After Hours (3 page)

A
dina closed her eyes, feigning sleep when an elderly man attempted to initiate conversation. She didn't want to talk—especially not with a stranger. All she wanted was to return to Irvington and the motel room that had become a safe haven. And she wouldn't feel safe until she closed and locked the door behind her.

The rocking of the train and the click-clacking sound of the rails lulled her into an almost hypnotic state and she was able to recall every detail of her last night in Brooklyn. It'd begun the instant she called a car service to take her to Chez Tangerine.

She'd leaned forward on the worn rear seat of the livery taxi, tapped the Plexiglas partition with a set of silk-wrapped, airbrushed fingernails.

“Put us out in the middle of the block.”

The driver maneuvered alongside the curb in front of Chez Tangerine. The line for those waiting to get inside the trendy Brooklyn nightspot snaked down the block and around the corner.

“Oh, hell no,” mumbled the young woman sitting next to Adina. “I told you before that I ain't fixin' to stand in no line just to get into a club.”

Reaching into her tiny leather shoulder purse slung over her chest, Adina pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and pushed it through the slot in the partition. Shifting slightly, she rolled her eyes at her friend. She and LaKeisha Robinson had grown up in the same public housing project but hadn't begun hanging out together until the year before.

“Have
we
ever had to stand on line?”

Even though LaKeisha was her girl, Adina didn't understand why she complained all the time. In fact, there wasn't anything in LaKeisha's life that was
that
critical to make her a chronic whiner. She'd just closed on a condo in a Park Slope town house complex, worked as a loan officer in a downtown Brooklyn bank, was only fourteen credits away from earning an MBA and, unlike herself, she wasn't a baby mama. Although educated, her friend lapsed easily into street jargon depending with whom she interacted.

What LaKeisha didn't know was that Adina envied her because not only did she know who her father was but also that Adina's grandmother had had her mother at sixteen, her mother had her at fifteen and she'd given birth to her own daughter, whom she passed off as her sister, at fourteen. And her grandmother still lived in the same housing project where she'd been raised, raised her daughter, granddaughter and now, at fifty-seven, her great-granddaughter.

Even though she'd dropped out of high school, Adina managed to earn her GED before her twenty-first birthday. She'd never been gainfully employed, and what haunted her most was that she hadn't seen her alcoholic, drug-addicted mother in ten years.

“No,” LaKeisha mumbled.

“Then stop bitchin'.”

“It's just that I'm due to get my period in a couple of days and my back bothers me if I stand too long.”

Adina didn't respond to LaKeisha's reference to her period because her attention was directed at a man dressed entirely in black. His smirk widened until it became a full dazzling grin. Bending slightly, he opened the rear door to the sedan.

Within seconds she went into seduction mode, parting her full lips just enough to appear as if she were attempting to catch her breath; she tossed her long black braid over her shoulder as she slid forward on the seat to give him an unobstructed view of her legs and thighs under a short, tight skirt. Placing her hand on the broad outstretched palm, she felt the power in the strong fingers when he pulled her to her feet.

“Hey, baby. How you doin'?” crooned a deep voice that matched the man's massive bulk.

Adina rose on tiptoe and looped her arms around Jermaine Werner's neck. “Better now that I've seen you,” she said, pressing her cheek to his clean-shaven one.

She was flirting with Jermaine because she was counting on him to get her and LaKeisha into the club without having to wait on line. The tall, dark-brown-skinned man was one of the finest brothers in all of Brooklyn, but for Adina he was off-limits. In fact, any man to whom she'd found herself attracted was strictly taboo. However, there were exceptions—the men Payne Jefferson set up for her to hustle.

At twenty-seven, she'd lost count of the number of men she'd seduced for her elusive boss. Payne referred to himself as a “commercial manager,” but to Adina he was nothing more than a pimp. Payne always gave her a percentage of what he stole from the unsuspecting marks, but what she never disclosed to her boss was her own con, where she received special gifts that included money, designer clothes and an occasional fur coat or jacket. One mark had even given her a pair of calfskin thigh-high, mink-lined boots.

Earlier that morning she'd received an alpha-numeric text on her PDA from Payne, instructing her to attend a private party at Chez Tangerine. The guest of honor had been paroled after doing a bid for robbing and assaulting an elderly diamond merchant. Closed-circuit cameras had recorded the crime, and because of several priors for petty infractions, he was given a sentence of fifteen-to-twenty years at an upstate New York prison. The case baffled police because the uncut diamonds, appraised for more than five million dollars, were never recovered. Her mission was to seduce the guest of honor and uncover whether he still had the gemstones and, if he did, where he'd hidden them.

Jermaine gently removed Adina's arms from his neck and took a step backward so she wouldn't detect his hard-on. Her silk halter top was an exact match for the pinpoints of green in her large hazel eyes. Adina Jenkins was the sexiest woman he'd ever encountered, and as a normal man, he wanted to do her.

He found her incredibly beautiful; she had long, wavy black hair, a curvy body and perfect legs and feet. Although she identified African-American, she could've easily passed for Latina, Native American or someone from the South Pacific. Her olive coloring, exotic features, low, throaty voice and seductive walk had him thinking of her when he least expected. And whenever he found himself in bed with other women, it was Adina he fantasized making love with.

“When are we going to get together, beautiful?”

Adina's practiced sensual smile slipped, but within seconds it was back. Jermaine didn't know that she would never go out with him because with a wife, three children
and
a baby mama he couldn't afford her. Although he worked a nine-to-five and moonlighted as a bouncer at different clubs on the weekends, he definitely wasn't in her league.

She winked at him. “I'll let you know, Jermaine.” Extending her left hand, she waited as he removed a plastic orange wristband stamped with the club's name and logo from the breast pocket of his jacket and fastened it around her wrist. “Please take care of my girl LaKeisha, and we'll talk later about when we can hook up.”

Minutes later, a band circled LaKeisha's wrist and the two women strutted in stilettos over to the velvet rope suspended between sturdy stanchions. Raising their hands to display the bands of neon orange, Adina and LaKeisha batted their mascara-coated lashes at the man removing the rope as another opened a door for them.

They made their way down a narrow hallway with painted black walls, then into a large space with lights flashing a kaleidoscope of color against a background of orange. A balcony overlooked a U-shaped bar and dance floor. Scantily dressed women and their men in casual urban attire lined up at the bar ordering outrageously overpriced drinks, while others gyrated to the infectious hip-hop flowing from powerful speakers.

Adina glanced at the upper level. A procession of waitstaff made their way up the winding wrought-iron staircase carrying trays of food. A knowing smile tilted the corners of her mouth. Like a heat-seeking missile locked in on a target, her plan was to crash the private party.

“Let's split up,” she said to LaKeisha.

LaKeisha grabbed her arm. “Where are you goin'?”

“Why do we go through the same shit every time we go out together?” Adina spat out. “We're never going to meet anybody if we look as if were joined at the hip. Now let go of my arm.”

LaKeisha lowered her hand; her dark brown eyes in an equally dark, round face grew large. “You don't plan to cut out on me like you did last week?”

An expression of hardness settled over Adina's delicate features as she forcibly swallowed the curses poised on the tip of her tongue. “Look, La,” she said, shortening her friend's name, “I told you I was sorry about that. I hadn't seen my friend in a long time, and he just wanted to go somewhere and talk.”

What she hadn't told LaKeisha was that even though Payne had robbed the man responsible for running illegal numbers in Bed-Stuy, East Flatbush and Brownsville, she'd continued to see him because she didn't want to arouse his suspicions that she and Payne were somehow connected.

She and the number banker had had several trysts at a motel near JFK Airport, then she hit the jackpot when he invited her to spend the night at a Bushwick apartment he'd set up as his base of operation. Stored under the king-size bed were several strong boxes filled with cash. Two weeks later, three masked men broke down the door, held the workers at gunpoint and walked away with the cash.

LaKeisha gave Adina a wary look as she tucked several strands of freshly braided hair behind her ears. Large gold hoops dangled from her pierced lobes. She wished Adina had a cell phone—that way they could communicate with each other. She didn't like having to search the club looking for her. “If you need to find me, then wait by the bar. I'll come back every fifteen minutes.”

Adina nodded. “I'll see you later.”

“Later, 'Dina.”

It wasn't until LaKeisha disappeared in the throng that Adina forced herself to relax as she tried to still the rush of nerves that came whenever she began a new
assignment.
That's what Payne called it, when in reality it was a new hustle.

If arrested, she'd be charged with grand larceny, which translated into an attempt to deprive a rightful owner of their personal property. However, she wanted to know if it was a crime to rob criminals when the so-called victims were themselves criminals?

Payne only stole from those selling drugs or running illegal numbers and pimps dealing prostitution. He'd set up a network where none of the break-ins and/or occasional assaults could be traced to him.

Payne Jefferson was smart enough to become CEO of a major corporation, but the seductive allure of street crime held him firmly within its clutches.

A
dina made her way up the staircase with the assuredness of an invited guest. She stepped off the last step, and the scene unfolding before her rendered her temporarily paralyzed. The guest of honor was someone she'd never forget because he'd changed her and her life—forever. Those standing around with flutes of champagne raised in a toast didn't see her shocked expression or the natural color drain from her face.

Unknowingly she'd come to Chez Tangerine to meet Terence Yancey, a man she'd slept with
once
at the age of thirteen, and he'd gotten her pregnant. She'd gone in search of Terence to tell him that she'd had his baby, but he'd disappeared without a trace. Now she knew where he'd been.

Payne, the consummate gambler, rolled the dice over and over, but this time he'd crapped out; there was no way she could get away with seducing and setting up her baby's daddy.

Turning on her heels, she made it down the staircase on shaking legs, praying with each step that she wouldn't fall and call attention to herself. Moisture pricked her armpits and dotted her forehead. Heat, then chills, washed over her as she navigated the crowded dance floor, not seeing the angry glares thrown at her when she nearly lost her footing in the four-inch heels before managing to regain her balance.

The crush of human bodies, the ear-shattering din of music and voices raised to be heard, closed around Adina like an overheated lead blanket. She'd never developed a fondness for alcohol because she'd seen firsthand how it ravaged her mother's life, but this was one time she needed a drink to mellow her out. Those waiting at the bar to be served were three-deep, so she saw it as a sign to try and find LaKeisha and bounce.

“I told you that was her,” a woman whispered behind Adina. “She's that ho who set up my cousin.”

“Girl, it don't have to be her,” said another woman.

“But it is. Alphonso told me what she looked like. How many bitches do you know with good hair down to they ass that ain't no weave?”

“That still don't have to be her. There's a lot of girls in BK who have they own long hair.”

“He told me a short, bright ho with long black hair and green eyes knew where he stashed his shit. Next thing you know, it's gone and a couple of months later the police charge him with possession with intent to sell. And after he was sent up, he ran into Rhames Daniels, who's also doing a bid, and he said the same thing happened to him. When I seen him last week, he told me that they gonna git someone from 'round the way to cap the sneaky bitch.”

Adina didn't want to turn around to see who was talking about her, but she knew she couldn't remain in the club. The acrid taste of fear burned the back of her throat as she left the bar area. She couldn't think straight as she replayed the threat that someone was going to take out a contract on her life. She shoved her way through the line waiting outside the ladies' room and down a hallway to a rear exit. The bouncer sitting on a chair near the door came to his feet with her approach.

“You can't use this door,” he announced in a no-nonsense tone. “It's for emergencies only.”

“Please,” Adina pleaded. “I need some air or I'm going to throw up right here.”

The man moved back as if she'd just announced that she'd come down with a contagious disease. He opened the door and she ran, not stopping until she made it to the corner.

The humid night air was only a few degrees cooler than inside the club, but Adina didn't notice. Flagging down a passing livery car, she got in and gave the driver her address. Closing her eyes, she literally collapsed against the seatback. She didn't know what it was, but fate had intervened on her behalf. If her mark hadn't been Terence, she wouldn't have known of the threat. Always the ultimate hustler, she viewed life as a game that had to be full of fresh moves and continuous entertainment and free of labor and routine. And given her wiles, there was no doubt she would've successfully crashed the private party.

A chill shook her. She knew people who'd shoot her for twenty dollars of crack and she'd become another crime statistic accredited to street violence.

In seeing Terence again, she'd come face-to-face with her past and in doing so she'd come to the realization that she had to run and to start over.

And if she was going to start over, then it couldn't be in Brooklyn, New York.