Sleep Don't Come Easy

by McGlothin, Victor

  The red-headed detective smiled as he stepped onto the sidewalk to greet Vera, who had two hands full of dry cleaning covered in plastic. “Vera Miles, we haven’t actually met but I feel that we should have by now,” he said, gesturing to carry her dry cleaning. “I’m Frank Draper, a narcotics detective with the city police, although I’m sure you knew that the minute I showed up.”

  “Yeah, I knew all right,” Vera answered, trying to determine how she would play the man who was undoubtedly trying to play her. She stood there, in a non-committal stance, all the while watching his every move. He grinned more than he should have, as far as Vera was concerned. She never did trust a man who shoved his big teeth in her face when he should have come right out with what he had to say. Draper was up to something and it didn’t take long before it revealed itself.

  “Like I was saying, I feel kinda like we’ve already met. With me spending seven years as Warren Sikes’s partner and you stomping around asking people all sorts of questions about him, it would have been a bunch easier if you’d have simply come and asked me.” There he went smiling again, that awkward fidgety smile that wouldn’t have fooled anyone. It was faker than a three-dollar bill.

  Since the egg had been cracked, Vera had a split second to settle on how to cook it. Seeing as how her brains felt scrambled, she elected to keep it moving with the white detective. “That’s one way I could have gone,” Vera replied, while motioning toward her office door. “If I didn’t want the truth, you’d have been the likely candidate. Now, don’t get bent out of shape. I only meant that a cop’s partner is always the most likely candidate to lie on his behalf. Narcotics is a tough job, Detective Draper. I wouldn’t blame you for covering Warren Sikes’s behind, even after death. When it’s all said and done, a cop’s reputation is all he’s got, isn’t that the creed y’all live . . . and die by?” She smiled to herself when his cheesy grin hit the concrete.

  “You seem to understand a great deal about loyalty on the job for someone who’s never been on the force. I applaud that. I even respect it. Just tell me why you’re nosing around about my partner and whose dime you’re on?” Vera ignored the question then slid her key in the lock. Draper crowded her in the door frame. He inched into her personal space and grinned again. “You need to watch your step when you’re tracing someone else’s.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Vera groaned, while forcing the door open. “That’s funny. It never stuck like that before.” She studied the lock for a brief moment then went to put her cleaning down. Detective Draper was looking on when she discovered her office area was a wreck. Her file cabinet was overturned, documents were strewn about on the floor and every drawer was open. Someone had thoroughly ransacked the place. The way she looked at Draper indicated who she thought was behind it. “Oomph, I guess the cleaning lady has the day off.” She chuckled.

  “That’s too bad, Vera,” said the detective, with all of his teeth exposed. “There’s never a cop around when you need one.”

  “Yeah, be sure to say hi to Mrs. Sikes next time you go jumping behind closed doors,” Vera heckled, while staring him down until he backed out of the doorway with his hands raised in a faux defensive position. He’d gone out of his way to get under her skin and maybe uncover who she was working for. Either way, it worked. Vera was rattled. She locked the deadbolt and picked up the telephone receiver. Suddenly she slammed it down, fearing that the line had been bugged. Instead she pulled a small cell phone out of her handbag and pressed the number two on her speed dial. She was burning mad, feeling violated and pretty much pissed off. If Draper thought that trashing her office was enough to deter her, he had another think coming. When Glow picked up on the other end, Vera folded her arms defiantly. “Hey, this is Vera. Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. Why, what happened?” Glow asked pensively.

  “Nothing I can’t handle. I thought you were supposed to be looking after Rags.” Vera listened to a long bout of silence on Glow’s end. “Glow, you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry about that. I had to check on something,” she uttered in a strained voice.

  Vera, still trying to process the fact that someone trashed her place, was running short on good nerves. “Glow, this is the wrong time to trip, so don’t play with me. Where in the hell is Rags?”

  “Oh, he got tired of being led around by the nose so I put him up in a hotel not far from me. You know, the one on the tollway by that Cajun restaurant you like so much.”

  “Yep, I know that place. What name is he checked in under?”

  “Mine. He don’t have a last name or any real ID,” Glow smarted back after being called out for sloughing off on her duties. “Don’t worry about him, Vera. Rags has been sleeping like a baby. I got him a bottle of Hennessey and put his butt to bed. You won’t have any trouble out of him.”

  “For the sake of us all, I hope you’re right.” Vera told Glow to get dressed and be ready to roll out in twenty minutes. She left the office like she’d found it, thinking of Ms. Minnie’s words and the warnings of her ancestors. For the first time in four days she was glad her receptionist exhibited better judgment than she had and stayed away. Vera hopped in her vehicle, heading for Rags’s hotel with her grandfather’s voice in her head. “Baby girl, common sense ain’t ever been all that common.” The older she got, that tidbit of advice seemed to stand up that much taller. However that didn’t make her feel any better about someone breaking and entering to prove it.

  Vera did stop by the hotel to see about Rags and encourage him to hold on until she found Sin Johnson to satisfy her curiosity once and for all, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found. His bed had been made, although the maid service hadn’t gone over his room. Rags had gotten restless, fixed the bed as if he were at home, and then taken off. If he was in on the murder, Sin would have known about it. She was bent on finding him and closing this chapter in her life, hopefully without it being her last. Vera wouldn’t stand for being pushed away from the truth any longer. It was time to find out one way or another. Learning whether or not Rags had anything to do with the tornado that blew through her office was sure to take a while longer to ascertain.

  Glow was pacing the sidewalk in front of her apartment building when Vera wheeled around the turn. “Hey, Vera,” she hailed from the cold cement. “They say it’s gonna rain.”

  “Get in,” was Vera’s hurried response. “I don’t give a damn about any rain, Glow. You told me you’d sit on Rags. Now, I don’t know if he tore up my office looking for evidence or if Warren Sikes’s partner had someone to do it.”

  “Sikes, that’s the detective who got snuffed?” Glow asked anxiously, like his name finally meant something to her.

  “Yep, he’s the one Rags might’ve killed. And don’t change the subject. I’m out here busting my tail and thanks to you we don’t know what he’s been up to.”

  Glow sat quietly, while taking her ribbing in stride. She knew where Rags was the entire time and didn’t feel like explaining anything to Vera. “I told you there were no worries about Rags,” Glow asserted eventually. “Anyway, you didn’t tell me somebody broke in your shop.” She watched as Vera studied the road in front of her and the rearview mirror. “Who are you looking for now?”

  “I don’t know—nobody and anybody. I’m down to my last good nerve, though, that much I do know. Hell, Glow, I can’t remember a case that I’ve worked for four days and still didn’t know who the enemy was. I got a bad feeling about this one.”

  “What does that mean, a bad feeling?” Glow asked, hoping she wasn’t suggesting anything negative about Rags.

  “Meaning I’m a have to shoot somebody before it’s done.”

  Glow leaned back against the vinyl seat, relieved. “Oh, then I’m good with that. You gonna shoot Vendetta? Because I ain’t ever been able to stand her ghetto ass!”

  “Uh-uh, can’t pop her,” Vera explained. “We need her for something big. Vendetta’s got a line on Sin Johnson and won’t give it u
p. Vendetta tried to front when I jacked her up in the cooler. This time, I’ll run interference with Bullet while you stomp a mud hole in her behind.”

  Kicking back with an expression of satisfaction anchored on her face, Glow began to hum a carefree tune. “Backstabbers, hmmm, backstabbers.” That was the one common thread Glow had against the woman she barely knew. Vera didn’t trust Vendetta as far as she could throw her and disliked her even more. Therefore, Glow felt the same. That’s what friends were for. Having a girlfriend who despised her nemesis on general principle came in handy during times like that.

  When the ladies fell into The 3rd Round Bar and Grill, Bullet circled around the bar area, disapproving of Glow’s presence in his place of business, as he put it. “No, no, no, not today,” he fussed, waving his hand at Glow as if she was a mad cow not welcomed in the barn. “Vera, I know she’s your girl, but we talked about this before.” Bullet marched toward Glow until Vera grabbed him by the hand and led him toward his office.

  “Baby, she ain’t trying to cause no stuff up in here,” Vera said, with her hands placed on Bullet’s back. Once she had him to herself, behind closed doors, Vera put both hands down his pants. “Ooh, there’s not a lot of room in there. Move that thing over so I can get my hands out.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, Vera,” he complained. “And, it won’t . . . whooo—work. Hmm, she’s trouble, Vera. Glow is trouble, baby.”

  “Give me a minute and then you can tell me what you think about it.” Vera unzipped his pants then pushed him down on the corner of his desk. “You think that door is locked?”

  Bullet’s eyes rolled back in his head. “Lawd, I sure hope so.”

  While Vera took care of Bullet, Glow made the best of an opportunity to do a number on Vendetta. Inside the storeroom, things were getting heated.

  “What, you think you’re gonna do something to me in here?” Vendetta scoffed. “Your girl tried the same thing earlier and you can’t find a scratch on my face.”

  Glow began to loosen her neck and shoulders like a boxer stepping into the ring. “Shut the hell up all that yapping and tell me where Sin Johnson is.”

  “Like I said,” was all Vendetta managed to get out before she had been slapped twice and thrown on top of the potato sacks. Glow had a knot of the waitress’s weave clutched in her fist and an ice pick at Vendetta’s throat.

  “Vera’s a very busy woman with enough on her mind. She does not have the time it takes to fool with you. So, with that in mind, the words you say next just might be your last. Where is Sin Johnson?”

  Vendetta deliberated over the severity of Glow’s menacing intimidation. She closed her eyes then dropped the tough home-girl act when she realized it could have been the death of her. “Okay, I’ll come out with it, just don’t stick me with that pick. Sin is down there hiding from something in an old apartment complex in South Oak Cliff, on Overton Road. I can’t say what the number is because he uses a few places at a time, but I can tell you how to go about looking him up.”

  “Why’s a big-time dealer like Sin hiding? Who’s he hiding from?”

  “I don’t know,” Vendetta growled. “Everything I guess. Things done changed. He ain’t a big shot no more.”

  “Okay then, that’s good enough for now. Don’t you feel better?” Glow asked, raising the heel of her palm from Vendetta’s chest. “I know I do.” There were two drinks sitting on the bar when Vera returned from her rendezvous in Bullet’s office. Glow was calmly sipping from her favorite, a Long Island Iced Tea and urging Vendetta to hurry up with her friend’s cranberry on the rocks. “I thought I made myself clear back there in the store room,” she huffed. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

  Glow winked at Bullet once he’d gotten himself together and joined them. “Later, Bullet. I like your place. And Vendetta makes one hell of a LI iced tea.” She and Vera sauntered out the front door like they owned the joint. Vera listened as Glow informed her where to look for the former prime-time dealer and how he had a predilection for Fat Man’s Pizza, a large pineapple and chicken with pan crust.

  Before parting ways at the curb near Glow’s home, Vera thanked her. She insisted that Rags be found and followed again as quickly as possible. His chaperone agreed as she climbed down and shut the car door. “Don’t mention it and don’t waste any time on that. I know just where to locate Rags,” Glow told her. “Go on and settle this so I’ll know what I’m dealing with.” Vera was at a loss as to what Glow had intimated but she sounded absolutely convinced that she had everything on lock. There was no arguing with her. Vera was just as thick-headed herself, so it was fairly easy to see where she was coming from.

  Fifteen

  Residential traffic began to thicken as Vera exited the freeway at Ledbetter Road on the south side. She took a left and headed east, traveling deeper into a vastly minority populated area which forty years earlier was relegated to “Whites Only.” Rows of small wood-framed homes littered the landscape as far as the eye could see, with a few old and bewildered apartment complexes dotting the busy thoroughfare every other mile or so. Vera tried to imagine a time when Blacks and Hispanics were beating at the gates with aspirations of moving into the community but couldn’t. The same neighborhood, now infested with prostitution, teen-aged pregnancies and rampant drug abuse featured scores of their offspring clawing for the chance to get out.

  Sinton Johnson was partly responsible for the colossal decline of the once inspired community. For a time, he managed a notorious band of drug dealers, pushing crack to working class parents and school children alike. Oddly enough, Sinton was revered by those whose lives he ruined and dreams he stole. When Vera considered that, she thought long and hard about what she’d do if she found him. Men like him were brazen wolves who deserved to be hunted down and disposed of. How Sinton Johnson escaped that fate was beyond her. Lord knows he deserved it.

  Per Vendetta’s directions, Vera located the Fat Man’s Pizzeria where Sinton supposedly ordered the same unusual pizza pie combination at least twice a week. It would take some posturing to get what she needed from the manager and Vera was prepared to shake it out of him if push came to shove. “Hey, tell the manager someone wants to see him,” she requested boldly, in her best sister-from-downtown business voice. A young man standing behind the register finally acknowledged her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the teenager answered quickly, with a resounding amount of respect in his voice.

  Vera surveyed the restaurant’s dining room, salad bar and an employee dealing dime bags of marijuana near the restrooms. She smirked when the young man saw her. He alerted his customer to move along when she continued to stare him down. Vera didn’t usually give a flip about small time pushers, but there she was, getting angrier by the second over a gateway pot transaction. It was as if nobody cared for the great promise which was lost and the repercussions that reverberated throughout because of it. From that moment on, Vera was determined to find Sinton.

  “Yes, I’m the manager here—Lester Parish,” said the squat-built black man, with a receding hair line and dread locks dangling from the back of his head like stringy doll hair. He studied Vera while trying to bluff his way out of whatever stress she was bringing to his door. Vera remained quiet as she faced him, his arms folded, his demeanor surly and hesitant.

  “And I’m Vera Miles,” she offered eventually. “I received a tip that some of your employees are using this restaurant to push narcotics.”

  His eyes narrowed because of the way she phrased her words. “You’re not a cop,” the man said, uncertain of his statement.

  “I’m investigating something bigger than you got going on here. If I get what I need from you, I’m a memory,” Vera answered without addressing his question. The power of suggestion worked from time to time. Her bluff was stronger than his.

  “I could deny any wrong goes on with my knowledge. Besides, it’s just weed, you know.”

  “You sound like a man who should be read his rights. How much
time do you think you’ll get when these young punks roll on you? After they’ve been in the hole for one night without video games and cell phones, they’ll be fighting each other over who’ll give you up first.”

  It didn’t take the manager a split second to decide which route to take. “Come into my office,” he offered immediately. Vera followed the round-headed man down the corridor to a small alcove barely big enough to fit a desk and chair inside. He motioned for her to enter behind him. “Shut the door,” he told her evenly.

  “You’re smarter than you look, Lester,” Vera scoffed. She didn’t have anything against him particularly, other than his use of under aged employees as drug distributors. “Do yourself a favor and keep up the act. Tell me where you deliver pizzas to Sinton Johnson.”

  “Sin . . . Johnson,” Lester muttered solemnly, like it was the name of a beloved warrior killed in battle. “Sistah, you must be doing dope yourself. Ain’t nobody around here been near Sin. He’s in too deep with the law and that makes him invisible. I don’t have time for games. Now if you’re here to shake me down, just say so. I ain’t with the runaround.” The manager had grown more mad than scared. Vera knew then he was telling the truth.

  “Let me see your order receipts for the last two weeks,” she said, going on Vendetta’s tip. When the manager paused to figure out where she was headed with his receipts, Vera pulled her jacket back to reveal her .38. “Go on now, pull ’em down off that shelf.” He nodded apprehensively then grabbed a black plastic three-ring binder.

  “What kind of cop are you anyway?”

  “The best kind, one that was never here if I find what I’m looking for,” was her response. It must’ve sounded good to Lester, because he took a seat then shrugged his shoulders, waiting on instructions.