One Dead Lawyer (11 page)
Authors: Tony Lindsay
“Wow, should I go home and put on something better?”
“No! Let's ride.”
Who did the kid think he was going to meet? Donald Trump? Ricky Brown was nobody. It bugged me that kid got all hyped about meeting Ricky. He wasn't no more important than me; yeah . . . I was player hating.
Going to get Ricky wasn't about securing help. No assistance was required with Stanley's problem. What I needed from my best friend was his opinion on the situation with my son and Regina, and validation that I was thinking right. Despite the changes Ricky had been going through, he remained my sounding board.
My once night-clubbing, gambling, weed-selling, adulterous friend has become settled. The only street-related activity Ricky involved himself in these days was the selling of marijuana, and that's because weed selling for Ricky Brown was a matter of pride. It was no longer a business for him. He had no distribution network or people working under him. He supplied only his lifetime customers. And according to them and him, he found the best weed in the world.
These five guys were more his smoke buddies than customers. Last year he flew all five to Amsterdam for two weeks. Two of the five are now trying to get citizenship there, because of their relaxed laws on marijuana. I didn't go; smoking weed was never really my thing. I preferred to drink and gamble.
Ricky would go gambling if I begged him hard enough. And if he went out drinking, two drinks and he was gone, and he only drank at bars. He wouldn't go anywhere near a club. To quote him: “I ain't gonna end up being da oldest motherfucker in da club.”
When Ricky Brown said, “Ain't nothing out here in da streets fo' me, D. I have more fun at home playing' with da kids.” I believed him, only because Ricky Brown had already done everything there was to be done on the streets.
The catalyst for Ricky's change, although he would deny it, was the case we'd worked on together six months before. He hired me to protect his sister-in-law. That case changed us all, but he'd never admit it. I'd nicknamed the case “One Dead Preacher.”
When we pulled up to Ricky's mini castle, he was sitting on the front porch with his oldest daughter, Tiffany. Ricky and his wife Martha have six children. Tiffany is one hundred percent Martha, more clone than daughter. All she got from Ricky was his name. Her round face, her rich, flawless brown skin and her short curvy stature all came from Martha.
As we walked up the stone steps, Tiffany got up to greet me with a hug and a smile. My best friend remained seated. His eyes were on Stanley.
“Hey, Uncle Daâ” She stopped midway through the greeting before I got my hug, and said, “Oh, hold up, I know that ain't Snap coming over my joint. What's up with you, kid!” She turned from me and gave Stanley my hug.
“Hey, Tiff, what are you doing here?”
“I live here!” She moved from him and hugged me briefly and turned her attention back to him.
“You live here? I thought this was Ricky Brown's house.”
“Ricky Brown is my daddy.”
“Yeah right, I woulda known if Ricky Brown was your pops.”
“Some people's business ain't everybody's business. My name is Tiffany Brown, right?” Her hands went to her budding hips.
“Yeah. Wow. I didn't even know.”
She sucked her teeth. “You wasn't supposed to know. Enough about that. Snap, I sure hope you been studying your French over the summer. I'm not with carrying you this year.” She was no longer smiling.
“Carrying me?” He darted his eyes quickly to me and then Ricky. “You didn't carry me last year. I just copped your notes a couple of times.”
“Whatever. You know senior year is too serious to be playing.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but later for all that, hear me on this. I'm gonna flip that Aurora this weekend!”
“No!” Tiffany yelped.
“I told y'all last year, I wasn't tryin' to be seventeen years old on the bus.”
“You made seventeen?”
“In July.”
“And finna get a caaar! Daddy! Do you hear this? I told you seventeen is too old to be catching the bus to school.
Daddy, I'm going to be the only seventeen-year-old on the bus. You got to think about it some more.” She had turned her pleading eyes to Ricky.
Ricky rose from his seat and beckoned me to follow him. “Good grades first, and then a car. Show me first, baby.”
I could tell this was an established point between them because her attention went back to Stanley. I followed Ricky into the house.
“What color are you going to get?” The kids sat on opposite porch ledges, facing each other.
“Gold. And I'm getting Floyd and them to do the tint. I saw the one I'm gettin' over there on Western day before yesterday.”
“Gold would look nice. I know May is happy.”
“Ain't no guarantee me and May gonna be together this year.”
Standing inside the house away from the door and out of their sight, Ricky stopped to eavesdrop, and I did too. I wanted to hear what the kid said about Mitch's daughter.
“Yeah right, May the only good-looking girl that's going to put up with you hanging out with them thugs, you'd better keep her.”
“Why you always got to be like that?”
“Like what?”
“All direct and straight to the point.”
“Well, I'm just telling you like it is. People judge you by the company you keep, and none of my girls trying to catch a bullet meant for you or one of your thug friends. Yeah, you cute and all, with that clean cut and bowlegs, and everybody says you dress nice, but you hang around thugs, and thugs be shooting at thugs. May is the only girl I know who thinks you worth the risk.”
“Man, you and your girls ain't all that.”
“Whatever, that's why every guy at the school been sweatin' us since we were freshmen.”
Ricky whispered, “That's my girl,” and we walked to the dining room to join Martha, who was sitting on the couch with remote in hand, flipping the plasma screen's channels.
“Sixty-eight dollars a month for cable and there is not a darn thing on.” She placed the remote on the white marble coffee table. “Hey, D.” I went to her and kissed her on the cheek.
“Hey yourself.” I slid next to her on the white leather sofa.
“If you came over for dinner you're in bad shape today. Ricky made a pizza out of sausage links, worst mess I ever tasted in my life.” Even though Martha was in her housecoat, I could tell she'd worked today. Her watch, wedding ring, diamond tennis bracelet and stockings lingered from her workday.
Ricky started a small cleaning business about fifteen years ago, and under Martha's watchful eye it had grown into the city's second-largest office cleaning company. Last year he turned all operations over to her. He kept himself busy with his rental properties and liquor stores.
“Links, bro?” I asked Ricky.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time, but Martha's right, it's a mess. I got some shrimp coming from Whites if you hungry.” He dropped down to the rocker recliner next to the couch. The Browns had converted their formal dining room into a very cozy family room equipped with three computers, a foosball game, an overstuffed love seat and a surround-sound system. There was also a game table used for dominos, chess and backgammon, and all the Browns played competitively.
“You ordered shrimp?”
“Yeah, I had to get something. Your daughter wouldn't touch da pizza.”
“Where the rest of the kids?” I asked.
“The boys are at dance and the girls are at karate.”
“Huh?”
Ricky and Martha chuckled, “It does sound backwards, don't it? But that's how it is. The boys are taking tap dance lessons and the twins are taking karate. You should see Monique and Monica in their karate suits. âDouble trouble' is what their sensei calls them.”
“I would like to see that. How soon before they come in?”
“Tiffany should be leaving to get them in a few, they're right up the street, the South Shore Cultural Center has summer activities.”
“Well maybe I'll see them when I get back. I came to get Ricky to ride with me down to Forty-seventh Street.”
A big grin appeared on his face.
“Lord yes, get him out of here, I never thought I'd say that, but he needs to go out.”
“Martha!” He sat up in the recliner.
“Baby, I'm sorry, but you need some air and something to do. Being in the house is not for everybody.”
“Sound like you sayin' you sick of me.”
“I didn't say that, I simply said you need something to do. You haven't been doing house things all these years. I see no sense in starting now.”
Looking past Martha, a noticeable darker patch in the wall grabbed my attention. The wall was eggshell white, but the patch was almost yellow. Seeing a patch in Martha's wall was unusual. Her home had been flawless for years. Ricky's businesses had been doing well for years, and her home reflected that. Martha bought the best and she bought frequently. A patch in her wall was out of the norm.
“What happened to the wall?” I thought it was an innocent enough question.
Martha's attention went to the television. Ricky, who had stood from the recliner looked down to the polished floorboards.
“The wall y'all, what happened?”
“Nothin', da boys just knocked a little hole in it and I fixed it.”
I got up and walked over to it. “You fixed it, huh?”
“Yeah, I fixed it,” he said, pulling up his pants.
“He fixed it, just like he fixed the refrigerator that's still leaking, the ceiling fan he taped up, the doorknob he nailed, and let's not forget the floor tiles he fixed with Krazy Glue.”
Ricky took his straw hat from atop one of the computers. “Let's go man.”
“Hold up a second, you fixed a door knob with a nail?”
The tips of his ears were turning red. “If you want me to ride with you, let's go man.”
“A'ight, a'ight,” I said restraining a laugh. “Hey man can you cash a check for thirteen grand?”
He looked to his wife, “Martha?”
Something on television had her attention; she answered without looking up, “Yes, the receipts from the stores on Fifty-first Street didn't get dropped.”
I followed Ricky down to the basement. I saw more of his handiwork on the stairway railing. It had been taped into the brackets with duct tape. “Man, I can fix this railing for you.”
“It's fixed.”
“Okay.”
He pulled thirteen grand from his walk-in safe and cashed the check. The previous owner of Ricky's mini castle home had had the safe installed. I believe it was one of the main reasons they bought the house. I peeled seven grand from the bundle of bills Ricky handed me.
“I got a couple of Time-Life books on home maintenance. You can borrow them anytime you want.”
“Look-a-here man, obviously I ain't no handyman, but I tried, a'ight? It was just somethin' to do.”
“All I'm saying, Ricky, is we can do the repairs together, me, you and the books, cause I can't fix everything either.”
“You do a'ight. You can fix most thangs.”
“But I use the books, Ricky. What I'm saying is I can show what I know, and the books can do the rest.”
“Man, look-a-here, I'ma get somebody in here and fix those thangs. A'ight, I had a little time on my hands so I tried to do a little somethin'. I don't need ya mister-fix-it books.”
“Cool. I was just letting you know I had them.”
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