Yes, I did.” She sat the glass down on a coaster. “I was the on-call physician at the prison. One day, I got a call to come stitch up a man from a brutal fight.”
“Daddy got beat up?”
“The complete opposite.” Verna smiled softly. “I had to stitch up his fists. Both of them were open deeply. I normally don’t speak to the prisoners, but there was something about your father. From that day forward, a bond was created.”
“Bumping into me that day at the market wasn’t an accident?” Aphtan asked as she reminisced about the day that they met.
“No.” She put her hands on one of Aphtan’s knees. “Boss told me to keep an eye on you. Being your doctor was the only way I knew how. So I offered you my card.”
“Something’s not adding up.” Aphtan leaned back on the couch, the glass still in her hand. “Wasn’t my father locked up hours away?”
“Yes, he was. I moved to where you were to keep an eye on you for him. The last couple years of his sentence consisted of me keeping an eye on you. Even after he got out, I still kept an eye on you for him.”
“I was only a job for you?”
“It started out that way. However, the bond we share is real. I couldn’t fake that if I tried.”
Aphtan looked at Verna as she thought about their friendship. She always wondered why a doctor would take so much interest in her, and now she knew why. She had been a good friend to her, yet something in her wasn’t satisfied with just that fact. She was tired of being lied to.
With everything that had been going on with Scooter, she wasn’t in any position to lose any more people in her circle. Losing her father was the last thing she could handle.
“How about you go get you some rest? We’re burying your father tomorrow.” Verna stood up. “Everything is the same. I’m sure you know your way around still.”
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