by Teri Woods
Much to Gena’s surprise, Quadir had a gift for her. Over in the corner sat a lidded box, covered in shiny red paper with a silver bow on top. “What is that?”
“Look and see.” He placed the box on the floor next to her and she removed the lid and looked inside.
“Qua! She’s adorable!”
“It’s a he.”
“Oh, he’s so adorable.”
She gently gathered up the tiny furball, cuddling it.
“I saw him and I thought he was cute.” Gena inspected the diamond and gold tag. “Gucci?”
“I named him Gucci,” he said, grinning. “You know, he’s a Persian. He’s gonna have a lot of hair.”
“Qua, I figured that,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “I don’t believe you. This is so sweet.”
“I got something for you, too.”
“Really, is that so?”
“It is,” she said, standing up completely in the raw. “But you have to catch it,” she said, running up the stairwell butt naked as he ran after her.
The black Pathfinder pulled into the back of the parking lot of the West Point Motel, under a tree and out of the light, where it sat and waited.
“Man, what the fuck is the bitch doing?” said Ran.
“Don’t ask me. She your peoples. I don’t know nothing, don’t even know why I’m here. All I know is that sis would want to bring her ass on,” Sam said, picking some dirt from under his fingernail. Ran grabbed his pager out of his pocket. No number. He already knew that. He checked it for sound and sat it on the seat.
“Give her some time,” Ran said.
“I’ll give her some time, all right.”
“Who knows? They might be up there getting their freak on,” said Ran.
“Man, I don’t give a fuck if he up there eatin’ her ass, I want the bitch to come on.” The scream of the beeper violated their contrived composure, scaring them half to death, causing them to be thrown against each other in an effort to shut it off.
“Anticipation is a motherfucker, ain’t it?” said Ran.
“Man, is it her?” said Sam.
“No!” hollered Ran.
“Damn, I’m tired. Jerrell got me out here kidnapping motherfuckers in the middle of the night. And what’s up with your peoples?”
“I don’t know! I’m gonna wring her neck if she fucks up.” His pager went off again. “Why do girls got to keep calling my pager over and over again? I’m saying, when you can get to a phone, you’ll call a bitch back, right? Why must they do that?” Ran was irritated.
“Who is it?” Sam asked.
“Jennifer. I swear she calls me over and over and over again all motherfucking night. I went to sleep, the girl was paging me. I woke up, she was paging me. You would think the girl would have figured the shit out by now.”
Sam just sat there listening to another one of Ran’s stories, as usual.
“Man,” Ran continued, “don’t you know she dialed the pager so much I had to buy batteries every other day. I swear to God, the bitch has to be the fuck possessed to page me like that.” Ran’s pager went off again. “Damn, I been trying to see this girl right here,” said Ran, showing the number to Sam. “She all that.”
“Is she?” said Sam, memorizing the number for himself. “What’s her name?”
“Tia. She got a beauty salon, Rippin’ It, up in Germantown. Now this girl is bad with her pretty ass. You gots to see it to believe it,” said Ran.
I plan to, thought Sam.
Ran’s pager went off again. “If this ain’t her, I’m gonna smack her silly,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m gonna slap her ass around some too, for making me sit out here like this.”
“Yo, this is it,” Ran said. “Look at the time. Three twelve. She said she would need twenty minutes, and then she would be ready.”
KIDNAPPED
Inside the hotel room, Simone and Forty was going at it. Simone had no problem making herself at ease with Forty. He was real nice-looking, and Ran was right. He played right into her hands. Ran had come to her with that ol, “I need you baby, you got to help a brother out” talk. Time after time, Simone was always doing something morally wrong for Ran. But the twenty thousand he offered her for her trouble was worth it, and she jumped at it like she was an Olympic contender. Now here she was in a hotel room with some stranger she had met at a nightclub.
Slowly Simone eased herself from the double bed and tiptoed over to the door. Carefully, she unlocked it. Then she picked up the phone. Just as she placed the hook on the receiver, Forty opened the door to the bathroom.
“Damn, you’re big. You look deformed.” Looking, she didn’t want him fucking her.
“Think you can handle it?”
“Do you think you can handle it?” she asked him back.
“Talk now, cry later.” Forty stood at the foot of the bed. Meticulously, he picked up his pants and carefully laid them on the back of a chair. He then placed a gun and a condom on the table. He laid on the bed, picked up the remote, turned on the television then clicked off the light. Not watching the television, he concentrated on Simone. Within a matter of minutes he had Simone’s mouth wrapped around his private part. He had a thing about his penis in a woman’s mouth. He had to have it, and within minutes he was giving it to her. While he concentrated on neutralizing his high, Simone was surreptitiously reaching for the gun he’d so cavalierly placed nearby on the nightstand. Finally making contact with the cold piece of steel, she was able to slip the gun from the table and nudge it neath the pillow, while still simulating enjoyment of Forty’s superior anatomy. Not that she could, but he was high and she was on a mission. Forty was definitely the man you would want to get snowed in with on a cold winter’s day. It just would never be in this lifetime, and particularly not tonight.
“Roll over,” he whispered in her ear, thinking of some sexual innovation, but was interrupted by an out-of-place sound, which disconcerted him. “Can I join in?” asked a voice that was neither his nor Simone’s. He reached for his piece, which was also out of place. He felt a setup as a hand reached around his throat and pulled him off the bed.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Nigga, shut the fuck up,” said the voice, emphasizing his instructions with a gun against Forty’s jawbone. “You want to live, don’t you? I know you do, especially since you’re laying up here in all this pussy.”
Forty didn’t say anything, and he wasn’t going to. They duct-taped his hands behind his back then tied him to a chair naked and blindfolded him, while Simone got dressed in the bathroom. Ran looked in Forty’s pants and in his jacket pockets. When he was done, Ran had the car keys, money, pager, and cell phone.
“The gun is under the pillow,” Simone whispered to Ran as she came out the bathroom. Ran grabbed the gun, and the two of them left in Forty’s jeep while Sam stayed with Forty.
“Damn, I wish this nigga had tinted windows.”
“I know, right.”
“Yeah. Here’s your money,” he said, handing her a bag.
“Thanks, Ran. Mmm, twenty thousand. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with all this money.”
“Simone, so help me God if you say anything, I swear, if you say one little word, if I even have a reason to think you told someone where you got this money from, I will kill you. You hear me?”
“Ran, I’m not sayin’ nothin’, straight up. You not gonna have to worry about me, okay?”
“I hope so.” Ran parked the jeep on a deserted side street. “Damn, we need something to wipe the jeep down.”
“Here,” she said, pulling a pair of panties out of her pocketbook.
Ran just looked at her. “Man, don’t give me your drawers.”
“They cool. I haven’t worn them or nothing, see?” she said putting them up to his face.
“Yo, Simone! Is you out your mind? You need to get some motherfucking help,” said Ran.
“Yeah, don’t we all?” she said getting out the car. Ran took th
e panties and wiped Forty’s jeep down. Then he got out and locked the doors.
“Remember what I said,” he told her as he led her up the block.
“I swear, Ran, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“I just hope you didn’t catch no feelings for the nigga or nothing, while he was runnin’ up in you.”
“Ran, come on, it takes more than a fuck, you know what I mean?” she said, looking up at him.
“Yo, just keep your mouth shut and everything will be cool.”
“Ran, I don’t know shit. I don’t know a damn thing.”
“All right, baby.” Ran whistled at a cab but it kept going. Another cab was turning the corner.
“Here, wait a minute.” Simone stepped out in the street and hailed the cab down. Ran got the next cab back to the hotel where Sam and Forty were and he let himself in. Sam had put Forty in the corner facing a wall.
“Why you put him like that?” Ran asked.
“I don’t know. Seem like he not here, right?”
“Man, come on. Why you didn’t get him dressed?”
“What, and untie him?”
“No,” Ran said, “dress his ass tied up.”
“Man, he’s butt naked, man. I don’t want to dress him.”
Ran looked at Sam, with his one and only look he gave to people when they were getting on his nerves. “Dress him, I said.”
“How I’m supposed to dress him all tied up, man? Huh?”
“Never mind, okay? Never mind. Hand me his clothes.” Ran pulled the ski mask over his face and ordered Sam to do the same. He uncovered Forty’s eyes.
The swirling blackness and specks of light faded into one, and finally there was vision. Forty looked around. He couldn’t believe this was happening. After Ran untied him, he threw his clothes at Forty and told him to get dressed while Sam had the gun pointed at him in case he tried anything.
Forty picked his clothes off the floor and put them on. He couldn’t see his assailants’ faces because of the ski masks. He didn’t say anything; he just stayed real calm and played along with what was going on. He just wanted to go home, home to his wife Sharon and their three sons, Christopher Jr., Brandon, and Andrew. She told him to stay in with her, cried about it ’cause it was Christmas Eve, but he had to be out there. Christmas didn’t matter. He had to be out there. And now look what was happening to him. He wasn’t even sure what was happening. He thought about asking but decided not to. He thought about how, in a few more hours, his sons would wake up and run downstairs to the living room and start opening their presents with or without mom and dad, and then how they’d then run into Mommy and Daddy’s room to wake them up. Only, this Daddy wouldn’t be there.
When Forty finished dressing, Sam retied him to the chair and blindfolded him. There was some movement about the room, and Forty could tell things were being shifted. Suddenly, his arm stung, like a bee got him, and in less than seconds, he was slumped over in the chair.
“Let’s clean this place up.”
“Why? We got gloves on.”
“Well, just wipe everything off anyway,” said Ran. “No fingerprints, no body, no weapons, no case.”
“Yeah, except that Simone. I think we should have killed the bitch.”
“Why? She been helping out for years.”
“Man, I would take her out. She know too much.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But we don’t have to worry about her right now. All we got to worry about is taking care of this.”
They carried Forty downstairs and put him in the back of the truck, then Ran went back upstairs and took another fifteen minutes to rub down the room one last time. Placing the room key on the table, he closed the door behind him. He drove out to West Philly, where they put Forty in the basement of a house that had been abandoned. They tied him to a chair, went home, and spent Christmas with their families.
Gena took her time, as she opened the little tiny box wrapped in gold paper with a blue velvet bow. “Quadir!” she gasped. “They’re beautiful! You don’t think they’re too big?”
“No, not at all,” Quadir said.
“They’re beautiful, baby. I love them, I really do.”
“They’re pear-shaped.”
“I don’t care if they were shaped like kumquats. I love them. I wanted a pair of diamond earrings. I was tired of these little dots. Quadir, I’m gonna get robbed with all this jewelry.”
“No, you’re not. When you’re this large, you don’t get robbed. People just stare.”
“Here,” she said as she turned the tree lights on. “I have something for you.” Quadir didn’t know what he was doing, but it felt good. He knew that it was wrong to have the tree and have the gifts, but it still felt good. Gena was a mad woman when it came to money and a mall. She had spent thousands shopping for all the gifts under the tree. She handed Quadir a big box.
“What is it?” Qua said as he opened the box. His eyes glowed when he pulled out the black leather jacket customized by Dapper Dan. “I’m scared to ask how much it cost.”
“Then don’t. Here,” she said, handing him another box. Inside was a Cartier watch. Qua put his watch on, his eyes sparkling like the diamonds surrounding the bezel.
“I like it.”
“I knew you would. Here.” She had more. One box contained more than twenty different colognes. “I didn’t know which one you would like so I got them all.” He just looked at her. She’d gone mad. In another box, there was a week’s worth of Armani ensembles. Quadir was really getting into it, opening up his gifts and throwing the paper to the side. Gena just stood there, watching, knowing he had never celebrated nobody’s Christmas.
“No. Open that one.” Gena knew what was in each box. This one had Genesis cartridges for his Sega.
“Did you get me boxing?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Gena got him records, tapes, and CDs. Gena lingered over a little box she’d spotted earlier.
Quadir saw her looking at it. “Here,” he said.
“What is it?” she smiled.
“I love you. Open your box.”
It was a diamond ring, a cluster of twenty-five point diamonds totaling seven karats in weight.
“Good Lord, but it can’t top this. Here, I got you one more thing.” She felt under the torn paper next to the tree trying to find the tiny box for him. “Here it is.” She handed Qua the box and watched as he tore at the wrapping paper. He opened the box and picked out a key chain sporting a diamond “Q.”
“Check you out,” he said. “Real diamonds. I like this.”
“It’s a key chain,” she said, like he wouldn’t know.
“Baby, it’s the best key chain I ever had.”
“You like it?”
“I love it.”
For twenty-five thousand, you ought to, she thought to herself.
“I’m really scared to ask you how much this cost. So, I’m gonna skip that.”
Has he been saying that a lot tonight or is it just me? Gena asked herself, as she sat there organizing the stuff under the tree like Gah Git always did. She never had this much stuff under a tree. It was like someone else’s life, someone else’s man.
Life had never been easy, and most the time it was hard. No matter how hard it got, there was always a lot of love. Gena remembered Christmas with her family. One gift, two if you were lucky. Today, she had everything she wanted. Gah Git always said to have everything and no love is to have nothing at all. But, to have love, is to have everything. For the first time Gena understood that, when she looked up and saw her man staring at her. It wasn’t the gifts that meant anything. It was only the love she had for him and all the love he gave her.
Gena leaned over and on her knees she wrapped her arms around him, gave him a real strong hug, kissed him, and told him she loved him. Then, she went back to organizing the gifts.
He looked at her and thought of how much he loved her, how much he needed her and how for the first time he was happy. If he didn’t have anything,
just having her would be okay. “Do you know what I want from you?”
“No. What?”
“I want a son. I want you to give me a son.”
“That’s all you want?” she asked with a sexy grin on her face.
“That’s all I want,” he said, laying on top of her as he held her in his arms.
“Then a son you shall have,” she whispered. Then he kissed her.
A MILLION’S WORTH
Forty was dazed and had lost track of how many hours had passed. But, he was still aware that he had been kidnapped while fucking a girl he could barely remember in a hotel. Where was some help? There should be a goddamn superhero saving the day by now, he thought. But, Forty knew he wasn’t getting no help. That bitch, fucking trick-ass bitch got me set the fuck up. Forty swore on his life that her ass would see no more sunshine if he got the fuck out on the streets. He would hunt her down to the ends of the earth if necessary.
As he sat in the dark, listening to his stomach growling, wondering what the fuck was going on, Forty thought about what was going to happen next. His mind scrambled as he tried to remember specific details. His heart raced as he thought of his girl, Sharon. Any other time she would call the police on him. Now was the time. Where was Rik? Where was his peoples with the army brigade, ready to battle and get him out of there? It was like that when you hustled for a nigga like Rik.
The door opened and a tall skinny guy wearing a ski mask walked down the stairs and threw Forty a bag with a sandwich and soda in it. When Forty was finished Sam tied him back up and left the basement.
Forty was hurting. He couldn’t believe that he had been kidnapped. Deep down inside he had a feeling he wasn’t going to make it.
Forty’s girlfriend was crying. She had been crying since he left the house and her ass at home with the kids like he always did. Their three sons didn’t enjoy Christmas Day at all without their daddy there. Forty’s mother had called the police, but they couldn’t take a missing person’s report for forty-eight hours. However, the officers made an exception because of Christmas, and told his mother twenty-four hours.