“What?” Justice quickly swiveled his head around, looking for him. He pulled out his pistol, his heart thumping loudly against his chest. But it was too late. Before he knew it, he was staring down the barrel of a 9mm.
Justice was wide-eyed. “Yo—”
“Fuck you, nigga!”
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Justice’s face exploded violently, and he lay slumped in the front seat with four shots to the head.
AZ hurried back to the car with the smoking gun in his hand but not before reaching into Justice’s vehicle and grabbing his cell phone.
Heavy Pop sat behind the wheel with the vehicle idling.
AZ swooped into the car and exhaled. Damn, that felt good.
Heavy Pop sped away.
Baltimore was going to be shaken up by the news of Justice’s murder. He was somebody major in the city, or at least the ghetto.
“Fuck that nigga!” AZ said.
Eighteen
AZ walked into his home with a bright smile. Although he was still brooding inside, it didn’t show at all. In fact, he walked over to Wendy, who stood in the kitchen, and hugged her from behind. With his arms wrapped around her, he said, “I love you, baby.”
She was so shocked by his action. It felt like he didn’t want to let her go. Where did the sudden mood change come from?
AZ rocked his wife in his arms and said, “I’m sorry. Let’s start over.”
Whoa, she thought. Start over. Yes, she wanted to start over. She didn’t want to fight and argue with him anymore. She wanted her marriage to work.
AZ kissed her, and she kissed him back. His smile was warm, and the affection he showed was becoming irresistible. AZ became a little frisky in the kitchen. He touched her tits, kissed the side of her neck, and smacked her butt.
Wendy laughed. After everything they’d been through, she wanted to have some peace with her husband.
“Let’s go upstairs and have some fun,” he suggested, his hands and lips all over her. “The kids are in the living room watching cartoons.”
She giggled like a schoolgirl. She could feel AZ growing an impressive hard-on. All of a sudden he scooped her up.
“Ohmygod, AZ, you gonna make me fall.”
“I got you.”
He carried her up the stairs and into the bedroom, where they undressed. Their naked bodies took comfort on the bed.
AZ thrust himself inside of her as they fucked in the missionary position. He only wanted to think about his wife. Tonight, no Baron and no Justice. It would be just husband and wife making sweet, passionate love in their bedroom.
Wendy held her husband tightly and shuddered beneath him when she came. She closed her eyes and gasped. She was still wondering what had come over him. They hadn’t had sex this good in a very long time.
Afterwards, they cuddled. She lay nestled against his unclothed physique with a satisfied smile, and they engaged in some pillow talk. It felt like the good old days.
*
The next morning, Wendy was up early and getting dressed for work. AZ was also awake. She could hear him singing in the shower. Something was up. He never sang in the shower. Was it good or bad?
AZ offered to cook her breakfast. Now it was starting to scare her. What did he have planned?
Dressed in a black blazer, pinstripe pants, halter top, and carrying her satchel, Wendy walked into the kitchen to find AZ cooking eggs. The boys were eating cold cereal. The TV in the kitchen was on the morning news.
AZ turned and smiled at his wife. “Good morning, baby.”
“Good morning.”
With a very busy day ahead, Wendy didn’t have time for breakfast. She was collecting her things and getting ready to bolt out the door when she heard the news broadcast.
“A local drug dealer was shot dead in West Baltimore last night …”
Hearing that, Wendy spun around and stared at the television, the story immediately grabbing her attention.
AZ stood by the stove and observed her reaction and trying to read her body language.
“Drug dealer Mitchell Gabe, also known as Justice, was viciously gunned down last night on the corner of West Preston Street and Druid Avenue while he sat in his black Range Rover. Baltimore City police have no witnesses and no suspects in custody at this time. They say that Mitchell, who had a lengthy history of drugs and violence, was shot four times in the head last night . . .”
Wendy gasped when she heard the news. He could see the shock on her face. AZ was smiling inwardly, but deadpan on the outside.
Wendy stared at AZ to see if there were any signs of recognition from him, but he displayed nothing. Did he have something to do with the murder? It wasn’t possible. She told herself that there wasn’t any way her husband could have done this because he was a real estate developer, not a gangster. Plus, AZ had never seen a picture of him, and she had never told him Justice’s name. So, no, AZ couldn’t have done this. Since Justice was a big-time drug dealer with rivals and enemies, it could have been anyone.
“Is everything okay, baby?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You knew the guy that was killed?” AZ boldly asked.
“No, he just reminds me of someone I prosecuted years ago.”
“Oh, okay. Baltimore is a dangerous city. I’m sad that another black man has been killed in this city. The place is going to hell.”
Wendy was in a brief trance. She really didn’t hear her husband talking. She snapped herself back into her reality and left for work.
AZ smiled, wanting to pat himself on the back. He walked to the living room window and peered at Wendy walking to her car.
Before she climbed inside, when she thought no one was watching her, she started to cry. She wiped away her tears and took a deep breath. She got into her Porsche and drove away.
AZ frowned. Bitch!
Nineteen
Cristal started to worry when Daniel’s phone started going straight to voice mail. It never went to voice mail. Daniel was the type of person to always answer his phone, no matter who was calling. He was an easygoing guy with nothing to hide. So why wasn’t he answering? He always kept his phone on and looked forward to having her call, though she never spoke a word. Cristal knew something was wrong.
“Julie, pick up for table two,” Mark shouted out.
Her boss’s voice snapped her out of her daydream. She had her cell phone in her hand and was thinking about Daniel. The diner was becoming crowded for the lunch rush on a Wednesday, with almost every booth and table occupied.
Cristal shoved the cell phone into her apron pocket and picked up the T-bone steak, French fries, and a baked potato meal for table two. It was going to a large man who looked like he was two meals away from having a heart attack. She skated his way, carrying his plate properly, and placed his food in front of him. He smiled up at her and thanked her for the meal. She hurried back to the kitchen to collect three more meals for customers, who had been waiting patiently.
The lunch rush went by rapidly.
Cristal sat at the countertop counting her tips from the morning and lunch crowd. So far, she’d collected forty-eight dollars.
Julie Norman’s story had gotten around town, and the Christian folks of Idaho Falls found themselves looking out for her. She was quickly becoming one of their own.
Cristal hated the attention. She hated being someone’s charity case. She hated that her hard-luck story had gotten around town to so many folks. Mark Morrow was a talkative man and had spread the word about her, and they came to help, sometimes leaving tips on their table and also letting it be known that if she needed anything, they were there to help.
But what Cristal needed was solitude. She simply wanted to do her job, go home, and hear Daniel’s voice.
As if her day couldn’t get any worse, Sherriff Harrison glided
into the diner and took a seat at the countertop.
Cristal frowned. Him again! She was sick of seeing him. She could feel his eyes lingering on her. “Coffee, right?” she asked dryly.
“Yes.” He smiled at her.
Cristal poured his cup of hot black coffee and set it in front of him. This time the Sheriff didn’t come with a barrage of questions or harassments. He was calm. He looked deep in thought.
“Julie,” he started to say, drumming up the courage to ask her out and apologize for his actions that seemed racist, but then a call crackled through his police radio about a four-car collision on I-15 involving a tractor trailer.
“Shit!” He looked at Mark and said, “Excuse my language.”
“It’s excused,” Mark replied.
The sheriff lifted himself from the stool and sighed. Cristal kept her distance from him. She didn’t even want to look his way. She was pleased he was leaving.
*
It was a long day at the diner for Cristal. She pranced around her apartment in her underwear. Once again she tried to call Daniel, but her calls were still going straight to voice mail. She was concerned about him.
She was starting to feel uncomfortable at work. Too many folks were asking questions and trying to meddle into her business. They were only trying to help, but she didn’t ask for their help.
It was time for a change again, someplace farther away, maybe back to the East Coast. When she looked out of her window and saw the sheriff’s car slowly cruising by where she stayed, she knew Idaho Falls wasn’t the place for her anymore.
It was time to go.
*
Sheriff Harrison walked into the diner out of uniform and with a smile on his face. He was dressed handsomely in a black suit, black shoes, and a blue tie. He carried a cheap bouquet of flowers. It was his moment to ask Julie out on a date, and he wasn’t going to back out this time. He was off duty, so there weren’t going to be any interruptions. The moment he stepped inside the eatery, his eyes whizzed around the place, looking for Julie, but he didn’t see her.
“Mark, where’s Julie today?” he asked.
Mark approached the countertop, wiping his hands on his apron. He looked Sheriff Harrison in the eyes. “She doesn’t work here anymore.”
The sheriff was taken aback. “What? She don’t. Why? You fired her?”
“She quit on me yesterday. Said she was homesick and decided to go back home to Detroit.”
The news was devastating to the sheriff, who suddenly dropped himself into a chair and sulked.
Mark and the other employees noticed his fancy attire and the bouquet of flowers. Mark was curious. “Why the suit?”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Harrison replied.
Who knew the entire time the sheriff was sweet on Julie? Well, he was too late. Julie Norman was long gone.
Twenty
New Orleans was a different from Idaho Falls. It was a larger party city and a warmer place year round. Cristal was in the French Quarter. The area was vibrant with so many colorful people, sights to see, and a variety of food to eat. There was live jazz music in the streets with people drinking outdoors and roaming from bar to bar, their plastic cups filled with liquor. Dozens of folks were loitering above on balconies with elaborate ironwork and hanging from the windows cheering and hollering. It looked like Mardi Gras, but it was late December.
Cristal moved through the party crowd on Bourbon Street looking unassuming in a pair of shapeless sweat pants and white T-shirt, a scarf covering her head, and dark shades concealing her eyes. She had been in New Orleans two days now and was renting a room at the Holiday Inn near the Mississippi River. The bus trip from Idaho to the Big Easy took her four days.
Her first day in New Orleans, Cristal did nothing but sleep. Her hotel room was on the second floor, and she kept the shades drawn, the door double bolted, and the TV off, her small arsenal in the closet. Her cash was running low, but she didn’t plan on looking for a job immediately. She didn’t want to make the same mistake she’d made in Idaho. If she needed money, there were other ways to attain it.
The city was lively with bars, nightclubs, old-fashioned shops, street performers, impromptu jazz music on various street corners, eateries known for their gumbo, and much more. The town felt eerie to Cristal. It was her first time in New Orleans, and she’d heard so much about it, both good and bad. She’d heard that Hurricane Katrina had changed the landscape to most areas. The culture and the state had a strong belief in voodoo or hoodoo, and black magic was practiced a lot in the city. She passed a few old-style shops with mystical-looking voodoo queens dressed in long white gowns, dark skin, and dreadlocks promising to tell people’s future for a price.
The allure was too much for Cristal to pass up. On Royal Street, she walked into one of the small storefronts that publicized reading tarot card and tea leaves for twenty dollars. The shop was bright and had a chilly feel to it. It was filled with all sorts of trinkets and offered a wide variety of items to help people in both learning and practicing spiritual and religious ceremony. Cristal walked farther into the shop and noticed distinctive tribal masks and statues from around the world, symbolizing ancestral connections with the spirit and earth.
A woman emerged from a back room, pushing through the colorful door beads. She was six feet tall with black skin and hazel eyes. Her eyes were almost hypnotic, and it looked like she could stare directly into your soul. Her dreadlocks were rich and brown, flowing down her back, and she was dressed in a long, flowing white robe and slippers.
She held her hand out to Cristal. “You’ve come to the right place."
Cristal sighed. She had left her belief in God a long time ago. However, something inside of her told her not to dabble in black magic. It was evil. It was dangerous grounds. But she didn’t listen. She walked toward the woman like she was magnetic.
“You want your future told?” the woman asked.
“I’m just curious. I really don’t believe in this shit.”
“That’s what they all say, until they see otherwise,” the woman said. “By the way, my name is Lady Ida.”
“And do you know my name?” Cristal challenged her.
Lady Ida smiled. “I see a troubled soul.”
“I bet you do,” Cristal replied dryly.
She followed the woman into the back room, which was decorated in velvet and lavender. The room was dim with purple lighting. A small round table with a purple tablecloth and a tiny antique lamp, with tarot cards and tea leaves under a lace handkerchief stood in the center.
Cristal had never seen anything like it. She was nervous. What if it wasn’t bullshit? What if there was something true to voodoo and fortunetelling?
Lady Ida walked toward the table and motioned for Cristal to follow.
Cristal took a seat opposite the woman. A twenty-dollar bill exchanged hands. Lady Ida poured some warm tea into a tea cup and insisted that Cristal take a drink from it. She was hesitant at first, not knowing what to expect. It could be poison. It could be something to harm her.
Once again, she thought, Why am I doing this?
“It won’t harm you,” Lady Ida said.
Cristal looked intensely into the woman’s face. Her eyes showed years of experience at this kind of thing. She lifted the tea cup and downed the tea. The flavor was mild, with a hint of sweetness. Not bad.
Lady Ida smiled. She made another cup of tea by opening a tin of loose-leaf tea and sprinkling the leaves into a cup of hot water. She was about to exercise her mental creativity. She blocked out all thought. She took a deep breath and tasted the tea. Then she focused on a particular thought. She left a small amount of tea at the bottom of the light-colored teacup. She held the nearly empty cup in her hand and gave it three good swirls and watched the tea leaves disperse around the interior of the cup. Then she dumped out the remaining liquid b
y turning the teacup over into a saucer.
Cristal had no idea what was going on. It all seemed strange to her.
Lady Ida was extremely focused. She had performed this reading hundreds of times, and each time she saw something different. She waited three breaths before turning the cup back over. She was now ready to begin reading the tea leaves for Cristal.
She saw an abstract pattern. She said to Cristal, “I see a man. He’s someone who loves you deeply, and you love him too. He’s far away, but somehow you’re able to communicate with him. But if you continue to long for him, then you’ll put his life in danger.”
Cristal didn’t admit that she was somewhat taken aback by Lady Ida’s reading of the leaves already. The man Lady Ida probably was seeing was Daniel. She didn’t know his name, but she could see his image.
“He’s a handsome man, but I see him in grave danger.”
Cristal remained deadpan. She could be talking about Daniel, and then again she could have had a lot of practice at telling people bullshit and making it come across like it was a message from the universe.
Next, Lady Ida picked up the tarot cards, holding the deck between her hands to warm the energy inside the room, and to focus on Cristal’s thoughts, concerns, and questions. She shuffled the cards, and then she cut the cards three times and placed them into one pile. The cards were controlling her, not the other way around. The universe would soon be sending her a message.
Cristal sat still and silent, watching Lady Ida’s every move. It looked like the cards were dancing and floating in her hands. It was a neat trick so far. Lady Ida could feel the energy flowing, and the cards were going where they needed to go. She laid the cards out across the table, starting with the center card and working through the houses they sat in. She started to turn over the cards.
Suddenly, Lady Ida jumped back, like a jolt of electricity had struck her. She looked frightened about something.
“What is it?” Cristal asked.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve seen, but it will be an extra three hundred dollars.”
Killer Dolls, Part 3 Page 11
