Murder in Germantown (35 page)

I sat down and logged into my AOL account. I was enveloped with absurdity. I looked serene on the surface, but I was breaking up inside without ruffling my outer shell. To expect me not to be an absolute monster, too, in the face of this atrocity was a serious miscalculation on my competitor’s behalf. There was no excusable or logical explanation either. This had to lead to an increase in the death toll. For it not to was an utter impossibility. Would my anger thaw or melt away as the snow makes way for spring?

Hell no.

Undoubtedly not.

Someone’s life expectancy would be arrested. My evil thoughts were interrupted by an instant message:

The man logged off and left me confused. He didn’t even let me respond. Before I logged off, I copied the threat and pocketed it. I then cut and paste the threat and E-mailed it to Jonathan Rude, along with a note.

I walked out of Kinkos toward my illegally parked BMW. As I emerged from the store, my cell phone sprang to life. I answered it quickly.

“
Get your ass back into that Kinkos. Now!”

“
But my wallet is in the car. I need...”

“
Screw what the fuck you need. I need your cooperation to keep the body count in Philadelphia from rising a notch or five. Whatever you need better not hinder you from getting that room. I know that much. Get the hotel room and then you may move your car.”

Click!

My mind raced. He could see me. My car would be towed if it stayed on Market. My wallet was in there and I had no cash on me, nor a checkbook.

I walked back into the Kinkos to get out of the man’s sight. He had to have been in a room at the Lowes Hotel overlooking Market Street. I really had no idea where he was. He could have been a Kinkos employee as far as I knew.

My mind replayed the message: Be sure that your room overlooks Market Street.

He wanted to watch me from the other hotel using binoculars. I was in a grave quandary and my life, amongst my loved ones, hung in the balance. I charged frantically through the Kinkos and went through the opposite door and was in the lobby of the Marriott. I walked around the empty, circular lounge area and passed the check in/out counters. I found the valet stand, hoping one of the guys that I nodded to regularly was on duty. They were not, so I had to become a conniving man to deal with the man’s orders.

“
Excuse me,” I said politely to the valet guy.

I was not calm, but I forced my body not to showcase my shaking.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
I have a BMW 750LI parked on Market Street. Could you collect it while I check in? I don’t want to get a ticket.”

“
Well, couldn’t you bring it around, sir? I have to stay on my post. I am the only man here tonight.”

“
No, sir, I can’t.”

“
That’s going to be a problem,” the man said and turned to his desk to find something to do.

I had other plans for him, though. “Listen. I am in a dangerous situation that I cannot discuss. Please!” I begged somberly, and showed him the message that I had printed. “Could you please get the car? Pull it around here and do not put it underground, man. Please. This is a matter of life and death.”

“
You have to tell the police.”

“
No...no. Just please get the car.”

“
Okay. Okay. What color is it?”

“
Midnight blue/black.”

I walked back through the lobby with the valet. I said to him, “Before you bring it around, please pass me my wallet.”

He looked at me plainly, but he jogged over to the car, grabbed the wallet and then brought it back to me.

I walked back into the Kinkos and went back to the computer station. I had a plan. I made a car rental reservation for myself. And then another for Dajuan and Constance. I was just thinking ahead. Getaway cars. Maybe I would be allowed a fraction of a second to warn them. As I grabbed the reservation from the printer, my eyes played a violent trick on me.

My $75,000 car was scattered all over Market Street. Flames attached to metal matter illuminated the essential Center City corridor. The Septa headquarters was directly across from the Marriott and next door to the Lowes. The front windows were blown out of each building. More importantly, the valet was no longer with us, and there was nothing left for a cremation.

CHAPTER 81

I briskly walked through the Marriott lobby. Sadness and exhaustion overwhelmed me. This was a serious inconvenience. Sure, I care about the valet, but my family was far more important. Sad, but true. No, the poor valet should not have expired that night. What made his death all the more unbearable was that a bomb was set to have me in a coffin. I should’ve been the valet.

But I wasn’t.

And someone would pay. I figured that this TRE57 character figured that I was dead.

But I wasn’t.

Ha!

Problem was the police.

I thought that they would put an APB out on me the moment they watched the tapes and saw me on camera escorting the valet across the lobby to the car. They would hopefully check the computer to see what I endured.

I wanted to call Aramis’s phone to confront the man who had blown up my car, but he may have perceived that as disrespect. After all, he was a lamebrain who had orchestrated the kidnapping of my best friend and threatened to kill my family. I was terribly shaken and confused. Even angry. I started to blame myself for not taking that blast myself, but that was absurd. I did not wish to seem ungentlemanly, but...

My cell phone rang, and I immediately answered.

“
You can’t know Ravonne Lemmelle how sorry I am,” the caller told me.

“
What? That I am alive.”

The idiot giggled. I could not stomach the gaul of this clown. “You won’t be for long.”

“
What do you want?”

“
For you to be dead!” he said simply, as if he just asked for his fries to be super-sized. He then added, “You’re always meddling. Can’t keep your arrogance to your goddamn self.”

He actually supposed that I should have. It was he who had killed the valet. It was he who had me roaming 13th Street, which, until that moment, I forgot where I was. I walked past an adult book store at Arch Street, and, at three a.m., three male prostitutes lingered outside looking for a date to get a hit of crack cocaine, I surmised. One of the freaks looked at me like I was competition. I was clean and tasty, while he drank a can of beer concealed in a brown paper bag and was noticeably dirty and tired. His knuckles were in need of a drink, also. Like a shot glass of lotion.

I pushed on and walked
beside the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It amazed me how Philadelphia’s Boys Town (like in many other cities) was perched where visitors had easy access to discrete pleasure.

“
Are you hearing me,” the man yelled into my earpiece.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Do not fucking patronize me, faggot. I know all about your subtle sarcasm.”

Again, I was speechless, but I knew that I had to stay in that conversation.

“
I do not even have an idea about what I’ve done wrong.”

“
For starters, being born,” the man confirmed for me. “Secondly, getting a law degree and then deciding to practice law. Lastly, you’ve interfered with my legacy. But you’ll fix that.”

“
Your legacy? Pardon me, but I am lost.”

“
You’ve been lost since you sucked your first dick,” he said as I crossed Cherry Street.

I walked past a few more hustlers. It was freezing out there. I donned a mink baseball jacket, lambskin gloves, and Timberlands, but the boys were in the bare minimum.

“
Why isn’t Mark Artis in prison for the rest of his life?”

Instinctively, I replied like I was in a courtroom. “His true name was Donald Marramount. I proved that he was not Mark Artis. The perpetrator of the fake kidnapping was the legendary Mr. 357, that’s why.”

And then it hit me. Tre57 was 357.

Mr. 357.

“
Thanks for the legendary status.”

I could not be on the phone with that thug. I immediately remembered the recording feature on my cell phone and activated it.

“
So, you’re upset that I got him off?”

“
Absolutely, dick breath. With him out, the feds are still looking for me. You interfered with my life, now I want to end yours.”

“
No...no...no,” I said, because that was the only thing that I could say.

I walked across Vine Street and tried to register why this man hated me. As I walked, I was still passing male whores. One of them looked like an infant prostitute. He didn’t look over 12 years old, despite being about 5’10”.

“
Yes, yes, yes. And you’ve already negated from my plan as is. Now, you face arrest for that explosion. I am sure within minutes the police will be looking for you. You better run for your life. I’ll be fair telling you that Aramis is not dead, but he is a little tied up at the moment at a very unlikely place. I am not going to get you now. I want you to run frantically for your life from the police while wondering when I am going to strike. And I am. At the precise moment that I feel like. I’ll get you. But for now, I have to make an anonymous tip to the police to be sure you’re a wanted man.”

He hung up on me.

Where the hell was Aramis tied up? Was he really dead? My mind began to replay what he had told me to get me to the Kinkos. He had said that he had an anonymous tip from someone that claimed to know who the Hope Circle murderer was. They wanted to meet me ASAP and I had to be in attendance. That was designed to blow me into pieces like the poor valet. My mind was disturbed by a Chevrolet Caprice Classic that circled me like a piranha for the second time. I could see the silhouette of a male figure, but not the characteristics.

I called Constance, who answered on the first ring.

“
Granny,” I said. “Listen carefully. Do not argue or ask questions. Just act. Get up now and have a neighbor take you to the airport this very instant. Do not take your car. Do not go in or near your car. Period! Take your cell phone. Keep it charged and take a flight to the hotel that we stayed at to celebrate my law school graduation. Check in under your only dead child’s name, and I’ll call you later.”

“
I’m on it, now,” she told me as the Caprice passed me again. “Are you and the baby okay?” she asked with love and urgency.

“
Yes, but we will be safer with you gone.”

“
Am I in...”

“
Constance, expect the worst and pray for the best, but get out of there, please.”

I hung up.

I didn’t want to lie to her. Bottom line, we were all in grave danger.

CHAPTER 82

Continuing up 13th Street, I heard sirens wail as I sent a text message to Kensan. I sent it three times to be sure that it woke him, in the event that he was in a deep sleep. I was very glad that Dajuan and I invited him to spend the night as opposed to letting him drive home drunk. I didn’t want to call my house phone or Dajuan’s phone because I had no idea if they were bugged or traced.

Before I reached Spring Garden Street, I cut through an alley and headed toward 12th Street. I wanted a taxi to pass by, but the Caprice did and slowed to a stop.

The window rolled down and I jumped. I expected a gun to come out, but all I got was a toothy gay-ass smile.

“
How big is that dick and how much?” the freak asked me.

I thought a moment before I said, “Can’t answer that cause you may be a cop. Pull onto this here little block,” I said and pointed to the corner.

He had no chance to sleep with me, but perhaps I could use him for a ride. When I reached the corner I turned and the man had parked three cars from the corner. The block was dark and occupied by a warehouse only. When I was at the driver’s side door, I signaled for him to roll down the window.

“
What you got?”