by RM Johnson
“What?” Tabatha called from across the store.
“Just come here. I want you to see this.”
Tabatha came across the store, and up to the counter. Monica passed her the cell phone.
“Fifteen missed calls,” Tabatha said.
“And they’re all from Lewis.”
Monica took the phone back from her, started punching numbers.
“What are you doing, calling him back?”
“No. I’m going to delete the messages.”
“Don’t you think you should listen to them first?”
“No. I don’t want to hear anything that man has to say,” Monica said, pressing the phone to her ear. “I just wish he would leave me alone.”
But just then, Tabatha turned toward the door of the store and said, “I think you’re wishing for a little too much.”
Lewis was walking in, and he did not look like himself. Gone were the suits he always wore, replaced with jeans and a T-shirt. He wasn’t smiling, looking carefree as he had always appeared in the past, but seemed anxious, worried, almost frantic, as he came quickly over to Monica.
“Monica, I need to talk to you.”
“Lewis, you can’t be here,” Monica said.
“Look, it’s really important. I have to talk to you. I need your help, and I think there are some things that you should know about.”
Tabatha stepped in front of Lewis. “She told you she ain’t got nothing to say to you, so you might as well turn around and walk up out of here.”
Monica pulled Tabatha out from in front of Lewis. “I got this, Tabatha. You aren’t understanding me,” she said to Lewis, looking toward the door. “My husband will be here any minute to pick me up. You have to go.”
“I just need a minute.”
“Call me.”
“You ain’t been returning my phone calls. Why should I believe you when you say that you will now?”
“All right,” Monica said. “I promise. But, Lewis! I told you, I don’t have have time for this. Just please, go!”
“Make sure, because I have to talk to you.”
“Okay. Just leave,” Monica said, preparing to push him out the door, when the store’s door opened again. This time it was Nate walking in.
Monica froze, her heart seeming to stop, and although she was lucky enough to escape the last close call the other night, she knew she would finally be found out here.
“Hey, Nate,” Tabatha quickly said, as if everything was normal.
“Hi, Tabatha,” Nate said, walking in between Tabatha and Lewis, and giving his wife a kiss on the cheek.
Monica just stood there, her body trembling, her head starting to feel light.
“Baby, you okay?” Nate asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Monica said. “It’s just been a long day. Just ready to get out of here. Come on, honey. You ready?” Monica said, grabbing her husband’s arm, and attempting to pull him toward the door.
“Hey,” Nate said, his attention all of a sudden drawn to Lewis. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Monica opened her mouth, but found herself speechless. She looked desperately to Tabatha, who, thankfully, quickly grabbed Lewis, snatching him beside her, and said, “Oh. This my new man.”
“Really,” Nate said, looking him over head to toe. He extended his hand. “I’m Nate Kenny. Pleasure to meet you. And you are…”
“His name is…Luther. Luther,” Tabatha said, turning to Lewis. “This is Monica’s husband, Nate.”
Nate continued to hold his hand out for Lewis, which he finally took.
“Nice to meet you, Luther,” Nate said.
“Yeah, you too…Nate,” Lewis said.
“Okay,” Monica said, tugging on Nate. “We’re going to get out of here. So see you, Tabatha, and Luther.”
“Oh, and hey,” Lewis said, before Monica was able to pull Nate out the door. “Maybe the four of us can get together sometime.” Lewis stared directly into Nate’s eyes. “I’m sure we probably have a lot in common.”
Monica didn’t know what the hell that was about, but she dragged Nate out of there before he had a chance to respond.
51
Even hours after Monica and Nate left the store, it seemed she couldn’t get past the event that happened with Lewis.
“You sure you feeling all right, baby?” Nate said.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Just some stuff on my mind, and like I said, it’s been a long day.”
“Then we don’t have to eat out tonight like we planned. Let’s go home so you can relax, and I’ll go out and bring something back. How does that sound?”
“Perfect,” Monica said, smiling.
When they got back home, Nate took Monica upstairs to their bedroom, and insisted that she take it easy. He told her that when he returned, he would bring dinner up to her on a tray.
As Nate descended the last stair, and stepped onto the main floor, his attention was focused on his wife’s purse, sitting on the dining room table.
He stepped over to it, looked over his shoulder to make sure his wife wasn’t behind him, then unzipped her bag, reached in, and took her cell phone.
Once in his car, Nate flipped the phone open, and saw that Lewis had been trying to call his wife. His number was there countless times. He seemed to be desperately trying to reach her, and considering that Nate had found Lewis there at his wife’s store, he figured the man was probably planning on telling her everything.
Nate looked down at the phone again, noticing it was in silent mode. He switched the ringer on, and was startled when it immediately starting ringing.
It was Lewis’s number.
Nate took the call.
“Monica!” Nate heard Lewis say. He sounded desperate, frenzied. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“The warnings I gave you just weren’t enough, I’m assuming,” Nate said. He could hear the gasp that escaped Lewis’s lips. “Lewis, why don’t you just leave my wife alone.”
“She’s going to find out.”
“I’m not going to tell you again,” Nate said, starting to feel an anger and hatred for this man, greater than he’d ever felt before. “Leave her alone!”
“I can’t do that.”
“Fine,” Nate said. “Have it your way.” Nate closed the phone, got out of the car, and with all his force, slammed the phone to the ground, where it broke apart. He bent down, grabbed the two shattered pieces, walked over to a sewer drain he spotted and dropped them into it.
The boy had to push his hand, Nate thought. He didn’t want to, but now he had to get serious.
Half an hour later, Nate stood in front of the door to his brother’s house, waiting for Tim to open it. When he finally did, Nate said, “I need to talk to you.”
“Come in,” Tim said, holding the door open.
“No. Come out. I don’t have a lot of time.”
Tim stepped out the door.
“Pull it all the way closed,” Nate said.
Tim looked at Nate oddly for a moment, then reached back and pulled the door shut. “Now, what is? You don’t seem yourself.”
“She was having sex with him, Tim,” Nate said.
“How do you know that?”
“I have photos. I have proof. And I saw it, Tim. I walked in on them, and I saw them having sex with my own eyes!”
Tim lowered his head. “Aw, dammit, Nate,” he sighed, shaking his head. “But isn’t that why you hired him?”
“That’s beside the point. Some things have happened, and me and Monica are doing better. We’ve been talking, and—”
“You told her?”
“No. But we’ve been talking, and we’ve had sex, and I realized how wrong I’ve been. I think we can make it work.”
“Then just tell the guy that he’s fired. Tell him it’s all over.”
“I’ve tried that, but he said he has feelings for Monica, and that she feels the same. The man has lost his mind,” Nate said, frustrate
d. “He says he’s going to continue seeing her whether I like it or not.”
“You need to tell her, Nate. You need to come clean, get everything out in the open, because it’s not going to get any better.”
“That’s not going to happen. I won’t expose myself like that, when things are as fragile as they are right now. We have a chance, but if I tell Monica what I’ve done—”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I’ve tried everything, but nothing has worked. So now, I’m going to need your help.”
“What kind of help?” Tim said, reluctantly.
“Forceful help.”
“I don’t exactly know what you’re talking about, but the answer is no,” Tim said. “If you’re talking about beating this man up to make him leave Monica alone, I won’t do it.”
“Tim,” Nate said, grabbing on to his brother’s arm, “this might be the only way.”
Tim pulled away. “No! You approached him with this ridiculous scheme to sleep with your wife, and then when he’s successful, and actually enjoys it, falls in love with her, which is something you should’ve realized could’ve happened, you want to beat the hell out of him. No. I will not do this for you, Nate,” Tim said, turning away, about to walk in the door. “I will not.”
“I’m asking you. As your brother, I’m asking you, Tim.”
“You don’t know what could happen. He may really get hurt. Or you. Or me. Just come clean like I said, then you won’t have to do this. I urge you. It’s the only right thing to do.”
Tim turned, pushed the door open, ready to walk in.
“How many times have you not been able to pay your mortgage, Tim?”
Tim froze.
“I busted my ass to build the company that I did, and now that I’m trying to save that, you won’t even help me,” Nate said.
“You are not using that against me. Besides, this has nothing to do with your company, or you helping me out. It has to do with your plan backfiring on you. A plan that you devised because you were too much of a coward to tell your wife how you really felt. And now that things aren’t working the way you wanted, you’re still too much of a coward to tell her the truth. I’m not helping, Nate.”
“Fine, Tim,” Nate said, disappointed. “If that’s the way it is between us. Fine.” He turned and headed down the steps.
“Why don’t you just tell her?” Tim called. “She has a right to know. Just tell her.”
When Nate got home, he served his wife her food, then sat on the edge of the bed.
“You know what?” he said, placing a hand to the side of her face. “I think you should take the day off tomorrow. What do you think about that?”
Monica looked up, and to Nate’s surprise said, “I think you’re right. I could use a little time away.”
“Well, if that’s the case, why don’t we make it a real vacation? Tomorrow, I’ll book us some reservations for the Bahamas or something, and we’ll leave the day after. We’ll take a week or two, just get away, and do it like we used to. What do you say?”
“They’ll kill me for taking off at such short notice.”
“If they don’t like it, quit. You never needed to work that job anyway.”
Nate smiled when he saw that his wife approved of what he said.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
52
It shouldn’t have to be this way, Nate thought, feeling his heart pound in his chest as he crouched in the bushes, looking at the three men dressed in black crouching around him.
Nate’s brother, Tim, had let him down, didn’t want to help Nate do what had to be done, regardless of how many things he had done for his brother. But Nate wouldn’t let that stop him. The next day, from work, he made a number of phone calls to men who were acquainted with other men that for the right amount of money would help Nate do what had to be done.
When Nate spoke to them over the phone, he told them to wear black, and meet him at the location Nate specified. From there, they would drive to the house Nate had provided for Lewis, and that’s where they were now.
They had gotten out of the van that the men had driven, and had quickly moved to the bushes that bordered the side of the house, crouching low.
Nate did not know these men’s names, didn’t want to know them. All he knew was that they were big, evil-looking, had all spent a stint in prison for breaking one law or another, and had nothing against physical violence.
They sat out in the bushes just long enough to verify that Lewis was indeed in the house. Nate had seen him pass by one of the windows, and that was all the information he needed.
“I have the key to the place,” Nate said to the men, crouching in front of them. “We’ll walk right in and do it there. Is everyone ready?”
One man grunted “Yeah,” the other two nodding their heads silently.
“Then let’s do this,” Nate said, and pulled down over his face the ski mask that was rolled up on his head, the other men doing the same.
They were just about to leap from the bushes, when Lewis’s front door opened.
“Hold it!” Nate whispered loudly, holding out his arms for the men to stand back.
They silently watched as Lewis closed the door, locked it, and descended the stairs. He stepped out onto the walkway, and then made a left.
Nate’s wide eyes peered through the black ski mask at the men, then quickly gave them the signal to converge.
All four men sprang out of the bushes, and raced quickly and silently down the street at Lewis. By the time Lewis had heard the men behind him, they were already on him, had clubbed him over the head, knocked him down, and were dragging him into a nearby alleyway.
Lewis kicked and swung with all he had, but was no match for the four big men that had him by each limb, dragging him across the ground. Once in the narrow space surrounded by buildings, he was released.
Lewis tried jumping to his feet, but before he could, he was kicked in the face. Lewis’s lip split in half, blood spraying out from the wound as his body whirled and fell over from the force of the blow.
He rolled over on his belly, lifted himself up to his hands and knees, spit out the quantity of blood that had accumulated in his mouth, and then looked up, seeing the four men in black clothes and masks standing around him, the light from the streetlight above splashing down across their broad shoulders.
“Why you doin’ this?” he said.
The only answer he received was all the men closing in around him, kicking him in the ribs, on his back, in his face, stomping down on his head, his hands, his legs, till Lewis seemed very close to dead and could not move at all.
When the beating was over, the three men that Nate hired stepped back, allowed Nate to walk forward, look down on Lewis’s body. It lay there on its stomach, its arms and legs stretched out, and pointed crookedly in every direction. The clothes that weren’t torn from Lewis’s body were saturated and stained with his blood.
Nate used the toe of his boot like a shovel, slid it up under Lewis’s shoulder, then flipped him over.
They had beaten him pretty badly, Nate thought upon seeing his face now. One of his eyes was swollen, his lips were split, and blood was spilling out of both corners of his mouth. The beating was worse than he had realized, and he almost felt sorry for the boy, but like Nate said before, he just wouldn’t listen.
Nate was about to turn, walk away, when he saw Lewis’s good eye start to open.
Nate kneeled down over him, brought his face very close to Lewis. “This is what you get when you refuse to listen. Stay the fuck away from my wife, or next time you’ll end up dead,” Nate said, peeling back his ski mask.
Nate stood, then walked away.
53
Monica sat watching TV, thinking the vacation idea that her husband had come up with was a good one. They needed time together, away from all that was happening around them. Not only that, it would give things between her and Lewis time to cool off.
Monica too
k a sip of the glass of wine she was drinking from, and picked up the remote to do a little channel surfing, when the phone rang.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Monica, is Nate there?” It was Tim.
“No. I’m sorry, Tim. I—”
“Do you know where he is?” Tim said, sounding anxious.
“No. He said that he had some follow-up business with that client he had been working with.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. What about?” Monica said, starting to feel a little worried, because of the tone of Tim’s voice.
“Not over the phone. We need to meet. Okay?”
“But, Tim. Maybe I should—”
“Monica,” Tim interrupted her. “Trust me. We need to meet. I have something very important that I need to tell you.”
“When?”
“Now. Meet me now. Come down, I’m waiting outside your building in my car.”
Tim drove west for twenty minutes before stopping on the side of a dark side street. He threw the car in park, then turned to her.
“Monica, what I’m about to tell you is shocking, but since he wouldn’t tell you, I felt I had to.”
“Since who wouldn’t tell me?”
“Nate knows you’re cheating, Monica. He knows about everything.”
“What are you talking about, Tim?” Monica said, feeling as though she had to be dreaming.
“He knows that you’ve been seeing that man Lewis, knows that you’ve slept with him.”
Monica’s mouth fell open, her eyes ballooning. She tried to speak but couldn’t. When speech did come back to her, she could only say one word. “How?”
“Because he set the whole thing up. He hired him, paid him, and told him everything he needed to know to get next to you.”
54
Lewis was left there in the alley after he was beaten. He did not move, couldn’t move for some time after that.
