Slipping Into Darkness Page 9

  This was the first time I met his new wife, Ernestine. I could tell, even in my dream, that she didn’t like me. She had her own little boy, Dre, who was the same age as me at the time (seven), and she didn’t like how my father paid so much attention to me.

  I guessed I was spending the weekend. Later that night, my father and Ernestine argued over how much attention he paid to me. I overheard her say, “She’s going to turn out like her no-good mother anyway. An apple doesn’t fall far from its tree.”

  What my father said would shape my path for the rest of my life. “Well, this my seed and she’s gonna to be something special.”

  In my dream, I heard the doorbell ringing, then a rapping at the office door, and I woke up with a warm feeling. My daddy had said I was special. The words every little girl needed when they were growing up. Probably made a difference in why I wasn’t dancing on the pole down to this day. Not that I’m knocking it; I’m just glad it’s not my thing.

  At first I looked around. Disoriented, I had to think for a moment. Where was I? Then I remembered I had stopped by the office and had fallen asleep on the sofa.

  I jumped up to answer the door, thinking it was UPS or FedEx. All the time my mind was on how I needed to get home and get ready for my plane trip. I was wondering who was coming by the office this early in the morning. I glanced at our digital clock and saw it was seven in the morning. I opened the door, my gun behind my back, cocked and ready to be drawn, but no one was there. I glanced up and down the street. Hmmm. The street was empty. In our office district, there were no cars in the parking lot yet. I was getting ready to turn away, when I glanced down and was surprised to see what looked like a wicker basket on the single platform step outside our office.

  Without a thought, I opened the basket, thinking maybe it was mistakenly left behind on the doorstep. Truth be known, I really wasn’t thinking of anything as I lifted the lid. My first reaction was one of shock. I felt strangely disembodied. I was in that primitive place where there once was no language, no words. I couldn’t even think of a word to describe what my primal reaction was.

  Then, in the second between what I observed and what hit my brain synapses registered, I recoiled in disbelief and let out a bloodcurdling scream. I’m not the type of female to faint, but if I were, I would have passed out. This was too much. The first thing I recognized was the short fade haircut. Then I recognized the face. It was Tank’s face. There was a puddle of blood beginning to coagulate at the neckline. Someone had beheaded Tank like John the Baptist! For a moment, I stood transfixed in horror.

  “Oh, my God! Tank, what have they done to you?” I hollered. I wondered where his body was. “Who did this to you?” I knew it was useless talking out loud to a dead person, but I had to say something. I knew this was a warning.

  Tank’s eyes were wide open so I was sure he was conscious when this barbarian cut off his head. I shook my head. Now I was really getting afraid. What the hell was I getting into? This shit was sick! I needed to back out of this mess. I couldn’t go on like this. I wasn’t up for getting my head cut off. What kind of bullshit was this anyway? Now if I ever needed a drink this was the time.

  I guess that’s when I saw the envelope. I opened it. There was a note inside which read:

  This will be your brother next, so get moving! You have one week from today to get that money back.

  I mulled over this for a moment. My mind went blank. I couldn’t do anything but sit down at my desk, head resting on my fists, just like I was stumped over a banking problem or something like that, and tried to figure out what to do next. Who could I call? I thought of Romero but I hadn’t included him in my plan to go out the country and it would involve too much explaining. Plus, he was a by-the-book officer and he’d call his supervisor, and I’d never get out of L.A. I hadn’t shared what was going on in the first place and he was always trying to get me to open up. He would be mad about that.

  So I scratched Romero’s name off the mental list. Next, I thought about calling Chica, but if she got caught with this head in a basket and she already had a criminal record with two strikes, she could wind up back in prison for life.

  Now I had a new dilemma. What could I do with Tank’s head where it wouldn’t be traced back to me? It was not that I was guilty, but I knew how the law worked. The person who reported a vic was generally the first suspect.

  No, I had to get out the country and I didn’t have time to give a police report. I steeled myself to do what I had to do. I knew I had to go on. I called F-Loc and left him a cryptic message.

  “Loc, I’m going underground. I’ll get back with you.” He understood that meant I needed him to be my ears and eyes in my absence.

  I put the basket in my car’s front seat and prayed the police didn’t pull me over. How could I ever explain this one? I drove to the ocean in Santa Monica and left the basket out in the opening near the jogging trail. I made sure there were no cameras around. Big Brother is always watching you now.

  Afterward, I went to a phone booth, which was difficult to find, then called 911 and dropped an anonymous tip. I disguised my voice. “The victim can be found at Santa Monica Pier.” I wiped my prints when I left.

  I went home and packed my clothes. I called Chica and told her to come get Ben and keep him for me.

  “Mija, you know I would, but we can’t keep pets in our apartment. Besides Riley is allergic to pets. Call Haviland. She’s got that big house. And she’s been waiting to hear from you anyway.”

  As much as I hated to call Haviland, the drama queen, I did. My back was up against the wall. I needed her help.

  “Chick, where have you been?” Haviland exploded. “We started to call the popo. Why didn’t you call us?”

  I almost laughed since Haviland sounded funny when she tried to talk “hood.” “So who put you on the Z Patrol Unit?” I quipped. “Slow your roll. Calm down. I’m okay.”

  She backed up then. “Well, you could’ve called us.” Peeved, she decided to try to “guilt” me. “You go to the Oscars with us and then you just disappear like that. We were worried about you.”

  I ignored her remark. “Did anyone we know win?” I was referring to the picture that Trevor had a small role in.

  “No, but it has still been good PR. He’s already gotten two new scripts to look at from his agent.”

  “Great!” Then I went straight to the point. “I need a favor.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can you keep Ben? I’ve got to go out the country. It’s serious business.”

  “Oh, hell no. Not Ben–that rat.” Haviland sounded adamant.

  “Look, that rat–and he’s not a rat, he’s a ferret–saved my life. I really will owe you one if you can do this for me.”

  Haviland paused, then she pretended to confer with Trevor, as if she were a submissive wife or partner. I guessed she’d been watching how me and Chica acted around our men. “Hon, can we keep Z’s pet, Ben?”

  Trevor grabbed the phone, happy to be included in the conversation. His voice almost sounded jovial, to know I was involving him in my business. “Z, sure. When do you plan to drop him off?”

  “I won’t have time to drop him off. You can ask Shirley to let you in my apartment and get him and his cage. Make sure you get his food too. You can go online and look up how to take care of a ferret. You’ve got to let him out every day to play. He likes to hide under things, so you’ll have to be careful. Don’t lose him.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I packed in a hurry, surprised I even had the presence of mind to go through such a menial chore as packing after what I’d just seen. I kept seeing an image of Tank’s head in my mind. My hands were shaking like they used to do when I needed a drink, but that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just spooked. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. What kind of person was I to dispose of a head in the park? Then, in the next breath, I rationalized my actions. I was under pressure and I had to get out the country.

  O
n the one hand, I felt guilty like a hit and run driver, but, on the other, time was of the essence. Tank was already dead, I reasoned. There was no sense in losing my brother too. I was under pressure and I did what I had to do.

  Somehow, I managed to throw several pair of jeans, underwear, an all-occasion black dress, and jacket with my toothbrush into a small roller bag. I looked at my bookshelf and grabbed Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, my Blue Book, The Alcoholic Anonymous Bible, and my King James Bible, which I put in my carry-on bag. I went to my bank and bought $5,000 in Traveler’s Checks. I decided I’d worry about getting paid from Mayhem later, if there was going to be a later.

  I headed to LAX from Baldwin Hills and made it in record time. I left my car in overnight parking. I managed to get through the checkpoint at the airport with no problem, but I had to check my gun, even though it was licensed and registered. Now I really felt vulnerable. I hoped I’d be able to get one once I got to Rio.

  I did look up the anonymous account on the flash drive. It was an account in the Cayman Islands. The password and account number was there and this account had over $1 billion in it. I had no idea how much money I was going to need in Brazil. At one point I felt a twinge of conscience. I wondered if this was drug money or cootchie money that Mayhem had amassed.

  “What benefit a man, if he gains the world and loses his soul?” crossed my mind. Then I pushed the thought aside. How much money that circulated in society had its origins in drug money? Was the source of the money I was trying to get released for ransom money for Mayhem drug money? I didn’t know anything anymore. All I knew was I had to try to get my brother released. I still had an hour and a half to wait for my plane’s departure. I called Chica. “Did you find anything on that tat?”

  “Yeah, it sounds like it belongs to your man’s family.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s an old family out of East Los Angeles. I think it’s his uncle’s and cousins’ family–that’s why his surname is different. They seem almost like a secret society, they are so below the radar, but they are treacherous, from what I’ve heard over the years. Do you think Romero knows anything about the abduction?”

  “I don’t think so, but I can’t find out right now. I’m getting ready to take a plane to Rio.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Brazil.”

  “That far?”

  “It’s what I have to do.”

  “Is it for Mayhem?”

  “Yes. That’s all I can tell you right now.”

  “This is serious. I’m going to burn a candle for your safe return. Love you, Z.”

  “Love you too.”

  I hung up and glanced around. I wanted to call Romero and ask him if he knew if his family had abducted and was holding my brother hostage, but something stopped me. What if it was his family? Would he tell me? Whose side would he take in matters of the heart? Besides, even if he sided with me, could Romero get Mayhem released without the money?

  I feel like all my efforts to find out about the kidnapping had led to failure, but, at least, I had tried, even if it was to no avail. Plus, I was really getting frightened. Was someone following me? How did they know I would be at my office? What kind of monster was I dealing with anyway?

  I gazed surreptitiously around me. To my left, I observed what looked like a grandmother traveling with two preschoolers. It made me think of Venita and my nephews, and if they were safe. I wondered where she’d taken the boys. I noticed a group of Boy Scouts. I also saw a group of Chinese college students. There was no one suspicious looking around me, but my gut was churning like it does when something’s not quite right.

  Well, small wonder. I was right out in the open. I was sitting in the boarding area for Delta. I was a sitting duck. I only had my cell phone to take pictures with. I had my small carry-on bag with my big blue Alcoholics Anonymous book, and The Art of War. I was going to need all then help I could get.

  All of a sudden I got a text from Venita: We safe. I’ll contact you when we get settled.

  I smiled against my will and had to begrudgingly admit a little feeling for my mother with her stepping up to the plate like this. Here she was, just getting settled in life after twenty years imprisonment, and now she had to be on the lam with her grandsons, who she really didn’t know from Adam. All this, once again, for her precious Mayhem, though. Suddenly I felt a sliver of resentment. Almost immediately, I felt guilty for feeling jealous. Mayhem was the one of her children whose life was on the line. Still, I wondered something. Would my mother do the same for me if I were the one being held hostage?

  She had tried to reach out to me all my life. She wrote letters to me for twenty years but I’d refused to write her back. Since she’d been out of the pen, she’d tried to be there for me, in her own way.

  So what should I do?

  I pretended to look out the large windows and listened to the gargantuan jumbo jets take off. But, trust and believe, I had eyes in the back of my head. I used a small compact mirror in my purse to look behind me. I never saw anyone suspicious looking at me. I turned back around and sat down, pretending to read a magazine, although I spent my time studying people out of the corner of my eyes.

  As I said, this was my first flight since 9/11. I’d flown more as a child when I’d gone on Caribbean and Hawaiian cruises with Shirley and Chill and the other foster children than I’d flown as an adult. I was pleasantly surprised to be seated in first class this time. I guessed it wouldn’t make any difference if the plane went down whether I was first class or coach, but this felt better, since I didn’t know what I was going up against or what I’d have to face.

  I let out a sigh of contentment, loosening up my jeans’ top button. I had plenty of room to stretch out. For a moment, I decided to put my problems aside and luxuriate in all this space.

  I prayed as the plane took off, since I’d always heard that was the most dangerous part–take off and landing, but once the plane leveled off, I calmed down. Then I thought about 9/11, and had to calm myself down again. I used self-talk to bring myself back down. I guess I didn’t have to worry about terrorists, the way they checked everyone getting on the plane.

  When the flight attendant came through taking orders, she asked if I wanted to order a drink, and I was almost tempted to say yes, but I said, “No.”

  I reviewed the chain of events over the past forty-eight hours. The Academy Awards ceremony. The two federal agents’ strange appearance. Mayhem Skyping me. The information I learned from Tank. Moving my nephews to my mother, hopefully to safety. The information from F-Loc. The tattoo shop. The strip club. The massage parlor. Bonzo’s henchman. And worst of all, Tank’s beheading. It was too much for me to figure out what the pattern was yet, so I tried to quiet my thoughts.

  What a moral quagmire! I’d already done something against my honor when I didn’t turn in Tank’s head. What was the right thing to do?

  I opened The Art of War and words jumped out at me regarding strategy being more important than fighting in a battle. I was too tired to read, to concentrate, or to think, though, so I rested my head back and closed my eyes. I wondered what this trip would bring. How would I get in touch with Appolonia? I wondered if that shot or that malaria pill was why I was feeling so spacey.

  I must have dozed off because suddenly I was nine years old again. I had awakened early one morning to Venita pacing the floor. “That boy has stayed out all night,” she mumbled more or less to herself.

  I overheard Strange walk up to Venita and say, “That li’l nigga too grown. He may be out here slangin’ that rock with these Crips, but I’ma show him. I’ma beat his ass when he get in here. You may be scared of his ass, but I ain’t.”

  Finally, shortly after sunup, Mayhem came slipping through his bedroom window, one ten-year-old leg at a time. Unfortunately, Strange was waiting on the other side of the window for him with an ironing cord. Mayhem took a few licks, but as soon as he broke loose from under Strange’s wailing cord, he ca
ught the belt in his hand. In a swift move of the hand, Mayhem pulled out a knife and swiped at Strange.

  Strange backed up, grabbing his upper arm. “This li’l nigga done cut me. I’ma kill him when I get my hands on him.”

  Mayhem made it lickety split to the front door, and stopped at the threshold, but not before he left a threat, which turned out to be a promise. “You ever touch my mother again, I’ll kill you. You touch me again or even look at my sister wrong, I’ll dead you.”

  Mayhem shot back out the front door, never to return, other than when Strange was at work so he could check on me, my baby brother, Diggity, and my mother, who was pregnant with my baby sister, Righteousness. From that point, though, he was on his own. I guess it’s true. There can’t be two men in one house. Mayhem became a man from the time he was ten years old.

  That’s when the dream went back to the day my daddy died. “Be careful, li’l girl,” my father was saying.

  Suddenly I felt a gentle hand shaking me. “Are you all right, miss?” I looked into the freckled face of a thin strawberry-blond flight attendant. “You were crying out.”

  I was sweating profusely and panting. Eyes bucked, I sat up, staring wildly all around me. When I saw I was still on the plane, I calmed myself down, and relaxed, pushing my back into my seat. I was safe–for now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I first landed at the Rio de Janeiro/ Galeão-Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, I might as well have landed on Jupiter, I was so in awe. My first impression of Brazil was that it was like what I imagine parts of the Motherland–Africa–would look like. There were people who looked like pure Africans. I guessed they were the ones who I resembled the most.

  Then there was another rainbow mixture of all races. The people were bronze, ivory, amber, persimmon, and ochre. What I noticed most were the young women, men and children were exceptionally good-looking. This was a land of beautiful people, I decided. Even the old people looked attractive. Maybe they got the best of the gene pool in the world. I didn’t know.