Know Your Place

by Shelly Ellis

She leaned over the armrest and gave him a quick peck. “This is why I love you. You’re so understanding, baby.”

  He smiled tightly, feeling it stretch painfully on his face.

  Deep down, he wasn’t understanding. Deep down, he knew that if he ever crossed paths with his former friend, Jamal Lighty, again, he would beat the hell out of him.

  Chapter 11

  Ricky

  Ricky adjusted the clipboard and box in his arms as he strolled up a concrete walkway neatly bordered by pots of marigolds and chrysanthemums. He glanced around him. The front lawn needed tending. Though the rest of the house’s exterior looked pristine, the lawn was now overgrown and needed to be cut, as well as the patches of weeds here and there. As he drew closer, he squinted at the bay window next to the front door, trying to see if he could spot anyone walking past the curtains. But he couldn’t. He glanced at the driveway. He didn’t see any cars parked there either.

  “Shit,” Ricky muttered.

  It looked like this might be another false lead. He had already been to about three houses in Lanham in the past few days and either found no one was there or no one who lived there had ever heard of Nadine Fuller, or her daughter Simone. He had a couple more addresses on the list that he had to check, but he was starting to worry that his search would prove fruitless.

  Ricky climbed the short flight of stairs on the front porch and rang the doorbell. He waited a beat for someone to answer but heard nothing. He rang the doorbell again. Another half minute passed and again there was no answer. He knocked on the door and then strolled to the bay window. He stared between a crack in the curtains. Inside was a living room decorated in cheerful yellow-and-blue furniture. A line of African figurines along with framed pictures sat along the brick fireplace on the other side of the room. Ricky leaned in closer so that his forehead was almost pressed against the cool glass. He was using his 20/20 vision for all it was worth. Among the picture frames, he could swear he spotted a photo of Skylar, Simone’s little sister, blowing a kiss at the camera.

  “She’s not home!” a voice called to him, making him jump back from the window and whip around to face the driveway.

  An elderly black woman stood on the other side of the white picket fence in a neighboring yard. She held a set of garden shears in one of her gloved hands and wore a wide-brimmed woven hat. She tilted back her hat and gazed up at him, revealing more of her wrinkled brown face.

  “Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I didn’t want you to keep wasting your time knocking on the door. She ain’t been home in more than a month.”

  He walked down the steps and strolled toward the fence. “You mean Ms. Nadine Fuller, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Yep! I think she’s on vacation or somethin’.” She flicked her free hand at the house. “But she’s been gone for so long, I’m starting to wonder!” She laughed.

  So he had hit pay dirt. This was Nadine’s home, but unfortunately Nadine had already left.

  But that doesn’t mean she’ll stay away, he thought. Her furniture was still in the home as well as pictures and knickknacks. She’d have to come back at some point.

  Ricky tilted his head and pasted on a charming smile, one that usually worked with the younger demographic, but he wondered if it would have the same appeal with octogenarian women.

  “Uh, do you happen to know when she’ll be back, ma’am? Any idea? You see, I was supposed to deliver this package to her.” He glanced down at the clipboard, pretending to read something on the sheet. “She ordered this and I was scheduled to deliver it today.”

  “You’re a delivery man?” The older woman frowned, staring at his coat, T-shirt, and jeans. “You sure don’t look like one! Where’s your uniform? Where’s your truck?” she inquired incredulously as her eyes shifted to the curb where his Mercedes was parked.

  “Well, I’m not really a delivery guy,” he said with a chuckle. “She had something custom made at our D.C. art studio, and because of the expense, we prefer to deliver it ourselves. A personal touch.”

  She slowly nodded, turning her eyes away from the curb and back to him. “Well, I guess that makes sense. Nadine is always ordering those dolls and such, but I guess she must have forgot about this one, honey.”

  He glanced down at the box he held. It was empty, but Nadine’s neighbor didn’t know that. “That’s a shame. She paid a lot of money for this,” he lied.

  “I see.” She held out her hands. “Well, I can take it for her. I could—”

  “I am so sorry, ma’am. But that’s against our policy. I have to deliver it to her myself. Again . . . the expense.”

  The older woman nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. Well, when she comes back, I’ll tell her that you were looking for her and she can set up another delivery time. I guess it escaped her mind. Does she have your number, or do you have a business card that has a number where she can reach you, honey?”

  Ricky considered it too risky to leave his real name, but he saw no harm in leaving a number. The Fullers were probably long gone from here anyway and if, by some chance, Simone saw and recognized his number and caught on to the fact he was looking for her, so be it. He’d made her a promise that he’d find her; he’d told her that already.

  “No business card unfortunately, but here’s my name and number, ma’am.” Ricky scribbled on one of the sheets of paper on his clipboard, ripped it off, and handed it to her. “Here you go.”

  “Well, it was nice to meet you, Malcolm!” she said, staring down at the false name he’d written on the paper. She squinted up at him. “You know . . . you look so much like a man I knew years ago. He was a handsome devil too! You wouldn’t happen to be any relation to a Lawrence Doggart, would you?”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “No, ma’am.”

  “Good! He didn’t have a dime to his name and was a lyin’ S.O.B. who I wouldn’t trust to tell me the truth even if I asked him if it was raining outside, but me and Lawrence sure did have some fun together.” She stared off wistfully. “That man could make a girl feel special! And what he didn’t have in his wallet, he sure did make up for in other areas,” she said with a wink. “Let me tell you!”

  Ricky’s eyes widened in shock at the old woman’s frankness. He hadn’t expected their conversation to go in this direction.

  “I’m Jessie Sawyer, by the way,” she said. “I forgot to mention that in all my ramblin’.”

  “Pleased to . . . uh . . . meet you, Jessie.”

  “Pleased to meet you too, sweetheart. And I’ll pass this along if and when I see Nadine.”

  “Thank you,” he said before turning back toward the lawn. He then strolled to the walkway.

  As Ricky neared his car, shaking his head at the bawdy old woman, his phone began to buzz at his hip. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at it. He pressed the green button to answer.

  “Hello?” he said, just as he opened the car door.

  No one answered. He was met with silence. He gritted his teeth.

  This was the fifth time this had happened this week. Each time he would get a call from a mystery number—never the same. He’d started to ignore the calls and block the numbers, but they wouldn’t stop. Finally, he’d answer and the person wouldn’t speak. Sometimes, he swore he could hear breathing or the sound of a television or voices in the background. It was starting to get on his damn nerves.

  “Look, whoever the fuck this is, stop calling me! This not talking and hanging up is pissing me off. I don’t play that shit!”

  And like the previous time, the person hung up. The call ended, and he rolled his eyes in annoyance.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat, set the empty box on the floor, shut his door, and placed his key in the ignition. He shifted the car into drive just as his cell began to buzz again. He cursed under his breath, removed his cell phone from his cup holder, and stared at the screen. This time he recognized the number, but knowing who was calling him didn’t bring him any comfort.

&n
bsp; “What do you want?” he answered tersely, slumping back in his seat.

  “Where have you been, Ricky?” Detective Ramsey asked.

  Ricky grumbled. “Busy. How bout you?”

  “Very funny. Look, we want to meet up. Can you meet us near the waterfront in like an hour? We’ll pull up in front of the Wharf restaurant and you can hop in. We need to talk for a bit.”

  Ricky closed his eyes. He didn’t know why the detective was putting it in the form of a question. It’s not like Ricky had a choice.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “See you in an hour.”

  * * *

  Ricky glanced at his cell phone screen and stared at the curb, watching as a couple passed him arm in arm. The cops were late meeting him. He had been standing there for the past twenty minutes, in front of the restaurant, waiting for them. He worried the maître d’ might come outside and harass him, probably thinking he was panhandling. He wondered if this was some power play on the detectives’ part: making him wait around for them like some sucker.

  Finally, he saw an unmarked Taurus pull up to the curb. The back passenger door flew open and Detective Dominguez leaned out the front passenger window. “Get in!” he yelled over the roadway noise.

  Ricky took his sweet time making his way to the vehicle. He climbed inside and didn’t get to close the door all the way before the car pulled off, almost giving him whiplash as he slammed back into the seat.

  “We haven’t heard from you lately, Ricky,” Detective Ramsey said as he drove, glancing at Ricky in the rearview mirror. “Why haven’t you reached out to us?”

  Ricky shrugged. “Dolla’s been quiet lately. He knows what’s at stake. He’s lying low and he ain’t talking about shit as much. That’s why I haven’t called you.”

  “But your job is to make him talk!” Detective Dominguez bellowed, glaring at Ricky from the front passenger seat. “What the fuck do you think we brought you in for?”

  “Look, I already gave you plenty of info,” Ricky argued, irritated at being talked to by Dominguez like he was some idiot. He swore if it wasn’t for the fact that Dominguez wore a badge, he would punch him squarely in the face. “I told you Dolla is starting to hunt down the girls who used to work for him. He wants to take them out.”

  “Yes,” Ramsey said, nodding, “we relayed that to the higher-ups. They’ve got that covered. But that has nothing to do with the investigation we’re conducting, Ricky. You’re supposed to give us names of Dolla’s contacts and—”

  “And it’s been more than two months, and so far you haven’t given us shit!” Dominguez finished for him.

  “What the fuck do you expect me to do?” Ricky yelled back. “Dolla’s not stupid. Even before all this shit went down, he didn’t go blabbing off at the mouth about his suppliers. You really expect him to—”

  “We don’t expect anything from him,” Ramsey said. “But what we expect from you is to give us information we need and if you can’t do that then, I’m sorry to say, we have a problem, Ricky.”

  “No, he has a problem because the fucking deal is off!” Dominguez shouted. “Your ass is going back to jail!”

  “We know you don’t want that to happen, do you, Ricky?” Ramsey asked.

  Ricky sucked his teeth.

  “So you’ll try harder to give us what we want, correct?” Ramsey persisted.

  “Yeah,” Ricky answered sullenly.

  A few seconds later, the car skidded to a stop at a street corner Ricky didn’t recognize.

  “You can hop out here,” Ramsey said, gesturing to the sidewalk.

  “Y’all ain’t even going to take me back? What kinda shit is this? I don’t know where the fuck I am.”

  “You heard the man,” Dominguez said, flicking his hand toward the window, not bothering to answer Ricky’s questions. “Get out.”

  Ricky balled his fists in his lap. He slid across the back seat, shoved open the door, and hopped onto the sidewalk. He barely managed to shut the door before the Ford Taurus pulled off with screeching tires.

  Chapter 12

  Jamal

  “And I would like to thank each and every one of you for coming out today in support of such a worthy cause,” Mayor Johnson said, leaning toward the podium and bringing his mouth closer to the mike. He then gestured to the line of smiling school children standing to his left, all holding shovels and spades. Many were in hoodies and sweatshirts still covered in dirt from the neighborhood rain garden they had helped build.

  “These kids have worked very hard on this community project and they deserve all the attention they are getting today. Let’s give them a round of applause, folks! Shall we?”

  The small audience that was huddled around them began to clap. Jamal did too. He then pushed up the sleeve of his suit jacket and glanced down at his wristwatch to check the time. If they didn’t get a move on, they were going to miss the next event they had scheduled for today. He could try to handle it himself, but Jamal knew how the mayor felt about him taking the lead on things. Jamal sighed as he watched the mayor shake hands and schmooze with the residents and business leaders who had shown up for the rain garden ribbon-cutting ceremony.

  “Hey, Mr. Lighty,” Jamal heard someone say behind him. “I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

  He turned to find Phillip from the Washington Recorder gazing at him. When he did, he had to fight the urge to grimace.

  The last time he had seen Phillip was back at his office at the Wilson Building when the reporter had asked him about some shady housing projects that he was trying to connect back to the mayor. Jamal had hoped Phillip had forgotten about the topic and moved on to something else, but he could tell from the eager gleam in Phillip’s eyes that he probably hadn’t.

  “Uh, h-hey, Phil,” he stuttered. “Yeah, I didn’t know I was going to be here today either, but the mayor asked me to be on standby to answer questions if . . . you know . . . he needed me.” He gave an awkward laugh as he gestured to the mayor, who was now cutting a red ribbon in front of the wrought-iron gate leading to the rain garden.

  “Ah, I see! That makes sense.” Phillip took a quick glance around them before leaning toward Jamal, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Speaking of questions, Mr. Lighty, I was wondering if maybe you had a chance to follow up on those housing developments that I asked you about a week ago. Remember the list I gave you?”

  Jamal nodded before taking another anxious glance at the mayor, who was now posing with a couple of the children and holding a shovel as cameras flashed. He prayed to God that Johnson wasn’t overhearing their conversation.

  “Actually, I did check on those for you, Phil, and everything is fine,” he lied. “Perfectly fine. The projects are just running a little bit behind schedule, but we’re aware of the issues insofar as the construction sites, and we’re taking steps to rectify them. Our people are on it. We’ve spoken to the builders. All projects will be completed soon . . . very, very soon.”

  Phillip frowned. “But one project is already a full year behind schedule, Mr. Lighty. That’s not exactly ‘a little’ behind. And when you go to the construction site—”

  “Phil, I told you,” he began firmly, “there’s no reason to worry. The city is keeping an eye on it and we’re taking care of it.”

  “But the mayor’s friend . . . the contractor, Mr. Morris—”

  Jamal dropped a hand to the reporter’s shoulder. “Phil, I can assure you that nothing untoward or inappropriate is happening at those construction sites. You don’t have to worry. Okay?”

  “Nothing untoward or inappropriate is happening where?” the mayor suddenly asked.

  This time Jamal didn’t hold back his grimace. He glanced over his shoulder to see Mayor Johnson grinning and strolling toward them. But Jamal wasn’t fooled by the mayor’s jovial expression. He knew what evil and cunning lurked behind that smile.

  “Uh, nothing,” Jamal began quickly, shaking his head and dropping his hand from Phil’s shoulder. “Nothing that
you need to concern your—”

  “Hello, Mayor Johnson. I’m Phillip Seymour from the Washington Recorder,” Phillip said, holding up his press badge and talking over Jamal. “I was asking Mr. Lighty, here, about construction sites where your friend Cedric Morris is the lead contractor. Most of the sites are behind schedule, Mayor Johnson, and it looks like some have been deserted completely. I’ve been trying to get a comment from you about these sites for quite a while, sir.”

  Mayor Johnson laughed. “Why on earth would you want a comment from me? Or Jamal, for that matter? Surely, we have folks in our Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs who could easily answer your construction questions for your story. Have you tried them?”

  “It’s not just about the buildings, sir,” Phil said. “The article would also address your connection to these sites. The one thing they all have in common is your friend Cedric Morris.”

  “My friend?”

  “Yes, you and Mr. Morris have been acquaintances since law school, I believe, sir. You both were Howard Law, class of 1977.”

  Shut up. Shut up. Shut up, Jamal thought. Stop talking, Phil!

  He knew the mayor was not a man you wanted to cross. Phillip was treading onto thin ice.

  “And you both have stayed in touch since then,” Phillip said, oblivious to Jamal’s silent warning. “I found archived articles from several events with photos of you and Mr. Morris posing togeth—”

  “Yes, yes,” Mayor Johnson said dismissively, “he and I have known each other for a long time and we see each other at parties occasionally, but I still don’t know what I have to do with all of this. I don’t award building contracts and I certainly don’t enforce them. I told you, we have people for that.”

  Phil nodded again. “I know, sir, but—”

  “But nothing. It’s faster and more productive to address your questions to the relevant department and appropriate person, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Seymour? If you can’t locate that person, I’m sure someone at city hall can find them for you. But you’re obviously a resourceful reporter. I’m sure you can do that on your own.” The mayor didn’t wait for him to reply before he turned his attention to Jamal. “We really should be going, shouldn’t we? I believe we have another appearance at three thirty.”