The Desert Lion's True Colours

by Ikechi Hayden

  ‘I love her Dean and all this secrecy is making me sick.’

  Jay could see how serious this was to Leon but at the same time felt he would not be a true friend if he did not voice how he felt. So without hesitation he said ‘Are you kidding me? What you gonna tell her. “Oh Kerry, guess what. Remember three years ago when we first met? Well it was my boss who decided I get with you - because of who you’re related too and oh yeah, I’m an FBI agent working undercover…” Yeah right. Wake up nigger! Even if she believed you, do you really think she would stay with your ass – knowing your whole relationship was a lie? I know you care for her dawg…’

  Leon started to frown.

  ‘. . . Ok, ok, love her. But are you ready to trade that in for your career? You forgot the years we spent up in Glenmuir, Quantico, - the missions? You forgot what we had to go through to get here? And now you’re saying you want to forget all that and give up everything for some chick?’

  The two friends sat on either side of the table in a four person booth looking at each other in silence. Jay was hoping he touched a nerve because he knew Leon was good at his job, - probably the best undercover agent in the whole FBI. It took a lot for him to get where he was and Jay did not think his lifelong friend was willing to throw that all away.

  ‘In answer to your question, I don’t have to.’

  Jay was unsure what his partner meant and was about to ask him to explain but before he could say anything Leon cut back in, ‘Yo, I’m hungry. This was supposed to be a lunch meeting right?’

  Jay did not take kindly to Leon’s change of subject and more importantly felt there were way more pressing things to discuss other than food. However, seeing Leon’s smiling face, Jay gave way to Leon’s suggestion and called the waiter from behind his station next to the bar.

  While they ate Leon gave Jay the uncut version of what went on the night before; this morning’s surprise visit from the Chief and the inner workings of a relationship that started out as a bull-shit facade but turned into a connection that surprisingly could be the best thing that ever happened to him. Jay in return told Leon what he had missed for the last two days, what he really felt about Kevin Carter O’Neal – the new guy on the team and the extra commotion caused within the office due to the upcoming arrival of some high ranking personnel.

  Jay adjusted himself in the chair and started fixed his clothes so they looked more in place. Then wiped the corner of his mouth with the side of his hand and took the last swig of Red Stripe beer from the bottle in front of him.

  ‘Thanks for filling me in.’ He said after letting go of what he would call a gratuitous belch.

  Leon knew he was not talking about the food and replied ‘Nahh, thank you for listening. I appreciate you being there for me man. You’re my brother.’

  Jay was about to reply but was interrupted by Leon’s phone vibrating across the table. Leon waited for it to pulsate a few more times before taking a look at who was trying to contact him. With no real interest in actually answering the call Leon reluctantly picked it up – happily the same time the phone stopped its relentless vibrating. The phone’s LCD screen said ‘P’ and the line underneath said: ‘1 missed call, 1 message’.

  Leon smiled. ‘I think it’s that time.’ He said excitedly.

  ‘Aren’t you going to listen to the message?’ enquired Jay

  Leon shook his head. ‘I know where to meet him. He had some lady call me this morning with the address.’

  Jay sat up straight in his seat, pulled a very neat wad of money out of his pocket and peeled off $300 for the food, plus what it cost them for meeting at an informant’s restaurant at such short notice. Dean placed his PRADA sunglasses over his eyes, cleared his throat and said ‘Well let’s do this. I’m ready to go make that paper.’

  Right away Leon realised his friend was now back in undercover mode. Dean had left the building and Jay had just punched back in and was now on the clock.

  As they walked out the restaurant to their respective cars Leon paused, looked at his watch and smiled. ‘Yo before we head over to P’s, follow me to mine so we can pick up the money and you can park your ride.’

  ‘No worries.’ Jay replied.

  The two friends got into their individual cars and Jay followed Leon back down the I75 towards the next step of their plan.

  It was 4:05pm on an unusually humid Friday afternoon and the two made up gangster’s pulled up outside Leon’s house. Jay got out of his M6 and waited by his car for Leon to retrieve the Gucci sports bag full of money. After about five minutes Jay watched Leon exit the house and walk back down the drive. Jay noticed Leon looking back over his shoulder towards the upstairs window above the front door.

  ‘Yo, what’s the deal? Is everything cool?’ He asked.

  ‘Nothing man, absolutely nothing.’ Leon replied abruptly.

  Jay could tell something was not right but he had a good idea it had something to do with Kerry. He noticed the curtain move in the upstairs window and could just about make out a woman’s silhouette.

  Leon pressed a button on the key-fob he was holding which caused the doors of his car to unlock and the trunk to rise skyward. Jay said thank you and got into the passenger seat while Leon placed the bag into the trunk. When Leon finally got into the car he noticed Jay staring right at him.

  ‘What?’

  Jay looked out through the windscreen and let out a sigh.

  Leon repeated the question, ‘Yo, what is it?’

  Jay made a show of swallowing and trying to grasp the right words to use.

  ‘Oh, come out and say it.’ Leon snapped.

  With a nod, Jay said ‘Ok. I was just thinking. I heard everything you said earlier. But I got one more question to ask you.’

  ‘Word, what’s that?’ Leon enquired, eagerly waiting to hear what Jay had to say.

  With sigh Jay looked at his friend straight on and said ‘Do you trust her?’

  Leon didn’t reply right away. He put the car in reverse, backed out of the driveway fast enough to make the tires squeal and then said. ‘I love her!’

  Jay made a sound that was part sarcastic chuckle, part sigh of exasperation.

  ‘Yeah, I got that much.’ He said. ‘But I didn’t ask you that. I asked you if you trust her.’

  Leon remained silent. He put the car in drive, turned up the volume and started rapping to the words to a song by the underground rap group U.D.P:

  ‘I leave fools in body-bags/

  Check the swag, my flow has,

  It never sag’s like implants/

  Flows laced with anthrax/

  I buss mic’s like air sacks,

  Lyrical tear-gas/ most fights end fast . . .

  Seeing Leon was fully into the song Jay figured he was not going to get a reply for now. So he graciously decided to let his question go unanswered. By the time Leon had got to the end of the road Jay was also bobbing his head to the music, reciting only the parts of the song he knew.

  CHAPTER 5

  Within half an hour Leon’s Mercedes was exiting the I95 and heading towards Oval Town otherwise known as ‘O.T’, - one of the worst parts of Miami by far. Leon pulled up on the corner of NE 4th Street and 2nd Avenue and let Jay out. Without saying a word Jay crossed over to the other side of the road and watched Leon drive another full block and pull up in front of an old beat-up apartment building that was surrounded by a black fence with missing bars and a burnt-out 1976 Cadillac, parked in front on the faded grass. Leon searched his rear-view mirror for Jay and spotted him a block behind on the other side of the street by a pay-phone.

  Seeing Jay was in place Leon got out of his car and started to walk across the grass with the burnt out caddy towards the old apartment building. As he approached he noticed a lady sitting in the doorway of one of the apartments on the ground floor. She
was holding a baby which gave reason to why she looked so tired. However despite the bags under her eyes, Leon still thought she looked pretty. He watched her as she gently rocked the baby to sleep in one arm and with her free hand flick the ash off a “Black n’ Mild” cigar onto the step outside. In the same way Leon watched the young women on his approach to the building, she never took her eyes off of Leon. Her staring was obvious Leon decided to look away and focus on where he was going. He knew there was not a working elevator in the building so he walked round to the staircase on the side of the building.

  Once Leon was out of sight, the young woman sitting in the doorway of apartment number 2 got up from her seat and knocked on the door to the left of hers. By this time Jay had walked the length of the block and was keeping a close eye on Leon as he ascended the staircase on the side of the building. He also saw a young woman with a baby knock on the apartment door next to hers and wait for a few seconds before a very tall, well-built guy opened the door and walked in the direction she pointed. By the time Jay reached Leon’s ride parked on the main road in front of the old building, Leon had already reached the third floor and was walking along the balcony with the sun pounding on the left side of his face. The first apartment he passed had plywood covering the door and windows. Even though the apartment seemed abandoned Leon could hear the sound of either an X-rated movie or someone having sex coming from inside. The second apartment’s front door was open and as Leon walked passed he saw an old man sitting in a brand-new black leather recliner, drinking a Heineken and watching Ricky Lake on a fifty inch T.V. The third apartment had glass in the windows and a proper door but was totally covered by a steel grill. Leon noticed not only did the front door have a grill but the door itself had four dead-bolts that all locked from the inside. Which meant that someone had to be in the house at all times in order to secure the spot. Leon knew this had to be the place and knocked on the grill with the metal Mercedes logo that was attached to his keys.

  A few moments passed before the sound of a woman’s voice came from inside.

  ‘Who dat is?’ The voice enquired.

  ‘It’s Leon; I’m here to speak to Pyro.’

  Leon could hear talking from inside but could not make out what was being said. Music started playing and then after a few seconds had passed Leon could hear the doors dead-bolts being unlocked. The door cracked open slightly at first then swung wide open to reveal what had to be one of the prettiest women Leon had ever seen in his life. She looked like she had stepped clean out of the ‘Dime’ magazine; five-ten and thick like Serena Williams or Lisa Ray. She was wearing nothing but lime green lingerie and a thin white shoulder gun strap with bright green ‘Luis Vuitton’ logos on it. It was holding two chrome Desert Eagles, - on either side of her frame, with modified infra-red scopes attached to the top of the barrels. Her hair was shoulder length with a slanting fringe covering her right eye. She flashed a smile which, - according to Leon, made her look even prettier.

  ‘Hey, how you doing? I’m here to speak to Pyro. He should be expecting me.’ Leon said calmly.

  The scantily dressed lady acknowledged Leon’s statement by opening the door she was standing in front of even wider before using a single key to unlock the steel gate that served as the final barrier between inside and outside. After unlocking the gate she paused and waited for Leon to realise he would have to move to his right to allow the grill to open out however Leon just stood there admiring her curves. He could tell she was the kind of women who knew she looked good and that his somewhat boyish reaction to her physicality was something she had seen many men do before.

  ‘He’s been waiting.’ She said unimpressed. ‘You should have been here an hour ago. Didn’t you get my message?’

  ‘Yeah, my bad. I had to make a quick stop. So where’s he at?’

  Without a verbal reply the woman stepped aside and waived Leon into the apartment. Once inside she brushed passed him making sure her firm breasts rubbed up against his chest. Leon’s mind flashed up a picture of Kerry which instantly made him uncomfortable with how close this half naked woman was to him. As she pulled in the grill she looked to her left and saw a tall, well-built guy in a tank-top, blue jeans and Timberlands. She smiled at him and the gentleman acknowledged her with the universal head-nod. The one where your head seems to go up but never comes down. Smiling the woman closed the grill and the door and locked them both. She then slowly turned around, seductively placed the keys into her cleavage and looked at Leon long and hard.

  ‘Before you get to speak to Pyro.’ she said, ‘I’ve been told to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Cool.’ He replied. ‘You can ask me anything you like Ma.’

  Even though Leon was smiling and in full Mac mode, he kept a steady eye on the distance between the women’s soft manicured hands and the handles of the two Desert Eagles resting on either side of her ample breasts.

  She motioned to the inner area of the apartments white walls, which housed a single white leather couch and a glass coffee table that had a silver bowl filled with ready-rolled spliffs. Leon took three seconds to take in the size of the room, the lock at the top of the sliding glass door that led to the back balcony and the small white coloured CCTV in the top right-hand side corner. Right then Leon heard another voice he was quite sure was a woman’s.

  ‘Chocolate!’ the voice called.

  ‘Coming.’ The woman in the lime green lingerie replied.

  Before leaving the room she gave Leon another smile and said, ‘I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Ok.’

  Leon looked at the key sticking out the top of her cleavage. The lady followed his gaze and saw the key three inches away her chin. She gave Leon a look of slight embarrassment, as if to say ‘I’m Sorry. I completely forgot they were there’ and then turned to her left and walked out of site down a corridor Leon figured lead to the bedrooms. Leon gave the room another quick scan with his eyes and then walked over to the side of the room the camera was on and stood directly underneath it. Five seconds later he heard the second woman’s voice call out from another room ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

  Leon smiled because he now knew that without the camera they were blind to what went on in that room.

  ‘Nahh, I’m cool,’ Leon called back. ‘I’d rather stand. So is Pyro here or not? I got a message saying he wanted to meet up.’

  The same voice as before replied ‘Yes. He was here but you should know he’s not the kind of man to wait around.’

  Leon knew he was expected to respond but he thought it was time he stopped shouting between rooms and got things moving. He jumped up and grabbed onto the back of the CCTV camera and with the use of gravity snapped the bracket off the wall. Leon heard a voice shout out, ‘What the hell just happened?’ Leon prepared himself for what might be coming back round the corner but as he reached for his gun the same lady in green lingerie came back into the room brandishing her own Desert Eagles, - one in each hand. Before Leon had time to react, another lady walked into the room brandishing her own set of Desert Eagles with the same infra-red scopes as the first woman.

  ‘Oh, my days, twins! Now that is some sexy shit!’ Leon said with a broad smile across his face.

  The second woman was the spitting image of her sister. The only difference Leon could readily make out was that one of the sister’s lingerie was green while the new addition to the room was wearing bright yellow and her gun strap had yellow Louis Vuitton logos. The both of them stood there with their guns cocked, locked and aimed at Leon’s chest.

  ‘Whoa ladies,’ He said looking confused. ‘Am I missing something here?’

  ‘You’re gonna be missing something else if you don’t answer our questions truthfully.’ The sister in green ordered.

  Leon started to talk. ‘Ladies…’

  ‘Shut up!’ The same sister interjected.

  In unison they both lo
wered their right hands so their aim was directed on Leon’s pelvic area. He looked down and saw two red dots twitching over the zipper area of his jeans. Leon thought about his current situation and finally raised his hands above his head.

  ‘Ladies - why all the hostility? I came here to talk business with Pyro,’ Leon replied earnestly. ‘. . . If dude ain’t here and he doesn’t wanna do business, then I suggest ya’ll give me back the gift I so generously handed to him two weeks ago.’

  The sister in the green - who Leon now decided looked prettier than the sister in yellow, - moved in closer.

  ‘Hmm, yes. Pyro did appreciate the donation. However he wants to know why you would want to do business with him, when you’ve already set up home with Black.’

  Not that surprised by the question Leon said ‘Oh, I get it. Dude doesn’t trust a nigger. Yo, does Pyro know who I am? I might be in Black’s camp but that boy Leon works for himself.’

  ‘Oh really?’ The sister in yellow retorted.

  ‘Yes really!’ Leon replied loudly. - Mac mode now being a distant memory.

  With his hands still above his head the sister in the green, who Leon now took to be the one in charge - got up in Leon’s personal space so that her body was only centimetres from his and reached around his waist until she found his weapon tucked away behind his back. Once she had his gun she put the safety on, ejected the bullet in the chamber and then placed the gun in the same place Leon carried it when it was in his possession. She then placed the nozzle of one Desert Eagle under his chin. Blew him a kiss and said ‘Really? Well, that’s not what we hear. See, a little dickey-bird told us you’re not to be trusted.’

  ‘What? You crazy… ! Leon argued. ‘Err; let’s not forget I gave Pyro five million dollars. Why would I do that if I did not want to go into business with him? Who told y’all that? So I can deal with them.’

  The sister in green kept her eyes on his and blew a steady stream of air onto his lips. He could smell weed and something sweet. ‘Strawberries!’ He thought. His mind flashed back to Kerry. However as fast as that thought came, Leon got rid of it and in the firmest voice he could muster said ‘Well?’