by Deidre Berry
That was a good day.
A few days later, Mama Nita went silent again. It was gradual, starting with forgetfulness and the inability to put the right names to the right faces, a temperamental outburst here and there, and then complete silence.
Heartwrenching? That’s not strong enough to describe my sense of loss and bewilderment.
Love and Deception
Almost two weeks after Vance left Chicago, he called me on my little pay-as-you-go cell phone one evening, and said, “They got him.” I didn’t know who the “they” was, but I knew he was referring to Donovan.
“How?” I asked. “When, where?”
“A few days ago, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.”
“What—I mean, why the hospital of all places?”
“Well, I don’t know all the details just yet, but apparently he was visiting his grandfather who recently had a heart attack. Someone tipped off the authorities, but he gave them an alias, and even a fake ID. They arrested Donovan anyway, and it’s taken them this long to positively identify him.”
“Wow! So he’s been in New York this whole time?”
“It’s unlikely, but like I said, I don’t have all the details yet,” said Vance, “but I need for you to get here as soon as you can. Donovan refuses to talk to anyone until he talks to you first.”
My plans to move back to Chicago had been short-lived, which was why I was so glad that I hadn’t formally announced my plans to move back to town. Pam and Gwen were both extremely understanding and encouraged me to go back to New York and do whatever was necessary to put the situation behind me once and for all.
“We’re not going anywhere. We’ll be here just like we’ve always been,” Gwen said when she dropped me off at the airport the next morning. I kissed everyone good-bye, and it was wheels up, back to New York City, where I went straight from JFK Airport to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan where Donovan was being held.
As Donovan’s attorney, Vance was there waiting for me in the lobby. He looked excited to see me, and kissed me on the lips with no hesitation. “Are you ready?” he asked.
My heart beat fast and pounded in my ears at the thought of seeing Donovan face-to-face after all the unnecessary hell he had put me through.
He had some explaining to do, but then again, so did I. “Does he know about us?” I asked.
“No. I spoke to Donovan briefly on the phone last night and it was only long enough for him to say he wanted to see you.”
“Well, I would like to talk to him alone if you don’t mind,” I said, knowing that just seeing Vance and me sitting next to each other would tell him everything. Of course, he would have to eventually be told that Vance and I were pursuing a relationship, but first things first. I needed to know the five W’s and the H of the whole situation.
I had never visited anyone in jail before, but the way they did things around there made me feel as though I were the criminal trying to break into the damned place.
First, I had to leave my luggage with the front lobby officer, and then show a valid photo ID. I put my purse on a conveyor belt to be searched electronically, then walked through a metal detector, which beeped when I went through it, so I was then pat searched by a pervy corrections officer who seemed to be getting off on feeling me up between my legs and across my breast. It was intrusive and demeaning, and I fully understood why Diana Ross went ballistic that time at London’s Heathrow Airport. Respectmypersonalspace.com!
After all of that, it was determined that my underwire bra was causing the problem, and I was finally allowed entry into the lobby. Whew! I mean, really? But that was only just the beginning. I then had to fill out an application and information form, and give written consent for a background check to be performed on me, all of which had to be approved by the Bureau of Prisons before I was actually permitted to visit with Donovan. It took a couple of hours to get the go-ahead, but eventually I was escorted in a visitors’ room where several inmates were visiting with their families, including teenagers and young children.
I couldn’t understand that for the life of me. In my opinion, no kid should be exposed to jail in any way, shape, or form. Hell, I was traumatized just being there, so there was no telling how damaging the experience was to a child’s psyche. As requested, Vance respected my wishes and waited outside in the lobby.
When the corrections officer brought Donovan in the room, I gasped so loudly that it echoed throughout the room. I barely recognized him.
“Hey, babe,” he said shyly, and smiled.
Well, at least he still had those pretty white teeth.
As for the rest of him, he had lost about twenty pounds off of an already-slender frame, his hair had grown into a wild, bushy afro, and he had a full, nappy-ass beard caked with only God knows what.
And he stunk.
“I know you were on the run and everything, but didn’t they have soap and water where you were?”
“Bad things go on in here, Eva,” Donovan said in a hushed, paranoid voice. “And if these sick bastards think they’re gonna take my manhood, they’re gonna get some of the . . .
He looked like Pig-Pen and smelled like Pepe le Pew, but even on lockdown, Donovan had thought of everything. Even down to the best way to thwart a physical attack, which was sad, but it was his new reality. Not only did he plan not to drop the soap, he didn’t even plan to use it. “Oh, believe me, it’s gonna be a fight to the death, but if I lose, they’re gonna get some of the foulest, shittiest, and most disgusting ass they’ll ever have in their life.”
“So you’re gonna walk around looking like that and smelling like bullshit the whole time you’re in here?”
“It sure as hell ain’t pleasant, but hey, if that keeps the rapists off me, then so be it,” said Donovan. “I have to do whatever it takes to survive in here.”
“And how did it even come to this, Donovan? I mean, weren’t you making enough money of your own?”
“It just got out of control,” Donovan said, looking remorseful, “and there’s really no excuse for it, but you have all these people coming at you wanting to invest a minimum of half a million dollars each. You start seeing other guys in your field and how they roll, I mean the real big billionaire tycoons, and you wanna roll like that too. But you don’t have the billion dollars a year salary yet, so you slowly start spending money that is not yours in order to keep up with appearances.
“You know, it takes money to make money, and you gotta look the part to get the part, and all that. And one day you look up and you’ve spent more money than you intended to, and all of a sudden a client wants to cash out for more than you can give him, and that’s when, slowly but surely, that house of cards begins to fall.”
Even his explanation for leaving me in Switzerland was plausible—sort of. “It was wrong and so fucking selfish to take you on the run with me in the first place. I wanted to tell you so badly what was going on, but I figured the less you knew, the less it would appear that you were in cahoots with all this.”
“Well, damn, couldn’t you have at least left me enough money to get back home?” I asked.
“I needed for you to be angry with me,” he said. “I know you, Eva, and you’re a terrible liar. If I had made things comfortable for you, and left you on good terms, you just might be sitting in a jail cell of your own right now.”
At that moment, I saw a glimmer of the old Donovan.
I thought I would be angry and curse him out, but hearing how scared and vulnerable he sounded made my heart melt. I no longer wanted to rip him a new asshole like everybody else. I wanted to take care of him, and protect him.
“So where have you been?” I asked, genuinely concerned.
“Oh, here, there, and everywhere,” he said wistfully. “Morocco mostly, then I made the mistake of calling Mother to check on things, and she told me about Gramps having a heart attack and all.... I knew they would probably catch me, but I had to come back and see him. I didn’t want hi
m to die thinking that his grandson was a coward.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather. Is he going to be all right?”
Tears came to Donovan’s eyes and he was silent for a couple of minutes. Just as he knew I was a terrible liar, I could tell he was willing himself not to cry.
“Yeah, they say he’s going to pull through, but the stress I caused, and the shame I brought to the family name, is something—” Donovan sighed heavily, indicating that he didn’t want to continue discussing the matter. “But on a lighter note,” he said, “how is Flossie?”
I raised an eyebrow. The only “Flossie” either of us knew was the stuffed gray elephant that he had won for me at Coney Island years ago, and was one of the few things that Donovan’s bitch of a mother hadn’t tossed out or stolen for herself.
“Flossie’s doing just fine. . . .” I said, playing along.
“Good, that’s real good!” Donovan’s eyes were bulging and shining. “Tell her I said hello, and that I hope to see her real soon.”
Right, right . . . I nodded like I understood, even though I was confused as hell. Either he had left his mind in Morocco or it was a low-key way of trying to tell me something.
“I will definitely do that,” I said, trying to put the pieces together. Donovan and I stared at each other, hoping to somehow communicate telepathically, but since neither of us were mind readers, it was useless.
Moment of Truth
Before I knew it, my time with Donovan was up, and it was Vance’s turn to come in and see him.
“I have some things I need to take care of, but I’ll meet you at the apartment later on,” I told Vance before he went in the visitors’ room.
“Okay, but what did Donovan say to you?” Vance asked, holding me back.
“Um, nothing much,” I said, biting my bottom lip, which for those who knew me well was a dead giveaway that I wasn’t being truthful. “He just apologized for getting me involved, and that was pretty much it—I didn’t tell him about you and me, so you might want to keep that under wraps for now.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Vance. “Donovan has enough to worry about, and there’s no telling how he’ll react to the news of us being together.”
Vance gave me the spare key to his apartment, and I took off like a light to retrieve my luggage from the lobby officer. Ms. Flossie was packed away in my suitcase, and had been traveling with me from pillar to post ever since I had picked up what was left of my earthly possessions at the Funderburk.
I had no clue what a stuffed animal had to do with any of this, but I was damn curious to find out.
Dear Eva,
The fact that you are even reading this letter means that all the wrong I have been doing in the dark has come to the light.
The time we spent together were the best years of my life, but unfortunately, my actions have caused this to be the point where we must part. I hope that the money I have set aside for you will ensure that you have a wonderful future.
The key unlocks a safe deposit box at UBS Bank in the Cayman Islands, which holds $10 million dollars’ worth of T-bills, jewelry, and cash. I have made special arrangements with the bank officer, and all that is required for you to gain access to the safe deposit box is the box number, 1065, and the password, “Flossie.” Once you get to this box, you will find that there are other keys that belong to other safe deposit boxes throughout the world.
You can pull this off, Eva, as long as you play it smart, and play it safe. Tell no one about these accounts. Trust no one! Go get the money, have a good life, and forget about me.
I apologize for any hurt that I have undoubtedly caused you.
Please forgive me.
Love always,
D
P.S. Check Flossie inside out . . . 250K.
I ripped out the rest of the stuffing and found dozens of humongous rolls of hundred dollar bills hidden inside the cavity.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash, plus hidden treasure boxes around the world containing millions of dollars. Hallelujah!
I felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and that I’d had it all along. Lord, if only I had known about this sooner, things would have been different!
With all that money, I could pay off all of Mama Nita’s overdue medical bills as well as pay up her participation in the Healthy Mind Project for the rest of her life.
The cards had been re-dealt, and I was now holding a winning hand that I fully intended to play the hell out of.
“Honey, I’m home!” Vance called out from the living room. I jumped at the sound of his voice and scrambled to stuff Flossie, the money, and everything else back into my suitcase. By the time Vance walked into the room, I was as breathless and jittery as a crackhead, but at least I had hidden the evidence.
“Hey, sweetheart!” I said, nervously wiping sweat from my brow.
“What’s up, Eva,” he asked, a bit suspicious. “Did I scare you?”
“No! It’s just that seeing Donovan today wrecked my nerves a little bit, you know?”
“Yeah, it was unsettling to see the physical condition he was in,” Vance said, “and frankly, I’m worried about Donovan’s mental health as well. I’m going to have someone evaluate him soon to see what’s going on. If there is a problem, maybe we could use that in his defense.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “I think being locked up is literally driving him insane. So will he be able to get out of there pending trial?”
“It depends on how much the judge sets his bond for. Considering that all of that money is still out there unaccounted for, and Donovan has absconded before in order to avoid jail time, I’m certain that they are going to set the bond pretty high,” Vance said. “I keep hearing varying figures from ten million all the way up to fifty million, which is ridiculous! Ten we can do, but if his bond turns out to be anything more than twenty million, he’s just going to have to sit in jail until trial.”
My head was spinning from all the legalese. Enoughalready.com!
“Whew, it’s been a long day,” I said, wrapping my arms around Vance’s waist. “Kiss?”
Vance bent down and kissed me on the mouth, and playfully bit my lower lip. “Hmm, you taste good,” he said. “So, what do you want to do to commemorate our first evening of cohabitation?”
“Hump.” I laughed. “Not talk about Donovan Dorsey, how about that?”
“Done! And how about we include dinner and a Knicks game at the Garden?”
“I knew there was a reason why I like you so much,” I teased. “Yeah, how ’bout it?”
The Knicks lost to the Bulls 111 to 119. Afterwards, Vance and I had dinner at The Palm Restaurant near our apartment where they have the best Shrimp Bruno and double-cut New York Strips, and then we went home and made fast, passionate love.
The sex was phenomenal, but I could not get Donovan’s face out of my head. Not the one that I’d seen earlier down at the jailhouse, but the face of the man that I loved dearly prior to the scandal.
While I still cared for Donovan, I was not in love with him. How could I be with all that had transpired, added to the fact that he was facing a long prison sentence?
Still, I felt guilty about my budding relationship with Vance—like I was a low-down, out-and-out cheater. I felt sorry for what Donovan had gotten himself into, but damn it, I deserved some happiness, didn’t I?
Dirty Money
After only a couple of days of working at Vance’s law firm, I was performing Sonya’s job duties just as well as she had.
“You have reached the law office of Vance Murphy, Attorney at Law, how may I direct your call? One moment please . . . Mr. Johnson, line five . . . Mr. Murphy, line two . . . Ms. Greer, line seven . . . Hello, you have reached the law office of Vance Murphy, Attorney at Law, how may I direct your call? One moment please . . .”
My days were spent handling a barrage of incoming calls, making appointments, light filing, greeting visitors, and occasionally making love
in the boss’s office.
It was easy work, but it was also boring as hell and made me long that much more to get back into publishing and my first love of writing.
Ronald Nash, the Manhattan D.A., came in to see Vance one afternoon, and as you can imagine, it was difficult for me to maintain my civility. Especially after he had treated me so harshly that day in his office when he was questioning me about Donovan’s whereabouts.
Donovan’s idea to keep me completely in the dark until well after the fact had been genius, because if I knew before what I knew at that moment, I would have definitely cracked under pressure.
I was just dying to singsong to Mr. Nash, I know something you don’t know . . . onion-head bastard!
But I maintained my professionalism and showed the onion-headed bastard to Vance’s office, where they had a long, closed-door meeting.
The following week, Donovan plead not guilty to a laundry lists of criminal charges, and the federal judge presiding over Donovan’s case set his bond at an unprecedented forty million dollars. Donovan was clearly guilty as sin, but Vance’s strategy was to make the district attorney’s office prove their case on a victim-by-victim basis.
“We’re going to force all the alleged victims to produce paperwork, receipts, etcetera, because there is a good chance that not everyone will be able to come up with proof, which will weaken the prosecution’s case and possibly reduce the sentence that Donovan will ultimately be given.”
At that rate, the trial had the potential to last for years. Of course, that didn’t sit well with me. Hundreds of lives had been ruined, including mine, and I wanted nothing more than to get out from under the shadow of this whole ordeal—once and for all.
Adding fuel to the circuslike atmosphere was the revelation that Mama Dorsey was sitting on thirty-three million dollars even though the only income she had earned in the last several years was from meager sales of her 2001 nonfiction book From Queens to Wall Street: Raising Successful Children in Today’s Society.
