Robert looked at his ex-wife, at her pathetic attempt to justify the unjustifiable. And his skin crawled. “So what, Paul, couldn’t take care of her? Needed my money? Is that the scheme?”
Paul Hathaway shook his head. “Wasn’t my idea, I assure you. When I lost my license to practice medicine—”
“Ah,” Robert smiling, understanding. “Now we’re talking. Now we’re getting somewhere. You lost your ability to generate income. What was it, fraud?”
“Don’t tell him anything,” Gloria said bitterly. Then she looked at Robert. “You owe me.”
Robert nearly lost it. “I owe you?”
“You didn’t give me anything in the divorce!”
“You didn’t want anything! You just wanted Paul, remember? Well you’ve got him. Him and his immorality. His and his disbarment. A blind man could have seen what he was about.”
“Forget you, Robert!” Paul yelled.
“Who hatched this scheme?” Robert asked him. “You? Gloria? Ashley?”
Gloria smiled. “All three of us,” she said. “And you fell right for it. Dumped that black girlfriend of yours like a bad habit and waited on me hand and foot. I loved seeing you grovel!”
Robert stared at her. She was evil personified. “Get out,” he said calmly.
“This is my home, too. This should be my home too.”
“Get out,” he said again, calmly.
“Come on, Glo,” Paul said. “Get packed. We don’t want any confusion.”
“But what about what’s mine?” Gloria said angrily. “I have nothing and he has everything. What about me!”
“You either pack your bags and get out. Or I will be throwing you out. Now which is it?”
Gloria’s anger grew. “Who do you think you are? Paul, you can’t let him talk to me that way.”
Paul sighed. “Just get packed, okay? It didn’t work. So let’s move on.”
Gloria looked at Robert. “I hate you,” she said.
“Good,” Robert replied. “I would have been very concerned to not be hated by somebody like you.”
Gloria couldn’t believe his insolence. She wanted to lash back, but she couldn’t find the words to say. She just hurried out of the kitchen.
“And take that wheelchair with you, too!” Robert yelled as Paul hurried behind Gloria.
Robert went out on his patio and sat down. Just a few weeks ago he had been happy sitting right out there with the woman he loved and who loved him unconditionally. And he blew it. Just like that. And for what? For a whore in a wheelchair. For the devil incarnate! He ran his hands through his hair and then leaned his head back. What a fool, he thought.
TWENTY-SIX
The next night, after Gloria and Paul and all of their failed schemes had flown back to Maryland, Robert found himself driving around Jacksonville. From downtown, where the Dyson headquarters building stood, to the Eastside where Carrie was now living, all the way across the Matthews bridge and into Arlington, to Simms nightclub. He knew it was over with Carrie, he knew she would be out of her mind to give a dog like him a second chance, but that was exactly what he was praying for. A second chance. Praying like he’d never prayed before that Carrie Banks, the love of his life, didn’t hate him too.
As soon as he drove onto Justina Road, he saw activity on the back side of the nightclub. Immediately he spotted Carrie, her sister Popena or Mona or whatever that woman’s name was, and the same muscular man he had seen at the apartment the night before. They appeared to be in an argument, a mild one at first, it seemed, until muscle man pushed Carrie.
Robert’s heart raced as he flew into the half empty backside parking lot and jumped from his Escalade. “What’s going on here?” he asked as he moved swiftly toward Carrie.
“Robert, it’s all right,” Carrie said, moving toward him.
“That man just pushed you,” Robert yelled, “don’t tell me it’s all right!”
“This ain’t got nothing to do with you,” Mona yelled.
“I know that’s right!” Dooney, the muscle man, echoed.
“Stay out of this, Popena,” Carrie warned, but Robert wasn’t backing down, either.
“Is there a problem here?” he asked, addressing his question specifically to Dooney. “Somebody better get this white man out of my face!” Dooney yelled, his finger pointing in the air as if he’d had it up to here with everybody.
“Just get back into the club, Carrie,” Mona said and grabbed Carrie by the arm, but Carrie jerked away from her.
“I told you I wasn’t stripping for nobody,” she said.
“Stripping?” Robert said. “Carrie, let’s get out of here.”
“She ain’t getting out of no-where,” Dooney said. “You’d better be the one getting up from ‘round here!”
Robert looked at Carrie. “Carrie, please come with me. This place isn’t for you.”
“It ain’t for her?” Dooney asked with a laugh. “Oh, it’s too low class for her?”
“That’s what he’s saying,” Mona agreed.
“It’s too black for her?”
“Let’s go, Carrie,” Robert said again, ignoring Dooney, which only angered him more.
“She ain’t going no-where. That girl gonna earn them dollars for me tonight. I been letting her ride too long.” Then Dooney looked at Robert. “But as for you, Mister Big Shot White Man,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “you the only somebody gonna be getting away from here.”
He pulled a gun.
As soon as he did, Carrie screamed, Robert pulled Carrie behind him and Dooney pulled the trigger, hitting Robert not once, but three consecutive, fast as lightening times.
“NO!” Carrie yelled as Robert lurched forward, and then fell over.
“Dooney, what have you done!” Mona said and she and Dooney immediately began looking around. Carrie ran to Robert, and fell down at what seemed like his lifeless body, as tears rolled from her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. In all her life, she’d never seen anything so unbelievable.
“We got to get out of here,” Dooney said and began hurrying for the car. “Grab that sister of yours!”
Mona quickly went to Carrie and began pulling her away from Robert. “We’ve got to go,” she said nervously.
“Robert,” Carrie said painfully, tearfully, as she snatched away from Carrie.
Mona left her and ran toward the car.
“What you doing?” Dooney yelled at her. “Get that bitch! She ain’t takin’ me down with that big mouth of hers!”
“She won’t come,” Mona told him but he would not take no for an answer. He ran over to Carrie, grabbed her by the waist and carried her, kicking and screaming and yelling, to his car. He threw her into the backseat with Mona, got in himself, and took off. Mona held Carrie down as she fought to get out. When that failed, she turned around and looked at Robert, her heart pounding in despair. “We’ve got to call rescue,” she said. “We’ve got to call 911.”
“Can’t no 911 help him,” Dooney said as he fled.
Carrie kept staring at Robert as they left, as he lay lifeless, like a dead dog on the side of Simms nightclub, the place he kept warning her would bring her nothing but grief.
***
They ended up in Yulee, just outside of Jacksonville, at Dooney’s cousin’s shack of a house. Carrie was no longer hysterical, but was now nearly catatonic in the corner, refusing to eat or talk or do anything but think about Robert. She couldn’t forget it. His body lying on that pavement. All alone. After coming to see about her. Why didn’t he stay where he was? Why didn’t he go home to his invalid ex-wife and leave her life alone? Now he was dead. And just the thought of it, that his relationship with her caused him to die, was eating her alive.
She looked at Dooney and Mona. They were actually eating and talking and strategizing as if nothing as earth shattering as a cold bloodied murder had ever occurred. She watched her big sister. Mona was bothered at first, Carrie could see it in her eyes, but she wasn’t bothered anymore. S
omehow she’d made her choice. And she chose the devil.
“What we got to do,” Dooney kept saying, “is to get our stories straight.” He kept saying that, over and over, and they kept coming up with all kinds of stories. Carrie listened to them. She listened as they tried with all they had to justify murder. She was their captive now. She had witnessed that murder and they knew she couldn’t be released to tell what she saw. She was so upset, so angry with this world, that she didn’t even care. They could kill her too for all she cared. But she thought about Robert. And she knew, deep down, that his death couldn’t be in vain. Dooney and, yes, her own sister, had to be stopped.
“He stalked me,” she said so absently that everybody in the room, including Dooney’s husky cousin, turned and looked at her.
“What?” Mona said.
“He stalked me.”
“Who stalked you?”
Carrie swallowed hard. “Robert.”
Mona and Dooney looked at each other. Was she serious? Was she about to give them the alibi they’d been trying to conceive?
“What you trying to say, girl?” Dooney asked her.
“I told him to leave me alone. I told him he made his choice, and that I didn’t want to have nothing to do with him. But he kept coming around. He kept following me everywhere I went. He kept trying to call me.” She paused. “That’s why you had to shoot him, Dooney. He was trying to kidnap me.”
“That’s right,” Dooney said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “That’s why I had to shoot him. Only he had a gun, too. Didn’t he Mo?”
“Hell yeah he had one. Seen it with my own two eyes.”
Dooney cousin laughed. “Y’all out of y’all mind,” he said. “Them police ain’t gonna believe y’all broke butts over no rich white man.”
“They’ll believe us,” Dooney said. “If innocent Carrie tell the story. Besides, they gotta catch us first. And that ain’t gonna happen. Is it, Carrie?”
“What we gonna do, Dooney?” she asked him.
“What you think? We gonna lay low and then get the hell away from J-ville. They probably think we still in town, anyway. They probably tearing up that place looking for the killers. They won’t never dream of coming to no Yulee. Nobody know I got people in Yulee. I’m too ashamed to tell anybody he kin to me.” Dooney and his cousin laughed.
“Back at you, bro,” his cousin said.
“So we fine. Don’t sweat that. But if, by chance, we ever did get caught, we got to get our stories straight. No matter what deals they try to cut with us. You understand that, Carrie?” he asked.
“You better understand it,” Mona said. “Because those police gonna be lying to you. You committed a murder tonight.”
Carrie was astounded. “Me?”
“Yeah, you! And me, too. If somebody dies in the commission of a crime, you just as guilty as the shooter. You know that.”
Carrie knew a lot of things. But she had to play along. “So I can go to prison too?”
“If you fall for their song and dance you can,” Dooney said. “That’s why you got to tell it like you told us just now. He was stalking you and tried to kidnap you and I had no choice but to shoot him. We was terrified of him. Wasn’t we?”
Carrie looked at the man she could hardly stomach. “Yeah,” she said and Mona smiled.
“He brought that white bitch back into that house of his and kicked you out and you hate him now. Don’t you?”
Carrie exhaled. “He made his choice.”
Dooney laughed. “A woman scorned. I like it!”
Carrie tried to relax too. Because she knew, as soon as they let their guard down, she was running.
***
They let their guard down sooner than she thought they would. She could not believe how easily they bought her tales. They actually thought she hated Robert because he decided to help his invalid wife. She never dreamed they’d be that stupid. Or gullible.
But whatever they were, they all went to sleep with her in a room with Mona. And if anybody knew Mona, they knew she slept like a rock. Carrie therefore was able to get out of bed, slip on her jeans, and head for the front door before Mona even stirred. She was out of that door before Mona even turned over. By the time Mona was awake, Carrie Banks was sitting in the Yulee police station, telling her tale to anybody that would listen. Only the tale she told this time didn’t do anything for Dooney and Mona but get them both arrested, along with Dooney’s cousin, as an accessory after the fact.
Carrie, however, was placed under arrest too.
TWENTY-SEVEN
He opened his eyes for the first time in a month and his best friend, Bill Johnson, jumped from the chair he had been camped in every day during that month and hurried to his bedside.
“Robert?” he said, staring at his friend. “It’s me, man. It’s Bill.”
Robert, who was hooked up to I-V and was very groggy, nonetheless was able to look over to where he heard the voice. And as soon as he saw that familiar, relieved face, he remembered everything. Everything. His eyes widened.
“Take it easy, Robbie.”
“Where’s Carrie?” Robert asked him, his voice a mere whisper.
“You scared us.”
“Where’s Carrie?”
Bill frowned. “Man, don’t worry about that woman.”
Robert touched Bill on his arm. The terror in Robert’s eyes made it clear to Bill that he was dead serious. “She’s. . . with the others,” Bill said.
“What others?”
“She’s with the other criminals, with that sister and that Dooney person. She was picked up with the others. But man it’s great to have you back, I declare it is. I’d better go and get the doctor.”
Robert grabbed Bill by the coat lapel, lifting up from his pillow. “Picked up for what?” he asked him.
“Robert take it easy,” Bill said, confused, as he helped Robert lay back down. “Are you okay?”
“Where’s Carrie, Billy?” There was a plea in Robert’s voice that stunned his friend. He had it bad, Bill thought. Then he exhaled.
“She was arrested,” he finally said.
“Arrested?” Robert said, astounded.
“Let me get the doctor, Rob—”
“But she didn’t do anything. It was that guy, Carrie didn’t have anything to do with it. Why did they arrest her?”
“She didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“No!” Robert said and then began coughing. Bill immediately pressed the panic button, calling for the nurse.
“It’s all right, man.”
“Get an officer here now. I want to make a statement. I want to tell them what happened. You hear me, Billy?”
“Yeah, Robert, I hear you. I’ll do it.”
“And get her an attorney.”
“Okay.”
The nurse hurried into the room, asking if everything was okay.
“My attorney,” Robert said to his friend, ignoring the nurse. “Get her my attorney.” Robert was so anxious, so firm, that Bill could only nod his head to quickly reassure him.
“I will, Robert,” Bill said. “I will.”
****
She left the Duval County Jail the same way she came: with the clothes on her back. She didn’t even have bus fare to get back to Popena’s apartment. If there was an apartment, she thought. Yet as she walked down the corridor that led to the exit, she could feel nothing but happiness. Joy. A sense that all was right with the world.
It had been nearly six weeks since she first ran into the Yulee police station and begged them to arrest her sister and her sister’s boyfriend for murdering her . . . her what? Her heart, she thought. The only human being that gave her unconditional kindness. And they arrested her too.
During those first hours of her incarceration she could feel nothing but emptiness. She had nightmares about Robert, and his lifeless body on that pavement, and she didn’t care what became of her. She felt so saddened, so eaten up with guilt, that she found herself unable to even atte
mpt to pray. She didn’t deserve mercy, she thought. Robert certainly didn’t get any.
During her weakest hours, she even phoned her mother, just to hear somebody reaffirm that she was still a human being. But Honey Banks was Honey Banks and the conversation drifted immediately from Carrie needing to hear a familiar voice, to the shame of it all.
“Now both of my daughters in prison,” Honey had said over the phone, her voice filled with self-pity. “Y’all done made me the laughing stock of this whole town. I can’t go no-where without everybody telling me what was y’all thinking. Shootin’ and killin’ a rich CEO of a major company. My daughters! Murderers! How could y’all do this to me, Carrie? Y’all know I’m sick and what with my arthritis now. Y’all didn’t even think about y’all ol’ mama when you was pulling the trigger, not one time did y’all think about me!”
Carrie had wanted to tell her that she didn’t pull any trigger and neither did Popena, but she didn’t say a word. Because they both may as well have pulled it. They were both getting exactly what they deserved.
Then she found out that Robert was still alive, that he was in bad shape, but he was still alive. She prayed then. She prayed her every waking hour. Then everything changed for Carrie two weeks ago. An attorney came to visit her. Told her he was Robert’s attorney and that Robert was going to pull through after all. At first she didn’t believe him. Every press report she had read made clear that he was in critical condition, in and out of comas, just in awful shape. But this attorney, this elderly white man who stated that he represented the CEO of Dyson and that that CEO ordered him to represent her, said it ain’t so. Robert was out of danger.
Carrie’s heart soared when she heard it. So much so that she almost missed the part where he stated that he was working hard to get the charges dropped against her. The problem was Popena and Dooney. They were claiming that Robert had been stalking her and she had asked Dooney to be her body guard. That was why he was packing, according to them, and that was why he had to shoot Robert.
A Special Relationship Page 19