by Joy Copeland
“Right.”
“And remember, Asad, you’re going to the wholesaler in Queens, near JFK airport. The place I took you a couple of times. You know where I mean. And don’t hang around trying to see your New York relatives. This trip must be quick.”
“Sure,” Asad said, taking the stack of bills and wrapping it in cellophane from the table. He didn’t want to offend Tarik. He’d count it later. Asad placed the wrapped money on the table and bent down to feel Maynard’s pulse. “Tarik, I think he is gone.”
“I told you. The combination of heroin and vodka works fast.”
Asad pulled a tarp from under the table and covered Maynard’s body. He had taken part in the man’s death, but he found no joy in it. “I will call you from the road,” he said, his tone more solemn than usual.
Zoie saw Asad take the cash and leave the room. There was nothing she could do. A tear rolled down her cheek. They did it. They really did it. They killed him. Maynard was gone. If Maynard had stuck to his guns and refused to come with her to the Shelter, he’d still be alive. She’d talked him into this misadventure. She’d led him back to the place that he so feared. Sadness and guilt washed over her, feelings quickly overshadowed by the reality of her situation. If caught, she would be their next victim.
Chapter 44
Finding Help
Tarik lingered after Asad’s departure. Behind the jumbled crates, Zoie waited too, hoping Tarik would leave so that she could escape. A muscle in her right leg cramped, but she willed herself motionless. Perhaps Tarik was waiting for his goons to come to remove Maynard’s body. At least multiple calls seemed to distract him. Thank God. He didn’t look in the direction of the crates.
With a phone glued to his ear, Tarik paced back and forth beside the long table. With each loop he stepped over Maynard’s tarp-draped body. He reverted to a language that Zoie had never heard. English words were thrown in the mix, but even these words were mutilated by an accent that belied his otherwise flawless English. He’s speaking Ethiopian, Zoie thought. Then she remembered that Ethiopians spoke something called Amharic, an ancient biblical tongue. She’d gleaned that information from a Washington Post article. But knowing that was of no help now.
At first Tarik sounded irritated. But as the calls continued, his tone was more conciliatory. Zoie tried to guess who was on the other end of the call. Surely if he were talking to Jahi, he’d use English. He must have called the guys to dispose of Maynard’s body. Poor Maynard. Perhaps Tarik was talking to his mother. Or perhaps he was notifying the khat dealer in Queens that Asad was on the way. Give that schmuck a load of khat. Who else could he be talking to past two thirty in the morning?
Who was really in charge of the Shelter’s crime syndicate? What did Ray have to do with the khat operation? Based on what Zoie knew, Ray’s demise still didn’t make sense. She suspected that the Shelter had fraudulently used its Foundation grant. Were they paying Ray for special influence during the selection process? She heard Tarik say Jahi several times. Where did he fit in? As the Shelter’s director, he had to be in on it—front and center.
Zoie had compiled suspicions and questions to be addressed. If they’d looked at the information on her laptop, they’d have realized that she knew next to nothing. Maybe she knew enough to call a special meeting of the Foundation’s Board, but what she knew was certainly not enough to indict anyone. And in no way had she guessed anything about a drug operation. Now she doubted that the khat operation was the whole thing. If only she understood Amharic. She needed subtitles to follow along. But right now she needed to be rescued.
Please just leave! Don’t you have things to do somewhere else? Her leg cramped again. Ever so slowly Zoie let her right hip settle to the floor to relieve her haunch’s burn. With one false move, the jigsaw pile of crates would collapse. With one false move, a protruding nail could stab her. With one false move, she could end up like Maynard.
Tarik ended his string of calls and moved to search through the pile of papers on the desk, as Zoie had done earlier. In the process he mumbled to himself in a combination of English and this other language. He must have found what he was looking for because he turned off the overhead lights and exited the building.
Once again the room was in pitch darkness. Zoie heard the door locks being reengaged from the outside. Thank God. Still, she dared not speak or otherwise make a sound. For a while she remained as if paralyzed. Tarik might have forgotten something. He might race back at any second. After a few minutes of stillness, her fear of Tarik’s eminent return subsided. Turning out the lights had been a signal that he didn’t intend to return immediately. It was time to make her escape.
In the darkness she fumbled for Jazz’s book light. She found it still faithfully clipped to the belt loop of her jeans. With that light she was able to find her small flashlight, which had slipped from her hand and rolled under the crates. With the beams of the two lights, she made her way through the crate pile and over to Maynard’s body. His murderers hadn’t bothered to lay him out straight. He was a large lump and partly propped against a wooden chest and covered by the tarp. As Zoie looked down at the covered body, something told her to look at him one last time. She squatted beside him, pulled the tarp back, and shined the flashlight in his face.
The man on the ground before her was only nominally Maynard. His features were grossly distorted from swelling. If he were alive, the swelling around his eyes would have kept them shut. Coagulated blood was caked around his nose and mouth. Blood glistened in his matted hair. She let the light drift down to see his bound hands positioned again his chest as if in a prayer.
“Oh, Maynard, I’m so sorry,” Zoie said as her tears started again. “I won’t let them get away with this.” She pressed her palm against his swollen cheek and felt that he was still warm. The warmth wasn’t unusual. After all, he hadn’t been dead that long. Then she saw his chest rise ever so slightly. Could it be too much to ask? Could he be breathing?
Zoie checked his bound wrist for a pulse. She felt what she believed to be a pulse, though ever so slight. She shook him and called in a loud whisper, “Maynard! Maynard! Can you hear me?” His precariously balanced head fell to the side. She shook him again, but there was no response.
Yes, Maynard was alive—but barely. Surely he would die without treatment. She couldn’t let Tarik and his cohorts return and find him still breathing. Surely they’d finish the job.
Unconscious, the strapping man, once quick on his feet, now constituted deadweight. She knew that she couldn’t move him alone. She didn’t even try.
She tried rousing him in terms he’d understand. “Maynard! It’s Ms. Smarty Pants. You were right about the danger. We’ve got to get out of here before the devil’s minions come back.”
Her efforts to revive him were fruitless. He wasn’t going to walk out of there, and she wasn’t going to carry him. It was time for plan B. She thought for a second. She would have to leave him there and go for help. Though she hated to do it, she again covered him with the tarp, leaving it so that air could flow in. If Tarik and his cohorts returned, they’d continue to believe he was dead.
“Don’t worry, Maynard. I’ll be back. God, let him hang on until I can get help.” Although Tarik had locked the door from the outside, fortunately it could be unlocked sans keys from the inside. Zoie peeked out the door to check the path ahead before venturing on to the driveway. She closed the door, but now it was unlocked. Should Tarik return before she could get help, he’d know that someone else had been in the khat room. She had to move fast. Without the aid of the flashlight, she scurried up the driveway and toward the Shelter. At the lamppost she could see the full courtyard. It was quiet, and the three vehicles parked there earlier were gone. She surmised that Asad had taken one of them to New York, but she had no idea whether Tarik had taken another one or whether he was inside the men’s Shelter. Rather than skulk along the courtyard’s perimeter, she took the courtyard straight on, moving as fast as permitted by her
oversized shoes, darting across the open space.
Zoie found the Pen’s chain-link door shut but unlocked as they had left it. Thank God! The exterior door to the women’s section was also still unlocked. With her flashlight guiding her, she made her way back through the short dark hall to the Great Room. The clock over the computers read a quarter to three. She’d been out of the building for over an hour.
The room was quiet, except for the intermittent hum of the refrigerator’s motor. She needed help, but something told her not to rely on the Shelter’s personnel. There was no way to tell who might be in Tarik’s gang or under Sister Te’s spell. She thought it best to call 911 for an ambulance and the police.
Over in the business center, the phones she’d seen earlier were now missing. They probably had been put away so that no one could misuse the Shelter’s account during the night. She headed to get her cell phone from the locker. On the way she searched her jean pockets for the locker key and then remembered that she’d left it in the robe pocket after taking her shower. She quickly made it back to the dorm room and peeked in. Her roommates were still asleep, but what looked like a body now occupied her cot. The body’s face was turned to the wall, and the covers were pulled high. She felt her stomach sink. Perhaps it was Sister Te waiting for her.
She had to get the key. Summoning her courage, she tiptoed farther into the room and aimed the flashlight’s beam at what seemed to be the person’s head. The person turned over.
“Jazz!” Zoie said in an irritated whisper. “What are you doing in my bed?”
“Good, you’re back,” Jazz whispered. “Went to see your boyfriend, huh?”
“No! But why are you in my bed?”
“I forgot to tell you. Annette, the night counselor, does bed checks. She’ll be back around in the next hour,” Jazz answered. “This place is like DC jail.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Zoie said, irritated but at the same time relieved that it was Jazz and not Sister Te. It did make sense for someone to stay the night with the women, but was this Annette person involved in the illegal goings-on? Who could she trust?
Jazz had wrapped herself like a mummy in Zoie’s blanket and had arranged her own bunk to look as if she were still in it. “Take that damn light out of my face,” Jazz ordered, shielding her eyes.
“Shh,” Zoie insisted. She aimed the flashlight at the floor. “Okay, Jazz, I get it. You’re trying to help me.”
“Yeah, that’s what we do. We ladies have to stick together. That’s the only way to survive.” Jazz loosened her wrap, sat up, and swung her legs over the edge of the cot. “Can’t have you getting into trouble your first night here. You got to be careful, or they’ll kick you out.”
If only Jazz knew how much trouble I’m already in. “Thanks. Now I really need your help.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s a long story and a matter of life and death. Come out in the hall, where we can talk, and I’ll explain,” Zoie said. “You have to hurry.”
Zoie grabbed her robe from the floor under the cot. She found the locker key in the robe pocket where she’d left it. Then she rushed out of the room and went a short way down the hall, to the lockers, and retrieved her Blackberry. A barefoot Jazz donning baby-doll pajamas was right behind her.
“Now can you tell me what’s going on?” Jazz asked in a quiet voice. “Oh, God! You’re all bloody.”
“Shh!” Zoie hadn’t even noticed the blood. Maynard’s blood was on her hands, face, and shirt.
“Oh, Anna, did he hurt you?” Jazz tried to stroke Zoie’s cheek, but Zoie batted Jazz’s hand away. “Be that way,” Jazz said, her feelings hurt. “Anyway, I hope you got him good.”
“It’s not like that, Jazz,” Zoie said. “A friend of mine is badly hurt. We have to help him.” With all that had happened that night, Zoie could no longer keep up the charade. She hadn’t planned to reveal herself just yet, but she just suddenly blurted, “My name is not Anna.”
“Huh?” Jazz looked confused.
“I promise. I’ll explain it all. Now I need your help. It’s really serious. Come on!”
Zoie grabbed Jazz by the hand and pulled her into the Great Room. Dumbstruck, Jazz let herself be led. In the kitchen area, Zoie found a steak knife in a utility drawer. “We might need this,” Zoie said.
“Girlfriend, you’re serious! You’re gonna finish this guy off?” Jazz asked in horror.
“Shh. No. I told you. It’s not like that. Let’s go.”
Back outside and in the Pen, Zoie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the cars hadn’t returned. She hoped that no one had returned to the little house in her absence and found Maynard breathing. Still confused, Jazz clung to the chain-link fence and peered out into the courtyard’s eerie darkness. “Stay here,” Zoie ordered as her attention was directed to her cell phone’s alert that she had about fifteen missed calls. Probably more threatening calls, she thought. She wondered who else could have called. But the immediate crisis had to take priority.
Zoie dialed 911, but before the call could go through, her phone went dark. She’d started the day with her phone fully charged, but in the locker the phone’s futile search for a signal must have drained the battery.
“Damn—don’t crap out on me now,” she told her phone. “Damn! Damn!” She stomped her feet.
“You’re gonna get us both thrown out of here,” Jazz said as she hugged herself against the slight night breeze.
Zoie sighed and tried to think. “There’s no more time. I know what we’ve got to do,” she said. “Come on.” But when she opened the chain-link door to exit the Pen, Jazz freaked.
“Where we going? The creeps are out there.”
“Look, Jazz, you’ll be okay with me,” Zoie said, trying to coax the young woman to venture outside the Pen. “You’re going to help me get my friend to safety.”
“I can’t go out there like this, without shoes.”
Until now the fact that Jazz was barefoot hadn’t registered. Zoie directed the light to the girl’s curled toes. “Okay, take these,” she said, taking off the broken-heel sneakers. “They ought to fit you.” With a cringe Jazz complied, slipping her feet into the shoes, which fit her better than they had Zoie.
“Come on,” Zoie said again, grabbing Jazz by the hand. The courtyard was paved, but grit and gravel debris slowed them down. With Jazz in tow, Zoie stayed on the balls of her feet to avoid putting the full weight of her body into each step. At one point she stopped to remove a small stone that had wedged under a middle toe.
“We’re headed to the small house down the driveway,” she told Jazz as they stopped at the corner of the main building near the lantern. “Have you ever been in there?”
“Uh-huh,” Jazz said, acting coy. “Once.”
“What? You’re part of this scheme too?”
“If you’re talking about that chewing-weed business, yeah.”
Zoie wanted to scream, but she willed herself to remain calm.
“No big deal,” said Jazz. “Sister Te asked me to help cut up those vines and put them in plastic baggies. I’d never seen that shit before. She gave me $150 for three hours of work. Not bad money, but I didn’t like it. The stuff smelled awful, and I didn’t like how those guys chewed it with all that green-and-brown mess drooling out their mouths. Like babies eating rotten peas. Disgusting! And one of those guys wanted me to do something else besides cut vines. He smelled as bad as the homeless creeps. Worse than most Johns. You know them Africans don’t bathe every day. Of course, I didn’t tell Sister Te, seeing she’s African and all. She’s been nice to me, and she doesn’t have BO.
“While I worked, I know they talked about me, but I couldn’t understand a word they said. I just told Sister Te I didn’t want to help no more. At first she was a little huffy about it. Then she told me it was okay. I didn’t have to go back there, but she said I sure better keep my mouth shut about what I’d seen, if I knew what was good for me. No hard feelings. She even let me work at
her store on Georgia Avenue for a few days. Only ten dollars an hour for that. I told you Sister Te’s a businesswoman. So I’ve kept my mouth shut…til now.”
Jazz’s confession was amazing, but it was taking up time. The clock was ticking on saving Maynard. The thugs would return soon. Zoie wanted to know enough to determine whether she could still trust Jazz. “When was the last time you were in that building?”
“Last year,” the girl answered, hugging her bare arms, as they stood at the corner of the building. “Why you asking me all these questions? Did they ask you to work there too?”
“No.”
Zoie felt relieved by Jazz’s story. She concluded that her new friend had played an insignificant role in the drug operation. It was also clear that Jazz quickly developed attachments, and one such attachment was to Sister Te, who must have figured that since Jazz was a hooker, she knew how to keep her mouth shut. The question now was whether Jazz would go running to her patroness or to one of her patroness’s goons. Zoie’s gut told her Jazz would not.
“Okay, now I understand. Thanks for explaining,” Zoie said. Holding Jazz’s wrist, she made the remaining distance to the door of the small building in a sprint.
“Who’s in there?” Jazz asked.
“Nobody, except my friend, I hope.” Zoie took a deep breath and opened the door. “Thank God,” she said, looking into the darkness.
“Ooh, this is spooky. Turn on the lights,” Jazz said.
Zoie closed the door and directed the flashlight in search of the light switch. The fluorescents took a second but finally responded with their bright light.
“Ugh! Still smells awful, just as I remember,” said Jazz. “Where’s your friend? Ain’t he supposed to be here?”
“Over here, on the floor. But I don’t know whether he’s still alive.” Zoie went over to the large blue lump on the floor, crouched down, and pulled back the tarp.”