All Hail the Queen Page 8

  From her spot leaning against the wall by the window she pulled back the wood blinds to look out at the cars parked on the street outside the row of brownstones in Newark’s University Heights section. She arched a brow to see a man and woman climb out from the backseat of a SUV. Both brows dipped when the man went into one home and the woman went into the one next door. Both were married and living with their spouses.

  Out the corner of her eye she spotted Tank lying down on the bed.

  Never had they argued so much as when he started his own business two years ago. Her disappointment fueled every bit of it. She thought things would get better when he focused less on being a bouncer and more on security. Shit didn’t change. Still late nights. Still disrespecting bitches.

  She never caught Tank cheating but he was a man like any other man and how much temptation could any man take?

  “I can’t do this anymore, Tank,” she said.

  Before the words fully left her mouth he swore under his breath and sat back up. “Naeema, could you finish whatever the fuck is bothering you this time so I can carry my black ass to sleep.”

  His annoyance hurt. “This time but same old shit, Tank,” she said, wishing he could understand that she just wanted to be heard. She just wanted him to respect how she felt instead of letting it go in one ear and out the other like she didn’t have shit to do but find things to argue about. She just wanted to know he cared enough to give a fuck.

  “Okay. I’m wrong. I’m sorry. I ain’t shit,” he said, looking over at her. “What else, Naeema? Because all these bills can’t get paid off your arguments every damn night . . . or cutting hair.”

  That stung like a motherfucker and she felt it deep in her chest.

  Another old argument.

  “It’s over, Tank,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as she wiped away the tears she didn’t even know were falling at first. She shook her head with regret before she pushed off the wall and walked to the bedroom door.

  “Yeah right,” he said, lying back down on the bed.

  She stopped to look back at him, her hand on the door. He lay on his back with his arm across his eyes. She bit her bottom lip and closed the door before making her way to the guest bedroom.

  She lay across the top of the bed and held her hand up to look at it in the moonlight. The tattooed wedding bands had faded in time. Just like the peace in their relationship.

  Naeema thought of the house she grew up in when she was living with her grandfather. She checked a few months ago after another heated argument and it was indeed hers. Funny how she ran away from that place so much growing up, too young and dumb to be grateful.

  And now she was running back to it . . .

  Naeema blinked and the memories of their breakup faded as she looked over at Tank lying in the bed. She stroked his hand with her thumb as she rose to her feet and stepped closer to the bed to bend down over him. “I’m here, Tank. I’m here. Right by your side. And I love you. Please . . . please don’t leave me here all alone,” she whispered. A tear fell from her eye and down onto his cheek.

  The doctor explained the bullet to the chest had caused major blood loss and led to Tank going into cardiac arrest during surgery. He was lucky the bullet entered his lower chest and not his heart. The doctor successfully repaired the damage from the bullets but Tank remained unconscious and she had no idea if he could hear her but she wasn’t willing to let the words go unsaid.

  She looked up when the door to his hospital room opened. “Grip!” she exclaimed, instantly feeling some of the burden was lifted off her shoulder as she eyed the tall, bald- headed man. “Can you believe this bullshit?”

  He hugged her briefly to his side. Her head just barely reached his chest. “I wish I had been there, man. This shit is crazy,” he said, his voice deep and rich with his East Coast accent.

  “I want Yani fired,” she said, her eyes on Tank’s face.

  “Done,” Grip replied without hesitation. “I don’t blame you for leaving his ass there.”

  “Fevah switching to a new security team gives off the impression that Tank failed,” she said, reclaiming her seat but holding on to Tank’s hand. “We have to stay on top of all the clients right now to make sure that when he recovers his business ain’t went to shit. You know?”

  “I got it, Naeema. Trust me.”

  And she did.

  “Seeing him get shot right in front of me was so fucked up,” she said, her voice low.

  “It couldn’t have been easy seeing all that blood stain his shirt.”

  “It wasn’t. It was horrible,” she said.

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  She flinched.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it, Naeema,” he promised. “You have my word.”

  “Would you stay here with him ’til I get back?” she asked.

  Hours had passed since Tank came out of surgery and the fellas had long since left her alone and by his side. She was reluctant to leave but she had to. Tank was the first person to teach her it was best to strike while the iron was hot.

  “No problem. I know you been here since last night. Get some rest,” he said.

  Naeema nodded as she stood and moved past him to walk to the door. “I should be back in two hours tops,” she promised, giving Tank one last glance over her shoulder.

  “You good.”

  With a nod Naeema left the hospital room. She stopped at the nurses’ station long enough to leave her cell phone number and let them know she would be away for a couple hours before she made her way down the hall to the elevators. She was plotting.

  Sleep was the last motherfucking thing on her mind.

  Naeema found the parking lot where one of the men had left the SUV after getting it cleaned. She was thankful when she unlocked and opened the door that the smell of blood was gone. Tank’s blood.

  She used OnStar to locate the nearest hair supply store and maneuvered through the busy New York traffic until she turned off the street and into the parking area in front of a large store. Before she left the vehicle she dug her phone out of her bag and called Sarge.

  “Yeah,” he said, gruff and rough as ever. “Y’all okay?”

  “Yes. We’re better—not our best—but better,” she said. “He’s out of surgery but unconscious and they’re just trying to get all of his vital signs stable.”

  Sarge released one of his infamous grunts.

  “Is everything good at the house? Are you eating?” she asked, biting her full bottom lip.

  “Take care of you.”

  She nodded as if he could see her.

  “And leave this thing up to the police, Naeema,” he added.

  “I can’t, Sarge,” she replied, refusing to lie. Not to him. Their odd-ass bond was way too real for that shit.

  “Listen to an old man that seen shit, done shit, and knows shit. Leave this be. You won’t get lucky twice.”

  She knew he was talking about the shit she’d seen, known, and did to bring down her son’s killer.

  “I’m gonna stay in a hotel near the hospital but I’ll come and check on you during the week,” she said.

  “Check on me?” he balked before he grunted yet again.

  Naeema fell silent and let her head fall back against the leather headrest. She was tired as shit but there was no time for that.

  “You can’t save the world, little girl.”

  “Maybe not the entire world but definitely those in my world—including you, Sarge,” she stressed before she pulled the phone from her ear and ended the call.

  Beep.

  Naeema got out of the car and adjusted the fit of her clothes as she made her way inside the store. “Can I see your wigs please?” she said to the Asian woman who walked up to her with a ready smile.

  “Right this way,” she said, heading toward a long wall with multiple shelves holding faceless wig heads with wigs on them.

  Naeema followed behind looking around the massive store taking in everything they offered—including wash-and-wear clothing that was more stretch than anything. Just the kind of shit I love.

  “Human or synthetic?”

  The last thing Naeema needed was more wigs. She had a container of selections back at her house in Newark. All colors. All lengths. All styles. All textures. She wore her hair close shaven but on the days she felt like long hair she taped a wig on and kept it moving.

  “Synthetic,” she said without a doubt.

  “Over here. Over here,” To Wong Foo said, pointing to the majority of the wigs.

  Naeema looked up and quickly made a choice. “Number twenty-three in black,” she said.

  “Wow. Quick,” the store owner said before heading into the storeroom.

  Naeema quickly made her way over to the area where she saw the clothing. She snatched up a lime green dress with cutouts along the sides and found a pair of twenty-dollar black sandals. The store owner brought the plastic container holding the wig to the cash register at the front of the store. Everything came to less than fifty dollars.

  “You want put hair on now?”

  Naeema ignored her and left the store. She climbed into the back of the SUV, thankful for the dark tint as she quickly pulled off her clothes and shoes. The dress wasn’t made for panties and she was glad she used Tank’s hospital room to take a quick shower. Shoving all her clothes in the plastic bag she hurried into the dress and sandals and finger-combed the short bob wig once she slipped it on her head.

  She exited the back of the car and walked back across the lot to the store.

  “Look good. Very good,” the store owner said, eyeing the slits on the side of the dress that exposed Naeema’s cinnamon brown skin.

  “Makeup?” she asked.

  “Do it for the Gram!” the woman said holding up a cell phone.

  Naeema held up one finger, blocking her shot. “Don’t fuck with that,” she said, her voice hard and meant to show she would throw that phone against the wall with a quickness if she even tried it.

  She lowered the phone. “Makeup in here,” she said, pointing to the glass case she sat behind.

  Naeema quickly chose a peach lip gloss and gold eye shadow. After tossing five dollars on the counter she used the mirror stand atop the counter to quickly apply the shadow to her eyes and a light sprinkle to her cheeks with her fingertips before putting on a good dose of gloss that left her lips feeling sticky.

  When she turned and left the store she could have sworn she heard the flash from a camera sound off. Fuck it.

  Back behind the wheel of the Tahoe, she cranked the car and headed back into the bumper-to-bumper traffic of the Big Apple as she made her way toward Upstate New York under the direction of OnStar’s navigation system.

  The hem of the cheap spandex dress kept riding high on her thighs as she drove until eventually Naeema let it be as she tried to come up with a plan during the thirty-mile trip to White Plains.

  Naeema wasn’t overly religious but she kept sending up prayers for guidance to Father God as the landscape changed from the bustle of the metropolis to the slowed-down pace of the suburbs. She was just anxious to finish up her task and get back to Tank’s side at the hospital. She picked up her phone to double-check the signal was still strong in case someone from the hospital called.

  “Your destination is on your left.”

  Naeema eyed the two brick colonial at the end of a long road that switched from paved to flat red-clay dirt. There was a black Range Rover blocking the entrance to the long curving drive leading to the house on the hill. She slowed up, already wishing she hadn’t driven Tank’s car in case the tag was run. Think. Think. Think.

  She took one hand off the wheel to quickly reach in her purse for her fake oversized Chanel shades and reapplied the lip gloss as a short but wide black dude climbed from behind the wheel of the Rover. She pulled to a stop just as he headed to her vehicle. Quickly she removed Tank’s Glock from inside the armrest and set it on the floor before she climbed out, leaving the driver’s-side door open.

  Hips and ass don’t fail me.

  Even as he kept one hand close to the opening of his black blazer to pull the gun she knew he concealed, his black eyes dipped to take her in from head to toe in the dress that was even more revealing than what Naeema usually fucked with.

  But she wasn’t Naeema. Now she was Queen.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, his wide-set nose and flaring nostrils giving him the look of a really big—but really cute—teddy bear.

  Naeema thrust her bra-less titties high and his eyes dipped to take in her nipples pressed against the thin material but then he shifted his gaze to the front license tag on the Tahoe. She opened her mouth and then closed it. She kicked out the idea of playing a lesbian wild girl from Long Island—with a fake accent and all.

  One run of the tag would reveal that lie.

  She quickly skimmed the trees for any video cameras recording her. “I know the bodyguard that was shot last night and I wanted to speak to Fevah. If you could just let her know I’m here,” she said, figuring she put herself in enough of a jam to come as close to the truth as possible.

  “I can’t do that,” he said, crossing his hands in front of him.

  Naeema pressed her hand against her flat belly, meaning to draw his eyes there. “You can’t or you won’t?” she asked.

  “Both,” he said.

  Naeema wondered if she wanted to speak to Fevah badly enough to take his big ass down and drive the Tahoe into the Rover to clear the driveway or switch up the game plan. She went for the latter. “Listen, I’m just trying to figure out who is behind the shooting last night,” she said, her voice softening as she pretended to wipe sweat from the back of her neck and then the top of her cleavage.

  The horny motherfucker didn’t miss shit.

  And neither did she.

  Hook.

  “Anything you can do to help me, I really would appreciate it,” she said, pulling the edge of the dress from her body as she fanned herself. “I want to find out who it is tried to kill Fevah and shot one of our guys. I want it real bad.”

  Line.

  “I know in this business you must know what it feels like to want something real bad. Like you don’t even know how to think straight to get it,” she said with a hot little emphasis on the last word as she hitched her dress a little higher on her thighs.

  She heard that motherfucker swallow.

  Sinker.

  “I’m on duty,” he said, stepping close to her.

  Naeema forced herself not to step back.

  “But give me your number and when I’m off duty I might be able to help you get some satisfaction,” he said, tilting his head to the side as he raised his hand to pull her dress away from her body with his finger and look down at her body.

  Men are so fucking predictable.

  The shit really irked her nerves how tits and ass always fucked them up. She used it to her advantage but she still had no respect for their weakness.

  Naeema gripped his big, rough hand and her dress snapped back to her body like a second skin. “What’s your name and number?” she asked, pretending he had a chance in hell when he didn’t. “We can meet up and then we’ll both get satisfied.”

  “Cecil. 212-555-3480.”

  “Talk to you soon, Cecil,” she promised before turning to climb back into the Tahoe, which was still running. She gave him a smile before she closed the door and turned around at the end of the road to head back to Manhattan.

  A number to a lowly bodyguard babysitting a driveway wasn’t shit but right then it beat a fucking blank.

  7

  Naeema was getting anxious as fuck.

  “I need to smoke.”

  Naeema could kick herself for not taking the weed she still had in her carry-on case with her during that long ride to Upstate New York. She could’ve blazed one and took her time. Now she was wondering if she smoked in the bathroom if she would set off smoke alarms or some shit.

  Weed would mellow her the fuck out. Help her think. Plit-plot.

  She got up from the seat and opened the door to the small, narrow closet where she had stuffed their luggage.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  Naeema frowned and turned to eye her cell phone sitting on the bedside table. It sat silent. Tank’s phone. How in the hell did I forget about that?

  She removed the luggage but didn’t see anything beneath them.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.

  She looked up before stepping inside the base of the closet and reaching on the top shelf to pat it until she felt a plastic bag. Grabbing it, she shook her head at Tank’s shoes, his wallet, and his cell phone. The clothes had been cut away from his body for better access to the gunshot wounds. She took out the cell phone and wallet. The iPhone was locked and the wallet had almost a grand in hundred-dollar bills.

  To be honest, she was camping out in his hospital room until the nurses caught on and sent her home because even the cheapest hotel in the area was a hundred dollars a night. She wouldn’t spend Tank’s money unless she absolutely had to but if the moment arose it was as good as gone.

  She dug the Ziploc of weed and blunts out of her bag, rolling it up tight, and moved across the room to shove it and the wallet down into her pocketbook. After taking her seat she looked down at the phone and then over at Tank. Back at the phone. Over at Tank once again.

  Sheee-it.

  She swiped her thumb across the touchscreen and crossed her legs as she settled back against the chair to try every possible passcode she could think of. His birthday. Hers. Their anniversary. The date they met. The number he constantly played in the Pick 3. Hell, the tag numbers on all his vehicles and her motorcycle. House number. Last four of the house and cell number. Numbers pulled out her ass.

  Shit.

  She tapped the end of her thumbnail against the phone just as it vibrated.

  Bzzzzzz . . .

  The phone went dead mid-vibrate.

  Fuuuuuuck.

  Her fingers gripped the phone tight enough to dent it. She didn’t have a charger. She slid the phone in the side pocket of her pocketbook and stood up to stroke Tank’s cheek lightly with one hand and take his hand in the other. She would give anything for him to open his eyes and look up at her. Smile at her. Hell, talk shit to her. Anything.