The Tale of the Blood Diamond (42 page)

The intruder trailed eyes to another photo in the room. “Your woman is a goddamn cop! You out here fuckin’ people up on a daily basis, and you’re married to Baltimore’s finest! I should
kill
this bitch just for that alone!” He twisted his arm around Jayme’s head, putting her in a death grip.

“Lo---renzo!” she gurgled, barely able to talk. He whipped around, his eyes wild and crazed.

“How tha fuck do you know my damn name, goddamn it?!” He loosened his grip so she could speak, and pointed the gun at her head.

Jayme briefly closed her eyes, exhaled loudly and took a deep breath.

“I grew up, with your brothers, Lorenzo…and I remember you. You were young, but I remember you.” She coughed. It was evident by the way the man’s body tensed, he wasn’t prepared for this turn of events. Xzion remained quiet, waiting for his chance to destroy this fucker who was terrifying his family…but Jayme was still in his grip. He had to wait it out…

“I went to school with Preacher and Justice… My name is Jayme, my last name was Knight. I remember when you left, too and…” She shot Xzion a glance. “I remember when Preacher died.”

“And here you are, fuckin’ the man that killed my brother! You ’sposed to be a damn police officer. You’re supposed to protect the public ’nd shit, and you here wettin’ this killer’s dick and wearin’ his ring and havin’ his damn babies! Ain’t that some shit?!”

“No…no…You don’t understand.”

“No, I understand quite damn well, bitch! I see the pictures. I can see that this little bastard looks
just
like you and that mothafucka sittin’ right over there! But most importantly, I understand I’ve been chasing this fool for a damn eternity, and that I had to leave my family, the family I never got to see, because I had caught a damn case. And then, when I finally get a chance to spend some time with my brother, this man took him away!” He turned the gun back in Xzion’s direction, but this time, his hand trembled.

“So…you are here to try to avenge Preacher’s death? This won’t bring him back, Lorenzo!”

“What are you? A grief counselor?” He yanked her neck hard, making her grunt. “You can save all that shit. Not the point. This is a little street justice. You of all people should know that, Officer
Khrome
.” He scoffed as he glanced at a plaque she’d received with her name on it. “I was in New York, being treated like shit, away from the only two mothafuckas that gave a damn about me, Preacher and Justice.” He twisted her body as he turned back to glare at Xzion. He clicked his gun. “Enough of this shit!”

“No!” Jayme shouted. “Wait, please! You think…you think Preacher cared about you. He didn’t!”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t even know me to say some shit like that! Quit stallin’.”

“No! I’m serious.” She gulped as he squeezed her tighter. “You didn’t kill that boy, Lorenzo! Preacher did, and he let you take the rap!”

“What the hell are you talking about? I was right there! Some shit had went down; we were all standing around and I shot the gun and the boy ended up dead. The police were after me and everything! You gotta come betta than that, bitch!”

“No, I’m telling the truth, I swear. But you didn’t stay long enough to find out what the police found out, Lorenzo! I have the case, and I remember because everyone wanted to know where you went and after Preacher was killed, all of his charges, including that one, came up! You were ruled out, and for the longest, the police didn’t know who did it. It was a cold case but then…then after Preacher died, new evidence was submitted. People were afraid to tell the truth while he was alive, but they did after his death. He bragged about it, Lorenzo! Bragged, while you stayed hidden and on the run.”

The man’s mellow yellow complexion turned ashen as Jayme continued to beg for her life, not in a literal sense, but with compelling, true information…

“The bullet wasn’t from your gun…you didn’t hit that thirteen year old! The bullet was from Preacher’s gun — the department did ballistics and everything on the bullet lodged in the kid. If you don’t believe me, I can show you the damn report right now!” Her voice shook. “Preacher didn’t give a damn about you, Lorenzo! He let you stay up in New York, ’cause he wanted you to feel bad, and he hated you. I don’t know why he hated you, but he did. He was happy you were gone!”

Xzion couldn’t read minds, but if he were a betting man, he’d put everything on Lorenzo’s suddenly turning green about the face and his silence as a sign that his world had just been shattered.

“And he stopped Justice from telling you the truth. I know, because I had just become a cop when Justice was brought in for selling dope. I pulled up his records and asked him about that case. Rumors swirled, but we never had any concrete evidence. I told him we could close that case against his brother, that being you, if we could find you. He wouldn’t admit to anything at first, but then he told me that your mother and Preacher didn’t want you coming home, and you were better off where you were. He tried to send for you, and Preacher had stopped him. Look, Lorenzo, I don’t know what type of family stuff you had going on, but you were the fall guy…that’s not love! The man you revered set…you…up!”

“Nah!” Lorenzo seemed to come to life again. “I don’t believe that shit! You just makin’ this shit up!”

“I can verify it. Just let me prove it to you!” Jayme implored, her voice cracking as she glanced at her son balled up in Xzion’s lap.

Lorenzo was breathing heavy now, sweat dripping off of his face. He teetered from foot to foot, the gun still pointed at her head as he nervously rocked back and forth with the woman.

“Lorenzo, you gotta believe me. Preacher wasn’t who you thought he was. I can go right to my computer and have one of my men send me the file electronically. I can have it in less than five minutes! Please! Let me show you, Lorenzo. I’m not lying!”

*
***

Ten minutes later Lorenzo realized his entire life had been a lie.

He scratched his nose with his thumb, leaned back on the couch and kept that gun pointed at Jayme’s head. He knew now, he couldn’t kill her — she didn’t have shit to do with this — but
his
struggle continued. His third eye had failed him. The realization hit him like a sledgehammer. He felt he could read people, understand them at their basic level, yet somehow or another, he knew nothing at all. He looked at that man sitting across from him with that little boy and wondered… What if he had been loved like that? Could his life have been different? What if he had a father who protected him, and a mother who loved her child as much as Jayme seemed to love her son.

He was clueless as to why this man had killed drug dealers all around the country — shit,
the world
— and he may never know or understand it, but it didn’t even matter anymore. Preacher had been his entire life. When their mama showed she didn’t give a shit about him, Preacher stepped up and showed him love. He had no idea that Preacher hated him even more than Mama did…

His entire life, he revered the man, loved him. Preacher had been his teacher, surrogate father and big brother all rolled into one. Now, some of the odd phone calls with Justice made sense. Justice would say things like, “Keep yo’ head up, man. You ain’t what you think you are…” Real cryptic shit. There was even a rumor that Preacher had killed Justice over some bullshit. He had never given it any real thought or validation…until now. Had Preacher been that bad seed monster he was portrayed as? Apparently so…even his whores told him stories of the man beating, raping, then beating them again, sometimes simultaneously. That was the thing he couldn’t get down with –— that sort of abuse of one’s power. Nevertheless, Lorenzo had risen above the odds, he’d made something of himself, or had he?

Sometimes, in a drunken stupor, he’d think about how his mama hated him, and how he enjoyed seeing those women out in the cold, selling pussy and not giving a shit about themselves. It felt good to play ‘God’, to twist a person’s world up so tight, they delighted in selling their damned bodies on a mothafucka’s behalf. None of it meant shit. It never gave him the full satisfaction he craved. He wanted it to be
her
… He wished he could have pimped his own mama, put her out on the stroll and made her bring him trap money as a final act of sweet revenge. It wasn’t his fault he’d been conceived. It wasn’t his fault he looked the way he did. It wasn’t his fault that none of this shit happened, but he still felt responsible. Somewhere deep inside, he believed he was the root of why everyone’s life had spiraled out of control. He also realized he’d been pimping himself this entire time. He sold himself a heavy bag of lies, and when he opened that shit up expecting to see bright, sparkling things, all he found inside were rocks, hard knocks and a mirror for him to look into and see the fuck-up he truly was.

If he’d just been Mink’s son, none of this would’ve happened. Mama would’ve loved him; he would have finally gotten that kiss of approval that he raced around chasing for so damn long.

He didn’t care that he had the finest prostitutes in all of Baltimore. He didn’t concern himself with any of it — the money, the respect he got on the street, all of his nice cribs, the way young boys looked up to him and women wanted to choose him. The only woman he cared about wanting him was his mama, and now she was dead — it was too late. She went to her grave hating his yellow guts.

He smiled, glanced at Jayme and Xzion, then placed the gun inside of his mouth.

“Here I come, Mama. Maybe you will choose me now…”

“Lorenzo! Noooooooooo!” was all he heard the pretty cop say. Then, he felt immense pressure and pain in his skull as he pulled the trigger, but soon…he felt nothing more at all.

All the pain was gone. No more need to hustle. No more need to struggle. No more need to prove one’s worth. It was finally over, FOREVER…

“Well it’s about time!” Mrs. Knight moved about her dining room, until she’d placed the crystal punch bowl filled with a sweet, red liquid exactly where she wanted. Xzion had only been to his in-laws’ house a few times, and each time was an adventure.

“Mama, these things take time though. Nevertheless, I appreciate your support.” Jayme hugged her mother and kissed her on the cheek.

“They should have promoted you a long time ago. Better late than never, I suppose. We’ve been planning this party for you for months. But you’ve been so hard to get a hold of as of late. Glad you could finally stop by and give your mama a little time.” Her mother set a coffee cup at the head chair of the table. The woman proudly clasped her hands together, reviewing her handiwork. “Okay, your father should be down soon.” She started to head into the kitchen.

Jayme stopped her. “Mom, before you go, I want to thank you again for this. It is really sweet.” The muted chatter of people in the adjoining rooms grew a bit louder.

Her mother winked and blew her a kiss before walking away, an empty tray in her hands. Jayme stood there alone for a while, holding herself. It was good to be out of house. It had taken a while for her to get over that young man blowing his brains out in their living room. It took even longer for her to not believe that Zachary wasn’t suffering. She was a mother and all she wanted, more than anything, was to help her son somehow ‘unsee’ what he’d witnessed…

**
**

Xzion stared at his wife. It was evident she was having a hard time relaxing. Once he’d read Lorenzo’s coordinates, picking up his raised stressed level and his electrolytes completely out of whack, he knew something was bound to happen within a blink of a laser-firing eye. In that instant, he grabbed Zachary tighter and turned his head away. The boy hadn’t seen a thing, though Jayme believed him being in the room awarded him a front row seat to Trauma Lane. Normally used to death, this rocked her a bit. Jayme had sat there with blood and brain matter all over her body after Lorenzo took his own life.

Sure, she’d walked in on enough dead bodies to fill a small graveyard and she’d seen enough homicides and suicides, too. But this one really got to her. Not only because it occurred in her home, but because she remembered Lorenzo as a little boy. She said he was a real sweet kid, a cutie pie. Preacher acted like the boy didn’t even exist half the time and their mother wasn’t worth a rusty cent. No wonder all three kids grew up to be hellions.

No one deserved a life like that, and it hurt her that Lorenzo was clinging to a memory, a fantasy actually. He was trying to be something he never was. He was good at doing dirt; it was never his calling, but like so many others, he got caught in a cycle of abuse and replayed all that he had learned. He was a mixed up individual — not because of his ethnicity, but because of how he stumbled through life. While he tried to live up to other peoples’ expectations, he demanded so little of himself.

Information was found in his home revealing he was responsible for an open case detailing a missing person that worked for the government, as well. Piece by piece, the investigation revealed there was a rat in their midst, and the man paid with his life.

Lorenzo’s funeral was rather surreal. Jayme had told him there were at least one hundred women in attendance — gorgeous creatures roaming about, dropping tears from their eyes like open faucets. She’d never seen so much love for a pimp, for someone that exploited women and made them sell a little piece of their soul, one john at a time. She surmised it was the dance with the Devil versus the song playing that made all the difference.