The Grind Don't Stop (39 page)

Sparkle pinched his nose, lowered his head, took a deep breath, made a smacking sound with his lips and stared at her until she finally blinked and turned her eyes away. Then he licked his lips. “Bevy, when are you going to stop trying to get me to show you my hand when I ain't even been dealt any cards yet?”

She sat there staring at him for a few seconds before she pursed her lips and blew hard and shook her head. Then she started counting her fingers. “One, two, three.”

His brow balled up, full of curiosity, as he cocked his head to the side and ran his hand up and down his neck, really puzzled as to why she was reacting the way she was. He straightened up smiling and passed her the bag of pretzels and gulped down the rest of his brew. “What the fuck you doing that there for?”

She responded by snatching the bag out of his hand and throwing a couple in her mouth without saying a word, only gritting.

He blinked involuntarily a few times and twisted his neck in circles. “Ooooh, why are you starting out with all this hostility there, girl? This here ain't like you.”

She quickly threw a couple more pretzels into her mouth and took a long swig of the beer. “You still think that this is a game, don't you?” she snarled.

“Hell, girl, from the way you acting right in now, so do you,” he answered with an impish smile that dug into her restraint. Feeling her frustration nearing its boiling point, she suddenly stood and smashed the bag into his chest. With her face balled up in anger, she began to pace around the room to give herself time to cool off a little. After only a few steps, she noticed a row of pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. at several historical events along the wall.

The moment of nostalgia took her back for a second as she stopped at one particular picture and started rubbing her fingers
on it. It was one with King, Coretta, Abernathy, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, and Joe and Violet Hankerson standing in front of Morehouse College. By their youthful appearances, the picture had to be taking back in the early sixties or late fifties. Probably during the years when they had just gotten out of college or not long afterward. The kind of black and white photos that most people had forgotten about years ago. Then she started staring at a more recent photo of Sparkle, Violet and her son, JoJo, in front of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. She studied it for a while before she finally muttered over her shoulder, “So you and Violet's been a couple for a while, huh?”

He could see the obvious pain on her face and it bothered him. “Yeah, ole girl took me under her wings when I got out of the joint. Why you ask?” He got up and stood behind her as she continued to roam through the gallery of flicks. As much as she kept up with their activities, he knew damn well that she had to know about his relationship with Violet. Maybe it was something that she didn't want to accept.

She peeked at him over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “So that's how you got to be so well dressed so quick? And don't be looking at me like that there. And yeah, I've been keeping up with your ass since you got out. I'm the chief, remember?” she completed without even turning around.

He was really surprised as he arched his brow and tilted his head. “Damn, you still on to every thing that I do, ain'tcha?”

She ran her baby finger along her throat as she replied. “Uh-huh, that's right. Man, I saw you get off the bus at the Greyhound station,” she lied. There was no way that he could be sure if it was the truth.. She really enjoyed that look of surprise on his face.

She turned to face him with a bright smile on her face and poked a stiff finger in his jaw, digging into his dimple. He really
hated when she'd done that years ago when they were young, and he hated it just as much now.

She ignored the grit on his face and dug her finger in a little deeper to aggravate him like it always did. “Still got those holes in your face, don'tcha?” She shook her head smiling. “And I still get weak in the knees every time you smile and I see them. Most people got two; why you got just one?” She snorted a laugh through her nose and her expression turned serious. “Looks like I'll always have a schoolgirl crush on your sorry ass. It's sho bad that we took the opposite paths in life. Hell, I still think you could have made one helluva lawyer or teacher.”

Sparkle harrumphed loudly and started scratching his neck as he smiled devilishly at her. “Yeah, well, that might have been nice, but you know firsthand how I feel about those authoritative roles. It ain't me, Bevy, what else can I say?”

She snorted and smirked. “Do I ever.”

He ran his finger under his nose and harrumphed again. “Uh- huh, but you know what? I've never told you this before, but I'm so very proud of you, Bevy. And I often wonder what your police buddies would say or act or think if they had any idea of how you got your start. I know that must keep a lot of pressure on you. Shit has got to be rough, girlie.”

Her gaze lowered to the floor as she stared off into some empty space, getting lost in the possibilities of actually getting discovered. After a few moments, she shivered involuntarily at the thought of having to explain that shit. She quickly gathered herself. “Mmphed, yeah, y'all boys really went through a lot for me and I appreciate that with my life.” She shook her head and smiled. “But on the other hand, y'all niggas be putting y'all share of gray hairs all over my head.” She took a deep breath. “By the way, when are y'all gonna start doing the right thing; if it ain't too much for me to ask?”

He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “Girl. we did the right thing twenty some years ago.” He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. “Yep, shit, how many niggas can say that they helped to make the top cop in Atlanta?”

Beverly Johnson, the top cop, lowered her head and nodded several times with her lips turned down. “Y'all niggas better remember to stay away from those hotels for a while. I'm serious, baby, that shit is gonna be hot for a while for sure, you feel me?” She got up and headed for the door.

Sparkle's eyes squinted up at her departing backside while he nodded a couple times. Then he sat back and stretched his neck in circles. “Tell me something?”

She paused at the door and looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees before he stared at her seriously. “Did Rainbow put you up to this?”

She smiled sweetly and turned all the way around to face him. “No, I put him up to it. So what in the world am I gonna do with y'all three niggas? Y'all a full mess; you know that, don't you?”

He lifted his chin with a wide smile and nearly shouted. “Love us until the end, I guess.”

“You wish.”

“Yeah, I do.”

She sighed heavily and closed the door.

M
ona had finally found all of the goodies, after hours of ransacking the whole house. She had to give it to his old dead ass; he was a real slick one indeed. The last place she would've thought about was the back of the jukebox. She smiled at the saddle bag filled with money and bricks of coke. The only thing left to do was to gather her few personal belongings that were scattered around the house and then locate her sister so they could split this whole scene.

Boy, oh boy, was she ever pumped as she flipped the bag straps across her shoulders and headed up the stairs. For one haunting moment she could've sworn that she had seen someone at the window of the garage door. She jerked nervously toward the imaginary ghost but there was no one there. She chalked it up as nervous energy. After all there was a dead man in the basement, which a couple of dirty-ass street niggas knew about along with her, and there was no way that she was gonna trust those muthafuckas not to throw all the weight on her to save their own asses. Straight up, she had to get her ass out of there with this saddle bag full of dope and money. Fuck that dead-ass nigga and those slick-ass niggas. Each nigga and bitch for themselves. Having thought it all out, she ran around packing everything of value to her in a suitcase. Afterward she took one more survey of the house and headed for the garage. She flipped the car's ignition
and froze. Damn, she had to wipe her fingerprints off of everything she could imagine that she had touched in the house. The only ones that could connect her to the obvious murder scene were crooks themselves, and they weren't about to say anything with the fear of having themselves checked on. So she made sure that she hit everything from light switches to cooking utensils.

Finally she was ready to roll. Dusk had set in, which made her feel better about going unnoticed by the nosey goody-two shoes that lived in the neighborhood.
Aw hell, a couple of more minutes and a good blast will do me some good.
She started fixing herself up a Scottie-chasing blast.

After calming down from the euphoria, Mona gathered the last of her belongings and headed for the car. She turned the key in the ignition and was about to shift into reverse, when from the corner of her eye she saw a gleam of light through a crack in the door coming from the game room. At first she thought that she was geeking from the hit. She sat up as far as she could, her head nearly touching the roof of the car. She wasn't geeking; that was for sure.

Damn, I could've sworn I had closed that,
she thought as she opened the door and muttered to herself, “I really must be tri...” She froze in her step when she got to the top of the short steps and saw the floor under the pool table start to widen.

Fear hit her like a jackhammer. “Oh shit, this nigga ain't dead.” It nearly paralyzed her mind and she rushed over to grab a hold of the table to try to keep it from opening. But she couldn't stop it, as her feet started sliding along the floor.

“Aaarrrgggh!” She started screaming when she saw the shadow of someone coming up the stairs. “Oh my God, oh my God.” Fear had her shivering so hard that she peed on herself when a man's head came into view. She let go of the table and ran for the
car, but fumbled the keys to the floor when she tried to put them in the ignition.

Crying hysterically now, she reached to the floor to pick them up. After two or three frantic times, she finally managed to get a grasp of them. Her hands trembled as the car started, but when she lifted her head to back up, there was a man's face at the window. Her screams really went out of whack as she put her hands to her head and went off. “Please don't kill me. I'm sorry, baby. Please don't kill me, please don't.”

There was a hard rapping on the window, which made her start to scream even more until it registered on her that her name was being yelled over and over again. Trembling uncontrollably, she looked at the window, blinked several times before she finally mouthed, “RJ.”

He motioned for her to roll the window down, which she was reluctant to do at first. But then she took a deep breath and tried to push the button. But her hand was shaking too much, so she gripped her wrist to hold it still enough. After several tries, she was finally able to push the button.

“Hey, chill out for a minute there, girlie. I know exactly what you are thinking. Hell, I would have been scared to death myself,” he said with a gentle smile as he reached inside the door and pulled the handle. With the same smile plastered on his face, he held out his hand to help her get out. When she hesitated, his smile intensified. “Come on, girl, you've got to help me figure out who did this.”

She blinked away some of the initial fear and reached out for his hand to allow him to help her get out. She sat against the hood and folded her arms across her chest and considered telling him about the guys being there, but her mind spiraled with that revelation. Hell, she didn't trust the cracker any further than she
could toss him, so she definitely didn't think those dudes wanted his dirty ass in their business like that. He took her silence as a sign of the fear that apparently still had a grip on her.

“Calm down, sweetie; take your time.” He sat beside her and grabbed one of her hands and patted it reassuringly.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt that she had to get the heat off of herself. And besides, he hadn't even made any mention of calling his police buddies about the body, meaning that there was probably a lot more to the situation than he cared to mention. Telling him anything to keep from going to jail; hell, enough to be able to get away from him right now, would do. So she talked and he listened intently to the description of the conversation and the car they'd left in. He knew immediately who she was talking about but he didn't let her know that. For a brief moment, he considered killing her because she knew too much about his business. But he changed his mind when she revealed her plans to leave Atlanta. Seeing the suitcases in the backseat helped to make him believe that she was telling the truth. So he helped her back into the car with an assurance that he'd devise a believable story to tell his colleagues. He smiled brightly as Mona backed into the street and drove away.

After he was certain that she had left, he went back into Al's private sanctuary and finished the search he had started before he'd heard her getting ready to leave. He made a thorough search through all of Al's paperwork for the next hour until he had gathered all the information that could possibly connect him to Al.

When he was satisfied that he'd located it all, he went back into the garage and found a container of gasoline. He trailed the liquid around all of the downstairs rooms, lit flames in the basement and left. It was time to make the person whom he felt was responsible for messing up his plans to pay.

Lt. Woo thought that she was still dreaming when she heard the irritating buzzing sound, which shook her out of her nightmare. The sound seemed to go on and on until she felt the weight of her bed partner disappear from her side. She blinked once, twice, three times as she struggled to shake the cobwebs out of her hazy mind. Ever so slowly the blurriness cleared up.