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Ishmael had been circling the block for a half-hour. It didn't matter to him that the police were nearby, knocking on doors and questioning tight-lipped neighbors about the commissioner's murder. They weren't looking for him, and even if they were, he was a different man now, both inside and out.
Not only did his conservative suit allow him to elude his pursuers, but he was filled with a righteous indignation that fueled his every move. He was right. His victims were wrong. And for their wrongs, they deserved to die.
Bespectacled and bald, he leaned back in the driver's seat of the blue Chrysler, turned left onto York Street, and rode slowly down the Andersons' block. He did so with the full knowledge that he was virtually unrecognizable.
Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw a woman walk down the steps of the church at the opposite corner. She was carrying a Bible and a purse, and walking slowly.
She wore a white, round hat that covered almost every strand of her hair, large glasses that hid most of her face, and a long, loose dress that covered every inch of her femininity. She looked as if she could be beautiful beneath the trappings of her religious fervor. But there was something sad about her, something that shone through in her dour expression.
Curious, he pulled into a nearby parking space and watched her. As she came closer, her features became clearer, and it was easier for him to see the beauty she hid so well.
A wisp of hair hung from the side of the hat she wore, and dangled about three inches past her shoulder. Her mouth bore a certain sensuality that was evident even as she appeared to wear the weight of the world on her shoulders. She seemed to think of something that broke through that sadness for just a moment, and her face creased in a slight smile.
For half a second the rhythm to her gait and the swing of her hips were alluring, even beneath her long, dowdy dress.
But a second later, her demeanor changed. The swing in her hips stiffened. The rhythm of her movement disappeared.
As she drew closer to the car, he reached down, pulled the handle on the side of his seat, and leaned back slowly to avoid being noticed.
She started up the front steps of a nearby house, dragging her feet as if she dreaded going inside.
As she reached out to open the door, a tall man with a black gym bag came charging out and almost knocked her down. His back to Ishmael, the man tried to walk past the woman, but she stopped him, and Ishmael watched her dour expression turn to an enraged scowl.
“Where are you going, John?” the woman said, her tone short. Something about her voice made Ishmael listen more closely.
“I'm going to find our daughter,” the man answered impatiently.
“No you're not!” she said sharply. “You see what happened the last time you did that.”
“Get out of my way, Sarah,” the man said in a low voice.
Ishmael watched the woman cast a venomous stare in the man's direction before she grudgingly stood aside.
The man turned to look up the block, and Ishmael saw his face. A chill ran through his body as he saw his target close up for the first time.
Reverend John Anderson, the man who had violated the woman of his dreams; the hypocrite who had led so many of his followers astray; the prey that he would hunt down like an animal.
Ishmael smiled as he watched the preacher stalk down York Street and get into a black Ford at the other end of the one-way street. When John started the car and rode past him, Ishmael pulled out of the space and followed him.
John Anderson was going to die for his sins. And not even his children would be able to escape the consequences.
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Keisha and Jamal had barely crossed the street before the highway patrolman pulled up behind the blue Dodge Neon. He didn't see them disappear into the maze of two-story houses that comprised the housing project behind Frankford Avenue.
Now, as they ran down one of the driveways, Keisha couldn't shake the feeling that she'd been there before.
Glancing at the dull brick facades of the houses in the development, she tried to remember where she had seen them, but her memory betrayed her.
Looking back over her shoulder, she could see other police cars pulling in behind the first. Their swirling lights shone against the buildings, and Jamal's description was read repeatedly over their radios.
But even as they ran and ducked through the small concrete backyards of the houses, moving ever deeper into the projects, it was the past, rather than the present, that gnawed at her.
Jamal grabbed her hand and led her to a space between two houses. Crouching down, he signaled for her to remain still as he tried desperately to think of a way out.
Kneeling there, she listened to the sound of traffic on I-95, speeding by in waves from two blocks away, and the sounds of everyday life emanating from the nearby houses in the projects.
She heard the sound of soap opera drama, talk show mayhem,
and television news. She heard babies crying, women on telephones, and children playing rope. And that's when it hit her. She had, indeed, been there before.
“Jamal,” she said, pointing to the back of a nearby house. “This way.”
Staying low to the ground, she jogged across the driveway to the backyard of the house she remembered.
Jamal hesitated. But when he glanced through a crack between the houses and saw ten police cars surrounding the Neon they'd abandoned five minutes before, he knew that he had to move, because Keisha still had the gun he'd handed her in the car.
He got up and followed her path across the driveway, and knelt next to her at the back door of the house. She looked at him, saw apprehension in his eyes, and knew that he didn't trust her completely. Keisha didn't blame him. But neither of them had much choice now. They needed each other to survive.
Keisha tapped on the door three times. When there was no answer, she knocked harder.
The ensuing pause seemed to last an eternity, especially after they saw a police car turn onto the driveway's cracked concrete.
Keisha knocked again.
“Who is it?” an old woman answered in a frail voice.
“It's John's daughter,” Keisha said, just loud enough for the woman to hear.
Footsteps shuffled toward the door as the two of them watched the slow-moving police car riding down the driveway.
“Just a minute, honey,” the old woman said sweetly.
Keisha and Jamal tried to hunker down further, but there was nothing in the small yard to hide them.
Jamal looked down at Keisha's purse and the gun that it contained. The police car, now just ten houses away, drew even
closer. Jamal was about to reach for the gun when the door creaked open.
“Keisha?” the old woman said while looking aimlessly over their heads.
“Aunt Margaret,” a relieved Keisha answered while she and Jamal moved past her and into the kitchen.
The old woman closed the door behind them and turned around unsteadily.
“Who's that with you?” she asked, her eyes sweeping the room, but focusing on nothing.
“This is my friend André,” Keisha lied. “We were in the neighborhood, so I wanted to stop by, since I haven't seen you in a while.”
“I don't know why you stoppin' by now,” the old woman said sarcastically. “You don't stop by no other time. I coulda been layin' up in here dead or somethin', and y'all wouldn't even know.”
“I'm sorry, Aunt Margaret. I'll try to do better.”
“What you say your friend's name was?”
“André.”
“Nice to meet you, André,” the old woman said as she felt along the back of a chair, pulled it out from under the table, and sat down.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Jamal answered uneasily.
“Keisha,” the old woman said. “I don't think I've seen you since your Uncle William passed away last year. 'Fraid my cataracts is a lot worse since then. Can't see like I used to.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Keisha said.
“Oh, don't feel sorry for me,” Aunt Margaret said with a wave of her hand. “Sometimes, when you lose your sight, you see things a lot clearer. Now, come on over here and give your aunt a hug.”
Keisha approached hesitantly and reached down to hug her grandfather's oldest sister, who was still spry, independent, and sharp, even at the age of ninety.
The old woman wrapped her arms around her great-niece and squeezed with a strength that belied her age. She felt the warmth of Keisha's nearly bare breasts against her neck, and smelled the mingled odors of sweat and drugs in her clothing.
A frown creased Aunt Margaret's forehead as Keisha moved past the walker that stood folded in the corner of the kitchen and sat down in a nearby chair. The house was silent except for the sound of the television in the living room, until Aunt Margaret spoke.
“You sure have changed since the last time I saw you, Keisha,” she said sternly.
“What do you mean, Aunt Margaret?” Keisha asked nervously.
The old woman leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips in a look of disappointment.
“I'm old, but I ain't stupid, honey,” the old woman said. “And I ain't much for games, either. So Iâma give it to you straight. I been hearin' your name on the news all mornin'. You and your friend Jamal here. I know they lookin' for him for shootin' Commissioner Freeman, and they said he kidnapped you, too.”
Keisha and Jamal exchanged a worried look as the old woman leaned forward in her seat and placed both hands on her kitchen table.
“Now, I guess the news musta got somethin' wrong,” she said, “since y'all came in here together like you did. But I heard the sirens on Frankford Avenue a few minutes before you got here. So I know they gon' come knockin' pretty soon.”
“Aunt Margaret, let me explain,” Keisha began.
“Ain't nothin' to explain,” the old woman said, cutting her off. “'Cause evidently, if you runnin' with him, you musta did somethin', too. But lemme tell you somethin', Keisha. Your grandfather got swallowed up in these streets, and so did your father.
“So before the police come to my door lookin' for you, I want you to tell me somethin',” she said, folding her arms defiantly. “Why the hell would you wanna get swallowed up, too?”
Jamal watched them sitting there, and for the first time, he saw the resemblance between them. It wasn't purely physical, though their faces held some similarities. Their likeness was in their fire.
Jamal wanted to extinguish it, to snatch the gun from Keisha and force the old woman into a closet. He needed Keisha to believe that they could make the impossible escape. In truth, he needed to believe it, too.
“Answer me, Keisha!” the old woman said, interrupting Jamal's racing thoughts.
Keisha began to weep. It was a sound that tore through Jamal like a jagged blade. Thankfully, her tears stopped as quickly as they had begun. And when she finally spoke, she spat her words like venom.
“Aunt Margaret, the streets can't swallow me up, âcause my family already did that,” she said bitterly. “All my life, y'all wanted me to be the perfect little girlâthe good reverend's faithful daughter. But I can't be that, and I'm tired of trying.
“I don't know why things happened the way they did in the past. And I don't want to know. But I
do
know this. I love Jamal. I've loved him since the first time I met him five years ago. He was the first boy I kissed, the first boy I dreamed about, the first
boy I wanted. And I'm gonna be with him, no matter what you or anybody else in the family thinks.”
“And what about his father?” Aunt Margaret said.
“What about him?” Jamal said angrily.
“You shut up, boy! I'm not talkin' to you!”
Jamal moved toward the old woman, but Keisha held up her hand and stopped him.
“Whatever happened between Frank Nichols and my father is between them,” she said defiantly. “And whatever happens with me and Jamal is between us.”
The old woman grunted in response. Then she slowly stood up and walked toward the front of the house, lightly touching furniture to guide her from one room to the other, as Keisha and Jamal watched silently.
“What about your grandfather, Keisha?” the old woman said, speaking over her shoulder as she sat down in a chair in the living room. “Does what Jamal's father did to him have anything to do with you? Or don't that matter, either?”
The question floated in the air between them like a poisoned mist, threatening to take their breath away.