Took looked upward and to the left, as if he were searching for the answer or a lie.
“That’s a very good question,” he finally said. “Actually I’m not completely sure why I was there.”
“Is that all you got? You are not fucking sure?” One person could only take so much bullshit and she had maxed her limit. “I’m outta here.”
Took pulled her back. “You asked for the truth. The truth doesn’t always make sense—it just is what it is.”
Tyeedah slapped his hand away. “Touch me one more time without my permission and I swear to God, I will cut your fucking hands off.” It was a warning; not an empty threat.
Subconsciously, Took’s hands, as if they had a mind of their own, sought refuge behind his back.
“Let me try to explain.”
“Make it quick,” she said, rolling her eyes with mixed emotions, but wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“I heard Nique had come up. Married Kennard DuVall and living a fantasy life. Information came right out of the blue. And I didn’t know how to feel about it,” he said truthfully. “Mad. Jealous. Hate. Vindictive … or all of the above. I was like an emotion gumbo.”
Tyeedah tried not to be moved by his sudden, so-called revelation; she stood expressionless and listened as Took continued.
“Sure. I contemplated several different ways I could make Nique’s life a few rungs less glamorous. Unburying a couple secrets that dear hubby or the police might not know about. At the very least,” Took said, coming clean, “I knew I could draw down a pretty penny, if I stayed quiet or not … and destroy her.”
No emotions were intertwined with his words. He spoke as if he made these types of decisions every day.
No big deal
was written all over his face, but what was written in his heart was a whole other story.
“After I got here, I asked myself an honest question: Am I pissed at Nique because she found someone who made her happy? Or because I failed at doing so? Or am I just miserable and I hate that she is, despite the fact I left her to rot?”
“So,” Tyeedah asked sarcastically, “how did you answer this philosophical question of yours?”
“I didn’t have to,” he said. “After I met you, my real reason for coming here changed. It seems like the more I was around you, I forgot about everything else.”
“That sounds all peachy but at the same time, how can we be together?” she asked.
“I don’t know. This may sound a little like bullshit, but please take my words at face value.”
“What words are those?”
“Let me try to fix this with Unique. Let me try to make things right with her and maybe she will accept things between us.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t bet your backwoods ranch on that one.”
“Trust me,” he said.
BIG TIME
Friday was the standing delivery day for the wine and liquor. Unique quickly learned that it didn’t matter how well the food was prepared, how fabulous the décor, or how above satisfactory the service and waitstaff was: if the alcohol wasn’t up to par—and in abundance—the restaurant wasn’t worth the weight of its brick. It was a problem she needed to concern herself with because Couture Cuisine covered all of the above—this was why she had to be on point to get this liquor delivery.
This was the first time Unique had been inside the building alone since finding the note. She wasn’t scared, however, because in a strange way she had come to enjoy that window of time before opening. She missed the solitude she had become accustomed to each morning and found solace in its peace.
Her thoughts were shattered by a sound from behind the bar. The noise startled her until she realized it was only the buzzer that was wired and connected to the service doorbell. The supplies were always delivered at the back door, to the basement, which opened out to the alley in back of the building.
He’s here,
she thought, making her way to accept the delivery. In the kitchen, Unique flipped on the light for the stairs and the entire sublevel below. It was 9:15
A.M.
and like clockwork, the delivery was right on schedule.
Eighteen carpeted steps led to the wine cellar. Once at the bottom, Unique made a right, passed sixteen custom racks—each built to hold five hundred 0.75-liter wine bottles—before getting to the door that led to the huge storage room. The service entrance from the Second Avenue alley was ahead, to the left.
Buzzzzz.
The deliveryman was laying on the button, the annoying sound bouncing off the concrete walls. “I pay by the bottle not by the minute. Have some patience,” she spoke out as she reached the metal door. After disengaging multiple locks, she pulled the heavy door in on its hinges. “Where’s the fire at, man?” she said as she opened the door.
The delivery driver wore the same outfit as he always did but hid his eyes behind some sunglasses. “Good morning,” he said with a smile. Then he walloped her smack-dab on the side of the head.
His fist felt like a sledgehammer. The vicious blow caught Unique off guard and knocked her to the floor.
“I got yo fire, bitch!” Looking up from her backside, she was certain this wasn’t the regular delivery guy. “I’m fitting to turn the heat way up,” he said in a real Southern drawl.
Her first thought was that the fake delivery guy was Took, but the dude was way taller and had lighter skin than him. Maybe it was someone that Took had sent because he was famous for having other folks do his dirty work. If he was the same guy who had left the note, Unique knew she was in big trouble. She’d rather have faced a mugger only wanting the money. But this guy seemed as if what motivated him was personal. Then, like a theme from a movie, it came to her. The man in the blue uniform was Big Time.
She was outdone. The chickens had come home to roost. The past had caught up with her once again. Big Time pushed the door shut. “I betcha thought you would never lay eyes on me again.”
Big Time was from Atlanta; he was an old cellie boyfriend. When Unique got out of prison, Big Time was one of the many vics that she and Took had paid a visit to. The last time she’d seen the dude, Took and a couple of friends had automatic weapons pointed at his head, relieving him of a shitload of drugs and money that he had stashed in his upscale downtown Atlanta condo.
Now, Big Time yanked her by the hair. “Kitty told me to tell you that she missed that hot tongue of yours.” The comment was meant to do exactly what it did—slap Unique in the face.
In prison, Big Time’s girlfriend, Kitty, had everything legally an inmate could have, a myriad of things that weren’t allowed inside. It didn’t take long before Unique had turned Kitty’s fish-smelling pussy lesbo. Back then, in Unique’s mind, a girl had to do what a girl had to do to survive in the joint, just like in the streets—by any means necessary. Kitty was the first and the last bitch that she had ever given head to, let touch her, or given any other sexual favors for that matter.
A pair of handcuffs appeared from somewhere behind Big Time’s back. He clamped them hard onto her wrists, so tight they almost cut off the blood circulation.
Not knowing what Big Time had brewing in his mind, too terrified to even think about it, Unique said, “I can pay back every penny. You don’t have to do anything that you may regret later.”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he said as he stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth and then pushed her up against the wall, face-first. “Any regrets that are to be had are going to be by you.”
COMING CLEAN
Tyeedah finally fixed Took his plate and they ate in total silence. For the first time in his life, he really felt bad about his actions and he decided that he should just go ahead and lay the rest of his cards on the table.
So, he decided to break the silence. “I know some of the things I’ve done have really been fucked up, like I paid her a visit and threatened her.”
“You did what?” Tyeedah raised her voice and could not believe what she was hearing.
“I didn’t put my hands on her, but told her my intentions to make her go broke and lose everything.” Before Tyeedah could respond, he said, “That’s not what I want to do anymore. All I want now is to make peace and be with you.” He sounded sincere.
“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” she asked.
“Besides me soliciting the help of one of Kennard’s boxers to throw the fight and blame it all on Kennard?”
Tyeedah just looked at Took long and hard. She was quiet. Even with all Unique had told her, she didn’t know this guy could be so calculating. However, she seemed to respect him because he was coming clean. He had everything to lose but he still admitted to his treacherous plans.
Tyeedah was speechless and didn’t know what to say for a few minutes.
He took her hand. “I apologize, baby, that you are in the middle of this, I promise this isn’t how I planned or imagined that this would turn out.”
She knew that, out of loyalty to her friend, she had to leave. But she couldn’t leave, her heart wouldn’t let her walk away as much as her mind told her to. She felt like her feet were cement blocks and emotionally she was chained to the room, to Took.
Finally, she spoke. “You say you want to be with me.” She looked him in the eyes.
“And I do,” he quickly countered.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure you are willing to pay the cost, it might just be easier to walk away and know we had a few amazing days but we can’t ever be. We can chalk it up to that old saying—‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.’”
“Baby, that’s really not an option. I’ve fallen in the worst way for you—and willing to risk it all. So, share what’s the cost?” He paused for a minute. “As much as my life revolves around money, I’d give it up for you.” He tried to test the waters by kissing her on her forehead.
“I’m flattered that you’d give it all up for me. But real talk, nobody wants a broke-ass man,” Tyeedah said.
Took cleaned it up quick. “Baby, I’m saying, I’d lose all for you right now, because I know I’d get it all back. I never had no problems making no money,” he said confidently.
“Well, I have a thought.”
“I’m all ears,” Took told Tyeedah.
“I don’t know how this is going to play out. I truly don’t”—she threw up her hands—“but what I do know is for starters, to show an act of good faith, you have to tell the Grimm Reaper that he can’t throw the fight and any money you already gave him, you have to count that as a loss.”
“Done.”
“I think you should let Kennard know what this clown was willing to do.”
“I don’t really want to make Grimm a casualty.”
“Well, he was already a pawn anyway,” she added.
Took nodded, not sure if it was a good idea, but he was willing to try for the sake of love.
“Now is there anything you can think of that might put Unique in danger or that could hurt her?”
Took thought long and hard, before he finally spoke. “Now that I think about it,” he said, thinking hard, “there is something that I didn’t really take heed of because I was on my own mission.”
“What?” Tyeedah asked, gazing into Took’s eyes.
“After I left the spa, I did a drive-by of Nique’s restaurant, to try to map out my next move, and I noticed this nigga in the alley.”
“It is New York City, it’s not uncommon for dudes to be lurking in the alley.”
“It was a nigga from the party. I thought I knew him from somewhere but I couldn’t place him. I didn’t put too much thought in that shit, and just assumed it to be someone’s security.”
Tyeedah listened patiently for Took to make his point.
“But now I think it was that nigga, Big Time, one of the vics that we got when we were on our robbing spree.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure and I know that nigga ain’t in the city to sightsee, he’s up to revenge. In fact, he promised that he was going to hunt us down if it was the last thing he did.”
“And he was in the alley behind the restaurant?” Tyeedah asked just to be sure.
“Yes,” Took said with a nod. “I’m sure of it now.”
Tyeedah reached for her phone and powered it on. She called Unique, but this time it was Unique who wasn’t answering. Tyeedah got worried. “I need to put her up on her game, so she can be careful.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Took co-signed.
When Unique still didn’t answer, she called Kennard to see if he knew where Unique was. Kennard and Tyeedah talked for a few minutes before she hung up.
Tyeedah put her shoes back on and grabbed her purse.
“Where are you going?” Took asked, putting his shoes on too.
“Kennard said it was going to take him about forty minutes to get over to the restaurant. I can get there in twenty. She’s not supposed to be over there by herself, but knowing her, she’s probably in that restaurant alone trying to get some work done,” Tyeedah paused for a second and let her mind run wild, “and God only knows.” Worry was written all over her face.
FRIENDS AND FRENEMIES
“What do you want from me?” she asked. “I told you that I could get you your money.”
“And I told you that the only thing you running here today is yo mouth. I’m calling the shots, baby girl. Me. Big Time.” He enunciated the B and T in his name so emphatically, spittle flew from his mouth.
Unique tried to keep calm and rational. “Then call the shot,” she said in a composed voice. “Just tell me what it is that you want.”
“I thought I’d made that clear in the note I had left on the computer, in your office. You did get it, right?” he asked. Then, not waiting for her to speak, he said, “To make your life feel like hell, before I kill you.”
That’s when Unique saw the gun in his hand.
Three shots rang out. Unique fell to the floor. At that exact same moment, Big Time, with slugs to the head and one through his back and out of his chest, died instantly.
Unique had passed out for a few moments. When she opened her eyes, she thought she was hallucinating. A pungent odor of gun smoke filled the basement’s air as Tyeedah was asking, “Unique, chica, are you all right?”
“You saved my life?” she said.
Next to Tyeedah, with a smoking .45 in his hand, stood Took.