by K'wan
Eve opened the newspaper, trying to take her mind off the whirlwind her life was turning into. As soon as she opened the paper, she wished she hadn’t. The newspaper never seemed to report anything good. All you ever read about were murders, homelessness, and other depressing issues.
Just under a story about the FBI hiring the mob to dig up some graveyard, a highlighted piece caught Eve’s eye. The article was so small that she might have missed it. “Prostitute Found Slain,” the headline read. A homeless man found the body of a young woman somewhere in the Bronx. She had been raped and beaten, then her body had been stuffed under some garbage bags on a side street. Not wanting to read anymore, Eve flipped the page.
What kind of city was New York becoming if women could be murdered at random like that? Granted, the girl was a prostitute, so it was partially her fault, but what gave someone the right to do that? It was spooky to think just how easy it was for some sick fuck to prey on you in the city. And people wondered why she carried heat.
Putting the paper down, Eve decided to give Cassidy a call. She remembered that she hadn’t spoken to her since the incident. Even though she was ducking most of her phone calls, she couldn’t remember Cassidy’s being among them. She figured that Cassidy was still tight over what happened. She couldn’t blame anyone but herself for it, though. Eve decided to reach out to her and see where her head was at.
After the fourth ring, Cassidy’s voice mail clicked on. Eve tried her one more time with the same result. It wasn’t unusual for Cassidy not to answer her cell if she was with a guy, but she usually picked up for her.
The next call she placed was to Cassidy’s house. Sheeka picked up on the third ring. Eve made small talk, then inquired about Cassidy. Sheeka informed her that she hadn’t seen her sister in a day or so. She told Eve about Cassidy getting the late-night phone call and not being there when she woke up the next morning. Sheeka suggested that Cassidy might be shacked up with some cat, and told Eve she’d have her call if she spoke to her.
Eve hung up the phone and stared out the dingy window. It wasn’t unlike Cassidy to disappear for days at a time, but she would’ve at least left word with someone that she was all right. Sheeka hadn’t seen her and Cassidy wasn’t picking up her phone. Suddenly the hairs on the back of Eve’s neck began to stand up.
When Eve got off work, she stopped by her house to change clothes. She was meeting Sheeka and Beast so they could roll to the movies. Cassidy was still MIA, and she still wasn’t taking Felon’s calls. She was worried sick, and her heart was pulling her in a million different directions at once, but other than that, life was peachy.
As she was making her way back to the train station, she spotted Felon sitting behind the wheel of his minivan. Her heart immediately began to beat faster and faster the closer she got to the van. She had rehearsed what she wanted to say to him, but her mind drew a blank. She decided to forego the dialog and just speak from her heart. She had to let Felon know what was going on inside her.
When she was almost upon the van, she noticed a second shape inside with him. She couldn’t tell who it was because of the tinted windows, but she could tell it was a female. Anger and hurt feelings almost caused her to charge the van and beat the hell out of both of them, but she checked herself. Technically, she and Felon weren’t an item, so she had no cause to flip. That still didn’t stop her from feeling like a fool for giving herself to him.
“Guess that’s the game for you,” she whispered to herself. Eve felt like crying, but no man was worth her tears. Instead, she held her head up and walked down the street like she was the queen of Harlem.
“I really appreciate this, Marcy,” Felon said to the dark-skinned girl sitting next to him.
“Felon, don’t even trip. That’s my little brother, so I don’t mind.” She smiled. “He better not get used to this shit, though. This is my first and last time. Nobody told his dumb ass to get locked up.”
“We all catch a bad break sometimes, Marcy. Tell him I’ll send somebody up with some bread later on in the week, a’ight?”
“I’ll tell him. While I’m thinking about it, what’s good with me and you?”
Felon chuckled. “Come on, Marcy. Don’t put a nigga on the spot like that. I’m damn near married.”
“She must be a special lady, to have convinced you to settle down.”
“She is.” He reflected on Eve.
“Can’t knock a girl for trying.” she winked. “Later, Felon.”
Felon watched Marcy saunter away through the rearview mirror and admired her healthy ass. He would’ve loved to crack that, but it would’ve only made things more complicated for him. His heart and his brain were having a heated argument, and for once his heart was winning. Felon looked at the shit-eating grin that he was wearing in the rearview and could’ve sworn he saw Eve disappear around the corner.
25.
Glo was the brainchild of a woman named Gloria Guzmand. The whole place consisted of five chairs, two sinks, and three hair dryers. The work stations were black marble and the mirrors were lined in silver. It was a relatively small salon, but they had consistent clientele. On the weekends it was always packed, and they had discounts on wash-and-set’s during certain days of the week.
It was almost closing time, so most of the patrons had gone already. Eve lounged in one of the swivel chairs while Beast occupied three of the waiting room chairs, looking through a National Geographic magazine. She and Beast were waiting for Sheeka to boil this woman’s hair after she had finished braiding it. Sheeka was the only Black girl working in a salon full of Dominican women. She was their braider.
“I hope this movie is as good as they saying,” Sheeka said, dipping the woman’s ends into the scalding water, “I don’t wanna pay my ten dollars and end up mad.”
“Rah said it was tight,” Eve said.
“Since when that dizzy bitch start thinking for herself?” Sheeka twisted her lips. “If Kiki told her that shit tasted like sugar, she’d be the first one on line with a spoon.” The whole salon fell out laughing.
“Yo, you got in touch with your sister yet?” Eve asked, trying to occupy herself with thoughts that didn’t include Felon.
“Nah. That heifer still ain’t called nobody. She’s probably still mad about getting busted,” Sheeka said.
“You think so?”
“Hell, yes. Let me tell you something about my sister. I might be the youngest, but Cassidy has always been the brat. Even when we were little, if things didn’t go her way, Cassidy threw a fit. One time, she ran away for three days. Moms bust that ass when she got hungry and came home.”
“Yeah, Cas can be like that,” Eve said, “but that doesn’t explain why she isn’t picking up her cell. Aren’t you worried?”
“Eve, if I had a dollar for every time Cassidy pulled a disappearing act, I’d be a rich bitch. Cassidy is grown. When she decides to start acting like it, she’ll come home.”
“I’d still feel better if I’d spoken to her.”
“Oh-oh,” Beast said from the doorway. Eve looked over just in time to see two uniformed officers coming through the salon door. At first she panicked, but she regained her cool when she remembered she wasn’t strapped.
“RaSheeka Brown.” one of the officers stepped forward.
“Ah…I’m she,” Sheeka said, stepping forward.
“Can you come with us, please?”
“Is there a problem?” Eve asked.
“And whom might you be?” the second officer asked.
“Her sister,” Eve lied.
“This isn’t really the place to discuss it,” the first officer said, stepping toward Sheeka. “If you’ll just come with us, we’ll explain everything.”
Sheeka looked back and found the whole salon staring at her. She asked one of the girls to finish the woman’s hair while she got her purse. Her heart raced at a million miles a minute trying to think what the police could want with her. She hadn’t done anything, but maybe it had something t
o do with one of the dudes she dealt with? Reluctantly she allowed them to usher her out the door, with Eve on their heels.
“I wanna go too.” Beast loomed over the second officer. Beast glared at the officers, making their hands inch towards their guns. Eve told him to go home and she would come by later.
Of all the places Eve imagined herself ending up, the morgue was not one of them. Sheeka thought the police had come to arrest her, but that wasn’t it. They had picked her up in connection with the slain prostitute from the Bronx. When they first found the woman, there was nothing in her purse but eighty-two dollars and half of a pack of cigarettes. During a second examination of the Gucci purse they found a rip in the lining. Inside the rip was one of Glo’s cards with Sheeka’s name on it.
They asked Sheeka a bunch of questions about her relationship to the girl, but she couldn’t help them. Finally they said that if Sheeka had seen the girl, she might remember her. Sheeka, of course, refused to identify the body. After some coaxing she agreed to look at some pictures of her, but only if Eve could be present with her. Since Eve was Sheeka’s “sister,” they didn’t raise too much of a stink. Now they found themselves sitting in a cold office, waiting for the coroner and one of the officers to come back with the pictures.
After what seemed like forever, the officer who had come to the salon came into the office, followed by a man wearing a lab coat. After a brief introduction, the coroner laid a white folder on the table in front of Sheeka. She swallowed hard and allowed herself to look at the picture. As soon as Sheeka laid eyes on the picture, she mumbled something incoherent and passed out. If it wasn’t for the officer, she’d have hit the floor.
Eve leaned over to look at the picture and see how bad the girl was. The girl’s face was swollen and bruised, so it took a second for the light to go off. Eve could feel her head begin to swim and her mouth water. She tried to blink, but her eyes wouldn’t comply. The girl they found was Cassidy.
When Sheeka woke up, the realization of what she saw had set in. She immediately began screaming and wailing. It took three officers and a sedative to calm her down. The shock of seeing her sister like that made something in her snap. As she was in no condition to answer any more questions, when the detective came in, he directed them toward Eve.
“So, she was your sister?” the detective asked. He sat across from Eve wearing a black mock neck and chinos.
“Yes,” Eve said numbly. “Cassidy. Her name was Cassidy.”
“I see,” he said, scribbling in his notepad. “How long was your sister a…working girl?”
“A what?” Eve asked, staring up at him. She searched his artificially tanned face to see if she had heard him wrong.
“Ms…. ah…”
“Panelli.”
“Yes. Ms. Panelli, we have reason to believe that the young lady in question was indeed a prostitute.”
“Why, because you found her on Hunts Point?” Eve asked, heated.
“Ma’am, not only did we find her on Hunts Point, but we have several other clues as to her activities. There were signs of penetration in her anus as well as her vagina. In addition to that, forensics detected several different semen samples. Look, I know this is hard, but—”
“Hard my ass!” she roared. “Cassidy wasn’t no prostitute. I don’t care what your labs say, I know her better than I know myself!”
“Ms. Panelli, may I remind you where you are?” he said, raising his voice.
“Fuck where I’m at. My best friend was murdered and you’re trying to convince me that she was selling ass, instead of trying to find out who did it.”
“Ms. Panelli, I didn’t know the young lady, but I do know the facts. Now, either your sister was a prostitute or someone went through a hell of a lot of trouble to make her look like one. Either way, she was murdered and we will catch who did it. You sitting in here shouting isn’t gonna help the situation.”
“Man, fuck this shit,” Eve said, standing up and heading for the door.
“Ms. Panelli, we’re not finished talking.”
“Nah, we’re finished. Until you find out who killed Cassidy, I ain’t got shit else to say to you.” Eve slammed the door, rattling the pen holder on the desk.
When Eve got back upstairs, the desk sergeant informed her that Sheeka had been taken to the hospital and would most likely be kept overnight for observation. Eve left the precinct in a world of hurt. Her best friend had been beaten like a dog and tossed in an alley. What kind of monster could do such a thing? Cassidy might have done some foul things, but she didn’t deserve to go out like that.
She walked down the darkened streets with no direction. She crossed over block after block, absorbed in her pain. She had managed to hold it together in front of the detective, but now that she was alone, she cried openly. A few people spared her a glance, but no one bothered her.
How could this have happened? At first Eve thought that it might’ve been an angry lover, but she pushed the thought from her mind. Cassidy dealt with men for their money, not their cunning. She dealt with a few dudes who had bodies under their belts, but they were more the type to use guns or knives. Something like this didn’t fit any of their profiles. This was the work of someone with a deep sickness.
Eve went over the events of the last few days and tried to find a clue as to what had happened. To her knowledge, Cassidy hadn’t really been in the streets since she started seeing Carlo. She came through the block to check her crew every now and again, but other than that, she had been keeping a low profile. She couldn’t think of anyone Cassidy might’ve come into contact with who would’ve wanted to murder her.
The fact that she was murdered was terrible by itself, but the way it was done was the unnerving part. She didn’t doubt the evidence the police found, but she knew they were wrong about her. Cassidy was a little loose, but she wasn’t a prostitute. Someone wanted the police to believe Cassidy was a hoe.
Not even remembering her cell phone, Eve sought out a pay phone. She had to call the one person who could help her world stop spinning and try and make sense of all the madness. Felon. It didn’t even matter that she had seen him with the mystery women. All she could think was that he would know what to do. He would know how to make the hurting stop. She had to dial the number twice before she finally got him. Just hearing his voice made her want to break down, but she had to be the rock of the crew. She had to pull herself together and find out what went down with Cassidy. Not only was Cassidy a part of her click, she was family. Whoever was responsible for it, Eve would make sure they suffered before she let them die.
Butter had been wailing nonstop since Felon had relayed Eve’s message. He had slammed his fist through the minibar, cutting it up, but that didn’t stop his raging. Seeing that the bar wasn’t putting up a fight, Butter snatched a bottle of scotch from the wreckage and began to guzzle it.
Felon didn’t even want to imagine what Butter was going through. He had lost friends in the struggle, but never someone whom he held dear. Seeing the pain in his friend’s eyes, he wanted to collapse on his knees beside him. He wanted to reach out and comfort Butter, but he knew there was nothing he could say or do to ease the pain. Instead, Felon stood by and watched as his friend mourned for his lover.
When Felon came downstairs, Eve was sitting on the steps of Butter’s apartment building. Beast ran one of his huge hands down her back, attempting to comfort his friend. He tensed up when he saw Felon’s shadow looming, but returned to caring for Eve when he saw who it was. Felon sat on the steps next to them.
“How is he?” Eve asked, wiping her eyes.
“My nigga took it hard,” Felon whispered. He looked at Eve’s face in the pale moonlight and could see that her eyes were puffy from crying. He reached out to touch her hand, but stopped short and placed his hand in his pocket.
“My girl is gone,” she sobbed. “Gone.”
“I’m sad for Cassidy too,” Beast said, sounding choked up.
“What did the police say
?” Felon asked.
“They don’t know shit. Stupid muthafuckas trying to tell me that Cas was out there on the stroll.”
“That’s bullshit,” Felon said “Cassidy wasn’t on it like that.”
“Shit, I know that. That’s why none of this shit adds up to me. Had she just been killed, it would’ve been sad, but not suspicious. Somebody arranged it to look that way. This wasn’t no random murder, Felon.”
“Eve, are you trying to say that someone singled Cassidy out?”
“Whoever did this not only wanted her dead, but they wanted to destroy her character in the process.”
“Any ideas?” he asked.
“Nah.” She shook her head. “This shit is so fucked up, I can’t even think straight.” Eve closed her eyes in an attempt to clear her head, but as soon as she did she saw Cassidy’s battered face. “Damn, Felon. I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her,” she croaked. Eve’s face was streaked with tears.
Felon went to touch her, but to his surprise she jerked away. He looked into her blue-green eyes and saw that the hurt was replaced by anger.
“It’s cool, ma.” He assured her.
“Nah, it ain’t cool. You think my feelings are a fucking joke?” she snapped.
“Evelyn, what are you talking about?” This time when he reached for her, Beast sprang into action. He gripped Felon by the arm and yanked him from the stoop. The behemoth had a maddened look in his eyes that Felon had never seen before. Beast wrapped his free hand around Felon’s neck, completely encircling it. Felon tried to fight him off, but Beast was far too strong. Just as Felon was about to draw his pistol, Eve laid a hand on Beast’s thigh.
