by Nikki Turner
“Sure was. I had to have my sister’s back.”
“Y’all two something else. Double trouble, for real.”
“So,” Rydah said, ignoring the last comment, “if you didn’t kill her, what did you do with her?”
Wolfe sucked in a lungful of air. “She’s locked away, babe.”
Tallhya said, “I want to see her. Can you take me to her? I’m still not done with her ass.”
Here in this house, with Tallhya, was the only time in his life that he ever felt the need to explain himself and exercise his patience.
“Listen . . .” Wolfe addressed them both in a firm voice, letting them know he was now in charge, in case this was ever in doubt. “This girl will be handled. Trust me. I’m more pissed than you will ever know. However, you two have gotta fall back and let me handle it the way I see fit. In a way that won’t come back to haunt you later. Is this understood?” He shot a look at them both.
Rydah nodded.
Tallhya was quiet.
“He’ll take care of it,” Rydah assured her, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Wolfe would handle Buffy. “Trust me. She’s light work for him, sister.”
“I know,” Tallhya said. “Just hate making promises I can’t keep.”
“Sometimes you gotta pass the baton to the next runner. You did your part, and you did one hell of a job. Hell, you held it down better than a lot of the niggas I know.” He gave credit where credit was due.
Tallhya appreciated the compliment. “Thank you for that.” All her life, people had walked over her and never appreciated her efforts. Even her own sisters sometimes treated her like the reject fat sister. Even after they robbed multiple banks together, Simone repaid her by having her Baker Acted, leaving her in a crazy house. No one even came to visit. It felt good to finally have a sister that loved her for her and had her back. It was all she ever wanted.
Everyone was quiet.
Then Wolfe said to Tallhya, “You still haven’t been out to really see the town. Since you’ve been here, there’s only been misfortune. Time to change that. I think you sisters need to bond. Do some tourist stuff, girl stuff. Don’t worry about this Buffy broad. Put that in your rearview mirror. It’s in my hands now.”
“And the guys?” Tallhya asked. “What about them? Mean-Mug and Flashlight?”
“Working on it.”
“When you get them, can I at least come and spit in their face? For violating me.”
He chuckled. “You got it, li’l sis.”
“Promise?”
Wolfe reflected back to the day, when he was twelve years old, that he watched his father smack his mother because she “allowed” the dinner she’d cooked for him to get cold. He remembered the sound it had made, a cracking noise that reverberated like the whip of an angry horse jockey.
Wolfe had told his dad: If you ever hit her again, I’ll kill you.
He told Tallhya, “I always keep my word.”
Chapter 26
Legwork
The sisters agreed to lay low and let Wolfe deal with the situation. Tallhya had absolute and complete confidence that Wolfe could and would handle it, but at the same, she just couldn’t leave it alone. She felt like she owed Wolfe for the $150,000 he had used to get her back. Although Wolfe said not to worry about the money, Tallhya was determined to repay him. No one had ever done anything like that for her, and the fact that Wolfe wasn’t her man, that he did it because of the love he had for her sister, was real gangsta. Tallhya hoped that when she found a man of her own, he would be half the man Wolfe was. She felt like as long as she was overweight, she’d never get a man.
During her last checkup, the doctor said that at the rate at which she was healing, her body might be able to withstand the surgery she wanted in about three and a half more weeks.
No matter how hard she tried redirecting her attention to other places and things, her mind kept going back to the conversation she’d overheard between the two guys she referred to as Flashlight and Mean-Mug.
“ . . . It isn’t personal, just a part of the game. The American Dream . . . .” Flashlight had said.
Time to turn the tables. How? She thought. Think. Think. Think.
She had an idea.
When Mean-Mug and Flashlight were holding her captive, they had mentioned getting some “bum-ass wings” from The Office. Up until now, she’d forgotten about it.
She’d googled The Office, and it came back as a strip club. Not much of a lead, but it was definitely a good place to start. If her hunches told her anything, they were coming back for those “bum-ass wings.”
Tallhya packed bottled waters and sandwiches in a small cooler and put the cooler in the car—a Maxima, not the BMW Rydah had rebuilt for her. She never saw the Beamer again. Wolfe told her to forget about the car. Easy for him to say. That was the nicest car Tallhya had ever had.
For two days, Tallhya used the Maxima to stake out the parking lot of The Office. On the second day, she broke luck. A burgundy Lincoln with tinted windows pulled into the lot. It was the one she called Mean-Mug.
She picked up the phone to call Wolfe, then changed her mind. Instead, Tallhya watched Mean-Mug’s every move, following him for a couple of days. On the second day, Mean-Mug met up with Flashlight.
They seemed to be doing some research of their own. Tallhya surmised that they were working on the armored truck heist that they’d discussed. After she was sure, she made a trip to Best Buy to purchase one of those long-lensed, paparazzi-style cameras. She also copped spyware apps from a tech novelty store.
She used the services of a stripper to get the spyware onto their phones. It was easy. The stripper simply had to offer each of the guys her number. When they clicked on her text, the spyware would infiltrate their system. With the spy apps installed, Tallhya could see everything they saw on their jacks. Everything. Phone calls, texts, e-mails, and pictures—even Internet traffic.
Rydah and Tallhya both shared the responsibility of monitoring the devices. It was a tedious job. The boys used their phones like a couple of high-school girls.
Tallhya’s phone rang. It was Simone. She put the phone on speaker.
A hyped Simone said, “Hey, girl. You with Rydah?”
Tallhya responded, “She’s right here. She can hear you.”
Rydah shouted, “Heyyyy!”
Simone asked, “What are y’all doing?”
Rydah and Tallhya shot a conspiratorial look at each other.
“We’ll tell you later,” Rydah said.
“Trust me,” Tallhya added, “you don’t even want to know.”
Simone said, “Let me be the judge of that.”
Rydah hunched her shoulders as if to say to Tallhya, “It’s up to you.”
Tallhya spoke on their behalf. “We been doing a lot of sightseeing and eating on the beach,” she said, bending the truth. They’d been keeping Mean-Mug and Flashlight in their sights and eating sandwiches while they waited. “You know—white sand and blue water.”
“Just showing her the city,” Rydah said. “Enjoying each other’s company.”
A pause.
“Oh,” Simone said.
Tallhya knew Simone like a book, and by the sound of that “Oh” Simone blew out her mouth, Tallhya knew that her sister was a wee bit jealous of the way she and Rydah were getting along. She rubbed it in.
“We’re having a ball. I’ve never had anyone in my entire life roll out the red carpet like this. I mean Rydah, her parents, and our brother-in-law . . . I swear, they outdid themselves.”
Simone asked, “For real?”
“Enough about me,” Tallhya said, knowing that Simone would want to hear more. “More importantly,” she said, changing the subject, “how are you?”
Simone, sounding excited, said, “I Just finished my last round of treatments a couple of weeks ago. And everything looks good.”
They both screamed, “Yesssss!”
Simone said, “I’m feeling a lot better. The docto
r said that I should get some sun. Relax. I’m thinking about coming to Miami for a few days.”
Rydah couldn’t contain her smile. “You serious?”
“As cancer,” she joked.
It was one of those jokes that was only funny because the person was making fun of herself.
“Damn, sis, your timing couldn’t be much better. I got something big simmering in a pot that could use your special touch. Still early, but it’s definitely coming together,” Tallhya said.
Simone asked, “Really?”
“If you’re up to it.”
Simone said, “Don’t worry about me, little sis. I feel as well as I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“I hear you.”
“Then spill the tea.”
“Still researching . . . but trust me, it’s going to turn out something big. I just know it.”
“Let us know what day you’re going to get here,” Rydah said to Simone.
“Whatever day my little sister says that she needs me. I could use the excitement.”
“Talk to your husband, see if he will let you steal away,” Tallhya suggested. “See how soon you can get here and call us back. Meanwhile, I’m still doing my homework, but it’s going to come together soon.”
They disconnected the phone call from Simone and when they did, Rydah asked, “Ummmm, are you going to share what you have been all closed-lipped about and where you been spending all this time?”
“I will soon, sister. Just know I’m not getting in any trouble. Just chilling, that’s all. Researching some stuff.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” Tallhya assured Rydah.
“I know you. . . .”
“Listen, the second I get the info I need, I promise I will share it. A few more pieces to the puzzle have to come together. Don’t worry. We going to be on some damn Wonder Twins shit. I promise.”
Chapter 27
A Chef Salad?
When the phone rang, Tallhya looked at the screen and thought, What’s the catch?
It was Fonz.
If nothing else, she thought, the man is persistent. And a helluva looker.
Since they’d exchanged numbers three weeks ago, Fonz had made it his business to phone Tallhya at least once a day. Some days he called more than once, and he was always pleasant, polite, and so damn poised. Tallhya hadn’t quite figured out what his game was yet, or why he seemed to be so interested in her.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon, gorgeous.” His voice sounded like chocolate for the ears. “How was your day thus far?” he asked. Even his bullshit small talk sounded sincere.
“Who, me?” She was on a stakeout, hunched down in the driver’s seat of the Maxima with a pair of binoculars and a cooler packed with a turkey sandwich, fresh fruit, and water, watching Mean-Mug. She’d just followed him to a house in Miami Gardens. “Same ol’, same ol’,” she said. “Uneventful.”
Fonz saw an opening and took it. “Maybe I could do something to break the monotony.” Until now, he’d kept his word and only used her number to kick it on the jack. No expectations and no promises. An opportunity to get to know one another. “Let’s say I take you out for dinner? To a nice restaurant.”
She didn’t say anything because she was focused on an older lady who came out of the house. She must have been Mean-Mug’s grandmother.
Fonz took the opportunity of her silence, ran with it, and went out on a limb. “Do you like crab cakes? I know a place that makes some of the best crab cakes in the city.” As soon as the faux pas came out of his mouth, he mentally kicked himself. What if she didn’t like crab cakes? Or worse, if seafood made her sick? He’d given her a built-in excuse to turn down his offer. “They make lots of other great things also,” he said, trying to recover from his slip.
When Tallhya opened her mouth, the truth fell out. “I just so happen to love crab cakes. It’s a date,” she said. Too late to take it back. Damn.
That was the fat bitch that accepted his offer, not me. She needed to get a grip on that.
“Then,” with cobra-quick reflexes, Fonz said, “I’ll pick you up at eight.” He finished before she could change her mind. “That’s good for you?”
The only thing she’d eaten all day were two apples. She said, “Eight’s fine, but instead of picking me up, I’ll meet you there. Just text me the info.”
“Deal.”
* * *
At 7:45 p.m., Fonz handed the keys to his new Rolls Royce Wraith to the valet. The three hundred thousand–dollar automobile rolled off the showroom floor with 624 horses under the hood. It was the most powerful Rolls ever produced.
Fonz cautioned the valet attendant. “Be easy with her. She has a tendency to get feisty with drivers she doesn’t know.”
“Sir,” the attendant proudly said, “I promise to treat her like the queen she is.”
“Thank you.”
Fonz would’ve literally had a coronary if he’d witnessed the rubber the attendant left tattooed to the cement while spinning the Rolls’ wheels, but his mind was occupied with his date for tonight.
Tallhya pulled up to the restaurant fifteen minutes later. The same valet attendant that had abused the Rolls, parked her car.
Inside, a six-piece jazz band performed a Miles Davis piece. Fonz met her in the lounge area, where patrons waited to be seated.
“You look amazing,” Fonz complimented.
“Very nice choice,” Tallhya said, admiring the ambiance of the place.
“The lighting was off when I first arrived.”
“Really?” Tallhya asked with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s until you arrived and lit the entire place up.”
Blushing all over, she was glad that one of the hostesses, attired in a black-and-white suit, ushered them to a reserved table for two.
“Right this way.” The hostess spoke with a slight accent which Tallhya didn’t recognize.
“Nice table choice,” Tallhya said once they were seated. They were close enough to the band to be entertained, but not too close where their conversation would be drowned out by the volume of the music. Fonz took the liberty of ordering a robust red wine, along with a light appetizer, bread, and salad.
Fonz did everything he could in order to make Tallhya feel comfortable, but none of it worked. In her mind, she looked and felt overweight. She’d worn all black too, with a waist shaper underneath her clothes to appear slimmer than she was. It was too tight, and she could barely breathe. It sucked everything in, but her fat girl tricks weren’t holding up to their end of the bargain.
Fonz was good at small talk. Conversing with strangers seemed to come natural to him, as if it were something that he had to do for a living.
Just like a con artist, Tallhya thought.
The band was jamming out to a George Benson cover when the waitress returned. She asked if they were ready to order. She was looking at Tallhya as if Fonz was a regular and she already knew what he liked. In fact, Fonz seemed familiar with quite a few people in the restaurant, both staff and patrons.
Yet he remained the ultimate gentleman at all times.
“Take your time. But if you’re unsure of what to try, order as many different dishes as you like.” Coming from some people, the line would’ve sounded mean-spirited, but not from him. “We can sample them together,” he said. “That’s good for me, because everything is so delicious here, and my mind tends to want some of it all, but my stomach won’t let me have it all.”
“I’ll have the chef salad.”
“And what dressing would you like with that?”
“I would like to have it dressed up in a couple of crab cakes and a juicy fillet mignon.” That’s what she wanted to tell the skinny-ass heifer. “French dressing is fine,” was what she really said.
As if he could read her mind, Fonz ordered the seafood platter with extra crab cakes. “We can share,” he said. “Oh, and would you throw in a few extra prawns, please?” Fonz said as he handed
the menu to the waitress.
Fonz seemed to be everything she needed and wanted in her life. He smelled good, looked good, could dress his ass off, was classy and articulate, and seemed to have his shit together. He seemed to really like her, made her feel comfortable, and had the potential to romance the hell out of her.
This nigga is just too damn good to be true. That was the exact moment that Tallhya decided that after this date, she would never see or talk to Fonz again.
Her stomached growled.
Shut the fuck up!
Chapter 28
Doggie Style
Three weeks later
Wolfe’s dog kennel was 6 feet by 9 feet by 4 feet, fabricated from solid steel. On a table next to the kennel was a box of chicken and a can of dog food. Wolfe opened the can of Alpo, spooned it into a metal dog bowl, and slid it through a feeding slot.
For the first week, Buffy left the dog food untouched, but after a while, when she knew that there would be nothing else to eat, she couldn’t wait to chow down on the canine cuisine. Unable to stand up in the 4-foot tall cage, Buffy crawled through her own feces and piss to reach her meal.
“Not so much fun when the rabbit got the gun,” said Wolfe.
Buffy’s eyes stayed glued on the bowl of dog food.
“I was taught to treat people in accordance to the way they treat me.” Wolfe chomped down of a piece of fried chicken. “So,” he said, “you thought it was entertaining to see my sister-in-law beat up, raped, and drugged, huh?”
Buffy continued to eat. She knew that she only had five minutes. After that, Wolfe would take the bowl from the cage—whether she was done or not.
“One question,” he said. It was the same question he asked every day. “Who were the other two guys?”
Buffy answered the same way she’d answered before. She said nothing.
Wolfe’s phone rang and he took the quick call. When he hung up the phone, he smiled.
“I just got two calls back to back. I got info on who your partners are. You got about an hour to decide if you wanna give them up before they throw your ass under the bus.”
“They will never throw me under the bus.”