Chaser Read online

  “Nas,” Anthony greeted me with his hand extended for a shake. Then he joked, “Tell me something: is hip-hop dead or what?”

  Although not funny, Anthony chuckled at his lame joke, which referred to the fact that my name was the same as Nas the rapper who two years ago had come out with an album titled Hip-Hop Is Dead. Anthony turned red and everything laughing at himself.

  I just shook my head and smirked, “That’s why middle-aged white men don’t need to listen to rap music.”

  I followed Anthony to his corner office, almost jogging to keep up with his swift pace. I swear that nigga snorted coke. It had to be more than coffee that kept him so upbeat all the time.

  “Have a seat,” he said as we entered his office.

  “So what’s been goin’ on? How was your Easter?” he asked, reaching into a bottom drawer on his desk. “Nice watch, by the way,” he said, gazing at the diamond Audemars Piguet I had on. “Looks like I’m payin’ you too much for these bodily injury cases.” He chuckled.

  I flagged him and said, “Aww, get outta here.”

  Anthony pulled a folded-up orange envelope from the drawer. He looked at the front of it first and mumbled, “Yup, Nas,” then handed it to me. “Here’s what I owe you for the four you brought me last week.”

  I took the envelope, opened it up, and peeked inside.

  “It’s four grand,” Anthony said. “I’ll give you what I owe you on the other three as soon as they go to therapy.”

  “Cool. I’ll be signing them up this week.”

  “All right, well.” Anthony stood up and patted me on the shoulder. “It’s good doing business with you as always. Keep chasin’ wrecks and bringing the injury cases my way, won’t you? There’s this yacht I wanna buy.” He smiled.

  I nodded and left his office. I walked down the hallway and saw myself back to the reception area. Cara was on the phone, so she couldn’t verbally tell me to have a nice day. But she smiled and nodded at me as I headed toward the elevators. I returned the gesture.

  I left Anthony’s Center City law office and got my BMW 645 from the parking lot across the street. I didn’t like driving my truck downtown. It was too much traffic, too busy. Plus, it was spring now, so I drove my car a lot more. For one, because I chased less, and for two, because it was a convertible—meant for warm, sunny days.

  I drove to West Philly to the medical center to collect on the same BIs that Anthony had just paid me on. That was the beauty of bodily injury cases. A lawyer paid you a fee for each customer you sent his way to be represented by him in a lawsuit, and a doctor paid you a fee for each customer you sent his way for physical therapy. You didn’t get paid just for the referral, though. You had to wait until the customer agreed and signed up to use the services. And then you had to wait until the customer actually went to therapy a few times before you got paid. Waiting was a way to give the doctors and lawyers assurance that the customers would be committed to going for physical therapy as often as needed, which meant their case would settle for more money, which in turn meant more money to the doctors and lawyers.

  I went inside the small medical center, greeted the receptionist, and then met with the doctor in the back. He gave me $7,200, $1,800 per person since the insured had full tort. If the insured had had limited tort, I would have gotten less money, because limited-tort victims weren’t covered for all injuries like full-tort victims were. Instead, they were covered only for extremely serious injuries, leading to little, if any, money damages at settlement.

  I thanked Dr. Fresby and began to turn to walk away when he stopped me.

  “Nas, I don’t know if I told you, but some of the people you sign up show no evidence of having pain. I’ll ask them if certain key areas hurt, and they’ll say no. Now, I know that some of them aren’t really accident victims but have been added to the police report after the fact. But they need to at least pretend like they were. One day they’re gonna have to go to arbitration,” he said. “They need to be coached.”

  “All right,” I said. “That’s a small thing.” I tried easing Dr. Fresby’s nerves. He was the type to worry more than he had to. But it was cool because I was the type to make him feel like he didn’t have to.

  “I’ll coach ’em. I got you,” I said, making a mental note to make sure all my customers knew to coach all of their friends or relatives who they would add on to the police report for the sake of gettin’ them some case money.

  “Okay, buddy,” he said, walking me to the door. I waved good-bye to the receptionist and left the office.

  I got in my car, blocked my number, and called Leah. After the first ring I hung up. If she was able to talk, she would call me back.

  “Yo,” I answered soon as she called me.

  “What’s up?”

  “You in the mood to chase with me?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she said, sounding extra sexy. “What are you goin’ give me if I do?”

  “The ride of your life,” I told her.

  She laughed and then asked, “How can I resist?”

  I arranged to pick her up from her mom’s house, where she had been staying during the day since being fired from the shop a week ago.

  She chased with me until about a quarter to five. And she turned out to be good luck for me, too, that day. I got two hits while I chased with her. I told her I would give her a couple dollars off the commission I’d make on them since she was keeping me company, making sitting in one place for hours listening to the constant chatter from police and medics over the scanners more fun and tolerable.

  We had such a good time chasing together that we began to do it more often. Eventually, after a few days, it became our routine. Leah would leave her house every morning at eight, go to her mom’s house to park her car, and I’d pick her up from there after rush hour at ten. She would chase with me and I would drop her back off at her mom’s at about five, then she would go home from there.

  It was as if she still worked at the shop. At least, that was what Kenny thought. And it worked out, too, because it gave Leah and me more time to spend together, and it allowed her to still make money as I broke her off whenever I got a hit while she was with me.

  The only thing was, she still needed to present her paycheck to Kenny, which I didn’t think was necessary, but apparently every Friday when she used to get paid she would give Kenny her check and he would deposit it for her and give her the cash. So she feared that if she stopped bringing him a check every week, he would find out that she didn’t have a job anymore. So I agreed to help her out by having my pop pay me six hundred of every commission I got in a check and the rest in cash. My dad didn’t suspect anything. I told him it was for tax purposes. I would then hand the check over to Leah so she could have something to show Kenny.

  I felt bad about doing it, though, ’cause I ain’t like lying to my pop about shit, especially not when it came to Leah and that nigga Kenny. My dad wasn’t fond of me still involving myself with them, and he damn sure wouldn’t have been with me givin’ Leah one of his checks every week to keep up the facade that she still worked for him. Shit, he didn’t even know Leah chased with me. So I had to be real secretive about a lot of things. And it was an internal struggle for me to mislead my pop like that, but I did it because, for one, I knew it was only temporary. And for two, and most importantly, I really wanted to help Leah.

  Me of all people knew how it was to feel like you were stuck in a relationship with somebody. I dealt with that in my friendship with Kenny. If it was up to me I woulda been stopped bein’ cool with that nigga. But he had dirt on me, and I couldn’t help but feel like I had to be bothered with that nigga in order to keep that dirt buried. So I related to Leah and I wanted to help her get out of a sticky situation. Somehow, I felt that helping her would be helping me. Taking her from Kenny would be my way of finally standing up to that nigga and lettin’ him know that he couldn’t keep gettin’ in the way of me livin’ my life, being happy, and doin’ the things I wan
ted to do, like how he brodied Leah from me in the first place. Call it revenge. Call me a sucker for love. Whatever the case, I was takin’ back what was supposed to had been mine. I was goin’ show that nigga.

  Leah

  It was a Friday, the first one in May, and I had a lot on my plate. I was chasing with Nasir as usual and thinking about everything I had to do after he dropped me off at my mom’s. I had to drive about twenty-five minutes from my mom’s apartment on Seventy-fourth and Haverford Avenue to the 7-Eleven on Forty-second and Walnut Street to meet all the shop workers to collect their checks. Then from there I had a meeting with Detective Daily at a Starbucks way out Blue Bell, about forty miles away. He wanted to do a briefing with me, which he had begun to request more frequently.

  And I was worried about going to this one because that morning when he called to set up our meeting, he stressed to me that I needed to start giving him more vital information. Apparently what I had been giving him he hadn’t been able to prove and thus he couldn’t make an arrest. He told me that the statute of limitations on my fraud charges were expiring really soon, and that if my information didn’t lead to Kenny’s arrest before the expiration date, my file would be turned over to the prosecutor and my case would be tried. I had been thinking about that all day, and it had me stressed.

  “You all right?” Nasir asked as he pulled his truck over in front of my mom’s complex. “You seem like you got a lot on ya mind today.”

  I nodded. “I’m cool. I’m just tired,” I said somberly. “And I still gotta take my mom a couple places before I go home.”

  “Yeah, I know how ya Fridays be,” Nasir said referring to the lie I told him about having to take my mom to her job to pick up her check every Friday. It was my excuse for having him drop me off earlier at my mom’s on Fridays than the other days. I couldn’t tell him that I actually had to meet his dad’s employees.

  I got out of his truck and walked toward the front door of the Copley Place, casually speaking to the various neighbors who were out on their balconies basking in the sun. Once inside the complex I took the elevator to the third floor and walked down the hall. I got to my mom’s door and used the spare key she had given me to let myself in. My mom’s job as a housekeeper at a nursing home required her to work overnight, so she usually slept in. So after two days of my coming to her house and knocking on her door at nine in the morning right after I lost my job, she decided she couldn’t take it anymore and she gave me back my old key. That was fine by me. It allowed me to come and go as I pleased without disturbing her or relying on her to be there.

  I walked in the door, prepared to say hi and good-bye to my mom and then walk right back out to go make all my runs. But my plans were abruptly changed when I saw that Kenny was standing in my mom’s living room. I froze up with fear, especially when I saw that he was closing my mom’s sliding-glass door as if he had just come in from her balcony. Had Kenny seen me get out of Nasir’s truck? Shit, I thought. I instantly started trying to come up with something.

  “Kenny?” I asked, stunned. “What are you doing here?”

  Before he could say anything my mom spoke. “I told him you had stopped by here on ya lunch break and had went to the store for me. But he insisted he’d wait for you to come back,” she said with attitude. She was sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette and shaking her leg. She looked tired and was talking like she was short-tempered, like she was seconds away from cursing somebody out. I didn’t know how long Kenny had been there waiting for me, but from the multiple cigarette butts that were in the ashtray in front of my mom, it looked like he’d been there stressin’ my mom out for a while.

  Kenny rubbed his face with the palm of his hand, then said to me, “I’m goin’ give you five seconds to tell me why the fuck you just got out of Nas’s truck and where you been for the last three hours.”

  I was caught completely off guard, and even though I didn’t want to go along with my mother’s lie that I had gone to the store for her, it seemed like my only option. My mind was blank. I couldn’t think of anything else. But Kenny shut it down anyway.

  “And don’t say nothin’ about no fuckin’ lunch break, either, because when I drove by the shop earlier, the painter bull said you got fired from that mafucka! So where the fuck was you at? One, two, three…”

  Okay, there went my alibi. I was scared stiff. It seemed like my mom’s small living room was closing in on me.

  “Four, five,” Kenny finished. Then pop! He smacked me across my face.

  At that my mom snapped. She stabbed her cigarette out in the ashtray in front of her and jumped up out her chair. “Hold the fuck up now!” She raised her voice, the scratchiness evidence of her habitual smoking. “I be goddamned if you think you goin’ put ya hands on my daughter in my house!” she protested as she scrambled through a drawer and retrieved a medium-sized steak knife.

  I looked at Kenny as my mom walked toward him bearing the knife. His face wrinkled up with intense fury. He looked like he was seconds away from seriously hurting somebody. I never saw him so mad before. The first thing I could think to do was stop my mom from approaching him. I rushed in front of her and started pushing her backward, careful not to cut myself.

  “Ma, chill! Let me handle this!” I cried, trying to prevent an all-out war.

  It was one thing for him to hit me, but if he had hit my mom I didn’t know what was liable to happen. Somebody fucked around and ended up dead in that house.

  My mom didn’t challenge me and keep going at Kenny with the knife. However, she did continue to tell him off.

  “Well, you cut his ass then, Leah! Shit, I’m tired of him thinkin’ he can hit on you! And in my house? He must’ve lost his rabbit-ass mind!”

  Kenny couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Ms. Linda, you better listen to ya fuckin’ daughter and chill!” he shouted over my mom’s screaming. “You ’bout to get ya ass hurt for real!” Kenny warned, not at all threatened by my mom or the knife.

  “What?” my mom persisted. “Motherfucker, I wish you would!”

  “Ma, please!” I yelled, trying to contain my mother, who had started tryin’ to attack Kenny again.

  “You better chill! Matter of fact, you better get the fuck outta my house before I call the cops on ya punk ass! I’ll tell ’em everything about you hustling drugs! See how long you can last in jail! You know you really a bitch! Only bitch-ass men put they hands on women!”

  “Yeah?” Kenny tested. “Call the cops on me, and I’ll burn this whole fuckin’ buildin’ down!” he retaliated.

  “Kenny, just leave! Please!” I begged. “You don’t need the trouble right now! Especially not over somethin’ small!”

  I was trying to say all the right things that would encourage Kenny to walk away from the fight. The longer the two of them went at it, the greater the chances were of a tragedy occurring. And that possibility scared me to death. So I tried to mediate as best I could.

  “You know what, you right,” Kenny concluded. “I don’t need the trouble. Come on, Leah. We out,” he said, turning toward the door, but not before grimacing at my mom.

  “Leah, don’t do it!” my mom said, giving Kenny the same look of disgust that he had given her. “Enough is enough,” she said.

  It pained me to have to walk out the apartment with Kenny after he had disrespected my mom to such a degree. But the fact of the matter was, I had to. I had only a short amount of time left to help the cops book Kenny, and if I didn’t, I was headed to jail. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place—even worst, death and hell. And even though I desperately wanted to stay at my mom’s and wash my hands of Kenny for good, I felt like I had no choice but to leave with him.

  “Mom, I have to. I hope you understand. I love you and I don’t wanna have to choose—”

  “Leah, come the fuck on!” Kenny demanded from out in the hall.

  My mom looked at me with tears in her eyes. She took a hard swallow and said, “I love you, too, Leah.”
r />   Then, as I was leaving the apartment, I heard my mom gasp, “Lord Jesus, protect my child!”

  I closed the door and followed Kenny down the hall and onto the elevator. My heart was beating at an alarming rate. I had never felt so frightened in my life.

  “Give me your car keys,” Kenny ordered.

  I dug in my pocketbook without reservation and grabbed my keys. I handed them over to Kenny.

  “Press two,” he said, as he took only my car key off the ring and then tossed the remaining keys back to me.

  I did what I was told. Kenny got off the elevator on the second floor and told me to hold the elevator doors open for him while he went to the apartment of one of his workers and gave the guy my car key.

  After a few minutes Kenny returned to the elevator. “Sheen goin’ get mad pussy drivin’ his new car around,” he mumbled to himself.

  I took that as his way of tellin’ me that he had given my car to one of his workers. And it didn’t hurt me, either. I had bigger problems on my hand. I didn’t know what Kenny was going to do to me. I had missed my meeting with the workers, and it looked as if I was going to miss my meeting with Detective Daily, too.

  I followed Kenny out of the elevator, out the front door of the apartment building, and up the street to where his Suburban was parked. I was quiet the whole time, afraid to open my mouth about anything. He got in the driver’s seat and I got in the passenger’s seat. He started the SUV and pulled off.

  Kenny didn’t say anything more to me about my being dropped off by Nasir or about my having gotten fired without tellin’ him. Although I knew he felt some type of way about all of it still. And that was what scared me. I didn’t know how he was takin’ it or when and how he planned to address it again. In the meantime, three days had gone by, and neither of us brought the subjects up. Matter of fact, we didn’t do much speaking to each other about anything. Kenny had been staying out a lot, working, clubbing, and most likely spending time with his side chicks.