Cheaters (50 page)

He wore a single-breasted blue blazer over brown polyester pants and beat-down insurance man shoes. The surviving hair on the top of his head was slicker than the look on his face.

We followed him past a lot of wooden desks, beyond everybody else’s stress and depression, and shuffled by other employees who were performing at a snail’s pace, talking to their frantic Monday morning clients.

Tammy said, “Damn. This place is crowded.”

“The weekend must have been busy,” I mumbled.

“Every weekend is a busy weekend for criminals,” the man said, then chuckled. “That’s why the jails are overcrowded.”

I said, “I don’t think that’s funny.”

He responded, “Nobody does.”

Tammy sat down in the brown chair in front of his scarred-up wooden desk, which had names and phone numbers inked into the faded wood. I was the actual client, so I had to sit closer to Marlboro breath, in the pleather high-back chair on his left side. He moved a stack of paperwork to the side before he took the final sip of coffee out of a dirty styrofoam cup. He crumpled the cup and dropped it into an overfilled trash can.

“Coffee?” he asked.

I shook my head.

Tammy didn’t answer.

“You look young,” he said, and sounded like he was getting his flirt on. “Are you an attorney or a paralegal?”

I know he asked me that because of my no-bullshit demeanor and the olive business suit I had on. I was the picture of bitching authority. Tammy’s ripped jeans, oversized jacket, and frantic face made us look like lawyer and outpatient.

I answered, cut and dried, “No.”

He smiled, exposed his stained teeth. “You look like one.”

I cut him off, “Will this take long?”

“I have to explain a few things to ya.”

Bozo cleared his throat and explained more about the bailing process than I ever wanted to know. How they charged a ten-percent fee, how the collateral went to the insurance company, how if the bailee skipped bail, a bounty hunter would hunt their ass down.

He said, “If the bailee is exonerated, you’ll get your money back in fifteen days.”

Tammy spoke up. “Exonerated?”

I supplied the definition. “Innocent.”

Tammy sulked. “So much for that.”

I asked Bozo, “You talking weekdays or working days?”

“Working days. Now, if you’re using personal items as collateral, they will be appraised by street value, as opposed to market value.”

I said, “You don’t have to keep babbling. I got the point five minutes ago.”

Tammy touched me, simply said, “Chanté.”

I cleared my throat and said, “If I have a little bit of an attitude, Mr. Levis, don’t take it personal.”

He laughed. “I won’t. Everybody who walks through that

door is stressed as hell. I try to make it a little lighter by

adding some humor. Sometimes it works, sometimes it—”

“I have the money.” I exhaled. “Your recording said you accept cash.”

“We sure do.”

With mixed emotions I put fifty crisp twenty-dollar bills on the desk. My money. The last bill left my hand, and I regretfully pulled my hand away. I knew I’d never see my money again.

Bozo peeped over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses, pulled the money to his side of the desk, opened a desk file cabinet and took out some forms. The fool blew his nose on a handkerchief and had the nerve to put the refuse back in his suit pocket.

I gagged, felt disgusted and squeamish.

I sat back in my stiff chair and looked at Tammy. Her face was puffy, with mascara-smeared, bloodshot eyes.

She’d cried half the night and paced the floor the other half. I know, because she was at my condo and I was blowing snot bubbles and pacing with her, waiting for morning to get here so we could go to Wells Fargo and withdraw the money from
my
bank account.

I had to maintain composure. Both of us falling apart wouldn’t do anybody any damn good.

I stared out the window at the Riverside police station.

Tammy was doing the same.

Bozo asked, “First time to a bail-bond office?”

I answered, “And hopefully my last.”

I hated being here, hated everybody I saw, just because. And the more I thought about why I was here, the more I wanted to snatch my money back from Bozo and bolt out of the door.

Karen was in jail. Locked up like Manson.

And even though I was doing it, I still didn’t know if I should bail the two-faced off-the-rack ho out.

Late last night. Tammy had knocked on my door with the sob story. After being locked up at the free hotel for the whole weekend, Karen had broken down and called Tammy. At first Tammy thought the holier-than-thou heifer was joking. But after a couple of words Karen’s hysteria rang through loud and clear. Tammy turned into a wimp and felt sorry for Karen, because Tammy was like that.

I didn’t feel sorry for her.

“So what?” I snapped. “I hope she rots.”

“We can’t just leave her down there.”

“We didn’t put her in there.”

Tammy had a head full of rollers and was almost in tears. “She doesn’t have any family besides us. You know she doesn’t have that kind of money.”

“What kind of money?”

“Thousand.”

“A
thousand
?” I threw my hands in the air. “How much of it do you have?”

Tammy wrung her hands. “Chanté, you know I’m still waiting for my residual check from the—”

“How much?”

“—commercial. Well, and the play. You know how black folks are when it comes to money. They still haven’t paid

me, and I’m going to need that money when I go to Paris—”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to just hop up and give that bitch a thousand dollars? She ain’t my friend. Evidently she’s your friend, so you take up a collection and run and get her.”

“You didn’t hear her. God, I’ve never heard her sound like that before. She sounded like she was in bad shape.”

“Tammy, you already owe me a few hundred dollars.”

“I know, I know,” Tammy cried. “Do it for me, please? Just loan me the stupid money, and as soon as I get my check, I’ll just sign it over to you, all right?”

“I don’t believe you came over here with this noise.”

Tammy continued pleading.

I was tired of hearing it. I stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door. I shook my head. “What goes around, comes around.”

Tammy’s voice said, “Chanté?”

“How could she let a dog come between us?”

“Please?”

“She mutilated our friendship.”

“Do it for me?”

“She let a man come between us.”

“I’ll give you my Paris money. I won’t go.”

“A no-good man at that.”

So many other thoughts weighed me down. I wanted to hate Karen, wanted to hate her so much that I didn’t care what happened to her.

Tammy was sobbing. “You and Karen are the closest things to family I have.”

“She’s a Judas.”

“Say what you want to say, but Karen has been there for you when you were at your lowest.”

“Just like Judas.”

“She was always the first one to show up for you. She always stayed, no matter how long it took, and nursed your crazy ass back to sanity.”

“Judas, Judas, Judas.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose and fought back confused tears. Damn. Now I was mad at myself because I couldn’t stay as angry as I wanted to, or be as cold-blooded as

Karen. I rolled off a pound of toilet tissue and dabbed my face. Just like my resistance, my eyeliner was melting.

“I can’t let myself cry for a closet ho.”

“Chanté?” Tammy tapped on the door. “Please?”

“A dog gets what a dog gets,” I reminded myself. “Dogged.”

“Pretty please?”

I dropped my head between my legs and tugged at my hair, twisting and stomping my feet as I screamed to be left alone.

“Please, Chanté?” Tammy said real soft.

“Damn, Tammy will you leave me alone!”

When I snatched the door open, Tammy’s pitiful and wet face greeted my pitiful and wet face.

We hugged.

I said, “You make me sick.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“Bank doesn’t open till morning. So she’ll have to wait in the free hotel till then.”

“Thanks. I knew you wouldn’t do that to her.”

“All right. What did she do?”

Tammy told me what she knew.

Craig had been using the hell out of Karen, had turned her broke ass into a ready teller and was getting her to under-ring all kinds of stuff at Mervyn’s. Craig would primp his butt from aisle to aisle and take merchandise from other departments, then drag it to Karen and get her to undercharge it on her register.

The first time it was simple stuff. A shirt for him, a blouse for Karen. Then greed grew.

“Security was watching,” Tammy said. “That’s the kind of stupid stuff they expect us to do.”

Tammy told me more of what Karen had said.

Two days ago, first thing that Friday morning, Craig brought his sister Jamala to meet Karen. They went to her register with Nintendo games, two suits, blouses. Craig told Karen that it was for Jamala, her struggling husband, and two children. The merchandise totaled over a thousand dollars. Karen rang it up for thirty bucks.

Before Craig and his sister could get out of the store, security had cut them off and detained them in an upstairs office. The store manager moved Karen to the side and

pulled her cash register tape. Karen said she played naive by looking confused and being too accommodating before she excused herself to the ladies’ room and slipped out the back door during the investigation.

A couple of hours later, Craig called Karen from jail. They had arrested him, took him downtown, and he needed her to come bail him out. He promised her he would give her the money back as soon as he got out. She went by her bank, withdrew her rent money from her checking and the little money she’d stashed in her savings account, got a cash advance on a charge card, and made his bail.

Craig walked through the jailhouse doors and checked out. As soon as they set him free, they handcuffed Karen. Arrested Little Miss Felon on the spot. The same grand-theft charges.

They took Karen to the holding cell and handed her change to make three phone calls.

Tammy told me the first call went out to Craig. He said he was on the way out the door to the bank, and wanted her to sit tight for about an hour.

Seven hours later, no Craig.

I interrupted Tammy’s flow. “He pulled a no-call, no show.”

“That’s not funny, Chanté.”

“That’s a familiar story. At least I know it wasn’t just me.”

Tammy said that Karen called again. This time loud rap music and a female voice was giggling in the background when he answered the phone. He laughed, cursed Karen out, and hung up.

The third call was to Tammy.

Karen had choked on her words, told Tammy what had happened, where she was, who to call.

Tammy said, “I called the DMV and told them she was sick and wouldn’t be in today.”

I stormed ahead of Karen and Tammy.

We boned out of the police station and headed to the parking lot. Karen hadn’t slept, bathed, or used the bathroom in almost two days, and she reeked like the middle of last week. She smelled so bad that flies were buzzing around her head.

I heard Tammy asking her, “Why didn’t you bathe?”

Karen said, “I was afraid of the filth and the germs. There are some perverted, sickening people in there. Prostitutes. Druggies.”

I mumbled, “Traitors. Let’s not forget traitors.”

Her used-to-be-curly-like-Shirley hair was tangled. Makeup was mixed with sweat and tears, and had dried into her face.

Tammy called after me, “Her car was impounded, so we have to give her a ride.”

I marched on.

Tammy called Karen, “Come on.”

Tammy crawled in the backseat.

Karen stayed silent in the front, leaned close to her window. “I
really
appreciate this,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, and threw my car in reverse. My buggy screeched. Tammy flew forward and bumped into the back of Karen’s seat. Karen lurched forward and her head almost hit the dash. Once again I wished that she’d flown through the windshield like a crash-test dummy.

I went against the grain of traffic and drove west.

Karen said, “I live the other way.”

I snapped, “You think I don’t know where you live?”

At my place, Karen made a beeline for the bathroom.

I lurked outside the door, waiting for Karen. The moment she came out, I threw her a fresh towel, pointed toward the shower.

I paced and ran my hand across my bushy hair while I waited, while I listened to the sounds of the running water.

“Chanté?” That was Tammy.

I snapped. “Stay out of this, okay?”

Karen called out, “Where’s the toilet paper?”

“Under the sink.”

“You have air freshener?”

“Strike a match and open a window.”

Tammy let out a worried sigh, then nodded her head. “Don’t go ballistic, okay?”

“Stay out of it.”

Twenty minutes later, the shower stopped. Ten minutes passed before the bathroom door opened.

Karen stepped into the living room with the towel

wrapped around her. I took a slow stroll over to Karen, asked her, “Feel better?”

She shifted, looked away, said a dry “Yeah.”

“I don’t.”
I slapped that convict so hard the towel popped away. I slapped her again, then she staggered backward like she couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. I followed and kept on swinging. Every last drop of my anger and hate and hurt that had happened over the last year had moved from my heart and lived in my hands. I hit her again.

Karen found her balance and threw her hands up.

I yelled,
“Put your hands down.”

Karen said a soft, “Sorry, Chanté. I’m sorry, okay?”

“Move your hands.”

Karen shook, eased her fingers from her face. I drew my hand back as far as I could, got ready to slap her again on the reddest spot I saw, a smack that would echo from here to the Magnificent Mile, but Tammy grabbed my arm and screamed, “You’re going too far, Chanté!”