Beneath The Surface

by Glenn, Roy

  “You know anything about the scam they ran on this guy?” Black asked, and Carmen looked at him and smiled. He had been so quiet since they’d gotten to Lace that she almost forgot he was sitting there. For his part, Black enjoyed the view and was enjoying being with Carmen. And he was fascinated watching Carmen work.

  “I don’t know nothin’ about the scam her and TR was runnin’; but whatever it was, they said they was gonna make a lotta money,” Midori told Black.

  “I only have one more question,” Carmen said. “It’s the same one I’ve been asking all night.”

  “What’s that, honey?”

  “Do you know where I can find either TR or Yasir?”

  “You might find Yasir in Atlantic City. Tish said he likes to gamble there.”

  “Thank you, ladies. You’ve both been a big help,” Carmen said.

  For the next hour, Carmen talked to just about every dancer on the floor. Then one of the dancers led Carmen into their dressing room, and she talked to more dancers. Carmen felt comfortable in there. The women reminded her of models getting ready for a show— which they were.

  Just about all of them told her the same thing: that they hadn’t seen Tish in awhile. “Girls come and go, so nobody makes a big deal about it. But when a girl leaves here one night, sayin’ she’s goin’ to make some money, and the next night she don’t come back, something might be up wit’ that. But these bitches don’t give a fuck ’bout nothin’ but money and dope.”

  “Do you know a guy named Finch? I heard that some of the women do some work for him.”

  “Make porno’s you mean?” a dancer named Shade asked Carmen. “I know him, but I never had no dealin’s with him. That’s one crazy- ass white boy. I don’t fuck wit’ him.”

  “What about Crème and Vallie? They ever do any work for him?”

  “That’s who I’m talkin’ ’bout, honey. One night Crème and Vallie is braggin’ that they goin’ to do a scene for Finch, and ain’t nobody seen either one of them bitches since.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Black and Carmen stepped out of Lace and began walking up 48th Street toward Broadway, looking for a cab with it’s light on.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” Carmen asked Black.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you were so quiet in there, I barely knew you were there.”

  “What did you think I was gonna do, get up on a table and try to out dance them women?”

  “Well, you used to be quite the dancer, but dance on a table—not your style.”

  “You were working, Carmen. I thought I should step back and let you do your thing.”

  “I thought you were busy gettin’ your eyes full,” Carmen mused, and quickly eased her hand in his.

  “I’ve owned tittie—I mean strip clubs for years, Carmen. I’m around butt-naked women every day. Trust me, this was no big deal.” Black squeezed Carmen’s hand a little tighter and glanced over at her. He marveled at how the years had passed and Carmen still looked the same. Of course, her looks had matured over the last seventeen years, but she was still a very beautiful woman, who turned men’s heads as they passed them on the street. “So where do you wanna go now?”

  “I don’t have any plans. What about you; what’s on the legitimate businessman’s agenda for the rest of the evening?”

  “I don’t have anything I need to do. Let’s just walk for a while,” Black said and Carmen smiled. She thought back to all of the long walks they used to take all those years ago.

  “I’d like that.”

  Black looked down at Carmen’s pumps. “You sure you got the right shoes for a walk?”

  “Honey, trust me, I can walk a mile in four-inch stilettos. I could run if I had to. I’ll be just fine. But thank you, sir, for asking.” Carmen kissed him on the cheek. “You always were very considerate. It’s one of the things about you I fell in love with.”

  Black didn’t say anything. He just looked straight ahead and kept walking. They turned on Broadway and headed south.

  “Does it make you uncomfortable when I talk about how much I used to love you?” Carmen asked. How much I still love you, Carmen thought, but thought better of saying. She remembered the first time she told him how she felt about him. She didn’t see or hear from him, for almost a week.

  “I don’t know. A little I guess,” Black said. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with how I felt about you then, or how I feel about you now.”

  “You have feelings for me now?” Carmen asked, and held her breath.

  “I’m here, ain’t I? I mean, here we are walking hand in hand down Broadway past Roxy’s Deli.”

  Carmen exhaled and smiled. He could have said it a little better, but that was the answer she wanted to hear. “It’s about your wife, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You really loved her, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I really did. I’m not ashamed to say, and I probably shouldn’t be saying this to another woman, but I loved Cassandra with everything I am.”

  “You’re right; you shouldn’t say that to a woman you’re holding hands with, taking a romantic walk down Broadway. But I understand. And it’s nice that you think enough of me to share that with me,” Carmen said, trying to be the bigger woman about it. But he could have kept that fact to himself. She was jealous that another woman had the love that she wanted so desperately, seventeen years ago.

  “I still can’t believe that you were married and have a daughter,” Carmen said.

  “I miss her too.”

  “I’m keeping you from your baby.”

  “You are,” Black said, and thought about the half lie he told CeCe, who was at his house in Nassau with Michelle.

  He told her that an old friend was in town, and that he wanted to spend a little time with him. When CeCe asked who it was, Black told her about Leon, who was an old friend that was in town. But he had seen Leon twice, and hadn’t made any real plans to see him again. Here he was with Carmen, and for that, he felt bad.

  Carmen gripped his hand a little tighter. There was a part of her that felt bad too. It wasn’t right for her to keep him from his daughter, and whoever this Cameisha Collins woman was that he was apparently living with. But Carmen had made a decision that this was her second chance, and life doesn’t afford you many of those. She thought about Marcus and the fact that she hadn’t talked to him, or seen him, since the first night she saw Black. Him moving to New York was supposed to be their second chance, but here she was taking a romantic walk, hand in hand down Broadway, and Carmen couldn’t imagine anyplace else she’d rather be. When they got to Times Square, Black turned and faced Carmen.

  “What do you wanna do now?” he asked.

  Carmen smiled and stepped into the street. “Taxi!” she yelled and waved her hand. When one stopped, Black opened the door for her, and Carmen got in.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “One Twenty-two Riverside Drive.” Black looked over at Carmen and smiled. “You know you should do that more often.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Smile.”

  The reason Black was smiling was that 122 Riverside Drive was the location of the General Grant National Memorial. They used to go there all the time. Located in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River, Grant’s Tomb as it is commonly called, is not only the final resting-place of General Ulysses S. Grant, but a memorial to his life and accomplishments. At the time, Black was fascinated by the strategies of war. It was during those years that he first read Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War. One of his favorite quotes was: “Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humanness, courage, and sternness.” They were words he lived by for years.

  They would spend time at the memorial and afterwards, the two would take long walks along the banks of the Hudson River. Since Grant’s Tomb was closed at that hour, when they arrived, they walked down to the river like they used to do.


  When they got to the spot where the Driftwood Sculptures were, Black and Carmen just looked at each other. It was the first place he ever kissed her. “You remember what else we did here?” Black asked.

  “You mean other than me getting so high on Bacardi and weed that I almost fell in the river?”

  “Yeah. Other than that.”

  “I remember,” Carmen said quietly and walked on. “I remember a lot of things that we did before you dumped me.”

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  “What, that you dumped me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, it’s the truth.”

  “You said it yourself; if I hadn’t done what I did—”

  “Dumped me,” Carmen said again.

  “You would never have gotten serious about your career.”

  “True. That doesn’t mean that I forgive you.”

  “I know. Part of you wants to slap the shit outta me.”

  “And you’d deserve it.”

  “And I’d have to take it. But if I had it to do over, I’d make the same choice. No matter how much it hurt.”

  “If I ask you a question, would you answer me honestly?”

  “Haven’t I always been honest with you?”

  “Brutally.”

  “What do you want to ask me, Carmen?”

  “Did Calvin have anything to do with that choice?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, for years he swore to me that he had nothing to do with it.”

  “He didn’t want you to know. But Calvin had your best interest at heart.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that with a lot of hard work, you had the potential to be big in the industry. But you were undisciplined.”

  “Me,” Carmen said, but she knew that at the time it was true.

  “Do you remember the day you drove me and Freeze out to Long Island?”

  Carmen laughed. “We spent the day sitting outside some bar, and then you and the Ice Man went and did—whatever it is that you do; and then we drove back to the Bronx.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you had a show to do that night?”

  Carmen didn’t answer.

  “Undisciplined,” Black said quietly. “Then he said, ‘For her sake, let her go. Let Carmen be somebody more than just your woman’ ”

  “’Cause that was my ambition in life.”

  “You told me; something about having a bunch of my babies.”

  “Do you remember the last thing you said to me?”

  “That you would be better off without a thug nigga like me in your life.”

  “No.”

  “What did I say?”

  “I was sitting there, on the brink of tears and you said, ‘I’m going to the store. You want anything?’”

  “And you said, ‘Bring me back a Diet Pepsi.’”

  “I never saw you after that. From then on, I had to talk to Freeze. Which reminds me, where is the Ice Man?”

  Black paused. “Freeze is dead, Carmen.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how close you two were,” Carmen said, and could feel and see the sense of loss he felt. It was something she knew well from the loss of her sister, Desireé.

  “I think it’s time we called it a night,” Black said, and they made their way back to the street and caught a cab back to Carmen’s apartment.

  When they got there, Carmen invited him in, and he reluctantly accepted. After a brief tour, they sat down on the couch. Carmen laid her head on his chest, and he put his arm around her. They sat there together quietly. And before long, they both fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After leaving the hospital, Nick and Rain rode in their limo to Clay’s Garage (a chop shop that they run) to pick up a clean car. He told Rain to pick one. She chose a dark blue Pontiac Bonneville.

  Then Nick drove to his apartment to pick up the pictures that he extracted from the security footage of the robbery. “You better go in there by yourself,” Rain recommended, “’cause if I go in there with you, I’m takin’ your dick out and shovin’ it inside me; I’m so fucking horny. But we got shit to do, and besides, I’m not exactly sure I can stand that dick after takin’ one in the chest.”

  When Nick got back in the car, he and Rain set out on the trail of the robbers, again. They had driven by and checked out a few of the spots that Blue hung out at. Asking questions about Blue and who he’d been talking to, lately. As the night dragged on, Rain became frustrated with their lack of progress. “This shit is gettin’ us nowhere,” she told Nick after leaving another spot.

  “What you got in mind?”

  “Take me to Mount Vernon. I know somebody that may be able to help us,” Rain said and made herself comfortable. She looked at Nick while he drove, and thought that for the first time in her life, she was in love. Coming up, Rain didn’t have time for love. She thought all that love-shit was a waste of her time. Time which was better spent stacking paper. But now, she couldn’t imagine spending a day without Nick. The little bit of time that she spent in the hospital was torture, because Nick wasn’t there with her.

  Now that he and Wanda were over and she had Nick all to herself, Rain made a promise to herself right then and there: She vowed never to do anything that would come between them. And she damn sure wouldn’t do anything to make him feel like he had no choice but to kill her.

  When they made it to Mount Vernon, Rain told Nick where to go. When they got to the house, Rain got out and Nick followed her to the door. Rain rang the bell.

  “Who lives here?” Nick asked.

  “Blue’s wife.”

  “You gonna kill her?” Nick asked.

  Rain rolled her eyes at Nick as the door opened. “Hey, Millie.”

  “Hey, Lorraine,” Millie said sheepishly. “You ain’t gonna kill me are you, Lorraine?”

  Rain sucked her teeth and looked at Nick, who shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “Can I come in, Millie?”

  Millie looked at Rain and then to Nick, before stepping aside and letting them come in. Rain walked in and sat down slowly on the couch. “I ain’t gonna kill you, Millie,” Rain said as Nick sat down next to her. Millie sat down in the chair across from them. “I just wanted to make sure you was all right and, you know, see if you need anything.”

  Millie looked surprised. “I’m all right for now. I had enough insurance on Blue to bury him.”

  “Well, if you need anything, Millie, anything at all, you just gotta ask me,” Rain said. “Why you think I wanna kill you, Millie?”

  “Well, Lorraine, Blue did shoot you.”

  “So what’s that got to do wit’ you?”

  “I am his wife, Lorraine. You know how you gets mad sometime. You know you got your daddy’s temper.”

  Knowing that Millie was right about her and her temper, Rain didn’t try to dispute it. “I ain’t gonna kill you, Millie. You one of the women that helped raise me after my mama died. You like a mother to me, Millie. I could never do nothin’ to harm you.”

  “That’s good to hear, Lorraine. I didn’t know you thought of me that way,” Millie said. Rain got up and kissed Millie on the cheek.

  “You got anything to drink?” Rain asked, heading for the kitchen.

  “Same place it’s always been,” Millie said and looked at Nick.

  Rain came out of the kitchen and handed a glass to Nick. “You lucky Millie drinks the same shit you do.” Then she turned and faced Millie. “This is my friend Nick Simmons, Millie.”

  “I know who he is,” Millie acknowledged. “You work for Mike Black, don’t you?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Millie used to be a singer. They say she used to have a voice like Millie Jackson, back in the day. She lost her voice after Blue tried to choke the shit outta her,” Rain said and sat on the arm of the chair next to Millie.

  “Fucked up my vocal cords,” Millie said.

  Rain put her arm around Millie’s shoulders.
“I need your help with something, Millie.”

  “What you need, Lorraine?”

  “You know Blue had five niggas rob me, right? You know that’s why Blue shot me, right?”

  “I heard what happened.”

  “I need to find these niggas, Millie. You know who Blue would go to, to do a job like that?”

  Millie leaned forward in her chair and thought about Rain’s question; and whether she wanted to get involved in this any further than she already was. But she truly believed that if she didn’t tell Rain what she wanted to know, Rain would kill her—right then and there. And that all that, you’re like a mother to me stuff, was just talk. “I can’t say for sure; but for a big job like that, he would turn to Willie Dyson.”

  “Let me see them pictures, Nick.” He handed the pictures of the bandits to Rain. She showed the pictures to Millie. “You recognize anybody?”

  “They all got on masks, Lorraine,” Millie said and looked closely at one of the pictures. Then she nodded her head a few times. “Yeah, that’s who it is, Dyson. That worthless nigga was here a couple of times to see Blue last week—had on that same cheap-ass coat.”

  “You know where we can find this nigga?” Nick asked.

  “Sorry, can’t help you there.”

  “Thanks, Millie,” Rain said and kissed Millie again on the cheek. Then she reached in her pocket. Realizing that she had no money on her, Rain glanced at Nick. He stood up and reached in his pocket. He peeled off a thousand dollars and handed it to Rain. “If you ever need anything, you call me and tell me to get my black ass over here, and do like you say do; like you used to when I was little.”

  Millie laughed a little and got up from her chair. She walked Nick and Rain to the door. This time it was Millie that kissed Rain on the cheek and gave her a big hug. “You be careful in them streets, Lorraine,” then she turned to Nick, “and you make sure nothin’ happens to her.”

  “Yes ma’am. I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise,” Nick said and meant it. “For some reason, Lorraine means a lot to me.” Then he followed Rain out of Millie’s house.