Outcast (24 page)

“I asked, didn't I?”

“That's what's up.”

Tirrell ate his fill and pushed back from the table.

“You want some more?”

“No, I'm full. Thanks. I couldn't eat anything else.”

“Nothing? Not even this?” Tasha turned around with a cupcake on a plate and a single candle on top. She set it in front of him. “Happy Birthday.”

“I can't believe you remembered.”

“We were together for almost three years. How could I forget?”

His emotions crashed like ferocious waves on the seashore.

“You should probably make a wish and blow out the candle, unless you like wax with your chocolate.”

Tirrell took Tasha's hand and kissed it.

She pulled it away. “I need to finish the dishes. We should get goin' soon if we're gonna make it to the hospital before visitin' hours are over.”

 

 

Tasha let Tirrell have time alone with Betty while she waited outside to warn him if Kevin was coming.

The room was overrun with flowers and cards from the hotel where Betty worked and from the church and her neighbors on Eastland Avenue. Tirrell sat at the side of her bed and caressed her forehead. He took her hand and gently squeezed, willing her to open her eyes—grateful that she was still alive. He hadn't felt that God was in the prayer-answering mode of late; still, he knew that Betty believed. He quoted the 23 Psalm. Other than “Jesus wept,” it was the only passage he'd ever memorized. “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for the Lord is with me.'”

When he got up to leave he took the chip he'd been given from the NA meeting, put it in her hand, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I love you, Noonie.”

The temperature had dropped nearly ten degrees by the time Tasha and Tirrell left the hospital. While walking through the parking garage to her car, Tasha noticed that Tirrell had broken out into a sweat. He sat shivering in the passenger seat.

She cranked up the heat. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I will be.”

“Are you comin' down with somethin'?”

“No. Nothin' like that, but it's nice to know you still care, Tasha.”

“You're not yourself, that's all I was sayin'.”

“Who am I then?”

“What I meant was, the way you looked when you came over. The clothes you had on. That's not the Tirrell I remember.”

“A lot's changed.”

“Are you still seeing that woman you were with at that party?”

Tirrell turned and glared out the window.

“Sorry, it's none of my business.” She placed her hand on the gear shift to put the car in drive. He put his hand on top of hers.

“Tirrell, your hands are freezing.”

He cupped them to his mouth and blew into them. “They'll warm up in a minute.”

They sat silently, not even listening to the radio, as Tasha navigated away from the hospital.

Tirrell finally looked at her and then looked away. “Do you ever wonder what could have happened between us if we'd stayed together? I mean, if I could have loved you like you deserved to be loved?”

“Tirrell, don't.”

“I think about it a lot, especially lately. I think about when we first met. I think about the baby we could've had together. But you were right, I would've been a fucked-up father. I was selfish and arrogant as hell. If I was in your shoes I would have probably had an abortion too. You did the world a favor.”

Tirrell's thoughts tapered off. Moments passed before he spoke again. “Man, what I wouldn't give for some . . .”

“For some what?”

“Never mind. Forget it.” He turned, reached up, and stroked the side of her face. “Despite all my shit we were good together for the most part.”

She pulled his hand away and held on to it. “When we weren't in bed together we were toxic. I was insecure and I was doin' a lousy job tryin' not to show it, and you were eatin' it up. I guess I did change some after I lost the weight. I finally got it. I didn't need you or any man to make me feel good about who I was. I should thank you for not bein' able to give me what I thought I wanted, otherwise, I may never have found it myself.”

Tirrell directed her to drive him to the train station so that she wouldn't have to see where he was headed.

“One day I hope you find whatever it is that's gonna make you happy, Tirrell.”

“You don't know how much it means to me what you did today.” He took her hand again and ran it over his face. She didn't pull back. “I still love the smell of that lotion you wear. You think some day you'll forgive me and we can be friends?”

“Tirrell, we can't go back down that road again.”

“Yeah, I don't know what I was thinkin'. Forget I said anything.”

He softly touched his fingers to her lips, trembling, hesitant, and kissed her.

 

 

Tirrell arrived back at The Mission with minutes to spare before curfew. Mr. Preston was standing out front having a cigarette when he walked up.

“You missed a meeting, and you're real close to bein' locked out for the night.”

“I wasn't somewhere usin' if that's what you're thinkin'.”

“Did I say anything about that?”

“You were waitin' on me, weren't you?”

“You're awfully full of yourself, you know that?”

“So I've been told.”

“I didn't think I would see you back here at all after the way you stormed out of here this afternoon.”

“Yeah, well I thought about it. After I spent some time with an old friend I decided that I needed to.”

“A girl?”

Tirrell laughed. “Yeah. She took me to the hospital to see my grandmother.”

Mr. Preston offered Tirrell a cigarette. “Looks like it did you some good. Got your hair cut. Got a shave.”

“Yeah. I think it helped more than I thought it would.”

“You came back, so that must mean that you don't think me or the program is bullshit anymore.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't mean . . .”

“No big deal. It comes with the territory.”

Tirrell squashed the remainder of the cigarette. “I guess I better get inside.”

“Tirrell.”

“Yeah.”

“Happy birthday, man.”

Tirrell flashed a crooked smile. “See you in the mornin'.”

“I'll be here.”

Alex was justifiably uneasy as she sat in a Fulton County jail cell. Every time a guard walked by, or she heard a loud noise, she wondered if it was someone coming for her who was sent by Xavier Rivera. If he didn't know before, there would be no way he couldn't know now.

“You got a visitor,” a female officer said, sliding open the iron bars.

“Is it my lawyer?”

“No. It's some federal agent with ADA Ellis.”

The mannish guard cuffed Alex and led her to a holding room. She felt exposed without the visage of makeup and the designer duds she'd been accustomed to. The orange jumpsuit, harsh lighting, and yellowing walls were telling and did little for her. She was determined not to show her angst.

“Ms. Solomon, I'm Detective Cobb. This is Special Agent Oliver from the FBI, and I assume you already know ADA Ellis.”

“What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“Maybe the better question is what can we do for you?” Detective Cobb responded.

“For starters you could let me out of here.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because you don't have anything to hold me on.”

“I wouldn't say that,” Agent Oliver said. He pushed some papers across the table toward her. “These look familiar?”

Alex glanced down then looked back up. “Should they?”

“This is a spreadsheet we printed from a file obtained by Tirrell Ellis. There are some interesting names on this list: major players, dates, financial transactions.”

Alex remained aloof.

“Take a look at the name at the top of the page. Why don't you save yourself a lot of trouble and fill in the blanks for us?”

“Since you're so smart, Agent Oliver, why don't you fill them in yourself?”

“How long have you been on Rivera's payroll?”

“I'm not on anyone's payroll, or in anybody's pocket.”

“Any of Xavier Rivera's drug money finding its way into your event planning venture?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Detective.”

“Are you and Rivera lovers?”

“Don't be ridiculous. The only reason I'm acquainted with Xavier Rivera is because he hired me to plan several parties for him.”

“And the ‘product' mentioned in the file, I suppose, was party favors?”

Alex lifted her hands to inspect her nails, and the chains hanging off the cuffs rattled.

“You're looking at a long list of state and federal charges that could have you doing time until you're eligible to collect Social Security, assuming that the program is still around when you get out.”

Alex cut her eyes at the weasel-faced FBI agent.

“The police found over fifty thousand dollars worth of cocaine in the safe in Bobby Williams's apartment when they finally got it open.”

“What does that have to do with me? I don't keep tabs on Bobby.”

“You were married to Ray Williams, right?” Detective Cobb inquired.

“So?”

“So, we know that he was connected to Xavier Rivera. He dies. You pick up where he left off.”

Alex smirked. “That's a nice story, Detective. You should write crime novels as a side job. I hear they're all the rage.”

Kevin impatiently jumped in. “Tirrell says when he took that file you threatened my family. My grandmother's lying in the hospital. Are you responsible for that?”

“My cousin's in the hospital in a coma. Is your brother responsible for that?”

“Does the name Nathanial Allen mean anything to you?”

“Should it?”

“We know about the house on Hardy Avenue.”

“I don't know anything about a house on Hardy Avenue.”

“What about Rivera's compound in Miami?”

“Of course I've been there. I've already told you I planned parties for the man.”

“Tirrell Ellis has been there too, and not as an event planner,” injected the agent. “So, if you didn't take over your husband's business with Rivera, and you're not guilty of the attempt on Betty Ellis's life, why did you run?”

“I didn't run. I was going to New York to visit my mother. Last time I checked there was no law against that.”

“You were travelling under the name Angela Sissoko. You had a fake driver's license and a fake passport, that's a federal crime. We also know that you were planning to take a connecting flight to Nigeria, where you . . . or should I say Angela Sissoko has an account at the Bank of Abuja,” Kevin noted.

The FBI agent spoke again. “Those forged documents alone could get you twenty years. We could work a deal if you agree to cooperate and testify against Rivera.”

Alex's brow arched and she squirmed. It was dizzying being volleyed questions from all three men. “I'm not saying anything else until my lawyer gets here.”

“If this scares you, it should. I don't see a man like Xavier Rivera sitting on the clock, waiting to see how all of this plays out,” the agent sneered. “Give us something we can nail him on, Ms. Solomon, and we could put you in protective custody until we get Rivera out of the picture, otherwise, there's no telling what he might do. All it would take is one call to the attorney general to get the ball rolling.”

Alex leaned into the table and met the agent's gaze. “You're wasting your time. I don't have anything else to say.”

 

 

Kevin went back to his office and stared intently at Alex's list, pondering just how deeply Tirrell would be implicated and how much hell he'd unleashed on his family. He'd e-mailed him back, not knowing where he was, but they needed to find him and bring him in before anything happened to him.

An office assistant knocked on his door. “Hey, Kevin, there's some guy named Preston here to see you.”

“Preston?”

“He says it's about your brother.”

“Tell him to come in.”

Mr. Preston walked in and Kevin recognized him instantly. “What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you again too, Mr. Ellis.”

“You know something about Tirrell?”

“He's stayin' down at The Mission.”

Kevin fell back in his chair. He'd had dealings with several of the residents there on any number of occasions who had run-ins with the law. He knew what it meant for someone to be there.

“You didn't know?” Preston asked.

“No, I didn't.”

“Do you care?”

Kevin ignored the question. “What can I do for you, Preston?”

“Nothin' for me, but maybe you could do somethin' for your brother. I was with him when he sent you that e-mail the other day. He told me about the Solomon woman.”

“So?”

“He's reachin' out to you, man. Look, I get that you and him got issues, but he needs his family if he's gonna get through this program.”

“Who the hell are you to waltz up in here and tell me what Tirrell needs? Why do you care?”

“Somebody has to. Too many of us get wrote off. A lot of guys don't ever get their lives back on track, most of 'em don't have family, but Tirrell may still have a chance.”

Kevin folded his hands, perched them under his chin, and leaned on the desk. “So, what do you get out of all of this?”

“I get to help. Six years ago I hit the wall and somebody reached out and gave me a hand when I needed it most. If they hadn't, I could be in prison right now, or I could still be strung out, or dead. Is that what you want for Tirrell? Would it make it easier on you if he was dead?”

Kevin sighed heavily. “Are you finished?”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“All right, you said what you came to say. You can leave now.”

 

 

The hydraulics of the steel prison doors grated, clanked, and squealed open.

“Solomon, you got another visitor.”

“Who is it?”

“He says he's your attorney.”

“He? Did he look Hispanic?”

“No, he looked white.” The guard laughed. “Why, you want a date?”

Alex's eyes shifted nervously.

“You wanna see him or not?”

She stood and absently put her hands up. The guard cuffed her and escorted her back to the holding room. When she walked in, an innocuous-looking man in an expensive suit with a pasty face and thinning gray hair stood to greet her. She'd seen him before. He was one of Rivera's attorneys.

“Ms. Solomon, please have a seat.”

The man looked at the guard. “May I have a few minutes, please?”

The woman moved to the other side of a door with a glass window between them so that she could keep her eye on them both.

“Where's my lawyer?”

“I had a lovely little chat with Ms. DeLucca. We came to the conclusion that it would be in your best interest for me to see you first.”

“Xavier sent you?”

“He's very unhappy with the recent turn of events. That wasn't very smart of you to have kept files on him.”

“I didn't say anything to anyone.”

“Perhaps not yet. I'm here to ensure that you don't.”

“What are you going to do?”

“That depends on you.”

Alex bit her bottom lip and clutched her hands together. “I'm not going to say anything.”

“The Feds can be very persuasive.”

“Look, I only had the file to keep business contacts in order.”

“Are you sure you weren't keeping it as an umbrella for a rainy day?”

“I didn't give the FBI the information—it was stolen.”

“Yes, that was very careless of you, too. How did it happen that you ended up in bed with an ADA's brother?”

“It's not what you think.”

The man leered. “Enlighten me, please.”

“When I first met Tirrell I didn't know who he was. Bobby convinced me that we could use him to our advantage.”

“I was sent here to bail you out; however, that's going to prove a bit of a challenge now that the federal authorities are involved.”

“So, what now?”

“As you know, my client doesn't like loose ends.” The man leaned in closer. “You introduced Mr. Ellis into Mr. Rivera's life, so it may be time that we
un
-introduce him.”

Alex's throat tightened. “What's going to happen to me?”

The man stood and walked to the door. “Whatever's going to happen next may already be out of all of our control. Oh, and I am sorry to hear about your cousin. It was such a loss. He was a good man.”

“What do you mean
was?
”

“I understand he didn't make it.”

Alex gasped.

“You didn't know. Collateral damage, you understand. Unfortunate accidents happen all the time.”

The threat was implicit. Alex knew she was next. After the man left, the guard came back in to take her back to her cell.

Alex pulled away. “I can't go back there.”

The guard snatched her arm. “You don't have a choice.”

“Yes, I do. I need to talk to Agent Oliver right away.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” the guard replied. “The request line is closed.”

“You don't understand. I've got information that they need.”

“Then you'll have to wait to give it to them.”

“It can't wait,” Alex yelled. “I have to talk to him now!” She softened her tone. “Please. This is important.”

The guard sighed. “I can have someone call the DA's office. I can't promise anything. In the meantime you got to go back to your cell.”

Alex tried to laugh through her tears, but there was nothing amusing about her circumstance. She was feeling squeezed literally between the proverbial rock and hard place. Bobby was dead. And if Xavier Rivera was gunning for her, no steel bars or concrete walls would keep him from it.

An hour passed before the guard came back.

“Well, did you get in touch with him? Is he coming?” Alex queried.

“Mr. Ellis is gone for the night. But, I got good news for you; that FBI agent is still here.”

Agent Oliver walked up and the guard opened Alex's cell and let him inside.

“I was hoping you would come to your senses,” Agent Oliver said.

“Why didn't you tell me what happened to Bobby?”

“I only just found out myself.”

“You said you could put me in protective custody? Witness protection?”

“That all depends on the validity of the information you have. And since you were just a party planner I doubt very much we could make a case with anything you have to say.”

Alex scoffed. “You know damn well I was more that. That's why you're still here, isn't it? If I give you Rivera I need your word that you will protect me and my mother.”

“Look, we've been after Rivera for a very long time. You give us everything we need to put him away and I'll do everything I can possibly do for you and your mother.”

“I want full immunity and I want it in writing.”

“Give me something to work with, Ms. Solomon.”

Alex grabbed hold of the bars, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “I know something about the undercover agent who washed up in the Everglades last year.”

“What specifically do you know that hasn't already been reported?”