by Kiki Swinson
“Well, okay, Miss Khloé. These are the things I like to hear,” Christian said, smiling like the Cheshire cat. “Sounds like you have it covered, and I could only hope so. Everyone’s job is on the line here.”
I nodded my understanding. “Oh, but there is a little tidbit you’d want to know about something else I’m thinking about working on as well,” I said, moving closer to Christian as if this one was a secret too. “I heard that our rival station’s director is having an affair. I have proof that your nemesis is sleeping around,” I whispered, darting my eyes around the room to make believe I was making sure no one else was privy to our conversation.
Christian raised her eyebrows, and her lips dropped open slightly. “Wait. What?” Christian said, and climbed down from the studio chair. “You know for sure?”
“No. I didn’t see him, but my special little snoops said they spotted him coming out of another woman’s house. And, even though he had on dark shades and a baseball cap, my special little spies confirmed that it was him,” I lied.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Christian was flabbergasted by the news. She put her hands on her hips and gnawed on her bottom lip as she started pacing in front of the chairs a bit. “Are you going to work on this one too?”
“Yes, so please keep this between us,” I said, knowing damn well she wasn’t going to keep it between us at all. She had been telling Amber everything about everyone in the studio, even after she knew that Amber was a story thief. Christian was thinking, I could tell by how her eyes fluttered and she tapped her teeth. I was thinking too, because I wanted to see just how far she would backstab someone to propel her little protégée forward. This was going to be interesting to see play out. I was ready.
“Call your sources. I need to know more details. I have to break this story before any other station does,” Christian urged.
“Already on it. I should know more soon. I’m working on all angles. I took what you said about great stories very seriously,” I replied like a dutiful soldier. “I am going to make you proud, Christian,” I said, laying my phony shit on thick for good measure.
Christian’s eyes went wide. “Damn. You don’t play. I taught you so fucking well, it makes me almost orgasmic,” Christian replied excitedly.
I put on a phony smile, but I was thinking in my head, Bitch, you didn’t teach me shit, and don’t be saying I make you orgasmic. Yuck. I didn’t say what I was thinking.
“You sure did,” I replied instead, lying some more. I wanted to tell that bitch the only thing she taught me was how to continue to play dirty in the reporting business in order to get where I want to be in my career.
“Darla!” Christian called to her new personal assistant. She didn’t even wait until I was gone, to jump into action. I smiled to myself wickedly.
“Amber and I have to run out. Make sure you call me with the schedule and the segment lineup before any final decisions are made on what airs. I might not be back today, but I’ll be available by phone,” Christian instructed. The nerdy girl scribbled wildly on her legal pad and shook her head up and down so fast, it was a wonder she didn’t get dizzy.
Christian turned back to me. “Khloé, I must say, I am so proud of you. Keep up the good work,” she said. “Make sure you get out there and keep getting after it. We will drop your exclusives as soon as you have it all together . . . Just keep on letting me know your ideas,” Christian said, squeezing my shoulder reassuringly.
I blushed. Although I knew Christian was a damn snake, it still felt good to have her compliment me for a change.
“Will do, Christian. Like you said, I learned from the best.”
I was so into my conversation with Christian, it wasn’t until after I was really leaving the area that I noticed Liza standing off to the side with her eyes squinted into dashes, her nostrils flaring, and her chest heaving. She turned her back just as I approached where she stood, so I don’t think she saw me.
“This is not over. You want a fucking exclusive . . . you just wait. I’ll give you a real exclusive. All of you will pay,” Liza grumbled angrily.
Hearing her words sent a chill down my spine, but I shook it off as just the pressure we were all under at the news station to do a good job.
7
REVELATIONS
Birds chirping from the trees in the yard, the bright October sun, and the fresh green grass of the manicured lawn made the house look like an idyllic picture from Better Homes & Gardens magazine. It looked like a place where you’d see a father mowing the lawn, while the mother was inside baking fresh biscuits from scratch, while the daughter sat on a kitchen stool learning and the son washed the family dog at the side of the house. That was my first impression of the house that Anton Barker occupied. It wasn’t too outlandish, like a mansion or anything. Instead, it was a modest house for the type of money Kyle had told me Barker was getting under the table from his crooked clients.
“He lives here?” I asked Kyle, eyeing him seriously, like maybe he was off base with his information.
Kyle let out a long sigh. He was tired of me questioning him every time he took me to another place to build my story. So far, we’d followed Detective Keith a few more times and I’d gotten pictures with my long-lens camera of him dealing directly in the street dirt. Still, every time Kyle took me someplace new, the reporter in me would be filled with doubt and ask a hundred follow-up questions to clarify. I’d tried to explain to Kyle that everything I reported on had to be verified and then verified again. Our word wasn’t going to be good enough in the scheme of things.
Kyle shook his head like he didn’t believe me. He’d told me before we got there that whenever Barker had to be paid off by his drug kingpin clients, someone had to hand deliver the payoff to his house. Barker wasn’t taking a chance meeting anywhere else, because he was paranoid about someone taking pictures of him getting the goods.
A few times the paid delivery guy was my brother. Kyle had been all inside Barker’s house dozens of times, delivering cash, jewelry, expensive show tickets, you name it, to Barker. It didn’t make sense to me that a man trying to be so careful would allow anyone to know where he lives. Kyle said he’d witnessed firsthand what kind of payouts Barker, the potential future mayor of Norfolk, was taking. He’d delivered bags of cash and diamonds so flawless they’d blind an eagle.
“Look, of course he lives here. Why else would I bring you here? I told you, I been here before . . . lots of times. You thought you were going to see some big mansion? Don’t you think Barker is smarter than that?” Kyle answered, turning to look at me.
I shrugged. “I just . . . It’s a . . . a . . . regular-ass house,” I came back. “I mean, for someone who is supposed to have so much money coming in, I just thought . . . you know something . . . um . . . nicer, bigger.”
“And this house being low-key like this is the smartest shit he could do to protect himself. If the nigga was a struggling criminal defense attorney one day, and all of a sudden a mansion-buying baller the next day, he would get too much unwanted attention . . . in the streets and in society in general. You know all about Bank Secrecy laws and those suspicious-activity reports they file if a nigga bring over ten stacks into the bank in cash. Well, it’s the same when buying property. If your ass can’t explain where the money came from, all sorts of feds will be digging into your personal shit. That’s what I was trying to tell you, twin. Anton Barker is very smart and thorough about his shit. I know he has money hidden in the walls of that house. He can’t take that money to no bank, and there is but so much he can wash through his law firm. Washing money is not easy these days—the feds be on it like a hornet. I only brought you here to drive that point home, because in order to get something concrete on that nigga, you’re going to have to get close to him, which is very fucking dangerous. Which is also why I will be with you every step of the way, no matter what you say. If something happened to you because of this shit, I’d be sick the rest of my life. They might as well bury me too,” Kyle
said, his words hitting home with me. I was touched.
“Well, I guess that settles it,” I said, breathing out loudly and on the verge of tears. I don’t know why I always got so emotional when my brother spoke up about me and was so adamant about protecting me. Maybe it was because I felt the same exact way about him. If something were to ever happen to him, I’d die too.
“Anyway, like you always tell me, we ain’t got no time for the mushy stuff,” I said, nudging Kyle’s arm playfully.
“Word,” he agreed, chuckling. “No mushy shit, twin.”
“Now, back to this nigga,” Kyle said, quickly changing the subject back to the matter at hand. “Barker got a thing for the ladies. He got a bad habit, in fact. The nigga is a sex addict, if you ask me. I heard his shit be off-the-hook wild. I feel like that is the one area he loses himself and lets down his guard. It’s the one area you will have to exploit to get closer to him and the inside to see more . . . to get real pictures of him and maybe some video. Where he is all put together in everything else . . . his sex sickness is what will be the thing to bring his ass down,” Kyle told me.
I shook my head, contemplating how much of my soul I was willing to sell to win over Christian and that prime spot. Barker was a good-looking man, but I wasn’t ready to be fucking for a story. Maybe some flirting or whatever. The way Kyle was making it seem, I would have to be alone with him or something.
“So, what do you suggest I do?” I asked Kyle.
“You will have to get real close to him . . . a thought I don’t like at all,” Kyle answered. “You’re real lucky I want to help you save your job, or else I wouldn’t even be entertaining this cloak-and-dagger shit we been doing,” Kyle continued, shaking his head back and forth. “This is a lot.”
“Well, I appreciate you,” I said genuinely.
“Yeah, right,” he came back at me. “We already established what I said about Barker is true. He is the behind-the-scenes king of Norfolk. So you know you have to mind your p’s and q’s and be on high alert whenever you go under to get next to him. I know this chick who he liked to fuck. She told one of my boys, Barker is into kinky shit and he goes to great lengths to try and hide, but yet he picks up random chicks because his sex addiction is so bad. I found out that homegirl went missing, never to be found again, after somebody in the hood snitched on her and said she told people she had fucked Barker with a strap-on. So you see what I mean—on the one hand, in business he is real careful, but his true exploitation point is women and fetish sex,” Kyle told me.
I was silent. What could I say to my brother after he’d just scared the living shit out of me? Silence fell between us for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly the dark cherry-wood door, with its colorful beveled glass inserts, opened and a beautiful woman stepped out. She had a large tote bag in hand. She was dressed in a dark gray sweat suit with her hair pulled back in a sleek, loose ponytail. She was extremely beautiful, with a perfect shape. From where I sat, I could see that she had slanted eyes and clear, blemish-free skin. I bit down on my bottom lip . . . I don’t know why, but I felt a pang of gnawing jealousy as if I were Barker’s mistress or something. A little boy bounded out of the door, his tiny fitted cap and crisp white sneakers gleaming in the daylight. He was absolutely adorable, looking like a miniature Anton Barker. Kyle and I watched in silence. Kyle hadn’t told me Barker had a family.
“So he’s married too?” I asked, confused. I leaned my head back on the headrest, exasperated. This shit just kept getting deeper and more complex by the day. “How could he be into all this illegal shit, knowing he has a wife and a kid to think about? I just don’t understand. He went to law school, obviously. He has all the tools to just be legit in life.”
Kyle looked over at me like I was dumb. I raised my eyebrows at him to signal that he’d never told me Barker had a whole family.
“What don’t you understand about everything I’ve been telling you these past few weeks?” Kyle asked me. He didn’t give me a chance to answer before he went on. “This nigga is living a double life, twin. He’s married with a kid, yet he has a sex addiction and fucks random hood chicks with reckless abandon. He’s a legit criminal defense attorney to some real high-level clients, yet he is a big-time criminal who takes bribes, has people killed, and dabbles in any and everything illegal that will get him paid. I mean, like I said, a walking scandal for you,” Kyle replied, then shrugged.
“Wow! You’re right . . . a walking scandal,” I agreed, flabbergasted by it all. “But a whole family, though? I guess these guys get into stuff and they never think about the consequences of their actions. He ain’t scared to have payoffs happening at his house, where his wife and kid live? Anything could happen. Any dude could get jealous and decide to run up in there and lay them all down,” I said.
“Shh,” Kyle hushed me, and pointed through the windshield to turn my attention back to the house.
The beautiful woman and the little boy pulled away from the house in a sleek black BMW truck, but there was still no sign of Barker. Kyle told me we could roll out, but I didn’t want to. I insisted we wait to actually see Barker and try to follow him. So we waited and waited.
* * *
“Twin, you sleep?” Kyle whispered, shaking me awake. Hours had passed since Barker’s family had left the house.
“Look . . .” He jutted his chin forward, toward the house. “Finally, this dude emerges. It’s about damn time.”
“And here is the man himself,” I whispered, my voice still gruff with sleep. “I thought he would never come out, but here he is in all his grandeur.” As usual, Barker was sharply dressed. This time he didn’t wear a suit, but he was still dressed nicely in a pair of dark-colored, slim-fitting slacks, a black leather jacket, and a pair of loafers that, even from a distance, I could tell were expensive.
“I know . . . my fucking back is stiff from sitting here. I got to piss too,” Kyle grumbled.
“You’re a trouper for sitting out here with me just for a glimpse of this dude. At least I got a reason, you get nothing at all out of all this stuff,” I said gratefully.
Kyle nodded in agreement. “You ain’t never lie.”
I chuckled.
The sun had already begun to set in Barker’s neighborhood and the area died down and became less visible with people. I started getting nervous that someone would spot us parked a few feet away from Barker’s house for that long. I knew how nosy neighbors could be, especially when they noticed strange cars or people in their quiet neighborhoods. The trees on the block gave us some cover, but I knew if we got spotted, it would be all over for Kyle and me. It was bad enough Kyle was taking this chance, knowing Barker could identify him as someone who’d delivered to him before. It was also bad that we both chose to wear all black and looked like two burglars dressed like that. All it would take is one nosy neighbor to get scared and call the cops. That would be a disaster. Not only would our cover be blown, but I’m sure they would alert Barker about us.
Another few minutes passed before Barker made any more moves. He was flanked by three men in suits. I swear, you would’ve thought this dude was the president the way he moved.
“He got paid security?” I asked Kyle. “Or do you not see what I’m seeing?”
“That’s Norfolk PD detectives. When a person runs for office, the department assigns them a small security detail, just like how the Secret Service protects the president. But, of course, you know our friend the dirty detective made sure he had control over who was assigned. They couldn’t just put any other legit cop on Barker’s protective detail. He can’t afford to let his dirty ways be exposed,” Kyle explained.
“Our taxpayer dollars hard at work protecting damn criminals. A shame,” I said.
We watched as Barker got into a darkly tinted SUV. I held my breath as the vehicle pulled out from the house.
“And we are on,” Kyle said, waiting a few minutes before pulling his car out behind the vehicle transporting Barker. We carefully followed h
im for what seemed like forever and through a series of back roads through Virginia. My nerves were on edge every time we came to another desolate road or we turned off the main roads. I just knew they’d notice we were following them. Kyle was a smart driver, though. Some of the times he’d fall back so far, I just knew we would lose them. We never did.
Kyle and I did not speak the whole time, both of us were nervous as hell. Kyle was probably doing like me and holding his breath. We finally arrived at the place Barker was going. It was a nondescript brown building that looked kind of like a warehouse from the outside. His driver pulled the SUV through a gate that seemed to open on its own. Kyle and I had a clear view of the building. We didn’t dare go through the gate to follow. We weren’t that hard-pressed.
“I have no idea what this place is,” Kyle finally spoke. “I’ve never heard of this or came out here before. This shit is sketchy-looking. I don’t know about sitting out here, twin. I don’t like it around here,” Kyle said, leery. He let his eyes rove around and then looked over his shoulder and out of the rearview mirror.
“But look,” I said, my words breaking off. Kyle turned to see what I was pointing out.
Our jaws dropped slightly at the same time. My body stiffened and my breath caught in my throat. I swallowed hard and Kyle’s eyes went as round as saucers. For a few seconds neither of us said anything, we just stared at what was unfolding in front of us.
“Are those underage girls?” I gasped, sheer disbelief stringing through my words at what I was watching unfold in front of me.
