by Darrell King
TaKeisha paused as if to find the proper words to say before taking Kee-Kee’s hands into her own. “Kee-Kee, it’s all right to have fun and all. I know it’s summer and yeah, shit, I should be getting my swerve on too before I go back to school this fall. But that’s really not what I’m talking about.”
Kee-Kee’s almonds shaped eyes narrowed slightly and she shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Well, what do you mean, TaKeisha?” Kee-Kee asked with growing irritation.
“You fuckin’ around with too many niggas that you’re meeting at the club and shit. That ain’t cute. You got a little boy to think about. You ain’t got time to be laying up with all these muthafuckas, girl. You don’t even know half of these dudes you be fuckin’ with!” TaKeisha spat with blunt honesty.
Kee-Kee chuckled to herself as she pulled her hands away from TaKeisha’s. “Oh, I get it. You been talkin’ to Yasmin’s dumb ass, huh? That bitch ain’t got no man so quite naturally she gonna hate. But I thought you had my back, TaKeisha. I’m 24 fuckin’ years old, girl. I’m grown! And who I fuck with is my muthafuckin’ business; not Yasmin’s, yours, or nobody else’s. You feel me? So don’t come at me with none of that old bullshit Yasmin talkin’ bout, awiight? Now if you trying to come party with a sista and shit, getcha self together, ‘cuz I’m out da door after I find my red pumps to go with this skirt. I think you got ‘em in your closet. Remember I let you borrow them last month?”
Sighing as she arose from her bed, TaKeisha reluctantly prepared herself to accompany Kee-Kee to the club for the night. Although she had been certain earlier that after their talk, Kee-Kee would have had a change of heart about going out, that was not to be. It appeared as though Kee-Kee was going out with or without her best friend. So TaKeisha figured she’d go ahead and join her instead of letting her girl go out alone. Plus, this way, she could keep an eye on her as well.
For several hours, the two youngsters club hopped, darting in and out of nightclubs throughout the District, finally completing their night of entertainment at the Classics Nightclub out in P.G. County. Though both girls drove around town in Kee-Kee’s Honda Accord, Kee-Kee ended up leaving Classics with a handsome, thirty something man. Well attired, iced out and pushing a black pimped out BMW 645 CI with glistening 20 inch chrome rims, the wavy haired, square-jawed player seemed to be either a baller or some local celebrity, which totally fit the bill of Kee-Kee’s type of man.
After several minutes of laughter and small talk with TaKeisha and another young man, Kee-Kee had excitedly hopped into the passenger’s seat of the sleek vehicle and disappeared with her new beau down the street of Allentown Road. TaKeisha had to drive Kee-Kee’s car home.
The next morning when TaKeisha phoned Kee-Kee, she didn’t get a response except for the same monotonous message on her answering machine picking up over and over, prompting TaKeisha to disconnect as soon as the recorded message began to play. Finally, around 3:45 p.m. in the afternoon, TaKeisha heard a car pull up. She looked out of the window and noticed Kee-Kee exiting the same BMW in which she’d left the club in the previous night. Filled with curiosity, TaKeisha rushed downstairs from her bedroom to spy on the two lovers from the French windows of her living room foyer. From there she saw the stranger, tall, sexy and well attired in a fresh looking Sean John sweat suit and white K-Swiss sneakers, take Kee-Kee by the hand as she emerged from the inside of the beamer and stepped up onto the curb just outside of TaKeisha’s townhouse.
Kee-Kee smiled broadly and giggled like a love-struck teenager as the driver, who’d eased out of the driver’s side, walked around and took her in his arms and joined lips with hers in a lengthy and passionate kiss, which even made TaKeisha’s own heart race. When their lips at last parted, the young, handsome baller took out a small black velvet box from his sweatpants, producing a sparkling diamond necklace, and from there, placing it carefully around Kee-Kee’s slender neck. Surprised and excited, Kee-Kee threw her arms around her new man’s neck, planting yet another sultry caress upon his full lips, right before he disappeared around the corner and onto Landover Road in the direction of the Capitol Beltway.
TaKeisha could hardly contain herself as she burst outside the door before Kee-Kee could even knock. “Oh, girl!” TaKeisha yelled as she flung open the door and greeted her friend. “Well, well, well … you lil’ freak body you. You spent the whole night out with dude, huh?” TaKeisha said eagerly awaiting the details of Kee-Kee’s latest one-night stand.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Kee-Kee cooed as she stepped inside TaKeisha’s house. She gave a recount to TaKeisha every aspect of her night of passion with the attractive, well-paid stranger.
“Now, TaKeisha, keep this to yourself, awiight? Don’t tell nobody else, not yo’ mama, none of our girlfriends, and ‘specially not my sister, awiight? ‘Cause I don’t want Yasmin all up in my muhfuckin’ business, cause that bitch cause too much drama for me. Know what I’m saying?” Kee-Kee said, looking TaKeisha dead serious in the eyes.
Although the sisters were just one year apart—and in fact shared the same birthday—Yasmin and Kee-Kee always fought and disagreed when it came to men. As roommates, the sisters couldn’t help but be in each other’s business. Yasmin was always on Kee-Kee’s case about the number of men she was going through and was the first one to read her the riot act when she turned up pregnant. But Kee-Kee figured Yasmin was just mad because she had stolen her man from her. Jeremy might have been Kee-Kee’s baby daddy, but Yasmin had been the one eyeing him originally; that was until Kee-Kee swooped him up from right under her nose. Yasmin had assured her that there were no hard feelings, but Kee-Kee begged to differ.
“Girl, ain’t nobody gonna tell nothing,” TaKeisha promised her friend. “You know I ain’t no snitch and shit.”
The two young ladies proceeded upstairs to the bedroom where they spent most of the day gossiping on the phone with other girlfriends about various neighborhood going-ons, and surfing the Internet.
“I hope you didn’t think that I was being nosey or anything, Kee-Kee,” TaKeisha said while gently combing through Kee-Kee’s soft, curly hair as she laid sprawled out across the stuffed animal covered bed while going through a collection of music CDs.
“Stop lunchin’, young … I ain’t worried bout you. You my peeps. I fucks with you. You know that!” Kee-Kee answered. “Right?”
“Right,” TaKeisha sighed as she finished brushing Kee-Kee’s hair.
* * *
After July turned into August, TaKeisha became increasingly worried about the stranger with whom Kee-Kee had developed a deep affection for over the past few weeks. She was spending days and sometimes entire weekends at the man’s home, yet his name, occupation and origin remained a mystery as he cautioned Kee-Kee against disclosing the details of their relationship to anyone. In addition to worrying about Kee-Kee’s very peculiar love affair, TaKeisha also continud to worry about her brother, who had not yet contacted TaKeisha.
By mid-August, Kee-Kee spent almost all of her time out with the man whom she referred to simply as “my Boo,” neglecting her son by leaving him at her mother’s house all the time. And whenever she and TaKeisha did get a chance to hang out together at Landover Mall or around their Kentland neighborhood, their quality time was often cut short by phone calls or pages sent to Kee-Kee by the mystery man requesting her company to which she always had the same response.
“Look, TaKeisha, girl, I hate to eat and run, but I gotta dip ‘cuz me and my Boo ‘bout to get into some thangs a lil’ later on. Know what I mean?” Kee-Kee said, nudging TaKeisha while winking mischievously as she arose from her seat.
TaKeisha stared at her friend in both anger and disbelief as Kee-Kee gathered up her purse and car keys from the seat and headed towards the front door of the mall away from the food court. For what seemed like a long while, perhaps two or three minutes, TaKeisha simply sat in her seat staring ahead blankly in utter astonishment and slack-jawed silence as Kee-Kee slowly melted into the bustling Saturday
afternoon crowd at the mall. When the initial shock wore off, TaKeisha got up from her seat and worked her way quickly, if not rudely, through the noisy, slow moving shoppers, walking hither and thither throughout the mall’s aisles.
When TaKeisha caught up with Kee-Kee in the outside parking lot, she loudly told her off as Kee-Kee sat behind the wheel of her car.
“I can’t fuckin’ believe you, Kee-Kee! Every time this muthafucka rings your phone, you gotta jump right up and run over to him like some lil’ dog on a leash! Now I know that that’s your new man and all, but girl, ain’t that much dick in the world to make a bitch wanna be at a nigga’s beck and call all like that! You don’t even seem to give a fuck about your friends or nobody else … including your own child … just this strange ass, secretive-type dude you been fuckin’ with. The shit ain’t right. Kee-Kee, you can’t keep treating your friends like shit over some dumb ass nigga! You betta wake the fuck up, girlfriend!”
Kee-Kee hung her head down shamefully as TaKeisha’s harsh words hit home. “I know. I know. You’re right. But I’m in love, TaKeisha. I … I just can’t stay away from him. I ain’t never felt this way about no other man…not even my son’s father. I don’t know what to tell you … except that the nigga gotta a bitch like me feenin’ like shit, girl. Please try to understand TaKeisha, okay? I’m sorry but I …I gotta go!”
TaKeisha couldn’t help but feel sorry, not for herself, but for Kee-Kee as she watched her head toward the traffic of Landover Road. She’d seen Kee-Kee infatuated over guys before, but never, ever to this extent, and it was truly painful to watch.
By August’s end, Yasmin had gone out of town on vacation to Aruba for two weeks. TaKeisha, when driving by Kee-Kee’s house to get to her own, noticed that along with Kee-Kee’s own car, her boyfriend’s black Beamer was parked in the driveway each day of Yasmin’s absence. Even more disturbing than that was Kee-Kee’s behavior. She seemed fine when she was alone, but whenever her “friend” was at her house, she’d become very reclusive and displayed strange behavior.
When she spent the night over to TaKeisha’s house, TaKeisha noticed small purple-colored blemishes and spots all over Kee-Kee’s fair skin, and saw her that her friend sweated profusely in her sleep during the night, even though the bedroom as well as the rest of the house was comfortably cool from the air conditioner, which ran all day and night throughout the hot and hazy Washington summer. When asked about her condition, Kee-Kee shrugged it off as merely a food allergy or contact with poison ivy during one of her walks through the park. TaKeisha suggested that her friend see a doctor about it, but Kee-Kee refused. The matter was never brought up again.
TaKeisha soon forgot all about Kee-Kee’s “allergic reaction,” and was distracted soon after by a late night call from her brother.
“Hello,” TaKeisha answered the phone, which had awakened her from her sleep.
“Hey, Sis.”
TaKeisha sat straight up in bed after hearing the very familiar voice that she had long been waiting to hear. “Eddie, is that you?”
“Who else would it be?” Not waiting for his sister to reply, the doctor instructed his sister that he was purchasing her a roundtrip ticket to Orlando Florida, and that the two of them would then fly back to the DC area together.
On the 12 of September, Kee-Kee spent the entire day with TaKeisha before helping her pack for her trip and dropping her off at Dulles International Airport later that night. As the girls placed the last of TaKeisha’s luggage on the luggage cart, they embraced warmly before TaKeisha’s flight boarded for Florida.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, awiight? Tell Yaz that I want to know how her vacation went too, okay?” TaKeisha told her best friend.
“I got you…you just have fun at Disney World with that fine-ass brother of yours and quit worrying about shit all the damn time. Look at me, I’m doin’ lovely … ain’t shit the matter with me. You just do you while you down there, awiight? So have a pleasant and safe flight out. Now get your lil’ ass on that plane before you fuck around on get left.”
Once more, the two girls hugged each other for a long while before TaKeisha walked away briskly towards the United Airlines flight #118 awaiting her and a long line of Florida-bound passengers slowly shuffling their way across the runway and onto the stairs. Within minutes, TaKeisha was lounging comfortably in a cushioned seat, and dining on barbecued babyback ribs, corn and smothered mashed potatoes. A good looking flight attendant brought a list of preferred beverages from which she selected an apple martini.
“Excellent choice, young lady. I will be back in a second with your drink.”
Damn, he got a nice butt, TaKeisha thought to herself as she watched the flight attendant walk away down the aisle.
TaKeisha had flown several times before, but never in first class prior to this trip. Edward had prepaid for her flight in advance and wanted for her to fly down to the sunshine state in class. Yet, still, even as she enjoyed the comfort of first class seating and all the extra amenities that came along with it, no matter how hard she tried, her mind drifted back to her friend, and she struggled to shake the thought that Kee-Kee had gotten herself caught up in something very bad.
Chapter 5
Blacks who are HIV positive are more than seven times likely to die from AIDS than whites.
On September 15, 1997, Prince George’s County police arrested Lucien Valentino’s chauffer, Thomas Broome, as he exited the “Crossroads,” a popular local Caribbean-themed nightclub. The cops had been following several leads on the Kentland murders that had occurred almost two months earlier. They were glad that the tips from resident dime droppers had finally led to an arrest in the case, yet there was still one more suspect who was still at large. Now they just had to figure out how to get to him.
“Y’all ain’t gonna hold me behind bars for long, ‘cuz my lawyers g’on see that I get up outta here before the weeks over with. Y’all cops need to be workin’ on catchin’ up with the real big baller; I ain’t nobody but a small fry in the game. C’mon now, getcha weight up, P.G.!” barked Broome during his interrogation process later that night after his arrest.
Thomas Broome appeared to be belligerent and combative toward the officers during the interview, and as he was a man of formidable size, the lead detective decided it best to call reinforcements into the interview room.
“Hey, look, I don’t wanna take any chances with this cocksucker. Get me two more officers in here … pronto!” the detective, a middle aged man with silver flecked thinning hair and mustache said sharply over the intercom as he briefly stepped away from the small metal table in the center of the room.
Within a three-minute span, two beefy P.G. County cops donning dark colored BDU’s burst into the interrogation area and immediately set upon Thomas Broome, roughly forcing him to the cold, hard surface of the floor as he fought diligently to free himself from their locking grasp.
“Get the fuck up off me y’all punk ass pigs! I ain’t Rodney King … muhfuckas! I’ll fuckin’ kill one o’ y’all niggas!” Broome growled as he fell hard to the floor along with his jailers toppling the metal chair in which he’d sat with a loud, metallic sounding clang that reverberated throughout the small, drab-looking enclosure.
As Broome was handcuffed and taken from the immediate area to a temporary holding cell, the lead detective and his colleagues could not help but dwell on the sudden aggression displayed by Thomas Broome.
“Detective, we’ve got Broome locked away upstairs in a holding cell until further notice. His bond is set a fifty G’s, so it’s my guess that he won’t be goin’ anywhere for a lil’ while,” a burly sergeant said while standing in the doorway of the interrogation room.
“Sweet … now let’s just work on this maggot’s rap sheet a while longer before we question him again. Shall we? He did mention something about us going after, quote, ‘the real big baller,’ whoever that is. We could be onto something here. I’m thinking that maybe we can get this guy to cop a plea deal for
a lighter sentence if he gives up the one we’re after. Trust me, I’m an expert on getting’ creeps like this Broome character to spill their guts.”
Little did the unsuspecting Sergeant Jeremy Williams know just how very close to home the Kentland murder case would actually hit.
***
Ronald Free, a student athlete at Bowie State University and good friend of Sergeant Williams, had remained friends with both Kee-Kee and Yasmin after Jeremy’s break-up with the younger of the two sisters. As of late, however, he had not talked much to Kee-Kee or Yasmin due to the rigorous demands of late summer football practice in preparation for the upcoming season. Further, whenever he had tried to holler at Kee-Kee, she didn’t seem to have time for him anymore. When Ronald planned a lively birthday celebration at the Republic Gardens Nightclub and had made the motion to invite Kee-Kee, he was shocked that she actually showed up. Jeremy, among scores of other friends and associates, attended the party as well.
The party itself was off the hook. Keenly alive and entertaining with vivacious music, dancing, laughter and excitement were coupled at the party with a plentitude of flowing alcohol that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. Only the news of Yasmin’s mysterious, yet potentially fatal, illness brought a damper to the festivities.
“Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with my sister,” Kee-Kee relayed to Ronnie and Jeremy, “but ever since she got back from her vacation, she’s been sick as a dog. She’s probably no more than ninety something pounds now. Doctors say she’s tested negative for AIDS and it’s not any form of cancer or nothing. Yet still the shit is eating Yasmin up,” Kee-Kee mentioned sadly as she slowly sipped on a glass of Petrone and lime juice.
