Other Men's Wives

by Freddie Lee Johnson III

  She stares hard back at me for a long moment. “I believe you would.”

  I take her hand, softly kiss the center of her palm, then look up into her eyes. “Tell me what you need, June. Just say the word and I'll do what you want, the way you want, for as long as you want.”

  She exhales softly through slightly parted lips, then grabs out a pen and notepad from her purse. She writes her cell phone number on a sheet and shoves into my hand.

  “Don't mess up and not call,” she warns. “I don't give second chances.”

  “I don't need them.”

  Her eyes flash excitedly as she starts the SUV. “Don't make me wait.”

  “That ended the moment we said hello.”

  She smiles and shakes her head, either in admiration or in amazement. “You're certainly a man who won't take no for an answer.”

  I close her door and step away as she backs out of the parking space. She waves as she drives off, passing me as I stride over to my Corvette.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  On my way into lower Cleveland I call Mason Booker's Second Shadow Enterprises. It's embarrassing, asking Mason to nose into my private life, especially for something like this.

  “Second Shadow Enterprises,” Mason answers in his smooth Southern accent. “We're a private contractor ready to serve your surveillance needs.”

  “Hey, Mason. It's me, Denmark.”

  “Well, the moon must be turning blue,” he laughs. “How'zit going, Denmark?”

  I almost start to answer that everything's fine, but stop. “Things could be better.”

  He's instantly serious. “Okay. Clue me in.”

  “I'd rather do it in person. Can you make some time for me today?”

  “I'd make time for you on any day. When can you stop by?”

  I'm relieved and give him an estimate of when I'll be there after I've stopped by to see Jiao Minh Xing, the Electronics Doctor. We hang up, and thirty-five minutes later I'm in lower Cleveland, rolling slowly down Henley Avenue, passing bar after bar as I look for Jiao's shop.

  Two drunks are fighting out in front of Rockin’ Rodney's. In the trash-strewn alley next to Jackson's Joint a man and a woman are groping each other like two lusting octopi. Bald-headed, shade-wearing, muscleman-tee–shirted, gun-toting gang bangers, most of them gabbing on cell phones, cluster outside of Dusky Pleasures. And the bright red, purple, and green neon flashing letters over Babes, Booze'n Billiards advertises: “Tonight Only—Come See Marilyn's Mammoth Mountains!”

  The light at an intersection turns red. I stop and double-check the address for the Electronics Doctor. “Eleven-eleven Henley Avenue is what he said,” I mutter.

  I also check the time. It's 5:20 p.m. The Electronics Doctor closes at 6 p.m. on Fridays, so I've got to hurry. The light turns green, and I roll through the intersection. An olive-skinned woman wearing bright red thigh-high boots, painfully tight white short-shorts, and a bright red halter that's barely halting her nipples calls to me from a corner. “Hey, sweet daddy, you want a date?”

  She ought to fire the cross-eyed stylist who gave her that Old English sheepdog hair weave. I chuckle and keep rolling. It's been a while since I've been in this kind of setting, and I don't know whether to feel sad or glad about feeling so comfortable so quickly. Maybe Sierra's family was right. Maybe I'd never have fit into their world no matter how hard I tried.

  I keep rolling and finally see the Electronics Doctor. I pull up in front, park, and go inside. A weak buzzer whines when I open the door, but it's barely noticeable over the blaring country-western music. At least it's Charlie Pride, one of the few, and certainly one of the most famous, black country-western singers.

  I stroll to the counter and look around. This place is a junkyard for TV sets, video players and cameras, computer monitors, and anything else that beams an image or used to. Boxes of parts and accessories clutter the floor. Stacks of used and battered videotape cassettes crowd the small, narrow counter, its space further diminished and made unusable by the buckled vomit-green linoleum.

  I search the chaotic counter, see a handbell, and pound it. “Wait!” someone yells from the back.

  “How long?” I shout.

  There's no answer.

  “How long?” I shout again.

  “Till I finished!”

  I look around at some obsolete arcade video machines. Sierra and I used to go to the mall arcade and spend hours playing each other. At first, she couldn't see the point. After a while, she was trouncing me at my best games.

  “What's problem?” someone yells from behind.

  I turn around quickly and see Jiao Minh Xing. He's fixing his shirt and trousers and finger-combing his tousled shiny black hair. He fumbles beneath the counter, and the music's volume decreases.

  “People piss me off,” he complains. “Always interrupt when I taking a dump.”

  I ignore Jiao's disgusting comment and get to the point. “I'm Denmark Wheeler. Chief Dan Parker recommended that I…”

  “Yeah, yeah, what's problem? Talk fast. I had long day and no feel like baloney.”

  I pull the DVD disk from my inner jacket pocket. “There's a blurry image of my, ah, a man on this disk and I'd like for you to clear …”

  He snatches it from my hand, shoves aside a pile of magazines, and slips the disk into a DVD player.

  “Hey!” I protest. “You can't watch that here.”

  The monitor sitting on a shelf above it bursts into life, showing Sierra on her knees in front of Mr. X.

  “Wow!” Jiao exclaims. “She got talent.”

  “Let's skip the commentary, okay?”

  Jiao glances at me, grins, and stares back at the monitor. “Hmm,” he says. “Look like combination digitized distortion, satellite suppression splicing, and SELF scrambling.”

  “SELF?”

  “Super Extra Low Frequency.”

  I lean close to the monitor screen with Jiao, both of us staring side by side as Sierra thrills Mr. X.

  “How can you tell?” I ask.

  Jiao points, touching the screen. “See outer edges of head blur?”

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “Spectral wobble. Solar coronal effect.” He leans closer and talks to himself again. “Barely visible.”

  I look at Jiao, the monitor, the DVD player, and 1 wonder how he's seeing anything on this junky equipment. Jiao notices me casting doubtful glances.

  “No be fooled by appearances,” he cautions. “Good equipment. I build myself.”

  “You build your own stuff?”

  He ignores the question. “This maybe satellite overlay with VTM hyper-spanning intermix flux.”

  “What's a … ”

  “Or reverse feed microwave bandwidth decelerator.”

  I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”

  There's a crash at the front door. Jiao and I whirl around and see a tall, formidable black woman storming in. “I'm gone wring your neck, you cheating little bastard!” she hollers.

  Her face looks like it's been stomped by horses, but her body could inspire myths about Amazon warrior women. Her dark skin contrasts nicely in a strange sort of way with the bright, blonde braids draping her shoulders.

  Sweat boulders roll down Jiao's forehead. He wrings his hands and mutters in Vietnamese. The woman stomps over to the counter, shoves me aside, and snatches Jiao by his collar.

  “Sharonda Jefferson!” the woman shouts, shaking Jiao like a rag doll. “Are you sleeping with her?”

  “No baby! Jiao give loving only to you!”

  She slings him from side to side. “That ain't what I been hearing. I heard that you've been loving Sharonda large, and with my credit card!”

  “Please baby. Let Jiao explain. I … ”

  She whacks him upside his head and throws him up against the counter. Jiao slams into the DVD player and monitor, knocking them off the counter. They crash onto the floor, and my insides shrivel. I try to see the extent of the damage but have to duck a wi
ld looping punch thrown by this mad woman. Jiao barely gets out of the way before she knocks a hole into a wooden display.

  “Start talking!” she demands, struggling to pull her fist free. “Explain them roses my cousin saw you buying for Sharonda Jefferson while ya'll was in that florist shop on Tanglewood and Frisser.”

  Jiao falls to his knees and clasps his hands in front of him like he's praying. “For you, baby! Roses for you! Shar, Shar …”

  “Sharonda fool!”

  Jiao nods emphatically. “She help Jiao pick out. She say she know what colors you like. Jiao was going to give you tonight.”

  The woman's face softens ever so slightly. “Huh? You bought some roses for me?”

  “Swear to Buddha, ah, I mean your God, baby. Jiao no need nobody but you!”

  She grabs his collar, yanks him to his feet, and shakes him again. “Where are they?”

  Jiao points beneath the counter. The woman tosses him aside and pulls out a sky-blue box wrapped with a bright red ribbon tied into a large heart-shaped bow. She tears open the box, sees the roses, and smiles.

  “Oh Jiao!” she cries, suddenly sounding like a spring debutante. “They're beautiful.”

  She grabs trembling Jiao, lifts him from his feet, and squeezes him until his eyes bulge.

  “Careful … baby,” he gasps. “You know how easy I … ”

  She plants her mouth over his and shoves her tongue down his throat for a slobbering tongue-to-tonsils kiss.

  Jiao pulls his head back and sucks in a breath. “Be gentle, baby. I … ”

  She laughs and tosses Jiao onto a box of videotape cassettes that sends them clattering onto the floor. She grabs the roses off the counter, snatches a handful of Jiao's shirt, yanks him to his feet, and pulls him close until they're nose to nose.

  “I'm going to the apartment,” she says in a soft sexy growl. “You close up at 6, which means you'd better be with me by 6:05. You got it?”

  Jiao gulps. “Okay, baby. Jiao come quick. Love only you!”

  She snorts, tosses her hair, and pounds out from behind the counter. I'm in the way again, and she shoves me aside. I stagger back into an open cabinet of video games. Several fall, clonking me on the head. The Amazon thunders out, slamming the door shut. Jiao and I glance at each other.

  “That's some woman,” I say, rubbing my head.

  “She ten women,” Jiao mutters glumly, “and they all trying to kill me.” He snaps his fingers. “You go now. I close up. Daisy really pissed if I not on time.”

  “Daisy?” I repeat, smirking.

  Jiao glares, looks over at his DVD unit and monitor on the floor, and spews a cloud of English-Vietnamese expletives.

  “Fourth time this month she break stuff,” he complains. “Someday I find new babe”—he glances at his watch—“but not today.”

  I look around the clutter and gasp. Lying on the floor near the destroyed electronics equipment is my DVD disk, broken into several jagged pieces.

  I grab them up. “Look what you and that maniac did!” I accuse. “Now I'll never know who's behind the blur.”

  Jiao dismisses me with an impatient wave. “Stop busting Jiao's balls. You still get to know who poking woman.”

  “Impossible!” I declare, waving the shattered disk pieces under his nose. “Even you can't reconstruct this!”

  Jiao narrows his eyes. “No need to with copy.”

  “What copy?”

  He points to a small computer-looking device beneath the counter. “Signal image capture processor. Daisy all the time destroying stuff, so I build. Get automatic copy from primary unit.”

  He flips up a screen and presses a green button. Sierra fills the screen. She's on her knees in front of Mr. X, diligently pursuing her task. And the image is more brilliant and clear than the original.

  I look at Jiao and smile. “You're the real deal.”

  He ignores me and focuses hard on the screen. “Guy who did this knows his stuff,” he says. “Really knows.”

  “Obviously,” I grump. “Can you figure it out?”

  “Of course!” Jiao snaps indignantly.

  “How soon?”

  Jiao shrugs. “Work at home. Best equipment there.”

  “But this is really important. If you could just tell me … ”

  “You no harass Jiao. I make you copy. You go choke chicken till I finished.”

  I clench my jaw. “Look! I've got a divorce hearing coming up pretty soon and …”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jiao interrupts. “No bust my balls. You leave. I go keep Daisy happy. Jiao live longer.”

  I couldn't care less about Jiao's domestic difficulties, but what can I do? “Just tell me this much,” I say. “How clear do you think you can get the image?”

  Jiao smiles. “When I finished, you see lint hairs in lover-boy's bellybutton.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Mason Booker's Second Shadow Enterprises is located in a seen-its-better-days business block, sitting between two expanding industrial parks that have steadily crowded out homeowners, schools, and green space. His office is in a narrow two-story building in a row of buildings, a pawn shop to his right and a tattoo parlor on the left.

  I get out of the Corvette and march up to the front door of Second Shadow Enterprises. The door's locked, so I press the intercom button. Mason's melodious Southern-accented voice comes through the speaker like a cat's claw scratching tin.

  “Can ah help you?”

  “Mason, it's me, Denmark Wheeler.”

  Mason buzzes the door open. “Come on in,” invites his scratchy disembodied voice.

  I slip inside and wait until the door's heavy lock clicks solidly shut. “I'm back here in my office,” Mason announces.

  I ease my way around the two other workstations of Mason's co-investigators. His enclosed office is in a rear corner. His door's open, and his radio's turned up loud. I step into the doorway, and he looks up from some paperwork, snapping his fingers and smiling.

  At an even six feet, Mason's a ruggedly handsome man with medium chocolate skin, a nicely trimmed five-o’-clock-shadow beard, a wide-nostril nose, a squared mouth, high cheekbones, large penetrating dark brown eyes, and an all-around tight haircut. He's not heavily muscled but definitely well-toned, a necessity for his line of work.

  “Man, ah love myself some George Benson,” he comments.

  I nod and purse my lips. Benson's singing words that match my dismal reality: “We're lost inside this lonely game we play.”

  Mason gestures for me to sit in one of the simply styled, thick-cushioned chairs in front of his desk. He turns off his radio and closes the folder of whatever case he's working on. Then he sits back in his chipped and creaky wooden swivel chair, drumming his desktop with the fingers of his right hand while gripping the chair's armrest with his left.

  “It's good to see you, Denmark,” he says. “It's been a while.”

  “It's good seeing you too. You're in a good mood.”

  “Ah oughta be,” he answers buoyantly. “Business is booming. May the world keep producing embezzlers, swindlers, liars, and cheats.”

  I laugh grimly. “I don't think you'll be facing a shortage anytime soon.”

  “That's bad for society but good for me. So Denmark, what kin ah do for you?”

  “I need some work done. And I need it quick!”

  “No problem. Tell me the employee's name, and ah'll get right on it.”

  “It's not an employee, Mason. It's personal. It's for … me.”

  The smile drops from Mason's face. He sits up straight, plants his forearms flat on the desk, and interlaces his fingers. “Ah'm listening,” he says, his tone instantly all business.

  I look down into my lap. Mason once remarked at a company picnic I'd invited him to attend that if he ever got married, he wanted his relationship to be like the one I had with Sierra. A nanosecond later he added, “But marriage is a long shot for me.”

  “Why?” I'd asked.

  He snorted with dis
dain. “Who needs the aggravation?”

  “Sorry, Mason, but you're wrong!” I corrected. “Aggravation was when I had to constantly duck, dodge, and outmaneuver all the baggage-dragging, poison-attitude drama queens, gold-diggers, neurotics, and fatally attracted psychos of the dating world.”

  Mason clapped me on the shoulder and smiled. “That's great, Denmark. Count yourself a blessed man amidst a sea of sad married schmucks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He chuckled. “Seventy percent of mah cases are wives'n husbands who suspect that their honey-buns are doing the fat-nasty with somebody else. The sad part is that they're mostly right!”

  I was incredulous. “Are you for real?”

  Mason laughed. “But believe it or not, ah'm a fan of marriage. The more we have of ’em, the better. It's good for the economy. Jewelers, bridal shops, and caterers get ’em at the start. Me and the lawyers get ’em at the end.”

  There's a millstone of embarrassment hanging from my neck as I prepare to admit to Mason that I'm one of those spouses he's getting at the end. I'm one of his seventy percent, just another statistically failed sad married schmuck.

  There's no face-saving way of telling Mason, so I just say it. “My wife's been cheating, and I want you to identify her lover.”

  Mason purses his lips, lowers his eyes, and shakes his head sadly. “Ah'm sorry to hear that, Denmark.”

  “Not as sorry as I am to tell you.”

  Mason shrugs. “Okay. When ah find ’em should ah cut off his balls, or do you wanna do it?”

  I answer with a wry smirk to match his. “Let me do it. He's been plowing my field, so it's only right that I mangle his tools.”

  We laugh the kind of laughter that's desperate to deflate the uncomfortable tension filling the office. It doesn't help, so Mason presses ahead. I'm grateful. The best way to end this awkward meeting is to hurry and end it.

  He picks up a pen and taps it on a yellow legal pad. “Okay. You probably want this information sooner than later, so it'll help if you can gimme some clues.”

  I pull the “I Got Your Back, Inc.,” FedEx envelope from my briefcase and toss it onto his desk. “You can start with this.”