No More Mr. Nice Guy (30 page)

Once Jonathan left, I sized up the situation, realizing that if I was ever going to get out of there, it was now or never. Frank and Lance were basically flunkies who wouldn't know their heads from their assholes without someone like Jonathan to lead them around.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. Just like I had expected they would, they stared at each other, neither knowing what to do with this information.

So I pushed a little harder. “Please. I have to go, unless you want me to piss and shit on myself. That's not going to be pleasant for whoever has to ride over to the suite with me and clean up the mess.”

“Fine. But do not try anything,” Frank said, trying to sound threatening. I could take him, win, and not even mess up my hair.

He turned to Lance, acting authoritarian. “Pat her down,” he snapped gruffly, like an actor in a cop movie.

Lance looked at me like I was contagious or something. How these assholes had made it this far in the organization was a mystery.

He started whining to Frank. “I patted her down before. She's not carrying anything.”

Frank obviously did not want to be questioned in front of me. “Just do it,” he barked with enough bass in his voice that Lance jumped to attention. He patted me down, and I wanted to kick him in the balls when he lingered a little too long on my backside.

“She's good,” he told Frank.

“So take her over to the bathroom, then,” he answered.

In front of the bathroom door, I held up my hands, which were still in restraints. “Um, can I get a little help here? Unless you want to come in and wipe my ass when I'm done.”

Lance scrunched up his nose like the idea sickened him. He looked to Frank for permission to release the restraints.

“Go ahead,” Frank said, cocking his gun as he warned me, “Don't try nothing funny.” He followed behind us as they took me up the stairs to the bathroom.

Inside the dirty, windowless room, I unsnapped my bra and let the left flap fall. Right there in the seam there was a hole, where I had slid the row of poisonous tags. I took out a few, tucked them in my sleeve, and slid the rest back in their hiding place. Men always underestimated women, even the ones who killed for a living. Did they think I wouldn't have a plan?

When I stepped out of the bathroom, both idiots were lurking outside the door, waiting for me. It just made my job all that much easier to accomplish. I reached out a hand to each of them and said, “You mind helping me back to my chair? I'm kinda weak after being tied up for so many days.”

Lance didn't hesitate for a second to move in against me on one side. Frank did it begrudgingly, but he also let me put an arm around his shoulder and lean against him for support as I fake-stumbled back to my dungeon.

“Can't you move any faster?” Frank complained. I was moving as slowly as I could get away with, because I wanted the poison to take effect before they had a chance to tie me up again. They came to a stop, opening the basement door. It had been about three minutes since I'd tagged them, and I was getting worried that they still seemed fine.

“I don't feel too good.” Frank spoke first.

“Me either,” Lance chimed in.

These two were so stupid that neither one seemed to have a clue what was going on. Finally it must have dawned on Frank, but by then it didn't matter.

“How did you . . .?” were the last words Frank spoke before he fell to the ground helplessly. Poor Lance raised his weapon, or at least tried to, but unfortunately for him, his faculties were compromised.

Locating the keys, I removed my cuffs and ran out of the house, squinting my eyes against the sunlight that I hadn't seen in days as I looked around to get my bearings. The house that I'd been in was surrounded by trees, but I could hear cars not too far away, so I started running in that direction. I couldn't risk taking the car that was parked out front, because Jonathan would definitely be tracking it through the GPS system once he figured out that Frank and Lance had failed to execute me.

Shortly after I found my way to the road, I saw a truck headed toward me. I ran out into the roadway, waving my arms wildly, because I knew this might be my only chance to escape. The truck slowed to a stop, and the female driver rolled down the window.

“Honey, you need a ride?” she asked.

“Yes, please!” I said, sounding as frantic as I felt. “You going anywhere near the city?”

“Sure am,” she answered, and I climbed into her truck.

“Where exactly are we?” I asked.

“Stanford, Connecticut.” She took a good look at me, concern evident on her face. “You okay? You look like you had a hard night. Have a fight with your old man?”

“Something like that,” I muttered, letting her believe whatever she wanted.

“Fuckin' men!” she said. I just nodded in agreement. I wasn't really capable of holding a conversation at the moment. I closed my eyes and prayed that this trucker drove fast so I could get back into the city before it was too late to stop Jonathan from getting to Niles.

“You a'ight?” Li'l Frog asked me for the hundredth time as he guarded me. He tried to act tough, but I knew he was really just a fatherless kid looking for some direction from a male figure. Unfortunately, Majestic and his crazy-ass sidekick Bruce had decided to take Li'l Frog under their wings, so he did whatever they told him to do, but he seemed to have at least a little bit of a heart.

Majestic, on the other hand, had an empty black hole where his heart should have been. It didn't matter that I was the mother of his child. If he hadn't gotten a call from Bruce telling him that they knew where Niles lived, then he would have killed me. Now I was here with Li'l Frog, like a sitting duck waiting for the hunter to come back and blast me. I decided to use Li'l Frog's weakness to try to escape.

“Yeah, I'm okay, I guess. Thanks for asking. I'm kinda hungry, though.”

His eyes went wide. “You want to eat? I'm surprised your stomach can handle it after the beating Majestic put on your ass. That nigga's crazy,” he said, sounding almost proud of the level of his boss's depravity.

I waved my hand, continuing to act unfazed, even though he was right; I really was sick to my stomach. “Please, you think this is bad? You should have been here the last time I cheated on him.” I laughed a little. “I'm his son's mother. It ain't like he's gonna kill me or nothing.”

“If you say so, Keisha,” Li'l Frog responded. “That dude you was messin' with, though. He got some serious problems. He ain't gonna be breathin' too much longer.”

I fought back the bile that rose in my throat at the thought of Majestic murdering Niles, because I couldn't let Li'l Frog know my true feelings. I had to continue my performance if I was going to get out of there and save myself, and maybe even Niles.

“Yeah, sucks for him, huh? So anyway, you want something to eat, Frog? I'm gonna go in the kitchen and see what Majestic got,” I said.

“Yeah, you can make me something,” he replied as he sat down and started watching the game on the TV.

In the kitchen, my first thought was to just run straight out the kitchen door, but Majestic lived on this crazy-ass hill ten miles from my house. It wouldn't have been hard at all for Li'l Frog to track me down. So instead, I searched every kitchen drawer, trying to locate the spare keys to one of the cars. I held back a little squeal of joy when I finally located them.

Next I had to figure out a way to distract Li'l Frog so I could get out to the car. I banged around some pots and pans so he would think I was cooking as I formulated a plan. Then the answer hit me. There was one easy and obvious way to distract someone young and gullible like Li'l Frog: sex.

Thank God Majestic hadn't taken away my cell phone before he left. I pulled it out and dialed my girl Denise. I wasn't really close to her like I was with Tanya, but Denise was the kind of girl who would do anything for the right price.

“Dee, I need a favor,” I whispered into the phone, my heart racing.

She laughed. “Girl, you know if you want to creep, I'm your backup.”

“Uh, yeah, cool,” I said, my mind formulating a plan as we spoke. “I need you to come over Majestic's and give Li'l Frog a blow job. It has to be right now, and I need you to take him down in the basement.”

“Keisha!” Her voice thundered on the other end. “You know I'm not doing that no more. 'Sides, his ass is so cheap. Last time I fucked him, I asked him to take me to get something to eat, and he took me to fucking White Castle. Hell, nah. I ain't messing with that type of dick no more.”

I tried appealing to her sisterhood. “Please, D. I really need you. Majestic made him my babysitter, and I need you to help me get outta here. You know how that go.”

She still wasn't convinced. “I don't know . . .”

So I went for her sweet spot. “I'll pay you a hundred.”

“Well, don't let me get in the way of my sister getting no good dick,” she answered crassly. “But I want two hundred.”

“Done. Now get your ass over here—and don't block the driveway.”

It really helps to know your friends
, I thought. Had I told her what was really going on, she wouldn't have wanted no part of it, but if it was about me fucking, then Denise was down to help me.

Just as I hung up, Li'l Frog walked in. “What's up with that food?”

I walked over to the freezer and took out a frozen pizza. “I was gonna make some sandwiches but he ain't got no cold cuts. You want some pizza instead?”

“Sure,” he said. “I'm gonna go finish watching the game.”

“Okay,” I answered, feeling like my heart was going to burst right out of my chest. “I'm going to pop these in the oven and go upstairs and change my shirt. He got blood on it.”

Li'l Frog didn't reply. He just walked back into the den to watch the game.

I threw the pizzas in the oven then made my way upstairs to Majestic's bedroom. Some people might call me crazy for what I was about to do, but hell, he was going to kill me anyway because of Niles. Even if he caught me, he couldn't kill me twice. So, I went into the closet where he kept his safe, and entered MJ's birthday on the keypad. Thank God he hadn't changed the code since the last time he sent me in there to get something out of it, back in the days when he trusted me.

What I was doing scared the shit out of me, but I had a son to take care of, and once I left this house, I was going to be the most wanted woman in Long Island, possibly the whole state. I wasn't going to get far if I didn't have some money to take me there. I threw five large bricks of cash into a pillowcase, closed the safe, and rushed back down to the kitchen.

“Yo, when's that pizza gonna be done?” Li'l Frog yelled from the den.

“About ten more minutes,” I answered, stuffing the pillowcase in the pantry out of view.

I paced around the kitchen nervously until the pizza was done, and then I carried the plate to Li'l Frog in the den.

“Here you go,” I said as I set it in front of him.

He looked up at me. “Yo, I thought you was gonna change out of that bloody shirt. That shit is nasty.”

“Yeah, I guess Majestic must be really mad this time, 'cause he got rid of all the clothes I used to keep up there,” I answered, feeling weak in the knees from fear.

“Damn, you fucked up this time for sure, girl,” he said, laughing at me.

I shrugged. “You want something to drink?”

“Yeah, get me a beer or something.”

I turned to go get his drink, and I nearly collapsed from relief when the doorbell rang. Li'l Frog got up to answer the door, and I heard him talking to Denise as I headed back to the kitchen.

Say what you want about Denise being a ho, but that girl sure knew how to make them brothers come back for more. By the time I started heading back into the den a few minutes later to bring Li'l Frog his drink, she was already half naked and dragging him toward the basement.

“Come on, Frog,” she said playfully. Let's go downstairs and do it on the pool table.”

He reached out and smacked her ass. “Yeah, girl, I'm gonna show you a set of balls, all right.”

Denise turned around and closed the basement door behind her, and I made my move. On my way to the kitchen, I grabbed the pillowcase out of the pantry, then went into the garage and jumped into Majestic's Mercedes.

I drove like a bat out of hell to get to my house. I wanted to pack a bag for me and MJ, go get my son from school, then get the fuck out of Wyandanch for good. On the way, I tried to call Niles to warn him, but he didn't pick up the phone.

I was so glad that MJ was at school and not at the house with my mother. If I had to try to get him out of the house, she would fight me. No matter how many times Majestic beat me, she was only ever worried about losing her meal ticket. How was I going to convince her that this time, if she didn't let us go, this would be the time he killed me? Shit, he was so crazy, I couldn't even be sure MJ was safe from him anymore. The whole ride, I was already having an argument with my mother in my head.

I ran into the house and headed straight for my bedroom, where I threw together enough clothes for a few days. Then I put together a bag for MJ, including a couple of his superhero figurines. It broke my heart to think about how scary this was all going to be for my baby. When I finished packing, I took a deep breath and prepared myself to go talk to my mother. For a split second, I thought about leaving without even saying anything to her, but no matter how cold she was, she was still my mother. Beneath it all, I at least I knew she loved MJ, so I thought she deserved to know that she wouldn't be seeing us again.

“Ma,” I said as I pushed open her bedroom door. She was lying under the covers in a really uncomfortable-looking position. How the hell could she sleep like that? I wondered. Not to mention the fact that it was past noon. She didn't usually sleep so late.

“Ma, you sick?” I asked as I went closer to the bed. She didn't move, so I put a hand on her shoulder to turn her toward me. She was ice cold, and when I nudged her body, her head flopped to the side in a completely unnatural position.

I let out a scream. My mother was dead, her neck snapped by someone as she was lying there in her own bed.

“Oh, God! Ma! Oh my God!” I felt myself reaching a state of hysteria as I screamed and bawled, but then my survival mode kicked in. I raced into my room and grabbed the bags I'd packed then ran out in the driveway. By the time I got to the car, my insides exploded and I threw up all over the driveway.

I jumped into the car and sped away with only one thing on my mind. I had to get to MJ's school before Majestic found out that I was missing.

* * *

“Mommy, where are we going?” MJ asked me as he played with his superhero toys in the back seat. I'd never pulled him out of class before. I'd told the school that we had a family emergency, but I tried to play it off as if everything was fine in front of MJ when he came down to the school office to leave. I couldn't risk falling apart in that office. The way I was feeling, they would have called an ambulance to take me away to a mental hospital for sure.

“Far away, baby. We're going far away,” I said as I got on the highway heading God knows where.