After Hours

by Rochelle Alers

  “Let’s split up,” she said to LaKeisha.

  LaKeisha grabbed her arm. “Where are you goin’?”

  “Why do we go through the same shit every time we go out together?” Adina spat out. “We’re never going to meet anybody if we look as if were joined at the hip. Now let go of my arm.”

  LaKeisha lowered her hand; her dark brown eyes in an equally dark, round face grew large. “You don’t plan to cut out on me like you did last week?”

  An expression of hardness settled over Adina’s delicate features as she forcibly swallowed the curses poised on the tip of her tongue. “Look, La,” she said, shortening her friend’s name, “I told you I was sorry about that. I hadn’t seen my friend in a long time, and he just wanted to go somewhere and talk.”

  What she hadn’t told LaKeisha was that even though Payne had robbed the man responsible for running illegal numbers in Bed-Stuy, East Flatbush and Brownsville, she’d continued to see him because she didn’t want to arouse his suspicions that she and Payne were somehow connected.

  She and the number banker had had several trysts at a motel near JFK Airport, then she hit the jackpot when he invited her to spend the night at a Bushwick apartment he’d set up as his base of operation. Stored under the king-size bed were several strong boxes filled with cash. Two weeks later, three masked men broke down the door, held the workers at gunpoint and walked away with the cash.

  LaKeisha gave Adina a wary look as she tucked several strands of freshly braided hair behind her ears. Large gold hoops dangled from her pierced lobes. She wished Adina had a cell phone—that way they could communicate with each other. She didn’t like having to search the club looking for her. “If you need to find me, then wait by the bar. I’ll come back every fifteen minutes.”

  Adina nodded. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Later, ’Dina.”

  It wasn’t until LaKeisha disappeared in the throng that Adina forced herself to relax as she tried to still the rush of nerves that came whenever she began a new assignment. That’s what Payne called it, when in reality it was a new hustle.

  If arrested, she’d be charged with grand larceny, which translated into an attempt to deprive a rightful owner of their personal property. However, she wanted to know if it was a crime to rob criminals when the so-called victims were themselves criminals?

  Payne only stole from those selling drugs or running illegal numbers and pimps dealing prostitution. He’d set up a network where none of the break-ins and/or occasional assaults could be traced to him.

  Payne Jefferson was smart enough to become CEO of a major corporation, but the seductive allure of street crime held him firmly within its clutches.

  CHAPTER 6

  Adina made her way up the staircase with the assuredness of an invited guest. She stepped off the last step, and the scene unfolding before her rendered her temporarily paralyzed. The guest of honor was someone she’d never forget because he’d changed her and her life—forever. Those standing around with flutes of champagne raised in a toast didn’t see her shocked expression or the natural color drain from her face.

  Unknowingly she’d come to Chez Tangerine to meet Terence Yancey, a man she’d slept with once at the age of thirteen, and he’d gotten her pregnant. She’d gone in search of Terence to tell him that she’d had his baby, but he’d disappeared without a trace. Now she knew where he’d been.

  Payne, the consummate gambler, rolled the dice over and over, but this time he’d crapped out; there was no way she could get away with seducing and setting up her baby’s daddy.

  Turning on her heels, she made it down the staircase on shaking legs, praying with each step that she wouldn’t fall and call attention to herself. Moisture pricked her armpits and dotted her forehead. Heat, then chills, washed over her as she navigated the crowded dance floor, not seeing the angry glares thrown at her when she nearly lost her footing in the four-inch heels before managing to regain her balance.

  The crush of human bodies, the ear-shattering din of music and voices raised to be heard, closed around Adina like an overheated lead blanket. She’d never developed a fondness for alcohol because she’d seen firsthand how it ravaged her mother’s life, but this was one time she needed a drink to mellow her out. Those waiting at the bar to be served were three-deep, so she saw it as a sign to try and find LaKeisha and bounce.

  “I told you that was her,” a woman whispered behind Adina. “She’s that ho who set up my cousin.”

  “Girl, it don’t have to be her,” said another woman.

  “But it is. Alphonso told me what she looked like. How many bitches do you know with good hair down to they ass that ain’t no weave?”

  “That still don’t have to be her. There’s a lot of girls in BK who have they own long hair.”

  “He told me a short, bright ho with long black hair and green eyes knew where he stashed his shit. Next thing you know, it’s gone and a couple of months later the police charge him with possession with intent to sell. And after he was sent up, he ran into Rhames Daniels, who’s also doing a bid, and he said the same thing happened to him. When I seen him last week, he told me that they gonna git someone from ’round the way to cap the sneaky bitch.”

  Adina didn’t want to turn around to see who was talking about her, but she knew she couldn’t remain in the club. The acrid taste of fear burned the back of her throat as she left the bar area. She couldn’t think straight as she replayed the threat that someone was going to take out a contract on her life. She shoved her way through the line waiting outside the ladies’ room and down a hallway to a rear exit. The bouncer sitting on a chair near the door came to his feet with her approach.

  “You can’t use this door,” he announced in a no-nonsense tone. “It’s for emergencies only.”

  “Please,” Adina pleaded. “I need some air or I’m going to throw up right here.”

  The man moved back as if she’d just announced that she’d come down with a contagious disease. He opened the door and she ran, not stopping until she made it to the corner.

  The humid night air was only a few degrees cooler than inside the club, but Adina didn’t notice. Flagging down a passing livery car, she got in and gave the driver her address. Closing her eyes, she literally collapsed against the seatback. She didn’t know what it was, but fate had intervened on her behalf. If her mark hadn’t been Terence, she wouldn’t have known of the threat. Always the ultimate hustler, she viewed life as a game that had to be full of fresh moves and continuous entertainment and free of labor and routine. And given her wiles, there was no doubt she would’ve successfully crashed the private party.

  A chill shook her. She knew people who’d shoot her for twenty dollars of crack and she’d become another crime statistic accredited to street violence.

  In seeing Terence again, she’d come face-to-face with her past and in doing so she’d come to the realization that she had to run and to start over.

  And if she was going to start over, then it couldn’t be in Brooklyn, New York.

  CHAPTER 7

  Adina paid the fare and got out a block from the public housing complex with views of the Brooklyn Bridge and Wall Street. Whenever she came home by car she always directed the driver to drop her off a block or two from the towering brick building where she shared an apartment with her grandmother and daughter. And she’d made it a practice to flag down a passing car rather than call several car services in the neighborhood because she didn’t want anyone to monitor or track her whereabouts.

  It was Friday night, early May, and nighttime temperatures were in the low seventies, and that translated into residents—old and young alike—hanging out until exhaustion forced them inside their stuffy, crowded apartments. It wasn’t unusual to see infants sleeping in strollers or in the arms of mothers lounging on benches well beyond midnight, hoping to catch either a breeze coming off the East River or the latest neighborhood gossip.

  Adina remembered when she used to hang out on the bench
es; but it stopped when she woke up one morning with excruciating back pains. It was one of the few times Bernice Jenkins was sober enough to realize her daughter needed emergency medical assistance. Not waiting for an ambulance, Bernice took Adina in a livery cab to a hospital, where five hours later the fourteen-year-old gave birth to a two-pound, six-ounce baby girl.

  Adina hadn’t known she was pregnant because her period had come every month like clockwork; she’d worn the same school uniform throughout the year and her weight had remained the same. She left the hospital, leaving her baby behind in the neonatal unit. Three months later Jameeka Jenkins was discharged, and when Bernice carried the infant girl home, she’d loudly invited everyone to come and see her new baby daughter. Ironically Jameeka looked exactly like her grandmother, so the only gossip circulating throughout the projects had been who’d fathered Bernice’s child.

  My mother left me, and now I’m going to have to leave my daughter, Adina mused as she pressed the elevator button. Bernice hadn’t had a maternal bone in her body, and neither did Adina. From the moment Jameeka arrived she’d found herself completely detached from the tiny infant she’d carried inside her. How could she bond with a baby when she hated the dolls her grandmother had bought her?

  The elevator arrived. She stood off to the side to let a trio of teenage boys dressed in baggy clothes stumble out; they were laughing uncontrollably. The lingering stench of stale urine mingling with freshly smoked marijuana forced her to take a backward step. Holding her breath, she was grateful—and not for the first time—that she lived on the fourth floor in the fifteen-story building.

  The sound of the door opening didn’t faze Dora and Jameeka Jenkins; they lay on an oversize sectional sofa that dwarfed the living room, their gazes fixed on the flat-screen television Adina had given her grandmother as a gift the prior Christmas. Only self-stick squares of mirrored glass on the walls made the space appear larger. Dora, who wasn’t much for visiting her neighbors, now rarely left the apartment except to shop for food and on occasion to purchase clothes for herself and her great-granddaughter.

  “I’m going to make a quick run,” Adina called out as she headed in the direction of her bedroom.

  “That’s what you said an hour ago,” Dora countered. Moving slightly, she peered over her shoulder at her granddaughter.

  “This time I’m really going out, Mama.” She called Dora Jenkins “Mama” because she’d assumed the role as mother—because Bernice wasn’t able to take care of herself, let alone a child. Jameeka, on the other hand, called her great-grandmother Nana.

  Shaking her head, Dora grunted softly before turning her attention back to a close-up of Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe screaming at each other in Mississippi Burning. Even though Adina looked nothing like Bernice, she was just like her mother. It was always a quick run here or there; whenever they left, days, and at times weeks, would go by before she’d see them again.

  The last time Bernice made a quick run she hadn’t come back. After a month Dora contacted the police, who’d turned the case over to the FBI’s Missing Persons division. And that was ten years ago. She was left to care for not only her granddaughter but also her great-granddaughter. She was only fifty-seven, and even if she didn’t look her age, she felt much older.

  Dora didn’t know where Adina got her money; she was past caring. She’d asked her once whether she was selling drugs, but Adina swore up and down that she wouldn’t have anything to do with drugs because of Bernice’s addiction. She’d heard of too many folks being evicted from the projects if a family member was charged with dealing drugs.

  And where would she go with a teenage girl?

  She definitely didn’t want to go to a welfare hotel or a homeless shelter.

  CHAPTER 8

  Adina opened the closet in the bedroom she’d once shared with her mother. Not only had they shared the room but also the same bed—a bed where Bernice would lay with any man willing to pay her a few dollars so she could buy drugs and booze.

  After Payne Jefferson paid her for her first hustle, Adina didn’t spend the money on clothes or electronic gadgets but on a new bed. A week before the scheduled delivery she threw out the old mattress and frame, sleeping on the floor, which was preferable to the rancid odors clinging to the ticking covered with urine, semen and bloodstains.

  The threat against her life replayed over and over in her head like a needle stuck in the groove of a record as she removed articles of clothing from hangers and opened drawers to pack what she considered essential items. Ignoring the boxes filled with designer shoes and shelves with designer handbags, she filled a carry-on with underwear, T-shirts, jeans, slacks, sandals, running shoes and personal toiletries. Pulling over a chair, she stood on it and felt around a top shelf. Her hands were shaking so much it took several attempts for her to grasp the leather handles to a khaki-colored backpack. What she’d secreted in the backpack was her ticket out of Brooklyn.

  For most of her life Adina heard black women talk about having their “F.U.” money; it was when she discovered the family of one of her friends had moved out without telling anyone they were leaving that she understood the phrase. Her grandmother explained that the woman, having grown tired of her husband’s abuse, withdrew the money she’d saved without his knowledge from her “Fuck You” account and moved to a state where he wouldn’t be able to find her and his children. Dora’s sage advice of Never let a man know how much you have in case you have to leave his ass was imprinted on her brain.

  Although PJ gave her money, she never let him know how much her marks had given her. The men she’d befriended offered her designer clothes and accessories because they wanted to show her off, so there was never a time when Adina had to go to a boutique or specialty shop to purchase something to wear. She wasn’t certain whether their “gifts” were knockoffs or swag, but it hadn’t mattered because she hadn’t had to put out a dime for them.

  Now she would leave behind the haute couture she’d always referred to as “material shit,” because her life was worth a lot more than Louis, Choo or Chanel. Jameeka would never wear her clothes or shoes because, at fourteen, she was four inches taller than Adina, her feet three sizes larger and she wore a size-nine dress to Adina’s two. Either the clothes would rot in the closet or Dora could elect to sell or give them away.

  She changed out of the stilettos, halter top and short skirt and into a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes. Staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the closet door, Adina saw something in her eyes that had never been there before: fear. Even when she’d embarked on her first hustle, she’d been apprehensive but not fearful that she’d be found out. She’d learned at a very young age how to seduce a man to get whatever she wanted. It’d begun with one of the men who’d slept with her mother, then escalated to those who’d found her attractive. It wasn’t that she was vain about her looks, but she knew how to use what she’d been given.

  Reaching for a baseball cap, she covered her head, pulling her braid through the back opening. There wasn’t time to wash off her makeup. She had to leave before someone came looking for her. Emptying the small purse she’d carried with her to Chez Tangerine, Adina counted the small stack of bills. She had a little more than one hundred dollars. Now she had to decide where she wanted to go. Flying wasn’t an option because she knew she would never make it past security with a backpack filled with cash that exceeded the amount for declaration. She’d never been gainfully employed, so no doubt the IRS would want to know where she’d gotten the money.

  Pushing the bills into a pocket of her jeans, she reached for the PDA on her dresser. It was her direct contact with Payne Jefferson. Opening a drawer in a bedside table, she took out a BlackBerry and put it into the bag with her clothes. The cell phone was her direct contact with her grandmother. No one had ever seen her use the phone because, like the money in the backpack, the phone was a part of her F.U. stockpile. Slipping her arms through the straps of the backpack, Adin
a picked up her single piece of luggage. She wasn’t certain where she was going, but it couldn’t be anywhere within New York City’s five boroughs.

  Glancing around the bedroom for the last time, she flicked a wall switch, plunging the room into darkness. Dora and Jameeka were still in the same position as when she’d left them.

  “Later.”

  Both waved without turning around, and Adina opened the door and left the apartment, the door locking automatically behind her. She had the elevator to herself, and the crowd that had gathered to witness two women fighting hadn’t dispersed. Several were describing to police personnel what had happened. Walking in the opposite direction, she flagged down a distinctive black-and-red vehicle from a nearby car service.

  “Where to, lady?” the driver asked when she sat down.

  “Take me the Port Authority bus terminal.” It was the first place she could think of. She could’ve easily said the Long Island Railroad or Grand Central Station, but somehow taking the bus was preferable to the train because she didn’t like tunnels.

  The driver quoted her a flat rate, to which she would’ve gladly paid double. Exhaling audibly, Adina sat back, closed her eyes while planning her next move.

  “Irvington! The next stop is Irvington.”

  Adina opened her eyes when she heard the conductor calling her stop. Gathering her purse, she pushed to her feet. A chill swept over the back of her neck, and she refused to acknowledge it as a bad omen, because she couldn’t afford to indulge in superstition when what she was facing was as real as it could get. She left the train and hailed a taxi, instructing the driver to take her to the motel. She wanted him to take her home.