by Anna J.
Mecca had rented a blue Dodge from the airport and was on her way to Ruby’s house.
“I just remembered while I was in Italy. Trust me, it’s true. Auntie, you have to be on point. She’s after you, and she’ll start by attacking anyone or anything close to you. I found out about Breeze and his family. Daphne is behind it,” Mecca warned.
“Where are you?” Ruby asked nervously as she was contemplating Mecca’s words. She thought about how, out of nowhere, Daphne had just vanished. Then these murders had occurred. Ruby also had a feeling about Daphne’s background. Ruby only saw Wise’s family in a picture he had in one of his dresser drawers in an apartment she’d once shared with him. That was why she’d asked Mo Blood if he knew Wise’s family.
Daphne had told Ruby while they were in prison together that she was originally from Brownsville but her mom moved to Bed-Stuy when she was young. When Ruby had asked what part of Brownsville, Daphne told her a house off of Rockaway and Newport. Now Ruby remembered Wise mentioning his family living over there. She wondered how Daphne knew Ruby was the one who had killed Wise. No one knew for sure that it was Ruby except Mecca and Dawn, and none of them had known Daphne at the time.
“I’m on the Belt Parkway, on the way to the crib,” Mecca answered while exiting off Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Don’t go there,” Ruby commanded. “Meet me at Prospect Park.”
“Auntie?”
“What’s up?”
“I love you.” Mecca ended the call.
Ruby made a call after Mecca ended hers. Tashy picked up on the first ring.
“Ruby? What’s up? You okay?”
“We’re going to have to lay low for a while. That bitch Daphne is taking me to war.”
“Who? That light-eyed bitch?” Tashy yelled.
“Yeah.”
“For what?” Tashy inquired, ready to say “I told you so,” but opting not to.
Ruby sucked her teeth. “‘I won’t discuss that now. Just stay low until I figure out the next move. Put that other thing on hold, too.” Ending the call, Ruby tightened her jaw in anger, then banged on the steering wheel. “This bitch don’t know.”
Simone closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the headrest of Wayne’s green Mustang convertible while her legs rested on the dashboard and his head was in between her legs. She imagined that it was Mona’s tongue exploring her shaved middle and clit. She had to give it to Wayne when it came to his ability to please her with his tongue talent. It was the only way she was able to cum with him. When it came to his pipe game, he was a dud.
They were parked in a heavily wooded area in a Long Island park where a lot of young lovers came to do things they weren’t able to do at their private schools and expensive Hamptons homes. The sun was setting, and the sound of crickets and other insects could be heard, along with Simone’s low moans.
“Yeah, eat this pussy. That feels so good, Mona.”
Wayne suddenly stopped and looked up at Simone with a glazed face, sporting an angry expression. “Mona?” He got up from off his knees, climbed over Simone, and sat in the driver’s seat, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “My name is Wayne, Simone.”
“What are you talking about? I know your name, boy. Now, finish, because I’m ’bout to cum again. C’mon, baby!” She added a seductive tone while rubbing his crotch, hoping to make him forget. It worked.
His angry expression changed when the blood rushed back to his penis. He grinned. Something moved in the bushes. Startled, they looked around but saw nothing. When they heard nothing, Wayne started to move to reacquire his position between her legs. In a quick motion a gloved hand appeared in the cracked window of the driver’s side, holding a gun with a silencer. Before Simone could scream, the window was broken out and another gloved hand was placed over her mouth.
Blood, skull, and brains exploded on her legs as Wayne’s body slumped against hers. She felt herself being pulled out of the car as she closed her eyes and tried to scream. When she opened them again, she was being held and pushed from behind.
In front of her was a person in all black. A leather three-quarter coat, black slacks, and boots to match. She saw the back of a van and couldn’t tell if it was black or blue. When the man dressed in all black opened the back of the van, she was pushed in the back and landed on a carpeted floor.
“You scream, you die,” a masked man said before closing the back door of the van.
Simone recognized the Jamaican accent as her body shook from fear. Why was she being kidnapped by Jamaicans? Ransom? Maybe they wanted Scooter to pay a ransom. He was rich and famous, and everyone new she was his granddaughter. Tears rolled down her face at the thought, even though she knew that he would pay the ransom. She just prayed that a ransom was what it was all about. Her body jerked as the van pulled off.
She could hear voices, but she couldn’t see who was driving or who was in the passenger seat. There was a solid black wall dividing the back from the front. The people spoke in deep Jamaican accents, so deep she could barely understand them. Her heart almost burst when she understood one of them when he said, “Me wan feed er to me blood clot pirahna seen.”
Then they laughed. Suddenly the ransom idea became questionable.
Scooter was tipsy and exhausted. Sitting in back of his emerald and black chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce Phantom, Scooter had a “love of life” smile on his face. He always felt that way after a sexual encounter at a five-star hotel with a twenty something model/actress who was the daughter or niece of one of his associates and who looked at him as her sugar daddy. Scooter had no problem spending money on women just as long as they filled his voracious sexual appetite.
“How was this one, Scoot?” asked the driver, who was a childhood friend from his old Harlem neighborhood. Scooter smiled at his old pal with the close-cropped beard, speckled with grays, on dark, weathered skin, the puppy dog eyes, and inviting smile. But Charlie “Big Gee” Thomas’s humble disposition was contrary to his infamous reputation as a strongman/enforcer from the days of Frank Matthews. Not only was he employed by Scooter as his driver, but he also doubled as his bodyguard, and Scooter trusted him more than anyone he knew ... even Tashy. The big, cuddly Charlie would literally jump in front of a bullet for Scooter.
“She was a workout, Gee. Young, energetic, and built like a thoroughbred,” Scooter said, grinning.
The aspiring model he’d just bedded at the Plaza Hotel flashed in his mind. He wondered what his Ethiopian ambassador friend would think if he found out Scooter was banging his almost twenty-year-old daughter. It really didn’t matter what the guy thought, Scooter told himself. He was probably one of those African guys who married his daughter off to some guy she had never met or didn’t like who paid a herd of cattle to him for his daughter’s hand. What better than to have a handsome, successful black businessman fuck her brains out for a shopping spree at Neiman’s, Saks, and Tiffany?
“I need to just lay down in my bed now and recuperate from that episode. That dame almost gave this sixty-two-year-old heart a wipeout,” Scooter added, putting his hand to his chest, emulating Redd Foxx on the classic TV show Sanford and Son.
“I tried to tell you, Gee, we ain’t the same cats we were back on Lenox Avenue. We can’t have two dames in one session, then go a few blocks up and bang another broad in one night. Those days are behind us,” Big Gee said, glancing at Scooter through the rearview mirror.
Loosening his silk tie from his Italian shirt, Scooter stared out at the Long Island Expressway as he headed home. He realized that he had come a long way from the rough streets of Harlem. He was the son of Collin “Skins” Williams, who was called Skins for his love of shoes with different reptile skins, and Bernice “Bee Bee” Johnson, the niece of the infamous Harlem gangster /street legend Bumpy Johnson.
For Scooter, growing up was like waking up to a party every day where people gambled, hustled, got high, and lived like there was no tomorrow. Life in the Williams brownstone was just that. Skins was at first a n
umbers runner for his girlfriend’s uncle and made a lot of money working for him. He always told Scooter, “Bumpy was the best black gangster this country ever had. He made sure everybody around him got rich. Nobody could complain with Bumpy.”
Scooter wasn’t schooled by Bumpy; he learned the street life in another way. In fact, he never caught a glimpse of him and didn’t really care. He chose to emulate his father, who was the coolest man that he ever saw. Skins never dressed down; it didn’t matter where he was going. He would dress up to run to the supermarket. Then, when Scooter turned ten, Skins taught him about the “policy,” as the numbers racket was called.
Skins would drive Scooter around in one of his shiny Cadillacs, collecting policy slips and money and sometimes paying clients who hit the number. Scooter loved driving around Harlem with his father. Skins was a celebrity, and being the son of a celebrity made Scooter feel like one.
People in Harlem definitely treated him like one. The hustlers, pimps, and gangsters acknowledged him with the nickname “Little Skins” whenever they saw him on the street. They would give him money, or they would call him over to one of the corners or pool halls they hung out at and let him shoot pool, dice, or listen to music. One pimp even got one of his prettiest hoes to pleasure Scooter orally in a bathroom.
When the chick was done with Scooter, he practically fell in love with her. Scooter snuck to that pool hall almost every day to see if he could see the chick again. Though he never saw her, he did see her pimp. By that time, he was a numbers runner for Skins, who ran his own operation when Bumpy Johnson was off the scene. While Scooter was collecting a policy slip from the pimp, he asked, “Say, where is that dame you introduced me to a few ticks back?”
The pimp looked at him, puzzled. “Who you talking about, Little Skins?”
“My name’s Scooter,” he quickly corrected. He had earned the nickname by outrunning a cop who rode on a small scooter, trying to catch him after spotting him with a handful of policy slips.
“Okay, I can dig it,” the pimp acknowledged with a smile.
“I’m talking ’bout a dame you was with ’bout a year ago in the pool hall on Lenox. You had her take me in the bathroom.”
“Oh, you talking about Leslie,” the pimp replied. “Leslie back in Detroit. That’s where she was from. I got her from a player’s ball when I was out Chicago. The dame chose me and came back to the Apple. Told me she had to go back to see family.” The pimp dropped his voice down. “You ain’t tell your old man ’bout that, right?”
“No way, I’m no tattletale,” Scooter said pompously, which made the pimp smile.
Saddened by the news, he knew one thing for sure: he would never forget her face. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Detroit was so far away, and he hated it. He hated it more now because he felt like Motown took a piece of him away. When Skins died of lung cancer, Scooter was fifteen and he was devastated. By that time, he was partnered with his father in the numbers racket and he had a good amount of money to play with. He dressed as sharp as his father and emulated his walk and talk.
At the funeral for Skins it was as if the president of the country had died. The whole of Harlem showed up to pay their respects to one they deemed a gentleman gangster. During the sixties and seventies, the streets of Harlem changed for the worse. Scooter still operated the numbers spots his father left behind, but when a man named Frank Matthews showed up, Scooter’s life changed also. Heroin found its way into Harlem during the Vietnam War, but Frank Matthews brought even more with him.
When Scooter saw how rich guys were getting from the sale of “H,” or “Boy,” as it was called, he quickly cashed in. When he met Matthews, he quickly agreed to move product out of the numbers spots. It was a good cover because the cops turned their heads when it came to numbers. Of course, they were receiving payoffs. In no time, Scooter was rich.
He never forgot the woman who gave him his first head job. In 1965 twenty-one-year-old Scooter traveled to Detroit with Frank Matthews. He was a known gangster all over the country. They attended a dinner party for a notorious Detroit gangster celebrating the release of one of his sons, who was a pimp, from prison. Pimps from all over the Midwest were there, and, of course, they showed up with their stable of women. There were well-dressed people from all walks of life at the party. The pimps wore colorful suits and shoes with diamond-flooded jewelry. Their women came in full-length fox and mink coats. You definitely had to be somebody to be there.
Though it was a celebration for a pimp returning from prison, Frank Matthews seemed like the focus of everybody’s attention. Hands down, he was the richest gangster in the dining hall. He and Scooter were dressed to impress. Both men were in tailor-made suits. Scooter’s was bloodred, and Matthews’s was a canary yellow. They both wore ostrich shoes and diamond pinkie rings. Just being in the company of Frank Matthews brought Scooter the same attention. Then Scooter saw her face.
It was a face he would never forget. She looked as if she hadn’t aged a bit. She had to be at least ten years his senior, but she looked the same as she did in the pool hall in Harlem. She walked in the hall with a full-length white fox, diamond earrings, followed by two other women on both sides of her.
Fortunately for Scooter, the women were seated at a table next to him and Matthews. A table directly in front of a makeshift stage, where A-list entertainers were due to perform. She smiled at Matthews as they were seated. Matthews nodded his head.
“You know her, Frankie?” Scooter asked.
“Who? Leslie? Who doesn’t know Leslie? She’s one of the biggest pimps in the Midwest!”
Scooter went wide-eyed. “Pimp?”
“Yeah. Why? You wanna meet her?” Matthews asked.
“Sure,” Scooter responded. “Yeah, why not?”
The rest was history. When Leslie found out that Scooter was second in command of the Matthews organization, she didn’t hesitate to start dating him. Scooter would fly her into New York for weeks at a time, staying in a luxurious suite at the Plaza or Waldorf Astoria Hotel. He would visit her sometimes in Detroit, on business trips. Scooter started lots of businesses across the country under different names of people who were willing to help him go legit.
Leslie was one of those people.
That same year, in the winter, Leslie gave birth to Scooter’s daughter at a Harlem hospital. Leslie named her Tashera. Scooter was the happiest man in the world until, hours after giving birth, Leslie died.
By the time Scooter snapped out of his thoughts of the past, the Phantom was entering the driveway of his Long Island home. Pulling into the five-car garage, Scooter noticed Simone’s sky blue two-door, drop-top Mercedes parked next to his caramel brown 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood. The Benz was Simone’s twentieth birthday present. Scooter remembered the ear-to-ear smile on her face when she woke up that morning and he walked her to the front of the house, to the awaiting car with a large red bow on the trunk. Simone meant the world to him.
“Long night, Scoot. I’ll see you in the morning,” Big Gee said as he and Scooter exited the car.
Big Gee lived in Scooter’s guesthouse, which was larger than the average suburban middle-class home. Even though he had two other homes, a condo in Queens and a Manhattan penthouse, he preferred the guesthouse built behind Scooter’s Hamptons mini mansion. The house sat thirty yards away from the mansion on five acres of land. Gee loved the privacy.
“I’ll probably be asleep through the day. Wake me up in the afternoon,” Scooter said as he took careful steps entering the house through the garage.
As Scooter entered the spacious, ultramodern kitchen, he was immediately approached by his short, bubbly, extremely dark-skinned Haitian housekeeper. She was a middle-aged woman who had worked for Scooter close to twenty years now, and she could never seem to wear her wigs right. They always seemed to lean to one side more than the other.
The worried look on her face made Scooter nervous.
“Scotty, Simone hasn’t come home, and Way
ne’s parents are looking for him,” Lillian said with a heavy Haitian accent, which she’d had for the thirty years Scooter had employed her. Scooter looked at his Oyster Perpetual Rolex.
“Did you call her cell phone?”
“I keep getting her voice mail,” Lillian answered.
Scooters forehead wrinkled as he raised his eyebrows in surprise. It wasn’t like Simone or Wayne to be out past midnight, especially Wayne. His parents were strict disciplinarians. Lillian jumped at the sound of the cordless kitchen phone ringing. She quickly answered. Scooter stared at her face as she spoke to the caller. As the time passed, he became more and more nervous when she covered her mouth with her hand and her facial expression turned from worry to shock. She handed the phone to Scooter.
“It’s Mr. Farrow,” she mumbled.
“John?” Scooter boomed.
In a tearful, panic-stricken voice, Wayne’s father spoke. “Scooter, they found my boy dead. Someone shot him in the head.”
“What! Where?” Scooter asked on the verge of panic.
“In the park.”
“Did anyone see Simone? She was supposed to be with him,” Scooter asked as his heart raced.
“No. No one has seen her.”
“John, where are you?”
Scooter then realized that the question was answered by the background noise. Police radios and people talking could be heard. They were obviously still at the crime scene.
“The park.”
“I’m on my way.” Scooter hung up the phone and suddenly felt sober. As he was walking out of the same door he’d entered, he turned to Lillian and grumbled, “Get her mother on the phone. See what she knows about where Simone is. Then call me right after.”
“Yes, sir.”
Scooter jumped in the Phantom, not bothering to call Big Gee. The big guy needed rest, and Scooter needed to sort things out on his own. These types of things didn’t happen in the Hamptons. He had a feeling that this was not a random act. There was something deeper going on.