Candy Licker (22 page)

Knowledge knew the two brothers doing the shoot and had done some legal work for them a few times over the years. They greeted him like he was royalty. The elevator leading up to the studio was past tiny, and it was impossible for them not to touch each other. He noticed that Candy preferred to back up against him than to touch the two men who were strangers, and he was cool with that. Better the devil that you know than the one that you don't.

Knowledge was impressed with the interior of the studio and he could tell Candy was too. It was a small operation and mostly contracted for hip-hop magazines, but the brothers, Bilal and Jamil, were professionals and had all kinds of camera equipment and lighting set up. He waited while an older woman whisked Candy away to touch up her makeup, and when she came back in the room dressed in a pair of sexy white cotton pants and a simple crisscross white shirt, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

He stayed out of the way, dick on the ready, leaning against a wall and enjoying the scene. Bilal showed Candy where the main light was, then directed her to her posing spot and started giving instructions. Even with his amateur eye, Knowledge could tell she had it. The girl was as hot in front of a camera as she was on the stage.

He had to admit it. Her package was puffed and it was kicking up the heat in him too. She had it all—body, looks, class. The back pockets was phatty and she was pure eye candy in the front. This girl could be large, he thought, wanting her as she turned and posed and basically made love to the camera. Looking the way she looked, and with a voice like hers, she could be bigger than any female artist out there. That is, Knowledge checked himself, if she could survive the fact that she was fucking with a sadistic killer who had her whole world on lock.

B
ilal and Jamil had been snapping pictures for hours, but Knowledge didn't mind. He could have watched this girl all day. She'd changed clothes about five times, and each time she
rolled out in a different outfit it was sexier than the last one had been. They had just finished taking a short break, and Candy was back on her posing spot. Bilal got off two pictures, and then everything went dark.

“Whassup!” Jamil joked. “Somebody musta forgot to pay the light bill.”

Knowledge glanced at his watch and saw that it was just after four. It was still light outside, but the studio had been artificially darkened, and it was hard to see anything much until Jamil pulled up the shades and let some sunlight in.

Knowledge stayed in his spot against the wall as Candy sat down in a director's chair. Bilal went to check the fuse box as his brother went to the door and glanced out into the hall.

“It's dark out here too,” Jamil called out. “All the lights are out.”

Knowledge went over to the window and looked down on the busy street below. It only took him a moment to figure shit out. “It's a blackout, man,” he told Bilal, who had walked back in with a fuse in his hand. “The traffic light outside is gone, and people are pouring outside and standing in the street.”

Candy joined Knowledge at his window while Bilal and his brother shared the other one. He moved over slightly for her, but still their shoulders and arms touched. Instantly his dick got hard. He could smell her perfume and whatever it was she had used in her hair.

“Shit!” Bilal cursed. “We got a tight deadline on this layout.”

His brother shrugged. “We'll just have to use what we got then, 'cause if the lights are gone then this shit's a wrap.”

W
e walked down Fulton toward Atlantic Avenue and I couldn't believe how crowded the streets were. Everybody and they niggah was out here looking for a way to make it home, wherever that was. Cell phones were knocked out. The trains were shut down, and traffic was so backed up cars could hardly move. Finding a taxi was nothing but a pipe dream, so I followed Knowledge down the street as we flowed right along with everybody else.

“So what's the plan?” I asked, strutting beside him. I'd worn a pair of two-hundred-dollar sandals to the photo shoot, and I was glad those days of sporting cheap-ass jellies were long over.

“We walk,” he said, but he didn't say it rough. He looked over at me. “You cool with that? I mean, we could hang out here in Brooklyn and wait until something happens, but it looks like that might take awhile.”

I glanced around. It was the middle of August and the crowd was getting thicker by the minute as people dashed out of their
hot-ass offices and onto the city streets. “Yeah,” I said, hoping I sounded like a soldier. “I'm cool with that.”

We followed the masses down the streets and toward the Brooklyn Bridge. The mood was high, and even under the circumstances New Yorkers were feeling each other and being nicer than usual. Especially for Brooklyn. The vibe was contagious though, and I decided right then and there I wasn't walking all the way across no bridge and back into Manhattan with no niggrow who had a funky attitude or gave me the silent treatment.

“So,” I said, strolling easily. I had started to take all my shine off and stick it in my purse, but I felt safe walking with Knowledge, like couldn't nothing happen to me. “Did you dig that shoot or what?” I was waiting for him to say something smart so I could bust on him. His eyes had been on me more than the camera had, and if I stared into them hard enough I could probably find every single picture they took.

He nodded. “I thought it was hot. Tight. Da bomb. You really did your thang up there, Candy. You've got a lot of talent.”

I started grinning like crazy, happy to get his approval although I didn't know why. We made a little more small talk as we walked. I told him one of my favorite singers was Aaron Neville, and he laughed and said he loved him some Aaron too and had all his cuts. We talked a while more, then ducked into one of those combination ice-cream shops that also sold chicken wings and french fries and probably some weed out the back too.

The owners were cool, and since it was so hot and they
didn't know how long the power would be out, they made our ice cream a freebie. I got a strawberry cone and Knowledge got him one scoop of vanilla in a cup.

“Vanilla, huh?” I said, slobbing my ice cream down and licking it from all angles. “So is that what you into?”

He looked at me with a slick grin. “When it comes down to my ice cream, yeah. Outside of that, I'm a chocolate man. Although I can go for a little strawberry every once in a while too.”

I took a nibble from the edge of my cone, then held it up and sucked some of the melting ice cream from the tip at the bottom. “Umph.” I grunted. He'd danced his ass all around my question and still left me wondering.

“What about you?” he asked, nodding toward my cone. “You got something against that cone, or you get down like that all the time?”

I laughed, then held still as he used his napkin to wipe some ice cream off my chin. “I don't know what you're talking about,” I whispered, flirting my ass off. “I always eat my ice cream this way.”

He dipped his spoon into his cup and ate a mouthful of ice cream, then said, “If that's the truth, then I bet there are a whole lot of hustlers and knuckleheads out there who'd like to be that cone.”

I looked over at him and said softly, “I'm not interested in hustlers or knuckleheads, Knowledge. I'm into real men.”

He nodded and ate some more ice cream. “Cool, Candy,” he said. “That's good to know.”

B
y the time we got to the Brooklyn Bridge it looked like half of Manhattan was already there. It was still hot as hell, probably around ninety degrees, and rush hour had just begun. It looked like thousands of people were already on the bridge. Some were leaving Manhattan, and others were trying to get in.

I looked out at all that water so far down below and got scared to step one foot on that bridge. “I feel dizzy,” I said. “I can drive over a bridge, but walking over one is something different 'cause I'm scared of heights.”

Knowledge gave me a strange look, then held out his hand. “I feel you. I really do. But we ain't gotta live on this baby. Just cross over her. Act like you're walking down a regular street. Just don't look down.”

He held my hand and helped me climb over a barrier to the bridge's walkway, and we joined the crowd that was trying to get back into the city. There were so many people that I didn't look down and I didn't even stress. Knowledge made me walk on the inside of him so I didn't have an excuse to look down anyway.

I couldn't help feeling like this blackout had happened right on time, 'cause I was starting to enjoy the hell out of myself on this walk. I knew there were probably a ton of people stuck in elevators and some in the tunnels of the crowded subways, and I felt for them. But for real though. I was aboveground and hanging out with a fine-ass man who had enough electricity flowing through my body to light the whole damn city back up.

And Knowledge was looser too. He was ten times more relaxed than he'd been on the way down here, and I was happy about that. I'd been wondering what he was about for the
longest, and it made me even more curious when nobody, even nosey-ass Fatima, could tell me much about him. All they knew was that he was real big in Hurricane's game. That he was a shot-caller, an investment baller who handled Hurricane's empire and who stayed away from bitches and bullshit like they were the virus.

The bridge was longer than I thought it was, but that was cool. We talked the whole way, and by the time we reached downtown Manhattan I knew some things about Knowledge and he knew a few things about me too.

“Did you like Saint Louis?” I asked. He'd said that's where he was living before he came to Harlem when he was thirteen.

He shook his head. “East Saint Louis. It's a small town across the river in Illinois, and it's not big like Saint Louis. But, no. I hated it. We were poor as hell and life was hard. My mother got killed there, and when my grandmother sent for me to come to Harlem I never looked back.”

I nodded. That's how I felt about L.A. After losing Mama there, I'd probably never even think about going back again.

“My feet hurt,” I said softly. I leaned against a car and bent over to unstrap my sandals.

“What are you doing?” Knowledge said real quick. “Don't take off your shoes out here. There's glass and shit in the street, Candy. It's better to keep your shoes on.”

“But my feet hurt,” I whined. Right about now I didn't care how much these shoes cost. My feet were swollen and the straps were cutting into my skin. I wanted them off.

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hand. “I'll tell you what. I got a crib on Seventy-ninth Street. Right off of Broadway. Let's cut through Canal Street and over to the West Side.
We'll hit my crib and I'll give you a pair of slippers. If the power ain't back on by then, I'll put you on my back and carry you the rest of the way to Harlem.”

“You for real?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Let's stop at my joint. I'll be a gentleman and you'll be safe. I promise.”

I took that promise and tossed it over my head.
I'd
be safe from
him?.
I laughed inside. He shoulda been praying his fine ass would be safe from me.