The Accidental Hunter

by Nelson George

  Outside Penny’s, D lingered by the door as Bee and Bridgette entered the SUV. He peered both ways, catching the glint of a streetlight on the grill of a Yamaha, partially obscured by a U-Haul truck. D could feel a cold set of eyes assessing the situation. From behind a wall or inside a car, D knew he was being measured and he was determined not to be found waiting. Back inside the SUV he was silent. He wanted to ask Tony what he’d seen but didn’t want to alarm the ladies.

  Bee was talking about their next stop in excited tones. “I know that Penny’s was a little extreme, but I think you’ll find this next move more familiar.”

  “No,” Bridgette said defensively, “it was cool. It was just quite a bit to take in. They weren’t playing in there, you know. It was kinda moving, in a way, to see people so into what they were into.”

  As the car pulled off, Bee, an experienced guide on the wild-side life, pulled out a joint that she shared generously with America’s sweetheart. In the mirror D spied two Yamahas, not one, two blocks back. Cruising. Not blasting through traffic. Not bursting through intersections. Not a nasty, loud pack of riders. Cruising. Bad sign. D pulled out his Motorola two-way pager and wrote Tony a note.

  At the next light Tony felt a buzz in his jacket pocket and slipped out his BlackBerry. After reading the message, Tony glanced into his side-view mirror and nodded at D.

  On the west side in the 30s, a few blocks behind the huge post office on Ninth Avenue, Tony pulled the SUV in front of the Purple Petal, a nondescript bar holding its weekly ghetto-dike extravaganza. Unlike the glamorous lipstick lesbians of music videos, the Purple Petal was where hard-core ghetto girls who had men in jail, or who’d been treated badly by men who weren’t in jail, or who just plain never felt much need for a male companion, traveled from the BK and the BX, from uptown and Queens, to meet like-minded women for kissing (and no telling). At Penny’s, the crowd had been too engaged in their own rituals to sweat a celebrity, but the Purple Petal was all about hooking up. If Bridgette Haze stepped into their world, well, she was just another tenderoni to spit game to. The clientele felt, Well, hey, if she’s looking to “experiment,” why shouldn’t it be with me?

  So D didn’t have time to contemplate any ad hoc motorcycle gathering in the street. He was busy regulating the flow of burly autograph seekers with round bodies and short-cropped hair at the booth Bee had commandeered. This was not the easiest gig D had ever had. These ladies were insistent, willful, and not at all intimidated by his size or his glare. He was the intruder, not they. Bee, happy denizen of many alternative worlds, gladly introduced her many acquaintances at the Purple Petal to Bridgette with a chatty conviviality. In contrast to Penny’s, where Bridgette had clearly been overwhelmed, this crowd placed her in a position she well understood—sex object. Lust was lust to a girl who’d been ogled with desire since she’d worn her first pair of tap shoes. That these women were what her very Southern mother would have labeled “bull daggers” didn’t faze Bridgette one bit.

  There was a provocative moment when a big-eyed beauty named Pamleasha sauntered over to the table and Bee embraced her with such intensity that D felt uncomfortable. Bridgette was intrigued by this interplay but kept a neutral look on her face. The two stood next to the table, locked into their own world, before Bee introduced her friend to Bridgette. Turned out that Pamleasha was one of Bee’s favorite dancers, the lady’s taut, wiry body having graced many a video.

  At one point Bridgette touched D’s thigh and leaned over to whisper, “Bee’s pretty intense, huh?”

  “That’s why she’s so good,” D observed casually.

  “Yeah. That must be true,” was all Bridgette could muster. Then she gave D’s thigh a squeeze. “Hmm,” she said, “my sister will be impressed.”

  D slid away from the singer and looked at her as if she were crazy. Could it be that this little white girl was the one checking for him? No way, he thought. The very idea made him blush.

  Back outside the Purple Petal, two other black Escalades were lined up with Tony’s, one in front and one behind. Tony was standing next to his car, talking to the other drivers, Rob and Eric, both black men in their mid-thirties.

  “What are the extra cars for?” Bridgette inquired.

  “Oh,” Tony said, “I just needed to have a meeting with some of my men. That’s all.” The man was a fine driver but a very unconvincing liar.

  “Let’s get in the car, Bridgette, so we can head off to Bee’s next spot.” D herded the singer and the director into the middle car and shut the door. Instead of entering on the passenger side he walked back to the third car and surveyed the block for lingering motorcycles. About a block back he spotted one of the two Yamahas with a driver on board. D went around the cars on the street side and looked up the block for signs of surveillance. He spied a young, light-brown man in a black-and-blue oversize Pele jacket, smoking a cigarette. D got in on the passenger side of the first car.

  “Eric,” he said to the driver, “did Tony brief you?”

  “Yeah, man,” the driver replied eagerly. “Is this gonna be a car chase?”

  D looked at him hard and answered, “No. This is more in the area of a car scare. I’m gonna drive.”

  “D, I don’t think Tony—”

  “I’m driving,” D insisted. “Don’t get out of the car. Just climb in the back.”

  “D, I’m too old to—”

  “Get in the back.”

  When the switch, much to Eric’s consternation, had been made, D two-wayed his instructions to Tony. When Tony hit him back with confirmation of the plan, D counted to ten and then gunned the Escalade out of its stasis, followed closely by the two other SUVs. The brown-skinned spy threw down his cigarette and began to dash. D flicked his Escalade’s left taillight. Tony caught the signal.

  “What’s going on?” Bridgette shouted.

  “I’m sure D knows what he’s doing,” Bee said.

  Tony just kept his eye on the road.

  The brown-skinned spy made a left at the corner. Traffic at the intersection was going right. At the corner D turned his Escalade left, while Tony and the third SUV went right. As D turned the corner his quarry was just revving the engine on his Yamaha. The bike was parked next to a fire hydrant about a third of the way down the block. The biker seemed quite surprised to see the Escalade barreling up the street, as were a taxi and two sedans. All three began swerving and blaring their horns. D was undeterred. He wheeled the car down the block and made a hard left that drove the front of the SUV into the Yamaha’s front wheel, sending the bike backward and the rider flying to the sidewalk. D leaped out of the Escalade like a linebacker on a blitz. The beleaguered biker, who on closer inspection looked Latino, scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash for safety. D pursued for half a block, realized he wasn’t fast enough to catch the guy, and gave up.

  Eric was inspecting the Escalade for damage when D walked over. “Man, you are crazy. You could have got me killed!”

  “And you act like that would have been a bad thing.” D bent and tapped the glove compartment of the motorcycle. “This job does have its perks.”

  * * *

  When D walked into the main room of the Golden Lady, near Bruckner Boulevard in the South Bronx, ninety minutes later, the long, straight bar-length stage of the biggest black/Latino strip club in the city was bursting with talent. There was Rita, a dynamic Dominican girl whose large, powerful legs were wrapped around the center pole like A-Rod’s hands around a bat; there was Chante, a small-breasted but prodigiously bootylicious Brooklynite who could make her butt cheeks clap and scoop up change; and at the far end, a top music-video director and a huge singing star feigned cunnilingus in their La Perla bras and panties. Missy Elliott’s classic “Get Ur Freak On” blasted from the speakers at the one-third-full house. Few in the room recognized Bridgette Haze. To most of the working-class customers she was “the white female dancing with that fine-ass black freak.” A few of the men at the bar were in fact a little irritated, si
nce neither woman seemed interested in either baring all or accepting the one-, five-, and twenty-dollar bills being offered to them. “What’s they problem anyway?” one man muttered as D walked over to where Tony sat nursing a beer.

  “Full night, huh?” Tony said.

  “So the other bike followed the other car?”

  “Yeah, that’s what it looks like. He had to make a choice at 42nd Street. We made a left toward Times Square and he followed Rob up the West Side Highway and right over the GW.”

  “Ivy’s gonna cover the time of the two drivers, the gas, and the minor fender work on Eric’s car.”

  “How about throwing in the Yamaha?” Tony inquired.

  “To the victor go the spoils,” D said.

  Bridgette now spotted D sitting barside, sauntered over, stripper style, and then broke into a dance move right off the last MTV Awards. Tony and D applauded politely. Thus provoked, Bridgette strutted over to where D sat and bent down, pushing her face close to his.

  “Is this a full-service date?” she asked.

  D caught the movie reference and replied, “No. But if you’re hungry I’ll make sure you get fed.”

  D wasn’t completely opposed to being seduced by Bridgette Haze, but there was something ridiculous about her little-girl vamping that made her seem funny to him. Bridgette read the amusement on his face and suddenly dirty dancing on the bar at some godforsaken strip club didn’t seem like fun. In fact, she seemed to feel incredibly self-conscious, which was unusual and disquieting. She held out her arms; D took them and slid his arms down around her waist, lifting Bridgette up and then putting her down lightly on the floor. She looked at his eyes. He said, “Let’s go,” and motioned for Bee to join them. Bee came over, put a hand on one hip, and said, “I know I better be getting picked up too!” D obliged and they all left the Golden Lady.

  * * *

  At Jimmy’s Uptown Café everything was back to normal. Everyone at this celebrity hangout knew who Bridgette Haze was and treated her accordingly. People gawked and pointed. Little girls and waiters were photographed with her. Free drinks came from the bar. People ran up their cell phone bills telling friends and family they were breathing the same air as Bridgette Haze.

  To D’s surprise, neither Bridgette nor Bee had yet inquired about what happened with the motorcycles and where D had disappeared to. In the ride over to Jimmy’s and in the ensuing conversation, the two women had been talking excitedly about creating a video that captured the kaleidoscopic nature of the night. “This is what it needs to be,” the director said passionately. “It needs to feel like Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Bridgette agreed, and then sipped on her second mojito.

  “Little Bridgette sits at her suburban looking glass and then walks right into an edgy urban wonderland. First you’re in a world of leather queens and, for a moment, you assume that identity. Then you’re being trailed by a posse of lesbians and you do a hot dance that would make Madonna blush.”

  “Yeah, I like that,” Bridgette said.

  “Then you’re at some uptown strip club being stared at by black men old enough to be your grandfather.”

  Bridgette shouted, “Ooh, that’s hot! We’ll have a room full of guys who look like D.”

  D just smiled at the crack and surveyed the room. When creative people, particularly clients, were brainstorming, he knew there was only one mode for a security person—silence.

  “That’s the video, Bridgette!” Flush with the night’s activities and her potent drinks, Bee was as animated as D had ever seen her. Usually she had the chilly demeanor of a very relaxed pervert. Now there was something bright and childlike about her. She was almost adorable, a word he’d never have thought could apply to Bee Cole. She was already formulating shots.

  “We’ll have dancers, but they’ll reflect these environments in the dances we do. We’ll get a Broadway choreographer, someone who did a show like Contact.”

  “Did you ever see Pennies from Heaven?” Bridgette asked. “It’s this really dark musical with Steve Martin as a killer and Christopher Walken as a pimp. He does this pimp dance on a bar that’s just rad.”

  “Really. I’ve got to watch it.”

  Bee and D were impressed that Bridgette knew of a film that the director didn’t. This started the conversation on a tangent about musicals. They were debating the merits of the film versions of Cabaret and Funny Girl when D felt someone staring at him. Not at the table. Not at Bridgette or even Bee. Eyes on D Hunter. By the bar, next to the overweight Goya-products salesman kicking it to a half-interested legal secretary, was the kid from Emily’s Tea Party. When their eyes met, he raised his shot glass in salute to D. This was awkward. He wanted to rush over and have a word with his new pal, a man he felt increasingly certain was involved in Night’s kidnapping. But leaving Bridgette Haze alone at that table was not an option. If they were gonna make a move inside Jimmy’s, he needed to be right by her side.

  This was feeling like a real Kevin Costner moment when Ivy Greenwich entered the room with a most unusual posse. Next to him and, in fact, holding his hand was a fair-skinned black Wall Streeter named Kirby Turner, who liked to hang out when she wasn’t negotiating deals. Behind them was Mercedez Cruz, looking as sexy as she was surly. Now D’s antennae were quivering like crazy. Mercedez’s presence was a plus, but the level of risk in the room had risen exponentially. D looked past the arrivals at the table and ignored their greetings. All his attention was aimed at the bar, where the kid put some money down and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going, D?” Ivy asked, but he was still too preoccupied to answer.

  In six strides he was out the door, standing in front of Jimmy’s, looking to his left and right. Tony, who was typing in his two-way, rolled down his window.

  “D, what’s up?”

  “You see anybody come out here in the last few minutes?”

  “Sorry. I’ve been two-waying my wife. Is there another problem?”

  “No, my man. It’s cool.”

  There were cars and people and the low mumble of New York voices. In the distance D heard a fading motorcycle. Tony heard it too.

  “You wanna get in and try and chase it down?”

  “No, not tonight,” D replied. “But soon. Real soon.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Tell me again why we aren’t calling the police.” D was sitting in the men’s Jacuzzi at the plush Reebok Sports Club. Ivy was across from him, on the other side of the Jacuzzi, his head back, his eyes closed, his gray, kinky hair covered by a red rubber swimming cap.

  Without opening his eyes, Ivy responded, “You know how common extortion is becoming in the record business? Last year an A&R man for Sony was kidnapped for not signing an act. I know a major singer working out of a studio in Jersey who got snatched when he stepped outside for a cigarette.”

  “Any connection to what happened to Night?”

  “No,” Ivy said firmly. “It turned out to have been his cousins, who he’d refused to lend money to.”

  “Do you think Night was kidnapped because of some family affiliation? His sister has been known to date some rough Negroes.”

  “No.” Ivy opened his eyes and looked across the churning water at D. “You’re missing my point. Ever since hip hop brought the street into the music business, this kind of gangsta behavior has grown, and now it’s out of hand. If I bring in the police every time a situation arises, I’ll never have time to do business.”

  Now D was irritated. “Ivy, you talk like gangsters”—he made sure to pronouce the word properly—“haven’t been working this game since Frank Sinatra was a pup. I read Dwayne Robinson’s book, Ivy.”

  “It’s different today,” Ivy asserted. “We weren’t like this group around today. We wanted to make some money. These kids are into intimidation just for the sport of it.” Ivy clearly knew more than he was telling D, but the bodyguard felt he wasn’t in a position to press his employer. Perhaps a little man
ipulation would help.

  “The police know something happened to Night.” When Ivy didn’t react, D continued, telling the manager the gist of his conversation with Detective Williams, except for the crucial detail that he’d known the cop since he was a boy.

  “All that means is that they see smoke,” was Ivy’s response. “But in New York there’s smoke somewhere every day. It’s only a fire if we tell them where the flames are. Eventually they’ll see a bigger fire elsewhere and move on.”

  “This is a sexy case, Ivy. They’re gonna stay on me until I give them some love.”

  “You think they’re feeling it like that?”

  “Ivy, there was a motorcycle chase through Union Square, down Broadway, and right over the Williamsburg Bridge. That’s not a fire, it’s a blaze.”

  Ivy put his head back and closed his eyes. “Let me enjoy this, D. We’ll talk about it some more later.”

  D lifted himself out of the Jacuzzi and moved through the glass doors to the showers. Ivy looked ridiculous sitting with his little red rubber cap on, but D knew it was a bad idea to underestimate the old man. You didn’t survive as long as Ivy had being either naïve or loose-lipped. Still, it seemed prudent to gather some additional information on his benefactor.

  D showered quickly, put on his black and white Phat Farm tracksuit, and then made a call on his cell. Afterward he took the elevator up to the sixth floor where a hip hop dance class was under way. D stopped outside one of the two entrances to the mirrored room. At the other stood Hubert, who acknowledged D’s presence with a nod. Since the incident at Pastis, Hubert had kept his distance from D. Apparently he’d been impressed with what he heard about the night Bridgette had spent with Bee, but he hadn’t shared his thoughts with anyone. D thought Hubert’s knowledge of Bridgette would be helpful, but he didn’t want to press the issue.