Ride or Die

by Solomon Jones

  Marquita glanced over at Frank. Now, instead of holding her body, he was holding a gun. And in between his frequent glances out the van’s windows and mirrors, he kept looking at his cell phone, as if he could will it to ring.

  He hadn’t told her who he was waiting for, but she knew in her heart that it was her mother. She also knew that whatever Nola had, it was something that Frank wanted very badly.

  She shook her head and sighed at her own stupidity. After all the time she’d spent wanting Frank Nichols, the only thing she wanted now was to escape from him.

  Looking out the tinted windows at the throngs of people passing outside on the city’s busiest streets, she contemplated screaming or running away. Then she thought better of it, knowing that Frank wouldn’t hesitate to use the gun.

  But while the gun could control her movements, it couldn’t control her heart. And in her heart, she hated him for the way he’d abused her body and her mind.

  The question now was, what could she do about it?

  “Frank,” she said softly. “Can I ask you something?”

  He turned his intense stare on her, and waited for her to speak.

  “Why don’t you just turn yourself in? I mean, you couldn’t have done what they think you did, because you were with me when it happened.”

  Frank laughed. “That’s the problem with you,” he said, smiling at her naivete. “All you see is what you see. You don’t take the time to look underneath it, and see the truth.”

  He became deadly serious. “Ain’t none o’ this about what I did or didn’t do,” he said. “If it was, I would do what I always do—beat the case.”

  “What’s it about, then?” she asked, though she was afraid to know the answer.

  Frank bored his eyes into her. “Same thing everything else in life is about—money.”

  Lynch returned to police headquarters, knowing that it would take a while to sort through the evidence they’d found at the scene of the latest shooting.

  He headed to the third floor carrying the file he was compiling. The murders of a commissioner and an officer in a single day had made the case the most high-profile he had ever handled.

  Walking briskly through the halls and into the department’s executive offices, Lynch smiled sadly as Commissioner Freeman’s longtime secretary waved him inside.

  He slowed down and looked at pictures from a career that spanned decades, trinkets from a life that had touched many, and an aura in the room that would not soon disappear.

  After seeing and feeling all those things, Lynch walked into Freeman’s old office with a forlorn expression and sat down opposite Acting Commissioner Dilsheimer.

  “It’s not easy, is it?” Dilsheimer said, leaning back in his chair as he watched the lieutenant.

  “What’s not easy, Commissioner?”

  “Losing a man like Freeman,” Dilsheimer said, rounding the desk and sitting down next to Lynch.

  “I worked with him for a lot of years, and I’m going to miss him,” he added in a melancholy voice. “But I know he understood the risks we take as cops. And I know he would’ve wanted us to do our jobs, no matter what.”

  “I understand that, sir,” Lynch said while fingering the file in his lap.

  “Good,” Dilsheimer said, settling back into his chair. “What’ve we got so far?”

  “We’re still running ballistics on the bullets from all the shootings, and waiting to see what that tells us,” Lynch said. “In terms of what we know, Reverend Anderson and Nichols apparently had a long-running feud that blew up when Keisha Anderson was assaulted.

  “Now, we’ve got three bodies, including the old woman, the commissioner, and a Twenty-fifth District officer.”

  “Do we have anything connecting Frank Nichols to any of this?” Dilsheimer asked.

  “Other than the fact that he ran when we caught him at his girlfriend’s house this morning? No.”

  “What’s this girlfriend’s name?”

  “Nola Langston.”

  “Was she there when he escaped?”

  “No, sir. Nichols was there with the girlfriend’s daughter. When he ran, she did, too. We haven’t seen either one of them since. But we’re still looking.”

  Dilsheimer nodded. “And this Nola Langston, she’s not talking, even after Nichols got caught with her daughter?”

  “No, sir. She claims she’s worried about her daughter, and that she doesn’t know anything about Frank Nichols’s business. But there’s something fake about her. She knows more than what she’s saying.”

  “And where is Ms. Langston now?” Dilsheimer asked.

  “I’ve got a tail on her,” Lynch said. “He checked in with me a few minutes ago and she’s still in the Center City area. It’s just a hunch, but I’m thinking she’s gonna lead us to something we couldn’t get just by asking.”

  Dilsheimer looked thoughtful.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll trust your judgment on that for now. But if we don’t get anything soon, I want you to bring her in for questioning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And keep me posted on Nichols, too,” the commissioner said, standing up to pace the floor. “If his son is the one who kidnapped Keisha Anderson, I’m willing to bet Frank Nichols is behind it.”

  “There’s just one problem with that, Commissioner,” Lynch said, his tone grave. “Keisha Anderson may not have been kidnapped.”

  Dilsheimer was confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “After that last shooting, Keisha and Jamal took some clothes from a couple of prostitutes, tied them up, and walked away together.”

  “How do we know Nichols didn’t force her to go with him?” Dilsheimer asked.

  “We don’t. But if you believe the hookers, Jamal didn’t force Keisha to do anything. And I’ve gotta believe that by the time they left, there were enough cops around that if she wanted to call for help, she could’ve.”

  “But why would she go with him?” Dilsheimer asked, his tone dubious.

  “I don’t know,” Lynch said with a weary sigh. “But if I were a betting man, Commissioner, I’d say this thing is probably a little more complicated than it looks.”

  Ishmael ran the razor across his scalp, dipped it into the water-filled basin, and swiped it over his head again. Then he scooped out a handful of water, splashed it against his face, and looked at his reflection.

  He didn’t recognize the bald man who stared back at him from Aunt Annie’s bathroom mirror. His smooth face and head gave him an almost angelic look that he found amusing.

  Reaching up toward the door, he dressed quickly in the suit that had been there, at the house, since the day he’d come there from the halfway house two years before.

  After tightening the knot on his red tie, he donned reading glasses and looked into the mirror again. The transformation was unbelievable. He looked like more like a preacher than a killer. And that would serve him well.

  He knew that he wouldn’t get many more opportunities to do what his lover had asked him to do. And he knew that she would leave him if he didn’t accomplish the mission.

  The thought of living without her was painful enough. But nothing could be worse than disappointing her, and watching tears stain her beautiful face.

  He’d seen her cry only once. And that was when she’d told him of all the things she’d endured at the hands of her tormentor.

  She told him of rapes and beatings, humiliation and torture. She recounted the time he’d branded her like an animal with a hot poker, then bound her and held her captive for days on end. And then she told him that he’d threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone.

  The moment she shared that with him, the thought of her death flashed before his eyes. The sight of it, even in his imagination, was unbearable. So he offered to kill him for her.

  At first she told him that he couldn’t, that he shouldn’t. But he would hear none of it. The man who’d done these things would have to pay with his life. And Ishmael wo
uld be the one to take it from him.

  Picking up the briefcase that carried his pistol, he went down the steps and into the garage.

  He walked past the motorcycle, took a set of keys from the wall, and got behind the wheel of the old Chrysler.

  The plan she’d given him was perfect, he thought as he pulled out into the bright sunshine. But now it would have to be altered.

  Nola Langston watched the gray Mercury pass by her as she walked on Walnut Street. It turned onto Eighteenth and parked illegally, in a handicapped space.

  A minute later, as she traversed Rittenhouse Square’s high-end retail and restaurant district, stopping occasionally to look in store windows, she saw the car’s occupant—the curly-haired detective she’d seen at her house—trailing her on foot.

  Nola knew that she was being followed. And she knew that she had to elude him if she was going to do what she’d planned.

  Walking into the jewelry store on the corner of Fifteenth and Walnut, she browsed for a few minutes before trying on a diamond necklace. Bending down at the small mirror on the counter, she looked over her shoulder and saw the detective waiting across the street, in the doorway of the cigar store.

  Nola took the necklace off and handed it to the salesman. “I’d like to put this on my American Express card and have it delivered to the usual address,” she told him.

  “No problem, Ms. Langston.”

  Nola wandered around the store while the salesman ran the card. Then she nodded to the guard, who buzzed her out.

  She left the store and walked leisurely toward Broad Street. From the corner of her eye she could see the cop across the street, following her.

  She crossed to the other side so she could be closer to him. As she did so, the salesman came running out of the store.

  “Ms. Langston!” he shouted. “You forgot to sign your receipt!”

  Nola screamed and pointed at the plainclothes detective. “He’s got my purse!”

  The guard from the jewelry store ran outside, drawing his weapon and aiming at the cop. The cop pulled his as well.

  “Police!” he shouted. “Put it down!”

  “I don’t see a badge!” the guard yelled back. “You put yours down!”

  Two women screamed when they saw the guns, and people on the crowded street began to panic. Shoppers dived for cover. A bus was rear-ended by a car. Commuters pushed against one another in an effort to get out of the way.

  And Nola Langston ran as fast as she could toward Broad and Walnut. There she disappeared down the subway steps and melted into the network of walkways that ran beneath the city’s center.

  As she walked north in the passage underneath Broad Street, she looked behind her to make sure she hadn’t been followed, and moved quickly until she was beneath City Hall.

  She walked in the open passages under the courtyard, past the manmade waterfalls, and crossed into the tunnels that led to Market Street. By the time she emerged from the stairway at Thirteenth and Market, she knew that she’d lost the tail.

  Crossing Market Street, she strolled into Lord & Taylor, hoping to go unnoticed. But Nola wasn’t the type of woman whom people didn’t see.

  “Hi, Nola,” said a floor manager from men’s clothing. “How was the trip to New York?”

  “Fine,” she said without breaking stride.

  When she reached the steps that led to her office, she was almost running. Making her way to the second floor, she walked into the executive offices and smiled pleasantly at the receptionist.

  “Good morning, Ms. Langston,” she said as Nola walked past.

  “Good morning,” Nola said, strolling into her office and locking the door.

  She opened the closet and began to move the boxes that littered the floor. Most contained pictures and samples from the upcoming fall lines for various designers. When she got to the final box, however, she found what she was looking for.

  Opening it carefully, she removed a diamond necklace and a three-carat ring. And then she removed a binder that was worth far more than both of them combined.

  Nola flipped through the documents that the binder contained, and took out the paperwork she’d need. She put on the necklace and the ring, then stripped out of her clothes and extracted a strapless linen dress from the closet.

  She left her office wearing sunglasses and the dress, with nothing beneath it but perfume. The papers she needed were neatly folded in a small black purse as she stepped out into the summer air for the three-block walk to the Center Square building.

  She needed the walk to clear her mind, because she knew that what she was about to do could literally cost her life.

  But she would have to make her move now. There was really no other choice.

  She was going to get the money, just as she’d always planned to do. And then she would be rid of Frank Nichols forever.

  Jamal untied his shirt and removed the scarf from his head with one hand. With the other, he pointed the gun at the man they’d forced to drive them from the scene of the shooting.

  “Turn over there and go underneath the highway,” Jamal said as they approached I-95 from a side street.

  The beady-eyed man looked at him, then glanced down at the gun. “Look, I got some money, if that’s what you want.”

  “Shut up, and pull over there!”

  Keisha, sitting silently in the back seat, watched as the man pulled beneath the overpass and stopped the car between a pile of old tires and a stack of discarded furniture.

  “Get out,” Jamal said, trying not to acknowledge the quickening double thump of his heart.

  The man looked at him in disbelief.

  “I said, ‘Get out!’” Jamal shouted, raising the gun.

  The man scurried to leave the car.

  “Wait a minute,” Jamal said quickly. “Pull your pants off.”

  The man looked back at Keisha in embarrassment, then at Jamal, as if to ask why.

  “Pull ’em off!” Jamal shouted. “Your shirt, too!”

  Keisha watched nervously as Jamal snatched the keys from the ignition, pushed the pudgy man from the car, and got out behind him.

  “Open the trunk,” he said to Keisha, tossing her the keys and pointing the gun at the man.

  Keisha got out, walked to the trunk, and unlocked it. Then she watched the man standing at the trunk with Jamal pressing the gun to his temple.

  “Get that shit outta there,” Jamal said, pointing to the spare tire and other supplies in the trunk of the car.

  The man’s eyes begged Jamal to stop. When it was clear that he wouldn’t, the man emptied the trunk and waited for the inevitable.

  “Get in,” Jamal said.

  The man climbed in, bending and twisting until his girth fit inside the cramped space.

  Jamal closed the trunk as Keisha watched. Then he walked around to the front of the car and got in.

  “Get up front,” he told Keisha.

  She did as she was told. But as Jamal drove from beneath the overpass with his head on a swivel and merged onto I-95 North, Keisha looked back at the trunk, hoping that the man inside wouldn’t become another body.

  The gray-haired, leather-faced cop in car X2 had been a police officer for most of his adult life. He’d seen everything there was to see—from Black Panthers stripped naked on Cecil B. Moore Avenue to police officers arrested in drug-dealing scandals.

  Still, the news of the commissioner’s death shocked him. And as he listened to the dispatcher’s voice reading a description of the black man with dreadlocks who’d allegedly murdered the commissioner, he was reminded of his own mortality.

  Reaching down to adjust the volume on the radio, he glanced at the traffic about a block ahead and to his right, and watched as a blue Neon merged onto I-95 at the Bridge Street entrance.

  The car swerved slightly as it cut off a minivan and burst into traffic. That wouldn’t have been enough to draw the attention of the officer, who often saw aggressive drivers on this stretch of the interstate.r />
  But as he sped up slightly and pulled closer, he noticed that the back of the car was resting almost entirely on its rear wheels, even though there was no one sitting in the back seat.

  As he reached for his radio to call in the tag, he hoped that there was a reasonable explanation for the extra weight in the trunk.

  In case there wasn’t, he unsnapped the holster on his gun.

  Jamal glanced at Keisha, then looked in the rearview mirror and watched the police car lingering two cars back.

  “It’s a cop behind us,” he said, gripping the steering wheel tightly as he sped up to fifty-five.

  Keisha followed his eyes as he looked in the mirror again. When she saw the police car, her breath came fast and heavy.

  Jamal switched to the far left lane. Keisha looked back and saw the cop do the same.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” Jamal said, looking in the mirror. “We gettin’ outta this.”

  He looked in her eyes and saw that she wanted to believe him. She was, despite her womanly facade, a little girl who’d been waiting all her life for a knight in shining armor.

  He wondered if he was the one.

  Jamal nodded toward the mirror. “If he try to stop us, I’m jettin’. I can’t shoot and drive at the same time, so take this.”

  He reached into his waistband and handed her his gun.

  “You ain’t scared, is you?” he asked as she took it.

  “No,” she said, turning it over in her hands.

  “Why not?”

  Keisha paused to think for a moment. “I always did what I was supposed to do,” she said, chambering a round as she’d seen him do. “Now I wanna see what it’s like not to.”

  Just then the cop pulled directly behind them and blasted his siren once.

  Jamal kept going.

  He blasted it again, this time accompanying the siren with the whirl of his dome lights.

  Jamal maintained his speed.

  The cop pulled up to their rear and bumped it slightly.

  That’s when Jamal bolted. Skidding into the middle lanes as nearby cars braked and swerved to avoid them, Jamal pushed the car as hard as he could, but the cop switched lanes and pulled up beside the fleeing vehicle.