Chaser (16 page)

T
he holiday had passed, and the country got back to work. That meant Kenny, too. This was the first day since the mayhem that broke out during Memorial Day weekend that he had left the house. I took his absence as an opportunity to take care of some personal business.

I was standing in the parking lot of the doctor’s office with a lot on my mind. My fears were confirmed. I was pregnant. I didn’t know by whom, though. After calculating the time between the last time I had sex with either Kenny or Nasir and when I had my last period, I concluded that Nasir was likely the father. But, of course, I wasn’t absolutely sure. And I didn’t want to point fingers without being able to prove anything. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. It was bad enough I was in such a situation. I had never been that type of girl.

I decided against telling anybody. I didn’t know what I was going to do just yet, whether or not I was going to keep it or get an abortion. So I decided I would keep the news to myself for now.

The next thing I wanted to do with my free time was go to the hospital to see Nasir in person. Regardless how he felt about me, I still had love for him and wanted to make sure he was all right.

I drove to the University of Pennsylvania on Thirty-fourth and Spruce and parked in visitor’s parking. I found out Nasir’s room number, and before I went up to the Trauma and Critical Care Unit, I stopped at the gift shop and bought Nasir a get-well gift.

When I got to his floor, I was stopped at the nurse’s station and asked who I was there to see. I gave Nasir’s name. They called his room and asked if it was okay for me to come in. I stood there, anxious, hoping Nasir wouldn’t refuse me.

I desperately wanted to see him and console him. I wanted him to know that I really loved him and that I was sorry about what had happened to him and Brock. I also wanted to get his side of the story about what had happened at the shoot-out. I needed some information to take with me to the police station when I went later that afternoon. Not only did Kenny jeopardize the deal I had with the detective by killing him, his constant bullshit made it more and more of a strain to live with him. He needed to be locked up.

I
was alone again with time to think. But not for long. I got a call from the nurse’s station alerting me that I had a visitor by the name of Leah Baker. I was reluctant about accepting her visit, but I ended up telling the nurse it was all right for her to come in. I was curious to see what she was going to say and how she was going to feel.

Leah walked in my hospital room slowly and hesitantly. She had a small basket of flowers in her hands, which she extended to me as she approached my bedside.

“Oh my God, Nasir, look at you,” she sang, one hand over her mouth, sorrow in her eyes.

I sat up in bed to accept the basket. I read the tag: Get Well Soon.

I put the flowers on the tray table. Then I lay back in my bed.

“Good lookin’,” I said, dispassionate.

“Of course,” she responded. “It’s the least I could do.” Then she broke out in tears and blurted out, “Nasir, I’m so sorry!”

I rolled my eyes and asked, “When aren’t you sorry, Leah? It seem like I’m constantly travelin’ down this same road with you. Like every time I turn around I’m caught up in some serious drama ’cause of you or ya boy. I’m through with it. I learned. So don’t worry about apologizin’ to me. Just accept the fact that I don’t wanna be a part of ya life anymore and move on.” I sighed, having gotten my feelings off my chest.

Leah’s face dimmed with pity. She shook her head as she stood over my bed. Leaning over, she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me. “You don’t mean that,” she said.

“Yes, I do,” I maintained. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like it if you’d leave so I can get through the rest of the day on a happier note.”

Leah withdrew her arms from around me. “Okay, I deserve that,” she said, seemingly gathering her composure. “I’ll leave, but before I do, I just want to get your side of the story about what happened Saturday night, Sunday morning.”

Before I could say anything or ask what she cared for, like I wanted to, I got a call from the nurse’s station saying that I had a visitor who said his name was Kenny.

Fuck this nigga want,
I thought. “You can send him in,” I said. I hung the phone up and told Leah, “Ya man ’bout to come in here.” Still, I was nonchalant.

“Oh my God! Are you for real? What am I goin’ to do? I can’t leave. He’ll see me in the hallway.” She panicked, just like I had thought she would.

“It amazes me how you keep comin’ at me askin’ me to forgive you
and to take you back, but every time you seem to have this undying love for Kenny. I mean, what you care that he’s on his way in here for if you love me like you say you do?”

“Nasir, for the last time, that is not the case,” Leah pleaded. Then, looking around in panic, Leah scampered to the bathroom and closed the door.

Seconds later in walked Kenny.

“What’s up, cannon?” He greeted me with a smile on his face, as if there was something to celebrate.

“Whatchu doin’ here, man?” I asked him, a frown on my face to let him know exactly how I felt. “You got some nerve comin’ up here.”

“Daaamn,” he said. “I just came up here to see how you was makin’ out and shit. Give my condolences, that’s all.”

I went to say something but was distracted by Kenny’s sudden change of focus. I followed his eyes as they locked in on something that was in my bed. They landed on a Dior key chain that was peeping out from underneath the white blanket. It must’ve been Leah’s. She must’ve have dropped it when she gave me a hug. I started to make up a lie about the key chain and say something like my mom left it by accident, but I changed my mind. I didn’t care anymore about trying to hide the fact that Leah and I had had something in the past. I was done giving a fuck about Kenny and how he felt.

Kenny stepped back and looked at me like he was confused.

I looked back at him as if to say, What, nigga?

Then he put his hand on his chin and started reminiscing. “Remember back when we was chasin’ together? You called yaself beatin’ me to a hit and hauled ass through that stop sign—”

I cut Kenny off. With my teeth clenched and my eyes squinted, I warned, “Don’t fuckin’ do it, man! Don’t fuckin’ do it!”

Kenny chuckled. “Do what?”

“Throw that shit in my mafuckin’ face! That shit stops today! You
hear me? I been paid you back for that shit! Up until two days ago, nigga, I been payin’ you back for that shit! I got shot
and
my man lost his life in the process! And you come up in this mafucka like I still owe you?”

Kenny’s anger matched mine and he shouted, “I DIDN’T HIT THAT OLD LADY! YOU DID! BUT BECAUSE I AIN’T SAY SHIT, THAT SHIT ATE AWAY AT MY MOTHAFUCKIN’ CONSCIENCE!”

“AWW, NIGGA, WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU PLAYIN’? YOU AIN’T GOT NO MAFUCKIN’ CONSCIENCE! NOT THEN AND NOT THE FUCK NOW!”

“AND APPARENTLY YOU AIN’T GOT ONE, EITHER, NIGGA! THAT’S WHY YOU THINK IT’S COOL TO FUCK MY GIRL?”

With my head up I looked Kenny in his eyes and said quietly, “My conscience ain’t lead me in that direction. My dick did!” I hit him where it hurt.

In that instant Kenny pulled a four-five out of his waistband, grabbed me by my neck, and shoved the gun in my mouth. It felt like a couple of my teeth had been knocked loose.

“You lucky you worth more to me alive!” Kenny said, then he removed the gun from my mouth.

I spit blood out in Kenny’s direction. “YOU SHOULDA KILLED ME, NIGGA!”

“If I wanted you dead, I woulda killed you when I killed ya boy, Brock.”

I jumped out the bed and lunged at Kenny with my one good arm. He blocked my swing. Then he put me in a headlock, causing me excruciating pain.

“Fuck you surprised for? You didn’t think I was goin’ leave witnesses, did you? The only reason why I left you alive was ’cause Leah ain’t done gettin’ information out ya ass. You ain’t think she was fuckin’
you ’cause you got that curly-ass hair, did you? Naw, she was fuckin’ you to get tape about all the crooked shit you and ya pop be doin’. Why you think she started workin’ at the shop? She ain’t need that measly paper, dog. She agreed to be an informant to get us out that fraud case we caught.”

Kenny let me go and I fell against the hospital bed. The pain in my shoulder was too great for me to retaliate. All I could do was listen to the shit he was tellin’ me and die inside.

He straightened up his clothes and headed out of my room. Then he stopped and said, “I know she around this mothafucka somewhere! Tell her I said job well done!” Then he walked out the room, slamming the door closed behind him.

I heard the bathroom door open slowly. Then Leah’s frightened face peeped around the corner. She was crying.

I didn’t care though. I wanted to smash her head in the wall immediately. If only I could.

“What the fuck did you drag me into?” I snapped, tears coming to my eyes. I was so mad I could feel the veins popping out my neck just from looking at Leah. “You tryna set me and my family up? So all this time you was just usin’ me for information?”

Leah shook her head repeatedly as she tried to get a word in.

“I wanna fuck you up, Leah! You played me, dog? That’s why you was launderin’ that money through my pop? So you could catch him up on that shit, too? YOU AIN’T SHIT!”

Leah finally was able to speak, “NASIR! LISTEN TO ME! KENNY DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’S TALKIN’ ABOUT! HE’S JUST TRYIN’ TO GET BACK AT YOU FOR MESSIN’ WITH ME! IT’S HIM I’M GETTIN’ TAPE ON, LIKE I TRIED TO TELL YOU BEFORE!”

“That’s what you’ll have me believe! But if it was that, why the fuck you just ask me to give you my side of the story about what happened the other night? Huh? Huh? Answer me that! That was proba
bly ya only motive for comin’ up this mafucka! To get info! You wasn’t comin’ up here to see me!” I reached over and grabbed the flowers off the tray table and threw them at her.

She ducked and screamed. Then the begging began. “Nasir, please! If ever there was a time that I needed you to trust me, now is it!” she cried.

“Fuck you, Leah!” I said sternly, throwing her keys to her as hard as I could. “Get the fuck out!”

Leah picked up her keys and asked if I could hear her out one last time.

I shook my head and told her, “You dead to me, man!”

She stood still for a minute, sobbing. A look of despair covered her face. Then she turned to the door and walked out.

I managed to pull myself onto the bed. Trying to ignore the pain I was in, I felt around on my bed for my cell phone. When I found it, I dialed my dad. I realized that with my injury I wouldn’t be able to get at Kenny the way I wanted so badly to. I didn’t just want to shoot the nigga and kill ’im. I wanted to torture that slimy mafucka! And for that, I needed my dad’s assistance.

“What’s up, Nas?” my dad answered.

“Dad, I got some information on who did it.”

“I’ll rap to you about it when you get home.”

“All right.”

“It’s goin’ get handled.”

“All right.”

“I love you, son.”

“I love you, too, Dad.

I
left the hospital after seeing Nasir and went straight to the police station, ready either to accept my charges or to tell the cops everything Kenny had told me about what had gone down at the shoot-out and hope that it would lead to his arrest. Whatever needed to be done to get Kenny out my life I was goin’ do. If not, I was goin’ end up dead. Either Kenny was goin’ kill me for fuckin’ with Nasir, or he was goin’ drive me to kill myself.

I went inside the precinct and told the clerk why I was there. She immediately led me to an interview room in the back. I waited anxiously for somebody to come in and tell me what had happened to Detective Daily.

After a few minutes, the door opened. I picked my face up out my palms and looked up.

“Detective Daily?” I was shocked to see that he was alive.

“Leah, why did you come in? Why didn’t you call me first? It isn’t a good idea for you to be seen walkin’ in and out of here.”

“I had to. I thought somethin’ happened to you at the last location,” I told him.

“No, I didn’t go that night. I was down at the shore for the holiday.” The detective’s eyes grew weary. “It was my partner who was killed.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Detective. I didn’t know that it was goin’ to come to that. I just thought he was goin’ make the transaction and that be that. I never would’ve put you or anybody in harm’s way,” I cried, unable to control my emotions.

“I know, kiddo,” he said. “You couldn’t have known. Neither could I. But we can’t dwell on that. Right now we have to move swiftly to get the perpetrator. Tell me you got something on that son of a bitch.” He got straight to it.

I nodded eagerly. “He killed your partner.”

“How are you sure of this?” Detective Daily asked just eagerly.

“He told me that once he realized there was a cop out there, he let a shot off.”

The detective was taking notes in a pad. He stopped and started snapping his fingers at somebody who was apparently watching us from the outside. “Was there anybody with him that you know of?”

“His brother was.”

“And what’s his name?”

“Timothy Courtland.”

“And do you know his address?”

I gave the detective Tim’s address.

Another detective entered the interview room, and Detective Daily turned his attention to him. “We’ve got our perp,” he told the other detective.

“Who is it and where can we find him?”

“Kenneth Courtland. 210 Morton Road.”

“We’ll go pick ’im up now.”

“Get his brother, too.” Detective Daily stood up and handed the other detective the piece of paper he had been writing on, which he ripped from his notepad. “Timothy Courtland. 5412 Gainor Road. In case Kenneth doesn’t budge. We’ll try to get his brother to give ’im up. Either way, we need both of these men in custody. We need to get a confession out of one or the other so we can charge them both with murder one. Put out an alert and take caution, ’cause they’re likely to be armed and dangerous,” Detective Daily passed down the chain of command.

Then he sat back down and patted my knee. “You’re gonna be all right, kiddo. We’re gonna nab this bastard.”

“Please do, Detective. Because it’s at the point where I’m scared for my life.”

“Has he threatened you? Does he know that you’re working with us?”

“No, no. But he knows somebody tipped y’all. And he’s on a rampage, and I don’t wanna cross paths with him. I don’t even wanna go home until y’all bring him in.”

“That’s no problem, Ms. Baker. We will arrange for you to stay in a hotel until we get him.”

Detective Daily put me up in the Comfort Inn all the way in South Philly on Delaware Avenue. I was sitting in the hotel room all alone, scared and confused. I thought about where I was in my life and started pitying myself. How had I let things come to this? Before Kenny, I was a student and I’d worked two jobs. I had a social life. I had friends. I had a good relationship with my mom. Now I didn’t have any of that. It was like my life took a 360-degree turn for the worst when I got with Kenny. And I was tired of accepting it. I wanted
to sever all ties with him and start fresh. I had even decided to abort the baby I had recently found out I was carrying. Just in case it was his.

I felt guilty for thinking that way about a baby—about my baby—but I didn’t know what else to think.

I got in the shower and ordered food, hoping it would relax me a little. Then while I was waiting for my food to come I got a phone call. It was from Kenny. I didn’t answer right away. I had to get my story together first.

“Hello,” I answered after the fourth ring.

“Where the hell you at?” Kenny asked.

I began to whisper, “I’m in hiding, Kenny” I told him. “The police found out that somebody tipped Vic and Nasir off about me being an informant and they immediately put me in protective custody.”

“Wasn’t you at the hospital today
with
Nasir?”

I couldn’t lie. He knew I was there. If I had lied about that, nothing else I would have said would have been credible. “Yeah. How you know?” I played it off.

“I was up there. I saw ya fuckin’ key chain. What’s goin’ on, Leah? And don’t tell me no bullshit, either! ’Cause this nigga told me y’all fuckin’! And he lucky I didn’t knock his ass off right there in the mafuckin’ hospital!”

“Kenny, Kenny, listen to me,” I sniveled. “I would never cross no lines like that. You gotta trust me. The only reason why I’ve been dealin’ with Nasir in the first place was to get us out the shit we were in. You
know
that. I’m not doin’ nothin’ with Nasir, and I never did! If he told you that, he lied! I don’t know what for, maybe to get under your skin, but that shit ain’t true! I went to the hospital today, yes, but only because the cops wanted me to go up there and try to get information out of Nasir about who shot that cop,” I tried to convince him. “When I couldn’t get anything out of him, I left and went straight to the police station. My key chain must’ve fell off my
keys,” I explained, with as much sincerity in my tone as I could muster.

Kenny was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Loyalty is everything to me, Leah, and if for one second I feel like I’m not gettin’ it from you, you know what can happen, don’t you?”

“I know. And my loyalty to you is the one thing you don’t have to question,” I assured him.

“Well, good. ’Cause I need you right now more than anytime before.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“I think Nasir mentioned my name to the cops. They been showin’ up at everybody house lookin’ for me.”

“Where are you? What are you goin’ to do?”

“I’m in the cut. But I’m tryna plan shit out now. Run this by me again. The cops got word that Nasir knows you was snitchin’, so they got you hidin’ out?”

“Yeah. Pretty much. And I’m scared, Kenny,” I tried hard to convey weakness. “I’m scared for you, and I’m scared for me.”

“Don’t be scared. I’ma see that nigga before he see any one of us. If he’s out the equation, then you’ll be cool and there won’t be nobody to point the finger at me in the courtroom talkin’ about I killed that cop. When I think about it, I shouldn’t have left him alive from the gate.”

“Kenny, I don’t want you bein’ stupid. Now, I know we’re in a tight spot right now, but you can’t lose yourself. You can’t just go up in the hospital and think you can do somethin’ to Nasir without bein’ caught.”

“I ain’t goin’ do that. I ain’t gotta do that. I know where he be. Matter of fact, I know he goin’ go to Brock’s funeral. I know that much.”

At that, I was eager to get off the phone with Kenny. I wanted to
let Detective Daily know where he could possibly catch up with Kenny.

I dialed the number. “Detective, I just talked to Kenny,” I said without delay.

“Did he give you any information about his whereabouts?”

“No. But he did say he planned to go to one of the guys who was killed funeral.”

“Which guy, Ms. Baker?”

“Brakir Jackson. Everybody called him Brock.”

“We’ll have to pick ’im up there then. Thanks for this.”

“Just make sure y’all get him fast because how he was talkin’ he plans to do somethin’ to Nasir. He thinks Nasir ratted him out, and that’s why y’all are lookin’ for him.”

“Okay. Thanks for this. And soon as we get him into custody, we will let you know.”

I got off the phone and felt drained. My situation was getting more and more complicated by the hour. I was in a whirlwind of drama, and I didn’t know how I was going to get out. All I knew was that I wanted out. I wanted out desperately.