by Nikki Turner
“It’s nothing. Trust me,” Ivy said. “In fact, that slimeball Jaffey needs to eat something. In my opinion, you never spend enough when you come in here.”
“A’ight.” Rydah smiled. “Thank you so much. And have the big Wolverine tank bouncer move them motherfuckers outta of here.“
“Gladly!” Ivy smiled.
Her song came on. Rydah used it as a welcome distraction and tried to focus on the lyrics and beat of the tune. She was upset but determined not to let a handful of freeloaders ruin her night.
Rydah began dancing and sipping, intoxicated by the music. Dancing was her second love, after working on cars and bikes.
Ken got the message from down in General Admission. He and his boy ponied up to buy a bottle of Ciroc. They were hugged up with Charlotte and Lisa, acting like big shots.
Buffy, who was tipsy, posted an endless stream of selfies. When she wasn’t posting pics, she was banging out texts and what she thought were clever captions for the photos.
Rydah loved to laugh and have fun. She was a closet party animal and free spirit who loved cars, music, and life. A couple of satisfied big spenders approached her about future car projects they wanted her to tackle for them. Others just wanted to show their respect, talk shop, or just flirt. She was a confident man’s dream girl: independent, beautiful, and could build a car from the ground.
Buffy, checking for someone to leave with, asked for Rydah’s opinion. “What you think about the guy over there?” She nodded. “The one with the big diamond earring and necklace, wearing the red hat.”
Rydah looked in the direction where Buffy had nodded. “The Spanish dude?” she asked.
“I don’t think he’s Spanish,” Buffy said. “I think he’s light skin. You think I should talk to him?”
Rydah looked more closely. “He look like he’s either Spanish or a hip white boy. But he’s definitely not black.”
“Well, should I go talk to him?”
“Not my style, to go approach. But if you think he’s cute, go for it.”
Buffy said that she definitely thought that he was cute.
“Then claim him before someone else does.”
That’s all Buffy needed for encouragement. That . . . and all the champagne she’d drink, courtesy of Rydah.
Rydah watched Buffy half stagger down the stairs through elbow-to-elbow clubbers on a packed dance floor, to the other side of the club to introduce herself. Damn, had Rydah known the girl was feeling the alcohol like that, she wouldn’t have even let her go over there.
Meanwhile, Rydah kept sipping and turning up by herself. Before she knew it, Buffy was back, introducing her new friends.
“Rydah, this is Mike and his boy Tiger.”
Tiger looked familiar to Rydah, but she couldn’t put her finger on where she knew him. Tiger said, “Nice to meet you.” And then she remembered. He was one of the dudes eyeing her out front when she arrived. And nothing had changed; he was still staring.
“Sorry. I can’t stop admiring you. I saw you the second your feet hit the pavement. You look nice fo’ sho. But I bet people tell you that all time, huh?”
“Compliments never get old,” she said with a coy smile.
He offered to buy her a drink. “What you sipping on?”
“Water, now.”
“In a champagne glass?” he asked as if he didn’t believe her.
She seldom drank more than one glass of champagne, and when she did, two was her absolute limit. “I’m a grown woman,” she said, “in case you can’t tell by looking at me. And I have no reason or inclination to lie, especially to anyone other than the police or a judge, and when I have to, I will do it very carefully.”
Tiger stammered. “I–I didn’t mean to insinuate that you were lying.”
“Yet you did, all the same,” Rydah poked, not letting him off the hook.
Tiger recovered well. “Then allow me to make it up to you,” he offered. “How about breakfast?”
Naturally, Rydah refused his invitation, but out of courtesy, she allowed the small talk to continue for a while longer. Tiger asked for her number. She gave him a Google number that she used on her business cards.
A drunk Buffy leaned in. “Sooooo fucking out of your reach. Just orbits out of your reach.”
He had a stupid look on his face but smiled it off. “I always get whatever I want. Just that simple.”
After a few more songs, Rydah danced into the wee hours of the morning and was ready to call it a night. The club was still going strong when she left. Outside, she approached one of the valet guys. “Can I have my keys, please?” She pointed to her car. Since the Lamborghini was parked in front of the club, the only thing the attendant had to do was retrieve her keys from the lock box.
The attendant nodded. “Of course.”
Rydah waited, and then she noticed a really familiar face. “Jimbo!”
A five foot tall, flamboyant guy with more gold than Mr. T from the A-Team turned to check out Rydah. He hesitated at first, as if he didn’t know who Rydah was, and then he got closer, straining his eyes to make her out, and then said, “Rydah?”
“Ummmm . . . yes?”
“Daaaamn, girl. I ain’t even recognize you.” He was shocked. “And I ain’t even drinking tonight, on antibiotics and shit. And that shit don’t even mix.”
“How are you?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Yessss, everything cool. Winter cold, and it has been so hot here this winter.”
“I know that feeling,” she said, towering over him.
“Girl, you look good. Damn good. Your work suit hide a lot,” he said, checking her out. “Still loving my Shelby edition you did for me, but wanted to talk to you about making me a bulletproof mobile.”
“I can definitely do that, for sure,” she said.
“Yeah, I heard you did something similar for them crazy-ass Haitian niggas. I’m like shiiiit . . . let me make sure I don’t get caught slipping.”
“I got you. Come by the shop tomorrow and let’s talk.”
“For sure. I’ma get me a suitcase of paper together and be by tomorrow. That’s good,” Jimbo said with a smile as he walked off.
After a couple minutes, the valet attendant handed Rydah the key to her car and a bottle of water with the club’s logo. He shut the door for her once she was in.
Rydah peeled off, going south down Collins, across the Causeway to Biscayne Boulevard. She was about to make the left on Biscayne when the blue lights bounced from her dashboard and rearview mirror.
Whoop-whoop!
“Aw, shit,” Rydah said aloud. The motherfucking police. I wasn’t even speeding.
“License and registration.” The officer had blue eyes and red hair.
Rydah had no idea why she’d been stopped. She wasn’t speeding. She knew better than that, especially at this time of the morning, after she’d been sipping. “Officer, do you mind telling me why you stopped me?”
If the officer heard her, he showed no indication of it.
“License and registration.”
Okay, Rydah thought, one of those. This wasn’t her first time being pulled over by a racist or overzealous cop. Most police were cool, but certainly not all of them. Rydah put her left hand on the steering wheel, while slowly using her right hand to get her registration from the glove box. Next, she removed her license from her purse, giving both the license and the registration to the officer. She then placed her right hand back on the wheel, next to the left one.
The red-haired officer looked at her picture. “You don’t look like your picture, Ms. Banks.”
“I guess you could say that I clean up well, Officer. But you still haven’t told me why I’m being pulled over, sir.”
For the second time, the police officer ignored her right to be told why she was being pulled over. Instead, he zeroed in on the registration of the yellow Lamborghini Gallardo.
“And you are Rydah Banks, the owner of this car?”
Th
e man had her license and registration in his hand, which plainly contained the answer to both his question. Not only did he have selective hearing, Rydah thought, but his eyes must not be all that sharp either. Deaf and blind. She knew she had to be extra careful, or this stop may not end well for her.
She politely said, “Yes, sir. That’s correct.”
“Are you carrying anything illegal inside the vehicle?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
Now the officer looked at Rydah as if she were the one who was deaf and dumb. “Are you carrying drugs or guns?” he asked.
Here we go, she thought as she blew a long breath of hot air. “No, sir.”
When she put her hands in her lap, the officer whipped out his gun as if he’d been waiting for the opportunity to do so all night.
“I didn’t say move your hands, did I? Put both hands back on the steering wheel! Now!” Rydah did what she was ordered to do, all while silently praying to God that this stop ended well.
“So,” the officer asked, “this engine is rebuilt?”
“Yes, sir. I rebuilt it myself.”
“You mean you paid for it?” He said it as if he’d caught her in her first lie. And where there was one lie, there were drugs and guns.
“No, sir. I said what I meant. I rebuilt this engine from start to finish with these two hands.” She nodded to her hands, mindful not to move them from the steering wheel until Officer Gung-ho said that it was okay.
“Really?” he said as if he still wasn’t completely buying it. “I’d like to see that.”
Two more cruisers rolled up on the scene, lights flashing.
Officer Gung-ho said, “Where’s the stash box located?” He was cocky.
“There isn’t one.”
A lot of drug dealers used stash boxes—secret compartments built into the car, usually connected to the electrical system—to transport drugs, guns, and money. Sure, she knew how to do it and was the master at them, but what did that have to do with the cost of gas in Dubai? Absolutely nothing.
“If you’re smart enough to rebuild this whole car from top to bottom, how come there’s no stash box?”
That’s when an officer from one of the other cruisers that had just arrived slammed his door and began walking up to Rydah’s car.
The new officer said, “Ma’am, will you please step out of the car.” It wasn’t a request.
Finishing off the last swallow of water in the bottle, she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. Then she slowly stepped outside the car.
“I’m going to ask you to do a few things for me,” the new officer said. “I want you to do exactly what I ask, okay?”
Rydah faced the traffic and, as the cars drove by, their headlights beamed into eyes, causing her pupils to retract. People slowed down and stared out their car windows as they passed by the scene, curious but mostly glad it wasn’t them being scrutinized by the law.
“Sure.” She just wanted to get this shit over in one piece.
“Good,” said the officer, as if they were friends. “I want you to hold your arms out like this”—the officer put his arms out like an airplane—“then touch the tip of your nose with the pointer finger of each hand.” He demonstrated what he’d just said, and then asked if she could do that.
Rydah quickly and easily completed the task, just as she did the next four tasks after that one.
For the sixth sobriety task, the officer asked her to recite her ABCs, backward. Rydah noticed that the officer didn’t bother demonstrating this time. That’s because it was called a “sucker’s task.” That wasn’t the official name, but it was called that because the average sober person couldn’t do it. An intoxicated person wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. This was the task dirty police asked a person to complete when they wanted to set someone up. Good thing she wasn’t drunk. At least she had that going for her.
Rydah began with, “Z . . .” She took a deep breath, thought for a second, then said, “YXW. . . .” She silently replayed the alphabet in her head and said, “VUT . . . S. . .”
Rydah was trying desperately to locate—in her head—the letter that came before S when, from a ways up the street, a gold 1978 Cadillac Brougham burled down Biscayne Avenue. The car was almost identical to the one Madea used to elude the police in Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail.
Rydah found the letter she was looking for: “R . . .”
The roar of the engine growled louder as the antique car neared the scene where Rydah and the cops were standing.
“Q . . .”
Being that Rydah was facing the oncoming traffic, she could see the imminent collision before the moment of contact. The officer administering the rigged sobriety test to her wasn’t as fortunate. The Brougham seemed unsteady, seemingly picking up speed as it got closer. Rydah desperately wanted to get farther off of the side of the road, but she was afraid that if she made any move other than what the officer told her to make, he might shoot.
Because of the light in her eyes, Rydah couldn’t see the driver of the old Cadillac, but it was obvious that whoever it was, they were out of control and probably needed to be in her place taking the sobriety test. The car was traveling at 1.5 times the speed limit and swaying. Rydah had a choice: stand there and get hit by this monster on wheels, or move out of the way and maybe get shot. Her heart pounded so hard that if she didn’t get hit or shot, she may have a heart attack.
At the last moment, Rydah attempted to jump out of the way to avoid the collision. Officer Gung-ho drew his weapon.
One of the backup officers yelled, “Watch out!” But the warning was too late. The gold hog, being driven by an 88-year-old lady with a bad case of indigestion, ran smack dead into the police cruiser. The impact caused the back end of the cruiser to swing around into the officer, knocking him forty feet into the air. After mowing the police officer down, it spun directly across the spot where Rydah had been standing.
“Oh, shit.”
Thank God she wasn’t like a deer in headlights. She would’ve been dead if she had waited one more second before jumping out of the way. Besides the side of her Lamborghini needing a fresh coat of paint, she was good.
The old lady driving the Cadillac was also okay. Not a hair out of place on the gray fox. She straightened up her bifocals, reached in the glove box, and fumbled for a bottle of Tums. She opened it, popped two of the chalky discs into her mouth, and chewed. After swallowing, she said, “That’s the last time I’m eating pig’s feet. They nearly killed me.”
Chapter 3
The Perks
5:37 a.m.
Rydah barely beat the sun home, but not by much. As she stepped through the door of the condo, her phone rang.
“Hey, babe.” It was Wolfe, checking to make sure she made it home safe. “How was your night?”
“Great.” She didn’t bother wasting his time with the stunt Buffy and her so-called friends had pulled. “As always, thanks for the setup.”
“It was nothing.” Jaffey, the owner of the club, owed him a boatload of money and an even bigger boatload of favors, so copping the VIP whenever he wanted didn’t cost Wolfe a dime. But it wasn’t like Wolfe was hurting for bread. If he had the inclination to, he had enough money to buy that club and several more of them.
Next month this time, Rydah and Wolfe would have been dating for a year. Once a week, without fail, Wolfe made it his business to take her out on a date. He did everything from a simple movie at his place to a private flight to Vegas for dinner and a show. Rydah wasn’t sure how Wolfe stacked so much paper, and she never asked, but whatever he did, he was really good at it. She was sure that it was illegal.
If Rydah was to believe what the streets were whispering, Wolfe had a mean streak. For every dollar of financial stability he possessed, when provoked, he was equally as unstable as a batch of nitroglycerine. It was safer to cross Satan than it was to cross Wolfe. But Rydah had never seen that side of him
She reciprocated by asking how h
is night was.
“It was uneventful,” he said. “So I guess you could say that it was a good night”
“No excitement at all?” she questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Sounds boring.”
“Boring is sometimes good,” said Wolfe, neglecting to mention using the barrel of his Desert Eagle to play patty cake with a man’s tonsils for coming up short with his money. Dude had a temporary lapse of memory that Wolfe’s .44 down his throat quickly got rid of.
Wolfe changed the subject, asking, “Do you need anything?”
“Yeah. Two quarts of paint for the Lamborghini.”
“Huh?” Wolfe sounded confused. “I thought you were done working on that car.”
“Long story,” she said. “I’ll fill you in over breakfast. I’m cooking. How long before you can get here?”
“I’m going to need a rain check on breakfast, babe. I’ve been in the same clothes for three days. I smell like a ripe chicken coop. But if you want, on your way to work, you can drop by and pick up this bread that I got for you.”
Wolfe was always giving her things. She appreciated it, but she didn’t want him to think she dated him for his money. She could take care of herself quite well. She told him, “I don’t need any money.”
“That’s good to know. However, I didn’t ask if you needed it. I want to give it to you,” he said. “You’re not going to deny me the privilege to do that, are you?” Wolfe made it sound as if she were doing him a favor by accepting his money.
“I hope you don’t mind me dropping by in my work clothes.”
One week later
After hours, Michelob allowed her to have free reign to use anything she needed at the shop. The paint got delivered this morning, a few days early, so she stayed to spray the Lamborghini.
Rydah stopped to admire her progress. She was almost done. Just a few more touches, and when it dried, the car would look as good as new.
She was cleaning the nozzle on the spray gun when her ringing phone broke the silence. She hated being interrupted when she was working. As she was about to pushing the IGNORE button on the screen, Rydah peeped the caller ID.