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  Leah didn’t respond to him. She didn’t even react to being left. She was more focused on pleading her case to me. She was crying like a battered woman. Her eyes looked weary. She even looked like she had lost some weight since I seen her last. I wanted to feel empathy for her, but I couldn’t. She had betrayed me, and there was no comin’ back from that.

  “You hate me, Nasir? Don’t hate me, please,” she cried, reading my facial expression correctly.

  “What the fuck you expect, Leah? You was scammin’ my pop! Takin’ his checks and washin’ that nigga’s money who got you out here lookin’ like a fuckin’ nut! When you goin’ learn, Leah? Huh? Why you keep allowin’ yaself to be in fucked-up situations for the bull? Are you really over him? Huh? Or do you love that nigga that much?”

  “I didn’t want to do it. I swear, I didn’t. But that damn Kenny. He made me do it. And you, Nasir, of all people know that it’s not easy tellin’ him no sometimes.” She wept.

  She was right about that. I knew how Kenny was. But that wasn’t goin’ fly that time. The only reason why he had me by the balls was because he actually had dirt on me. But what did he have on Leah that was so bad that he could control her like he did? She kept sayin’ she had her reasons for stayin’ an all that, but what were they? I needed to know.

  “Nas, we gotta go. Fuck her!” my dad shouted out as he walked toward his SUV.

  “Mr. Vic, you don’t understand! I never wanted to do that to y’all! I swear to God on my life!” she cried out to my dad.

  My dad shook his head at Leah and said, “Don’t cry now. It’s more to come, baby. You don’t know what you let that nigga get you into.”

  I thought about the threat my dad posed on Leah. Taking a step toward her, I said, “You put yaself on the line for this nigga, and he had the audacity to leave you out here in this parking lot with my pop while my pop is on fire ready to kill somebody. He don’t fuckin’ love you. He don’t even care about you. So tell me somethin’, Leah, and I want the truth this time: Why is it so hard for you to leave this nigga alone?”

  “Nas! Let’s go!” My dad pulled the Yukon up to where Kenny’s car had been parked, where Leah and I were talking.

  My eyes stuck on Leah, I told my pop, “Dad, go ’head. I’ma get up with you later.”

  “What? What are you doin’?”

  I turned away from Leah and looked at my dad. “I need answers, Dad. For myself. I need answers.”

  My dad gave me a crazy look and frowned. “Nigga, if you don’t get in this mafuckin’ car!” he ordered.

  “I can’t. I want to. Trust me, I’m mad as shit at her. But I just need a minute with her,” I tried to explain.

  With a disgusted look on his face, my dad shook his head, backed the SUV up, and whipped it out of the parking space. He stopped and said, “Go ’head. But give me my keys.”

  “What keys?”

  “My keys to my truck that ya ass make a livin’ drivin’!”

  “So you goin’ take me out of the truck?”

  “I can’t trust you, dog. And that’s fucked up ’cause you my oldest son. You supposed to be my right-hand man.”

  The cops were at the light now, obviously on their way into the lot. For that reason, I didn’t want to hold my dad up any longer. I took my truck key off my key ring and tossed it to him. He sped off, looking like he had more anger for me than for Kenny and Leah put together. I felt fucked up about it, too. But I needed to resolve things with Leah. I knew her differently than my dad did, and I needed to know her motives behind the shit she’d done before I could just write her off. Of course, that would be hard for my dad to understand, because he was right. I was his oldest son, and for years I had been his right-hand man, following his lead without question. But this time was different. I had to follow my heart on this one. I needed closure.

  “So what is it, Leah?”

  “I got a few more weeks left before I can leave Kenny,” she said slowly and nervously. She was twiddling her fingers and looking all around. I wasn’t used to seeing her so unstable. It was breaking my heart to see how beat down she was.

  “Why a few weeks? Why not right the fuck now? And be frank with me, Leah! Don’t be beatin’ around the bush and all that shit like you usually do!”

  “I know it’s hard for you to understand, Nasir. But if I could leave Kenny today, I would!”

  “I heard that before, but what you ain’t tellin’ me is, Why not? And this time before I walk outta ya life for good and possibly never see you again, I need you tell me why not! Lawyer fees?” I pulled a knot of money out of my pocket and held it up in Leah’s face. “I got that! A place to live? I got a crib—comfortable one, too! Financial stability? You can work! You ain’t handicapped! So tell me, Leah, if it ain’t the fact that you in love with this nigga, what is it?”

  Leah shook her head but didn’t respond.

  I snapped, “You played me, man!” I said, pounding my fist into the palm of my hand. “I lost my girl ’cause of you; my fuckin’ pop is mad at me ’cause of you. I even had to give up my truck! Everything! Since this bullshit between me and you started, I’ve been the one bending over backward for you, Leah! And the one nigga I ask you to give up, which is the same nigga that’s whippin’ on ya ass, cheatin’ on you every chance he get, puttin’ you in positions to get locked up—and you can’t do it! But yet you can rip my pop off! Scam me into givin’ you checks! What if my pop find that shit out? You know how that’s goin’ look after all this? I fuck around and lose my family fuckin’ with you!” I shook my head in shame. “You ain’t shit, Leah! Fuck you!” I walked past her to leave the parking lot. She grabbed my arm and stopped me.

  “Wait!” she said, “I’ll tell you.” Her lips quivering, she whispered, “I’m an informant tryin’ to get Kenny locked up.”

  I smirked and said, “That’s a good one. That another one of ya scams? Just say it: you played me. And now you just makin’ up anything to get me back on ya side. Man, get the fuck outta here,” I said, shrugging my arm out of her hand.

  “I’m not lyin’, Nasir! That’s the truth! This whole time that’s what it’s been, and I couldn’t tell you because it was against protocol! I couldn’t tell anybody! I had to carry that shit on me all by myself!” Leah lowered her voice. “That’s why I even did the check thing, Nasir, because I knew it was no way for ya dad to get caught up in that shit. I was the one givin’ the cops information, and I knew what to tell them and what not to tell them. And I damn sure wasn’t tellin’ them nothin’ that would incriminate you or ya dad or me! Only shit on Kenny! And that’s why I stay. Because I have to report on him, or I’ll go to jail! And it ain’t been easy! It’s been stressin’ the shit out me! I want it to end! I want it to be over! Nasir, I wanna be done with Kenny! I do! I wanna be with you more than anything in this world!” Leah broke down.

  Somehow I couldn’t feel sorry for her. I mean, I wanted to, bad. But I didn’t. The truth was, I just couldn’t believe a word she said. Not at that point I couldn’t. Maybe she should have told me all that sooner. Maybe things woulda ended differently. She waited too late. She had already lost my trust. And I couldn’t take the chance of trusting her again. I left Leah where she was. I didn’t respond to her pleas for me to come back. I flagged her and kept it movin’. I walked down Walnut Street and called one of my dad’s other chasers to come pick me up. Bitches ain’t shit, I thought.

  Leah

  Detective Daily,” I cried into the phone. “I can’t do this anymore! Just come lock me up and do what y’all gotta do! I can’t be with this nigga no more! Fuck this shit! Just give me that fraud charge! Fuck it. Give me the time! It can’t be worst than the shit I’m goin’ through with Kenny! Please, just come lock me the fuck up!” I was having a fit outside on the curb in front of the 7-Eleven.

  “Calm down, Ms. Baker. I can’t make out what you’re saying. Get yourself together, first, then explain to me what’s goin’ on.”

  I fought back tears and took a mom
ent to gather my composure. “How much longer do I have to do this? How much more stress and how many more lies?”

  “Ms. Baker, listen to me. We want him caught as bad as you. It’s just that we need something concrete on this guy, or he’s likely to walk. The leads you’ve been giving us have been helpful but not enough. We need you to hang in there, and not just for us but for your own good. At the end of the month we have to turn your file over to the prosecutors. Try hard, Ms. Baker, to give us something by then.”

  I broke down in tears again. “How? What am I supposed to do? I’ve done all I could! I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for! What more do y’all want from me?”

  “Stop hollering. You have got to grab ahold of yourself, or you could compromise this whole deal,” the detective told me. “Let’s meet,” he said. “I’ll tell you what you need to do.”

  I agreed to meet the detective at the Tabernacle Lutheran Church on Fifty-eighth and Spruce. We hung up, and my next call was to a cab company.

  Nasir

  For the last two weeks I had been chasing with a couple of my dad’s other guys while he was still trippin’ about my havin’ my truck. And I felt like I was in a lose-lose situation, because it wasn’t like I had gotten anywhere with Leah. I was still hurt and infuriated with her. So I had my pop mad at me for nothin’, basically.

  “Yo, you out?” I had called Brock on his cell. My dad had put him in my truck in my place, and he had been chasin’ full-time.

  It was a rainy Memorial Day weekend. The kind of day I would have died to be out chasin’. First of all, rainy days tended to produce the most accidents; second of all, it was Memorial Day weekend, which meant the streets were bound to be packed with drivers. Not to mention some drunk drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t prey on the weak, nor did I wish accidents on people. But it was what it was. Accidents were goin’ to happen whether I was a wreck chaser or not.

  Plus, the way I looked at it, I actually helped people. Most times I was on the scene of a hit before the cops even got there. So I was able to calm the victims down, talk to them while they waited for the police and medic, and offer some sort of support and comfort. On top of that, I was helpful to the police: I was the one who would often clean the glass out the street and tow the car out of the way to get the traffic moving. So it wasn’t like I was just this money-hungry nigga who took advantage of people. I was just doing a job like any other grown-ass man who had to take care of himself.

  “And you know this, maaan,” Brock imitated Chris Tucker in the movie Friday.

  “Won’t you come grab me? I don’t wanna chase out my car in the rain.”

  “Shit, I don’t know why ya ass chase out that pretty mafucker at all.”

  “I know. I’m ’bout to get a squatter until I find another shop to put me in a truck.”

  “Won’t you take some of that money and buy ya own truck? Stop hustlin’ backward, nigga.”

  “Either way, whatever shop I bring work to is goin’ have to pay my note, so I still gotta find a home base. Plus, nigga, ain’t nobody hustlin’ backward.”

  “You and ya pop need to squash y’all beef anyway.”

  “You sound like my mom and shit.”

  My conversation with Brock was interrupted by the scanner.

  Beeeeep…“Medic Nine, Five-six and Girard.”

  “Run that,” I butted in.

  “I’m ’bout to,” Brock said with urgency. “I just gotta wrap this game up.”

  “Auto-ped,” the dispatcher continued.

  “Oh, it’s a auto-ped,” Brock repeated, the urgency in his voice gone.

  “You know what a auto-ped is?” I gave Brock a pop quiz.

  “It’s when somebody got hit by a car,” he answered correctly.

  “Do you know why they call it a auto-ped?” I really was testing him.

  “’Cause it’s a auto versus a pedestrian, so for short it’s a auto-ped. Nigga, I got this!” he boasted.

  “You do. I gotta give it to you. I’m impressed a little bit. But you still need help out on those streets. Plus, I feel like whippin’ ya ass in Madden. Come get me.”

  “All right, I’m on my way. Be ready, nigga,” Brock said. “And bring some paper with you, ’cause I got my dice on me.”

  “All nigga, you ain’t sayin’ nothin’. My money lookin’ for some friends, nigga.”

  “All shit, here you go,” Brock said, “And don’t be bitchin’ about goin’ home either, ’cause I plan on bein’ on these streets all night.”

  “Nigga, I was bred on the streets. I know about all-nighters. How the fuck you think I made a name for myself? Sleepin’ in? Fuck no. You talkin’ to the king of these streets, pussy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Then why the king ain’t got no truck?”

  “Fuck you, nigga.”

  Brock got a laugh in and then we hung up. Soon as we did I noticed I had a text message from Leah. It said to call her—emergency. But I resisted. She was probably just hollerin’ at me ’cause Kenny was out spending the holiday with another broad. I wasn’t nobody’s rebound nigga. I ain’t feel like being bothered with that shit.

  Leah

  At the meeting I had with Detective Daily a couple weeks ago he gave me just the pep talk I needed to regain control in my situation. He let me know pertinent information about a deal Kenny had coming up that could possibly be the transaction to send him away. Apparently, he had other sources informing on Kenny, but they weren’t as close to him as I was, so they got only limited details. They told Detective Daily about the deal, but they couldn’t give him when and where it was supposed to go down. That was where I came in. I was to get those crucial details. And from what I had observed from Kenny that day I believed something was going down that night.

  His brother Tim had been over earlier. They had put bags upon bags of packaged cocaine in the trunk of Kenny’s Impala. And I overheard them talking about meeting up later. Plus, Kenny’s phone had been ringing off the hook that whole day. I was almost certain the deal the detective had told me about was taking place that night. I just had to get the facts.

  I was in the bathroom and just finished sending Nasir a text message when Kenny barged in. Startled, I dropped my phone on the marble floor. It was a good thing the battery came out when it fell or else Kenny would have been able to read Nasir’s reply, if he had sent one. He hadn’t been returning my calls or text messages. I assumed he still was not willing to believe what I had told him. It was nerve-wracking, but I wasn’t going to give up on Nasir. I truly had love for him, and I was willing to prove it.

  “Shit, you scared me,” I mumbled, picking up the pieces of my phone.

  “My bad,” he said. “Hurry up, though, I gotta piss.”

  I got up and pulled up my pants. I stepped away from the toilet so that Kenny could use it. I was looking at myself in the mirror as I washed my hands. It was then that I decided to start acting on my plan. I took a deep breath and I said, “Listen, let’s go to dinner.”

  “Dinner?” Kenny asked.

  “Yeah, the meal that people eat in the evening,” I said, trying to use sarcasm to ease the tension that had been between us for some time.

  “I know what dinner is,” he said, still grumpy. “I can’t, though. I’m goin’ to one of my boys’ cookouts.”

  “Well, how about I go with you?” I suggested in a sweet, inviting tone, trying to be seductive and keep my nerves relaxed at the same time. I turned Kenny around to face me as he put his penis in his boxers, then pressed up against him.

  “What’s all this?” he asked, not resisting my grinding on him.

  “It’s my peace offering,” I said, making my way down on my knees. “We haven’t talked in a while, Kenny. Yet we been havin’ a lot of issues. I think it’s time we clear everything up and try to resolve whatever grudges we got against each other.” I slid his penis back out of his boxers.

  “Yeah, well, all that shit is in the
past,” Kenny said as he placed one of his hands on the top of my head.

  I reluctantly licked the tip of Kenny’s dick. Then I continued, “Yeah, but I wanna clear the air.” I licked it again and said, “The only reason I was in Nasir’s truck that day was because the detectives had been pressurin’ me to get more information on him. They orchestrated me gettin’ fired so that I could chase with Nasir and find out which lawyers and doctors he dealt with,” I lied.

  “Yeah?” he asked, seemingly uninterested. “Why you ain’t tell me that shit then?” He surprised me.

  I licked his dick again, then gave it a few sucks, too. “I didn’t want you to worry about me bein’ in the truck with Nasir. I didn’t want you to be insecure over nothin’.” I went back to sucking his dick.

  Kenny didn’t say anything in response. He just moaned at the action I was giving him. I had managed to psyche myself out for the remainder of Kenny’s blow job, closing my eyes and imagining he was Nasir. I got so caught up in my thoughts that tears came to my eyes. I missed Nasir. I missed the happiness he brought to me. I missed having sex with him, too. I wondered if he’d ever find it in his heart to forgive me.

  Once I felt Kenny getting close to climaxing, I slipped his dick out of my mouth. “Stay home with me. Don’t go to the cookout. It’s raining outside anyway,” I said.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Now put my dick back in ya mouth.” He guided my head back toward his bulging penis.

  I licked it a couple times, but I didn’t want to make him cum. Not until I got what I needed out of him.

  “Why not, Kenny? Why can’t you keep it in tonight? We could watch movies and cuddle like we used to. I wanna get back what we had once upon a time.”

  Kenny began to frown, frustrated. “Leah, I can’t tonight.”

  I licked him again.

  “Umm,” he moaned.

  “Why not, Kenny? You got plans with ya other girl?”

  “Come on, man,” he said, losing patience.