Real Wifeys: Get Money (24 page)

“Please, Daddy,” I pleaded over my shoulder.

I begged because in that moment a little piece of me was that six-year-old girl who felt like, where was her daddy to protect her that night.
Why wasn’t my daddy there for me?

And maybe now I understood my rebellion and resentment of them all these years came from that one question.
Why wasn’t my daddy there for me?

I was so afraid that his anger and shame about me being arrested would make him step back in the house and close the door.
Be there for me now.

I looked over my shoulder. “Daddy,
please.
”

Detective Dick laughed. “Looks like its just you and me, you cunt,” he whispered to me.

“They have your badge number, so no stops,” was all that I said.

He pushed me inside the back of the car and slammed the door. I looked through the glass at my parents still standing on that porch. Not moving to do as I begged. My heart broke into a million pieces as I dropped my head against the back of the seat as the police car pulled away.

I
sat in that room with its desk and two empty chairs and smoked the cigarette a female detective gave me. My legs were crossed, my foot swinging, my eyes locked on the mirror across from me. I’d seen enough cop shows to know they were either watching me through a two-way mirror or via a video camera.

I drummed my nails on the table top, pretending I was in total control of being in one of the interview rooms of a New York precinct. But for real, I was trying to wrap my brain around my life. Trying to figure all this shit out. Trying not to be afraid of doing time. Trying not to ache because once again my father wasn’t there for me. Trying not to beat myself up for not at least videotaping one of the freak sessions since the man I now knew as Detective Jon Rossi was going to deny the whole thing. Of course. And to top it all, still trying to come to grips with being molested by the father of my childhood best friend/my parents’ neighbor and friend.

The one thing I did know for sure, even as I looked around at the walls and the locked door, was that tonight—for the first time in a long time—I was free. I’d rather have sat in jail than let myself be degraded and used by a dirty cop anymore. I’d rather remember my past instead of having it eat away at me and not even know why.

I released a heavy-ass breath. Thank God the sixty grand or better sitting in my bank account meant I could say a big “fuck you” to the overworked and underpaid public defender’s office. But I hadn’t even asked for an attorney yet.

The door opened. Detective Rossi, aka Detective Dick, and a black female detective entered the room. The sight of him turned my stomach and I let my eyes drift down to his crotch. I lifted my pinkie and wiggled it at him before I laughed. His neck and face turned red beneath his spray tan.

“Something funny about being arrested for drug charges, Miss Jordan?” the female detective asked, her voice sounding like she lived on cigarettes and emphysema medication.

I didn’t say shit, but I stopped laughing. It was time for business. “Thank you for speaking with me,” I started. “The only thing I have to say is that for the last two weeks, Detective Dick—oops, I mean Detective Rossi—and I have been involved in a sexual relationship—”

He jumped to his feet and slammed his hands against the top of the table. “You liar!”

I rolled my eyes at him and shifted them to the female detective. “As I was saying. We were involved in a perverted, disgusting sexual relationship involving fetishes and foolishness that was completely of his instigation, control, and pleasure because he used his power as a detective for the New York Police Department against me.”

“You lying bitch!” The veins in his neck strained and his eyes bugged.

“He has a hairy mole in the crack of his ass,” I added, holding up my hands and making a face like “hey.”

The female detective jumped up and pressed her hand to his heaving chest. “Calm down, Jon,” she said, her voice all strong as she pushed him toward the door.

I eyed him and I let all the disgust I had for him, Mr. Alvarez, my father, Make$, and Goldie burn into him. I was sick of these fools handling me. Hurting me. I didn’t deserve this shit. None of it.

“Now, I would like to make that statement and
only
that statement. I have nothing else to say until my attorney arrives,” I finished, pressing my lips together and leaning back in my chair.

She pushed him out the door and I was back in that room alone. Locked in. Left with my thoughts. I finished the cigarette and dropped the butt to the floor to crush beneath the toe of my gold wedges. I ran my fingers through my hair and closed my eyes as all that shit came crashing down on me. Weighing my shoulders down. Mind-fucking me.

Would I have enough gwap to make bail
and
get a good attorney?

Would Mr. Alvarez call the police on me and then I’d be facing assault charges, too? Hell, was Mr. Alvarez’s no-good ass still alive?

What were my parents thinking?

Why wasn’t my daddy there for me?

I pressed my eyes closed with my fingertips to keep the tears from falling. That shit hurt more than anything.

A uniformed cop came into the room to take me back to the holding cell. I took a seat on the bench, not even paying attention to the two other chicks in there with me. I closed my eyes, leaned back against the wall, and crossed my legs at the ankle, wishing like a motherfucker that I was in my apartment minding my own.

I nodded off at some point and didn’t wake up until my head fell forward. I woke up with a start and for a second I was home in my bed. But then that second passed and reality struck like a motherfucker. I sat up straight, frowning at the taste of sleep in my mouth.

It was the first night I didn’t have that dream. Damn shame when you get the best night of sleep in weeks in a jail cell. Ain’t that some shit?

I stood up and tried to shake some of the wrinkles from my dress. I used my fingers to comb the few tangles from my weave before I twisted the long ends into a knot. I licked my fingertips and wiped under my eyes and around my mouth for any makeup that smudged. I hoped I was going for my bail hearing early. I wanted out of this bitch before they sent me to county.

Yes, I went to the shooting range, owned a gun, and even pulled that mug on three men in the last couple of months, but I was no type of hard-nosed gangstress. I wanted out. I didn’t have a record. To me, the charges wasn’t
that
serious. I had to get a low bail, right?

I wasn’t ever somebody to live in church on Sundays. Sometimes I would let the TV sit on Joel Osteen or T. D. Jakes when they came on on Sundays, but right then I knew I needed to get down on my knees and pray.

Hell, I been on them for way worse than a talk with God.

I eyed the dirty floor and sat down instead, knowing the Heavenly One could hear me just as fine on my ass as He could on my knees. I crossed my fingers and bent my head.

“God please get me out of this. You know my heart. You see all. You know what all I been fighting. Please let me carry my black ass home and I swear I—”

“Jordan,” someone called out.

My eyes popped open.
Shee-it, God don’t play.

I jumped to my feet. The black female detective from yesterday opened the cell. I couldn’t remember her name. “It’s time for my bail hearing?” I asked.

“No, you’re outta here. The charges were dropped.”

PAUSE.

“What?” I asked, rushing to follow behind her.

“You heard me,” she said.

I started to dougie in that bitch, but I stopped in the hall leading to another door. “Why? This not no setup because I told on your partner is it?” I asked.

Was they gone set me free and then wait and set me up to be shot or some shit like I was trying to escape? I watched enough TV not to trust a damn thing concerning a lot of cops. Especially a dirty pervert like Detective Dick.

She turned and eyed me like I was crazy. “You’re free. Just get the fuck outta here,” she snapped, holding the door open.

Did her and Detective Dick make the charges go away to keep me from getting him in trouble for the shit he did to me? Was she helping that fool?

I made my way past her, but I stopped and looked into her eyes. “He really did that to me, you know,” I told her, blinking away tears. “Just please believe that you need to be careful with somebody like that watching your back on these streets, mama. For real.”

She didn’t say nothing else to me and so I just made my way to the desk sergeant to pick up my property and get the fuck out of there just like she suggested.

I didn’t even bother to call Eve and Michel to come and pick me up from New York. I called a car service and waited outside the police station for it. I knew I looked a mess in my wrinkled dress and barely combed hair.

As soon as I powered my cell phone on it went to vibrating.

I started answering the calls and ending them quick. No need to lie; I was too ashamed for getting locked up. It was time for some damage control.

Eve.

“Oh shit, you out. Me and Michel were coming to meet the attorney to go to court with you.”

“The charges got dropped,” I said, actually feeling the urge to hit a blunt. Just a little something to take the edge off—or get me off the edge. What the fuck ever.

“What
was
the charges?”

Nosy ass. “They mistook me for somebody else. No biggie. I’m out and about to take a car service back to Jersey,” I told her.

“You should sue.
I
would sue they asses and sit back lovely as hell for making me sit up in jail all damn night,” Eve said, taking a deep breath when she got done.

“I’ll call you when I get back to Jersey. I got another call, a’ight?” I hung up because that breath she took meant she was getting ready to have a long conversation. Nothing.

Click.

Michel.

“Michel. I’m out. I’m straight. Mistaken identity. Call Eve. She got the details. I got another call. Cool?”

Click.

Missy.

“Hi Luscious. You good?” she asked.

I gave her the same speech I gave the other two and soon it was on to the next call.

Click.

My snitch.

“Girl, you not going to believe this shit,” she said.

My words died as I watched Detective Dick/Rossi walking up the street. He spotted me and I saw his hands clench and unclench at his sides.

A Lincoln Town Car pulled up and I rushed to the curb and waved it down. “This for Luscious Jordan?” I asked as soon as the bearded driver lowered the window.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a Caribbean accent.

I climbed in the back and slammed the door closed, not even looking in Detective Rossi’s direction as the car pulled off.

“Luscious, did you hear me?”

“What?” I asked, leaning back against the seat.

“I said I know you gone hate that like you owe Goldie a favor.”

I sat up straight. My heart stopped beating all together. “Why?” I snapped, drawing the eyes of the driver in the rearview mirror.

I forced myself to lean back against the seat and relax.

“Word around the whorehouse is Goldie pulled some connection from her list of clients and got the charges dropped against you,” she said.

“Yeah, right,” I said, squinting my eyes as my thoughts raced.

“That’s what I said,” she said. “Goldie got you off those drug charges and that video of you is a done dada.”

I ended the call and didn’t say goodbye. Shock has a way of snatching away fucking manners.

I frowned as my eyes shifted back and forth. Goldie? I shook my head. “What the fuck is she up to?” I asked myself, hating feeling like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I gave the driver his fee and a tip before he came around to open the rear door for me. “Thank you,” I said, looking at both my parents’ and Mr. Alvarez’s house sitting side by side. I just wanted to get my car and get the fuck away from both of them and everybody in them.

“Have a good one,” the driver said, before jogging around to climb into his car and drive away.

I walked over to my car and dug my hand in my pocketbook. It took me a minute to remember I gave the keys to my mother. “Damn,” I said, resting my elbow on the hood of the car. The heat of the metal burned and I lifted off it quick, still eyeing my parents’ house and hating that I had to get my keys.

Pulling the handles of my pocketbook up on my bare shoulder, I knuckled up to just get the shit over with. I’d rather have dragged my naked ass across dog shit, though. For real.

I rang the doorbell and fidgeted like a kid.

The door opened and my mother stood there. “Harriet,” she said, her face filling with surprise.