by Shelly Ellis
“Hey, Jamal!” she called out to him. “I still feel kind of bad for taking your coffee.”
“It’s no problem.” He held his cup aloft. “I’ve got this one.”
“But I feel like l still owe you something. Can I buy you a muffin or a scone? Please? It’ll make me feel less guilty.”
He chuckled. “I’m not really a muffin or scone kinda guy.”
“Then a cookie or a pound cake,” she said. “Come on! I’ll get us both one. While we wait in line, you can tell me how you’re doing now. I love catching up with my former patients.”
Jamal hesitated.
“Unless you have to rush off. I don’t know. Maybe . . . well, your girlfriend is waiting for you?”
Jamal cocked an eyebrow. His girlfriend? He watched as Sam gnawed her bottom lip, as she pivoted from one foot to the other. Was she flirting?
“No,” he said, now smiling. “No girlfriend. I don’t have one, actually.”
“I don’t have one either! I mean . . .” She laughed anxiously. “I don’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I don’t . . .” She closed her eyes and winced. “I should stop talking, shouldn’t I?”
He joined her in her laughter. She really was cute. “You’re fine. But I’ll take you up on that slice of pound cake if you’re still offering.”
She opened her eyes and grinned. “Absolutely!”
They were out of pound cake so she bought them both a slice of coffee cake. They sat at the counter near the window facing the busy sidewalk on the two remaining free stools, and talked for a solid two hours. He found out that Sam had become a nurse only five years ago and before that had been an unemployed grad student in Chicago. She had two sisters and a dog. She lived with a roommate in Logan Circle but was looking for a new place. She’d just come back from vacation in Santorini with her sorority sisters. She showed him a few of the pictures on her Instagram account.
“Oh, my God! What time is it?” she said, glaring down at her phone. “Crap! I’m supposed to be across town right now. I’m meeting my friend in ten minutes. I’m never gonna make it there in enough time though. I better text her.” She furiously began to type on her phone screen after hopping off her stool.
Jamal frowned. “Sorry I took up your time and made you late.”
“No! No, I had a great time talking to you, Jamal. I stayed because I wanted to.” She grabbed her purse off the back of her stool and threw the strap over her shoulder. “It was nice. I had fun. Maybe we can . . . I don’t know . . . do it again sometime?”
He could see the opening she was leaving him to ask her out on a date, likely to do something more than sip espressos and eat coffee cake. The truth was, he would like to ask her out. He’d take her to dinner and a movie or they’d try one of the jazz clubs in Northeast. He thought Sam was funny and smart and he loved the way her cheeks went pink when she admitted something embarrassing. But his life was such a mess right now. He had no job and no prospects of one. He was still plagued by the rare panic attack, and he still didn’t know if another hitman was waiting around the corner to take him out. Was he really in a good place to start something with someone new? And he had walked out of Melissa’s bedroom only a week ago, feeling rejected and brokenhearted. Would he be trying to move on too soon?
“Maybe,” he said as Sam stared at him eagerly. “I’m . . . uh . . . gonna be out of town for the next few weeks though. Maybe when I get back, I can slide in your Instagram DMs and set something up.”
“I’ll make it even easier for you,” she said. “Can I have your phone?”
“For what?”
“Just give it to me!” she said with a laugh.
He frowned but handed his cell to her. He watched, amused, as she quickly typed a number with her name beside it into his text message app. She handed him his cell phone back.
“Here’s my number. Let me know how you’re doing. I like to keep up with my patients. Or you can call me for . . . whatever else.” She waved. “Look. I gotta go. It was nice seeing you again, Jamal.”
“Same,” he said as he watched her walk out of the coffee shop. He glanced at his cell phone screen and her number, wondering if he would ever call her.
Chapter 23
Ricky
Ricky strolled into the waiting area, zeroing in on the white-haired black woman who sat primly at her desk, typing away at her keyboard. When he entered, she glanced up at him and did a double take.
“Good afternoon,” he said, smiling. “I’m here to see Mayor Johnson.”
“Do you have an appointment?” She shifted in her chair while slowly looking him up and down.
You can side-eye me all you want, honey, Ricky thought. I know I’m one of the best-dressed niggas up in here.
For his meeting with the mayor, he had worn a gray pinstriped three-piece suit and periwinkle-blue silk tie, both of which he had purchased two years ago while in New York and had set him back about three stacks. He’d even worn gold cufflinks and a tie clip. Attached to that tie clip, on the back, was a small Bluetooth mike that Detective Ramsey had given him on loan from the Metro Police that had exceedingly good sound quality. It was recording him and the woman now.
“No, I don’t have an appointment,” he told the mayor’s secretary. “But Mayor Johnson and I have a mutual acquaintance and he told the mayor I would stop by sometime today.”
Her expression went from apprehensive to downright patronizing, like she’d seen this song-and-dance routine many times. “Well, the mayor happens to be on a call right now, Mr.—”
“Reynaud. Ricky Reynaud.”
“Yes, the mayor happens to be on a call right now, Mr. Reynaud, and he has a meeting scheduled immediately after. He has a very packed schedule today. I would suggest you call and schedule a meeting next time if you wish to speak with him. I’ll let you know the soonest date he has available.” She then turned back around to face her computer screen, turning her back to him.
Ricky stifled the urge to roll his eyes.
Okay, the old biddy wasn’t going to make this easy. He guessed he would either have to turn on the heat or the charm. He would go for charm first.
“Gladys, is it?” he said, glancing down at the plaque on her desk. His smile widened. “Can I call you Gladys?”
“No, you may not. You can call me Mrs. Sumpter,” she answered succinctly as she continued to type.
“Well, Mrs. Sumpter, I understand the mayor is busy but I would greatly appreciate it if you would at least let him know that I’m waiting out here for him.”
“I would do that, but I was given explicit instructions not to interrupt his call,” she said, clicking her computer mouse.
All right, charm ain’t workin’, he thought, cocking an eyebrow. I tried to be nice. But if she wanna play this game, I can play.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Reynaud,” she continued, “I have—”
“Gladys, tell the mayor I’m out here. Do it now.”
She whipped around in her chair and laughed. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said. And tell him don’t leave me waitin’.”
She sputtered. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to like that, but I will call security if you don’t—”
“No, I don’t think you know who you’re talkin’ to. I represent one of Johnson’s most important constituents, Stanley Hughes. Are you familiar with him?” Ricky asked, still smiling.
Stanley Hughes was Dolla Dolla’s government name and had obviously wrung a bell with the old woman. Her face immediately went ashen and slack when Ricky said it.
“I’d hate to have to go back to Mr. Hughes and tell him the mayor’s secretary turned me away, that she wouldn’t even let Mayor Johnson know I was here. I wonder what he would say.”
Gladys’s brown nostrils flared. Her wrinkled lips pinched. “I’ll . . . I’ll let the mayor know you’re here,” she whispered.
“You do that,” he said before strolling to the leather sofa on the other sid
e of the waiting room and sitting down. He then watched as she raised the headset to her ear and dialed a number, making him wonder if the mayor had even been on a call like she’d said or she’d been lying the whole damn time.
“Mr. Johnson,” she said into the phone, “you have someone waiting for you, sir.”
* * *
“Fifteen minutes,” Mayor Johnson said to Ricky as he ushered him into his office and shut the door behind him. “You have fifteen minutes and no more. I have a busy schedule today.”
“Yeah,” Ricky said dryly, unbuttoning his suit jacket and sitting down in one of the armchairs facing the mayor’s desk. “Your secretary already told me that.”
“I recognize you,” Mayor Johnson said, pulling out the padded leather chair behind his desk. “Haven’t we met before?”
Ricky placed an ankle on his knee and leaned back in his chair. He adjusted his tie, hoping that the mike was catching all this. “Yeah, but not under the best circumstances. I believe Dolla Dolla was busting your balls for not getting the prosecutor to drop the charges against us.”
Johnson flopped back into his seat. “Ah yes, now I remember. So is that what you’re here for? To pester me again about getting those damn charges dropped?” he loudly groused. “As I told your boss, something like that is beyond my control.”
“He ain’t my boss. He’s my business partner. And actually, no, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, Mayor Johnson, it’s my restaurant. The cops shut it down and now I—”
“Anything related to police matters is out of my hands,” Johnson said, throwing up his empty hands as if they were evidence of what he couldn’t do, of how they were tied. “I’m sorry.”
“But you didn’t let me finish what I was gonna say. After the raids, the city not only shut down my restaurant but put a lien against it for unpaid—”
“And by the way,” the mayor continued, ignoring him, “I don’t appreciate Dolla sending his people here to ask favors of me, especially considering the last half-assed favor he did when I needed it. Sending a child to do a man’s job . . . what kinda garbage was that?”
Ricky paused. He hadn’t expected their conversation to head in this direction this soon, but he was more than willing to pursue it. That’s what he was here for, after all.
“Yeah, I heard about that shit with the deputy mayor . . . how you asked Dolla to have him killed.”
“And he sent a seventeen-year-old boy to do it! Like it was some low-level errand. Like he was delivering a package, as opposed to taking out someone who has been a nuisance for me since the beginning. It’s just ridiculous to—” He paused and eyed Ricky. “Never mind.”
No, keep talking, Ricky thought. All of it was now being transmitted through the mike and recorded on his cell phone.
“I should stop. You’ll probably go running back to your boss, telling him everything that I said,” the mayor mumbled.
“I don’t go running to nobody. I told you, I work with Dolla, not for him. I’m my own man, Mayor Johnson. We’re in business together, but no business arrangement is perfect. Sure as hell sounds like the one you had with Dolla wasn’t.”
“Only because he didn’t complete the job like I asked! The little son of a bitch is still on my ass, threatening to go to the cops with information about me! Dolla is pissed that he could serve thirty years to life, and now he’s trying to drag me down too! I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent that kid on purpose, knowing he would fuck it up!”
“Nah, that doesn’t sound like Dolla.”
The mayor stilled and eyed Ricky. “Then why didn’t he ask someone like you to do it? I’m sure you do this type of thing all the time, right?”
“You mean why didn’t he ask me to kill Deputy Mayor Lighty?”
“Former deputy mayor,” Johnson corrected.
“Guess I was busy that day, so Dolla ain’t ask.” Ricky tilted his head. “You still interested in having it done? You still want him taken out?”
The mayor studied him silently. Ricky wondered if he had overplayed his hand. If the mayor was now starting to get suspicious. Maybe he wondered if this random person claiming to be one of Dolla Dolla’s emissaries was trying to entrap him by soliciting a murder. Luckily, Johnson was one of those types who always thought he was the smartest guy in the room—which made him easier to con.
“Are you offering?” the mayor finally whispered.
“It depends.” Ricky shrugged. “What are you offering?”
“That little problem you’re having with your restaurant. . . the lien . . . I can make it go away if you take care of Lighty for me. But I need it done quickly. This can’t drag on for weeks and weeks.”
“How do you want it done?” Ricky asked.
“I don’t care. I assume you have the expertise in that department.”
The mayor was acting so blasé, like he was talking about what he would have for dinner that night, not having Jamal murdered.
“Do you want it quick—or do you want it slow and painful?”
The mayor grinned. “I’d like it to be something to remember. If you could get a recording of that son of a bitch screaming for mercy, even better.”
“Gotcha,” Ricky said with a wink, having heard more than enough.
Thank God he had done this. Jamal’s fears had been right. He was still in danger and the mayor wouldn’t stop until Jamal was dead or someone else stopped him.
Ricky rose from his chair. “Well, I thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Mayor Johnson. And I’ll work on that little thing for you. You’ll know as soon as it’s done.”
“Good. I look forward to it,” the mayor said as Ricky walked to his office door and strolled back into the waiting area.
Chapter 24
Derrick
He heard the sound of his ringing phone even before he shoved his office door open. Derrick juggled the binders and multiple folders from the earlier meeting in his hands as he jogged to his desk. He hoped whoever was calling wouldn’t keep him long. The Institute’s staff meeting was starting in less than ten minutes. He didn’t want to be late or the instructors would start grumbling.
He set down his stack and raised the receiver to his ear. “Hello, Derrick Miller speaking.”
Derrick frowned when he heard weeping and sniffing on the other end. “Hello?” he repeated.
“Mr. Miller,” a woman answered between hiccups, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . b-but I had to call you. I h-h-had to tell you.”
Derrick’s frown deepened when he recognized the voice on the other end of the line. It was Cole’s mother. “Ms. Humphries? Is that you? Is everything okay?”
As soon as he asked the question, she started weeping again. She mumbled something but her words were unintelligible.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I . . . I can’t understand what you’re saying. What’s wrong?” he asked, now overwhelmed by a sense of unease. “What happened?”
“Cole!” she screamed into the phone, almost making him pull the receiver from his ear. “Cole is gone! They killed my baby!”
* * *
Derrick walked into the meeting room fifteen minutes later, feeling numb all over. He looked at the faces of those seated around the rectangular table in the center of the room. Many of the instructors were laughing and talking. A few were glancing down at their watches or scrolling through their cell phones, waiting for the meeting to start. Though Derrick tried hard to avoid her gaze, his eyes locked with Morgan’s as soon as he shut the door behind him. She had been giggling and whispering with one of the other instructors when he entered, but at the sight of him, her ready smile disappeared. She stared at him quizzically. He knew she could sense something was wrong. Of course, she could.
“Hey, everybody! Everybody, can I have your . . . um . . . can I have your attention?” he shouted, forcing his lips to move, to utter words even though he wasn’t sure if he was making any sense.
Besides the sound of chairs being shi
fted, the room instantly fell quiet. He had their full attention.
Derrick anxiously licked his lips and closed his eyes, still remembering his conversation with Cole’s mother and the details she had shared with him about Cole’s death. No, make that Cole’s murder.
Derrick wondered if his recent rejection of Dolla Dolla’s offer had been the reason behind it—and the thought paralyzed him with guilt. Maybe the drug kingpin was trying to send a message that this was what happened when you didn’t cater to his wishes. But why had he been so cruel as to take the life of a scared teenage boy to make that point?
Because he knew how it would rip you apart, Derrick thought dismally.
Derrick opened his eyes and glanced around the table. Again, his eyes landed on Morgan. She wasn’t going to take this well. He was sure of that.
“Sorry that I was . . . that I’m late,” Derrick said. “I had to take an important phone call.”
“You can make it up to us by keeping the meeting short, Derrick!” someone called out.
A few laughed awkwardly at the joke.
“Well,” he began, “you’re gonna get your wish because I am gonna keep this short. I had an agenda lined up today, but it doesn’t feel right to talk about budgets and curriculum right now.” He cleared his throat, trying to work up the courage to say what he had to say next. “The phone call I got before the meeting was from Cole Humphries’s mom. I know some of you have had him in your classes and have asked me for updates on him since his arrest. You wanted to know how he was doing. Well, I’m sad to say that . . . that Cole’s mom told me . . .” He took a steadying breath. “She told me today that Cole is dead. He died this morning.”
“Dead?” a math instructor echoed. His chubby face had gone pale. “What do you mean dead, Derrick? What happened to him?”
“He was murdered in jail.”
One of the instructors let out an audible gasp. A soft murmur of voices filled the meeting room.
He noted that Morgan didn’t say or do anything. She just stared at him blankly.