Wifey (11 page)

***

Halfway through the day, I started feeling a little better. One of my Christian customers by the name of Janet, came through for a roller set. She was a very gifted and spiritual woman. Every time she came by, she made it her business to say something uplifting to me while I rolled her hair at my station. For some reason or another, this visit with her was different. She had no intentions of getting her hair done because the minute she walked through the doors of my salon, she grabbed my right arm and quietly asked if she could speak to me privately. I obliged and escorted her into my back office.

“What’s wrong Ms. Janet?” I immediately asked her after I closed and locked the door behind us.

She proceeded to take a seat in the chair right before me and I took a seat on the corner of my desk facing her. That’s when she placed both of her hands in mine and looked intensely into my eyes. She began saying, “The Lord has laid you heavily on my heart. And just so you know, I’m not here to dig into your personal life. But, I am here to deliver God’s message.”

I braced myself to fully retain everything Ms. Janet was about to spill into my lap; my heart started racing really fast. I knew right off the bat what she was about to tell me. I used to go to church faithfully when I was growing up, so I was familiar with how God could talk through people. And for her to come at me the way she did, I knew it couldn’t be nobody else but the Man upstairs. So, I gave her my undivided attention.

Ms. Janet started reciting different scriptures and telling me how much love God has for me. Then she said, “Kira, it has also been revealed to me that there’s a huge cloud looming above you. And because of it, you’ve been put in a compromising position. God wants to help you.” She smiled at me. I kinda smiled back at her, but at the same time my eyes got a little watery. Ms. Janet noticed it that instance. That’s why she stood up and hugged me, even as she assured me that God had my back. Even though I already knew this, having someone who knew so little about me to say the same thing seems to always give a person a tad bit more hope.

Immediately after she helped me wipe a few of my tears away, Ms. Janet grabbed my hands again. This time she instructed me to bow my head as she bowed hers.

From the moment she began to pray, I began to feel tons of weight lifting off me. I mean, it was like God was literally relieving me of all of the drama I had in my immediate circle. What made matters so much better was that I wasn’t afraid of crying.

After the prayer was over, Ms. Janet sat with me for about fifteen minutes in an effort to pull me back together. The last thing I wanted to do was stir up a whole lot of suspicion about why my eyes were puffy. With Ms. Janet’s help, we eliminated all of that. But, in the end, there was always one person in every group who’d find a way to poke their nose in your business. When I returned to the shop after walking Ms. Janet out to her car, I overheard Sunshine whispering to her client, “I wonder what that was all about?”

 I stopped in my tracks and said sarcastically, “Does it even matter?”

“No, not really!” Sunshine snapped back and then she mumbled something under her breath.

“Are you sure?” I pressed. At this point, I was seriously tired of her mess.

Sunshine retorted, “Look, it ain’t all that serious!”

She pulled off a pair of latex gloves and she instructed her client to follow her to the washbowl. For the rest of the day, she and I managed not to pass any more words and business continued as usual.

***

Now while I was unlocking the front door to let my last client out, I noticed a couple of crackers sitting in a dark blue undercover car. They were parked on the other side of the street, looking right in my direction.

That shit scared the hell out of me, too; but I knew exactly what they were out there for. I played it off like I didn’t see them and gradually began to pull the door miniblinds down, then turned the “open” sign around to the “closed” side.

Once I had done that, I became a nervous wreck. I believe I was probably feeling the same way Nikki felt when they were getting ready to arrest her.

What puzzled me was why they were outside watching my shop? Were they out there for me? Or were they out there waiting for Ricky to show up?

I did not know the answers to any of those questions, and I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to find out, either. I gathered my things and walked out to my car. I avoided eye contact the whole time. Once I was in my car, I exited the parking lot with caution. I also tried getting a quick look at the license plate to see if it was a government vehicle, but it was too dark to see.

I headed up Virginia Beach Blvd. to catch highway I-264, off Witch Duck Road. It didn’t surprise me that those two white men were still behind me, which was why I wanted to call Ricky bad as hell. However, I was too afraid to use my cell phone. I felt like if they knew where I worked, then they either had my car bugged or all my phones tapped. Instead of making the phone call, I put my foot down harder on the gas pedal to pick up the speed.

I was driving up Virginia Beach Blvd. doing sixty miles per hour. I believed it was enough speed to try and maneuver my car out the sight of them crackers following me. When my exit was about to come up, I waited until the last minute to make my turn.

My sudden move was to throw them off. And to my surprise, it did because when I looked in my rearview mirror; I noticed that the white men were causing traffic to slow down, so they could cross lanes and make the right turn behind me. Now, when I saw this, I sped up some more and then I jumped onto the highway.

I also kept my eyes glued to the rearview mirror, to see if I was still being followed. But, the farther I got ahead, the harder it was for me to see. This was because it was dark and all the headlights seemed to look the same. I decided to get off on the next exit, which was South Military Highway, going in the direction of downtown Norfolk.

A couple of other cars were trying to make the exit too, so I sped up a little bit just so I could get off in front of them. I continued driving up Military Highway until I decided to make a turn onto Indian River Road. I drove about two more miles until I noticed there wasn’t a car following in my direction, which made me feel not as scared. I drove a few more blocks and made a couple more left and right turns. That’s when I noticed I was in the Berkeley section of Norfolk.

I pulled over at a BP gas station to use their pay phone, but somebody was already using it. I sat in my car and waited until he was done.

Now it took this idiot about ten minutes to get his ass off the phone after he saw me sitting in my car waiting to use it. He must’ve figured I should’ve had a cell phone or two-way, being as though I was driving a 2003 whip. This, of course, was true, but I was having a dilemma.

I scrambled at the pay phone trying to figure out what I was going to say to Ricky. If the Feds had all our phones tapped, I didn’t want to let them know that I knew they were following me. So, instead of calling him directly, I called the 1-800-number for his two-way and had one of the representatives send him a text message to call me at the pay phone. But, after sitting there for almost an hour, I realized the pay phone didn’t even allow incoming calls. So, what was I to do? That’s when I decided to call the 1-800-number back. This time, I sent a message that told Ricky to meet me at the Waffle House in downtown Norfolk, because we needed to talk.

It probably took me about five minutes to get downtown. When I pulled up to the restaurant, I noticed there were only two people being waited on. That was enough for me, so I decided to sit in my car once I found a parking space. My other reason for staying in my car was so that I could watch my surroundings.

While I sat and waited, my cell phone began to ring. I looked at the Caller ID, but whoever was calling me had their number blocked out.

Now, who would block out their number? I mean, it’s not like a whole bunch of people had my number. Who in the hell could it be? That’s when I realized that it could be one of them crackers, trying to find my whereabouts. But I wasn’t stupid. As far as I was concerned, they didn’t have to ever worry about me using this phone again.

My phone finally stopped ringing after about twenty rings. I turned it off immediately after it stopped. That’s when my mind started racing. I wondered if it could’ve been Ricky. Or, it could’ve been Brian, trying to get a message to me from Ricky. But it was too late. The phone had already stopped ringing. I laid my head back against my headrest and continued to wait for Ricky to show up.

After the first hour went by, I started getting worried again. It wasn’t like Ricky to ignore any of his text messages. I mean, that thing was like his lifeline. There was never a time where he didn’t have it with him, or had it turned off. So, why was he not responding to my messages?

I waited another hour for him and then I decided to leave. But, where was I going to go? I was too scared to go home because them crackers might be there waiting for me.

There was nowhere else I could go but to a hotel. So, that’s what I decided to do.

Drug Money

I finally found a hotel I felt comfortable staying in. It was in the ritzy part of Chesapeake. I knew I would be fine after I got myself together mentally.

I kept my cell phone off in my pocketbook since I had no use for it. Besides, who could I call? Not Ricky, being as though he was missing in action. And not only that, if I did manage to speak to him, who knew who would be listening in on our conversation? I couldn’t risk them crackers finding out where I was. Luckily, I’d made a few hundred bucks at the shop because I couldn’t risk using my credit cards, either.

After another hour of me forcing myself not to pace the floor, I sat down on the bed and turned on the TV. The eleven o’clock news was on, so there was no question what time it was. Before I knew it, I was off to sleep.

***

The shit that went on earlier with them crackers must’ve weighed heavily on my mind because I didn’t sleep very long. I woke up about three o’clock in the morning and wondered what was going on out there in those streets. My thoughts began to turn in fast motion. I couldn’t help but think about what was going to happen next. I mean, it wasn’t like I had a choice, like normal people. I lost my right to make choices once I got involved with Ricky. I didn’t care about the “what ifs.” All I cared about was what his dough could buy me. The expensive clothes and jewelry were all that mattered to me.

And being as though he was handsome, with a big dick, only made things better. Especially since I was just coming out of the beauty academy and needed some fringe benefits. Ricky offered me a helluva bonus package. I remember the first day we met. We were both at the Roger Brown’s Sports Club in P-town, watching the NBA playoffs with our friends. Me and my girlfriends were at our table, sipping on some margaritas, when our waitress came over to tell us that a few guys, who she noticed was spending a lot of money, wanted to know if they could sit with us. I told her to tell them, yeah. About two minutes later, Ricky and three of his boys walked up. Brian was one of the cats with Ricky, and the other two were two cats that went by the name of Sam and Black. Both of them were on lock right now for drugs, but they were doing their bid up north in New Jersey.

After the initial hook-up through our waitress, phone numbers were passed and history was made. And, of course, I let Ricky take me out to dinner. Plus, I fucked him that same night. I thought I had played myself by doing that but, being as though I whipped this pussy on him; he didn’t seem to mind it at all. Once the wheels started spinning, I got a big-ass diamond ring, money to open a beauty salon, and a nice wedding at my grandmother’s church. Now, here we were! Well, here I was, sitting in my hotel room, hiding out from the fuckin’ white man. Not knowing what was gonna happen the second I stepped foot outside this building was the part that would torture you. I hated the feeling. I thought of nothing else to do but close my eyes in hopes of falling back to sleep. It worked, because when I opened my eyes again, it was light outside. It was seven-thirty in the morning, according to the clock on the TV. Without thinking twice, I jumped on the hotel phone and dialed Glen Shapiro’s cell phone number. I felt like he would be the only person who could help me at this moment.

“This is Mr. Shapiro,” he answered.

“Hey. This is Kira,” I said anxiously.

“Hi, Kira. How you doing this morning?”

“Not too good.” I sighed heavily.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. But right now, I’m staying at a hotel because I was too scared to go home last night.”

“Why?”

“Because, I saw two white men sitting outside my salon. And then, when I got in my car to leave, they started following me. So, I started driving real fast and got away.”

“Who were the men following you?”

“I think it was a couple of Feds.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because you’re the one who told me they wanted Nikki to give them information about who she was working for.”

“Well, are you in anyway connected to her case?”

“No.”

“So, why would federal agents be following you?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the answer.”

“Well, could you find out what’s going on?”

“I don’t see why I can’t.”

“Well, I’m at the Wesleyan Hotel out in Chesapeake. So, call me when you hear something.”

“What’s your room number?”

“Room 312.”

“All right.”

“Thanks for doing this for me.”

“Don’t mention it,” Glen replied and then we both hung up.

I was still kind of puzzled as to why Ricky never answered any of my messages. I called his lawyer to make sure he wasn’t locked up. I figured if anybody should know where Ricky was, it would be Mr. Robinson. He answered his cell phone on the second ring. “Hello,” he said.

“Hi, Mr. Robinson. This is Kira, Ricky’s wife.”

“Hey. How are you doing?”