by Carl Weber
“This is the reason.” I took MJ’s hand and started leading him and Niles back toward the house.
“How was school?” I asked my son.
“Mommy, we have to do homework,” he whined, clearly not pleased with kindergarten. “I have to write ten things that begin with the letter G. Ten whole things.” He sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Homework meant he couldn’t just kick back and do nothing but play video games on his iPad.
“Can you say hello to my friend Niles?”
MJ looked up, finally noticing that I wasn’t alone.
“Hello,” he said quietly to Niles. I could tell that he was still distracted by the homework.
I guess Niles caught that too. “Why don’t you tell me some things that begin with the letter G? Like, what’s that next to the pavement?”
“Grass!” MJ shouted victoriously.
“Uh-huh, and what color is it?” Niles asked.
“Green!”
This went on until we reached the house, with Niles throwing him all kinds of easy clues.
“Tell Grandma to give you a snack,” I told MJ as we reached the front door.
“Grandma! That’s another G word!” MJ announced right before he raced into the house, yelling, “Grandma, I know nine words that start with a G!”
We both cracked up at that kid and the crazy amount of energy he had.
“I can see you have your hands full, but if you can get a babysitter, I would love to take you to dinner. And I will handle both.” He was looking into my eyes with that sexy stare of his, and suddenly Friday was feeling way too far off.
“You think I got my mother here for no reason?” I joked. “Did you already forget how annoying she is?”
Niles took that opportunity to lean in and kiss me. “I got to get on home, but I’ll call you about dinner.”
“Promise?” I tried not to sound desperate.
“Yeah, I promise,” He nodded.
When he left, I felt like I was walking on air—until I entered the kitchen and saw my mother glaring at me.
She ordered my son away. “MJ, go play in your room.”
She waited until he was gone to lay into me. “So, he the one who killed Rodney!” she said, shooting me a dirty look. “You know you just setting yourself up for trouble, girl.”
“Why you gotta be listening to my business?” I shot back.
“All up in the Kool Aid and you don’t know the flavor,” I said, repeating one of her annoying sayings back in her face. “Besides, he didn’t do it.”
“You lucky I’m listening, ’cause you too stupid to stay out of trouble, and that boy is trouble. You think Majestic ain’t gonna find out?”
“There is nothing for him to find out. We’re not together. God! Just let me live my life!” I was screaming at her at this point. I didn’t give a shit that she was my mother. I’d had enough of her trying to control my every move.
“Uh-huh. Just wait. Chickens always come home to roost.” No doubt she thought she was giving me some sage advice, but she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. She never did.
The doorbell sounded again. I cursed under my breath when I peeked out the window and spotted Bruce’s car in the driveway. Apparently my mother had seen it too.
“See, I told you. You playing with fire. What would you do if Bruce had caught that guy in here?”
“I’ma go check on MJ,” I said, stomping away to get a moment’s peace from her badgering me. At that moment, everyone could just go to hell as far as I was concerned. There was no way I was about to let my mother, Bruce, or even Majestic get in the way of my relationship—or whatever this thing was with Niles. All I knew was it was something that I wanted.
Bruce
17
With Majestic locked up for the next six months, it was my responsibility to handle not only my side of our business, but his side too, which included knowing exactly what kind of numbers our various businesses were doing, who was shorting us, and who needed to be dealt with immediately, permanently, and sometimes both. There were parts of his job that I liked better than others. My least favorite was dealing with all his hormonal-ass women. The only one I didn’t mind so much was his baby mama, Keisha. Out of all his bitches, she always kept it real.
“Hey, Bruce.” Keisha’s moms answered the door wearing a halter top and booty shorts. Her big-ass nipples were standing at attention, ’cause the chick wasn’t wearing no bra and didn’t seem to care.
“What’s up, Ms. Smalls?” I looked down at her through my mirrored sunglasses, sucking on a toothpick. “Keisha home?”
“Why you keep calling me Ms. Smalls? I told you before my name is Debra.” She leaned closer to me and ran her hand over my arm suggestively.
“I’m just tryin’ to show you that respect as Keisha’s mom, that’s all.”
“Fuck that. I had Keisha when I was young. I don’t want you to respect me as her mother. I want you to respect me as a woman.” She spun around in those short shorts, displaying her perfect, juicy, heart-shaped ass.
“Like what you see?” she asked flirtatiously.
I gave her a quick once-over, having to admit to myself that I did like what I saw. She was a thicker version of her daughter, and I liked them thick. Too bad she was Keisha’s moms, otherwise I might have stopped by to tighten her phat ass up.
“No doubt. I like what you working with.”
“Then why don’t you take me out so I can show you exactly what I’m workin’ with? That is, unless you’re not into grown-ass women,” she said, challenging me.
Her brazenness made me laugh. “Nah, I like my meat seasoned, ’cause I’m not into giving lessons. My women have to know what they doing.”
“I heard that!” She laughed and stepped out of the way to let me enter.
Keisha appeared at the end of the hallway with MJ on her hip. “Ma, what are you doing?” she snapped.
“I was trying to do this handsome man before you interrupted me,” Debra answered a little too sweetly, and I could see Keisha roll her eyes like she was embarrassed by her mother’s behavior. If you ask me, she should have been proud that her mother could still work it.
Keisha stomped up to us and passed MJ to her mother, essentially cock-blocking anything that might be going on between us. “Ma, could you put him down for a nap? He’s tired but fighting it.” It was clear from her tone that she wasn’t asking Debra to do it; she was telling her.
“Hey, little man.” I rubbed MJ’s head and then pretended to box with my godson, who giggled at the play.
Reluctantly Debra took her grandson to his bedroom, but as she switched her ass down the hall, she looked back over her shoulder and locked her eyes on me. Yeah, I was definitely going to have to practice some restraint.
Keisha busted me, slapping my arm. “Stop looking at her like that. That’s my mother. It’s weird.”
I fixed her with my own stare. “Well, your mother better stop playing with me, ’cause I’ma fuck the shit outta her ass one of these days. And you seen what happens after that.”
Of course she jumped to her mother’s defense. “My mother ain’t one of your hoes, Bruce, so you better remember that.”
“Yeah, well, she just put in an application. If she keep fuckin’ with me like she been doin’, I won’t have no choice but to put her in the rotation,” I warned smugly.
“Don’t play with me, Bruce.” Keisha sucked her teeth and directed more attitude my way. “What are you doing here anyway?”
I took out the bankroll of hundreds that I always kept at the ready, peeled off fifteen, and handed them to her. “Majestic wanted me to give you this and to let you know that while he’s away, you and MJ ain’t gonna have nothing to worry about.”
She took the money and slipped it in her pocket. “So you think this is it? He going away for good?” She sounded curious, but she sure as hell didn’t sound heartbroken.
“I don’t know,” I lied. Majestic and I had
decided not to let anyone know he was only in for a short period of time, because we wanted to know just who we could trust on a lot of levels. Sure, I could handle things forever if I had to, but we both understood that we worked better as a team. “You know the system. Now that all these jails are privately owned, they always looking to keep us behind bars.”
The look she gave me said a lot. This bitch was hoping Majestic was going away for a very long time. “I just want to know if I can move on with my life.”
I let out a sigh. “Look, Keisha, let me give you some advice. As long as that man’s alive and you have his son, you belong to him. So take this money, go get you something cute to wear, get your hair done, and go out to Riverhead and let him see his son this weekend. Anything else you got in your head is just gonna cause you a world of hurt.”
“Bruce, Majestic doesn’t own me,” she said defiantly. “He can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
“I’ll tell you what: He may not own you, but I bet you take your ass down to that visit on Saturday. I bet you that. ’Cause if you don’t, this house you living in and that car parked out front will all be a distant memory.”
She didn’t reply; just nodded her head. The one thing I could say about Keisha was the girl had smarts. I could see why Majestic kept messing with her all these years. She had something these other girls didn’t. She wasn’t your usual girl-from-the-hood type of bitch. She could probably be a teacher or run a business, but Majestic was not down with her being smarter than him, so her full-time job was being his baby mama.
“You heard about what happened to Rodney?” I asked, getting to my other reason for stopping by.
“Yeah, I’m sorry to hear about him. I was planning on taking MJ to see his grandmother tomorrow. You heard anything about any arrangements?”
“Saturday, but listen. I need you to keep your ear to the ground, ’cause we’re looking for anything that could help us find whoever did this shit. You ain’t heard anything, have you?”
“Nah, I seen him at Sugar’s for a hot minute, but that was about it.” I could swear I saw something in her expression that bothered me, but it passed as quickly as it came.
“Well, if you hear anything, give me a call.”
Keisha nodded her understanding. “Thanks again for the money.”
“Anything you or MJ need, just hit me up. I gotta bounce and check out some leads on this Rodney thing. You a’ight?” I double-checked.
“Yeah, I’m good.” She was looking past me at the door like she couldn’t wait for me to leave.
“Tell your moms I like those shorts she was wearing,” I said just to get under her skin.
She cut her eyes at me and slammed the door behind me. As soon as that door shut, I could hear her yelling at her moms from the other side. I had to laugh, ’cause I knew the two of them were going at it about me.
By the time I got in my car, I had all but forgotten about them. All I wanted to do was find the person who had killed Rodney and deliver the same fate to him.
Niles
18
“Mr. Monroe.” A tall, stocky, fiftyish black man wearing a dark suit approached me from the sidewalk as I exited the house. He looked totally out of place, but also like he could handle himself. Something told me he had been in plenty of places way more dangerous than the streets of Wyandanch.
“Sorry I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself the other day. My name is Winston,” he said as I met him on the walkway.
“Nice to meet you, Winston.” I shook his hand.
“Ms. St. John is waiting in the car,” Winston informed me as I followed him to the black Rolls Royce parked at the curb. A crowd of school kids and their parents waiting for the bus had gathered near the car. It wasn’t every day that they got this close to a vehicle costing twice as much as most of their houses.
Winston opened the door for me, and I climbed into the back seat, noting the irony of my situation. The other night I was being shoved into a police car, and now I was being invited into a luxury vehicle by a private chauffeur. It almost made me laugh, except that I didn’t have much of a sense of humor lately. I didn’t have any idea where they were taking me, and the lack of control made me feel some kind of way. I was not exactly fearful, because I’d faced life and death situations before in the Army, but I felt uncertain. I was venturing into unknown territory.
Bridget was tapping away on her iPad. She barely glanced up as I slid in next to her.
“Where are we going?” I asked as Winston pulled away from the curb. I hated feeling like a kidnap victim.
Bridget stopped working on her iPad just long enough to say, “Mr. Monroe, I can assure you that no harm will come to you, for you are too valuable an asset to me.” Then she went right back to work.
“Well, you did work extra hard to make sure I had no choice but to work for you.” I spat the words out, not giving a fuck.
She finally closed her iPad and turned to give me her full attention. “I can assure you that this rage you are feeling will be put to better use. We have a lot of work to do to train you for your new position. But first things first.” She reached into a large bag and handed me a thick manila envelope.
I took it, but I wasn’t in any rush to see what it contained. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they were papers she needed me to sign, giving her total control over my life.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” She had the nerve to smile at me like we were friends.
“Ms. St. John, we are not cool, and this is not some buddy movie where we are going to turn into best friends. You are blackmailing me, and unless you read me wrong, you should know that I’m not cool with that.”
“I understand, but maybe you will be cool with what is in that envelope. At least it’s a start. I promise you that it won’t bite.” She smiled again.
Fine. I realized I was going to have to pick my battles with this woman. I let out a frustrated sigh and opened up the envelope. Five large stacks of hundred-dollar bills were fit tightly inside, along with a wallet and an iPhone.
“Still think I’m blackmailing you?” she teased.
“What the hell is this for?” I pulled them out, and I’m not gonna lie; I probably looked like a bozo staring at all that money.
“Whatever the hell you want it to be for.” She laughed, sitting back in her seat smugly. “You are going to need to look and act like you are completely comfortable in the world of the rich, famous, and criminal elite. Now open up the wallet.”
I had to do a double take when I opened it and saw the Visa and American Express black cards neatly tucked in the flaps, along with a Bank of America platinum debit card.
“The account attached to the debit card has a hundred thousand dollars in it,” she said.
“And this?” I lifted the iPhone.
“That is an iPhone with satellite capabilities. It also has an electronic scrambler on it.” She took the phone from me and pushed a few buttons before turning the phone in my direction. “This app activates the scrambler. It will give off a fake GPS location, and you will be able to make secure calls. I’ve taken the liberty of programming my number, Winston’s number, and the assistant director Jonathan Green’s number into it. Only call Jonathan if there is an emergency and you can’t reach me.”
“I see. What else do you have in store for me?” There was no denying that she had my interest.
“I was thinking maybe we’d give you a makeover.” She reached out and touched the fabric of my suit and frowned. “You’re looking a little shabby in this cheap suit, Mr. Monroe.”
“Wow, you don’t hold shit back, do you?”
“Not in my job description,” she replied, leaning so close to me that I could smell the perfume rising off her skin. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn she was about to kiss me. Instead, she whispered in my ear, “Now, this is the part of the job I think you are going to really enjoy, if you are capable of putting your hostility aside.” She pulled away from me. “And if
not, I really don’t give a fuck.”
We spent the rest of the ride in silence. I was still fuming about the way Bridget carried herself with such a superior attitude. It was hard to imagine myself taking orders from someone like this. At the same time, the money, the credit cards, and the tech gadgets had me curious. Most importantly, I knew that if I wanted to provide a better life for my mother, I had no choice but to try to make this work, no matter how much Bridget got under my skin. By the time we pulled up in front of what appeared to be an art gallery in Soho, I had made the decision to stop fighting this and wait to see exactly what Bridget St. John had planned for me.
“So you’re going to buy art?” I joked as I followed her inside the door in the alley of someplace called Michael Andrews. Upon entering, I realized that I had been wrong about this being an art gallery. Red-and-gold brocade wallpaper covered the walls. The room held marble coffee tables and a deep, rich sofa. It looked more like an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club.
“Bridget, it’s so nice to see you again.” A dapper-looking Frenchman in his late fifties dressed in an expensive pinstriped suit greeted us. He and Bridget air-kissed a few times in the European way.
“Pierre, this is my new protégé, Niles Monroe. I need you to work your magic and design him a complete new wardrobe. Something stylish and chic, yet conservative.”
Pierre, clearly the owner of the establishment, shook my hand then stepped back, eyeing me from head to toe in a way that made me slightly uncomfortable.
“You’ve brought me a lot of clients over the years, Bridget”—His eyes wandered over me again—“but nothing like Monsieur Monroe. His physique looks like it has been chiseled by the gods. He was made for my clothes. I’m going to have so much fun with him.”
“Fantastic. I knew I’d brought him to the right place.” She glanced at me and, noticing my discomfort, gave me a smirk. She turned back to Pierre and instructed, “He will need six suits, shirts, ties, and all the trimmings for fall. Another six in your spring and summer weights.”