Dutch III: International Gangster

by Teri Woods

  “Brigade attack! Incoming, one, two—get down, get down!”

  Nurse Green ran into the room. Delores didn’t know what to do. Bernard appeared to be awake because his eyes were open, but actually, he wasn’t. He was having a nightmare.

  “It’s okay. We’re here, we’re right here,” said Nurse Green, awakening Bernard from a deep sleep as she rubbed his chest and arms, talking him out of the nightmare he was in.

  He opened his eyes, looked around the room, then stared into the eyes of a smiling Nurse Green. “Aw damn, I been caught,” he said, looking at the white woman.

  “You’re not caught. You’re right here.” She chuckled, patting his shoulder. “What am I going to do with you, huh?” she asked him, as if he was joking. “That’s what he always says when I wake him up from his nightmares,” she said, speaking to Delores as she held a cup of water for him to sip from a straw.

  Delores looked on, realizing this wasn’t dementia, this was something else.

  “Can I speak with you?” Delores asked, moving away from the bed. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Delores wasn’t a medical professional, but then again you didn’t need to be to tell something was off about him, really off.

  “He has kidney failure, sclerosis of the liver, high blood pressure, and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder?” questioned Delores, not sure what that was.

  “From the Vietnam War, when he served,” responded Nurse Green. “He’s suffering from a nervous breakdown, and he’s to the point where he can’t take care of himself.”

  Delores thought back to yesteryear and the strong, tall, handsome soldier she remembered from her dreams.

  “We would have transferred him to a mental facility but his blood pressure was high when he was admitted. When I told him that he was going to be transported to a facility in Trenton, New Jersey, that could care for him, he asked me to call you. So, I went on the Internet yellow pages, looked you up, and called. If you’re not willing to take him and sign him out, I’ll be transporting him to Bellevue once his vitals are stable.”

  Bellevue, thought Delores. She knew if they were shipping him to Bellevue then he wasn’t mentally stable at all.

  She went and sat by the bed, once again taking his hand in hers. He turned his head toward her as if seeing her for the first time.

  “Delores… It’s you,” Bernard said, hardly able to talk, he was filled with so much emotion.

  “Yes, I’m here,” she said realizing that he didn’t remember an hour ago. Oh boy, she thought to herself.

  “Delores, please, please, they got me. Please, Delores, please get me out of here. Please don’t let them take me, Delores. Don’t let me die here,” he begged her.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let them take you nowhere and you not dying no time soon. You coming with me, Bernard. You’re coming home with me.”

  She looked at his nurse. “You can go ahead and get the papers ready. I’ll sign for him,” she said, positive she was doing the right thing. Delores didn’t have to give it a second thought. There was no way she would leave him behind, no way she’d let them lock him away in a facility for the mentally ill. She had no choice. She had to take him with her. Now, after all these years, he would finally be home, home where he belonged, with her.

  NINA TIME

  Paris, France

  Nina arrived in Paris, touching down one day before Craze, Angel, and Rahman. Craze had previously made arrangements for her, knowing he wouldn’t be there when she landed. Nina followed the signs to baggage claim holding a Rosetta Stone translation booklet in her hand. A man wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie was waving a sign that read Nina Martin. She smiled, walked toward him, and introduced herself.

  “Hello, how are you?” he asked in his native language.

  Rosetta Stone ready, she responded, “I am well, thank you.”

  “Do you have luggage?” he asked as she stared blankly, not remembering that line from her studies.

  He pointed to the baggage belt and asked her again.

  “Oh, yes, luggage.” She smiled as she walked over to the belt.

  The driver got her bags and opened the door to the black S600 Mercedes for her to get into the back passenger seat.

  “Thank you,” she said as the door closed behind her. An envelope marked “Nina” sat on the seat next to her, as did a single rose. She opened the envelope, reading the card; “Dinner.”

  The driver pulled into the Hôtel de Crillon where she was booked in a suite on the fifth floor. A doorman opened the car door and assisted her exit.

  “Welcome, madam. The front desk is through the door and to the left,” the doorman said as he began taking the luggage from the driver.

  “How much do I owe you?” she asked the driver in English, forgetting she needed to speak in French. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, repeating her question in French.

  “It’s already taken care of, thank you, and enjoy Paris. It is a very beautiful and very romantic city.”

  “Thank you,” she said, passing him a tip before making her way to the front desk. She approached the front desk manager, giving him her driver’s license and credit card.

  “Do you have luggage?” he asked in his best effort at English.

  “Yes,” she responded, letting him know she had a little continental etiquette.

  “Franco, can you take Ms. Martin’s bags to her room, please? She’s in the penthouse suite. This will not be necessary. Your room is completely taken care of,” he said, smiling and passing her back her driver’s license and credit card.

  “Oh, thank you,” she responded, the words “completely taken care of” ringing in her head.

  “Here you go,” he said, speaking in French and dangling a key chain between his thumb and pointer finger. “You are booked in the Bernstein Suite. This is the key to turn the elevator lock. After you unlock it,” he said, sticking the key into the air and turning it to the left, “press 5.” He smiled using his pointer finger to press nothing. “Make sure you lock it again,” he said, turning the key back the other way, “so only you have access to the floor.” Then, in English, he asked, “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, elevator key,” she said, waving the key in the air as he just had. “Room key, right?” she said, acknowledging the other key.

  “Very good for you. Enjoy your stay with us.”

  I plan to. I really do. Nina smiled as she strolled across the lobby and took the elevator to the fifth floor. The double doors acted as the doorway, and stepping inside the suite was like slipping into a fantasy, an enchanted, traditional, lush, and lavish fantasy world filled with the finest china, silver, tapestries, furnishings, floor coverings, chandeliers, painted cathedral ceilings, and true-blue Egyptian linens. She felt like Mary Antoinette, the queen of France. So this is eating cake?

  The telephone rang and the thought ran through her, Dutch, it’s him.

  “Hello,” she said, answering the phone before the second ring.

  “Good evening, madam, my name is Alfred and I am your evening butler. I want to make sure your stay with us is most enjoyable. Do you need my assistance?” he asked in a twisted but understandable English.

  “Umm . . .” Nina thought for a minute if she needed anything. “I would like some water,” she said, hoping it wasn’t too much to ask.

  “Right away, ma’am, right away.”

  He dropped the line and in less than forty seconds Nina heard a knock from a side hallway door that led to the butler’s chambers.

  “Good evening, Miss Martin,” he said, greeting her in his native French, as he walked through the door she held open for him.

  “Good evening, sir. Thank you,” she replied, accepting the water from him.

  He stood vigil, as if he were not just a butler, but a keeper of sorts. “I have been instructed to give you this, a gift from Mr. James.”

  “A gift?” Nina questioned, taking the
red-gold-trimmed Cartier box from her butler’s hands.

  She opened it, looking at the twenty-carat aquamarine-colored stones trimmed in carat-cut round diamond earrings along with a matching diamond necklace containing one large aquamarine stone that dangled on her chest.

  “Oh, my . . .” Her breath escaped her and she thought she might faint. Tears came to her eyes. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” she said, covering her mouth in sheer amazement.

  “Rachel had these flown in from New York today. They were actually delivered an hour ago. I haven’t had time to take them out of the boxes.” He smiled as he placed four boxes containing four exquisitely designed evening gowns next to her.

  “Rachel?” Nina asked.

  “Rachel Roy and I think you will find them . . .”

  “This is the most beautiful gown I’ve ever seen in my life,” Nina interrupted, gazing at the baby-blue silk gown, lightly beaded, trimmed, and absolutely stunning.

  “She was instructed to design them for a princess.”

  “Really?” Nina stopped, looking up at him, opening another box.

  “Yes, of course.” He smiled knowingly, because he was the one who had given the instruction to Rachel himself. “The car will be here to pick you up at six o’clock. Are you sure you don’t need anything else?”

  “No, thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Of course. Let me get your stylists for your hair and your makeup—we don’t want you to be late,” he said before leaving the room.

  Nina was speechless for the first time in her life. She had never imagined that her dreams could come true. But today one of them had. She looked at the diamond necklace and earrings, the Rachel Roy originals, then around the vast penthouse suite designed for a queen and king. All this. He didn’t have to do all this, she said to herself, thinking of Dutch and how beautiful she wanted to look for him. Nina was happy and excited at the prospect of seeing Dutch, anticipating the entire evening. Bathed, dressed, primped, and completely assisted, she swooshed out the door and stepped onto the elevator, facing Alfred, Marceline, and Josée.

  “Have a wonderful time. You look absolutely beautiful. He will love you,” said Josée, the hairdresser who had swept her hair up, leaving dangling strands lying perfectly, on the side.

  “Yes, absolutely beautiful. He won’t be able to resist you,” said the girl who had done her makeup as she blotted the side of Nina’s face, touching her up in the elevator light.

  “I feel like Cinderella.”

  “You are more Cinderella than she herself, except you don’t have to worry about the stroke of midnight.”

  A driver was waiting for her and quickly swept her inside the car and down the street. He drove to the Seine’s waterfront, where a private sixty-foot yacht was waiting for her to board.

  She boarded the yacht as a servant assisted her, handing her a glass of champagne.

  “Thank you.” She smiled as Dutch emerged from inside and walked toward her. He looked like the million-dollar man, wearing a black tuxedo. A classical quartet played in the background near a candlelit table decorated with the finest china. Their eyes locked, and in that moment, everything that hadn’t been said was finally spoken.

  Nina ran to him, enfolding him in her arms. “I missed you so much,” she said, looking into his eyes. Their lips found each other’s as they gently kissed.

  “I missed you, too,” Dutch said, looking into her eyes.

  “Dinner is served,” said a butler, followed by two servers who pulled chairs from the table for Dutch and Nina to be seated.

  The dinner was fabulous. Their menu consisted of Cajun crusted rib-eye with fresh blue cheese cream, alongside apricot chicken marsala, curried rice with shrimp, Portuguese-style collard greens, and sweet cream cornbread. The two talked and danced and shared the past three years.

  Of course she needed him to know that she had a change of heart and was rushing to see him at the courthouse, but was too late. By the time she had gotten there it was a fiasco—commotion from the police, the news reporters, and then the courthouse catching fire, and finally came the news reports that he was dead.

  “I came, you know. I was there that day, but you were gone and they said you were dead and… all this time all I wished was that I had gotten the chance to tell you,” she said, fading off, not quite completing the sentence.

  “Tell me what?” he asked, wanting to hear what she had to say.

  “I wish I had gotten the chance to tell you how much I love you,” she confessed, looking into his eyes, telling him the God’s honest truth.

  “I hope you mean that, because I wouldn’t have you here if I didn’t think you did.”

  Dutch played no games and had no time for bullshit. It was then he told her how Craze had helped him escape from the courthouse, how Mr. Odouwo got him safely out of the country, and about his new business dealings with the Odouwo family and the diamond trade. It all made sense to Nina, everything he said helped fill in the missing pieces of all that she had wondered over the past three years.

  “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you come back for me sooner?” she asked, wishing that he hadn’t stayed away for so long.

  Truth was he wanted to. But with Nina, there was no telling. What if she didn’t come? What if she didn’t want him? He couldn’t risk playing games in the States. The stakes for him were too high.

  Dutch didn’t answer her, but rather closed in on her, wanting his body next to hers. He kissed her passionately, holding her neck as his hand slid down her back, his fingers unzipping her gown. Nina had been waiting for this moment for three years. She had dreamed him and felt him thousands of miles away and now, finally, here she was with him. They took off each other’s clothes, and as Dutch gently lay on top of her, their bodies combined together as one.

  “I love you, Dutch, I love you,” she cried, as Dutch made passionate love to her until both collapsed into a deep sleep.

  Nina awoke the next morning to find herself alone. She rolled over and immediately sat up. She saw Dutch standing shirtless on deck looking out at the river. She wrapped her naked body in a sheet and went outside where he was.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked her as he extended his arms for her to come to him.

  “The best night’s sleep ever,” she said as Dutch embraced her. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes I am.”

  He spoke in French, ordering breakfast to be served.

  “We are headed back to the dock, where a car will be waiting for us,” he said, thinking of Craze and hoping he had had a safe return to Paris. “But, before we go, I need to ask you something.”

  “What?” she asked, ready for anything.

  “I need to know that it’s all or nothing between us no matter what.”

  “Of course, I love you,” she responded. “I’m here because I love you. I don’t care what hard times we have to go through.”

  Dutch hoped and prayed she meant every word that she spoke, because there was no turning back, no changing the game in the ninth inning, and no time for uncertainty. It had to be what she said it was: love.

  UP AND AWAY

  Rahman, Angel, and Goldilocks waited inside the plane as Rahman kept an eye out the window.

  “Here he comes,” said Rahman, watching Craze’s car pull up next to the boarding steps.

  “What took you so long? I thought something happened to you. Where’s Dutch’s mom?” asked Angel, standing up as Craze boarded the plane, her questions flying at him a mile a minute.

  “You’re not going to believe it,” he said, smiling, still reeling from his visit with Dutch’s mother.

  Craze sat down next to Rahman and put on his seat belt, and as the plane moved across the runway for takeoff he told them of meeting Dutch’s father.

  “Who is it?” Delores asked, looking out the peephole at a bearded old man in her hallway.

  “It’s me, Chris,” he said, tipping his hat so she could see he was dr
essed in costume, already knowing the white van parked down the street was the FBI watching and waiting for Delores to lead them to Dutch.

  “Boy, if you don’t get in here . . .” She began to cry. She slammed the door behind him, hugging him as tightly as if he was her own birth son. “Where you been? Where’s Dutch? Is he okay?”

  Delores had a hundred and one questions, and as she rambled, still standing in the doorway, Craze could see an elderly man lying down in Delores’s bedroom.

  “Who’s that?” he asked, as if he were a jealous lover.

  “You won’t believe it,” she said, full of smiles. “It’s Dutch’s father. He’s real sick, Craze—he’s not doing too good. The doctors said he had sclerosis of the liver and don’t expect him to live much longer. So, when he asked me to take him home and get him out of the hospital, I did.”

  “Does Dutch know?”

  “Nope, and neither does his father,” she said, staring off into the distance.

  “What do you mean? He doesn’t know he has a son?”

  “No, I haven’t found the right moment to tell him. But I will. I will.”

  Craze walked into the bedroom and looked down at the man Delores claimed had fathered the all-time legend, Dutch, himself.

  One thing was for certain and two things were for sure: Dutch was the spitting image of the man.

  “Wow, Dutch looks just like his dad,” said Craze, wishing he knew who his father was.

  “Yeah, just like him.” Delores led Craze back out into the living room. “So, what in the world are you doing with yourself?”

  “I came to get you,” said Craze. “Take you back to where Dutch is.”

  Delores drifted off into silence, thinking of the last three years and how many times she had prayed to God for the chance to see her son just one more time.

  “I can’t. I can’t go. I can’t leave Bernard. I promised him I would take care of him. You should have seen him begging me not to leave him with them white folks in the hospital,” she said, laughing at the thought. “I can’t leave him now,” said Delores, making one of the hardest decisions she had ever made in her life.