Up to No Good (28 page)

Two bouncers raced out of the restaurant and pulled the date off the valet. “Oh, this gets better,” I said out loud.

For a moment, it looked like the bouncers were going to hold him there until the police came, but they let him go after he calmed down and started talking to them. Keisha joined the conversation, probably telling them all about my phone call. Pretty soon, even the valet attendant looked like he felt bad for Keisha’s date. As she spoke, they checked out the scratches, shaking their heads and glancing around them. I was sure they
were looking for me, like I ’d be stupid enough to lurk in nearby bushes or something.

I was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down my face. Maybe Keisha had finally learned her lesson.

“Hell yeah. I’m getting a device. I’m gonna track that Negro everywhere he goes. Somebody gonna be a sucker, but it damn sure ain’t gonna be me.” I laughed out loud to myself before clicking on the BUY arrow.

After my failed attempt at following Louis, I ’d done some research and learned that GPS devices were not only affordable, but wireless and battery operated. Hell, I could even put it on my father’s credit card and call it a business expense, ’cause as far as I was concerned, I meant business. Daddy wouldn’t mind paying anyway; he wouldn’t want some man taking advantage of his daughter. Besides, he was too busy screwing my so-called friend these days to even notice.

If I ever caught Louis, I could just imagine the look he’d have on his face, trying to explain to my daddy that he was innocent. But his words would fall on deaf ears. My father had probably invented most of the excuses, so there was no way he’d be fooled by any lie Louis could come up with. In fact, if my father wasn’t so wrapped up with his new woman, I could have talked to him about all the evidence I ’d found, and he’d probably already have the whole thing solved for me.

I was so busy daydreaming about Daddy leaving Sandra and coming to my rescue that I didn’t hear the front door of the real estate office open. I only looked up when I noticed a shadow. Standing in front of my desk, staring at me, was that skanky ho Keisha.

Her face looked pretty much the same, and she had lost some weight, but her wardrobe had completely changed. I guess now that the wedding was off, she’d decided to let her true inner ho come out. She used to wear “good-girl clothes” from Gap and Abercrombie, but now it looked like girlfriend had hit the straight-up tramp rack at Forever 21. Her breasts were all but spilling out of some tight polyester knit top, and her booty was hugged up in some stretch jeans that were so tight you could see every dimple in her ass. What my brother ever saw in this hooker, I have no idea. She sure didn’t look like nobody’s wife. This wench was no more than a booty-call girl all the way.

“I’m here to see your father.” She tried to act all serious, like I was supposed to step out of the way and lead her to Daddy’s office.

I gave her a disinterested look and took a sip of my Starbucks caramel macchiato. “He’s not here. He’s at a doctor’s appointment.” I turned back to my computer to complete my Internet order.

“Look, I need to see him. Your brother Darnel done lost his mind.”

Oh, I know she didn’t just come in here talking about my family!
I shot her a nasty look.

“He’s stalking me!” She tripped all dramatic like I gave a damn.

“Look, your cheap ass deserves whatever you get.” I stood up so we were at eye level. “Now, if you don’t mind, I got work to do, so why don’t you carry your ass on out of here.”

“If y’all can’t stop Darnel from acting crazy, I’m gonna have to call the police.” Maybe she thought she could bully me into listening to her crap about my brother, but I called her bluff.

I grabbed the phone off the cradle. “Here. Use my phone. Call the cops; call whoever. Just don’t think you’re gonna come in here and tell me about my brother when you’re the nasty-ass ho who screwed his best friend.”

She flinched a little, and I could tell my words had hurt. “You don’t understand. Darnel has lost his mind. He followed me to a restaurant and spied on me while I was having dinner with a friend.”

“Please. How the hell you know he was spying on you?”

“He called my phone while we were eating and told me he was watching.”

I have to admit, if she was telling the truth, it did concern me a little bit. What the hell was Darnel watching her for? But then again, maybe it was no big deal. I mean, it wasn’t really any different than me following Louis the other day, was it? Except that Louis and I were a couple, and I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my relationship. It isn’t stalking if you’re in a relationship with the person, but Keisha was no longer Darnel’s woman. Was he really stalking this girl?

Oh hell, even if he was, I wasn’t about to do anything to help her ass.

“Keisha, why are you telling me this?”

She didn’t answer my question but instead kept ranting and raving. “He keyed my friend’s car outside the restaurant.”

“Hmmm, and did this ‘friend’ happen to be male?” I asked sarcastically.

It slowed her roll, but only for a second. “Yeah, he was male, but so what? That don’t give Darnel any right to ruin the man’s Range Rover.”

“First of all, I don’t know that he did anything to your friend’s Range Rover. Secondly, my brother might be a little jealous. So what? Not too long ago, you were supposed to be walking down the aisle with him. You broke his heart. Far as I’m concerned, that gives him the right to be a little jealous.”

“A little jealous! He got my answering machine code and broke up a close friendship of mine by using a message he heard.”

“Shoot, there must have been something in that message that your friend didn’t like. I can probably guess what that was about.”

Again, I stunned her silent for a second. Keisha knew I didn’t like her, but I think she still expected me to react differently to the things she was telling me. If she were anyone else, I might have had more sympathy, but this woman wasn’t getting a drop of it from me.

“He sent naked pictures of me to all my friends.”

I sat back down, because this chick wasn’t worth me standing. “Why were you stupid enough to let a man take naked pictures of you in the first place?” Like I said, no sympathy from me.

She shed a few tears, but knowing her, they were probably fake. “He’s crazy, Jamie. You gotta believe me.”

“Keisha, you reap what you sow, and your ass deserves a whole lot worse.”

“He’s going to jail if he keeps this up. Is that what you want?”

“I want you to stay the fuck away from my brother.”

“But I’m not the one stalking him!”

“You must be doing something … waving that skank ass up in his face. I don’t care if Darnel sits on your front steps and tells everybody who passes what a nasty, lying tramp you are. You ruined my brother’s life, so you deserve whatever the hell he decides is proper repayment for the pain you caused him.”

“You don’t get it, Jamie. It isn’t some revenge thing he’s doing. It’s sick
Fatal Attraction
shit. It’s not funny and it’s not just mean. It’s crazy.”

“Bitch, you’re crazy. Crazy if you think that my brother doesn’t deserve somebody a whole lot better than you.”

“So you don’t give a damn if Darnel goes to jail? The stuff he’s doing is scary. He’s not dealing with a full deck, and if you won’t listen, then I’ll just wait and talk to your father.”

“My father knows what a ho you are. He ain’t gonna believe a damn thing you say.”

“This ain’t about what happened before the wedding. You and your father don’t have to like me. But you have to do something about Darnel. Your brother ain’t right, Jamie.”

I was getting tired of hearing her talk about my brother. “Yeah, well, neither are you.” I got up again and stepped from around my desk.

“You’re gonna be sorry you didn’t listen to me. This could end up tragic.”

“Get outta my office or it’s gonna really end up tragic—for you! My family don’t want nothing to do with you. Go find some other fool to marry you, you tramp.”

Keisha stomped out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

I almost got up and ran after her to punch her in the
face, but I didn’t have time for that shit. I had to finish searching this Web site to see if there was any more spy equipment I could order.

Hmm … maybe a wiretapping device would come in handy. I wonder if they work on cell phones.

“Well, Doc, what’s the word?” I asked, trying to sound casual even though my heart was pounding in my chest. I ’d had the needle biopsy performed and was back in the doctor’s office to get the results. Before the test, he had described a few of the possible things they might find, some of which could simply be cleared up with the right prescription. Others were much more serious. Of course, I was hoping it was one of the more minor things, but when he spoke, he delivered the worst possible news.

“James, you’ve got cancer.”

Those four words struck as much terror in my heart as if a missile had gone straight through me, but as I looked at Dr. Martin, my general physician of the last twenty years, I could respect his direct approach. Although his bedside manner wasn’t the most tactful, I could always count on him to give it to me straight. Anyway, how could you sugarcoat this type of news?

I swallowed hard and looked directly into Dr. Martin’s eyes. He was sitting behind his mahogany desk. “How far advanced is it?”

The doctor handed me a written report. “Well, you have what we call Stage One-B lung cancer.”

I glanced down at the medical report, unable to focus on all the unfamiliar terms on the page. I put the report back in the envelope and slipped it into my jacket pocket. “What does Stage One-B mean?”

“There are four stages of cancer. Stage One-B means your tumor is still relatively small, but it’s begun to grow into the inner lining of your lung. It doesn’t look like it’s spread anywhere else.”

My stomach twisted as I imagined something growing in my lungs, eating me from the inside. “Is it treatable?”

“Yes, we’re lucky to have caught it at an early stage. Many people wait too long or don’t show symptoms, so we don’t find it until it’s too late.”

“So …” I paused, almost unable to ask the question because I was so afraid of the answer. “So, I still have a chance?”

“James, there are no guarantees, but we have better treatments now than ever before. At this stage, it’s very possible to beat this. I have every hope that you will live to a ripe old age.”

I felt my body relax slightly. I trusted Dr. Martin, and if he was saying I had a good chance, then I believed him.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“I’ll refer you to an oncologist, and he’ll probably want to get you started on radiation and chemotherapy as soon as possible to see if we can shrink the tumor that way.”

“Wait a minute. Doesn’t that stuff make you sick and make your hair fall out?”

“Yes, but it can also save your life. This isn’t the time to be vain.”

He was right, of course, but considering I was in love with a much younger woman, I didn’t exactly like the idea of harsh treatments that would probably make me age overnight. Sandra shouldn’t have to walk down the street with a man who looked old enough to be her grandfather, for God’s sake.

“Well, what about surgery?”

“The risks are much greater. If we cut you open, there is always the possibility of introducing infection into your chest cavity, which would only make things more complicated.”

He didn’t have to explain any further. As soon as he said “cut you open,” surgery stopped sounding like a good solution to me anyway. Besides, Sandra always said she didn’t care about my age. I was sure she’d support me through this no matter what I looked like. Yeah, I thought, I could probably rock a bald look.

“Well, if I was gonna get cancer anyway, I guess I could’ve kept smoking,” I said, trying to lighten my mood and ease my fears.

“No, you needed to quit.” Dr. Martin’s voice remained grim. “How long has it been since you quit?”

“I quit three or four years ago.”

“That’s good. This could have been worse if you were still a heavy smoker.”

I couldn’t imagine much worse than the diagnosis he’d just given me, but I’m sure he’d had to tell other patients there was no hope. At least there were treatments they could try for me.

He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a business card, which he handed to me. “This is one of the best oncologists in New York. I want you to give his office a call and make an appointment. I’ll have all of
your test results faxed over to his office so he can get you started with treatments as soon as possible.”

I took the card and put it in my pocket with the envelope I ’d shoved in there before. Then I stood up and shook his hand. “Well, Dr. Martin, let me go home and digest this.”

After I left the doctor’s office, I walked to my car like a zombie, climbed in, and just sat there. I was too numb to drive. Without warning, the doctor’s words hit me all over again.

I have cancer. Oh shit.

I grabbed the steering wheel, put my head down on it, and cried like a baby, something I hadn’t done in years. I ’d never felt so vulnerable, so out of control. My shoulders heaved up and down as I sobbed. Finally, when I had no more tears left in me, I pulled myself together and wiped my eyes.

Now I had to try to think rationally about this situation. I started up the car and decided to go for a drive before I went home.

Questions repeated over and over in my head like a broken record: God, why me? Why now, when I ’d finally found the right woman? Was this punishment for all those years of womanizing? If I had ever worried about a disease taking me down, it was AIDS. But since they discovered the virus, I ’d been careful to protect myself with condoms, so I just assumed I ’d live to be an old man. Cancer had never crossed my mind.

Why hadn’t I stopped smoking sooner? I picked up the habit when I was a teenager, so I ’d been poisoning my lungs for almost thirty years before I quit. Jamie used to beg me to give it up, but I couldn’t help it. I truly enjoyed smoking and even got into cigars once in a while. I saw no reason to quit until I started noticing that I was getting short of breath sometimes, and I developed
a cough that never quite went away completely. Now I regretted every last smoke I ’d ever had, but it was too late.