One Blood (16 page)

“
What is it?” Amir asked, anticipating the worst. Fat Pat’s reply, however, was so far out of the realm of possibilities that it took Amir a few seconds to comprehend what he’d said.

“
Come again?” Amir asked.

“
It’s th-the girl…” Fat Pat repeated. “She’s gone.”

* * * * *

Chapter Twenty-One

Monday

Location Unknown

A tickling sensation in her ear brought Karen into consciousness. With her eyes closed, she felt pressure on her chest like someone was giving her CPR. But the hands were concentrated on her breasts, not her breastbone.

A male voice attached to those hands grunted, “Damn, girl.”

His tongue probed her ear cavity as he humped her hard and fast. Karen’s pelvis convulsed in a sharp cramp.

He twitched frantically on top of her and after a few shudders rolled away.

Karen opened her eyes. She felt separated from what was happening to her body, as if it was another girl getting raped.

How did I get here? Where is here?

The charley horse galloping inside her abdomen brought her back to reality. Her lower back felt as if a migraine migrated there for the winter. She clutched and then rubbed her sore pelvis.

“
You aight, yo? Whassamatta?”

“
Cramps.” Karen exhaled as they subsided.

“
Cramps from what?”

She pointed down.

“
You fo’ real?” He moved a few spaces away. “Damn. What we gone do now?”

“
Where…am I?” The past few hours were a blur. She vaguely remembered someone talking to her, telling her to get up in harsh whispers. She remembered the smell and feel of wet grass, too. Pain and wet grass.

Where is my fucking shot? I wouldn’t be feeling this way if I had my shot…

“
I rescued you,” the voice said.

Karen rolled over, gazing upon her hero—a short, bald-headed, black kid who looked to be around her age. The word “Shorty” was written in Old English lettering on his inner forearm. “Who are you?” she asked.

“
Don’t worry bout all that. I’ma take good care of you.”

“
How did I end up here?”

The boy ignored her question and got to his feet. “You want somethin’ to drink?”

“
Is that your name on your arm?” Karen persisted.

The boy walked out of the room without answering.

Karen tried to focus. Bit by bit, snatches of memory began to return to her. Her new captor had liberated her from the small, windowless cell where the fat, sweaty black man, a.k.a. Flashlight Man, had been holding her prisoner. She’d been refused everything but the stuff in the syringe as they prepared her for the “ceremony.” Every time she tried to remember details about the ceremony, she saw she and Kristopher on the swings in their backyard beneath the curved branches of Melinda Weeps.

Karen looked around the boy’s room. It was unremarkable except for a huge gun sitting atop the dresser.

That gun is my ticket out of here.

Karen was about to reach for the gun when Shorty reappeared. “Here, drink this.” He stood over her with a dixie cup full of thick, pink liquid.

“
What is it?”

“
It’s called Lean. It’ll make you feel real good. Slow everything down a bit.”

Karen’s heart flip-flopped with excitement, the gun completely forgotten. She greedily gulped down the contents of the cup, praying it would numb her senses again. It tasted like watered down cough syrup with a kick.

Thankfully, the drug worked fast. As she lay back and closed her eyes, a plan began to form. She just had to find a way to make the boy leave.

But she couldn’t think straight; she kept nodding off. A vision of her father’s screaming face being ripped apart by a black panther forced her eyes open again.

“
I need tampons.”

“
Huh?”

“
I’m on my period, gonna bleed all over myself if I don’t get one.”

“
My moms got toilet tissue…that cool?”

“
No…is there a store…you know, around?”

“
Yeah…yeah, I’ll handle it.” He pulled on his sweats.

Karen scanned the floor for the condom she prayed he’d used. There was none in sight.

“
When I get back, we’ll figure out what to do next.”

Once the boy was completely dressed, he dug around in his closet and emerged with a roll of duct tape.

“
Sorry, bruh. I can’t trust you to stick around while I’m away,” he said as he bound Karen’s hands to the posts of his bed in a spread eagle position.

Karen didn’t resist.

“
Gots to make sure I get that reward, ya feel me?”

Karen fixated on the word “reward.” In a brief moment of clarity, as she looked at her increasingly thinning arms, the idea that her life meant something to her kidnappers hit home.

Her captor grabbed the gun off the dresser and left. Hopeless, Karen tried to maintain her high. The tears streaming down her face made it difficult, but she managed to drift off, even as her arms began tingling from the loss of circulation.

* * * * *

Chapter Twenty-Two

Monday

Angola, LA

“
Baker? Baker! I know you hear me, boy! Time to wake up. The warden wants to see you.”

Lincoln jumped at the sound of the man’s voice. He opened eyes caked with sleep and saw a redneck guard yelling at him through the cell bars.

“
What did you say?”

“
Are you deaf
and
dumb, Nigger? The warden wants to see you. Now. Let’s go.”

Lincoln stretched. “What time is it?”

“
Time to get yo’ black ass over to these here bars and ‘sume the position.”

After securing the handcuffs—every prisoner’s least favorite accessory—the guard yelled down the corridor. A moment later, Lincoln and the guard were only separated by air and opportunity. Lincoln held a happy vision of slitting the man’s throat with a used razor blade. He smiled at the balding, pudgy, white man before him.

“
What does the warden want to see me for? I’ve got to pack up my stuff. You know I’m fin to get out today.”

The guard told him to shut up and yanked him out of the cell.

Walking down the corridor of Camp J, Lincoln looked into the cells of the other lifers waking up to another day on the block. They all had variations of the same story. To outsiders, twenty-three hour lockdown might seem unbearable, but to the prisoners of Camp J, there was a worse alternative. They could be at the injection center waiting for the poisonous kiss of the needle.

Moments later, Lincoln walked out into the humid Louisiana morning. As his eyes adjusted to the morning light, he smiled broadly. He usually only got to spend three hours outside per week.

When I get outta here I’m gonna sleep outside for a whole month! That’ll be the life!

Lincoln got into the backseat of the patrol car and rested his head against the window, watching the other inmates trudging out for another day of work in the fields. He managed to get one hand inside his jeans pocket and fished out the crinkled photograph he carried with him at all times. Staring at the old picture of Juanita, given to him some years ago by Amir, he felt a mixture of anger and hope. Anger because she died before they could meet, and hope that he could do her memory justice upon his release. They had the same eyebrows, nose, chin, and mouth. And now they had the same dream. Revenge.

* * * * *

Amidst his collection of wallpaper was an article Amir sent him a few days after their initial introduction. Lincoln requested proof of Amir’s authenticity and Amir had produced a worn article from 1973. The article accused a woman, Juanita Simmons, of killing her husband—the first black mayor of Lake City—and his secretary.

The assassinated mayor’s name was Walter Simmons. Amir had circled his name and written
YOUR DAD
in the margin. Lincoln couldn’t believe that the park he had played, grown-up, and killed on—Simmons Park— was named after his biological father.

At the end of the article Amir had written the phrase,
MOM WAS FRAMED
.

Panama X filled in the rest of the blanks, telling him about the man responsible for Lincoln’s loneliness, pain, and suffering over the years. The man who’d robbed him of the chance at a better life. The man who had built an empire on the decayed bones of his father.

Listening to X, it all clicked for Lincoln. He immediately began to read anything and everything he could get his hands on about Randy Lafitte. The more he learned about his enemy, the more he fantasized about the day when he would confront him and make him feel pain like he’d never known. He didn’t know if it was “his destiny,” like Panama X always said, but he was committed to vengeance, consequences be damned. First step: get out of Angola. Second step: get to Lafitte. Third step: kill him.

Then improvise the rest.

* * * * *

The car pulled up to the prison administrative office, but instead of stopping, the guard drove around to the back of the building.

“
What the fuck is goin’ on?” Lincoln asked.

The guard ignored him.

“
I’m axin’ you a ques—” Lincoln swallowed the rest of his sentence as the guard turned around brandishing his bully club.

“
The warden told me to give you this.”

Lincoln started to protest, but a bully club to the temple shut him up. All he saw was a flash of light before his world turned black.

* * * * *

Chapter Twenty-Three

Monday

Lake City, LA

“
I’m comin’,” Brandon Mouton shouted at the front door. “Quit ringin’ the friggin’ doorbell, would’ja?” Brandon shuffled from his bedroom to answer the buzzer. After fumbling for a minute with the three locks on the door, he opened it with a jingle from the cowbell tied around the handle. The early morning sunlight burst into the dark cave of the modest house, blinding Brandon and illuminating a narrow hallway with brown tile floors.

Brandon rubbed his eyes until they adjusted to the morning sun. Then he recognized the short, bald-headed kid on the other side of the locked screen door.

“
Whassup, Shorty?” Brandon opened the screen door and greeted his homeboy with a pound handshake and a half hug.

“
What it do?” Shorty replied. “When you get back to the L.C.?”

“
Late last night. The trip was off tha slab! We won the tournament and guess who got that MVP?”

“
Yeah?” Shorty grinned. “That’s cool. Real cool. Proud of you man.”

“
Thanks. So what’s up? I know you didn’t wake my ass up to talk basketball.”

Shorty lifted his wife-beater slightly, revealing the unmistakable black grip of a Glock .357. He was no longer grinning as he said, “I need your help, bruh. You gonna let me in?”

Brandon suddenly wished he hadn’t gotten out of bed. He looked up and down the street trying to think fast. An old, burgundy Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight turned the corner in front of his house.

“
Come on,” Brandon interrupted, feeling exposed. He gestured for Shorty to enter.

Once they got to his bedroom, Brandon sat down on the bed. “Aight Shorty, what we got to talk about?”

“
Man, you shoulda seen yo’ face when you saw my piece. Looked like a scared little beeyatch.”

“
Why you walkin’ around in the street with that goddamn gun anyway, Shorty?”

“
Why else? It’s for protection.” Shorty reached into the small refrigerator on the floor of Brandon’s closet and took out a Coke.

“
Protection from who?”

Shorty got quiet and then said, “I found somethin’. Somethin’ important.”

“
You gonna tell me what it is?”

“
I’ll tell you what it’s about.” Shorty rummaged through his backpack and Brandon could have sworn he saw what looked like a box of Playtex tampons. Seconds later, Shorty handed Brandon the newspaper.

“
You seen this yet?”

Brandon read the headline glaring back at him from that morning’s Lake City Advocate: “Governor Lafitte to Grant Lincoln Baker a Full Pardon.” He had tried so hard to shut out the memories of that awful day at Simmons Park. He could barely stand to look at the picture of Lincoln. Long gone were the days of looking up to his older brother, the basketball superstar-turned-murderer.

Why did you do it, Link?