Pink Lips (28 page)

“Is that Junior?” Elysia asked as she got closer to the dashboard in hopes of confirming who she saw.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Willow asked.

“Yo, who is that?” Elysia asked, referring to the chick on his arm.

“Talvin's sister.” Willow shook her head. “They came to my house to tell me that Duke had died. She's the chick who was with Junior that day.”

“You never met her while you went to them family functions with him?”

“No, but, he always said he had a sister. But, she was never around.”

Willow sped by without them seeing her. She eased through the
red light and never looked back. The situation she was in was getting stickier than a piece of gum that had sat in a mouth overnight. She knew that this thing with Talvin would be a domino effect; when she killed him, it would involve other people's lives and not just her own. She was ready for the consequences from her actions.

T
he old dilapidated warehouse encased Talvin as he stepped onto the cracked linoleum. The distinctive odor of rats and rusty nails filled the room as Talvin stepped, ever so cautiously, to the other end, where he saw an elevator. When he was at the elevator, he saw the two floors that he would be traveling up. He saw nothing of importance on them, but he received an eerie feeling from looking at them; a shudder and a chill that went from his feet up to his head. He turned around and pressed the barely intact button to call for the elevator.

As soon as he stepped into the elevator, he knew that he shouldn't have agreed to meet Willow there. However, he was going to go through with it. He saw a mahogany handrail that was ripped out at one end, and the doors were covered in rust. The tile he stood on was the color of the night sky, but Talvin didn't look down too long to care. He looked at the four buttons that were next to the dented and rusted metal door.
B, 1, 2, 3.
He pressed
3
and waited for the elevator to start. He saw the up arrow flash red and when the door stopped and opened, his eyes met Willow's.

“You remember this place?” Willow walked up on him, her gun out in front of her, pointing at him.

“I do.” He stepped off of the elevator; his eyes searching for his son. “Where's my shorty?”

“Somewhere safe.” She looked at him. “This conversation is for grown folks.”

“Willow, do you know what you doing?” he asked as a rat crawled past his foot.

“I'm ending this relationship permanently.”

“I loved you.”

“I never said that you didn't, Talvin,” Willow said as she got within arm's reach of him. “The problem is I don't love you.”

“Yes you do,” Talvin looked at her. “You just can't admit it to yourself.”

Willow stood there as her lungs went into overdrive. There was some truth to what he was saying. She couldn't deny it, no matter what words came out of her mouth. She cared for him and the way her heart still fluttered in his presence, she couldn't deny it.

“You're right,” Willow said as her heart grew heavy. “But, Talvin, you can't just do what you want when you want. You took something from me.”

“But, I replaced it.” He walked up on her. “I replaced it with me.”

“That's not good enough for me. You think I don't know that you and Evelyn are in cahoots. If I don't kill you and her, I will never have a normal life. I will always be looking over my fucking shoulders.” A tear fell from her eye. “No,” she screamed. “I do enough of that with the kind of work that I do.”

“I don't care about Evelyn like I care about you.”

“You don't get it.” Willow pressed the gun against his heart. “It's not about who you love more or less. It's about me.”

“Let me take care of you.”

“Talvin, you can't even take care of yourself. I'm all I got at the end of the day.”

Talvin grabbed her hand as he pressed the gun against his chest
harder, leaving a mark that could be seen if he were shirtless. His eyes swam inside of hers as he waited to be drowned by his fate. He could see the hurt inside of her caused by him. His mind was open to his end by the woman that he loved.

“Do it,” Talvin said as he closed his eyes. “I have no regrets.”

“That's unfortunate.” Willow pulled the trigger. “I have tons.”

Talvin's eyes bulged out of his head as the pieces of fragment exploded through his chest wall. He leaned into Willow, his eyes never leaving hers. The smell of the perfume she always wore helped him leave this world and enter the next, and before his body hit the weak boards lining the floor, he was dead.

“Damn, Talvin,” Willow said as tears started rolling down her face. “Why did you make me do this?”

She leaned down and kissed him on the lips, staining his lips with her pink essence. She went to the elevator; her heart weeping more and more with each floor she went down. She left out of the building, tossing the gun she had just used into the creek on the side. The gun started to flow with the water into the darkness that was the middle of nowhere as a piece of her heart went with it.

She walked back to her car praying that Talvin's son would be asleep. She opened the door, stepped in slowly and laid her head on the steering wheel. She started crying hysterically. There were tears of joy, pain, and sorrow. She couldn't hold it in; she had to let it out.

“You okay?” Elysia put her hand on her back.

“No, I'm not okay, Elysia,” she said, leaving her head on the steering wheel. “Should I call an ambulance or something?” she asked, letting her heart cloud her judgment.

“No, let Rock clean everything up.” She pulled out her cell phone.

Willow opened up the door to the car and threw up. She wiped
her mouth off and drove off as the expression on Talvin's lifeless body tattooed her brain.

“He said he's going to get someone to clean it up.” Elysia looked at her. “It's okay, Willow; it had to be done.”

She nodded her head and gave her a little smile while tears still accompanied her face. She cut the music off and tried to enjoy the ride. She couldn't help but keep her eyes on Tyron through the rearview mirror while driving. He didn't realize it, but because of her, he would never be raised by his father. Someone had put her through the same pain, and she empathized for the way that he would feel one day.

Willow drove in silence as she dropped Talvin's son off at the porch of his home and Elysia back at her house. She wanted to pay Evelyn a visit to see if she couldn't get some understanding from her. She had a bullet in the chamber with her name on it, and hand-delivering it was the only way she knew how to give it to her.

•  •  •

Evelyn's feet swished in the warm water as the Chinese woman massaged them. She soaked her feet, exfoliated them with a pumice cream, scrubbed off the dead skin and dry spots with a foot file, and then she filled her nails with a clear coat.

Unaware of her surroundings from the sliced and peeled cucumbers on her eyes, Evelyn never paid attention to the little sound of the bell that hung on the top of the door, alerting everyone that someone had entered the salon.

“Do you have an appointment?” the clerk asked.

“No.” Willow spotted Evelyn. “I'm a walk-in.”

“Right this way.” The clerk showed her to the seat next to Evelyn.

Willow looked at her as she relaxed, her hair overlapping the
back of the massaging chair that she sat in. The clock on the wall whistled with each flicker of the hand. The smell of acrylic filled the air as the water in the tub at Willow's feet started to bubble.

“You know,” Willow said, alarming Evelyn of her presence, “I've never had one of these mother-daughter spa days before.”

“That's sad.” Evelyn removed the cucumbers from her eyes. “Me and Melee came here once a week, sometimes twice a week depending on our moods.”

Willow put her feet into the water as her heels stood straight up next to her chair. Another Chinese woman started massaging her feet as she pressed the button on the chair to level one, letting the vibrations work out some of the tension in her spine.

“I never had that chance with my mother.”

“I'll never have that again with my daughter.” Evelyn leaned up. “So, we're even.”

“We are far from even, Evelyn.” Willow reached over and put her hand on her thigh. “I still owe you one.”

“So, you came all of this way to threaten me knowing that you can't touch me in a place of business. You may be bold, my dear, but you're not dumb. You know you can't do anything in a place like this.” Evelyn put the cucumbers back onto her eyes and lay back.

The sound of the bullets hitting the ceiling made Evelyn's body rock. Her face immediately grew red from fear as the workers ran for their lives. Willow held the ice-cold gun in her hands. Evelyn jolted up as her heart sat next to her tonsils, making it hard for her to speak.

“Sit back down,” Willow instructed. Pieces of the ceiling fell down into the water at her feet.

Evelyn obliged as the blood in her veins went away, leaving her body numb and cold. Her eyes followed Willow's gun as she sat
back in the chair in shock at Willow releasing fire in a business. She had misjudged her and she hoped it didn't cost her her life.

“I have a few minutes until the cops arrive.” Willow pointed to the cucumber slices sitting on a table inside of a bowl next to Evelyn. “Get back comfortable; put those back on your eyes.”

“I'd rather not.” Evelyn inhaled.

“I think you better because I'm not asking you again.”

Evelyn was hesitant, but she grabbed two fresh slices of cucumber. She could smell their natural oils mix in with the smell of the soap bubbling at her feet. She placed the cucumbers on her eyes and leaned back as she was told.

“I'm not going to kill you here.” Willow grabbed a towel to dry her feet off. “But, I am going to kill you. That is a promise.”

“Why not here and now?” Evelyn asked out of curiosity.

“Because, the Bible says death comes like a thief in the night.” Willow put on her heels. “I want you to be unaware of it all.”

“Who's to say I won't kill you first.”

“That's a possibility,” Willow said as the sounds of sirens filled her ears. “But, I highly doubt that. I'm going to let you get back to your spa day. I hope I didn't ruin it.”

She heard the noise. Faint at first, but then, as it got closer, Willow heard the deafening screech. She covered her ears from the pounding as she fled out the back of the building. If she had to compare it to something, she'd compare it to an animal, crying out in death.

Evelyn jumped up at the sound of feet running into the building. The first thing her eyes saw were police uniforms when she removed the cucumbers. Guns were pointed at her while officers asked her to get on the floor. She looked around as she kneeled, trying to find Willow, but she was long gone.

“Not she,” a Chinese woman said as she entered the building, “it was anoda one.”

Evelyn got off the ground as the cops helped her. She yanked away, grabbing her purse as she headed for the door. Refusing to talk, she left out of the building; the sun shining on her as she removed the sunglasses from her purse and placed them on her eyes.

She hit the alarm to her car and got in as the sounds of ambulances and fire trucks grew nearer. She started her car and pulled out in front of oncoming traffic. She felt like somebody was watching her as she stopped at a light. She could feel their eyes looking at her, piercing through her being. Willow would keep her promise; she just didn't know when or where.

“O
ne, two, three.” A man with a navy blue jacket with
DEA
in gold letters on the back of it screamed as he banged the battering ram against the door.

A group of men rushed in with all-black attire as their guns pointed at anything suspicious. They worked their way inside the estate as some went into the bottom level of the house and others rushed up the stairs.

Detective Hall stood at the front door and smiled. She had finally received enough evidence to take down the notorious leader of the mafia, Rock Evans, and today was like Christmas for her. She eased up the stairs as the badge hanging on her belt loop shined under the lights.

“Get the fuck down,” a cop screamed as Detective Hall entered the room.

“Ernest Rock Evans.” She walked over to where he was lying face-down. “I dare you to make the wrong move because I'll put a bullet right through your head.”

“Sandy, it's nice to see you.” Rock looked up at his old friend.

“It's Detective Hall to you now, Rock,” she said, putting her knee in his back.

“Isn't this police brutality or some shit?” he asked while never showing signs of discomfort.

“No, brutality is your organization.” She pushed her knee deeper into his back. “I knew it would be a matter of time before you slipped up.”

“There's no banana peels at my feet, baby,” Rock said as the cops pinning him down stood him up.

“I see one right there.” Detective Hall pointed a few steps in front of him and got close to his ear. “You're not as put together as you may think. I have a voice that ten of the best analysts in this state can match to yours on the tape that we have,” she said, referring to the delivery Kail made to her.

“That's interesting,” Rock said as they pulled him away. “It was a pleasure seeing you again, Sandy.”

“Arrogant bastard,” she yelled as she kicked his desk. “Take everything that may be incriminating. Look for everything the tip gave us.”

Detective Hall tore the room apart as she remembered her and Rock from back in the day. She couldn't believe how they had gone down two different paths. It pained her to have to lock up her old friend, but as she smashed through the desk drawers, she found comfort in knowing that now, he would be off the streets and safe.