Friends & Foes

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  “You mean Felipe?”

  “Yeah,” she said, shrugging. She just assumed that the ritzy building across the street had front-desk security as well. The disdain on his face told her there was more to their story.

  “Well, I could tell you so much more than Felipe. I mean, he’s only been around the last two years.”

  “I’m sure you could.” She stuck out her lip in a playful pout. “But if you’re uncomfortable, I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to. But I would much rather spend my time interviewing a hunk like yourself.”

  He blushed as Rachel looked him up and down and licked her lips. “Because Felipe doesn’t have anything on you,” she added.

  He looked at her pensively. “The story is positive, right?”

  “Of course.” She looked into her purse and silently cursed herself for not bringing a notepad. It would look pretty tacky for her to pull out her light bill and start writing on the back.

  “Do you mind if I record this?” she asked, pulling out her BlackBerry after it dawned on her that the phone had a voice recorder. “It won’t take long. I just want to ask what a typical day is like for you.”

  Rachel hoped Victor wouldn’t be long-winded as he began explaining his very boring day with the enthusiasm of a rocket scientist.

  Back in the day, she’d wanted to be a reporter, but since she never quite made it through college, that was a dream she’d never realized. She asked Victor a few other questions about being appreciated and his dream job—which was to be a Calvin Klein model. As if.

  Finally, she said, “I’m sure part of what you have to do involves protecting the place?”

  “I’m kind of a jack-of-all-trades.”

  “I’m sure it’s difficult keeping track of everything. Do you have any help? I mean with a place like this, I’m sure there is some top-notch security.”

  “You would think, wouldn’t you? But no, we just have a regular old video camera system,” Victor said, pointing to a desk that showed several cameras. “Nothing ever happens around here. But just in case, we record everything to the back office.” He pointed over his shoulder.

  Rachel asked him a couple more questions, then said, “Okay, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get a few more pictures for my story.” She pointed the BlackBerry at him. He frowned at the sight of her camera phone.

  “Oh, you know technology these days. This is a high-tech camera phone so we don’t have to carry around bulky equipment anymore.” The answer seemed to appease him. She looked around, turning up her nose. “You know, this area is so dull and bland. It isn’t doing you justice. Maybe we can go in the back office.”

  “Well . . .” he hesitantly began.

  Rachel couldn’t believe what she was about to do, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  She slithered closer. “I mean, I would really love to go in the back, to, umm, take the photo, then see what else we could get into.”

  He looked at her, stunned, as it dawned on him what she was saying.

  Rachel ran a finger across his protruding stomach. “It’s something about a man with some meat on his bones that turns me on,” she said seductively.

  A big grin spread across Victor’s face. Rachel glanced back to see if she could spot Jasmine, but of course, that skank was staying out of sight.

  “Well, it is kind of quiet right now. Guess I could spare a few minutes to, umm, take some pictures,” he said with a sly grin.

  “So, do you keep a stack of tapes?” Rachel asked once they were in the back office. “That might make a good visual, standing you next to that.”

  He laughed. “Tapes? Nah, everything is digital. Stored on the server.” He pointed to a massive electrical unit. “So, let’s get your photo so we can, ummm, get to know each other better. I’m gonna have to get back up front in a minute.”

  Rachel’s mind raced as she tried to think. She hadn’t accounted for technology. She thought she was just going to have to figure out a way to steal a tape. She hadn’t thought about the fact that everything would be digital.

  “Okay,” she said, taking out her phone again. “Oooh, hold on. My boss is texting me.” She pulled the phone to her and began typing.

  Jasmine, I’m in the back office trying to get the video. Need u to come create a major distraction ASAP. No questions. Just hurry!

  She hoped Jasmine didn’t try and be a butthole and not come. Right now, a distraction was the only way she could get to that server.

  Victor cleared his throat. “Ahem.”

  “Sorry,” she replied. “Okay, stand over there.” She pointed to the corner. While he posed, Rachel took picture after picture, praying Jasmine wouldn’t let her down.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” he finally announced. “Told you, I don’t have much time.” He licked his lips. “And I have something else I’d much rather be doing.” He flashed a wicked grin and stepped toward her. Rachel felt bile building in the pit of her stomach.

  “Bring your fine behind to daddy,” he said with a throaty moan.

  Rachel held out her hand to stop him just as he leaned in to kiss her. “Umm, do you have some wine or something? I’m a little nervous.”

  “No, no drinks allowed in here. Can’t have liquid around the server. Plus, they overwork me and I haven’t had a chance to back up anything in the last two weeks.”

  That was music to her ears. “Oh,” she said, pouting when she really wanted to rejoice. That meant the only copy of the surveillance video was on that machine. “That’s a shame. Because, I tell you. If you want to see me get wild and loose, just give me even a half a cup of wine.” She giggled.

  His eyes danced in anticipation. “Well, I do keep some Boone’s Farm and some weed in my car. We could go out there.”

  Boone’s Farm? Rachel guessed the immaculate appearance was just for the job. Underneath it all, he was just a Chicago hoodrat. “Or you could go get it,” she said, running her hands up the center of his thigh. “The wine at least. I’m not a smoker.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he panted. “Hot diggity dog! My boys ain’t gonna believe this,” he sang as he raced out the door.

  Rachel raced over to the server. She had no idea where to even begin. All the switches, buttons, and levers were completely foreign to her. “Where the heck is the Delete button?” she muttered.

  She punched a host of buttons but nothing happened. She heard Victor shuffling back in, so she had to quickly turn around.

  “Time to get wild and loose,” he said, holding up the bottle of strawberry Boone’s Farm. Rachel forced back her groan. What type of man actually kept cheap wine in his car?

  He handed her a Styrofoam cup, quickly screwed the top off, then poured some of the beverage into her cup.

  “Drink up. Time’s a’tickin’.”

  Think, Rachel, think. Where the heck was Jasmine? If that heifer didn’t come through . . .

  She slowly sipped her drink while Victor eyed her like a hawk about to move in on its prey.

  “Okay, I don’t have time to wait for the wine to go to work,” he said, taking her cup from her and sitting the bottle on the counter next to the server. She needed to figure out how to get him to show her how the server worked. Maybe she should just come clean. Maybe he would help her delete the video if she told him the truth. Or maybe he would be so mad about her leading him on that he’d turn her in to the police. No, she couldn’t chance it.

  But as she watched Victor remove his belt and start unbuttoning his pants, she knew she couldn’t go so far as to sleep with this man either.

  “Ummph, I can’t believe I’m about to get with a woman this fine,” he said, thrusting his crotch toward her. “I’m about to rock your world, girl.”

  Rachel was about to abort the whole mission when she heard a loud crash coming from the lobby area.

  “What the—?” Victor said, jumping back.

  He raced out to the front and Rachel jumped up to once again try to figure out ho
w to delete the files on the server. After a few seconds of pounding keys to no avail, Rachel spotted the bottle of wine on the counter. Without thinking, she reached over, grabbed the bottle, then proceeded to dump the entire contents onto the server. She immediately heard sizzling, then hissing, then finally a plume of smoke rose from the machine.

  She’d just set the bottle back down when Victor raced back into the room. “You’re not going to believe this. Someone just broke the big glass table in the lobby. Then—” His words stopped midsentence when he saw the smoke. “Holy crap!”

  He raced over to the server. “What’s going on?” he said, panicked.

  “I have no idea! When you jumped up, you knocked over the wine and it spilled onto that thing,” she said, pointing at the server.

  “Oh, my God!” he yelled, grabbing his shirt and trying to dab the keyboard. “It’s destroyed! This is a thirty-thousand-dollar machine!” The sizzling continued, followed by a few snaps, crackles, and pops.

  Rachel suppressed a smile. Destroyed? Oh, this worked out better than she expected.

  Victor began pounding his head, muttering a string of obscenities. “I am in so much trouble,” he cried.

  “Well, look, I see things have gotten kind of hectic.” She grabbed her purse. “So I’m going to get going.” She squeezed his arm. “Thanks for everything. Hope it all works out!”

  Thankfully, he was so frazzled that he didn’t pay her any attention as she darted out the door. She stepped over the broken glass covering the lobby floor. A few people had started to gather, eyeing the damage. Rachel smiled to herself. So Jasmine had come through.

  But she wouldn’t give Jasmine all the glory. She’d destroyed the video—something that Jasmine had zero confidence that she would be able to pull off. But that’s what Jasmine got for underestimating her. Sooner or later, Jasmine and everyone else would realize that she always came out on top.

  Chapter

  SIXTEEN

  Jasmine kept her eyes on her cell phone screen.

  What in the world did that child get into? Jasmine wondered as she read Rachel’s text again.

  At first, when she’d received Rachel’s SOS, Jasmine had chosen to ignore it. After all, isn’t this what she’d come to Chicago to do? To make sure that Rachel created havoc and drew major attention to herself at the same time?

  But as she sat sipping her Starbucks, Jasmine read the text over a few times. There was something about the last words—Create a major distraction ASAP. No questions. Just hurry—that made Jasmine decide that she couldn’t just sit there. Maybe it was the “just hurry” that had Jasmine going. She could hear the panic and fear in those words. There was no telling what kind of idiotic move that girl had made, but no matter what, Jasmine couldn’t just leave Rachel out there like that. Her goal wasn’t for Rachel to end up dead or even physically hurt—she just wanted her arrested.

  So, Jasmine had left Starbucks and done something. She just prayed that it had worked.

  “Jasmine!”

  She’d been so focused on her cell, reading Rachel’s text once again, that she didn’t even notice Rachel drive up. She hopped into the car, slammed the door, then turned to Rachel as she swerved away from the curb.

  “What happened?”

  Rachel shook her head. “You don’t even want to know.”

  “Uh, yeah, I do. I had to sneak in the side door and destroy that beautiful glass table, then run like some criminal before anyone saw me! So don’t tell me that I don’t want to know. Girl, please!” Jasmine sucked her teeth. “You better tell me.”

  “Okay!” Rachel exclaimed as she maneuvered the car with one hand and pressed the other against her chest as if she was trying to tell her heart to calm down. She was silent for a while, putting her thoughts together. Then, “It was just horrible,” she said, before she began to tell Jasmine the story of Victor. “He was all over me,” Rachel said when she got to the part of how she got him into the security room. “And I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “So you had me put myself in jeopardy of being arrested because you were trying to get your freak on?”

  “Have you not heard a word of what I said? It was just a ploy to get him back there.”

  “A stupid ploy!”

  “A ploy that worked!” She paused and then grinned as she waited a moment to appreciate the look of surprise on Jasmine’s face. “That’s right,” Rachel said. “I destroyed the server. The whole thing went . . . up in smoke.” Rachel giggled as if she was replaying that part in her head.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Rachel finished the story, telling how she’d destroyed the server with half a bottle of Boone’s Farm.

  Jasmine shook her head as she listened. She had to give it to Rachel—she’d helped her cause . . . and kind of blew up Jasmine’s cause at the same time.

  Rachel said, “So, now that I did what I came to Chicago to do, we can go home.”

  “Really? Just like that?”

  Rachel gave Jasmine a quick glance, then turned her eyes back to the road. “All I wanted to do was get that videotape. Whether it’s in my hands or destroyed doesn’t matter to me. As long as no one will be able to see me,” she paused and glanced once more at Jasmine, “or you on that tape, we’re good.”

  “So you’re going to just head back to the airport right now? Without really taking care of business?”

  Rachel slammed on the brakes, deciding not to run a red light, and jerking Jasmine forward at the same time. Now, she faced Jasmine full-on. “Didn’t you hear a word I said?” she asked, raising her voice. She slowed her cadence. “There’s . . . no . . . need . . . for . . . us . . . to . . . stay.” She spoke as if Jasmine was deaf and dumb. “We’re . . . good.”

  Jasmine wanted to slap the Chihuahua-faced ninny, but she had to play nice until her deed was done. “I’m just saying there is one more thing that we need to do.”

  Rachel looked at her quizzically.

  “You need to go see Pastor Griffith’s daughter.”

  “What? Why should we do that now? It’s totally unnecessary.”

  “Because coming to Chicago wasn’t about just the videotape. We have to protect you. Get all the information we can, and that includes you talking to Pastor Griffith’s daughter.”

  Rachel was already shaking her head. “I told you, I’m good. Did what I came to do and now I’m out of here.”

  “But what about the letter? Rachel, you really need to take this seriously. Someone saw you.”

  “So what? They can’t prove it. Not without the tape.”

  “You don’t know what kind of proof they have. There could be several eyewitnesses who saw you walk into Pastor Griffith’s apartment. And they won’t need the videotape. One eyewitness can corroborate another’s story.” Jasmine paused as Rachel squinted her eyes, thinking. She added, “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone when you went up to Pastor Griffith’s apartment?”

  Rachel slowed the rental car as they came to another red light. And Jasmine watched Rachel remember that day. “There was someone, but I know she’s not sending me any letters.”

  “Who?”

  “An older lady. She was kneeling on the floor when I got off the elevator; she said she’d been knocked down by some fool.” Rachel stopped and Jasmine could almost see Rachel’s brain ticking as she connected the dots.

  Rachel said, “Do you think whoever knocked that lady down has something to do with all of this?”

  Jasmine nodded slowly. “That’s what I’m thinking. That’s why we need to talk to Eleanor.”

  “But what is that crackhead gonna tell us?”

  “First of all, she’s not a crackhead anymore. And aren’t you related to a crackhead?”

  If Rachel’s head wasn’t covered by her weave, Jasmine was sure she would’ve seen the smoke rising from her brain. “Don’t be talking about my family ’cause I don’t want to have to—”

  “Look.” Jasmine stopped her. “I’m not trying
to start a fight. I’m just making a point. Your brother—”

  “You don’t know nothin’ ’bout my brother! And how do you even know I have a brother?”

  Jasmine raised an eyebrow. After all she’d put this girl through, was Rachel really asking this question? “Okay, so your brother’s not a crackhead, but he was and now he’s fine. That’s all I’m saying about Eleanor. She’s fine, in her right mind, and you don’t know what she may be able to tell us. She might have information about her father that she doesn’t realize she has.”

  “And how is this supposed to help me?”

  “You never know where a clue can pop up. Look, Rachel, all I’m saying is that since we’re here anyway, let’s play this out. Your flight doesn’t leave ’til tomorrow, right? So what do you have to lose?”

  Rachel blinked over and over as if that motion was the motor that got her brain moving.

  Jasmine pushed on. “The worst that could happen is we get nothing. The best . . .” She stopped, knowing Rachel was at least smart enough to finish that.

  “All right,” she said finally, reluctantly. “But I don’t know where she lives.”

  “I have it right here.” Jasmine held up her iPhone. She glanced up at the traffic light. It was green. “Let’s go.”

  Rachel turned off the ignition, then clicked the door handle to open the car door. But when Jasmine didn’t move, Rachel frowned.

  “I’m not going with you,” Jasmine explained before Rachel could even ask the question. “You need to talk to Eleanor by yourself.”

  “What!” Rachel exclaimed. “You just said that we needed to get over here.”

  “We needed to get over here, but you need to be the one who talks to her. You’re the one being blackmailed.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You’re the one who needs the information. No one is coming after me.”

  “So you think Eleanor has something to do with what’s going on?”

  “No, but she may have information and she’s more likely to talk to one person she doesn’t know rather than two.”