Slamming the statue on the side of the end table, Keisha had listened to all Rico’s excuses she was willing to take. Still clutching the butcher knife, she reached into her tracksuit pocket. Throwing her iPhone at Rico’s head, she demanded he pick it up after he ducked.
“Crawl your bitch ass over there and get that shit! I want you to listen to all them voicemails. Read them out of order text messages. Is you fucking crazy or what? How in the hell is you gonna compare that hole in your damn hard head to what you did to me?” Wildly swinging the knife, she sliced his raised arm. “My mama was crying tears, nigga, over that scandalous shit. Real fucking tears. You put that crap up everywhere!”
“Bitch, is you crazy?” Rico flinched, trying to stop any more of Keisha’s enraged attacks.
“Bitch?” she questioned as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. With malice, she then swung the blade once more, this time missing. “I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to get back to normal. I should just kill your pathetic ass now. See, you ain’t never gonna change. That evil is buried too deep in your filthy soul.”
“Well, I’m waiting, big girl, with your nothing ass. I ain’t gonna just keep sitting here and bleed out. What you gonna do?” Rico was growing tired of playing this cat-and-mouse game with Keisha, and it was starting to show.
“I gave you everything I had, and you just said fuck me. I lost my family, my friends, and every job I get behind dealing with your trifling ass. Well, I’m done. I can make it without you, and I will.” Feeling liberated and tired of playing the victim role, a usually spineless Keisha stood tall for the first time in months.
Realizing his meal ticket might be truly serious about leaving and he’d have to actually get a full-time job or a hustle to feed himself, Rico swallowed his pride. “Okay, okay, listen Keisha, I know you heated, but how you think I felt when you gave that coon my pussy?”
“Your pussy!” Keisha, feeling empowered, no longer in denial, shook her head. “Come on now, guy, this ain’t been your pussy since the night I bailed your black ass out of jail. You know, the night your surprise baby mama and me first met. So, guess what? You can just miss me with all that game you trying to spit. I’m good on all of that. You need to just say your prayers, ’cause you about to leave here for what you did to me and my mother.”
Rico was speechless. Fully aware what she was accusing him of was true, he felt a surreal climate in the room. He’d played all his con man cards and was too physically exhausted to deal any more. Lifting his body up onto the couch, he used one of the fluffy pillows to stop the bleeding from his head. Closing his eyes, Rico decided to let Keisha do whatever she felt. If she got close enough for him to possibly make a move and take the knife away, then so be it, he’d do it. But as far as anything else extra, he was done. He had no more fight in him.
“You ain’t got shit to say?” Keisha, knife clutched tight, bossed up, ready to pounce on the man she felt for months was her soul mate.
Interrupted by a series of thunderous knocks on the front door, Keisha and Rico both froze as Kilo started barking from the backyard.
“Who in the fuck is that?” Rico hissed, reaching for his gun before quickly realizing it was not on his waist as usual.
“Why you asking me?”
“It’s probably you new boyfriend coming to save your black ass.”
“Save me from what? What in the fuck can you do to hurt me any more than you already have? And F.Y.I., A.J. is not my boyfriend, but if he was, him or anybody I’d mess with is a come-up from you.”
“So, now you and that country nigga on a first name basis, huh?”
“Fuck you, Rico.”
“Naw, fuck you, tramp.”
“Oh, we on back name-calling again,” Keisha fired back as the barrage of knocks on the front door continued.
“Detroit Police Department! Open up!” Another series of hard knocks on the front door and voices seem to bounce off every wall.
Both looking at one another, Rico and Keisha were dumbfounded. Knowing their voices were louder than usual at this time of morning, it wasn’t anything for their unemployed, ghetto-minded neighbors to call the cops for. Arguments that turn into murder, dudes’ clothes getting tossed out the window, crackheads fighting over a rock, or a kid getting caught stealing a honey bun out the gas station was no out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. So, Detroit’s Finest at the door was somewhat of a shock.
Wasting no time tucking the sharp-edged butcher knife underneath the cushion of the chair, Keisha snarled at Rico, who was pulling himself off the floor and back onto the couch.
“You lucky—for real—but I’m not done with you.”
“Yeah, whatever, trick. We’ll see.” Rico, still delirious from the blow on the back of his head courtesy of Keisha, and extremely sore from A.J.’s ass-whooping, was now mouthy, even while nursing a hangover. Snatching the ashtray off the coffee table that had a couple of tails and a half blunt in it, Rico made himself scarce, leaving his woman to deal with the police.
“Yes, does Rico Campbell reside here?”
“Umm . . . yes, officer, he does.”
“Well, is he here?”
“Umm . . . sorry. Not at the present. Is something wrong? Something I can help you with?” In light of what Rico had done to her, by right she should have stepped out of the way of the police, pointed toward the bedroom door, and begged them to handcuff his ass for whatever they wanted. She should have welcomed them to bury his no-good behind under the jail. But she didn’t. No matter what, no one helped the police. That was how it was in Detroit and most hoods. The no-snitching code was always in effect, especially when it involved your own people. Besides, Keisha intended to lay down her own version of the law on him.
“Who are you?” one cop questioned as the other peered over her shoulder into the living room after noticing the obvious fresh bruises on her face. “What’s your name?”
“Keisha. Keisha Jackson.”
“Keisha Jackson?” The officer looked down at his small spiral notebook, then glanced back up. “Are you any relation to a Mr. Lorenzo James Jackson?”
“Yes, that’s my father,” she explained with a newfound panic and concern in her tone. “What’s wrong? What’s going on with my dad? Is everything all right?”
“Umm . . . yes and no.”
“What do you mean, yes and no? Oh my God!” Her palm pressed against her forehead. Her heart started to beat faster. Running her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to gather it up in a ponytail, Keisha shook.
“Listen, you need to calm down.” The nosey officer stopped trying to see if there was any movement inside the dwelling and coldly interrupted her rant. “It seems as if a bright-gold-in-color Yukon Denali registered to one Lorenzo J. Jackson was found two blocks over. Now, that isn’t County Commissioner Jackson, is it?”
“Umm, yes, it is.”
“You mean to tell me your father is County Commissioner Jackson?”
“Yes, I told you—yes!” She licked her dry lips.
“And you, his daughter, is living here?”
“Yes, I live here.” Ashamed of her living conditions as well as her overall messy appearance, Keisha tried to hold it together.
The Tenth Precinct officer, still full of questions, looked around the outer perimeter of the house, as well as the surrounding burnt-out homes. Wondering what a girl from such a prominent and influential family was doing here, he continued to do his job. “Go figure that,” he judged, knowing the crime-ridden area he and his partner patrolled on a daily basis. “Well, anyway, the vehicle was discovered crashed in the side of an abandoned building with the engine still running. Apparently, it also damaged three of four other vehicles on the street before its final impact.”
Noticing for the first time since opening the door that her truck was not parked in the driveway as usual when Rico wasn’t gone, she felt a new sense of rage overcome her body. “Oh my God!” She grabbed her chest with her right hand, covering her mouth
with the left. This was one more thing in a long list of bullshit Rico had put her through since meeting him.
“Yes, well, that brings us back to Rico Campbell.” The policeman holding the notebook revealed what Keisha immediately recognized as Rico’s wallet. “This was under the front seat. The ID lists this as Rico Campbell’s residence, not to mention some of the people whose vehicles are damaged reported seeing a man they recognized to be Rico Campbell fleeing from the scene on foot.”
“Oh my God.” Keisha shook her head, clutching her chest area once more. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, just property damage. Mr. Jackson, I mean Commissioner Jackson, your father, has already been notified and the truck impounded. Now, once again, is Mr. Campbell home?” the officer asked, this time more sternly than the first. “And what exactly is his relationship to you and your father?”
“Well . . .” She hesitated with glassy eyes. “He’s sorta my boyfriend.”
“Well, is your sorta boyfriend home?” he sarcastically replied. “We need to speak to him. And by the way, what happened to your face?”
Distracted by the sounds of Kilo barking, Keisha stepped onto the front porch, shutting the door behind her. “Umm, I’m so sorry.” She continued to keep her front up with the blatant lie. “He’s not here. I don’t know where he’s at now. I haven’t seen him since late last night.”
Not completely satisfied with Keisha’s answer, without a signed warrant to search the premises, the two Detroit police officers were limited by law in what they could do next. They had no other choice but to leave.
“You see how she looked? She must be a crackhead or something,” one judgmentally remarked. “Probably on ecstasy, Molly, or some freaking other pill.”
“Yeah, who would live here when her people got all that cash? Only a drug addict or a fool one.”
Chapter Nine
“Yes, I’m here to see Commissioner Jackson.” Led into the plush twenty-third floor office, Police Chief Armstrong thanked the young, attractive secretary before taking a seat.
Moments later, his old friend, frat brother, and golf partner entered the room. “Hey, Lorenzo.”
“Hey now, Hank. How you doing?” They exchanged greetings and their customary fraternal handshake.
“I’m good, I’m good.”
“How are Shelia and the kids?”
“They’re doing fine—almost as fine as that young, pretty thing you got sitting out there answering the phones.”
“Yeah, she is something special, ain’t she?” He momentarily had freaky thoughts of his secretary’s plump backside.
“What about your wife and Keisha? I haven’t seen them around the club lately, or that cute cook you got over there.”
“Aww, man, not so good, old friend, not so good.”
“What? I’m sorry to hear that. What’s the problem, if it’s not too personal?”
“It’s that same fool boy that I had arrested a few months back out at my house.”
“Oh, yeah? Not him again. What was his name?”
“Rico Campbell.”
“Yeah, that was it. Rico Campbell. Another wanna-be gangsta.”
“I should’ve just followed my first mind and buried his ass under the jail instead of listening to my wife’s fairy tale thinking that Keisha would eventually leave that hooligan alone.”
“Calm down, Lorenzo, old buddy. Calm down. What in the hell has this kid done now?”
Sitting back in his oversized leather chair, Keisha’s father took a deep breath before explaining what he’d heard from a reliable source about what Rico was putting his young, once innocent daughter through.
Being the chief of police, Hank Armstrong had seen and heard it all, but when he watched the shocking video of Keisha, a shy youngster that once played with his own children and he’d bounced on his knee, having oral sex with a dog, he was left speechless. With his jaw open, he could only rub his hand down the front of his face and stroke his beard; first, because of what his friend’s daughter was doing, and secondly, his friend having the balls to show it to him.
“Hank, can you believe what in the fuck that monster has my baby participating in?” Slamming his clenched fist on the desk, the distraught father’s fury could be felt two offices over. “One day she was a good girl—going to grad school, working part time, and hanging out with her friends. Now this, this, this—”
“How did you get a hold of this garbage, Lorenzo?”
“From what I can gather, it came from Keisha’s cell, but you can clearly see her hands were tied. And if you noticed, she had bruises on her face. I know he sent it! He must have!”
Not wanting to say he was paying more attention to his friend’s daughter’s cunt and the way she was seemingly into what the animal was doing, Hank just nodded. “Well, umm, have you spoken to Keisha? What did she have to say for herself? Is she okay?”
“Yeah, Hank, apparently so. She tried calling me several times on my cell and twice here, but what is there to say? You tell me.” He buried his face in his hands. “Strange thing is, I just saw her and that creep last night over at the Fox Theater, but I was kind of tangled up in something. But if I ever see him again, I don’t know what I might do! I also just got a call about that bum tearing up the truck I let Keisha keep. Ever since she’s met him, it’s been nothing but a damn nightmare I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up from.”
“Okay, Lorenzo, calm down. I know how you must feel.” Hank truly couldn’t imagine one of his daughters being such freaks but consoled him anyhow. “What can I do? You know the entire department and me are at your disposal. If you know where he’s staying at, I can have a car swing by and pick him up—maybe the gang squad. You know they can teach his disrespectful ass a lesson or two.”
“Naw, Hank, not yet.” He looked up with hatred in his eyes and revenge in his heart. “I have something else cooking later on that’s less traceable. But if not, that’s definitely an option. But believe me, that joker is going to pay for humiliating my family. What if this gets out to the media? My career is over. I apologize for laying this madness all on you, Hank, but . . . ”
“It’s all good. And yeah, man, I guess you right,” the chief replied, agreeing with the consequences of the controversial material being made public. “The news and every other vulture gunning for your job would have a fucking field day.”
“Yeah, that’s why I need that number for our ‘friend’ just in case, you feel me? Just in fucking case.”
Hank knew better than to write the complete number down somewhere or, worse than that, text it, considering the scandal that had just taken place with the ex-mayor. Commissioner Jackson copied the first three numbers, in backwards sequence on the top of the page of his Bible and the last four on the back of the base of one of his golfing trophies.
After handling a small amount of city business, Hank left his fraternity brother to figure out his next move.
* * *
Keisha shut the door, not believing her luck in the past twenty-four hours. First, her so-called man forced her to have sex with two guys, which secretly she enjoyed, then jumped on her for doing it. Then he let Kilo eat her out, and once again, secretly, although the thought was disgusting, Kilo had given her better head than Rico could ever do. And forget him tearing up her raggedy truck that they fought over all the time; he sent that video to just about all her family and friends. Grabbing her cell off the floor, she scrolled down the SENT box. Keisha leaned back against the front door, seeing the devastating amount of people who he’d actually forwarded it to.
This snake! Why didn’t I listen to everybody when it came to him? Why? Damn, why? I’ve been so stupid for so long. I’ve lost so much of myself. I swear I don’t even know who I am anymore. His good-for-nothing ass has taken away everything from me, including my dignity, pride, and self-esteem. His rotten ass got me running around here like I’m worthless. And the bad part about it is I’m letting him treat me that way. I swear this is it.
; Somberly, she was caught up in her confused emotions. Out of desperation to make amends before probably going in the other room, killing Rico, and going to jail for the rest of her life, Keisha attempted to get in touch with her already estranged father. Getting sent straight to voicemail on his cell, then repeatedly listening to his overly loyal secretary, Robin, claim he wasn’t in the office, Keisha painstakingly got the point. Her father truly meant what he’d said in his message earlier—he was done with her.
I know my mother will listen to me! She has to! She has to understand what madness I’ve been going through over these last few months. Throughout her entire rocky relationship with Rico, Keisha’s mother was always mentally supportive, if even from afar. With shaky hands, her finger finally pushed the SEND button adjacent to her mother’s name. Within seconds, it was ringing. One ring, two rings, three rings, lastly four. Met with her mother’s soothing voice message, Keisha was left with her already red and puffy eyes now burning.
Dang, not you too, Mother! In denial, Keisha wiped her tear-soaked face with the sleeve of her tracksuit and tried to reach her mother once more. Trembling after hearing the voicemail pop on yet again, Keisha was at a loss as she slid her weak body down the closed door.
Sandy! Keisha thought with a small faint grin and a glimmer of hope. I know she has my back. She always does. She’ll know what I should do. She’ll talk to my parents so I can come back home. I know she will.
Minutes after calling Sandy, her family’s longtime chef as well as her friend and confidant, Keisha felt a sense of relief mixed with equal portions of shame, guilt, and embarrassment.
“Sandy, I don’t know how it happened. Or even why it happened. I know he’s no good for me.”
“Then why don’t you just come back home or at least get your own place? Why deal with a man like that?”
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