Mecca's Return

by Anna J.

  Chapter Nineteen

  But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

  –Proverb 5:4

  Furious that she couldn’t put her plan of revenge in play by making Ruby rich, then taking it all away, along with her closest friends, Daphne looked down at her phone as it received a text message from Ruby. The text infuriated her even more as she sat across from her brownstone. It simply said, “Come and get me.”

  Ruby was taunting her.

  She knew she should have killed Simone. Killing her would have definitely made Tashy and her family ready to kill Ruby for their loss. Daphne could have then killed Ruby without anyone suspecting her of the murder. But now Simone had to be let go on Junior’s orders.

  It was now or never. All the years of planning her revenge and how she would do it went out the window. Daphne had begun to plot and scheme about Ruby as soon as she found out who Ruby was. When she came to the federal prison in Ohio, and they met, the last thing she thought was that she would meet this gangster from Brooklyn that she’d heard so much about, the woman rumored to have killed her brother, Wise.

  Daphne had first heard the rumor while she was in middle school, while listening in on a conversation in the girls’ bathroom. One girl told another, “That girl Mecca, the light-skin one from Langston Hughes? My cousin said her aunt killed two guys last month. She threw one out the window and shot the guy Wise on the staircase. Her auntie ain’t no joke.”

  The other girl replied, “I don’t like that bitch Mecca. She think she all that!”

  Just as Daphne walked out of the bathroom stall, the girls stopped talking. They didn’t even look at her in the face; they just walked out. She could hear them mumble as they left, “That’s Wise’s sister.”

  Daphne knew who Mecca was. She had heard a lot of girls in her school talk about the pretty girl from Langston Hughes whose mother and father got killed while she watched from under the bed. The girl whose aunt was notorious in Brownsville.

  Getting to know Ruby while in prison, Daphne realized that if she weren’t responsible for her brother’s murder, she would have really liked her. She admired her strength, even though underneath the hard exterior there was a woman yearning for true love, a woman who wanted to be paid attention to, and not just because she had a nice body or money. She was someone who wanted to be appreciated for who she really was.

  Daphne had sensed that. She saw herself in Ruby, but Ruby was the cause of her pain. She had taken the person who meant the most to her. Daphne remembered how lonely she felt after her brother was killed, how Christmas changed, how abuse from her steppops went unchecked because her strong, fearless brother was gone. And this woman who was now in the same prison as her was the reason for all of her misery.

  So she’d plotted.

  She didn’t understand why Junior wanted her to change her plan. When she was released from prison, she’d told him all about her plan, and he’d told her, “I understand your pain, but why go through all that instead of just getting right to the point?”

  Daphne looked him directly in the eyes and replied with steel in her voice, “I want her to feel how I felt. I want her to be happy for a moment, then miserable even longer. I want the people around her to feel pain and blame her. Then I want her to die slowly.”

  Junior simply nodded. “It is not good to hold that much pain for so long. It could end up destroying you. Before you leave Jamaica, I want you to go see Doc Benjamin.”

  After she visited Doc Benjamin, her feelings didn’t change. Doc Benjamin told Junior, out of earshot of Daphne, “The hatred for her enemies is too deep, brethren. She is driven by it. To try and stop her would be like being her enemy, too.”

  Junior shook his head and thanked him. He said no more on the topic.

  Mecca smiled as she sat in her rented car, low in the passenger seat, watching the drama about to unfold on her aunt’s block. It was Mecca who had text messaged Daphne the “Come and get me,” using Ruby’s phone. Unlike Daphne’s, Mecca’s plan for revenge was playing out perfectly. She’d even pulled one over on Lou.

  Momentarily.

  She recalled the dream she’d had last night, where they talked in the airport. Lou was the baggage handler who helped her carry her bags to the ticket counter. He was angry, and she wasn’t in the mood for a long speech, so she blocked him out by thinking of being with Miguel. His touch, his smell, his voice covered everything Lou said, until she heard him say, “When you fly on a plane, you gamble with your own life. No fault in that, but gambling with other people’s lives is an act of evil... .”

  Her dream then switched to her seeing her aunt’s demise the way she’d planned it. It reminded her to book a flight leaving that afternoon for Italy. She had spoken to Miguel that morning, and he’d informed her that his team won the European championship. She was sorry that she couldn’t be there with him to celebrate, and he agreed.

  “I know how we can celebrate, though,” Miguel stated.

  “How?” she asked, filled with a childish excitement.

  “When you get back, let’s get married.”

  “I’m coming back today,” Mecca said, astonished.

  “Good. I’ll have everything set up.”

  “What about my dress and all?” Mecca asked. She wanted her wedding to be picture-perfect and not rushed. Still, it was Miguel, and she knew she was going to do it regardless.

  “I know your size. I measure you every night,” he replied with a seductive humor.

  “You’re fresh.”

  “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll get the perfect dress by Vera Wang. You’ll see.”

  It was all set, and Mecca couldn’t wait to get back to Italy and be in the arms of Miguel. He was her world. She just wanted to witness her former world go away, the same way it had come to her. Violently. So she watched, and something began to happen that wasn’t part of what she’d planned.

  Agent Doyle got out of his car, with his gun at his side, and approached Sonny Brown.

  “Sonny!” he cried out.

  Sonny Brown turned suddenly to the voice coming from the street. He smiled at the familiar-faced agent, the same agent who had tried for years to bring him down for murders that Brown was rumored to have committed. Not only had he tried to bring Sonny down, he had tried to link him to Scooter Williams but never could. Doyle told himself that this was one time he could link Sonny to Scooter, but he wasn’t here for that, and he didn’t want Sonny to mess everything up.

  “Agent Doyle,” Sonny said, looking at the gun in his hand, “what brings you to Brooklyn?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” Doyle said, approaching Sonny to pat him down. From the corner of his eye, Doyle saw Daphne walking down the sidewalk, looking at Ruby’s home.

  Daphne glanced at Doyle and Sonny Brown curiously. She didn’t know the two men, but the white man and the black man looked out of place. In fact, to Daphne, the white one looked like a cop.

  Then the sound of a door being unlocked came from Ruby’s brownstone. A second later, Ruby and an unidentified woman came out. Ruby immediately saw Daphne and reached inside of her coat, drawing a gun, as Daphne did the same.

  Doyle looked up at Ruby, and the second he took his eye off of Sonny Brown, he heard a loud boom and he felt a blow to his chest that knocked the wind out of him, leaving a burning sensation. He couldn’t breathe. He felt hard, cold ground beneath him and blacked out to the sound of gunfire erupting all around.

  Ruby immediately aimed her .40 caliber at Daphne and fired repeatedly. It roared on the quiet block, causing people within their homes to frantically dial 911. Ducking behind a car, Daphne aimed her silenced .45 at Ruby. It sputtered softly, shattering windows and splintering doors all around Ruby. Both women were too busy shooting at each other to notice Sonny Brown shoot Agent Doyle, who lay dead on the sidewalk as a pool of blood began to form under him.

  Mecca watched in amazement and confusion. Who was the black man, and why did he jus
t shoot that white guy? And why was he now aiming his gun at Ruby and shooting?

  Ruby pushed the woman that was at her back into the vestibule of the brownstone as she screamed. She then turned back to Daphne and unloaded her .40 caliber at Daphne, who hid behind a parked car. Then her body jerked from Sonny’s 9 mm Beretta bullet tearing into her shoulder, and she looked at him, shocked. She turned her aim toward him, and before she could get a round off, Sonny sent a slug into her chest.

  Mecca watched as a spurt of blood ejected out of Ruby’s open coat.

  Daphne saw Ruby drop. She was confused because she knew it wasn’t her bullet that took Ruby down. She got up from behind the car and watched the black man walking away from the scene in a hurry. She quickly walked up the steps to the wounded Ruby and kicked the gun out of her hand.

  “Hey, Ruby, don’t look too good, bitch!” she grumbled, bending down over her.

  People were now looking out windows at the scene. Mona sat in the vestibule, in the corner, with her legs to her chest, crying. Daphne heard her sobs and aimed her gun at her and put three bullets into her face. Somewhere in an apartment, someone screamed.

  Ruby couldn’t move. The bullet had gone through her chest and out her back, shattering her spine.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” Ruby mumbled between labored breaths. “Your brother died a scared bitch.”

  Before Mecca had revealed who Daphne was, Ruby had had suspicions at one time. It was customary for inmates in prison to show other convicts they were acquainted with photos of family, friends, and themselves on the streets. Once Ruby got to know Daphne, she showed her many pictures in her photo albums, most of which had been sent by Mecca, of her and Shamel.

  Daphne never showed her one.

  When Ruby inquired about it, Daphne told her, “I don’t want to be reminded about what I am missing.”

  It was a reaction that Daphne had when Ruby was showing her pictures that gave Ruby her first suspicions. She had a photo of her and Wise that they took together in the famous club in the Bronx known as the Fever. The couple had posed, holding each other from behind, with Wise’s arms wrapped around her waist and holding her hands against her stomach. Both of them had matching gray sheepskin coats, while Wise wore a hat, and Ruby had her hair out in a Jherri curl. As soon as Ruby turned to the picture, Daphne looked away, as if she hated seeing it. She played it off, as if something else had caught her attention, and walked off of the bleachers in the prison yard.

  “I’ll be back, Ruby. This chick Karen been owing me for months.”

  Ruby saw Karen across the yard, and her suspicions of Daphne became doubtful, because it was a fact that Karen owed Daphne money. Eventually, she made Ruby forget about it, and when she told Ruby she would put her on when she got out, that got her attention.

  The next time Ruby became suspicious of Daphne’s relationship to Wise, things had already began to happen. The robberies of the spots, then her sudden disappearance, brought those old thoughts back to the forefront of her mind. She wanted to act on those suspicions, but she never realized that she was being rocked to sleep, as she did with Mo Blood.

  Now, lying paralyzed on the steps of her brownstone, the same one Daphne put down a payment for, she looked into the face of a woman hell-bent on avenging her brother’s murder, which took place twenty years ago. Ruby had to respect the way she’d sought her vengeance. It was the most cunning, well-planned, patient plotting and acting she’d ever witnessed a person do. She had to admit, Daphne was a dangerous enemy.

  Daphne chuckled and watched the mist form from both of their breaths in the cold weather. She watched Ruby’s eyes blink as she struggled to hold on to her life force, which was slowly leaving her body. Tears rolled down her face as her life flashed before her.

  “That’s what I always admired about you, Ruby. You’re a fighter. Even lying here, dying, you just have to get the last word in. You’re the toughest bitch I ever met,” Daphne said as sirens roared in the background.

  “Get ... it ... over ... with ... mufucka,” Ruby panted.

  “For the record, if my brother died a scared bitch, no one will ever know that but you and God,” Daphne announced as she pointed her gun at Ruby’s head. “Now go tell God and my brother how scared you were.”

  She squeezed the trigger.

  Wrapping her Burberry scarf around her mouth and nose, and fixing her Dolce & Gabbana shades, she quickly walked to her car and sped off to the airport, leaving the city of her childhood, a city she loved more than any place on earth, for good.

  Mecca drove up and watched Daphne pull off and parked in the same space. She jumped out of the car and ran toward her aunt, screaming.

  When the first police responded to the call of shots fired, they saw Mecca bending over the still corpse of Ruby, crying and hugging the body. The officers noticed Agent Doyle a few yards away, lying in the gutter but not moving. The blank look in his eyes indicated he was gone. People who lived in the neighborhood began to emerge on the street, still in shock at what had taken place in their peaceful, cozy, middle-class neighborhood.

  When some of them were questioned, the police received a bunch of jumbled stories of what took place. Unfortunately for the investigators, no one got a good look at Daphne’s face, which was covered by a scarf, or at Sonny Brown, because most of their attention was directed at Ruby, the neighbor they all recognized.

  One knockoff version of Spike Lee told the police, “I don’t know her personally, but I know she wasn’t your average middle-class woman. I saw her in Don Diva magazine. She’s a tough chick.” Afterward, he pushed his oversize glasses up the bridge of his nose, played one of his favorite hip-hop songs on his iPod, and rode off on his mountain bike.

  Within minutes, the Brooklyn block was flooded with ambulances, cops, and law enforcement officials from various agencies. When the news went out that a federal agent had been killed, everyone except for the director of the FBI showed up. The only thing Mecca shared with the investigators who questioned her as they sat in the back of an unmarked Crown Victoria was, “She’s all I have. I have no family besides her, and now she’s gone. I don’t know who did this.”

  And the tears flowed. Happy tears. As chaos tore through Ruby’s neighborhood, Tashy and Scooter found peace when Simone’s voice came over Tashy’s cell phone.

  “‘Ma, come get me please. I got away from those people. I’m at the mall on Fulton Street in Brooklyn!”

  Tashy and Scooter arrived in his Phantom as quickly as they could, almost getting a speeding ticket on their drive to Brooklyn. When they pulled up in front of Albee Square Mall, a teary-eyed Simone ran out to the car and jumped in.

  “Take me home.”

  Scooter dropped them off in Harlem.

  When Daphne reached Jamaica and inquired about Junior’s decision for her to kill Ruby immediately, he told her everything he and Agent Doyle had discussed. He told her about the deal they’d struck years ago and how it related to her. “If it wasn’t for that agent, you would still be in prison, Daphne. His influence is what got you that sentence. You were supposed to get fifty years.”

  Nodding, she looked out at the street from the chauffeured 600 Benz and wondered. “So who was the guy who showed up and killed the agent?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet that girl’s family sent him there to get your old friend. He and Agent Doyle must have known each other. Maybe he was sent there to kill anyone who was around, and Doyle wanted to save you,” Junior answered. “Did he see you?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Then I guess we’ll never know.” Junior shrugged.

  “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, thank you so much.” Mecca grabbed the cup of water and aspirin from the Jennifer Aniston–looking stewardess on an Alitalia flight bound for Italy. She sat alone in her first-class seat, listening to the CD player on her lap.

  Realizing she had no useful information to give the authorities about her aunt, Mona, or Agent Doyl
e’s murders, they’d let her go. Mecca told them she had just returned from Italy with her boyfriend and had seen nothing. Before leaving, she told them if she found out anything else, she would call them immediately. She told them she wanted to know who her aunt’s killer was.

  She realized she no longer cared how Lou felt about her deceiving him. He wasn’t there in real life, experiencing the emotions that she experienced from the betrayal. How much did he really care, anyway? Why was he so fixated on trying to put her life in order, but not on putting the people around her in check? Why didn’t he try to convince Ruby not to set up her father to get robbed? Why didn’t he tell her aunt not to have sex with Shamel? Why didn’t he stop Tah Gunz from shooting her, or Karmen from sleeping with her man and him cheating himself?

  She didn’t want to see or hear from Lou anymore. She didn’t need him. She’d got what she’d come for, and if she had to pay in the hereafter, so be it. She’d been through it all and might as well enjoy heaven on earth with Miguel.

  “So, your hands are washed of me?” Mecca was startled by the voice of Lou, who now appeared in the empty seat next to her. She knew she wasn’t dreaming.

  “How did you—”

  “That’s the least of your problems, my love. The question is, why? Why would you deceive me? Deceiving me means you’ve gained control of yourself. Use that control more positively and you’ll get further in life.” He paused and looked around. “But you didn’t use that control properly, and life has a way of getting its own revenge. This you will see soon.”

  Mecca didn’t like Lou’s tone. As she thought, the plane began to shake violently. She immediately gripped the seat tighter, and her heart thumped loudly in her chest. She felt the sharp descent, and the pilot’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are experiencing some difficulties. Please remain calm, and follow the instructions given by the flight attendants.”