by N'Tyse
I had had to give it my all even to call her; now I was going to have to really put my pride to the side and actually speak to the woman.
“How you doing, Shun?”
“Well, well, well, if it ain’t Cassandra. It is either snowing outside or Dallas is about to get an earthquake, because I know you misdialed.”
“Actually, Shun, I’m looking for Rene.”
“Oh, so you call me, figuring that I would know where she is? No, wait. Figuring I’d tell you where she is?”
“Shun, really all I need you to do is tell me if you know where she might be. I have to talk to her. She came home, and she left me a note. I need to explain some things to her. I need to talk to her.” I was desperate.
She started laughing. “Okay, so now you’re feeling bad about her finding out about your little girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend? What girlfriend?”
“Your little secret booty call you’ve been running to when you leave her alone.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Nuh-uh. I will not betray my friend like you did. I’m just glad she left your ass before Vincent found out.”
I paused and had to rewind what she’d said. “What you mean, before Vincent found out? Who the fuck is Vincent?” I tried to keep from yankin’ her ass through the telephone. Shun was fuckin’ with me now. Yeah, this bitch was really fuckin’ with me big-time.
“Her boyfriend, Vincent, the one she was . . . Wait a minute. She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I hollered into the phone.
“That she was leaving you for Vincent? She called me and told me she had told you everything.”
Man, this shit was giving me a headache, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to punch a hole in the wall or scream into one of the throw pillows over on the love seat. I just knew my body temperature was starting to rise.
“Forget I said anything. I’m busy. I gotta go.” Shun hung the phone up in my face, leaving me with the dial tone. I actually held that receiver in my hand long enough for the operator to come on.
Something wasn’t adding up. I tried calling back, but she must have taken the phone off the hook, because all I kept getting was a busy signal. That bitch. Shun was really starting to piss me off, but she knew something I didn’t. I needed to find Rene, and I needed to find her now.
I left the apartment and walked down the stairs and over to my car, which was parked right in front of the building, in Rene’s usual spot. There was a black Lincoln Navigator alongside my ride. I had never seen this SUV before and I knew no one in my building owned it. I pulled my keys out of my pocket. I needed to ride around a few minutes and blow off some steam before I did something crazy. If Rene was cheating on me, then I had to be ready to catch a murder case. Somebody was gon’ die. Rene was mine.
I mashed my cigar into the concrete after inhaling a few more puffs. I heard the passenger-side window go down on the Nav, and the guy in the vehicle tried to get my attention.
“Excuse me, sir.” He climbed out of his luxurious Lincoln and walked over to where I was standing.
“What’s up?” I asked. He looked like an undercover lawman. I would break before I let him take me to jail. He checked me out, scoping me up and down, and looked around as if he was lost. “Can I help you with something, man?”
Nah, he couldn’t be no law; he looked too damn scary. But this white boy was bold as hell to be bringing his ass over here to the hood. He was asking to get that black beauty of his repossessed, courtesy of the neighborhood gangbangers. That would make a real nice ride to roll around in on a Saturday night. This dude had some manufactured rims and a leather interior, and the Nav was waxed down, looking like it had just rolled off the showroom floor.
“I’m not from around here, and I believe I may be lost. You see, I’m looking for a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in a long, long time. And I looked through the phone book, and I found an address for her here in these apartments, but I’m having trouble locating the correct building that she might live in. I’m trying to deliver to her the news that her parents are in town and they’re staying at my place. They’ve been looking for her. Do you by chance happen to know anybody by the name of Rene Brown?”
“Rene Brown?” I repeated. “Yeah, I know her quite well. She lives right here in the same building as me.”
“Oh, thank God. Her parents and I have been searching all over Dallas, looking for that girl. You won’t believe how happy they’ll be when I tell them I found their daughter.”
I reached my hand out to him. “I’m Sand,” I said. “Rene’s girlfriend.” His eyebrows rose as he offered his hand and then exchanged a firm, manly handshake.
“How interesting.” He folded his arms and smiled.
“I’m not sure where she’s at right now. I was just about to go see if I could catch up with her at one of her hangouts.”
“Oh, I wish I could come with you and be there when you tell her that her parents are in town. They haven’t seen each other in years.”
I looked him over once again. I was also ready to share the news that Rene’s parents were looking for her. She had never really talked much about them, besides saying that she had ended up in a foster home when she was younger because neither one of them had wanted her. Since I knew very little about Rene’s past, I saw this as an opportunity to get as much information as I could out of this dude.
“You can roll if you want. Ain’t no problem. She can’t be that far. She normally runs at the track around the corner. We can try there first.”
He hit the automatic switch for his car alarm, and you could hear the locks lock into place, setting his alarm.
“Before we go, do you mind if I have something to drink? I’ll take water. I’m parched from riding around, looking for Rene all night.”
“Sure, my man. Come on up with me.” I led him up the steps and into the apartment. His hands were in his pockets, and he looked paranoid as fuck. I was laughing inside. I walked over to the kitchen bar and grabbed a glass on the little stand Rene had there.
“That’s a nice picture there.” He walked over to the fireplace, where a huge framed picture of Rene and me hung. “Boy, look at her. She hasn’t changed a bit, except for growing a little more in other departments.” He grinned.
“Yeah, she all woman now,” I commented, also looking up at the picture. In it we both were standing, with me behind her, my arms relaxed around her waist. I wished that moment could have lasted forever. Me holding her, touching her. I wished I could be that close to her now.
Dude’s eyes roamed all over our living room. “This a nice place you guys got here.”
“’Preciate it!” I called out from the kitchen. “My man, I have some fresh lemonade and tea in here.” Rene loved to make fresh lemonade and sweet tea.
“Tea will do just fine!”
I poured him a glass and took it to him.
He took a sip. “Um, this tastes so familiar.” He smiled, then finished the drink.
White boy had taste for real. It looked like he had a thing for black women too, because when we passed my two neighbors while heading back down the stairs to my car, I caught him looking at their asses. Blue-eyed devil. I spotted June Bug across the street, staring me down, as usual. I pretended I didn’t see his nosy ass.
When we reached the bottom step, I looked up and there was a fine-ass female walking toward me. She was picking up the pace.
“Sand,” I heard her holler.
She was practically sprinting toward me. As she grew closer, I knew exactly who she was. She pulled the shades down from her face, and the first thing I saw was a black eye. There was also a deep cut across the left side of her face, near her eye.
“Damn, baby girl, what the hell happened to you?” I said.
She looked over at the white man standing at my side.
“Nope, it ain’t even like that,” I assured her before any thoughts ran across her mind. “This here is my boy . . .”
/>
“Oh, I’m Michael, but call me Mike.”
“Mike,” I repeated after him.
“Sand, I really need to talk to you.”
“Come on, Peaches. Can it wait? Me and Mike gotta go handle up on somethin’.”
“No. I need to talk to you now.” Her voice was very demanding, and she had a look in her eyes that was really scary.
“Yeah, all right.” I looked up at Mike. “Let me see what’s up, man. It’ll only take a few.”
“Oh, go ahead. I have nowhere else to devote my time.” He walked over to his ride and hopped inside.
“Now, what’s up, Mama?”
Teardrops started rolling down her cheeks. “Sand, you gotta get outta here.”
“What! What are you talking about?”
“They gonna kill you.”
“What? Who?”
I grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her face so that I could look into her eyes. She was obviously bothered and embarrassed about the black eye and the cut that had threatened her beautiful face. She looked at me sadly.
“Have you been watching the news? Did you see what they did to Jasmine?” she asked. She started crying even more. I had to grab her and pull her up. She leaned on my shoulders.
“Jasmine?” I said. “Who did what to Jasmine?” I didn’t know if I should pretend I knew nothing about what had happened to Jasmine or if I should just pour out everything I had witnessed with my own two eyes the night I went over to her place. “What happened, Peaches? Talk to me.”
I could barely understand anything she was saying through all the sobs and sniffles. “They killed her.”
“Who killed her?”
“They knew you would go over there. Somehow they made it the perfect setup. They have your prints and everything on the doorknob and all over the place. They’ve been plotting this from day one.”
“Who!” I practically yelled. Peaches kept taking me in circles. She wasn’t giving me enough information to work with. “Who, Peaches?” I asked more calmly.
“James and Chyna.”
I dropped my hands from her shoulders and backed up against the wall. It can’t be. This bitch is lying, I thought. There’s no way. Not James. And why would Chyna want to fuck with me? We had no beef, as far as I knew. Something’s not adding up.
Peaches was still in front of me, crying. “What happened to your eye?” I asked her.
She held her head down. “I got into a fight with your girlfriend.”
“You what!” I walked closer to Peaches. I wanted to strangle her if she hurt Rene.
Before I could say anything more, she said, “I came over here to tell you about all this mess you’re in, and she wanted to fight. Sand, she hit me first. I wouldn’t have touched your girl.”
“So, this is why Rene up and left me. You’re the reason she fuckin’ left me?”
Before I knew it, my hands were gripping Peaches’s throat. Mike jumped out of his car and had to pull me off of her.
“Calm down. Calm down.” He had me in a lock where I couldn’t even get my hands around him to go back at her. I was gon’ hurt her. Rene had left me, and Peaches was the reason why.
“I’m cool, dude,” I told Mike. “I’m cool.”
He eased up his grip and eventually let me go. Peaches flinched every time she saw me make a move.
“Sand, I’m sorry.” She continued to cry.
“Man, how do you know all this shit?” I asked. Mike was standing next to me, making sure I didn’t have another chance at ripping her face off. He stood there listening.
“Remember that night at your graduation party?”
“What about it?” I looked at her as if to say, “Keep talking and don’t ask me no muthafuckin’ questions.”
“Remember how we ended up making love in the guest bedroom? You, me, and Jasmine.”
I saw Mike turn his head in the opposite direction. I squinted my eyes at her, hinting that she could at least spare brother man the damn details.
“Well, we weren’t alone that night,” she revealed.
“What the fuck you mean?”
Mike turned his head back around.
“James paid me to go in that room and fuck you. I had no idea that Jasmine was even in there. I was giving some stinky-breath dude a table dance, and that’s when James pulled me to the side and handed me two thousand dollars to go in there and have sex with you. I thought it was just a graduation gift or something. That was until I overheard James and Chyna talking.”
I listened intently, replaying that night in my head. I remembered being fucked up. I remembered Jasmine arguing with somebody on her cell phone. After that, I remembered her walking me into the guest room.
“They were saying something about having you on tape with Jasmine and me. Then I overheard them saying they had to use you in order to get some girl to cooperate with Chyna. Chyna said if she had to pay somebody to finish it off, she would, but she’d rather have this girl do the job for her to keep everything from getting messy. She said she had people that were ready to get paid, but she wanted—”
“Whoa,” I said, interrupting her.
“And that’s when I heard that Jasmine was dead.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I said, cutting her off. Mike was still listening in. This was too much information for him. “My man, I gotta handle some urgent business. Is it okay if I call you after I’ve found her and let you give her the news?”
“Sure. No problem. I have a better idea. When you handle everything you need to handle, why don’t you come over and meet the folks yourself?”
“That sounds like a cool idea.” I did want to meet Rene’s parents. I wanted to see where she had got all her good looks. I also wanted to see the mother and father who were the reason for all her built-up anger and pain.
He slid me a piece of paper with his phone number, and underneath it, he wrote “Cell.” He also jotted down his address. He hopped in his ride and took off. Mike was a cool dude, but I had forgot to ask him where he knew Rene from. I was real curious, because Rene had failed to mention having any male friends from the past.
“Something about that dude ain’t right. Why the hell he actin’ all nervous?” Peaches said.
“Mind your business, Peaches, and finish telling me.” I watched Peaches closely. If I was the one who was gonna get killed, then why in the hell had her ass come running up here earlier, crying and shit like it was her ass on the line? Something wasn’t sticking. I just couldn’t trust a hooker. I had to find out the shit for myself, even if that meant going to James’s house to talk.
I glanced at my cell. It was about ten minutes to five.
“Look, Peaches, thanks for looking out, but I gotta be going.”
“Where are you going?”
“Thanks for the heads-up, but I have a club to be getting ready to open tonight.” I headed for my ride. She walked back to the visitors’ parking section and hopped in her little car.
I was on the highway before long, heading for James’s place. I hoped that there wasn’t any truth to what Peaches had just told me. I hoped that she had made the shit up. But why would she?
I placed the car in park when I reached James’s place. James’s Cadillac DeVille was nowhere in sight. I made sure there was no one around before I eased my way through the patio sliding glass door, which I knew he always left unlocked. I was looking for anything that I could find that would make Peaches’s accusations legit.
I headed for the guest bedroom. Once inside, I noticed that the sheets that I remembered being on the bed had been changed. Now they were silver. Other than that, the entire room looked the same. Mirrors were on the ceiling right over the bed, capturing everything and anything. A silver champagne bucket was on the nightstand, with empty bottles of champagne, which I assumed were there just for decoration. I kept looking around, scanning the room, until I spotted something that was unusual. Directly across from me was an artificial plant near the bathroom. I walked over toward it, and
there was a flashing red beam coming from it that caught my eye. I lifted one of the leaves and saw that it was actually covering a mini camcorder. I looked at the top of it. It was on pause. Peaches had told the truth. They were setting me up.
I ran out of the condo as quick as I could. I climbed in my ride and sped down I-75 all the way back home. My cell started ringing, and the caller ID read private.
“Hello?”
“Bitch, you’re gonna die tonight.”
I threw the phone out the window as hard as I could. I looked at the radio clock. It was 5:45 p.m. I looked at Rene’s cell, which I had on the left side of my hip. It also read 5:45 p.m. I pushed my foot down a little more on the accelerator, pushing Ms. Lady to her max. I didn’t give a damn about a ticket. I had to get home.
I walked through the door, out of breath. I grabbed a couple of bags out of the kitchen cabinet and went into the bedroom, then grabbed the only suitcase I owned out of the closet. I folded up shirts, pants, shorts and threw them in the suitcase, along with some boxers. I looked in my sock drawer, grabbed my stash of cash, and left.
I checked in at the nearby Motel 6. They put me in a nice comfy room. That was all I needed, at least until Monday. If Peaches was right about them having my prints, then that meant I was gonna go down for Jasmine’s murder. But why in the hell would they have recorded me and Jasmine having sex? It just didn’t sit right. Hell no. I had to get me a lawyer and get this shit corrected ASAP.
I counted my money. I had only about a grand. That wasn’t shit. I needed to get to Rene quick. I needed her now. I knew I was in some deep shit. I could feel it. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to function tonight at the club. I was being set up for some shit I didn’t do, and somebody was after me, trying to kill me. I needed some protection fast, and I knew just where to get some.
Before I could count to three, I was back in the Grove. I went to a well-known pawnshop and purchased a nine-millimeter. The Arabian man watched me as I stared at it, almost too scared even to hold it.
“I give you a real good price on this one,” he said, smiling. His buttery-yellow, rotten teeth were the first thing to catch my eye. I turned my focus from his yucky mouth, which desperately needed a dentist’s appointment, back to the pistol. I admired the cold chrome-plated metal as it lay flat in the palm of my hand.
