Shattered Trust

by Leslie Esdaile Banks

  She stopped moving about, nearly paralyzed. “Did he say he was coming?”

  “Do it matter?” Jamal said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Stop playing,” she whispered.

  “Aw, girl, no. He didn’t say he was coming, just that I know James and cuz are trying to get him down here with the quickness.”

  Najira let out her breath and turned off the flame beneath the pan. In jerky, halting motions, she flung sausage links into the pan Jamal had reached down, and then spun around to put biscuits in the microwave.

  “I don’t understand why all of a sudden there’s this big rush to get Dad to come down here and whatnot.” She opened the refrigerator door and leaned in, hunting for guava jelly, fussing at the shelves. “There’s no good reason for the man to be uprooted from his neighborhood and friends, if that’s what he doesn’t want to do—besides, if he’s dead set on staying put, and hates to fly, why can’t they leave well enough alone? I mean, Jamal, the man won’t halfway take the money we send him, let alone pack his bags for an extended stay.” She stood quickly and placed her hands on hips, still staring at the semi-vacant shelves for what no longer existed. “Give me one good reason.”

  Najira stepped back quickly as the refrigerator door seemed to close on its own and Steve’s sudden presence gave her a start.

  “For his safety, hon,” Steve said carefully.

  Najira placed a flat palm on her chest. “Don’t do that. Lord have mercy, Steve!”

  “She’s just a little edgy this morning, man,” Jamal quipped, and then headed for the door.

  “Hold up, J,” Najira said. She immediately turned her attention to Steve. “What do you mean, for his safety?”

  Jamal shrugged. “Might as well tell her, seeing as how you got enough ammo to go against SWAT in the garage. If it gets hot up in the tip, at least she should know to duck from shells flying before pulling her cute little Jeep in there.”

  Steve closed his eyes and sighed as Najira blanched.

  “What ammo, Steve?”

  “Aw, dude ... c’mon,” Steve said, letting his breath out hard and going to fix a pot of coffee. “Not first thing in the morning.”

  “What ammo, Steve?!” Najira said again, her voice becoming strident.

  “And the super security system,” Jamal added, nonplussed, taking a swig of juice directly from the juicer.

  Najira whirled on him and snatched the container from him, sloshing juice on the floor. “We already have an alarm system.”

  “Not like the one your boy is getting rigged to work on monitors over at James and Laura’s joint.”

  “Oh, shit ...” Najira walked away from the stove and sat down in a kitchen chair.

  “That was just about the smoothest delivery I’ve seen in all my life,” Steve said sarcastically, glaring at Jamal.

  “Just being real, man,” Jamal said with a shrug, beginning to sample the cooling eggs in the pan. “The girl needs to know what time it is, just like you need to know that, if Pop decides to come here for a long visit, y’all gonna have to chill while he’s under this roof, ya mean? Like, he’s old school, even though ’Jira’s grown and all, and—”

  “J, this is a new millennium,” Najira said, dropping her head into her hands. “People can’t be judged by—”

  “Oh, yeah, I feel you. But did you happen to tell Pop about this being a new millennium? He mighta missed that part, being an old sixties revolutionary cat, and Civil Rights—”

  “I know, I know,” Steve said, snatching a mug down from the cabinets. “Your old man is like mine in a lot of ways. I’m from Port Richmond, remember—and my folks weren’t exactly into the ‘we are the world’ thing, either. I got it. Not with my daughter. No problem.”

  “Steve, don’t be like that,” Najira said, her tone soft.

  “Long as you know and don’t take it wrong. Me and you cool,” Jamal said, offering a fist pound that Steve ignored. “Aw’ight, look, don’t be feeling some type of way about what I’m saying.”

  “I’m not feeling some type of way about that,” Steve argued. “I’m just pissed about—”

  “Talk to me about the ammo and alarm systems,” Najira said between her teeth. “Both of you.”

  Steve and Jamal looked at each other.

  “James started the shit, truth be told,” Jamal said, opening his arms wide. “Me, I was a bystander.”

  “Don’t blame my partner, man,” Steve said, pouring black coffee into his mug and slurping it. “Laura is the one who probably got Jim acting all weird and jumpy about hypotheticals.”

  “No doubt,” Jamal agreed, going to get one of the biscuits from the microwave and tending the sausage in the skillet. “The girl stays paranoid.”

  “Not without good cause,” Najira said quietly. “I would think we’d all have learned that by now.”

  Steve looked at her and then raked his fingers through his damp blond hair. “Yeah.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say, ‘yeah’?” Incredulous, Najira stood up again. “When were you guys gonna tell me there was a problem?”

  “A potential problem,” Steve corrected, sipping his brew with care.

  “Might as well sit down, sis. Eat. Chill. And listen. Steve will break it down for you. It ain’t rocket science. Me, him, and James are just walking on the safe side, just in case.” Jamal crossed the room and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Najira said quickly, her gaze darting between her brother and Steve.

  “You know when Pop gets here, you are gonna have to go with turkey products and whatnot. He don’t do the pork thing, either.”

  “Yo, man,” Steve said, rounding the center island in the kitchen. “I know you are not going to drop a bomb like that in here, get ’Jira all upset, and then walk.”

  “Man,” Jamal said with a smirk. “You handled your business this morning; I’m gonna go handle mine. There’s this fine ass sister down at the marina who—”

  Jamal stopped talking when the telephone rang. Everyone looked at it, but nobody moved. Finally Steve went to the wall unit and snatched the receiver off the cradle.

  “Yeah,” Steve said, his tone surly as he glared at Jamal.

  “Good afternoon to you, too, man,” James said.

  Steve glanced up at the clock. “It’s eleven in my house, which means it’s still morning.”

  James’s laughter boomed through the receiver. “I just called to see if you wanted to head down to the marina, bust a grub, and look at that space we were talking about. But if I caught you at a bad time ... ?”

  The continued laughter made Steve temporarily pull the phone away from his ear. “Something like that,” he said once James’s chuckles had abated.

  “Holla at me later, then. If I had known I was interrupting your groove, I woulda—”

  “’Jira knows,” Steve said flatly, and turned his back to Najira and Jamal.

  James stopped laughing and static filled the receiver.

  “Capice?” Steve asked, vindicated by James’s stunned silence.

  “Roger that,” James said, his voice somber. “When?”

  “Oh, just freakin’ now, dude,” Steve said, glaring at Jamal over his shoulder. “We were just talking about it, and since homeboy is all about heading down to the marina, your timing couldn’t have been any better.”

  “Laura and I will be right over.”

  They sat at the open air restaurant, leaning in, keeping their voices low and speaking in hushed tones, waiting for lunch. Najira took the news with stoic disbelief, like someone in the family had died, as Laura laid out the facts as best she knew them. Even the shapely young waitress couldn’t pull Jamal’s attention away from the huddle. James slowly nursed a beer, watching each person’s facial expressions. Najira picked at her napkin, her eyes glued to Laura’s gaze. Steve casually munched on bread sticks and then chased the dough in his mouth down with an angry swig of beer.

  “So much for being bored stupid,” Jamal murmured.
“You think they’ll really come for us or are we trip-pin’?”

  “I don’t know, brother,” James said evenly, wincing as he swallowed away another sip of beer. “That’s the part I don’t like, not being sure.”

  “What if we’re getting ourselves all worked up for nothing?” Steve offered. “It’s been more than a year, most everybody involved in the first round of cases either died or went to jail for a long time.”

  “True,” Laura said, her voice a quiet, calm murmur. “I’m not worried about the people who went down in round one. All of that led to me, anyway. But the Haines fiasco got the rest of you involved. It won’t be long before all of those people who are behind bars, and anyone—like the senator, who got a plea bargain in the second incident—will begin connecting the dots. That’s what I’m concerned about.”

  “We need to figure out how they’ll try to come for us, and which one of them is bold enough and still has resources enough to try to drop us,” James muttered.

  “You know they operate in networks,” Steve said, letting his breath out hard. “So, my suggestion is you think in plurals, man. Which ones, plural. OK.”

  James nodded. “Kinda hard to get a bead on things so far from home. No real contacts here. I don’t like it. Feels like we’re sitting ducks.”

  “Then maybe we need to go home and bring the noise to them before they bring it to us, and for real squash the bullshit before it even jumps off?” Jamal hailed the waitress for another beer. “To me, that seems like a plan.”

  “Much as I hate to leave paradise,” Steve said quietly, halting his words as a beer was set down in front of Jamal.

  “But a possible hit?” Najira whispered once the waitress had moved away, leaning in farther to keep her statement confidential. “Isn’t that extreme, especially since that’s how they all wound up—?”

  “Najira,” Laura whispered between her teeth. “Those Machiavellian bastards already went there, remember? Now, they are really dangerous, because what do they have to lose? Think about it. If we had something they still wanted or needed, that would be one thing. Cheap insurance. But now that they are fairly certain how badly they got screwed out of millions, their reputations and careers destroyed, their families totally disrupted, and—”

  “I know,” Najira said, slumping back in her chair and briefly closing her eyes. “All they have left is revenge.”

  “You wrote the book on that one, cuz,” Jamal said, clinking his beer bottle against her glass of iced tea.

  Laura nodded and sat back, ruffling her hair with her fingers. “Precisely.”

  Chapter 3

  Two detectives stood over the body, shaking their heads as they pulled off their latex gloves and dropped them into a hazmat bag near the scene.

  “This poor bastard can’t seem to catch a break,” the older of the two men said. “First his niece, then his son. This is old-school mob hit type of shit. A wire around the throat while the man was sitting in a chair in his own home eating breakfast. Wife walks in on the body after her morning constitution and freaks out. That old lady doesn’t have enough upper body strength to pull off something like this. Don’t seem like the type, either.” He glanced at the other officers on the scene. “Dust the house for prints, but I don’t think you’ll find anything out of the norm—this was a pro job.”

  “I hear you, Joe.” The younger detective turned his back on the grisly site and lowered his voice. “Did you hear how they did his son?”

  His partner nodded. “I heard he was a real asshole, but to sodomize a man to death ... geesh. They said the guy died from internal bleeding before the guards even found him—then what the coroner found inside him would make you lose your lunch. The man didn’t even have a chance to bury his kid before he got whacked ... what was it, twenty-four or forty-eight hours ago? Now there’ll be no media courtesy to allow the widow to privately grieve. All the gory details will be out. It’s a damned travesty, if ever I saw one.”

  “All this bullshit is giving me the willies,” the younger man said, wiping the sheen of anxiety perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his navy suit. “What do you think he was into that coulda gotten him and his boy handled like this? I mean, given who he was and all.”

  “Who knows? They all had their hands in the cookie jars, and we just got done with all of that insanity. Maybe some folks got nervous and just decided it was time to clean up the trail, since all roads eventually lead to Rome.”

  The more seasoned police veteran let out a long sigh then went to the window, motioning to the coroner’s black van. “Bag him and tag him,” he called out and then turned to his partner. “Get some coffee, kid. It’s gonna be a long day. Any time a VIP goes out like this, there’ll be a lot of paperwork and Cap is gonna need enough ammo to fend off the media in a statement by the evening news.”

  James paid the bill and the emotionally weary fivesome stood slowly. Steve’s cell phone vibrated on his hip, and he exchanged a glance with James as he took the call.

  “Yo,” Steve said, alarmed at the number that flashed on his display.

  “Yo, Sulli, you should put on cable tonight and watch the news. A bad wind is blowing through Philly, and I’m just giving you a heads up that it wasn’t us.”

  The call disconnected, and Steve stared at his cell phone for a moment.

  “Talk to me,” James said in a quiet voice. “The color just drained from your face.”

  “That was Caluzo. He said a bad wind was blowing through Philly, but it wasn’t his people. Said to watch the news.”

  James unhooked his cellular from his waistband and began dialing a number he knew by heart as the others around him remained mute, staring.

  “Yo, Cap,” James said the moment the call connected. “Talk to me. I hear there’s some crazy shit going on in Philly.”

  “You’re retired,” his old captain said. “Stay that way.”

  “C’mon, man, don’t front on me like—”

  “I’m serious, Carter,” Cap said, his tone low and lethal. “How did you hear about the shit all the way down in the Caribbean when it hasn’t even broken yet in the news? You need to talk to me.”

  “Can’t do that, man. You know I don’t work like that.”

  “Then stay on vacation and stay out of it.”

  The call abruptly disconnected.

  James shot a holding glare around the group. “We take this outside,” he said quietly, and began walking.

  When they’d all reached the beach and were out of earshot of anyone else, they all began firing questions at him at once.

  “James, what the hell was that all about?” Laura said, grabbing his arm.

  “Yeah, man. Whassup?” Jamal said, his tone frantic as his gaze shot between Steve and James.

  “Cap wasn’t giving an inch, I take it,” Steve said flatly, raking his hair. “Figured as much.”

  “What’s this all about, Steve?” Najira said, her voice growing strident.

  “I don’t know,” Steve said. “Call your Dad—now.”

  She dug in her purse, ransacking the contents, but kept her eyes on Steve. The moment she found it, Jamal went to her side, and they all patiently waited until the call connected.

  “Hotep, sweetie,” Najira’s father said brightly. “To what do I owe the honor of this call from my child so early in the day?”

  “Nothing, Dad, just thinking about you and wondering when you might come down for another visit?”

  He chuckled. “Let me speak to Laura. Tell her that Akhan knows her methods of persuasion too well by now to be fooled. But I love you anyway. Put her on.”

  Najira extended the phone toward Laura. “He wants to speak to you.”

  “Queen Sister, how are you?” he said carefully, going into his usual conspiracy theory ruse of distancing family from him on any electronic device.

  “Fine, Brother Akhan,” Laura replied, humoring him with good reason. “We were wondering how things were fairing in Philly—how you are doing the
se days?—and thought a break from the routine might be in order.”

  “Oh?”

  Laura began pacing, the game of double-talk driving her nuts. “Yes. I think that would be a good idea. In fact, I insist.”

  “Is this a new concept of yours, or something that has been brewing in your head for a while?”

  She sighed. “Both, but it has become a nagging thought as of this morning. Please visit, we miss you.”

  “If you feel so strongly,” he said, his tone becoming distant, “I might have to comply.”

  “There are flights daily, and I’ll reimburse you. In fact, if you fly into Miami—which is only like two and a half hours, from there it’s about an hour. We could have dinner together. How’s that sound?”

  The elderly man hesitated. “It sounds rushed.”

  “It is, because we are so eager to have you in our company.”

  Silence filled the line.

  “I need to pack,” he finally said.

  “No you don’t,” Laura replied quickly. “We can go shopping and that would be fun. You have a passport, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. Then it’s settled. Call my cell, or Najira’s, when you get here. We’ll pick you up from the airport.”

  “But I haven’t had my tea yet.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. “Please,” she whispered. “Do it for me.”

  “Sounding like that, dear child,” he said quietly, “how could I refuse?”

  “I’ll see you soon,” Laura said, and then handed the phone to Najira without waiting for the old man’s reply.

  “I love you, Dad,” Najira said softly. “Say hi to Jamal.” She passed the phone to Jamal, who kept his line of vision trained on the group.

  “Yo, Pop. How you livin’?” Jamal said. “Glad you comin’. Holla at us the minute your flight gets here, aw’ight?”

  The group watched Jamal hard.

  “OK. Cool,” Jamal muttered, and then hung up.

  “I gotta ask you all a serious question,” Jamal said, keeping his voice so quiet that it could hardly be heard above the surf. “Why you freak the old man out like that over one phone call that didn’t tell us squat? I know we’ve got to be careful and to watch our backs, but it ain’t about being so paranoid that—”