Push Comes to Shove (36 page)

“Stop the car!” Mr. Lee ordered his chauffeur.

“But, sir—”

“Stop the car this instant, Hartford.” Before the limo came to a complete stop, Mr. Lee had the door open. He dodged coming-and-going traffic to get to one of the several street vendors.

Kitchie slapped GP with all the strength she could muster. “That’s such bullshit, GP, and you know it. I can’t believe you’d disrespect me by thinking so low of me. Explain to me what the hell ‘it just fit’ is exactly supposed to mean.”

“Goddamn, girl, I trust you!” He watched her closely, expecting her to swing again. “Keep your hands to yourself. That’s your warning.” He lowered his voice an octave and rubbed the warm side of his face. “It didn’t have anything to do with you. It was a combination of things dealing with me on a personal level. It was my own insecurities—not you. I was looking for a way to validate my insecurity. I was upset. I had no idea where you was, and when I heard that girl yell out—”

“Pardon me, I don’t mean to interrupt.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m Stan, Mr. Stan Lee, owner of Marvel Comics.”

“Get the hell out of here. You expect me to believe that?” GP took in the European suit on this distinguished-looking white man as he shook his hand.

“I remember you.” Kitchie moved closer to GP. “You spent over a hundred dollars about a month and a half ago.”

“That is correct, young lady. I’ve been looking for you ever since. Honestly, I had given up. This place wasn’t occupied for weeks.”

“Well, you found us.” GP straightened a stack of Street Prophet comic books. “What can we do for you? Good thing; today is our last day in business.”

Stan picked a book from the table. “I read every one of these—twice. I know raw talent when I see it. What you have here is a talent that is highly marketable.”

Kitchie hung on to Stan’s words while GP acted as if he had heard it all before.

Stan put both hands in the air, touching the tip of his thumbs together, and gazed through the opening. “I see the Street Prophet on the Cartoon Network, action figures, animated films, lines of comic books distributed nationally. I love the urban essence this guy brings to comics.”

“Yeah, and I bet you want all the rights and complete creative control.” He put his arm around Kitchie. “We’re fine. I won’t sell out like that.”

“You’ll receive a fifteen-percent royalty on all rights. I’m an artist myself; I wouldn’t dream of taking away your creativity. That’s what I’m impressed with. I’m interested in the Street Prophet.”

GP devoted his full attention to Stan for the first time. He threaded his fingers with Kitchie’s. “How interested?”

“Say, a signing bonus of…” He took his checkbook from his inside pocket and neatly printed a large figure. “This is just a bonus.”

“Thank you, Keith. You’re saving my ass with this one.” The mayor gave Jewels a thumbs-up as he spoke into the phone. “Yes, of course lunch is still on…See you then.” He placed the receiver on its base.

“How soon?” Jewels thumped a candy wrapper in the mayor’s direction.

“The charges against Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are being dropped as we speak.”

“Good looking out, Mayor.” Jewels stepped to the desk, blocking the children’s view. “Here’s a little something extra for your troubles.” She gave him a few more pieces of cocaine and a cell phone number. “Your secret is safe with me. Hit me up when you want to get right.”

“What you go by?”

“Jewels.”

When they left the office, the mayor secured his door and stuffed a rock inside the crack pipe.

Outside of the mayor’s office, Junior followed behind Jewels and Secret as they talked.

“That’s cool; my daddy ain’t going to jail.”

“Secret, you gotta get this shit right. You can’t be sounding like a square when you’re kicking it with me. If you say ‘that’s cool,’ you have to put
as hell
with it. That’s automatic. Now let me hear you say it the right way this time.”

They rounded the corner where Jewels’s Escalade was parked in an alley behind the mayor’s office.

“Mommy told me not to. She said there’s a lot of intelligent words to use in the place of cuss words, and she said if I really want to use bad words, that I’ll have plenty of time to when I’m grown.”

Jewels typed in a code on the car door and paused. “
Hell
ain’t a bad word.”

“Why not?”

“Do you think God uses bad words?”

“No. God is good. He wouldn’t do that.”

“Hell nah, His good ass wouldn’t. But He says it a thousand times in the Bible.”

Junior’s eyes bulged with fright as he watched a dark man running toward them with a gun pointed at Jewels. “Aunty!”

Jewels and Secret turned to face him.

Jewels was astonished. “Junior, that’s what the—”

“He’s got a gun.” Junior pointed.

She turned in the opposite direction, just in time to…

“Three hundred grand?” GP stared at the fresh ink on the check.

“All you have to do is tell me who to make it out to. It’s all yours as soon as you can go over the contract and sign it.”

Kitchie began to tremble.

“I need a Street Prophet clothing line.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Our subsidiary rights department will take care of those things.”

Kitchie began jumping and shouting.

Smitty, the book vendor, rushed over. “What’s going on?”

Stan stuck his hands in his pocket. “That’s usually the reaction when you’re about to become a well-known artist in a matter of days.”

GP held on to Kitchie while she emotionally unraveled.

“I forgot to tell you, GP,” Smitty said, pointing at Stan. “This guy has been around here looking for you awhile now. It slipped my mind.”

Sticky Fingers pointed a Glock 9 at Jewels. “You think you could rob me and live to enjoy the proceeds? Spend this, bitch.” He pulled the trigger five consecutive times.

The silencer muffled the shots. The first bullet slammed Jewels into the Escalade, leaving a hole in her chest. The next shot entered through her eye and exited her head, shattering the driver’s side window.

Secret screamed while Junior repeatedly called out to Jewels.

The third, fourth, and fifth slugs were for general purposes. Secret grabbed Junior and they ran in the opposite direction of Sticky Fingers.

The hospital lobby was quiet. It had been two weeks since GP had decided on a tribute to the memory of Jewels. Now that the day had arrived, he was hesitant about relinquishing the urn.

“Everything will be fine, Mr. Patterson.” Markell Rawles, Family Gewels’s representative, peeled GP’s fingers from the urn’s handle. “You’ll never regret your decision. It’s all about keeping a connection to the deceased.”

“Papi.” Kitchie put an arm around his waist. “Jewels wanted this. I know that this is hard for you, but don’t forget that we need to get upstairs. Visiting hours are almost over.”

GP pulled in a deep breath and released it slow. “You’ll have her back to us in two weeks, right?” He fingered the briefcase on his lap.

“No more than, but maybe less, if our technicians can get her ashes under a million pounds of pressure in the next twenty-four hours.”

Kitchie reached out a hand. “Thanks for going out of your way to meet us here.”

“I’m not too fond of hospitals, but it wasn’t a problem. I’ll be in touch very soon. If there are any questions or if you just want to check on the status, please feel free to call me at the lab or log onto FamilyGewels.com to check the status.” Markell carried Jewels out of the hospital.

Kitchie and GP rode the elevator to the rehabilitation wing in silence.

After a gentle nudge from Kitchie, GP entered Desmond’s room. GP couldn’t understand how a person could have a cast on one side of their entire body. Knowing that he himself was the sole reason behind the painful sight, GP wished that he could take it
all back. He stared at Desmond, who was suspended from something resembling a bed minus a mattress.

Desmond was face down with a limited view of two floor tiles. He was held in perfect stillness by wires and suspension straps. He smelled an expensive perfume consume the room. “Who that?”

Kitchie’s eyes began to water. She couldn’t stand to look at Desmond any longer. She went back into the hall as GP moved closer to the therapeutic gurney.

“Who that?” Desmond moved his toes.

“I…I came to apologize.”

Desmond remained quiet as his anger raised his blood pressure.

The silence unnerved GP. It was irritating. “Say something.” He set the briefcase down.

“What, you want me to give you a blow-by-blow account of how I’m gonna fuck you up? You apologized. Now roll out.” He began counting the speckles in the tile once again.

“Just hear me out. I was wrong—dead wrong for disrespecting you and your company. There’s no excuse for my actions, but I was going through a lot of things.”

Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty—
“What does that bullshit mean to me, dawg?”

“My wife was missing. Come to find out, she’d been kidnapped. At the time I didn’t know that, and when I heard you getting busy with that Spanish mami, I jumped to conclusions. I thought it was you and Kitchie getting down.” GP paced the length of the gurney.

“So that’s supposed to make everything cool? Justify why you was shooting at me? Now you’re up in here trying to cop a plea. You should have made sure I was dead. We going to trial in the streets.”