by Meesha Mink
“I guess he making up for his girl catching us in their house.”
Vivica side-eyed her. “I heard about it,” she mouthed before she took a sip.
Naeema eyed Nelson asking their hostess a question when she brought a new round of drinks and glasses to their table. She followed where Ashia pointed something out for him. The restrooms. Young dude gotta pee-pee.
“I’ll be back,” Naeema whispered to Bas before Nelson could even make his move. She picked up her black ostrich feather clutch and shimmied by Vivica to make her way past each VIP station to the restrooms.
Her jam, “Drop It Low” by Ester Dean was blaring and people were getting off. Naeema had to fight the urge to “drop, drop, drop” right in front of a famous New York rap icon and his whole entourage.
Before she walked into the bathroom she glanced over her shoulder to make sure Nelson wasn’t strolling his behind over. She entered but kept the door cracked to catch him just before he pushed open the men’s bathroom door across from her. “Hey, Nelson,” she said, stepping out into the short hall and pretending to air-dry her hands.
“Whaddup, birthday girl,” he said, smiling and causing his already tiny eyes to seem to disappear behind his chubby cheeks.
The smell of weed was heavy as hell around his short and thick figure, like the dirt cloud around Pig-Pen from the Charlie Brown cartoons. “Yo, you stay faded. You got something on you?”
“You know that,” he said, patting the pocket of his pink and gray paisley print shirt he wore with dark denims.
“Shit, let’s blaze,” she said, turning to push back against the men’s bathroom door.
Naeema just laughed when he tried to stop her. She checked each stall before sitting up on the granite countertop of the sinks. Nelson eased in as she crossed her legs and set her clutch on her lap.
“We can’t smoke in here,” he said, reaching in his pocket for a box of Newports. He pulled out a blunt. “It’ll set off the smoke detectors and shit. You keep that.”
Naeema took it and slid it inside her clutch. “What was up with that kid Brandon?” she asked, pulling out her lip gloss and playing with it nonchalantly as she turned on the counter to put it on in the mirror running along the entire length of the wall.
Nelson looked down at the floor, pressed his thick lips closed, and shook his head.
“Y’all was cool, right, or . . .”
“Nah, we were straight,” Nelson said, motioning with his pudgy hands. “We was the closest in age so it feel like I lost a little brother.”
She rolled the cap back on the tube. “The way he got killed it’s like somebody was mad at him like . . . yo.”
Nelson frowned. “You heard about it?”
“Bas told me,” she lied.
“Bas talked to you about Brandon?” he asked, sounding disbelieving.
Naeema nodded. “Yeah, he told me all about how the little boy was tossing rocks at the window in the church when he first met him,” she said, glad for the tidbit of truth to feed back to him to ease his doubts.
Nelson visibly relaxed. “Yeah, Bas took him under his wing and shit. Just like he did me. You know?”
“I’m surprised anybody could be that mad to risk pissing off Bas to hurt him. Right?” she asked, meaning to sound naive and nosy instead of calculating.
“Nah. Bas woulda fucked somebody up behind Brandon,” Nelson said.
If not Bas, then who? Maybe you?
“Yeah, but he must’ve pissed somebody off,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, he couldn’t have been perfect, you know? He had to work somebody’s damn nerve. He ain’t never pissed you off?”
“Dude was fourteen, maybe fifteen,” Nelson said.
Fourteen, you fat fuck.
“What could he possibly do to make somebody wanna kill him?”
“Your girl is cute,” Naeema said, meaning to change shit up on him.
Nelson strolled over to the urinals. “She just some bitch who got lucky for the night,” he said before he unzipped.
Naeema hopped down off the counter and left the bathroom. She crossed over to the women’s bathroom and walked into one of the stalls to flush the blunt he gave her.
I don’t smoke shit I ain’t seen rolled, motherfucker.
People were lacing their weed with dope, crushed pills, or coke—if they could afford it. She’d heard too many stories about dudes popping Xanax and straight passing the fuck out while they were walking. OxyContin, Percs, dippies, sticks. Fuck all that. Naeema wasn’t interested in shit but her semi-government-regulated marijuana.
“Naeema . . . you still in here?”
Inside the stall she rolled her eyes at the sound of Vivica’s voice echoing in the large bathroom. “Yeah,” she called out, turning so her toes pointed forward toward the stall door.
She reached behind her to flush and waited a few seconds more before she finally walked out and washed her hands at the sink. Vivica was touching up her mascara.
Let me try this bitch again. What the hell?
“Bas told me why he don’t like talkin’ about your little finger fucker,” she said, drying her hands under the automated blower.
Vivica looked confused.
“Brandon,” Naeema reminded her.
“My little finger fucker, huh? Queen, you crazy,” she said with a laugh. “And pussy eater too. Don’t forget that.”
Naeema forced a smile but her eyes glittered coldly. “If I was a teenage boy that got to play in a grown woman’s pussy I woulda told somebody.”
“I lied and told him he could do it again if he didn’t say nothing—”
Bullshit.
Naeema turned and left the restroom as it hit her that she knew exactly who a young boy trying to fit in would tell his dirty little sex secret too. She came back to the VIP section and moved right on over to Hammer and his boothang for the night still looking down at the club below as he grinded on that “good-good.”
“Y’all having fun?” she said to the girl, not to seem out of pocket.
“Yes. I can’t wait to tell all my friends about it,” she said, pulling out a cell phone and posing for a selfie.
Both Naeema and Hammer stepped out of range of that shit.
She typed something on her phone and hit Send. When she put the phone away they both stepped back.
“That’s nothing. I was just talking to K. Michelle in the bathroom, girl,” Naeema said all breezy and easy before she turned away and started dancing like it was nothing.
“I’ll be back, boo,” the girl said over her shoulder to Hammer before she took off to the restroom, already digging her phone back out of her purse.
“What about you, Hammer?” she asked as that Robin Thicke banger from last summer, “Blurred Lines,” began to play. “You having fun?”
He shrugged. “I’ll be having more fun with that fly honey, though,” he said, pointing down below.
Naeema followed where he pointed to a white chick with a deep tan in a strapless bodysuit, her long ash-blond hair flowing down her back to the top of her ass. “All pussy black in the dark, huh?” she leaned over to ask him.
“Exactly,” he said, his eyes locked on the girl down below.
Naeema had to admit that White Girl had soul and was getting it in on the dance floor.
“Did you tell Red?” she asked.
“Did I tell Red what?” he asked, distracted by the Great White Power.
“About Viv and Brandon.”
Naeema didn’t know if she had truly seen someone shocked until that very moment. He gave her a chastising look before he glanced around to make sure no one had heard her. It feels good to be right. Who better to brag to than the biggest dick slinger you know?
“Man, leave that shit alone before you get Viv fucked up real proper. Real real proper.”
“Like Brandon?” she asked.
Fuck it. I’m sick of this shit.
Hammer frowned. “Nah. They ain’t fuck with that.”
“I’m n
ot saying shit but I could see if the man did. That’s fucked up. Right?”
Hammer looked down at her. “How you know?”
Naeema made a face like Who you think?
He nodded in understanding. “Little man couldn’t have come to this but he woulda been to the church first thing asking us about what all went down,” he said, looking down into his glass of brown liquor before he downed it in one gulp. “It don’t be the same around the church without him there fucking with us.”
“Y’all were like his family,” she said, giving in to the truth.
“And we let him down,” Hammer said, walking back over to the table to re-up his drink.
As soon as Hammer moved away, Bas moved to her side to take his place and stood behind her with his arms on either side of her body as he gripped the railing. “You look good in that dress . . . but you look better out of it,” he whispered just below her ear before he lightly bit her neck.
Naeema shivered and leaned back against him because he expected her to make such a show of her possession of him. On the real, her thoughts were heavy because everyone was fronting like Brandon was truly one of their own and they wouldn’t hurt him.
Had his death been a random act of violence?
Did she just waste precious months out of her life going down a dead-end road?
Or . . .
She glanced over her shoulder at Red. She felt a true chill to find his eyes were already locked on her and Bas. She gave him just as hard a stare back before turning to press her hand against the side of Bas’s face and kissing him. “Thank you,” she said against his lips before she kissed him again.
“Those lips. Those lips,” he said. “Them some bad motherfuckers.”
Naeema blushed because she knew exactly which heated moment he was referring to from the night before. “Later,” she promised.
Bas smacked her ass before he moved back over to his seat. She looked on as he and Red lowered their heads together to talk.
“Excuse me.”
Naeema turned to find their personal hostess, Ashia, standing behind her with an empty tray in her hand. “Yes?”
“Hello, Queen. There’s a gentleman downstairs who keeps asking to be let up. He says he knows a Naeema that’s in your VIP section,” she said.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Fuck! I shoulda known I would run into somebody in one of these damn clubs! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
Her heart was pounding so fast as she looked down at where Ashia pointed. Motherfucking Mone. His yellow ass gon’ get both of us killed.
Naeema reached into her purse and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, then slipped it to Ashia. “That’s for you,” she said. “He has me mistaken with someone else but I will tell him that myself so that he stops harassing you.”
Ashia slid the folded bill into her pocket. “He’s no problem.”
“I’ll tell him. Let’s go,” she said, already turning to walk away.
“I’ll be right back,” she mouthed to Bas as Ashia hurried around her to lead her to the elevator.
They rode the elevator in silence and Naeema fought to stay calm. She wouldn’t put it past Bas to come behind her or send Red to see what she was up to.
Ashia led her right to him and then walked away.
“Naeema,” Mone shouted, a big goofy grin on his face. “I thought that you with all that ass.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him behind her toward the exit. “Mone, shut the fuck up and listen to me. You got to get your ass out of here quick or you gon’ get both of us fucked up,” she said, her voice urgent.
“Yo, Naeema, you need me to flex on a fool?” he asked, jumping around and air-boxing.
She glanced up and saw Bas and Red standing at the rail looking down at them. “This ain’t no fucking joke, Mone. Damn,” she said irritated as hell.
He got serious at the look on her face. “Yo, you a’ight?”
Naeema pressed her hand to her chest. “I’m a’ight and you gon’ stay a’ight if you get the fuck out of here right now,” she said, pointing to the exit. “I’m dead-ass serious. If you don’t leave and get the fuck away from this entire club quick as fuck you gon’ be a dead ass. Don’t even wait for a cab out front. Go!”
She looked again and Red was no longer standing by Bas. She knew he was on the way down.
“I’ll tell you all about it Monday at the shop. I promise,” Naeema said.
Mone looked conflicted as hell but at the look she continued to give him, he turned and rushed through the bodies. Her eyes followed him until she saw him disappear out the front door.
Naeema turned and waved up at Bas with a smile. He didn’t wave back.
“I love your dress,” she said to some random girl standing by her. She was stalling from going back upstairs and possibly missing Red try to go behind Mone.
“No, your dress is beau-ti-ful,” the girl gushed.
“Thanks,” Naeema said, spotting Red stepping off the elevator into the lounge area/waiting room for the VIP section.
She moved past the woman and stepped in front of Red. “Bas said this dress would be trouble,” she said, shaking her head as she raked her fingernails through the long inches of her weave.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“My cousin,” she lied. “He wanted to join the party upstairs. Didn’t want him to overhear the wrong shit. Right?”
She eased past him and then purposely tripped and fell.
Red stepped over and held out one big hand to help her up.
“Thank you,” she said. “No more champagne for me.”
He turned and walked out of the lounge.
Naeema followed him but as soon as he stepped out the door, it seemed he turned and came right back in just as quickly.
Mone’s ass had to be gone. Thank God.
She walked back to the lounge and summoned the elevator. The door opened as he stepped back inside next to her.
They rode back upstairs in silence.
• • •
They got back from the club in the early hours of the morning. Naeema feigned being drunk and was glad Bas went straight to bed too. As soon as she heard the steady in-and-out breathing of his sleep, she climbed out of the bed and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She wished she was home in her own bed. My own life.
Although she’d already been over the updated police file a dozen times, she knew she would have to look through it again to see if she was wrong about nothing being different but the info on the cell phone vic, just like Tank told her. There wasn’t shit else.
A waste of fucking time.
The police were doing worse than her in flushing out Brandon’s killer.
Maybe I shoulda just put a bullet in each one of their heads and said fuck this espionage bullshit.
But then she shook her head as a tear raced down her cheek because that was not true at all. If nothing else, she knew more about her son than ever. She had his ring, his pictures, she’d met the girl he’d loved. She had more than she knew she even fucking deserved.
Naeema left the bathroom and tiptoed to the bedroom to make sure Bas was still stretched across the bed naked. She walked into the living room and dug her touch-screen phone from inside her pocketbook, where she kept it along with the gun. She swiped to the photos of Brandon she’d saved from his Facebook page. “I’m getting tired,” she whispered to a photo of him smiling with his arms outstretched. “I don’t know why I thought I could do this.”
She stood there in the darkness of the small living room, swiping through each photo and wishing she had stood up sooner and made herself known to the only child she would ever allow herself to birth.
No second chances at motherhood.
Her shoulders drooped as she continued to swipe through each photo. Each one not so different from the last. A smiling teenage boy who seemed to love girls, hip-hop, and . . .
Wait . . . wait . . . wait.
Naeema went through each picture again and each time th
ere was a commonality that couldn’t be ignored. Her heart pounded and she felt jittery as she zoomed to one of the pictures and waited for it to become clearer.
The answer to it all had been sitting right there the whole time.
Naeema tapped her nail against her teeth as her mind raced.
“Queen.”
She dropped her phone inside her purse and pretended to search through it. When she turned, Bas was damn near standing right behind her. She prayed he didn’t see the tremble in her hands. “I wasn’t sleepy,” she said, forcing her emotions down until they almost choked. “I was looking for the blunt Nelson gave me. I was gonna blaze it for the last hoorah for my birthday but I can’t find it.”
“Good. Who knows what the fuck Nelson had laced in that shit,” Bas said, pulling her against his chest.
Naeema wanted to flinch from his touch but she took a deep steady breath to get her shit together.
It’s almost over. A gun will do the rest. Finally.
15
“I just checked, the house is still up for sale.”
Naeema looked up at Bas leaning in the doorway to the bedroom as he looked down at where she sat on the edge of the bed. “You really got enough money saved up for the down payment?” she asked, fighting through the numbness she felt.
“Down payment?” he balked. “Nah. Cash deal. In full.”
Crime pays.
“Matter fact, the fellas and I are meeting. Time to put in work,” he said.
No, it’s time to put a body in the ground.
She nodded but she didn’t have zero fucks to give about the next move of their little crime syndicate.
“I gotta make a run,” he said, scooping up his keys. “You want me to bring you something back?”
Naeema looked up at him and shook her head. “You meeting up with the crew now?” she asked, seeming calm even as one hell of a storm brewed inside of her.
“Nah,” he said. “Not ’til tonight.”
Damn.
“A’ight,” she said.
Moments later he was gone. As soon as she heard the door shut she hopped up to her feet and grabbed her cell. First she called for a cab and then she called Ms. JuJu, all as she made sure she left nothing behind. Every single thing Bas had purchased for “Queen,” including her entire outfit from the night before, she left in a neat pile on his bed.