The Corner II (9 page)

She cried even harder as she covered her face with her hands. She was hurt by the situation and that switch that had been turned on in her showed her the way of manipulation and tears from a woman usually helped them get their way from people who loved them—especially men.

“My stepfather!” she blurted out.

“That muthafucka! I knew it was something wrong with his ass. I’ma kill that fucker!”

“Baby, no,” LaTanza halfheartedly said as her man went to the dresser and checked the clip in his loaded Glock.

He shook his head at the thought of another man entering his baby—he was ready to kill over that. Let alone someone who forced himself on her.

LaTanza stood. She walked over to her man and asked him to calm down. He couldn’t so she wrapped her arms around him and asked if he would lay with her and listen. That she needed to get years of pain off her chest and he was the only one she could talk to. The only one she loved like that to tell the horrible stories of her life of abuse. She wanted him to know. She wanted to create a bond between them so strong that they would do anything for one another. They lay on the bed and it took a while for Carlos to calm down. He leveled his anger after LaTanza told him the story of how she had been abused for over seven years—he knew he had to be there for his girl. She also went play by play of what happened tonight and it infuriated him to the point that he agreed to kill her stepfather so she could be free and so he would pay for his sins. Carlos was religious to a point and agreed that people had what was coming to them in the afterlife. But he also felt like there was such a thing as street justice and people had to pay for their wrongdoings here on earth also.

Carlos took his woman in his arms and held her as they talked—as they formulated a plan. They kissed and fell asleep. At least he did. LaTanza was wide awake as she thought about the satisfaction she was going to get from staring into her stepfather’s eyes when he bit the bullet and she came up with a better plan than Carlos did. One that would let everyone know that she was raped, but it was one that would put her and her lover in the clear of getting rid of her personal devil—Jack the molester. She looked at the clock and it read two thirteen. They could be back at her house by three and their plan could be carried out by sunrise—the dawn of a new day, the start of a new life for her. She woke Carlos and told him of the new plan.

*     *     *

“Wake the fuck up!” Carlos said as he kicked the man who lay on the bed.

Still a bit drunk, it was hard for Jack to focus but the kick to the ribs Chavez gave him shot pain through his body and got his adrenaline to flowing and that helped to clear the drunkenness and also let him know that he’d better get up.

“What the fuck y’all niggas doing in my house!” he yelled at the men who had green bandannas covering their faces as he stood. Jack was no slouch, at six-two, two hundred and forty pounds he had the size and grew up fighting in the Cabrini Green projects so he was never one to back down.

“
Puta
, I advise you to sit yo ass down,” Chavez yelled.

“Fuck you young ass punks, I’m muthafuckin’ Jack, you better ask somebody. I make a phone call and—”

Pop, Pop! 

Chavez let off two shots one round shattering each kneecap causing Jack to collapse to the ground.

He crawled toward Chavez as if he had a chance to fight his way out. He didn’t make any headway. Every time he pulled the old rug he landed on it just pulled toward him, sliding on the dull wooden floor and bunching up under his arms. Chavez looked at Carlos and he nodded at the young killer. Chavez ransacked the room then hid drug paraphernalia in a place that the police would find but would have been possible for the people who broke in the house to miss.

Jack was facing the floor grunting from the pain in his legs. He yelled, “You Spic bitches kill me, I swear!”  He slowly looked up to do some more cursing at the man who was standing in front of him. That’s when he saw the image in the doorway. It was LaTanza. She was standing there in the same shorts and t-shirt she had on when Jack had come in her room to violate her one time too many.

“Run and get help!” Jack blurted out hoping that his stepdaughter would make it out of the house in time, but then he noticed the sadistic look on her face.

She was smiling and twisting her hair around her finger. Jack got the message when she leaned onto door jam.

Quizzically, Jack asked, “Bitch, you had something to do with this?” 

Carlos slid his green bandanna from his face to his neck and took off the green skullcap. Jack got a good look at his face and realized that his time was up. This was the young man he’d seen drop off his stepdaughter a couple of times. The same young man who drove the fancy vehicles. With his time being up he figured he’d go out like a soldier and that was to leave a little something on LaTanza’s mind for the rest of her life. He figured that he wasn’t going to live to get her back for having her man come into his home to take him out so he figured he’d put something on her mind to have her fucked up.

Jack’s laugh was sinister then he laid it out for LaTanza. “You think you’re getting the best of me? You want to know what really happened to your mom?”

Carlos pointed his pistol at Jack’s head yelling, “Shut the fuck up! I’ll peel your cap!”

LaTanza yelled, “No let him talk! I need to know why he did what he did to me.”

Carlos lowered his pistol but stood ready to do Jack as did Chavez.

“I killed your mom. You think that I was going to put up with her whoring. Shit, every time I knew she was out with your
real
father I came to you in the middle of the night. Call it what you want, but your mom didn’t have the decency to even tell you who your real dad was. He was just on the other side of town and ten years after you were born I found out that she was still fuckin’ him. Everybody in town knew it—even your friend’s parents. Your mother made me out to be the fool of the city so she had to go.”

The light from the hallway enabled Jack to see the tears that raced each other down LaTanza’s cheeks. He was in pain and had no sympathy so he decided to twist the knife he’d stuck in her.

“Aw, you cryin’. You can’t cry, you a woman now. Planning hits and shit. You know your mom and your sister knew about us,” he told her.

LaTanza cringed. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard.

He continued. “Yeah, they came home early one day and when I was on top of you I heard a gasp and when I turned around I saw your mom and your sister. She pushed your sister behind her and she stood frozen, and I fucking finished and didn’t give a fuck!”

Carlos shot Jack in the ass but this time he didn’t let out a sound. He just gritted his teeth, took the pain and continued to talk. “So it looks like everybody had a hand in fucking you!”  He laughed a sinister laugh and that’s when LaTanza took the pistol from Carlos. She was about to put one in him when Chavez yelled for them to wait. Chavez was an expert at killing and he had to keep his boss’ ass in the clear. He hit Jack in the back of the head with his pistol to knock him out but not kill him. He needed for the man to still be breathing—for his blood to be circulating. He took out a syringe and filled it with heroin. He pierced a vein with the needle and plunged the drug into the man. They waited a while for the heroin to flow through Jack’s system. Chavez looked at his watch then told his boss, “Now it’s time.”

LaTanza was zoned out from the venomous secrets Jack had spat. She wondered could it have been true. She then squeezed the trigger. Chavez smiled as Jack’s head popped. Carlos was glad to see his woman take charge because he was going to have her put a round in Jack just like him and Chavez. His rule was on any murder he was involved in anyone who was with him had to have a hand in it also. That way there was no chance that that person would go to the police without implicating themselves in the murder.

Carlos purposely dropped one of the green bandannas in the hallway as they made their escape. He did so to make the police think that it was members of the rival Spanish Cobras who had entered the home. Carlos and Chavez were Latin Kings. They headed out the back door—the same door they had entered. The same door LaTanza had left unlocked. Before running into the back yard, Chavez jimmied and busted the lock to make the B&E look as real as possible. Once they were out of the house LaTanza did her part. She called the police and her acting kicked in. Once she knew they were on the way she got in the shower and balled up naked crying.

Chavez and Carlos made it to their car that was down the alley a safe distance away. Chavez nodded at the dope fiend that was standing on the corner. They had brought her along. She started walking down the alley toward the house with her drug addict stagger. The sirens grew closer and she was ready to tell the story the way she’d rehearsed. Chavez put the car in gear and they eased out of the alley, as the sun seemed to have risen out of nowhere. Carlos thought about his baby and what they had just gone through and how she had become his ride or die chick. He knew she’d be okay when the police arrived to question her. She’d play the traumatized role to the T and tell them that she had been raped by what looked to be a Spanish and black guy. They wouldn’t question her seeing as how her sister has been one of Chicago’s finest for three years and would pop up on the scene when she heard the call and realized that it was her father who had been murdered. Carlos leaned back, smiled and thought of his and LaTanza’s future as he and Chavez headed up the Dan Ryan expressway.

*     *     *

LaTanza left Doctor Hoffman’s office feeling just about the same as she did when she went in. The doctor gave her a prescription for some drugs to help her with her sleep, and the date of their next session. She had all the information she needed and wasn’t surprised at the part about Carlos. But she knew that LaTanza’s role in her stepfather’s death, no matter how she tried to justify it in her mind, was the cause of her anxiety and her mood swings. The rape, she has tried to shut out by an emotion of lashing out and applied violence to people she feels are a threat. All of this was noted due to Hoffman being LaTanza and Carlos’ shrink. The doctor was bound by secrecy of the doctor patient code of ethics and Carlos’ code of
taking care
of her if she spoke of any of his business.

LaTanza glanced at her Rolex as she navigated her way through the Lake Shore Drive traffic. She was on her way to the ritzy Gold Coast area of Chicago to see Jasmine. Jasmine was going to ride with LaTanza to pick up Carlita from the summer school and then they were going to have a late lunch. Something they have been doing for years for they were like sisters who have had each other’s back and nothing could separate the two. They both had gone from eating beans and rice three times a week to eating at restaurants where women broke their necks to kiss ass when they saw Oprah Winfrey walk through the door.

A New Beginning

L
isa looked in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize herself in the grey pants suit. She had her hair combed back and flipped on the ends. She was on the way to her new job as an administrative assistant—better known as secretary. Mr. Goldstein told her that she didn’t have to show up until next Monday giving her time to get adjusted to being free. Once she was released, she had Shay take her to the mall. She still had the money that Terrance had sent her while incarcerated. She had saved most of that money so she’d have some in case she got released early. She prayed every night that she wouldn’t have to serve all her time and God answered her prayers. Now all she had to do was live the straight and narrow like she promised the Man upstairs and she was on that path. Even though Goldstein told her that she didn’t need to show until next Monday, here she was on Wednesday, up bright and early to start something she wasn’t used to—a nine to five.

Sunlight shone into her bedroom that was located on the upper level of Shay’s expensive town home. She modeled the outfit for a moment realizing that it looked better on her now than it did when she tried it on in the store. She ran her hands down her curvaceous hips and smiled as she was filled with happiness to be free. She decided to get on her knees and thank God for helping her gain her freedom back. For she knew that it was His doing and His will that freed her and for that she always got on her knees and gave thanks.

“Are you going to come down here and eat or what girl?” Shay barked up the stairs at her girl who was taking forever.

The conservative heels clicked and clacked as Lisa walked down the spiral stairs. She had slipped on a pair of fashionable glasses she’d purchased at Pearle Vision that made her look intelligent. She entered the kitchen and Shay had it going on. French toast, eggs, grits, bacon and sausage links, she was ready to slam on everything. Shay had been hooking it up ever since she got out, and she thanked her girl for that. No more oatmeal, boiled eggs or that nasty as all get out biscuits and gravy. She couldn’t believe how a lot of the white girls that were incarcerated would be standing in line for that slop.

“You have the paper?” Lisa asked as she sat on the barstool.

“Nah, Mike took it,” Shay said as she poured some syrup on her French toast.