Friend or Foe

by Imani Black

  Pop also hadn’t found out until Earl’s funeral that his old friend Brice was a cop. Although he knew the story surroundings Earl’s death, the way it was spun was like Earl had tried to mirk Brice, and Brice had no choice but to shoot him. Pop knew that Earl could be a wild boy, so although he had been skeptical of all cops back then, he didn’t hold it against Brice. Pop figured one day he’d have to call in a favor. But years ago, it was Brice who’d called in the favor when he’d come to the same place and asked Pop for a gun and a bulletproof vest. Brice had lost his gun, badge, and everything else to suspension back then.

  “I’m maintaining. When I saw that case on the front page of the Daily News, I figured you’d be calling sooner or later,” Pop said, shaking his head. “Damn shame. And here I was thinking Brooklyn was changing for the better. They shot her down like a dog. Real fucked up.”

  Brice rubbed his full beard, deep in thought. “Yeah, fucked up is an understatement. I heard you know her son, and I know damn well you know who her old man is.” Brice got right to the point. With him and Pop, there was no need to bullshit and play hide the ball. They were both there for a reason.

  Pop chuckled. “You just getting right down to it, huh?” he said to Brice. “That’s what’s up. I guess you got a job to do.”

  “So, let’s talk,” Brice said, not giving in to any joking. He’d promised Cheyenne Turner he would find out what happened to her mother, and that’s what he intended to do.

  Pop took his seat, and the club staff flitted around him like he was the king of New York. Brice was always amused by how commanding Pop’s presence was in the place.

  “I mean, what you want to know? You the cop, right?” Pop asked. “I’m just the nigga that you accusing of knowing some shit that I might not even know,” Pop commented slickly.

  Brice raised his eyebrow at his unlikely friend. They sat in silence for a few seconds before Brice spoke up.

  “The kid, Lil Kev. Tell me what you know about him,” Brice asked flat out. “He’s been avoiding me, and I heard he’s had some strain with his family about his line of work.” Brice continued, tilting his head knowingly. There was no need to be overly specific in a public place. Brice understood that Pop was a smart man, and Pop understood the same about Brice.

  “Yeah, I heard of the kid. Works for one of my underlings, Scorpio. I mean, the kid is a wannabe, you feel me? He wants to be like his father was back in the day, but he ain’t cut out for that,” Pop told Brice.

  Brice nodded his understanding. “So, he thinks he’s tough, but not really,” Brice said, making more of a summary statement than asking a real question.

  “Right,” Pop agreed. “From my understanding, the kid hates Big K. I mean, I can’t blame him. The nigga was gone all of the kid’s life, came back trying to be father of the year. You and I both know shit like that don’t work. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have no love for Big K. Back then, when I was on my come up, even locked up that nigga tried to step on my neck. I wouldn’t say he was my worst enemy, but he ain’t no friend,” Pop said honestly.

  He would only ever talk like this to Brice. Pop had some leverage—a certain gun that was used in an attempted murder of his sister’s captor—over Brice, and knew he could never bring him down, or else.

  “You ever meet his wife back then?” Brice asked.

  Pop contemplated his answer. “Nah. I mean, back in the day, everybody in the street life knew of her. She was one of the baddest chicks in Brooklyn. I was way too young to have a woman like that. Niggas was loyal to Big K for a while and helped her along, but that dried up. Niggas also tried sleeping with her as soon as he was locked up. I don’t think that worked out for most,” Pop relayed.

  “Any contact with Big K after he got home?” Brice asked straight out.

  “Not with me. That nigga knows better than to approach me,” Pop replied. “He hates me, and I hate him. Simple and plain.”

  Brice’s shoulders slumped with disappointment, but Pop kept talking.

  “But he did roll up on Scorpio to confront him about his son,” Pop continued.

  Brice perked up. “And? What did you hear about that?”

  Pop chuckled sarcastically. “Shit, what you think I heard? Scorpio is already a loose cannon. Can you imagine some old motherfucker, long-time-ago gangster, broken-down older dude rolling up on these young cats, talking about leave my kid alone?” Pop asked rhetorically. “That shit ain’t go well. Scorpio put a gun in that dude’s mouth, sent him to his knees, and made his own son threaten him in front of mad dudes. So basically, Big K got humiliated by his own kid. Needless to say, that part ain’t work out.

  “I did hear the nigga turned to some of his son’s own enemies to get back in the game. Even got some work from them and then owed them mad money when he couldn’t move the product because he ain’t got no workers. All of those niggas that worked for him back in the day have long faded away . . . dead, locked up, or gone legit as fuck and turned into preachers and shit.”

  “Damn,” Brice huffed, absorbing all the information he was receiving. He knew writing it down wasn’t an option with Pop. Brice always had to keep his street interactions like casual catching up and conversation. Anything resembling an official police questioning would get him zero cooperation, even from the street dudes he still considered to be his friends.

  “A kid that will turn on his own father doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies at all,” he commented.

  “For real. I heard the kid was mad at the mother, too. You might not want to rule that nigga out as a suspect. For one, she had gone legit. She had benefits and shit, and I’m sure her kids knew that. Lil Kev had got caught up in some shit and owed Scorpio a lot of money. You might want to check into him a little further, but bringing him down to the station ain’t gonna be the way. You know the code of the streets—ain’t nobody but my dumb ass talking to no five-o,” Pop said, sipping his drink.

  “Where does he hang out?” Brice asked.

  “Come on, B-boy.” Pop sighed, calling Brice by his old nickname. “You know if a nigga tell you that, I’m hotting up spots and fucking with my own money. I think you should stick to going by the house, talking to his people, and go from there,” Pop said honestly. He wasn’t about to go that far with Brice. Friend or foe, Pop wasn’t a snitch.

  “No worries. I appreciate everything you gave me so far,” Brice said. He finished up his drink, stood up, and gave Pop a pound with his fist. “Good looking out.”

  “It’s nothing,” Pop replied. “I hope you find out who did that shit. Honestly, that shit broke my heart.”

  “I’ll find out,” Brice said. “Her death won’t go unsolved on my watch.”

  Chapter 6

  Brice

  “Thanks for coming down to talk to me, Kelsi,” Brice said, parting a smile. He knew how girls like Kelsi and Cheyenne felt about the police. Brice wasn’t so far removed from the streets that he couldn’t say he didn’t completely understand.

  Kelsi shook her head slowly. Brice could see her hands shaking. When she noticed that he’d noticed, she quickly put them under her thighs.

  “Am I under arrest or something?” Kelsi asked, her words shaky.

  “No, no. We’re hoping you can shed some light on things so we can figure out who would want to hurt Desiree Turner... or, um, what did you call her?” Brice said, putting down a stack of files and a CD in front of Kelsi. It was a tactic detectives used to make a person think they knew more than they actually did.

  “Ms. Desi,” Kelsi mumbled. “I called her Ms. Desi.”

  “You called her Ms. Desi? Okay. I’ve heard she was almost like a mother to you. Is that right?” Brice replied, using his most sympathetic voice.

  Kelsi shook her head in agreement but didn’t look at Brice or even in his direction.

  “You want to talk to me about that?” Brice asked, fighting to make eye contact with Kelsi. He was sure to keep his voice level and soothing. From the time he’d met the whole famil
y and Cheyenne Turner had introduced Kelsi as someone as close as family, Brice had been intrigued. He’d seen a lot of things, and he was always interested when he saw certain reactions. Kelsi had been there the first day he went by, but she seemed to have made herself scarce after that. Brice wanted to talk to her, maybe get an idea of her relationships with everyone in the house, and maybe get a better picture of the family dynamic.

  Kelsi lowered her eyes to her lap. Brice could see tears falling straight down onto her clothes. She shook her head in agreement. “I’m sorry for crying,” she managed.

  “I understand,” Brice replied.

  “Ms. Desi, she... she was like a mother to me in the beginning... when I was little and growing up,” Kelsi murmured.

  “Tell me how she became almost like a mother to you, Kelsi,” Brice said, pushing a small pack of facial tissues across the table toward her.

  Kelsi blew out a windstorm of breath and shook her head side to side slightly. Her shoulders slumped, and she huffed out another long breath.

  “I guess I need to start with how my mother wasn’t a good mother to me.” Kelsi sniffled. “You would have to know the whole story to really understand it all,” she said. “It’s a lot. I’ve been through a lot. All of my life, I’ve been going through shit.”

  “I know it’s a lot, but I am here to listen. I have nothing but time,” Brice said. “I’m trying to get to know everyone. I’m trying to understand who Ms. Desi was so I can help figure this out,” he said, using Kelsi’s name for Desiree Turner on purpose.

  Kelsi seemed to contemplate what she was going to say. She lifted her eyes for a quick moment and then lowered them to her now fiddling fingers in front of her. Her lips were moving, but no sound was coming out, almost like she was rehearsing what she was going to say before she said it.

  “I think you need to look into someone at Ms. Desi’s job that drives a BMW,” Kelsi blurted, her legs swinging in and out under the metal table. She’d totally deflected his question about her own relationship with Desiree.

  Brice tilted his head and crumpled his brows. Kelsi’s statement was abrupt, out of place. It seemed to come out of nowhere. But he listened.

  “Ms. Desi... she... um, I think she was seeing someone else. Maybe the person got jealous,” she said, twiddling her fingers even faster now.

  “What makes you say this, Kelsi?” Brice asked, confused. None of the other family members had mentioned Desiree seeing anyone other than her husband, who’d just gotten released from prison. Even he hadn’t let on that his wife might’ve been having an affair.

  “I heard them. They argued about it a couple of weeks ago,” Kelsi continued. She saw the vacant look in Brice’s eyes. “Big K and Ms. Desi, they argued about it. About her getting rides in a BMW. It was loud and angry, but it was clear what the issue was, and that was it.”

  “What happened?” Brice asked, picking up his pen.

  “I heard Big K’s deep voice first that night. I’ve been around long enough to know that the way he was yelling meant he was at the end of his rope. He was hurt or angry or both. I heard him yelling, and he said to Ms. Desi, ‘You think you the man around here, Desiree! You dish me a little allowance like I’m a fucking kid. You take me shopping like I’m a fucking woman. I can’t put food on the table, and you fucking let me know it every single day! I can’t even get niggas in the street to throw me a fucking bone in this game, even though I was the one who fed their asses back in the 90s! Do you know what that’s like for me, Desi? Do you?’

  “His yelling had woken me up, and I knew Cheyenne was up too,” Kelsi said, her legs swinging harder under the table.

  Brice listened intently. He also watched her body language closely. Brice was a master at interpreting body language.

  “Me and Cheyenne both opened our eyes. I noticed that the sun wasn’t even up yet. What they arguing about now? I thought, even though my mind was still all fuzzy with sleep. I listened closely but didn’t really have to because they were so loud.

  “Big K wasn’t the only one yelling. Ms. Desi did too. ‘Kevin, you need to forget being in the streets! You are forty years old, not twenty something. If you feel inferior because I work every day, pay the bills, and do what needs to be done around here and for you... go find a real job! I’ve done nothing but try to make you feel at home since you’ve been here. Yes, I leave money for you just so you don’t have to feel like you don’t have. Of course I bought you clothes. What else would you have worn? All of your outdated clothes from the 90s? I’m the breadwinner. So fucking what? Get over it! Kevin, I’m not going to stop doing what I have become accustomed to doing out here without you,’ Ms. Desi had screamed at Big K. She was never really the type to raise her voice, so I knew that she had to be pretty upset.

  “That didn’t stop Big K. He seemed to get even more offended, which made him get louder and louder. ‘Doing without me? Without me seems to be a fucking theme around here! Yeah, seems like you became accustomed to doing a lot without me. A whole lot without me. You think I don’t see? Who is the motherfucker in the beamer who picks you up every day? Huh? Who the fuck is that? I bet you he made it all good around here without me!’ Big K had barked at her,” Kelsi went on, recounting the argument with angst playing on her features like a movie.

  Brice stopped writing and looked up Kelsi. “Wait,” he said. “Go back. Was he accusing her of something, or was he just mad and mentioning the car or the person with the car was his way?” Brice asked for clarification. A husband enraged at the thought of his wife having a possible affair might change things with the murder investigation. This was the first inkling he’d gotten of any familial trouble.

  “Well, to me, it seemed like Big K was saying Ms. Desi was doing something wrong.” Kelsi shrugged innocently.

  Brice squinted at her and ran his hand over his beard, deep in thought.

  “I can’t say for sure, but I saw Cheyenne turn over in her bed when she heard the yelling, too. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. We were both confused. Neither one of us had never heard of someone with a BMW picking Ms. Desi up for work.

  “But once Big K said it, Ms. Desi got furious. ‘Oh, please, Kevin. That is a doctor from my job, who happens to be kind enough to come to this fucking hellhole to pick me up and take me to work. I don’t see you volunteering to get me there. You’ve been home two months. Not once did you even ask me about my work. Not once did you ever ask me how hard it was for me to become a nurse. A head nurse at that!’ she had screamed loudly, and he responded back just as loud.

  “ ‘Nah, I haven’t asked you because you’re too busy being gone all the time. When you are here, you want to sleep or do whatever it is you like to do. I can barely get time to fuck my own wife. You know what that’s like? Huh? Nah, you don’t, Desi. I’ve been gone twelve fucking years. Twelve years I spent yanking my dick, dreaming about the day I could touch you again. Hold you in my arms like I used to do! And in the two months I’ve been home, you’ve barely kissed me, much less fuck me! You know what that does to a man?’ Big K had yelled. It was the most emotional I’d ever heard him get in the time I knew him, which was most of my life. To me, he sounded like he was going to cry. That really broke my heart. I hated to hear it. They had always been my favorite couple. My favorite people, period,” Kelsi lamented, shaking her head somberly. “I wanted to see them together forever.”

  “What happened after that? Did the argument die down?” Brice pressed.

  “From what I remember, Ms. Desi told Big K he was being ridiculous. I remember her clearly saying to him, ‘What you’re accusing me of is unfair. Just like you’ve been gone twelve years, I’ve been alone for twelve years. I haven’t had a man in my bed. I haven’t looked at another man. I haven’t been intimate with anyone—except you, during those cold, horrible conjugal visits. So, I’m sorry if I’ve gotten accustomed to going without sex, love, intimacy, but that’s what I had to do to survive the soul-stirring loneliness I’ve suffered for
twelve years!

  ‘You’ve changed too, Kevin. Your touch is not the same. You are not the same loving, tender, caring man that left me in ninety-six. Kevin, you may not want to hear it, but everything for us has just changed.’ And she was crying by then. No, it was more like she was sobbing. And Big K slammed the door and left. I remember jumping when he left the apartment because he had slammed the door so hard the whole apartment shook,” Kelsi went on. She wiped tears from her cheeks.

  “I got up and walked over and got into the bed with Cheyenne. I hugged her tight from behind. I could tell she was crying, and I told her not to cry. That it was going to be all right. I told her that married people fight, but after a little while, things would fit together for both of them. I comforted my best friend even if I didn’t believe it myself. I told her that her parents would be happy just like back in the day when we used to go to the rides with her father. When Big K would kiss up and love up on Ms. Desi every minute they were together.”

  Kelsi parted a halfhearted smile and shifted in her seat like the memory of good times had lit up in and faded out of her head as fast as a camera’s flash. She breathed out loudly.

  “I didn’t know if I believed it, but I said it. I wanted my best friend to stop crying. Cheyenne didn’t say anything more that night, but I could tell she was happy I was there for her, like she had done for me so many times over the years.”

  “So, no one ever knew if Ms. Desi actually had an affair or was seeing another man?” Brice asked. He didn’t want to seem like he was being insensitive to the victim’s reputation, but every fact had to be examined in a murder investigation.

  “No one knew anything. It could’ve been true. If you ask me, Ms. Desi acted differently towards Big K than we were all used to. I know Big K felt kind of less than a man with the way things were going around the house, with everyone really, except me. I had the same respect for him that I’d always had since I was a kid.