Tears on a Sunday Afternoon (19 page)

“You didn’t expect me?” I stepped into the house and closed the door.

Julie walked ahead of me into the living room. “I wanted to talk to you but I didn’t know if I should call.”

“I just left Brian’s apartment.” I took a seat on the couch.

“He told me that you had taken the gun. What did you do with the gun?”

“I had some cleaning to do,” I said.

“You’re not going to tell me what you did with the gun?”

“If I do, it might create trouble for you,” I said.

“What do you think could be worse for me, knowing or not knowing? You used to tell me when your shit came out black. Now it’s on a need-to-know basis. Just because you got between my legs, now I can’t be trusted.” Julie had begun to raise her voice.

“It’s not that, Julie. If anything happens to me, I don’t want you to take the fall with me. I want to protect you.”

“That’s a whole lot of bullshit, Donald. If trouble is going to come our way I need to know where it will be coming from. As you can see, I’m not as innocent as you seem to think. I can handle a lot more than you give me credit for. I handled your dick, didn’t I?”

I smiled as my loins began to stir. “Come over here!”

As Julie walked toward me, I was once more caught up in her rapture. I wanted to feel the warmth of her womanhood. I needed to be inside of her. She came to me and stuck her tongue into my mouth and I held onto it for dear life. I pulled her shorts down to find out that the strings that she was wearing to cover her womanhood had come off with her shorts. I lifted her up and put her on the table quickly, unbuttoning my pants to free my now erect penis. As I pushed her back away from the edge of the table, I got up onto one of the table’s five chairs. I opened her legs wide and, with my feet on the chair, I plunged into her, savoring her wetness. As she screamed for me to give it to her, I plunged in and out of her as the crescendo of pleasure for me was reached with ten strokes. The contents of my now deflated penis lay within her.

I sat down on the chair that I had used to mount her, my jeans at the heels of my feet.

“What did you do with the gun?” Julie sat on the table next to me, her legs swinging back and forth.

I lifted my head up to make eye contact with her. “I shot Malcolm to death.”

Julie kept looking at me. Then she spoke very softly. “Was it an accident?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was trying to scare him but he tried to take the gun away from me and it went off.”

“It’s obvious that you didn’t call the police. That was very smart of you.”

“If I had, tomorrow would never be.”

“Exactly. Did anyone see you?”

“I doubt it. It was late in the park. Everyone is scared of the park at night; unless it’s a person walking a dog. Some people care more about their pets than their own safety.”

Julie came over and stood behind my chair. “Everything will be okay, Donald. After tomorrow, everything will fall into place.”

I reached out and put my hands around her waist. “Yeah, tomorrow we start over.”

I
awoke to the birds chirping on the lawn outside. I had left Julie’s house around two in the morning after she had given me a much needed blow job. The exploits of the evening had evaporated all my energy and the comforts of my bed sent me into REM as soon as my head hit the pillow. I woke up and went into the shower. When I got out of the shower, my son had taken residence on my bed.

“What’s up, Son?” I asked, walking by the bed on my way to the closet.

“Grandma called and asked if anyone had seen Granddad,” he said.

“Did you see him?” I asked, taking out a pair of jeans and a shirt from my closet.

“No. Do you think she still wants me to come over there after school?” Emerald asked.

“I’m sure she does. Phillip, her driver, is picking you up, right?”

“Yep, Grandma said she’ll come with him. That means we’ll stop and get ice cream.” Emerald was smiling.

I zipped up my jeans. “Don’t eat too much ice cream; you might get a bellyache. I’ll pick you up from Grandma’s around nine and will take you on a surprise trip.”

“Where are we going?” Emerald asked.

“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?” I lifted him up into my arms.

“I guess so,” he said.

“Do you know how much I love you?” I said, kissing him on the cheek.

“A lot.” He had a beautiful smile on his face.

“Yes, my son, a whole lot. Now go with your mommy.” I put him back down on the ground.

He ran out of the room. “See you later, Dad. I love you.”

I left my suit in the car as I walked into a small Jamaican restaurant named McKenzie’s on Avenue L in Brooklyn. As usual, the seating part of the restaurant was empty but there was a line for takeout. I went up to the counter and ordered a small oxtail dinner. I waited for the young woman to give me the food; then I took it back to a booth. As soon as I had put down the food, my cell phone rang. I looked at the number. It was a number I hadn’t seen before. When I answered, Donna was on the other end.

I separated a small piece of fat from the oxtail. “Yeah, Donna. Any changes?”

“No, everything is on schedule. Don’t forget to make eye contact with Kathleen before you move in. Once you’re finished, we’ll meet under the bridge as planned.” The excitement was evident in her voice.

“All right; I’ll see you later.”

I closed the phone and put it down on the table. The next time I expected to hear from Donna was when her boss and Kathleen left the office. At that time, I would be at least a block away from there. The briefcase in the trunk of my car was about five inches larger than a normal briefcase. In a small compartment was a yellow blow torch. In the main compartment was a two-by-four, and the knife and gloves. I picked up the phone and made a conference call to Julie and Brian. I finished eating and walked out of the restaurant. I drove back to my house and changed into a dark gray Armani suit. After I left the house I pulled the car into an unused parking lot and put the wig on.

As expected, the business district was almost deserted by 7:30 p.m. A few stragglers in business suits were the only remnants of a city that had tens of thousands of people on the streets about five hours ago. I had parked my car about a half-mile away from the Atlantic Avenue train station in Brooklyn. There were plenty of parking spaces available on the street after five-thirty, unlike early in the morning when you had to get downtown by seven-thirty to get a spot. The walk to the train station was uneventful; with the exception of a few young white women giving me the once-over. I felt flattered by their attention but the timing wasn’t right. Ten minutes after getting into the train station, I was on my way to Manhattan in a brand-new train.

I walked up and down the street, waiting for the call from Donna. It finally came about twenty minutes later. The street lights had come on to illuminate the business district as I made my way to Edna Street. I walked with confidence but not hurriedly because the human eyes are always attracted to abnormal behavior. I wanted to be another faceless white businessman on his way home from a long day at the office. The plan was for me to be on the opposite side of the street when Kathleen and her husband made their way down the street. There was an old apartment building that was being totally renovated. Donna had identified that building because there was only one bulb illuminating an entrance about twenty feet in length. It was there that I was going to make my move. I waited at the opposite end of the street from where Kathleen and Peter would be coming. The old apartment building was about thirty feet from me.

Kathleen looked stunning in a short, black, formfitting dress. As she walked with Peter, the joyful look on her face reflected a woman in total bliss. She saw me as soon as she turned onto the block and took her husband’s spare hand and laid it on her butt. He squeezed her ass as she stuck her tongue into his ear. I could only imagine what she was saying to him. The plan was for Donna to crush a Viagra pill and slip it into his drink before Kathleen arrived for a surprise visit. The Viagra pill was to ensure that pleasure came before responsibility. Peter knew what he was carrying and he knew what would happen to him if he fucked up.

I watched them coming down the street, Kathleen all over her husband, rubbing the front of his pants and kissing on his ear. When they reached the front of the building that was being renovated, Kathleen turned her husband around as I walked down the street until I was directly opposite them. I had confidence in Kathleen that she would not allow Peter to turn around. She pulled on Peter’s free hand as she tried to entice him to go into the passageway. I stood there, looking around, a few droplets of sweat coming down my forehead. Finally, pleasure overruled responsibility and Peter followed his wife into the passageway. I quickly walked across the street and before I entered the darkness of the passageway, I had the two-by-four in my hand. I walked slowly and quietly. I heard groans before I was able to see Peter, his back to me and his pants down to his ankles. The briefcase was hanging loosely from his hand by the gold handcuffs. From experience, I knew that Kathleen was a pro and my dick started to harden thinking about what she could do to me.

I lifted the two-by-four and came down hard on the side of Peter’s head. He crumpled to the ground. I knelt down and quickly unlocked Peter’s handcuffs. I deposited the briefcase into mine and took out the blow torch.

“Before you do that, give me the gloves and the knife,” Kathleen said. I gave her the gloves, which she quickly put on, then I gave her the knife. “Step back.”

I did what I was told.

Kathleen lifted the knife up high, brought it down into her husband’s back and then threw the knife onto the ground.

I looked at her emotionless face. There was no joy or anger. It was like she was doing a job that she had done for twenty years; just another day in the trenches.

“The knife.” I reached down to pick it up.

“No, leave it,” Kathleen said. “If you were smart, your prints won’t be on that.”

“I was smart,” I said.

Kathleen smiled. “You don’t think I know that black bitch has been fucking my husband.”

“None of my business,” I said. “Give me your cell number in case I need to give you the heads-up.”

She called it out and I put it directly into my cell phone.

“Sometimes, it only takes one stone to kill two birds. Now hit me,” she said.

This time I brought the two-by-four from the side of my waist and smashed it against Kathleen’s face. Blood flew out of her mouth. I threw the piece of wood down. She staggered and fell to the ground. I took the blow torch and pulled the trigger. I lifted Peter’s right wrist. And while holding his fingers I burnt around his wrist as the smell of burning flesh scorched my nostrils.

“That’s enough; leave,” Kathleen said, her eyes bloodshot and blood dripping down the side of her face.

Once more I complied. I got up off the ground.

Kathleen wrapped her hand around her husband’s head.

I straightened out my suit and dusted off any particles that had gotten on it. I turned around and started to walk toward the light. I looked back briefly to see Kathleen starting to drag herself forward. I moved quickly, knowing that Kathleen would be screaming for help as soon as she dragged herself out to the sidewalk. When I was close to the sidewalk, I looked up and down the now completely deserted street. I made a left turn and walked quickly down the street.

At the end of the street, I saw a yellow cab approaching. I hoped that it was Julie and Brian. She was wearing a turban that made her look like a gorgeous Arab. I opened the back door and got in.

“Where’s Brian?” I asked.

“I told him we didn’t need him. I’ve got the gun,” she said.

“Give it back to Brian,” I said.

“Okay,” she said.

I gave Julie the briefcase with Peter’s briefcase inside of it.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Good, with the exception of a twist.”

“What happened?”

I didn’t feel like talking right then. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Brian is at my house,” she said.

I looked at her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Do what you have to do?”

The ride to Brooklyn was without conversation. My cell phone rang every five minutes. Finally I turned it off. Donna was history.

“Leave me here,” I said as she stopped at the corner of Atlantic and Fourth Avenues to the annoyance of the drivers behind her. I got out of the car and walked to my car. In the car, I took off the wig and put it in the briefcase. I had one more thing to do. There was no way in hell that Lauren was going to have another child of mine.