Crimson Footprints II: New Beginnings

by Shewanda Pugh

  On either side of them, massive, gleaming, two- and three-story Italian Mediterranean mansions with lush gardens, grand porticoes, red-tiled roofs, all stood pretentious alongside adjacent pools, tennis courts, private docks, more. In fact, the street where Deena chose to design their masterpiece of a home rested on a single strip of land, giving each residence exclusive access to the bay it jutted into—a bay which, incidentally, spilled into the Atlantic Ocean. Usually, at least one family vacation a year consisted of sailings to the Caribbean with a departure from the Tanaka backyard. Tak needn’t any more reminders beyond that to show him how fortunate he’d been in this lifetime. The wife, daughter, and a multitude of zeros in his bank statement provided ample evidence, as well.

  Eh, well. He supposed he was due for another round of misfortune sooner or later. His old car accident was but a flicker of a memory.

  “Tell me,” Allison said, “your estimate before we get back in front of the wife. Is it possible that he’s her nephew?”

  They stopped just before the Tanaka home, a sleek white domicile modeled after Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Before them were a series of cantilevers—jutting, curved floors cascading like spiral stairs—segmented by waterfalls that only appeared to run through the house. All of it nestled deep into a painstaking two-acre re-creation of tropical nature. It was his wife’s great masterpiece, heralded on the cover of Design Today, prompting her to earn the unofficial title of Wright’s heir, which she quickly shied away from.

  “Crazy as it sounds,” Tak said, “I think he might be her nephew. I don’t see how, but it looks that way.”

  Allison glanced at him, brown eyes tinged with worry. “Listen. I know you’re a good guy, better than most. But kids like this—broken kids—they lie. A lot. So just guard yourself against the possibility that what he’s saying might be a carefully constructed fairy tale.”

  She followed him up the walkway, red Prada heels loud on brick, and waited for Tak to unlock the door. But before he could, she placed a hand over his.

  “You have to call the police. There’s no two ways about it. He’s a runaway. If you harbor him, they’ll charge you.”

  Tak sighed, the weight of possible outcomes heavy like a burden on his shoulders.

  “She’ll never forgive me,” he said, “if I call the police, and they haul him back across the country.”

  Allison gave him a smile, small and sad. “But you have to. There’s no other way.”

  ~*~

  Despite the lateness of the hour, when Deena returned from driving aimlessly, both Tak and Allison waited on the couch.

  “Where’s Tony?” Deena said, dropping her purse on the coffee table, a molten sterling silver capital “T” of her own design.

  “He’s sleeping in the guest room.” Tak stood and cast a wary glance back at Allison.

  “Listen. I called Allison to, uh, give us some perspective on this. Some legal advice.”

  Deena stared at him, level. “Good. Because Lizzie verified what Tony told me. That his mother was pregnant and dating Anthony.”

  Allison stood, too.

  “Deena, sweetheart, you need to call the police. You can’t just have him here, living. He’s a runaway. Unaccounted for.”

  Deena whirled on her. “And when I call? What will they do?”

  Allison froze. “Well—it depends. They—”

  “What will they do?” Deena demanded.

  Allison dropped her gaze. “Take him to a juvenile detention center and hold him till extradition.”

  “Lock him up?” Deena cried. “He’s not a criminal! He’s a boy! A little boy!”

  “Dee—”

  She turned on Tak. “You think I’m gonna let them arrest him? You think this is a good idea?”

  “Dee, let’s just get all the facts, okay? Just . . . let her talk.”

  Tak placed a hand on her arm. It felt foreign, cool on suddenly hot skin.

  Allison rushed to fill the silence. “We can file charges,” she said. “Have the order stayed. We can file a petition for temporary custody, but we have to cooperate with law enforcement. And you have to prove you have legal standing. Not a hunch.”

  “Which means what?” Tak said.

  “A DNA test. But first you have to report his appearance here. Then we work on a stay of extradition, keeping him in Florida. We can beat the judge to a DNA test and, should it come back the way we’re expecting it to, get to work on temporary custody. How’s that sound?”

  Allison pushed the blonde hair from her face, skin paler than usual. Tak squeezed Deena’s limp hand and pushed on when it became clear that she wouldn’t speak.

  “It sounds good. Real good. And, as always, thanks for the help.”

  He released Deena and ushered Allison to the door.

  “No problem. We’ll keep Mia tonight and longer if needed.”

  Once out of earshot, Allison turned to him in the shadows of the hall. “This is a lot, Tak, I know. What you’re doing for Deena is tremendous.”

  “I’m wrapping my mind around it still. But if it were my brother’s kid or John’s . . .”

  “I know.” She placed a hand on the doorknob.

  “How is he, anyway?” Tak asked.

  Allison pulled a face. “John’s still John,” she said, which he took to mean that they were still at odds over her sudden want to have a baby. The shadow across her face confirmed as much.

  “Take her to Traced,” Allison said sharply. “It’s a DNA testing lab on Eighth and Biscayne. They’ll look closed but just bang on the door. Ask for Chuck and tell him I sent you. Tell him you need results by noon tomorrow. They do the processing on site, so it’s possible. He’ll bitch, but just stand there and wait, and eventually he’ll change his mind. Remind him if you have to that he owes me. Keep in mind that in twenty-four hours we’re all aiding and abetting.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lizzie thundered up the stairs, white boots clanking, hand yanking on an electric blue mini in wet latex. Hall lights flickered with the sizzle of old wiring as grimy, peeling, yellow and narrow walls threatened to brush her on either side. The air sat thick and funky, a putrid mangle of piss, vomit, smoke, and cheap booze. Three landings up, Lizzie found her door, unlocked a series of intricate bolts that would prove ineffective with a strong kick, and stepped into her apartment.

  She hated her roommate.

  The thought occurred to her every time she opened the door. Old blankets met her like a welcome mat. Empty Gulp cups, Big Mac wrappers, panties, towels, DVDs, boots, pumps, sandals, and condom wrappers layered the floor in an uneven carpet. On the single bed they shared, always unmade, the assortment of clothes she’d gone through and dismissed lay heaped in mounds, alongside a pile of battered circulars, a sippy cup, and a baby doll. Kit’s three-year-old must’ve been visiting again.

  Lizzie yanked off her go-go boots at the door, using the frame for balance, and tiptoed to the bed, cursing all the while. She didn’t know how Kit managed to bring tricks to the apartment when there was hardly space to fit ’em. Knowing her roommate, she probably sucked ’em off in the hall and left a cum-filled condom for Mr. Parks, the super.

  Lizzie waded over to the radio mounted on a precariously balanced plastic shelf and turned on Hot 105 for the Sunday afternoon funk fest. From there she took a steaming shower, melting as much as washing off the scent of her work, before heading for the lone room of the flat to start in on the cleaning. It was slow and tedious work. She couldn’t understand why someone would choose housekeeping over taking a few blasts in the ass and calling it an afternoon. In fact, Lizzie knew a Guatemalan whore who worked under the bridge, thirty-five and looking sixty. She used to clean houses over in Brickell till her boyfriend turned her to tricking. “Twenty-five hundred a day” she claimed, versus the two hundred and fifty under the table she made a week scrubbing toilets. But one look at that pit-faced junkie told Lizzie that if her pimp had twenty-five hundred in his pocket, no more than a quarter had come
from the Guatemalan whore living on her back.

  Lizzie bagged trash, tossed dishes in the sink, and stopped every so often to shake her ass to music. When she uncovered a wad of weed in a fuchsia pump, she headed straight for the apartment’s lone closet and yanked open a door that immediately swung off its hinge. A roach scurried out, and she stomped it before lifting a stack of folded dresses for the Black & Mild cigars underneath. Armed with the tobacco and a teaspoon-size portion of leaves, she hopped and hurdled to the yellowed kitchen counter left of the front door, laid out a cigar, pulled a knife from the kitchen counter, cut it open, and emptied out the cigar in a miniature basin. She then lined the marijuana in a neat little row, resealed the cigar with saliva, lit it on the pilot, and rushed to the opposite side of the room. With her blunt balanced on the sill, Lizzie yanked open the grimy window for a view of the littered and narrowed alleyway beneath. A deep tote followed.

  Years ago in the very same alley, she’d fucked tricks on a shadowy wall, traded needles filled with smack, and slept on a stretch of tarp when she couldn’t find a bed for the night. She’d met her roommate Kit in that same alleyway and bonded in addiction.

  Lizzie tapped off the ashes from her miniscule blunt and rubbed a life-worn face. Twenty-six. Twenty-six fucking years old and all she had was a body fingered more than a grand piano at Berkeley, a garbage bag full of badly cleaned clothes, and track marks that looked like a tiger mauling. In contrast, she only needed to walk outside to see what her sister had managed by twenty-six; it blinded in sunlight and gleamed at night, like a second sun they were all compelled to rotate. Skylife. The gem of Miami’s skyline.

  Lizzie flicked off more ashes. Inadvertently, her gaze fell to a stark white card underneath her foot. She retrieved it and snorted with an incredulity that would never waiver. A wedding invitation on behalf of one Keisha Hammond and Steven “Snowman” Evans. His dumb ass had even gone so far as to put his nickname on the invite. Lizzie tossed it; no doubt she’d tease him about it when he stopped by that night, like usual. She’d never heard of a pimp who neglected to collect from his hoes.

  The door behind her opened. Lizzie jumped and stumped out the blunt on her cousin’s wedding invitation. A sigh of relief escaped her at the sight of Snow instead of Kit, whose weed she’d stolen.

  “What the fuck I tell y’all about keeping this place together?” Snow cried, six feet tall, dark and filling the doorway.

  He kicked a mountain of clothes, catapulting dirty panties and plastic cups, before stepping in and slamming the door behind him.

  “It’s Kit. I keep telling you. Just look around. Whose shit you see?”

  Lizzie retrieved the stumped nub of a blunt and crossed the room to relight it.

  “Tell that dirty-ass hoe to handle this shit before I come give her some encouragement.”

  “Get a fucking canary,” Lizzie said and burned fingertips on the stovetop, so short was her blunt. She cursed.

  “It’s a parakeet, you fucking idiot.”

  Snow rounded the corner to join her, bald no longer by choice but necessity, brows, moustache, and beard still sharp and looking penciled in. He took the blunt from her and lit it.

  “And if you read half as good as you sucked a fat one you’d know that.”

  Blunt sparked, he tucked it between his lips, pinched in his fingertips.

  “Speaking of which,” already his hands pulled at the button of his jeans. “Go head and choke on it.”

  He sucked on the blunt until nothing remained. Four big totes turned it to ash. Lizzie scowled before frowning down at the fat and ashen lump he pulled from jeans and plaid boxers. He shook the wad at her, dick and balls all in one hand, and her lips curled inadvertently. Still, she dropped to her knees, as compelled as she’d been fifteen years ago, at the age of eleven.

  Eleven.

  Lips around Snow’s cock, her mind drifted to her dead brother, who once tried to kill him. She then thought of the child Anthony might or might not have. Did he look like him? Any kid of Anthony’s would have that stupid silly grin. It would be nice to see that again.

  “Hell, yeah. Suck that. Shit, yeah,” Snow grunted.

  She imagined him with bronzed hair, wild as a summer storm, and brown eyes bright and flecked with gold. She imagined him a replica of the brother who’d loved her and would’ve killed to protect her. And suddenly, she had to know for herself if he existed.

  Snow gripped her ponytail, a wad of limp brown hair, and thrust furiously into her open mouth. He snapped her head back with a yank, pumping deep with the intention of making her choke. Lizzie wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, she concentrated on breathing, mind floating, resisting, until reflexes refused her and she gagged, body rejecting him even when her mind wouldn’t.

  ~*~

  With the door locked behind Snow, Lizzie peeled off a set of crumpled ones from a wad inside the hollowed out Bible on her shelf. Kit thought it disrespectful that she hid her savings in the Lord’s Word, but Lizzie thought it more like burying demons in it and praying for a way out.

  And there were plenty of demons.

  She couldn’t blame Snow for the drugs—she’d smoked weed for the first time with Anthony while Deena was away at MIT. He hadn’t let her try alcohol though—arguing that the weed was virtually harmless, but she got her hands on some just the same that year. From there, it was X, coke, and heroin, all compliments of Snow. Her first time snorting coke had been bullshit, a numbing effect, a little shaking, poor quality all around. But her first time trying heroin—goodness, that was something. Syringe in her arm, head slumped back, and bliss—bliss like the heavens swallowing her whole. She’d gone back the next day for more.

  They made a habit of it quick, Lizzie and Snow, who already handled it regularly. He dealt in heroin some, though crack was his main line of business back then, so usually there was one or the other on hand. But when it or the money for it ran low, Snow always had a couple of cocks lined up for her with the promise of drugs at the end. And back then, Lizzie thought herself lucky.

  When she went missing, as she often did as a teenager, it was usually because a wad of money had come her way. A trick or two who paid more for a weird assortment of tastes would give way to all the coke, crack, alcohol, and heroin she could stand—at least for a day. Nothing was too much for the happiness at the end, not getting choked and fucked at the same time, not even get beat up for a room full of men. No, for the high she got at the end, she would’ve taken that, and worse. Back then, she’d wig out on the cheap shit Snow brought her, no doubt skimping on quality to pocket a profit. There were times when Lizzie would black out, one time waking with the needle still in her arm. She’d return to her grandmother’s house shit-faced and attempting to sleep it off, only to have the old woman scream or chuck a Bible at her, and worse, call Deena.

  Lizzie’s sister enrolled her in rehab—once, twice, a dozen times, maybe. But she never stayed clean, no matter how nice, or expensive, or far away they chose to send her. More often than not, Snow was there to greet her when she returned.

  Once, Snow had called her a junkie whore, and she flung herself at him, intent on killing him with her bare fingernails. One month clean. Two months clean. A year, it made no difference. She was as much a whore and junkie as she was black and white, female and twenty-six. As it turned out, no amount of praying changed any of it. He’d known something at the time that she hadn’t.

  Lizzie tucked her Bible away with the seventy-two dollars in it. Back when she was young and firm and without the track marks, the drugs flowed free. When Snow began to charge her for them, she had no way of knowing. Not until she settled her drug debt with him would she be free, free of their world forever.

  Some might’ve suggested that she ask her sister, who sat so rich that she smiled on the cover of magazines and had a fucking river running through her house. But asking Deena was asking for a lecture, for humiliation, for a reminder of all the wrongs she’d done. She would never believ
e Lizzie wanted to get clean, and more importantly, she never should believe it.

  More than once, Lizzie had gone to her older sister, faking a tale of remorse. In doing so, she had money poured on her, sympathy, hugs. But of the three, there was only one that she wanted. Every few months, Lizzie would return to her sister and brother-in-law, ready to get clean and off the streets, only needing a bit of cash to tide her over. Always, they were willing—sure as the earth turning round the sun. Tak and Deena Tanaka had sponsored crack parties and coke parties and even a trip to the ER, the last of which came hours after a visit to their home, a visit which resulted in a pocket full of volunteered cash and a few lifted trinkets. It was then, however, when Lizzie was hospitalized for an accidental overdose that the money dried up.

  She never got a cent again, no matter how hard she tried.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tak took Deena and Tony to the place on Eighth and Biscayne and spoke with Chuck, who yelled as Allison predicted. But when Tak waited him out with a bored expression, and then reminded him of the favor he owed her, Chuck gave in with a dramatic sigh.

  Sunday morning, Deena rose and went to work on breakfast. She took eggs, bacon, and sweet maple sausages from the fridge, dug out onion, bell pepper, and fresh mushrooms, and began to whip the eggs for scrambling. At the edges of her mind was the conversation she’d been forced to have with Tony before bed, the one where she told him that she’d have to call the police to come get him, that he couldn’t stay; that he’d have to go. Worst of all was the stoic expression with which he absorbed it all, leaving her to flee in tears as though she were the child.

  Deena slid back the lid on a wooden box and pulled out the raisin bread for toast. She made oatmeal, and grabbed blueberries and brown sugar for it, because she didn’t know which, if either, Tony would like. The bacon sizzled on the stove in the same pan as the sausage, while Deena chopped onions and mushrooms. There was cheddar in the fridge, shredded, and she added that to her egg omelet mixture. She remembered the lone box of blueberry muffin mix in the cabinet and dug it out, never needing the instructions for Mia’s oft-requested favorite.