Riddles

by Rhonda Crowder

  I made myself a nice, big hot breakfast then cleaned up the kitchen and milled around the house until I heard my cell phone ringing. I rushed to it. Private number?

  “Hello.”

  “What’s up, Ma? You gon’ be able to make that happen for me?”

  “I was just thinking about you,” I said and smiled at the sound of Dee’s voice.

  “Really? Is that a good thing?” he asked

  “Of course,” I said.

  “So what’s up? You gonna help me?”

  “I wouldn’t have told you I could if I couldn’t,” I said.

  “Bet! I need the girls to be here Friday at eleven-thirty. That’s cool?

  “No problem.”

  “Alright. Alright. Now, why you don’t do parties again? They would love to see you.”

  “I don’t want to end up like the girl with the Duke Lacrosse team,” I said. “And I don’t like to be surrounded by so much testosterone in such close quarters. I’m more into relationship building. I provide the girlfriend experience. I like one on one. Know what I mean?”

  “It’s like that?”

  “Yes. It’s like that. And I tax niggas harder than Uncle Sam too. Just so you know.”

  “I ain’t no trick,” he said. “So, you gon’ slide through wit’ the girls?”

  “That’s the only way I’m getting my ends, right?” I said then quoted him a price for the girls plus my middleman fee.

  “Cash is king,” he said, agreeing to the rate. “You all ‘bout that paper! I like that.”

  And I like you.

  “I’ll send some pictures. Later.” I tried to maintain my composure while looking forward to seeing this man for more reasons than investigating Malibu’s death.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hey girl. What you been up to?” Tory said. She called just as I hung from Dee.

  “Trying to figure out who killed Malibu.” I regretted my words as soon as they left my lips.

  “Aww, Chyne. You worry about the wrong things. That’s your problem,” she said with her mood changing as fast as Cleveland’s weather.

  “So what you saying? I shouldn’t care?” I said. I felt defensive. “No one else seems to want to do it. The police are apparently too busy.”

  “What! Why get yourself caught up into it. Ain’t no telling who killed that girl! Same thing with my mama. Could be anybody. I’m just saying.”

  I really didn’t want to rehash this argument with her, especially since she brought up her mom. Tory had recently lost her mother to violence. Even though it made me pause, it appeared not to bother her. I wondered if she ever really grieved. Although Malibu’s murder troubled me and I wanted to talk about it, my focus shifted to how Tory must have felt about her own mother’s untimely death. I wanted to be there for my friend. I knew how it felt to be an orphan. It happened about seven months prior and remained cold in terms of finding who did it.

  “How you holding up?” I asked. “I know ya’ll had some wrinkles you never ironed out.”

  “My mother was found in a dumpster. I’ll never get that image from my head. But she’s gone now. With the life she lived, I’m not surprised that’s how it ended for her. I got to keep it moving, you know? That’s all I can do. It’s unfortunate that we never could come to good terms, but I can’t worry about a dead woman who was as useless as some old rusty nails when alive.”

  Tory always said that about her mother. I paid it no mind, still thinking about Dee.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I don’t have any other family. I don’t know my aunts and uncles, or my stepfather’s family. Then, my brother-”

  “You got me. We family,” I said stopping her from finishing her sentence.

  I had never met Tory’s brother, but felt like I knew him. She talked about him a lot over the years, especially when her grandmother would call to fill her in on his shenanigans as he grew older. Because all of Tory’s friends were uppity, she could never discuss her family problems with them. She never told them how her mother lost it all to drugs. Instead, she dumped all her negative energy onto me because I empathized with her.

  She told me how her brother started getting high, start going by the name “Dub Deuce” even got it tattooed across his back. He grew dreads, started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and selling drugs – turned into a big baller until he went to juvenile detention for stealing. Once he got out, he went back to jail for robbery. This time he got out a second chance because he snitched on his co-defendants. She shared with me his involvement in a slew of other petty crimes and misdemeanors as well.

  “You have always been there for me,” she replied. “And I love you. That’s why I’m worried about your preoccupation with this girl’s death. It’s not like you.”

  “I know right. It’s weird. Curiosity is killing me. It would be comforting to know,” I said.

  She giggled. “How so? To make it easier for you to work?” she continued in a badgering tone of voice. “But, just to entertain me, what have you come up with so far? Who you think did it?”

  “Well . . .” There was an awkward silence over the line.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” she said after I wasn’t forthcoming with an answer. “See, what you need to do is . . .”

  That’s when I tuned her out. I had become used to her “What you need to do is . . .” soliloquies she always espoused but really should’ve kept to herself. Suffice to say, I wasn’t always in the mood for her “wanna be” elitist aspirations and teachings, and especially right now.

  “I would just leave it alone. That’s what I would do.”

  I tuned back in just as she began the last statement. “For you, I’ll leave it alone,” I said acquiescing only for her to shut up. “Listen, I need to start getting ready. I have to go out to DeKalb later this evening.”

  “Oh. Okay. What time?”

  I told her.

  “Well, the reason I called. I wanted to give you a heads up. I can’t make your annual birthday trip this year. I just got a new client with a big case so I need to work.”

  Just as I prepared to interject, she continued in a whisper, “Wait, a sec. Hey, let me call you back.”

  Since Tory distracted me from thinking about who killed Malibu, I decided to give my brain a break and shift gears for a second.

  I logged into my website, www.membersonly.com. I tried to do it daily, I was very proud of my project, and wanted to keep an eye on it. It took me years to develop what I initially envisioned, especially since I created it during the midst of the dot com crash. But, with hundreds of unique visitors per day, as well over fifty-thousand paid subscribers, it had grown to become very stable and lucrative. After investing a lot money and time, it felt good to finally generate a consistent stream of revenue from it.

  I created the site, after having my child, for three reasons. One. I had grown bored with shopping and decorating. My savings from the settlement started to dwindle, and I wanted to own my own business. Initially, I didn’t know what kind of business to start.

  Being in the sex industry, I figured it would make sense to stick with something I knew. I didn’t want the headache of a club or an escort service. I did think about a magazine but John Cornetta’s Xcitement had that locked down in Atlanta. And, just as I started to step out the realm of lewdness to consider something more wholesome, a brilliant idea popped into my mine.

  I created this virtual strip club. An Internet peek show where site visitors could go from the stage to the VIP room without leaving the privacy of their own home or office. It made perfect sense, and I had the startup capital. I already had a location, a two bedroom house I owned down off I-2O within the city limits, the first property I bought after moving to Atlanta. My buddy Dakota managed the location and maintained technical operations.

  From behind my desk, I stared at www.membersonly.com’s home screen. A pole and stage appeared then a stripper slid down it. She danced until money started to fall. I even had a jukebox installed s
o the visitor could select the kind of music they would like to hear, if any, while watching the shows. I had a photo gallery of nude models as well as wallpaper downloads available to subscribers, but the videos were proprietary and couldn’t be downloaded. The chat room allowed members to leave messages, comments, reviews, and ratings of favorite shows as well as talent. They could even post what they wanted to see. And, if they had outrageous request I couldn’t immediately fulfill, I ran a classified ad in local papers or Craig’s List to get it.

  Being in Atlanta, I never had trouble finding what I sought. I even had some editorial content on my site for entertainment purposes to keep it fresh, cute little columns and what not. It was the perfect set up as the Internet had changed the nature of the sex work forever for those who embraced technology. Good strip club money started to dwindle after President Bill Clinton’s “welfare to work” policies kicked in and the Bush administration began.

  Early on, my biggest challenge was establishing a presence on the Internet. I spent a great deal of money on advertising. However, traffic to the site lagged and the cost became expensive. I got tired of spending my own money so I asked Tory if she wanted to be a minor silent partner.

  “Girl, what I look like with my hands in something like that,” she replied.

  I shook off her comment, and decided I’d make it work – myself – by hook or by crook. Then, one day, it dawned on me to go back to work in the strip club.

  I had been out of the game for a few years, after giving birth to my baby. And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I only topped to appeal to someone else who shunned me anyway and I would never fit it. So, I figured, better get paid while I still had the body and ability. I reasoned, it would help me save money on my biggest business expense by passing out cards with promo codes, and offering discounted memberships to men I encountered in the club.

  That’s how I landed at Joker’s. And, no matter what Tory said, that wasn’t such a bad thing until this murder occurred.That, of course, made my mind go back to Malibu.

  So, I’d know for years that Joker’s was unsafe, but I stayed praying I would just walk away one day unscathed and never look back. I hoped because I knew too many girls who hadn’t been so lucky. I shook my head. I need to think about something else.

  I decided to check my email. I saw a message from my daughter. Being consumed in this mess, I hadn’t called her in a week. I’d imagine, for my eight-year old, that seemed like eternity.

  Markie, my little angel, lived in Cleveland during the school with my stepfather’s mother, Ms. Anna. She attended a private, all girls academy. I read her message.

  “auntie tory emailed me she said let her know if i need something tell her I want the new high school musical dvd I love you and miss you Markie”

  I sent her a reply.

  Hi baby, I miss you too. I’ll tell Auntie Tory. But, do you really need a new DVD? And what did I tell you about getting in the habit of using punctuation in your emails? We’ll talk later. Love you, Mommy.

  Typing the word Mommy made we wonder what it would be like if I had to bury my child. That just went against the natural order of life. Although she seemed brash about it, something in my gut told me Malibu’s mother did carry a sense of loss for her first born. I knew that everyone didn’t grieve the same.

  Peanut, on the other hand, still seemed suspect to me. I hoped Dee could provide some more pieces to this puzzle.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Despite working in the adult entertainment industry, I always tried to be prompt and professional. Regardless of its nature, business is business. And now, finding Malibu’s killer had become my business.

  I stood in front of the full-length mirror and gave myself a once over and then a nod of approval. I grabbed my keys and handbag off of the kitchen counter on my way out and pushed the button to open the garage door. The night was still and I stopped for a second to soak up the silence and look toward to the sky. The tiny stars in the sky gleamed and I wished upon them.

  Please, let Dee reveal something. .

  I looked over at my stepfather’s Maserati, then to my Porsche truck. I would never drive his car without him knowing because he could be very particular about his things. He received it as a gift from one of his international friends who had it specially made and shipped to my door. But that night, I felt a need for speed to do over a hundred miles an hour down a Georgia freeway.

  I had to meet Dee in Stone Mountain and according to his directions, I could take I-285 East to Covington Highway. That would give me a nice little span of road to open up the engine once I passed the Peachtree Industrial Boulevard exit. The police often posted up there to catch and ticket speeders. But they would never catch me in that car, I reasoned as I went back into the house to retrieve his spare set of keys. I should be fine. I just couldn’t help myself.

  I inhaled the newness of the interior and started the engine. It roared like a lion in the jungle as the garage door opened. I backed out my driveway then pulled up the stop sign and noticed a set of BMW headlights approaching at the cross section.

  I drove up to the gate of my subdivision and put on my blinkers. I hit my brakes at the entryway then reached for my cell phone as I turned out onto the road from my community. I needed to confirm that the dancers I’d gotten for Dee were in route.

  “Oh shoot,” I said realizing I’d left the piece of paper with Dee’s address back at the house. So I called him to get it. I fumbled around to enter it into the GPS system as Dee rattled it off . Really, I hated the navigational device because they reminded me of Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ but in Atlanta, they came in handy.

  By the time I hung up from Dee, I approached the entrance ramp to GA400 and I noticed the same headlights continued to follow behind me. I hit the ramp and took off like a jet. By the time I reached the 285 Exchange, I glanced up into my side mirror and noticed I hadn’t lost the BMW.

  That’s weird, I thought. Is that car following me?

  I broke for the exit, got on 285 going east, took to the middle lane then hit the gas again. When I reached Peachtree Industrial, I glanced through the rearview only to see those same headlights closing in on me. Next thing I knew, the car was along my right side like the driver wanted to race.

  I chuckled. “No way you can win against this baby,” I said to myself and rubbed the dashboard. I glanced over, but couldn’t see into the car. It had that illegal tint covering the windows. I tapped my gas a little harder.

  The driver did the same and it didn’t take long for the Beamer to catch up and almost rear end me. At that point, I became concerned. I gave the Maserati more gas. Just as I got into the next gear so did this antagonist. I decided to detour at Spaghetti Junction, where I knew I could shake the BMW. I had to get it back to my garage without a scratch.

  So, to really throw the driver off, I got over in the far left lane. I needed to exit at 85 North. I saw the BMW in my rearview. Only a short distance away, it started to gain on me. I knew I reached a point of now or never so I took a deep breath and said, “Please Lord” and pushed that pedal toward the floor. Although I felt glued to my seat, I slung the steering wheel to the right, causing the car to skirt across the freeway onto the ramp. I took my foot off the pedal to coast when I reached it. In attempt to avoid crashing into the wall as it curved, I pumped the brakes and prayed I could maintain control of the car.

  Once I reached the top of the overlapping roads, I turned the exterior lights off and accelerated – just in case that fool made it too. Doing about 70 mph, coming off the ramp, I reached the first exit in a matter of seconds.

  At the stop sign, I checked the rearview mirror. The car wasn’t there.

  “What was all that about?” I blurted out as I approached a traffic light. “Tried to run me off the road.”

  I sat for a brief moment to catch my breath. I turned the exterior lamps back on, drove a block or so down the road and turned into a parking lot. I turned my lights off and laid my
head back on the rest. My chest heaved as if I had just completed a marathon. I couldn’t move. My mind raced at a hundred miles per minute, wondering what had just happened and why.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I needed to regain my composure before meeting Dee and calm my nerves. I reached in my bag for my pre-rolled blunt and lit it. I hadn’t smoked since the murder so I choked a bit. I woofed about half of it before I could feel my breathing returning to normal. I put the other half in the ashtray, and looked down at my hands to make sure they’d stopped shaking. Once I got myself together, I recalculated the GPS and drove off slowly. Traveling the new route, I arrived at the location in no time. I turned into the cul-de-sac, and parked in front of the house, then I called to check on the girls before dialing Dee.

  “Come in,” he said when I told him I was outside.

  “I prefer you come out,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said and blew out a breath. “I’ll be right there.”

  Only a few moments had passed when I saw Dee step through the front door and stand in the entryway. He looked around and I flashed my bright lights. When he got to the car, I let the window down.

  “If you worried about what the neighbors will think,” I said. “I can pull off.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said leaning down to look in the window. “I don’t care what my neighbors think, plus we’re not doing anything. Why didn’t you want to come in?”

  “I just try to make a point of not entering a house filled with horny, possibly intoxicated men alone. If I can help it.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he said.

  “I really don’t know you well enough to trust you’ll protect me.”

  He opened the door and got in. “From the looks of it,” he said looking around the car. “You got nothing to worry ‘bout.” He looked me in the eyes. “What else you do? I know you ain’t getting it like this working in raggedy ass Joker’s.”