Alibi II (16 page)

“Yo, look who it is. It’s good to see you, baby,” said Liddles, hugging his hero.

“It’s good to see you, too,” said Nard, all smiles as he and 
Liddles
 shook hands, locked in their manly embrace, and stared at one another with their hearts in their eyes.

“You looking real good, homie,” said Nard, as he noticed how fresh Liddles’s gear was. Liddles was wearing a Loro Piana button-down, a fresh new pair of true religions, and his brand-new air force ones, white on white, of course.

“Yeah, man, you, too.”

“Naw, you really looking good. What’s that?” asked Nard, looking at Liddles’s car.

“That’s that Bentley coupe, nigga, sitting on twenty-twos, Ock. Nigga, you know how I do. I get it in, baby. I gets this shit in.”

It was the most beautiful car Nard had ever seen. Nard knew then that Liddles was playing with some paper if he was rolling like that in a Bentley coupe, and not ShopRite money either. Shit, Nard could barely catch public transportation with his ShopRite money, so to see his man’s little brother ballin’ just took his breath away.

Just then Liddles’s cell phone went off.

“Hold up, Nard,” he said as he answered the phone, conducting his business as usual. He hung up the phone. “Yo, Nard, I got to make this run, and I’m going out of town making a run down to the Carolinas, but I need to hook up with you when I get back. I got something for you, baby boy. I been holding a little something for you, ya heard,” Liddles smiled, tapping Nard on the shoulder. “I got a little something for you to help them ends meet, baby,” said Liddles, talking his talk.

“Damn, I sure could use it, I just got out the halfway house, and this ShopRite gig I got ain’t for shit,” said Nard, shaking his head, lost at the perception of how Liddles was moving and shaking.

“ShopRite, fuck ShopRite, you want to work, I’ll give you a job. I got a crew. They working on guttin’ out this building for me now. You can do that and oversee these motherfuckers, make sure they all doing what they suppose to do, feel me?” asked Liddles in all seriousness.

“Yeah, yeah, you know me, I’m down for whatever,” said Nard, figuring it best that he try to get in where he could fit in ’cause at the rate he was going stocking shelves, he’d be assed out if he didn’t make some kind of moves. His life had been taken from him, stripped, and he was determined to build it back up. He had dreams, big dreams, and he knew he could make it, despite all the shit he had been through in his life. He just needed a chance, or better yet the right connect, the right hookup, the right little brother of his best friend whose life had been lost along with his twenty years ago.

“Okay, here, take my number and call me. You got a cell?” asked Liddles, writing down his number for Nard.

“Naw, I ain’t get one yet, but I’m working on it,” said Nard.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of all that for you. What’s your shoe size and your dress size?” Liddles asked, playing his part.

Nard gave him everything he asked him for and for the first time he was looking forward to something other than his usual weekly peep shows.

“Don’t forget, when I get back, ya heard. I’ma change your whole fucking life,” said Liddles as he closed the Bentley’s door. He rolled down his window and hollered out to Nard, “Let me find out them white folks got you bagging groceries at fucking ShopRite. Don’t worry, I got you.” Liddles laughed before racing his engine and driving off down the street.

FBI Building
Fifth and Market Streets
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Vivian Lang sat at a tiny coffee table in a small café on the first floor of the federal building where she worked. Time had aged her, but she still looked good. Her makeup wasn’t heavy, but you could tell she was wearing it, giving her a more youthful appearance. She looked up at the sight of her ex-husband, Tommy, off in the distance, his arms swinging as if he had not a care in the world.

What in the hell did I ever see in him? And if it wasn’t for me, keeping my mouth shut, he never would have made lieutenant. Unfuckingbelievable!

She looked at him as he walked down the hall. Tommy was getting older and more mature, but even after all these years and all the time that had passed, she still despised him. His childish demeanor and lack of responsibility resembled that of a tsetse fly. She remembered the day all hell broke loose, as if it were yesterday. Even though it was almost twenty years ago, the images in her memory still rang clear. Tommy was getting dressed, the baby was screaming, and the babysitter was doing all she could to quell the tiny tot. Vivian had just gotten a call in, another bank robbery, and this time, it was a hostage situation.

“Tommy, I gotta go. Deputy Stevens is going to be looking for me. He said to hightail it and get my ass downtown to Constitution Bank pronto. You don’t need anything, do you?” she asked, before kissing him lightly on the cheek and busting out of their bedroom door and down the hall.

“Why’s my boy crying?” she asked, picking up Tommy, Jr., as she walked through the house, giving the babysitter detailed instruction on what to do. She had only been with them for three months, but for Vivian the young, carrot-top teenager had turned out to be a lifesaver. “Don’t forget, you can still babysit for me Saturday night, right?”

“Yeah, of course, I already told my mom and dad,” she said, smiling as if everything was under control.

“Okay, great. The list is on the fridge, as usual. You got my cell phone number if you need me and my office, right?”

“Yes, I have them,” Gabby replied as she pulled her sweater over her head and placed it on the dining room chair.

“Thanks so much, you’re a lifesaver,” said Vivian as she patted Gabby on the back before rushing out the door and hopping into her car. Gabby waved as Vivian reversed out of the driveway. She closed the door behind her and watched Vivian’s lights fade away in the distance.

Vivian put on her seatbelt halfway down the block. She tilted her rearview mirror, looked at herself, then tilted her mirror back in place. It was a habit she hadn’t broken over the years.

And just as she was about to hop onto I-76 and head downtown she realized she had left the key she needed to unlock the cabinets in her office.
Damn it, I left my file cabinet keys.

Why didn’t I grab them before I left the house,
she seethed as she turned down a one-way street behind a trash truck. She looked in her rearview mirror as another car turned down the same street behind her, blocking her in. What could have taken five minutes now took her ten.

By the time she got back to the house she was definitely late and definitely preparing herself to hear Deputy Stevens’s mouth when she finally arrived.

“What the fuck?” she gasped, needing air as she opened the door to her bedroom and looked at Tommy, his pants and boxers dangling around his ankles, and in front of him, the babysitter, down on her knees, wearing no shirt, no bra, no socks, just light blue lace panties. He didn’t even see her standing in the doorway of their bedroom.

Unable to move, she stood still and calm, watching and wondering what it was she should do. Calmly, she closed the door behind her. She breathed a deep and heavy sigh, tears beginning to stream down her face. She could hear Gabby moaning now, their mattress squeaking from movement.
He’s fucking her? Great, he’s fucking her, like right now in my bed…at that.

Vivian quietly made it down the stairs as the sounds of Gabby getting pounded by her husband got louder and louder with every step. She grabbed the knob to the front door of their home but she couldn’t turn it, she couldn’t leave, she froze as she flashed through her mind her life as she knew it with Tommy. It was a life that would be no more.
How could he? She’s the babysitter, she’s in our home.
What the hell is wrong with him?
She couldn’t believe he would stoop so low.
She’s a little kid, for Pete’s sake.
The thought of him sleeping with a girl only fifteen left her hollow. The thought of him sleeping with her in her bed disgusted her. Vivian was incredibly angry, but she didn’t want to show it. She had learned to stay calm and never let them see you sweat, never show your true face. Vivian ran back up the stairs and, as if it was nothing, barged into her bedroom and stormed over to her closet as Tommy continued fucking Gabby doggie style, not realizing the vision of his wife was reality.

“Vivian, what the fuck!” he yelled, pulling his dick out of Gabby, exposing both himself and her to Vivian.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I distract you from fucking our fifteen-year-old babysitter?”

“Vivian, I’m sorry,” said Tommy, grabbing part of the blanket to cover his lower body. Gabby was behind him, using him for cover as she covered her naked body with Vivian’s sheets.

“Aren’t you twelve? Do your parents know what you’re doing, little girl, fucking a forty-year-old married man with a child in the other room that you’re supposed to be babysitting?”

“I’m turning sixteen next week,” Gabby began before Vivian attacked her, smacking her in the face, pulling her hair, yelling and screaming for her to get out of her house.

“Vivian, stop, what the fuck is wrong with you,” said Tommy as he pulled Vivian off Gabby.

“Get off me,” said Vivian, struggling with Tommy. “You fucking piece of shit, I fucking hate you,” she screamed, and of course by now, Gabby had grabbed her things and was hightailing it down the stairs.

“You little fucking whore,” said Vivian as she threw the girl’s shoes down the flight of stairs, trying to hit her in the head with them, missing her by the hair on a toad’s ass as the shoes slammed into the front door.

“Please, Vivian, I’m sorry,” said Tommy, never in a million years having thought that he’d ever get caught.

“You fucking disgust me. I will never trust you, in our house, in our bed. I swear to God, I fucking hate you. I want a divorce!”

It was twenty years later, and nothing had changed. She still despised him, and he despised her for all the shit she had done to hurt him over the years. Twenty years later and here they were, still hating.

“Yeah, so what’s this about?” he asked as he approached the table. “Shit, better be good, too,” he added, not wanting to be bothered with her at all.

“I tried to tell you, just sign the papers,” she said, pointing to admission forms for their son’s entrance to college.

“I’m not signing shit,” said Tommy, refusing the papers as he pushed them back at her.

“They’re for college for Tommy, Jr., Tommy. Stop being such a fucking asshole and sign them,” she said, shoving them back in his face.

“I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re the fucking asshole. Where the fuck is my brother, 
Vivian
?”

“Don’t ask me that!” she said, not wanting to hear it for the ninety-ninth time.

“No, where is he? All because I fucked our babysitter, you fucking put my brother in jail?”

“Tommy, he was robbing banks, he shot at the police, he would have been caught anyway. At least I helped him.”

“You fucking helped him all right, you helped him go to jail.”

“Fuck you, you were so busy fucking cheating on me with our fucking babysitter,” spat Vivian, wanting to choke the life out of him.

“So what, so what?” he said.

“So what, she was our fifteen-year-old babysitter, you asshole. You fucking cheat on me with a fifteen-year-old, then turn around and marry her, and you’re mad about Sammy? I did my job. Now do yours and pretend you’re a father and sign the fucking papers so I don’t have to take you back to court again.”

“Fuck you,” said Tommy, hating everything about Vivian. “I don’t know how I ever loved you. How did I even fuck you?” he spat at her, trying to figure out what the fuck he had been thinking. The entire time they had been together, she silently had him under investigation. She had all the proof the department needed to implicate Tommy Delgado in a number of felonies. And she always made it perfectly clear that if anything were ever to happen to her, he could kiss his sweet ass good-bye.

“Umm, let me see, you put your penis in my vagina and humped really fast. Fuck you, I should have arrested you along with your brother for fucking a minor, not to mention the rest of your criminally insane family.”

“Yeah, you ain’t that fucking stupid. You know what the fuck my criminally insane family would do to you. You fucking know, don’t ya, Viv?” He smiled at her, wanting to fucking choke her like a bird, just as her phone rang.

“I’m on my way, I’ll be right there.” She hung up and looked at Tommy. “I have work to do. I have to go. You signing for Tommy, Jr., or do I have to contact Uncle Carmen and get him to get you to sign?” she asked, smiling as if she didn’t care what it would take. She and Carmen had always remained close; he still made her his famous chicken a la Rocco sandwich.

“You’re a cunt. I swear to God, I just want to…” he said signing the papers as she stood above him, waiting for her paperwork back.

“Want to what, Lieutenant?” she dared him. “You’ll fucking do nothing to me, and you fucking know it. You’ll go home and you’ll keep pretending, that’s what you’ll do,” she said as she bent down and whispered in his ear, threatening him with a life in prison if something happened to her. “Don’t even think about anything happening to me or I will fuck you like you never been fucked before. You got that, asshole?”

“You’re a fucking cunt,” said Tommy, knowing that Vivian’s FBI ass could take him and his family down in a blink of an eye, but she never would, for the sake of Tommy, Jr.

“And you’re an asshole,” she added, snatching the paperwork he had finally signed from him. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you, fucking idiot,” she mumbled as she walked away.

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you, fucking bitch!” mumbled Tommy, thinking of how she had ruined his life.

“True, so true.” Vivian smiled as she sashayed out of the café and down the hall.

Nard made it home from work the next night a little early. The six boxes he had gotten from Ms. Kay were still stacked in his room. He felt good to have finally found some real-life memories from his past. He was anxious to see his charitable donations from Sticks’s mother and what Sticks had in the boxes. With his luck he might find at least a sweater or maybe even a jacket he could wear. Little did he know, he would find much more than that.