Smooth Operator (20 page)

Fuck it. I’m done thinking about this shit.

“Mr. Carrington,” the doorman tipped his hat as Lyfe entered
the side entrance. “No valet parking this evening?” He looked surprised.

“My mind is in a million places all at once, Lawrence. Hadn’t even thought about it,” he tossed over his shoulder as he walked onto the elevator.

Lyfe stepped into his hotel suite, and though everything appeared to be in place he could tell by the foreign scent that lingered in the air someone had been here. He looked around his suite, checked his important papers and his computer, which was still intact.

I’m changing suites in the morning.

He looked at the clock and though he tried to fight it, he wanted to call and hear her voice one more time for the night. He searched his pocket for his cell phone and came up empty.

Shit.
He grabbed his keys.
It must be in the car.

Lyfe headed back to the lobby and as he exited the side door, he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Lyfe Carrington.”

Fuck.
The last time someone called his name like that he was being sentenced to prison. He turned around and Galvin and Keenan were standing there. A smile ran across Galvin’s face. “We need to speak to you, Lyfe.”

“Now,” Keenan emphasized.

“Speak to me about what?” Lyfe snapped.

Galvin and Keenan flicked their billfolds open and revealed their respective federal agent badges. “A few things, but we can start with one in particular—”

“How about we don’t start with shit.” Lyfe smirked. “Now back … the hell up, because I won’t be answering a damn thing. If you’re reading me my rights and I need to get my attorney, then let’s handle our business.”

“Attorney?” Galvin frowned, and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. “You’re not being charged with anything.”

“Then what the fuck,” Lyfe paused, doing his best to shield his thundering heart from his voice, “do you want?”

Galvin flicked his Bic and lit his cigarette. “We just wanna ask you some questions.”

“About what?” Lyfe said, clearly aggravated.

“About how well you know your wife.”

I
never thought I’d have to kill him.
Payton sat in the center of her crisp white camelback sofa and sipped a glass of chardonnay. Her eyes skipped around her evening cliffside view of the Hollywood Hills, as the flicker from her candelabra gave life to the glowing reflection of her face in the adjacent glass wall.

She studied the low-hanging clouds hovering around the mountains as she pressed the wineglass to her lips and left a kiss behind on the rim. Thoughts of how hours had faded to days and days had faded to over a week of her not hearing from Lyfe, ran through her mind … and that’s when it clicked that once again she’d been reduced to stalking his voice mail.

Payton thought about ripping through the New York office again, but quickly changed her mind when she remembered that embarrassing Lyfe and demanding his attention was too much of a wild card to play. So she lay her head back on the sofa, looked toward the vaulted ceiling, and mulled over a plan of how to get this ungrateful motherfucker back under control.

The sounds of Sade’s “Soldier of Love” played softly in the background as Payton sipped her wine and hummed the chorus: “Too late for love to come turn it all around …” And just as she got into the edginess of the beat and could hear the drums speaking to her, the doorbell rang, causing her to jump and splash some of her wine over the sides of the glass and onto her fingers.

“I’m not expecting anyone, Gretchen,” Payton said to her maid, who’d walked from the kitchen and into the foyer to answer the door. “Send them home!”

“And leave without my goddamn money,” poured from behind Payton. “I don’t think so.”

Payton sucked in a quick and nervous breath as she turned around to face her mother, Dianna, who was handing an apologetic-looking Gretchen her silver mink stole and her white quilted leather Chanel shoulder bag. Payton looked her fifty-six-year-old mother over: from her salt-and-pepper, short, cropped, one-sided bob, honey-colored skin, to her perfect posture and wonderful hourglass shape. Payton forced herself to smile as she remembered what the calendar date was.

“Payday.” Dianna grimaced, lighting her long, thin, chocolate-brown cigarette. She stuck the platinum holder of her cigarette butt between her lips and took a hard pull. The smoke snaked from her mouth as she looked at Payton. “Is this how they’re greeting their mothers in Holmby Hills now? On their asses?” Dianna spat, and before she could go on, Payton looked at Gretchen and said, “You may leave for the evening; my mother and I need to sort through a few things.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gretchen said as she put Dianna’s things in the hall closet. A few moments later she was dressed to leave. “Good night, Mrs. Carrington.”

“Good night,” Payton said, as Gretchen closed the door behind her.

“I asked you,” Dianna stressed, “if sittin’ on their asses is how they’re greeting their mamas out here.”

Payton fought back a stressful sigh as she rose from the couch and walked over to greet her mother. She kissed her on both cheeks.

“Much better,” Dianna said as she sat in the white leather armchair facing the sofa and continued, “For a moment I
thought I needed to remind you which side your bread was buttered on.”

“Really?” Payton retook her seat and arched her brow. “Seems your bread is buttered over here.”

“Hmmm,”—Dianna took a pull of her cigarette and then hissed a string of smoke into the air—“it’s starting to occur to me that every time I’m away from you too long, you lose fuckin’ control,” she said evenly, never raising her voice. “I was in Morocco, laying some groundwork, and already you’re forcing me to put you in your place. Your sister doesn’t even act this unappreciative when she sees me—”

“She doesn’t even claim you and she doesn’t claim me either, not as her sister. And I don’t give a fuck.”

“When’s the last time you’ve seen her?”

“A while ago and I hope she doesn’t bring her pathetic ass back here. I really can’t stand her.”

Diana cackled. “I swear I really drove home the bitch in you when you were a child.”

“Mother, please.” Payton rolled her eyes.

“Are you getting nasty again?” Diana asked. “Why must I check the shit out of you every time I see you? I’m not the goddamn one, okay? Now, you seem to think that I’m playing with your ungrateful ass. So, let me have you understand,” she eased up in her chair and spoke with her lips stiff, “I don’t play with my money and my men, in that order. You know when the first of the month is. This shit isn’t new to you.”

“I have other things on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“Like my marriage—”

“Marriage?” Dianna gave a sinister chuckle. “I know you’re not counting that ghetto-ass project you picked up off the street.”

“Don’t speak about my husband like that!”

“Fuck his ass!” Dianna spat coldly. “You think I give a fuck
about that black bitch? The best thing about him is he’s black as smoke and fine as hell … oh, and he probably has a dick like a Clydesdale, but other than that, he’s the same kind of shit as your damn daddy. Period.” She leaned back in the chair. “So like I said, Deneen, don’t fuck with my money.” She held her hand out.

Payton reached for her purse, scribbled on a check, and handed it to her mother. “Are you leaving now?”

“Hell no, rude ass.” She looked Payton over. “Looks as if you gained a little weight.” She took a long toke. “And I hope like hell you are not pregnant, because that corner-store hoodlum you’re running around with is not the one to be ruining your body for.”

“I’m not pregnant,” Payton snapped.

Dianna looked Payton up and down. “You better watch your goddamn tone.” She took a pull and blew out the smoke. “Every time it’s my payday I’m noticing that you get flip, fly, and fucked-up at the mouth. But trust me, I will check you so fuckin’ hard you won’t know what to do, and you better know it.”

“Is all of this necessary?”

“You started it so I’ma finish it; because unlike everyone else around here you’re trying to impress, I know exactly who you are and exactly where you’re from, and it’s not Hollywood, California, it’s N’Orleans.” She put on an enhanced Southern accent. “So I suggest that you knock that high sadity bullshit down, ’cause underneath that four-thousand-dollar Dolce and Gabbana lounge outfit you have on and all of that bling-bling that’s blinding me, is a geechie-ass li’l bitch from the bayou.” Dianna waved her finger. “So don’t push me and I won’t need to go there.”

Payton hated that her relationship with her mother was more of a business arrangement than anything else; as far as Dianna was concerned, everything was business: money, marriage, children, fucking. Nothing was for free, not love, not lust, not even a blow job. It all had a price, and the only ones who didn’t
charge a man for shit were stupid bitches who didn’t understand the true power of a killer pussy.

“Now let’s get down to business.” Dianna mashed her cigarette in the ashtray. “When are we blowing this motherfucker?”

“I can’t leave now!” Payton blinked in disbelief. “I’m established.” She paused. “And I have
enough
money.”

“Established?” Dianna waved her hand dismissively. “Your late husband, Carlton Anderson of Anderson Global, was established.
You
are an opportunist, and if you keep hanging around this motherfucker you’re going to have problems.
Now
is the time to leave.”

“No it’s not.”

“Too much time in one place makes no sense,” Dianna attempted to convince Payton.

“I
said
now is not the time.”

Dianna reared back in her chair and her eyes combed Payton from head to toe and back again, “This motherfuckin’ Lyfe.” Dianna sighed. “Is that the real reason why it’s not time? It’s not time because you slipped up and married for a fucked-up reason.”

“I … love …” Payton said slowly, “my … husband.”

Dianna rose from her chair and walked over to Payton. She reared her left hand back and slapped Payton so hard that her neck whipped to the left and seemed to get stuck there. Dianna roughly cupped Payton’s chin. “We don’t do love, we do business. So you better,” she spoke slowly, “get this shit straight. This is a job and we don’t fall in love. And especially not with no bastard that doesn’t have shit besides a big dick to offer. You think that motherfucker gives a damn about you? Answer me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs in Payton’s face.

Dianna assisted Payton’s head in shaking no. “Exactly,” Dianna said callously. “He’s off rendezvousing with that cheap-ass secretary bitch, and you know it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know everything. Just like I know that Anderson Global is not your fuckin’ family business. Sign that shit over to Carlton’s kids. Carlton’s been dead, and we’ve already cleaned this place out. Mission accomplished, there isn’t much left in this motherfucker. What are you holding on to, air? Now, unless you want me to blow that two-bit nothing you married’s brains out, li’l girl, you’ll be ready to leave this motherfucker thirty days from now. Otherwise,” she positioned her hand like a gun, “click, click. And trust me, just like I laid your damn daddy out, I will not think twice. And you know my motto: Go hard or go to hell. Now, don’t fuck with me.”

Payton scanned her mother’s eyes and knew she meant every word she said.

“Now, if you want that bitch to live, you’ll get off your ass and get on your grind.” Dianna released Payton’s chin from her grip, retrieved her things from the hall closet, and slammed the door behind her as she left.

Tears rolled over Payton’s cheeks as she sat still on the couch. She heard her mother’s car race out of the driveway and her thoughts burned through her mind. She rose from the couch and grabbed the phone off the receiver. Her fingers punched hard against the dial pad. She listened to the phone ring. “Quinton, I need you to get over here now!” and she hung up.

T
he devil was a funny motherfucker; he had to be. Otherwise, Lyfe wouldn’t be able to make sense of how he sat in a secluded booth in the hotel’s sports bar, looking two federal agents in the face, as they gave him blow-by-blow reasons of why they believed Anderson Global, once one of America’s finest institutions, had become one big money-laundering scheme.

Lyfe eased up in his seat and leaned toward the agents. “Have you lost your mind? My wife’s company—”

“Her late husband’s company—” Galvin interrupted.

“Whatever,” Lyfe said, fighting like hell to be something he wasn’t: calm. “Anderson Global is a legitimate investment banking corporation that has been in business since 1968—”

“And 2006,” Galvin said, “was the last time the investment arm of Anderson Global was legitimate. The mortgage arm—”

“Legit,” Keenan said.

“The credit card arm—”

“Legit—”

“But the investment banking arm—”

“Is bullshit,” Galvin lit a cigarette, “and that’s why we’re here. Because we know that you, under the three strikes law, can’t take the chance of going back to prison—”

“Like I said before, are you charging me with something?” Lyfe stroked his box beard.

“Not if you help us.” Galvin arched his brow intensely.

“And if I don’t?” Lyfe arched his brow with the same level of intensity.

“Then you get fucked with no Vaseline, like the rest of ’em,” Galvin said. “What do I care? Because, from where I’m sitting,” he let out a long string of cigarette smoke, “your ass is as guilty as the rest of ’em. And as soon as you try and climb out the cesspool, the district attorney is going to make sure you’re covered with so much shit, you won’t know what you’ve gotten into.”

“Then by all means,” Lyfe picked up his glass of Hennessy and sipped, “let’s get it on.”

“Do tell me, Mr. Carrington,” Keenan said, sounding as if he were a prosecuting attorney cross-examining Lyfe, “what are your credentials?”

Lyfe hesitated.

“Please inform the court: what exactly entitles you to run a multimillion-dollar investment company, beside how much your fine-ass wife appreciates your pipe.”