Alibi II (17 page)

He went through the box of clothes, holding up shirts and pants, remembering his old friend. He thought of that night so long ago. How they had killed Poncho and almost killed him. That night surely changed the rest of his life; that night was a night he would never forget as long as he lived. As far as he was concerned, Lance Robertson and Jeremy Tyler got exactly what they deserved. And he should have never had to serve one day in prison for murdering them.
If I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me, for sure. I did what I had to do, what anybody would have done.

A taped-up sneaker box was hidden under a sweater. Nard anxiously removed the tape, opened the box, and revealed scattered photos and several VCR tapes.

What we got here?
Nard asked his growing penis.
Oh, my God, I remember this.

“Yo, Sticks, I swear on my moms. Oh, my God!” an overly excited Nard jumped up and circled the room, talking to his dead friend.

“You okay?” asked Beverly, peeking in the door of the room where Nard had taken up residence.

“Oh, yeah, I’m good,” said Nard as he stopped himself from pacing, stood still, faced his mother, and calmed himself, folding his hands in front of him.

“It’s a lot of noise coming from in there, jumping around and what-not,” said Beverly, shaking her head and making her way downstairs to where her uncle was sitting watching
Jeopardy
.

“What’s all that noise; sounds like a kangaroo jumping around,” said Uncle Ray Ray, looking at her over the top of his bifocals.

“I don’t know, but there’s something wrong with Nard. I feel like we need to do something to get him some help.”

“Ain’t no help for him, just leave him alone,” said Uncle Ray Ray before busting out in a Michael Jackson verse and singing to his niece.

“I’ma leave you alone all right, leave you right in here by yourself,” she said, getting up and going in the kitchen.

Upstairs, Nard was going at it, stroking his dick as he sifted through picture after picture. This was actually just as good as the XXX store he went to. Sticks’s pictures were as graphic as graphic could get. He laid the top photo down, revealing the next. It was like a freeze flash from a moment in time. His hand slowly moved from his penis to the photo as he took it from one hand to the other and held it under the light.
That’s that bitch right there.
He saw her face, clear as day, just as he remembered in the courtroom. The photo was from the night Sticks’s man was having a bachelor party. Nard didn’t attend but he knew the groom and most of the others. Sticks and the guys planned on celebrating and needed some strippers, because what was a bachelor party without strippers? He called Daisy, a stripper from the Honey Dipper, a strip club he frequented. Sticks got her and her friend Trixie and took them to a hotel. He put them in a room and told them to order what they wanted to eat and brought them a bottle of champagne. Unknown to them, the champagne was spiked, and after some chicken wings and three glasses of champagne, they lost their motor skills and their bodies became limp. While aware of their surroundings, both girls were unable to function. Daisy had impaired sight and was unable to lift her arms, stand, or walk. She knew she wanted to say “no” or “stop” but was barely able to speak, letting out a soft whisper, raising her arms in protest, but unable to hold them up, and unable to resist being bound and held down. But she could hear clearly. Daisy and Trixie had sex with God knows how many different men that night and it was all caught on video. That night was right there in the palm of Nard’s hands in living color. Not only did Sticks take photographs, he videotaped the whole thing. Nard quickly popped the VCR tape into the VCR machine, turned on his television, and pressed play. He locked the bedroom door and sat on the edge of the bed, his manhood growing as he grabbed the shaft of his penis and began moving his hand slowly up and down as he watched Daisy giving fellatio to one guy while another hit her in the ass. She looked as if she wanted it. She wasn’t screaming or crying, she was taking it like it was nothing.

This fucking whore could fuck these niggas like this, but she couldn’t say I was with her. I wish I was there that night, I would’ve fucked this bitch and busted her fucking ass.
Nard stroked himself, squeezing a little tighter around his dick as his hand guided itself faster and faster until he came, his semen shooting everywhere.

Nard fantasized so much about fucking Daisy he had to catch himself constantly. Just thoughts of fucking her, for payback if for nothing else, made him explode. His sexual thoughts were one thing, but deep down, he hated Daisy. He wished nothing more than for all the pain he had suffered to be passed on to her. She had ruined his life. It was because of her he went to jail in the first place. He got jammed all because of her. Had she come through, it would never have gone down the way it did. But in the end, Nard would see to it that she’d pay with her life, one way or the other.

I wonder where this bitch is at? She’s out there somewhere, but where? I got to track this bitch down, got to, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

T
he next week, one night after Nard got off work he called 
Liddles
.

“I been getting everything ready for you all day, man, where you been? You got me sitting here taking every call that come through,” he said jokingly.

“What you getting ready for me?” Nard asked, feeling real special.

“Yo, I got you, I told you last week.”

And Liddles did. He rounded up everybody he knew that Nard knew, everybody from back in the day that rolled with his brother, Poncho. All those still out in the streets that they kicked it with, and he invited them to Ruth Chris. The bill would be on him tonight and just as dinner was complete, a brand new Cadillac Escalade, snowball white with black interior, pulled up and parked outside the restaurant on Broad Street in downtown Philly.

It was a night to remember. Nard mingled with folks he hadn't seen in over twenty years. How Liddles managed to round everybody up, he didn't have a clue. And Liddles pulled out all the stops, making sure he was treated like a king. And when dinner was complete, the dinner party made its way outside to watch Liddles give Nard his brand-new truck.

“Yo, Nard,” said Liddles, throwing him the key to the Escalade.

“What's this?” asked Nard, rolling the funny-looking black object around in his hand.

“It's the key to your truck, nigga,” said Liddles, smiling.

Nard looked at the Escalade, unbelieving.

“What, you looking like you forgot how to drive,” joked 
Liddles
.

“Shit, this motherfucker so pretty,” he said, slapping fives with Liddles, “I'm scared to get behind the wheel.” Looking at the car, just the thought of it, had him under pressure.

“Don't worry, I'm rocking with you, I'll drive,” said Liddles, taking the key from him and ordering him to get in.

“Umm, Nard, excuse me,” said a soft voice behind a sweet smile.

“Hey, Lisa, thanks for coming out,” said Nard.

“Oh, I wouldn't miss seeing you for the world,” she said. “Here, take my number, call me any time, okay?” She smiled as she passed the number to him.

Nard smiled back, his dick harder than it had ever been.

“Yeah, I'll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay, maybe we can get together for dinner or drinks or something,” she said, happy to have made contact with her long lost daydream.

“Come on, playboy, you got time for all that,” said Liddles, breaking their moment.

Shit, no I don't,
thought Nard, following behind Liddles, wondering if Lisa was as soft as she looked.

Liddles hopped in the driver's seat as Nard rode shotgun. He went down to the water at Piers Landing and parked the Escalade in a vacant parking lot.

The two men sat talking for hours. Nard listened to everything Liddles told him, taking him back twenty years ago all the way to his trial, when he had his sister Karla-Jae wearing wigs and reporting back to him as he sat outside the courthouse in a beat-up, dusty van. He told Nard how he had followed Wink, and the other families. How he gunned them all down, and how Wink had pleaded for his life. How the police had questioned him, had a statewide manhunt for the murderer, but couldn't tie him in, and never made an arrest. Nard sat and listened to every word.

“I swear on my moms, I ain't never told nobody this shit,” said Liddles as he continued. “See, the nigga, Wink, said he had fifty thousand in the basement. But I was there on some murder shit, know what I mean, and I killed him. But that fifty rang in my head all night. So, bong, the next day I went back to their block and I waited out there with the neighborhood, like an innocent bystander, and after all the police was gone and the neighborhood was quiet and the house was empty, I bought a flashlight from the corner store, broke into the house through the basement window, and don't you know, this nigga really did have two trash bags filled with ones and fives. I swear to God, he had fifty thousand in two trash bags right next to some boxes. This was the thing, though, I had to go back out the window, 'cause I didn't want to get caught going out the front door and I ain't have nothing to put the money in.”

“What did you do?” asked Nard, really into the story.

“Went back out the fucking window.” He laughed, slapping high fives with Nard. “I took the two trash bags and threw them on my back, baby, and walked down the street with my nine in my hoodie so if I had to pop the fuck off, I'd be ready, and I got in my car, fifty thousand dollars richer. You know, Poncho had a stash in our moms house, and she gave everybody a little piece, but that wasn't nothing. Once I got that fifty out that basement, I went to Simon Shuller and the nigga put me on.”

“He used to look out for me when I was in jail. He always sent packages and money for my books. I been trying to get at him, you know where he at?”

“Yeah, I think they gave Dizzy like forty years. He's upstate running the shit out of Graterford, and Simon he's been dead now, what, about five years?”

“Wow, Simon's dead?”

“Yeah, man, this game's crazy, here today, gone tomorrow,” said Liddles, thinking about the years, time, and how it traveled.

“I need to get at Dizzy bad,” said Nard.

“Go on up to Graterford, all you need is your ID.”

“Damn,” said Nard, “life is really crazy, but if I had known this shit, I'da found you a lot sooner.”

“Been waiting for you, Nard, I been waiting for you.”

“So, that's how you came up?”

“Yup, that nigga was pleading for his life and really had all that fucking money in the basement.”

“Wow,” said Nard, “that's unbelievable.”

“Yeah, that was my come up, that dead nigga's spare change, his ones and his fives, in his momma's basement.”

“Good thing you went back.”

“Yeah, it was a good thing, even though it couldn't bring back Poncho, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But you killed those bastards trying to save Ponch's life. You killed them and I been holding this for you waiting for you to come home,” said Liddles, sliding Nard a briefcase. He took one look inside at the stacks of money.

“What's this?”

“It's for you, man, I flipped and put your fifty to the side. I've been holding that for you, waiting for you to come home.”

Nard looked at the money. He couldn't believe Poncho's little brother.

“Damn, I really would have been here a lot sooner, if I knew you had all this for me.” Nard smiled, full of zest and glee. He didn't know what to say. He was frozen. This was the most that anyone besides his mother had done for him in his whole entire forty-two years of life. He looked at Liddles, his man's little brother. He now felt that his time was well served, if for nothing else, for Poncho.

The two sat for hours and talked shop. Liddles had his hands in all kinds of pies, some that baked legally and others that baked illegally. At the end of the day they all baked the same, fruitfully. On the strength of his brother, and some real-life gangster shit, Liddles had not only passed Nard a suitcase full of money, but the key to the city along with it.

Graterford Prison, Graterford, Pennsylvania
Two Weeks Later

It took Liddles a minute to get Dizzy's government, but once he got it, he passed the information to Nard, who was rolling through the city with his top down screaming money at a thing.

He went through the rigorous security checkpoint and sat down at the assigned visiting room table.

It was then that he saw an old man walk through the door to the visiting room and make his way slowly over to the table. Dizzy had aged tremendously over the past ten years behind bars. The thought of dying in prison wasn't a happy one, but it was inevitable.

“How you doing,” said Nard, standing and extending his hand.

“Well, I guess I'm doing as good as I'm going to in this rat trap they got me in,” said Dizzy.

“Thanks for seeing me,” said Nard.

“You entitled,” spat back Dizzy, letting him know that even at eighty-three he still had his street swagger.

The two men talked and Dizzy soon realized that all Nard's small talk and beating around the bush led to one thing, a series of questions that could give him what he needed, and what he needed was answers and closure.

“Who killed Sticks?” asked Nard, wanting to know what happened.

Dizzy sat still and quiet for a moment, thinking of whether he should speak on the matter. He remembered everything like it was yesterday.

“I was locked up, I knew nothing. I stuck to my guns and next thing I knew, the girl was on the stand saying she never saw me in her life. That bitch ruined my life, man, ruined my shit, for real.”

It was then that Dizzy understood where Nard was coming from, and it was then that he decided to give him what he came for…knowledge.

“See, Sticks was running around in them streets and he was like a loose cannon. Every time we turned around he had another body, another mess, and Simon never liked messes. So, when he killed the girl's landlord, that was the final straw, you understand. And Simon made the call, he sent a hitter down to Nashville with Sticks with the orders to bring back the girl, and leave Sticks behind.”

Nard lowered his head as he sat and listened to Dizzy tell him that it was his own team that turned on him.

“I'm not sure what went wrong, but the cops brought back the girl, Sticks and the hitter were both killed, and the girl didn't testify like she was supposed to. That's all I know.”

“What happened to her, where did she go?”

“Oh, the police took the girl into protective custody, and of course you got sentenced, and Simon felt so bad, you know we did everything for you, everything, after you went to jail.”

“I appreciate it, too, 'cause they had me fucked up in Green. If it hadn't been for those packages, I don't know what I would have done.”

The two men sat for a moment as Nard registered the story that Dizzy was unfolding.

“You said Nashville?” questioned Nard.

“Yeah, when Sticks got hold of the girl's landlord, he was the one that gave up the girl, said she had family down in Nashville.”

That was it. That was all he needed to start his search for Daisy Mae Fothergill and her family in Nashville, Tennessee.

He sat with Dizzy for the afternoon and talked. They talked about the mix-up, how Nard was supposed to go to Graterford, but was shipped to Green inadvertently, and how the message to protect the young man went to the wrong facility. That explained the second mishap, which had caused Nard's sentence to be altered from one to twenty.

After a long afternoon, Nard had more answers to a life he hadn't lived than a person who had. Dizzy was one of the coolest old heads he'd ever have the pleasure of spending an afternoon with. He definitely knew his shit, and he definitely knew the streets. He wasn't missing a beat either, and the fact that he was spending the rest of his life in prison didn't stop his roll. He was doing the same thing he did in the street, he was just doing it behind bars.

After an afternoon of conversation, Nard rose, ready to go. He had gotten all that he needed and then some. And thanks to 
Liddles's
 breaking him off, he had the finances to track down Daisy. Thanks to Dizzy, he had a direction to begin with. It would only be a matter of time, and vengeance would be his, and so would Daisy's ass.