Back in unreality, Bovine led the Knicks in a furious fourth-quarter comeback. The Wizards did their best to deny him low-post position and, when that failed, tried doubling him quickly. But Bovine’s footwork was better than theirs. With three minutes left the Knicks got him the ball in the left box. Bovine sprang to the baseline, ducked as low as high-top sneakers, and then sprang through the arms of two Wizards defenders for a hardy two-hand jam. And one. Game over.
* * *
By the time Bovine had showered, met the press, and slipped into the olive Armani Emily made him buy on a day they’d all gone shopping together, it was 10:30. Bovine and some other Knicks were heading up to the West Side and the Shark Bar. Middle-class, monied, and quite happy to let you know it, the Shark Bar’s clientele was a local who’s who of soul food–loving African Americans. Bovine and company were always treated with the special deference black folk reserve for athletes and entertainers. Businesspeople passed over their cards. Jeeps were offered for lease. Blockbuster video franchises were dangled. So were free haircuts.
D skipped the Shark Bar and hailed a cab on 33rd Street. On the way downtown, he pulled out a bottle of Phat Farm’s Premium, squirted some in his hands, and, like Roy Scheider in All That Jazz, smacked both sides of his face with cologne and announced, “It’s showtime!”
Next stop, Emily’s Tea Party.
Chapter Three
The Twin Towers used to loom over Wall Street as monuments to commerce and government hubris. Their destruction had caused incalculable trauma, an ongoing war, and a recession that still rippled through the city. When Emily’s Tea Party opened its doors a few blocks from the WTC site, eyebrows were raised and doom was predicted. Who would want to party so close to such tragedy? Emily replied, “I will offer high tea, muffins, and all the new-school funk they can handle. The spirits in the air here need to get their groove on too.” And apparently, she was right.
Outside Emily’s party there was that wonderful milling about, that semicircle of anxious, well-dressed people and an aura of pissed-off impatience, that announces New Yorkers are dying to get in. Moving through the crowd, D was cajoled, cursed, and pawed, and he savored each ego-enhancing step of the way. Jeff Fuchs, D’s bald, buff, butt-ugly white homie from the Bronx, yanked aside the velvet rope, tugged at D’s arm, and confirmed the obvious: “It’s off the chain!”
Just inside the door, standing by the money box like a sentry in a long, slinky, sky-blue satin dress and talking with her usual firmness into a cell phone, was Emily Anekwe, the round-hipped British-Nigerian girl who was the evening’s host, the party’s inventor, and D’s eternally antsy girlfriend of the moment.
“Of course, Damon,” she said into the cell, “your booth will be saved. But only three people, my lovely, okay? Love you.” She clicked off and gazed at D balefully through small brown eyes and then stretched out a long, yellow hand tipped with dramatic crimson fingernails. D pressed an envelope that contained $1,250 in cash into her palm.
“I thought you were giving me a check?” she said sharply.
“I cashed it,” D answered quickly. “That G puts us even, plus you got some interest.”
Emily surveyed him suspiciously, counted the money quickly but thoroughly, and then somehow slipped the envelope into her dress. Now looking impish and pleased, Emily smiled and kissed D so deeply that the heavy aroma of the Cuban cigar she’d smoked a half hour before filled his lungs. When she was through, Emily took his arm, popped a cigar in her mouth, and escorted him to her Tea Party. Out of the corner of his eye, D noticed Mercedez going through the designer backpack of a young lovely. She was acting as if she hadn’t noticed D kissing Emily, but he got the feeling she hadn’t missed a thing.
As a designer, Emily’s specialty was urban prep in the style of Phat Farm and Sean Jean. As a club impresario, this spunky product of England’s industrial north had a deep affection for the rituals of upper-class British society. So she’d had the space done up with portraits of the Queen (Elizabeth), Princess (Diana), and Kings (the boxers Lennox Lewis and Prince Naseem). “High tea” is a crusty English tradition that involves strong tea and sweet cakes. Emily had taken the silverware, the food, and the genteel formality of these high teas and used them as the organizing principle for her party. Drinks were served in kettles and teacups and the staff, from DJ to bartender, wore Edwardian frocks.
For the moment this ersatz formality was working, attracting an intriguing blend of Europeans, downtown hipsters, and Wall Streeters looking for a thrill. Nothing this extreme could last long, but while the flame was burning, Emily was gonna throw on logs. “It’s still early,” she said, “but it’s already been a good night, my lovely.”
Emily looked particularly sexy this evening, her English accent flowing out of her wide Manchester mouth in the most alluring way. “Maybe we can slip out early and go to my place.”
Despite her lusty vibe, D was noncommittal. Ever since she’d picked him up at Kinko’s—she at one computer, reworking her résumé, he next to her designing a brochure for D Security—their lives had been bound together by a mutual interest in nightlife and money. D wasn’t in love with Emily, but he had mostly enjoyed their year and a half together. Emily wasn’t deeply in love with him either; just a very enjoyable level of infatuation, though D’s dark moods and mysterious ways often irritated her. And then there was his “condition,” which actually made him vulnerable in ways Emily found strangely attractive.
Once inside the Tea Party, D’s eyes combed the room for drug dealers, those always reliable barometers of a spot’s heat. Where there were alcoholic beverages, loud music, and the promise of random coupling, there was sure to be a dope man around. Party people wanted easy access to their illegal substance of choice, and the dope man (or woman) would, like any user-friendly service, be accessible to his clients. The problem with drugs at a club was not consumption, it was distribution. At an upscale joint like Emliy’s Tea Party, your dealers had to be discreet, well dressed, and unassuming. No one dealing out of stalls. No coke set out on the tables by folks nostalgic for the eighties. Just a regular flow of transactions done with a minimum of visibility and flamboyance.
Which was why D gave Patrice Floyd a comfortable kiss on the cheek. “I’m saving you some,” she said seductively. Patrice was a chunky but funky sista in a brown dress and boots, her brown hair streaked with a rainbow of colors. When not macking white men, preferably of French or Italian heritage, Patrice worked downtown parties, providing drugs (E, crystal meth, coke, herb) in exchange for small, tightly rolled bills.
“Leave my man alone, Ms. Floyd.” This was, of course, Emily.
“I was talking about chronic,” Patrice replied, “you uptight, half-white creature.” Emily and Patrice were “friends.” So, like two brothers playing ball, these girls talked plenty of trash.
“Patrice,” Emily continued, “don’t you ever offer D anything again without checking with me.”
Patrice, sassy as a TV maid, replied, “You just afraid he’s gonna ask me for a freebie. Well, don’t you worry. When it comes to my stuff, everybody pays.” For some reason this made them both giggle.
D checked out of the conversation and noticed a guy clocking him. Light-skinned. Maybe black mixed with something else, like Emily. Bald head. Loop earring. Just-got-out-the-joint pecs. A tough, sexy-looking brunette with outer-borough attitude sipped gin and juice with him. D had seen him at the Tea Party before, but tonight the dude’s vibe was strong, like he was making up his mind when to step to D. He was either a thug or a cop, and D figured he’d know which pretty soon.
At a table sat Attak, the old rap star (“old” in rap was twenty- seven), who still kept his hand in by managing a few acts but now spent more time acting—he’d just taped a highly touted sitcom pilot out in Cali. He was drinking champagne with two healthy Mary J. Blige dress-alikes who recorded as Sudden Pleasure and were at that moment being sweated by Mayo, a tastefully dreaded older record executive. D didn’t like
Mayo very much—he’d tried to stiff D on a bill a few years back—but the guy had actually had two positive impacts on D’s life: he’d once produced some tracks for Adrian Dukes, who was and always would be his mother’s favorite singer, and D had met Beth Ann through him. Mayo and D had one of those classic New York nightlife relationships: they traveled in the same social circles, dated from the same pool of women, tolerated more than liked each other, and never had any contact during the day, which was fine with both.
A couple of Washington Wizards towered over a group of hangers-on by the bar. Tom Brookins, their star forward and one of Bovine’s least favorite people, was looking pretty laid-back for a guy who’d just been schooled at MSG. When D told Emily who Brookins was, she floated over to offer him a booth, some complimentary drinks, and much professionally flirtatious conversation.
D was about to head to the manager’s office in the back when he spotted Ivy Greenwich and Danville, just out of his Silver Shadow, entering the club. Behind them, holding hands and staring at each other like a romance-novel cover, were Bovine Winslow and Bee Cole, the music-video director who, word on the street said, was about to bust out with her first feature film. She was at least ten years older than Bovine, but no woman D knew projected more raw sensuality than Bee. Nice rebound from Beth Ann. It made D smile.
“Clear out a booth for them,” D said to Emily, but she was already kicking a group of unhappy low-level hip hop executives out of the Tea Party’s largest booth. After some maneuvering, the seats filled with Bovine, Bee Cole, Ivy Greenwich, Danville, Emily, and D, creating a half-moon of hyped-up energy that combined music, fashion, and sports figures linked by mutual admiration, accomplishment, and sex appeal. D thought of his man Night and how much he’d have enjoyed being in this mix. He was gonna say something to Ivy but saw him locked in conversation with Emily and Danville and, instead, took a sip of the champagne Ivy had ordered. As a general rule D didn’t sit like this with customers, but Ivy could be a source of business, so some schmoozing seemed prudent.
Other party people rolled up on this booth, seeking the validation that a smile, an introduction, or, Hail Mary, full of grace, an invitation to sit down would mean. Emily, chatting away, was in an Eden of her own making. She lived for moments like this and, to a degree, D did too. Ivy had been seated two people away from D, preventing any substantial networking, though they did pass a few innocuous words about the game. Once it became clear to D he wasn’t really gonna get a chance to chat up the manager, the security man decided to excuse himself.
“My lovely,” Emily wondered, “where are you going?”
“You know,” D said coolly, “I’m in charge of security at this club. It might be nice if I checked in with the management. Besides, I need to go to the restroom.”
For the benefit of the crowd, Emily got fresh: “You know I don’t like anybody else holding it but me.”
“Even me?” he replied.
“Especially you,” Emily said. “After all, my lovely, I don’t always know where your hands have been.” This generated a few titters from those at the table. D just turned and walked away in the direction of the restroom and then veered off into the manager’s office.
Vinnie Del Negro, the manager of Emily’s Tea Party, was behind his desk, talking to his wife on a landline. When Vinnie saw D, he reached into the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a book, and handed it over to D. It was now 12:30 a.m., which meant D still had two and a half solid hours to protect and serve those partying. So, D began his scrutiny of safety at the Tea Party by flipping open his copy of Chester Himes’s The Quality of Hurt and, as had been his recent ritual, dived into the late writer’s misadventures and caustic worldview. There was something decadent, debauched, and compelling about Himes’s expatriate journey across Europe that made D linger over these passages as if walking through a dark, enticing dream. When D was a child, he’d spent a lot of years curled up with books, escaping where he was and the limitations of his adolescent body.
But now, his twenty-first-century physique, like that of his pal Bovine, inspired respect and, sadly at times, responsibility. So sometime after one o’clock, as Himes was listening to James Baldwin explain to Richard Wright why he wanted to borrow money despite dissing the older writer in an essay, Jeff Fuchs’s voice could be heard on the office walkie-talkie: “Yo, we gotta problem, son! Your man Bovine is in a beef!”
Out in the center of the dance floor, Bovine stood facing a liquored-up Tom Brookins, who was shouting invectives about Bovine’s mother and ancestry. There were a few people between the towering duo, chief among them Mercedez, who stood before Brookins like a terrier challenging a Doberman. The whole room was watching, happy to see some love-it-live NBA action they didn’t have to pay Garden prices for.
As D stepped between them, Bovine, his Southern accent now thick as gravy, shouted, “You stay the fuck away from my woman!”
“Your woman?” Brookins snorted like a bull. “Man, that Beth Ann is just a skinny piece of ass. She gives good head though, partner!”
No jock was gonna dis Beth Ann on D’s watch. So D snatched his left wrist—a crucial part of a body the Washington franchise valued at $70 million—and twisted it around and then behind the player’s back. Brookins went down on one knee. D leaned over and whispered, “This could be a minor sprain that a little ice could address or a Ewing-like season-ending injury. Your call.”
“Fuck you!” Brookins cursed. D twisted his wrist back a bit harder. the other man’s eyes watered.
“D,” said Bovine, “let him go.”
“I will, Bovine,” D said. “I will.” He loosened his grip a bit and looked around. Jeff had Bovine on lockdown and, to D’s surprise, Mercedez was all over the other Wizards player. Nice.
“Let him go, D,” Bovine said again.
“In a minute, Bovine.” To Brookins, D whispered, “We’re leaving now, okay?” The player didn’t speak; he nodded. D guided him out the door where Jeff, an old hand at these scenarios, had already alerted their limo driver. Out on the pavement, D let Brookins go. “Have a good night,” he said as pleasantly as possible.
Brookins rubbed his left wrist with his right hand, then spat out, “Fuck you, you busta!”
Whatever, D thought. He heard Bovine yelling at Brookins from the door. He walked back toward Bovine. Mercedez was escorting the other player out. D smiled at her. Then her jet-black eyes narrowed, and she came toward D, low and quick, and then went down. She moved past D real low and extended her right leg. Mercedez’s right foot hooked the ankles of a charging Brookins. The NBA player fell like a redwood, his face about to catch concrete. D caught him by the shoulders before his mug kissed the curb, though that already sore left wrist broke his fall.
“Please, Mr. NBA star,” D said to Brookins, who lay on his stomach before him. “Go back to your hotel before you hurt someone. Namely your silly, nonfighting, motherfucking self.”
Despite the pats on the back and the “You-the-man!” bluster that D received back inside the Tea Party, the head of D Security was not happy. Number one, any time you have to use aggression instead of conversation, the situation could go against you. D felt he’d reacted too quickly and probably should have guided the jock to the door while he continued to talk smack to Bovine—and not laid a hand on him. Just because the beef was over Beth Ann, D had let things get funky.
Number two, Mercedez had almost seriously injured an NBA asset. If this got out—which in some barely factual way it was sure to—it could get the Tea Party banned by the league. Moreover, despite saving Brookins’s mug, this incident could still lead to some legal action. D Security (namely him) could not afford a lawsuit.
Number three, Bovine hadn’t told D that Beth Ann had been sleeping with Brookins, which, obviously, was the source of his hostility. D vowed to do a better job of keeping up with black celebrity gossip. Knowing who’s “doing” who was quite helpful in heading off trouble.
“I’m going home,” D told Emily.<
br />
“Okay, my lovely hero. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
“No, Emily,” he replied a little too forcefully. “I just need to chill right now, okay?”
“No, it is not. But I know how you get when that skinny girl’s name gets mentioned.”
“Come on, Emily. You saw what just went down. It’s not about her. Chill with that.”
“Would you have done that for my honor, D?”
“What do you think?”
“A man,” she said tartly, “is known for his deeds. Not his rhetorical questions.”
D told Jeff to call him if any cops showed up and then walked out of the club. Didn’t say goodbye to Bovine or Ivy or anyone. He just headed out of the Tea Party and into the empty lower-Manhattan streets.
It was about 2 a.m., and despite his expensive black leather jacket, black suit, and boyish smile, D Hunter decided not to take a cab. The fact that he was six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, and thick had made him somewhat fearless about places others tried to avoid. So he walked up to Church Street and went into the Chambers Street A train station. He’d always felt comfortable on the subway—not safe, exactly, but not fearful either. After a loud, blaring night of security work, the relative silence of a deserted subway station brought calm.
The uptown platform was empty save for a pale, dingy homeless man around age fifty who’d wrapped himself in newspapers and blankets and squeezed his feeble body under a wooden bench specifically designed to prevent people from sleeping on it. This guy had ingenuity, D thought, and smiled.
Around 2:45, three black teenagers in a mishmash of urban survival gear (beige Lugz, Triple Fat goosedown jackets, jeans sagged around their ankles) flecked with red (bandannas, baseball caps) came onto the platform. They had the loud, loose energy of young men determined to find out how much they could get away with. The loudest one was a small kid with the restless movement of Flavor Flav but none of his humor. The middle kid seemed surly and held his mouth open as if breathing were a chore. The biggest of the three was a man-child with a baby face that belied his large shoulders and hands. D moved behind a pole at his end of the platform and watched as they gazed contemptuously at the homeless man, as if his unfortunate circumstances suggested a weakness they could not stomach.
The Accidental Hunter Page 3
