Deadly Phine

by Darrell King

  Jeremy sighed and shook his head. “Well, I’ll go by P.G. Hospital to see her tomorrow evening after my shift. I’ll pick up a get well card and a bouquet of long stem roses too. That should make her feel a little better. You think?” Ronnie lifted Kee-Kee’s face by her chin and smiled into her eyes.

  “Yeah,” Kee-Kee agreed with a smile. “I think it’d make her feel real good.”

  After visiting with Yasmin the following day, Jeremy was so distraught over seeing how emaciated the unknown disease had made the once voluptuous Yasmin, that he at once phoned Detective Taylor Goehring, whose wife, Diane, worked at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland as a virologist in the Infectious Diseases Department. During the days that followed, Detective Goehring’s wife painstakingly researched possible sources of the aggressive, wasting illness that had befallen the unfortunate Yasmin.

  Jeremy was grateful for all of Diane’s efforts. On October 12, he invited Detective Goehring and his wife to Jeremy Junior’s sixth birthday. After the kiddie party, the group dropped off Jeremy Jr. at his paternal grandmother’s home in Landover Hills, and proceeded to Prince George’s County Hospital to visit Yasmin. Once there, they all chatted and briefly laughed with a bedridden, weak and visibly deteriorating Yasmin who, despite her grim condition, kept up a cheerful attitude.

  Before the visit was over, Kee-Kee, torn apart by her older sibling’s worsening health, bolted from the hospital room where she broke down into tears once out in the hallway. She was at once comforted by Mrs. Goehring and two nurses who were passing along the corridors at the time.

  The ride home proved to be a difficult one as Kee-Kee’s mournful, non-stop crying left everyone choked up and teary-eyed as well. And after Jeremy had walked Kee-Kee to her door, Detective Goehring met him at the curb.

  “Listen kid, I’m real sorry about what’s happening right now to your lil’ boy’s aunt and Diane is doing her damnest to pinpoint the cause and description of this illness, because like the rest of the doctors and medical specialists out there, nobody’s got a fuckin’ clue about what it is that’s killing that young lady. But believe you me, if anybody can find out, it’s my wife … just give her some more time.”

  Unfortunately, it seemed that Yasmin appeared to have very less and less time every day. She’d lost so much weight and had become so weak and ashen, that by October 21, she fell into a coma. Her vital signs were barely active and she was kept alive via life support machinery. To overcome her sorrows, Kee-Kee found escape through liquor, marijuana, and sex with her Boo, A.K.A. Lucien Valentino.

  She could not resist the way this man made her feel. His warm body embracing her own was beyond comforting. His strong arms and powerful chest pressed against her brought tingles up and down her spine. His moist tongue caressing its way along her inner thigh en route to her sweet spot brought her shudders of delight. And his hefty nine inch, curved member rocked her body with multiple orgasms whenever he long stroked her, penetrating her long, deep and hard, working her dripping vagina walls just the way she liked it … pounding away with gusto so that she felt every single inch and breadth of his well-endowed manhood, always leaving her sweaty, breathless, and so very satisfied. Yet shortly after each and every sexual encounter with Valentino, Kee-Kee developed the same strange flu-like symptoms; night sweats, fever, coughing, fatigue and diarrhea.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? thought Kee-Kee. I never used to get sick, except when I was pregnant with Junior.

  She’d taken two pregnancy tests at home and both came back negative. By October 28, Kee-Kee had developed rashes all across her body again. She eventually followed TaKeisha’s advice and finally consulted her family doctor. She was diagnosed, treated for the rashes, and released after a two-day pre-cautionary stay in the hospital. Still nothing more than a pesky skin infection was determined to be the cause.

  “Detective, I’m really worried about my son’s mother. She’s been sick off and on and now she’s come down with all these weird looking rashes all over her body,” Jeremy told Goehring. “Her doctor can’t seem to find out what is causing it either. The doctor says it’s probably just a skin infection she picked up in a public swimming pool or bathroom. But I don’t buy that. Hell, I’m no doctor, but I think it’s something else.”

  Detective Goehring stroked his chin as he studied the sense of urgency in the young police sergeant’s eyes. “Sergeant Williams, I know that this is gonna sound very unusual, but I’m gonna need a blood sample from your son’s mother. Now don’t ask me why, but I’ve got a hunch that Diane or anyone of the physicians on her floor at NIH can get to the bottom of what’s going on and more than likely can prescribe an antidote for it or lead her to a proper medical specialist who can. It’s worth a shot. Don’t you think? Meanwhile I need for you to monitor who she’s seeing. Maybe she’s picking up some sort of virus from somewhere or something. I hate to ask you this, but does your son’s mother take drugs?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “Well, anyway, have an unmarked squad car follow he from time to time or have a private eye provide surveillance for you, alright?”

  Looking on with utter confusion as to the detective’s strange request, Sergeant Jeremy Williams shook his head before speaking.

  “Say what? Why should I be eavesdropping on Kee-Kee? We have a child together, but she and I aren’t together anymore. I’m just concerned about her health and all, not her personal life. So, I can’t see why any spying type shit is necessary.”

  “Williams, trust me on this. I haven’t been a detective on this force for fourteen years for nothin’ … I think that her illness as well as her older sister’s are linked some how and I’m starting to believe that it’s been transmitted to them from something other than a plant or insect. I think there’s a contagious person out here going around making people sick, kinda like the Typhoid Mary case back during the early 1900s. So please, for Kiara’s sake, do it. Keep in mind that this could ultimately even effect your son if we don’t get to the bottom of it.”

  Despite the extreme peculiarity of the request, Jeremy highly respected the detective’s judgment in unusual circumstances such as this, and wanted to do whatever was necessary to bring relief to his ailing baby’s mama. So he promptly hired a private investigator from the local yellow pages so as not to use any of his own officers for such an odd assignment.

  Unfortunately, the investigator let him down. On the day after the Halloween festivities, Jeremy was enraged to find the incompetent private eye asleep and loudly snoring behind the wheel of his company car across the street from Kee-Kee’s own vehicle in the driveway. The morning newspaper lay upon the dew-covered lawn untouched. She’d been gone all night long. Sergeant Williams angrily demanded the startled, still drowsy, investigator to explain his grossly inept work performance.

  “Mr. Williams, she was in the house most of the night on yesterday. I swear to God!” the private eye exclaimed. “I remember seeing a couple groups of trick-or-treaters come up and ring the doorbell and she came out each time smiling and giving out candy to all the little kids. Then once the Halloween traffic slowed and died out, I noticed her moving around inside the house through the Venetian blinds for about thirty minutes or so. Then she turned off all the lights and I assumed she’d called it a night. I stayed right here just like you told me to. I stayed awake for like another whole couple of hours or so before I started getting’ sleepy. By the time I dozed off, her car was still parked in the driveway and I didn’t see anybody come over there to visit, pick her up or nothin’,” the investigator explained excitedly in his defense, but the sergeant would have none of it.

  “Dawg, that’s sounds good and all. But the bottom line is she ain’t here right now at this moment. And to make it so bad, you were knocked out sleep, Champ! I ain’t payin’ you damn near twenty dollars an hour to sit up in your ride snoozin’ when I told you to keep your eye on Ms. Kiara Reeves. When she moves, you move! Wherever she goes, you go … you k
now, undercover-type shit. But it’s all good though, Champ. I’m g’on pay you for eight hours and eight hours only. But you ain’t gotta worry about coming back up here t’morrow, ‘cause your service is no longer needed as of now!”

  Jeremy took out his wallet and pulled out a couple of hundred dollars, placed it into the private eye’s outstretched hand, quickly signed a receipt form, received his pink copy of it, and walked away still angered and frustrated at the thought of wasting his hard earned money on a totally worthless private detective agency instead of assigning one of his rookie officers to watch Kee-Kee. The following day at work was a difficult one for Sergeant Williams, whose preoccupation with Kee-Kee’s strange illness, as well as her unknown activities, made it nearly impossible to perform his duties as an officer. All of the cops under his supervision noticed his troubled demeanor and tried helping him as best as they possibly could. When their best efforts failed, a few of the Sergeant’s most loyal beat cops consulted with Detective Goehring to speak to their obviously distressed leader. The detective eagerly agreed and requested that Sergeant Williams join him for a few drinks at a nearby pub frequented by cops and firefighters.

  “Jeremy, I’ve listened to some of your officers today and they all seem awfully concerned about your well being, my friend. And well, frankly, so am I. I spoke to Captain McAllister a little while ago and he agreed to give you a week’s paid vacation. So go and get yourself a much needed break, okay? Go somewhere you haven’t gone in awhile … Vegas, Honolulu, Cancun maybe, huh? Play some golf, do some hiking, camping, or hell, just spend the week doing nothing but resting or doing the whole ‘daddy thing’ with your little boy. Don’t worry about nothing else, Jeremy, ‘cause I’m gonna see to it that Kee-Kee is taken care of and watched closely by a few of my most trusted detectives in the department. So chill out and do yourself this really big favor, okay? For me?”

  Jeremy drank deep from the half filled mug of his fifth round of Heineken. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, detective. With my worrying about Kee-Kee on top of trying to do my job as a cop, well, I guess I am jive a lil’ bit stressed out, you know?” he responded wearily, looking down at his now empty beer mug.

  Detective Goehring reassured his co-worker and together they drank a final round of beer before leaving the pub for home.

  From November 11 until the 19, Detective Goehring had two of his leading detectives secretly observe and record Kee-Kee’s activities from dawn until dusk. He himself accompanied Kee-Kee to the hospital to visit Yasmin. For the time being, Kee-Kee had regained her strength, beauty, and vibrant energy that had for a long while seemed to have left her during her previous bout with that strange illness. Yet even with everything the detective had put forward, nothing could prevent Kiara Reeves from answering a late night phone call on the 22nd of November.

  I shouldn’t even answer this fuckin’ phone. He know he’s wrong as shit. But I do miss his phine ass though…plus I gotta get me some money, so guess what? I gotta take this booty call tonight baby!

  Chapter 6

  Anthony E. Whitfield, December 2004: Black man from Lacey, WA infects his own wife and four other women with HIV and exposed 17 others to the virus, which landed him in prison with a 178-year sentence. After his conviction, racist leaflets circulated throughout Olympia, Washington, asking whites not to have sex with blacks in order to avoid AIDS. Over 100 homes received these leaflets. 142 people as of 2002have been currently convicted of criminal HIV transmission here in the United States.

  On November 23, as Thomas Broome was being transferred from his original holding cell to another facility in Clinton, Maryland, to await his January 8 murder trial, he viciously attacked one of the two officers who were escorting him from the Palmer Park precinct toward the police van waiting outside. After slashing the first cop badly across the face with a razor blade he’d hidden underneath his tongue, he lunged for the fallen policeman’s service weapon, but was struck from behind by the second officer within seconds after Broome had wounded his partner. Broome collapsed unconscious to the floor of the lobby of the precinct beside the bloodied police officer who writhed in agony from the deep gash across the left side of his face. Soon the lobby was filled with P.G. County cops, with two officers quickly attending to the wounded man on the floor below.

  By the time Sergeant Jeremy Williams arrived on the scene, a half hour later, the ambulance had taken both Officer Linwood and his assailant to the P.G. County Hospital. Jeremy was anxious to learn how the murder suspect could’ve freed himself from the handcuffs before assaulting Officer Linwood. After a tense two day investigation where every cop on Sergeant Williams’ watch was placed on the hot seat for the unfortunate incident, it was finally determined that Thomas Broome had somehow secured a set of handcuff keys that had been found on his person before he was taken to the hospital.

  The very next day shortly before the annual Thanksgiving holiday, a dapper gentleman approached the entrance of the infamous Jessup State Penitentiary after exiting the sleek BMW 645 CI he’d parked in the visitors’ lot. The tall, good looking stranger went up to the guards’ booth showed his identification card, filled out the visitor’s log and followed his two hulking escorts in sullen silence past the curious inmates exercising in the yard toward the telephone booths located in the lobby.

  The stranger pulled up a chair and seated himself in front of the large plexi-glass window, awaiting his inmate’s arrival. The correctional officer who stood off at a distance wondered to himself about why this stranger would request to speak to one of the most notoriously violent prisoners in the history of Jessup State Penitentiary.

  “Ain’t none o’ my business, Champ, but I hope you know this cat personally, ‘cause Brian Atwood is a lifer with big connections outside these prison walls, you know? He’s been known to have put contracts out on Federal judges, lawyers, even cops. So if I were you, I’d be damn careful ‘bout what I said to him. Know what I’m saying? They don’t call this dude ‘Heatseeker’ for nothing. ‘Cuz he’ll find your monkey ass sooner or later,” the C.O. quipped sarcastically as he walked up close to Valentino.

  “Oh, you ain’t gotta worry bout me, my dude. You see, ole boy might have a little bit o’ muscle up in here and a little bit out on the streets of B-more and what not, but me … I got power everywhere. He don’t … now take this and get the fuck on,” Valentino answered with a sarcastic grin on his handsome face as he handed the nosey guard a rubber band wrapped wad of bills.

  The prison guard quickly slipped the knot of cash into his left pants pocket and returned to his post, watching in silence as Valentino spoke through the phone to the orange jumpsuit-wearing Brian Atwood on the opposite side of the plexiglass window for the next twenty minutes.

  By the time his now infamous nephew had left the Tidewater area for the Army, Brian “Ant Man” Atwood had been arrested a record seventeen times for various offenses ranging from pick pocketing to major drug trafficking charges. The hot-tempered Ant Man was never charged or convicted for the murder of Pedro Valentino and his family. However, many more slayings would come later and for these there would indeed be arrests and jail time. With his latest dastardly deed, an armed car jacking landing him in the Jessup Men’s Correctional Facility for a five-year term shortly before his nephew arrived from Puerto Rico.

  After his conversation ended, Atwood nodded and smiled at the stylish, bejeweled Valentino before being led back down the dark hall towards his lonely cell at the end.

  As Valentino walked past the outside guards’ booth and towards his Beamer, the two guards spoke among themselves about the strange visit he’d just had with the bloodthirsty Brian Atwood and how compliant the vicious murderer was during their monitored conversation. That same night, Atwood and several of his fellow thugs prepared handwritten notes—know as “kites” in prison jargon–and sent them out to the other inmates throughout their prison wing. By the time the guards got wind of the letter distribution, it was too late. For two whole days the kites ha
d circulated all over the entire upper level of the F block and several dozen had been delivered to prisoners along the lower tier of the F block by the time the guards found out about it. And when a letter or two were recovered, the cryptic language in which it was written could not be deciphered by the correctional officers, preventing them from stopping the inevitable.

  Chapter 7

  The Inner London Crown Court sentenced Mohammed Dica to eight years in prison after he was found guilty on two counts of biological grievous harm for deliberately infecting two women with HIV. He actively persuaded the women to have unprotected sex with him knowing that he had HIV. He said that he was negative and single with a successful career as an attorney, when in fact he was HIV-positive, unemployed and a married man with several children.

  Kee-Kee disappeared with her dashingly handsome lover for the Thanksgiving day festivities, and didn’t return home until December 3. The lovers spent the holiday as well as the following week in Pennsylvania at the Pocono’s Ski Resort. While there, they enjoyed all the amenities the famed romantic getaway had to offer, including skiing, horseback riding, dancing, and fine dining. At night they eagerly satisfied their burning lust for one another on a great heart-shaped satin bed before the warm golden glow of crackling flames dancing inside the accompanying fireplace as the romantic ballad of Guys’ Let’s Chill crooned from the nearby stereo speakers. Kee-Kee thought about the warnings she’d received from her loved ones, but how could she resist this man?

  After sharing a bottle of aged Parisian Merlot, Lucien Valentino took his young bun-bun into his powerful arms, placing his full lips gently onto hers. Kee-Kee moaned with the heat of sexual arousal as Valentino’s tongue trailed a slick path down her slender neck towards her erect nipples, bringing her dangerously close to the point of orgasm. She wanted to resist him, she really did, but she had once again gone much too far now to turn back.