The Glamorous Life 2 (18 page)

What was that smell?

“You shit your draws, Jigg?” Compton asked. “Don’t worry, I heard that’s what happen when you die anyway. So, no one’ll know you let go a few seconds early.”

Seven pounds … one to go …

Promise me, Compton.

Plow!

The only sound after that was Compton’s heavy breathing.

Jiggilo, stretched out on the floor, was still alive. He was knocked out from the last blow. He’d hit Jiggilo instead of killing him for a few different reasons. He would’ve had not only Jiggilo’s death under his belt, but he would’ve had to rock the friend to sleep too. Double homicide wasn’t what he needed over his head. Not for nothing Jiggilo did take him and his sister in and Compton appreciated that. And lastly, he’d never broke a promise to his sister … crossed fingers or no crossed fingers. But the one promise he’d made to her years ago on that old raggedy porch was that he was going to take care of his sister, and that was one promise he never intended to break.

Pink polo was trying to disappear under the chair, butt all in the air. And just for the hell of it, Compton took a running start, and broke his foot all up in his ass, simply for just being a pussy. Then he laughed because he was a smart guy not wanting any parts of it.

Before he dipped, Compton whispered in Jiggilo’s ear, “Next time, all bets are off. You feel me?”

23

4:00
A.M.

From an aluminum thermos,
Officer Conners swallowed a sip of his famous home-brewed, premium coffee that his wife always sent him off to work with. He always bragged about the fact that even hours later, it was still hot. The thermos had been a Father’s Day present two years ago from his youngest of four daughters. He loved it and the coffee, which always seemed to give him the energy he needed to take on the bad guys.

Senior Officer Theodore Conners was a veteran on the force for decades for the Miami police department. He could’ve made detective a long time ago, but he simply didn’t want it. He didn’t need the hassle, paperwork, or the extra hours the job demanded. In six more months Conner would retire to a full pension, God willing, and he just was buying his time.

His partner, Officer Adams, drove the squad car. “Don’t know how you drink so much of that stuff,” Adams said with a sour face. They’d only been partnered up for a year now, but Conners liked the kid, even though, at twenty-four and still wet behind the ears, Adams could be a little pusher and gung-ho at times.

“Been drinking coffee since I was in the army.” He nodded at the can of Red Bull holstered in the cup holder. “They didn’t have that shit back then,” Conners said.

Adams beamed that cocky smile of his and downed half of the can. This was his eleventh of the night. “Lot of things you guys didn’t have back in the day, huh?”

“That’s one of the things wrong with you new pups,” Conners fired back his own jab, “you all too caught up with computers, smartphones, and energy drinks.”

“Is that so…” said Adams, piloting the squad car into the Miami Gardens subdivision.

“Yep. I do believe that it’s quite so, young pup.” Conners, knowing how much Adams hated being called an immature canine, laughed when Adams rolled his eyes.

“Hey.” Adams suddenly perked up. “Didn’t we get a call on a suspect driving a new model, platinum Range Rover? Big rims?”

“Assault and battery,” Conners answered.

“Look up ahead.”

Sure enough there was a truck matching the description. The occupant, possibly the suspect, still inside.

Adams, eager to the end the shift with a collar, said, “I think we found it.”

After taking another sip of his coffee, Conners made the call. “Light it up.”

Going upside of Jiggilo’s biscuit with the gat had felt hella good … his only regret, not croaking the bitch-ass nigga.

After bashing fuck-boy’s face in, Compton dapped his boys for holding him down, in case any of Jiggilo’s goons popped up. “Don’t mention it,” they’d said. His three top dogs. “Calliope’s like a sista to us all.”

The four left Imagination before anyone was the wiser. Too early to call it a night, Compton hit a few more spots on his own, getting his swag up. Decided to bring the morning in with a drive-by booty call from his girl Melody. She had the body of a goddess combined with a devilish sex game. After he smashed the two, he planned to go home and take his sister out for breakfast.

Breakfast was Calliope’s favorite meal. Compton navigated the Range into a parking space. Radio on 99 Jamz, left to turn signal, push the cigarette lighter: a mechanical hum … as the hydraulic stash box blossomed from the dash. Compton removed the pistol from the passenger seat and placed it in the secret compartment then closed the box back into its original position.

Next, he killed the engine.

Getting out of the Range, something didn’t feel right to him. Like how an antelope must feel in the wild, just before being attacked by a predator lion. Out of his peripheral he spied his predator.

Five-O. Fuck!

Be cool,
he thought. Click. Locked the doors to the Range. If the police did get at him, they wouldn’t be able to enter the truck without his permission, which they wouldn’t get, or a search warrant. Even if Jiggilo’s punk ass had pressed charges, an assault beef was candy, as long as the five-o didn’t knock him with the cannon or the work he’d be fine.

Woop-Woop!

They flashed the strobes to see how he would react. Then it dawned on him. How could he have been so fucking careless?

Forgot about the zone of hard in his jacket pocket. He was supposed to’ve hit Black Mike off with the coke at the club, but told him to kick rocks after Mike tried to play him with short paper.

The black-and-white came barreling down the street, V8 engine roaring.

A lion in pursuit of its prey not waiting to be knocked with the work, Compton got in the wind.

Hopped a six-foot wooden fence.

The black-and-white skidded to a stop. That’s all the time he needed to toss the coke. But before he could get it out of his pocket, there he was.

Flying over the gate came a young cop, like he was king of the jungle. The coke was stuck on the zipper of his jacket pocket. He tugged harder and his hand came out with the bag. Now all he had to do was lose the wannabe king of the jungle.

Four shots rang out. He was hit. The first one caught him somewhere in the back. Felt like the spine. His legs quit working instantly. Before he collapsed the other three hot balls slammed into various targets on his body. He had no idea where the bullets had struck, because he’d already blacked out.

His last thoughts were:
lion, one, antelope, zero … I love you, sis.

6:48
P.M.

A spectacular orb of fire arose from the eastern horizon. A picturesque view, worthy of a being eternally captured on a postcard. A few hours from now, basking under the brilliance of the sun’s rays. Every vacationer’s fantasy.

There’s that … then there’s reality. Yellow police tape cordoned the area from curious onlookers. “Where the fuck is it?” Senior Officer Conners was exasperated. “We need to find the gun, Joe.”

Thus far the only thing the eight-block search had turned up was a small bag of rock cocaine. Nothing close to the deadly weapon Officer Adams swore he’d seen the suspect brandish before discharging his own service pistol.

Adams swore on everything he loved, “There was a gun. I wouldn’t have fired if there hadn’t been.”

Adams seemed a lot less sure than he’d appeared before they’d canvassed the area. The other officers, Conners could tell by their body language, were ready to call it a day. The only reason most of them hadn’t was because they wouldn’t have wanted to be hung out to dry if the boot were on the other foot.

Conners listened as his partner went over his version of exactly what had taken place during the pursuit for the twentieth time. It didn’t change the fact that no weapon was found, which would substantiate Adams’s account of the events.

“The victim of the assault,” Adams asked his partner, “said he’d been beaten with a pistol, right?”

Conners gave him a sympathetic look. This wouldn’t be the first time, and surely not the last, that an unarmed perpetrator was mistakenly shot. It came with the job. Normally, the incident would go down as just another day in the streets, trying to serve and protect. However, this wasn’t the best of times for fuck-ups.

“It don’t matter what the guy at the night club says,” Conners lamented. Al Sharpton was in town bloviating about a black kid that had gotten shot by a white convenience store owner. This was the type of situation Mr. Sharpton loved to make a spectacle out of. If he sank his teeth into it, he’d not only ask for Adams, but he would be hit with a ridiculous wrongful death suit and the city would have one too many. Maybe Adams would even get time in the joint himself. “You better pray that kid lives,” Conners advised in a foreboding tone. “Pray he lives.”

24

Franklyn Memorial housed one
of the best trauma units in the country. But not even the best surgeons in the world could save every life, every time.

When Calliope rushed through the sliding double doors of the emergency room, she was only concerned with the life of one.

She’d found out her brother was injured by a call that came in the middle of the morning.

“They shot your brother,” the voice screamed from the other end of the phone. Panic and despair in the caller’s words jotted Calliope from her sleep. “They shot Compton. They shot Compton!” Then hysterical crying.

Praying that this was someone’s bad idea of a prank, Calliope asked, “Who is this?” Hoping the person would hang up and say sike but they didn’t.

The girl said a name, but Calliope was too startled to process it. The caller’s name wasn’t important and the call wasn’t a prank.

Oh, my God.

Calliope jumped out of bed.

Already getting dressed—jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers—she asked, “Who shot him? Where did it happen? And what hospital?” At least he was still alive.

The caller filled her in best she could. “It’s all so crazy,” the girl said.

The emergency room was filled with the sick and injured, waiting to be seen—all emergencies weren’t created equal. Some people were filling out forms while others tried to convince their friends or loved ones that everything is going to be all right.

Mostly lies.

Calliope hustled to the reception desk, where an overweight white lady with smokers’ breath and teeth casually asked, “How may I help you?” The nametag pinned to her lavender smock read Annie.

After Calliope had gotten off the phone with the girl who’d called her—one of her brother’s girlfriends—everything had been a blur. She didn’t even remember the route she’d driven to the hospital.

She told Annie, “I need to know if my brother is okay.”

Annie blew out a pocket of the bad breath, like she had better things to do. “Do your brother have a name?”

Ignoring the attitude the heifer was throwing, Calliope said, “Compton, Compton Conley.”

A pause before finger stabbing at the keyboard. Another pause … then more stabbing. “Says he’s undergoing surgery. Multiple gunshot wounds.”

Didn’t know he’d been shot more than once. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked.

Annie was on her fifteenth hour of an eighteen-hour shift. “I’m not a doctor,” she said. “Just a tired nurse.”

If the bitch don’t check her, ’tude, she gon’ be a beat-down, tired nurse.

“Calliope?” It was the voice from the telephone call she’d gotten earlier. “My name is Neka.”

Neka was gorgeous. She had met her before but today seemed to be different when she saw her.

“How’d you recognize me?” Calliope asked, momentarily taking her mind off the nurse.

With a bright smile that her red eyes didn’t match, Neka said, “You look just like your brother—well, I mean, he looks like you. Is he going to be okay?”

Calliope cut a murderous look at the derisive nurse. Then gave her attention back to Neka.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “All I know is that he’s in surgery.”

Neka’s face contorted as if someone had stabbed her in the heart with a rusty knife.

At that very moment, an athletically built guy with curly blond hair sidled up.

“I’m Doctor Thomas, are you here in regards to Compton Conley?”

Doctor Thomas looked more like a surfer than surgeon, she thought.

“I’m his sister.” And all of a sudden, she surely knew that the doctor had bad news.

“You might want to have a seat,” Doctor Thomas suggested.

That bad?

25

They got off the
elevator on the eleventh floor, one floor above the ICU. They walked down the hall to a semi-private room. A stiff cream-colored curtain used to split the room in half was drawn open. At the moment only one of the two beds was occupied. An aroma of a cleaning agent hit them in the face. Neka’s eyes began to tear up once they were fully inside. Calliope wasn’t sure if the rudimentary waterworks were from the industrial-strength sanitizer or Compton’s unfortunate plight.

Resting in the first bed next to the door, Compton lay hooked to a network of machines and IVs. His eyes were closed, yet the machine above his bed, the function of which was to monitor the contracting and dilating of his heart, peaked in a perfect rhythm. Though her heart had skipped a few beats, she had to thank God he was breathing on his own.

He seemed so peaceful. The doctor had said his condition was touch and go from the beginning, but Compton was a trouper. It would be a while before he got back to normal activities, but the worst part had come and gone
. Thank God.

Calliope placed a hand on the sheet that rested above her brother’s chest. She felt it rise and lower with each breath he took.
Why did he have to be so damn hardheaded?
she thought. Then she smiled at the answer.
We are who we are.