Always Unique (14 page)

Bugley’s Inn was a hostel near Yankee Stadium. It was mostly used by prostitutes to turn their hourly tricks and a sprinkling of crack and heroin distributors. Back in the day, Mark off and on fucked with a chick from that neighborhood, her brother used to brag about all the money he made out of Bugley’s Inn selling crack.

Lil-Bro said, “I know where Bugley’s Inn is.”

“Cool.” At least they wouldn’t have to waste time searching for a building. A bullet in the head of Fat Tee wouldn’t make Unique better, but it was a damn good start.

SPILLING HER GUTS

Two days after Unique became coherent, the doctor released her from the hospital. He told her to take it easy for a while and that time would heal the wounds and that everything would be just fine. It was easy for him to say; he hadn’t lost a baby or had a secret to get off of his chest, Unique thought as she sat up in the king-sized bed of the New Jersey home she shared with Kennard.

Kennard walked in just as she was trying to get up. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I was going to try to make me some soup.”

“I’m warming up the soup my mom made for you. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

“Thanks, babe,” she said.

“Just get back in the bed and remember that the doctor said you gotta take it easy,” he reminded her.

“That’s easy for him to say, he didn’t lose his baby.”

Though Kennard had taken it hard, he tried to act like it was all good. “We will make another one. The fun part is making another one.” He kissed her on the forehead, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay.

After she finished her soup, she was still sitting up in the bed. He noticed that she had a strange look on her face. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Just a lot on my mind that’s all.”

“Well, don’t let anything worry your pretty little heart. None of this was your fault and everything will be okay.”

She took a deep breath. “All of this is my fault.”

Kennard immediately tried to shut her down.

“Babe, listen, it’s something I have to tell you.”

He covered her lips. “Don’t worry,” he said as he kissed her.

She spoke up, “Listen, babe, I need to tell you something.”

“Tell me how much you love me.”

“And without a doubt, I do with all my heart.” The words came out of her mouth but she allowed her eyes to convey the love she had before she inhaled and continue to speak, “I don’t know how to say this.”

He finally was getting the message and could see that she had something heavy on her mind. So he just held her hand and listened as she continued, “Baby, I want to say first of all, I love you and I’ve never loved and trusted anyone more. But the truth of the matter is, there are some things in my past that I’m not proud of.”

“And there are some things in my past … everybody has skeletons in their closets,” he said.

“Yes, but it seems like I have a cemetery.” She took in more air and a sip of her juice from the night table. “I know I shouldn’t tell you this but I can’t hide it from you anymore.”

“Hide what?”

“My checkered past. Let me just get it off my chest.” She was quiet for a second and then she kept going. “On the bus ride here to New York, I prayed and I prayed, asking God to allow me the opportunity to turn over a new leaf. And funny how he works—because about a week after I arrived, I literally ran into you.”

“Yes, I’ve been known to be a godsend.”

“Literally, you were. You brought out the absolute best in me and every day I was with you, I wanted to bury the old me deeper and deeper. And I had done a great job until”—Kennard was looking at her and could see the pain and frustration written all over her face—“until a couple of months ago. It’s like one day I walked into the kitchen and my skeletons were all over the kitchen table.”

“Okay, I’m a smart guy and am usually quick on my feet, but I’m not following.”

By now she was shaking, but holding it all in wasn’t an option anymore. A secret got heavier and heavier the longer it was in tow.

Kennard grabbed her and hugged her. Once he embraced her, her tears became uncontrollable. “Baby, it’s okay. Whatever it is, you gonna be okay.”

She wiped her tears because she believed him. “I know,” she said, “that’s the thing. You make me feel so safe, safe to cry and emotionally and physically safe.”

Kennard was a bit puzzled. “Who do you fear? Baby, you don’t have to be afraid of anyone.”

“I’m not really, but know I’m not safe or wasn’t ever safe with certain individuals.”

“Like who?” Kennard wanted to hear this because anybody who thought they could fuck with anyone he loved had another thing coming to them.

“Baby, I’ve had a hard life. The only other person I loved or real boyfriend I had besides you was this guy Took, who I cared for deeply. In a nutshell, when he went to jail, I spent his money, then was put in a situation to fend for myself. Everything went to hell, and he never forgave me.”

“Is this the motherfucker that did this shit to you?” She could see fire in his eyes.

“No, babe. On another note though, I was set up for some wild shit I didn’t even do and sent to prison. Once Took came home from jail, he got me out of that bind. He told me that he used all of his money to get me out and needed to get back on his feet. Now, the old Unique would have never told you this next part, but I’m not her anymore. And besides, if I’m going to have a life with you, I have to be straight with you.”

“Agreed,” he said, nodding.

“I felt guilty that he spent his last money on me, in spite of the way I was living when he was in. And all I wanted to do was to show him my love, appreciation, and dedication to him and to make our relationship work.” She sighed and then said, “I only wanted to prove my love to him.”

“So what did you do?”

She was quiet for a beat, wishing that she had not even started pouring her heart and past out to him, but she did and there was only one way to go: forward. “To help him get his money up, he had me line up guys to get robbed.”

He was quiet. “So you were a real ride-or-die chick, huh?” he asked in a sarcastic way. “And whatever happened to this Took guy? Are you still in touch with him?”

“I haven’t seen him since right after our biggest and last score, when he drugged me, took my passport, and when I woke up, I discovered he’d sold me to a whorehouse in Mexico.”

“What the fuc—” Now
that
caught him off guard.

“Our getting back together was all an act for him, and that was his plan the whole time.”

“So how did you get out of the whorehouse?” he asked.

“This guy name Lootchee bought me out. I will fill you in on that later. But one of the guys we had robbed was named Fat Tee.”

Kennard was listening attentively to everything Unique said.

“Well, he showed and was trying to extort me for money. And to get him the money, I had to rob your jeweler to get the diamonds to pay him.”

“You did that?”

Shamefully, she nodded. “Me and Tyeedah did it with the help of her brother.”

“Damn.”

“I apologize for robbing Shummi and most of all for not telling you these things. I feel bad. I truly do.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” He didn’t understand.

“I didn’t know what to say. What was I going to say? ‘Hey, honey, I’m being extorted by someone I set up a long time ago to get robbed and they want a million dollars’?”

“And so where are the diamonds?”

“Fat Tee has them but then he came back, wanting me to set you up to be robbed. Instead, I pulled a gun out on him, and now I know better—I should’ve shot him. I was taught that if you pull out a gun on somebody you use it.”

Kennard had a confused look on his face before he asked, “When did you pull a gun out on him and where was I when all this was going on?”

“Well, it was during the press conference, in the ladies’ bathroom in the hotel lobby.”

“Damn, I can’t believe my security didn’t see it happening.”

“They did. They caught the tail end of it.”

Unique could see the disappointment all over his face and she started to beat herself up inside. If she had only confided in him from the beginning things may have turned out differently. Hell, Fat Tee may have run away and never been heard from again.

There was a minute of silence between the two of them, and after she told him everything, of how Fat Tee had first broken into their home and then how he later assaulted her in the suite, he said one thing, “Trust me. I will take care of everything.”

And if she had learned any lesson at all from everything that had happened, she knew that the best thing she could do was trust him.

ROGER THAT

Raindrops—in a rhythm that could’ve been the track to the next hot summer hip-hop anthem—banged against the windowpane, while gray skies hugged the city like another slow love song.

With Unique asleep in their bedroom, Kennard sat at the desk in the adjoining study, halfheartedly going over a few important papers that he’d been neglecting. He hadn’t set foot in his office since last Thursday. His conspicuous absence led to a buildup of things that needed his attention, some immediately, some not so much. At this point the particulars didn’t really matter one way or another because his mind wasn’t in it. Since the second Unique came clean about everything—old boyfriends and associates, the stint in prison, the cons, being forced to sell her body in Mexico—it was strange that he wasn’t really angry with Unique. In fact, the only thing Kennard had on his mind was the sucker called Fat Tee. This fool had the nerve to break into
his
house and rape
his
woman, on
his
kitchen floor. Who in their right mind would think that would even fly?

The lyrics from Jay-Z’s “Niggas in Paris” broke his train of thought. His eyes jerked to the iPhone laying dormant on the desk to his right before remembering that he’d powered off the thing. Way past being tired of the constant flood of calls he’d been receiving, mostly from people being nosy or wanting something, with their insincere condolences as a preamble to what they were really after, Kennard realized that the ringing phone was in his pocket, another iPhone. Identical to the one on his desk that he used for business, but this one an untraceable cell phone. It wasn’t registered in anyone’s name. And only a handful of people had the number. He dug the phone from his pocket, checked the number on the display screen, satisfied of who the caller was, and pushed
RECEIVE
.

“What up, Drop?” The two were close friends since elementary school—Kennard and Drop-Top went back like the plastic G.I. Joe action figure, before the kung-fu grip.

Drop-Top answered with his usual mantra. “Nothing up but the sun, moon, stars, and modern-day slavery. But that’s not why I called.”

“Then kill the astronomy lesson and tell me why you called,” Kennard said, trying to get to the point.

“I called to put you up on some G. But if you too busy to parlay…” His voice dragged off as if to say he could call back at another time.

Kennard knew Drop-Top like fat chicks swore by Weight Watchers, but yet knew the amount of calories in their favorite Krispy Kreme doughnut.

Drop-Top was a certified, bona fide bad-ass, but even bad-asses wanted to be appreciated.

With a little more enthusiasm in his voice, Kennard asked, “What you got?”

“I was talking to this Brooklyn kid,” Drop-Top began. “Dude says he ran into this cat from Virginia trying to off some ice.”

Although he was often heavier on the small talk than Kennard would have liked, Drop-Top was like tar and kept his ears pinned to streets and, more often than not, was pinpoint accurate with his information.

“You think it’s my boy?” He had Kennard’s attention.

The word had been put in the street that Kennard was searching for an out-of-town chump from Virginia called Fat Tee, possibly trying to dump some hot diamonds. Also, it was made clear that anyone who came up with the information leading him to the dude would be well compensated.

Drop-Top said, “That’s why I called.”

Kennard got up from his seat, made his way to the window overlooking the front lawn. Rain still came down in buckets. “Who’s this cat from Brooklyn that dropped the info? And is he reliable?”

“Yeah,” Drop-Top said, “I know ’im.” It didn’t matter which of the five boroughs, if they were in the game, better than average chance that Drop-Top either knew them or knew
of
them. “His name’s Bone.” The name meant nothing to Kennard. “For the most part a stand-up brotha that fancies himself as a seasoned stick-up kid and a head buster. Said he heard from a friend that a bird from out-of-town was having time, scrambling like two scrambled eggs trying drop some ice. So Bone decided to take the ice and the burden off dude’s hands. Said he planned to leave Fat Tee duck-taped and asleep but shit went off plan. Anyway,” Drop-Top continued, “I wouldn’t even have brought it to you if I didn’t think it was one hundred.”

For a few seconds, the phone line was monastery-quiet, the only sounds coming from the raindrops that continued to tap its beat on the window as Kennard digested the information Drop-Top had just shared but most of all he wasn’t believing his luck.

“So where is he?” Kennard said, breaking the momentary silence.

Drop-Top, unsure if Kennard was referring to Fat Tee or Bone, asked, “Which one?”

“Who do you think?” Kennard quickly answered. “The dead one.”

There was no need for any more clarification or direction. Drop-Top hadn’t received his moniker because of his penchant for driving convertible whips; the name Drop-Top was
earned
—at age sixteen—from his more than enthusiastic willingness to peel a nigga’s fitted cap back. “Say no more.” Kennard heard the conviction in his voice when Drop-Top said, “I got it from here. You know you can count on me, bro.”

“Roger that.”

THE TOOLS OF THE CRAFT

The cold rain continued to fall at a steady pace. A dark, gray morning filled with infinite opportunities but few promises.
Just another typical shitty day in the big city of dreams
, Drop-Top thought as his black Range Rover exited the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway with Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G.’s
The Commission
banging from its built-in MP3 player. The fact that B.I.G. and Jay were both Brooklyn natives was purely coincidence. Drop-Top was a fan of both the rappers’ flow.