What You Don't Know, page 7
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Guy Sledge: I thought about going over there on Sunday, but … my wife convinced me I was overreacting. For the first time in my life, I wish I’d never listened to her.
12:25 p.m.
How am I going to get out of this?
The thought kept looping through Malcolm’s brain as his captor returned from making a hushed phone call outside the study. He thought about his own phone, still trapped in his pocket. Tree kicked a pile of paperbacks out of his way as he paced the room, his anger and agitation seeming to swell with each step. Though he’d just been on the phone, he looked at it again, this time tapping out yet another text message, his fifth at least since they’d been in here, before shoving the phone back in his pocket.
Once Blair and Farrah were upstairs, Malcolm told him the ten grand was in the safe in his study. Even after Malcolm had handed over the crisp and tidy stacks of cash, and Tree stuffed it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, it wasn’t enough to satisfy him, convinced there was an even bigger stack of paper in the house. He’d commanded Malcolm to sit in one of the mission-style chairs and secured him to it with strips of duct tape from the roll in his waistband. Malcolm ran his tongue across the bloody ravages of his bottom lip, the remnant of the blow Tree had delivered with the butt of his gun after being told yet again the ten grand was it.
Of course, he’d wanted to get into the study for another reason. He hadn’t counted on being tied to this chair, thought he’d have a few extra seconds at least to get the upper hand.
He’d have to wait.
The room lay in shambles. His laptop and scant papers from the desk swept to the ground. The shelves cleared of books, assorted pictures, and miniature sculptures. Glass from photo frames smashed to splinters. He winced at the photo from a golf event of him and his old commercial agent, Mark Monroe—long ago murdered by his wife—crumpled and muddy from the stomp of Tree’s shoe. The small mission-style table, where he worked on his jigsaw puzzles, knocked to its side, the fifteen hundred pieces of the Eiffel Tower flung to the far corners of the room. Malcolm’s heart raced when Tree crawled underneath the desk, ran his hands along the walls, flipped over the gray and black hand-tufted wool rug to tap the wood panels of the floor with the soles of his feet—afraid of what the boy would find.
“All right, Malcolm. Which room is next, huh? Which room has the safe—the real safe with the real money?”
Malcolm shifted in his chair, his wrists sweating against the duct tape binding them. “I can’t tell you something that’s not true.”
Tree stood up, clearly frustrated. He punched a fist into the palm of his hand, pacing yet again.
Through the small sliver of the open study door, Malcolm could see the third member of this deranged little trio come bounding down the stairs, frantically calling for his leader.
“Yo, man, what you want?” Tree asked as he flung open the door.
“We got to get out of here, man,” he huffed as he rushed over. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all—”
“Dio, calm down, what’s all this noise?”
“The girl—her phone keeps ringing, and I gotta bad feeling about this. Real bad.” On cue, the phone jangled from somewhere on Dio’s body and he jammed his hands over his ears as he paced, as though that would get him away from the sound. Malcolm watched this agitated young man stalk the room, much like Tree had.
Dio. Jittery young Dio. The weak link.
“I’m serious.” Dio extracted the phone from his back pocket. “What if whoever it is keeps calling or they decide to come over here because Ol’ Girl’s not answering the phone? What if they call the cops, T?”
“Man, ain’t nobody calling the cops.”
“For real, let’s just take whatever money they got and get up out of here.”
Dio jumped as the phone beeped with a message. “Give me that,” Tree said, grabbing the phone. He sniffed and looked at it for a second before dropping it to the ground. He brought the heel of his shoe down onto the screen, smashing it. He stomped it a few more times before he kicked the remnants in Dio’s direction.
“I just solved your problem.”
“Forget the phone. Forget all this. Let’s just get up out of here,” Dio pleaded.
Tree turned around, rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb, and looked at Malcolm. He shook his head. “Naw. We not leaving. Uh-uh. I’m not walking out of here with just ten G’s.”
“You heard him, T,” Dio said. “We can take the cars and the jewelry, so come on, let’s just take whatever and go.”
Tree stood still, his legs apart, his arms folded across his chest. He sniffed and cocked his head toward Dio.
“Grab his phone,” he said. “And get Wifey’s phone, too.”
“No, please. I don’t want to do this, for real.”
Tree backhanded his accomplice, the slap cracking across the air. Dio grabbed his cheek with both hands and scowled at his friend while cowering toward one corner of the room.
“I said, get his phone, get Wifey’s phone.”
Dio stumbled backward, one hand clinging to his face. He nodded feebly. “All right, T. All right.”
Malcolm watched as Dio crept over to him. The boy extended a shaky hand toward Malcolm’s pants pocket, lightly tapping the outside, blanching at the jingle of his keys. He slipped his hand inside the pocket, quickly extracting the bulge of keys, and wrestling the wallet from his back pocket. Malcolm tried to keep his face from screwing up at how bad this kid smelled. Reeked. Like he hadn’t bathed in a few days, or if he had, he didn’t use soap.
The two made brief eye contact as Dio moved over to his other pocket. Malcolm’s heart sank as the boy slid his iPhone out of his pocket and quickly backed away. He handed all three items to Tree, who gripped Dio’s shoulder and grinned.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Dio didn’t say anything as Tree perched on the edge of the desk, thumbing through Malcolm’s wallet, extracting the thick wad of bills. He threw the wallet on the desk and counted out the money, nodding in appreciation as the numbers grew. “Two G’s. Just like you said. All right, that’s twelve G’s. That still ain’t enough.”
“I already told you. You can have whatever you want.”
“What about my cut?” Dio asked, his voice shaking.
Tree’s head whipped around. “Your cut for what? You ain’t done nothing.”
Dio’s head drooped as he fell silent again. Tree clapped his hands twice in Dio’s face, causing the boy’s head to snap up. The whites of his eyes were shiny, like he was on the verge of crying.
“Hey. Hey! You want to earn something? See how much money Wifey and that fine-as-hell daughter got, and bring it back down to me. And don’t try to play me, ’cause I’m gonna ask them how much they gave you.”
“I won’t. I won’t try to play you.”
“Better not.” Tree looked back at Malcolm. “Me and Mister Quarterback got to finish conducting some business down here.”
Dio quickly bobbed his head up and down as he backed out of the room and sprinted upstairs.
Malcolm’s heart raced. His nose started to run. He watched as Tree reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarette lighter. The tiny orange-blue flame shot to life as he depressed the little red lever over and over and over. He smiled. Malcolm inhaled, his mind sprouting with possibilities, each one more disturbing than the last. Another blister of sweat erupted on his forehead, crawled down the side of his face. He had an exceptionally high tolerance for pain, so that might work in his favor. Whatever the boy had planned, he could probably hold out for a good while.
Tree walked over to Malcolm, a maniacal grin spreading across his face, glints of light bouncing off the yellow pebbles of his teeth. He stopped his advance and flicked the lighter again, this time, holding his palm over the flame. Malcolm’s stomach did a slow plummet as he figured out where this was going.
He waved the flame underneath Malcolm’s nose, who flinched at the tiny surge of heat. A small plume of smoke rushed into his nostrils and his eyes watered. Tree laughed and walked behind him, sniffing again.
Malcolm closed his eyes and took a deep breath, bracing for the unpredictable, though expected gush of pain sure to ensue shortly.
The tip of his index finger on his right hand exploded. Malcolm jumped, the chair he was taped to skipping a little as it grated against the wood floor.
He took another deep inhale to steady his breathing, focus his brain. His freshman year at UCLA. He broke his wrist during the game against Tennessee. In all his years of playing, it was his first real injury. To that point, he’d somehow been immune to the tears, strains, twists, and pulls that football players were so prone to. The dodging of those bullets all through Pee-Wee League, junior high, and high school had fueled his father’s speechifying and his own eventual belief that he was untouchable. Immortal, somehow. The hits didn’t even really bother him. Sure, he’d had his bell rung a time or two, but nothing that warranted stretchers, tape, or casts.
But that wrist. It was the first time he experienced real pain. No one could believe he’d kept playing, like it was nothing. Of course, when you were Admiral Gilbert’s son, pain wasn’t an option. Stopping wasn’t an option.
But it had hurt. Like a bitch.
He focused on that now. This pain was nothing compared to that pain. His wrist had hurt like hell. His wrist had hurt like hell. His wrist had hurt like hell.
His middle finger detonated, then his third. Behind him, Tree laughed as he zigzagged the lighter across Malcolm’s fingers, the searing heat of the flame crawling into Malcolm’s palms. He continued to breathe, to try to stay calm, not make a sound, not be alarmed by the acrid stench of burning flesh.
His wrist had hurt like hell.
The lighter flicked closed and Malcolm’s eyes did the same.
“Boo!”
Malcolm’s eyes popped open with the sound of Tree’s voice booming in his ear, the sound echoing down his ear canal.
Tree walked around until he was facing Malcolm, laughing, his arms folded across his chest again. He leaned down, the two men nose to nose.
“Did that hurt, Mally-Mal, huh? Did I hurt your precious fingers?”
Despite his heart sprinting across his chest, Malcolm shrugged. “Pain’s relative, man.”
Tree cut the lighter on again and even though he didn’t want to, Malcolm flinched.
And an idea shot through his brain.
“Wait,” Malcolm said. “Hold on a minute.”
“What, you don’t want me to ruin that passing hand? Oh, wait, you don’t need that no more.”
“You said you wanted more cash. I can get you more. Lots of it.”
The lighter clicked off.
“How?”
Falling in Love
Neely Smith, Captivate 1993–1996, 2011–Present: He was at one of our shows. The Hollywood Bowl. He came backstage. He was a big football star, so of course, we all knew who he was. Except for Blair. She didn’t have a clue. We were all kind of flirting with him. Everyone was falling all over Malcolm, but she didn’t pay any attention to him. That’s probably why he zeroed in on her (Laughs).
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Alex Martinez: I’m pretty sure they met in Vegas. Captivate was playing a show there, somewhere on the Strip. Anyway, he went backstage and met her and he was pretty much done for.
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Willie Dalton, Running Back, Chicago Bears 1980–1989, Los Angeles Rams 1989–1991: Malcolm could have had any woman he wanted. And he did (Laughs.)
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Terry Gilbert, Malcolm’s Brother: Yeah, that all changed when he met Blair, though. He fell for her hard.
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Willie Dalton: What was it about her? Well, come on, look at her. I mean, Blair is a beautiful woman. Also, I think she was a challenge, you know? She wasn’t like that typical groupie, sending him panties in the mail or whatever. She was just kind of like, okay, who are you? I think he liked that he had to work a little for her.
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Nate Gilbert, Malcolm’s Brother: I remember Malcolm calling me and saying, “Guess who I’m going out with, you won’t believe who I’m going out with.” I mean, this was my brother we were talking about, so he could have told me he was going out with Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston all in one night and I would have believed it (Laughs).
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Isabelle Ryan: Blair had a lot of trepidation about becoming involved with Malcolm for a number of reasons. He had a reputation as a ladies’ man. There were rumors that the number climbed into the thousands.
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Alex Martinez: They met at the right time. She was looking to move beyond her group and Malcolm was starting to think about retirement. Though, when you’ve got gridiron coursing through your veins like he does, I wondered how he would make that transition. But he was pretty adamant he was ready to settle down.
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Mitch Gilbert: The first time he brought her home—I think it was Thanksg—no, it was for dinner. Just a regular dinner and we were all there. And Blair, you know I’d seen her in magazines and in music videos or whatever and she was pretty, but in person, my God she was stunning. I mean, Malcolm had dated some honeys, but Blair was about ten honeys rolled into one.
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Neely Smith: Blair had a handful of boyfriends. She and Oliver Flitt, who was hot in the movies at the time, dated for a little while and they were semi-serious. This business is hard, though. You never really know if someone is trying to get close to you because of what you do or who you are. So when you find that one, you want to latch on and never let go.
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Bridget Johnson: Malcolm was pretty low-key courting my sister. I mean, yeah, at first, it was a lot of hardcore dinners and jewelry and over-the-top stuff like renting skywriters and crazy things. My sister didn’t want all of that. Once he figured that out, he toned it down. He’d bring over a pizza. They’d sneak into a movie theater at noon on a Friday and share a box of popcorn. Go for a walk in the park at six in the morning when there wasn’t anyone else around and they could just be alone and talk. He’d bring her a pint of praline ice cream, her favorite, and they’d split it. It was these little things that really made Blair fall for him. Ultimately all she wanted was a regular guy. Once she started falling, she crash-landed. I’d never seen her so happy.
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Neely Smith: She took me and Chrissy out to dinner and told us she was leaving. She and Malcolm were getting married and she was moving to Chicago. And I got it. It’s hard to maintain a relationship with that life, on the road all the time. If you want it to last, you probably do have to step off the merry-go-round for a minute anyway. So, even though I knew it was coming, I was still stunned. And scared. I mean, Blair may not have been like the lead singer or the biggest star in the group, but she WAS Captivate. We were like, without Blair, there is no Captivate. And that’s pretty much what happened. Chrissy and me, we tried doing it as a duo for that one album, but it just didn’t work. The label dropped us not long after and no other labels were biting, so we gave it up. In a way, it was a relief, but still sad. The end of an era, you know?
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Chrissy Lennox: I had a blast doing it and I think the timing was right with it ending. Sometimes you have to know when it’s over, and it was definitely over.
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Neely Smith: I resurrected the group a few years ago because, hey, a girl’s got to eat. We weren’t on the charts anymore, but we never really went away, you know? And people were always asking me, “Are you guys coming out with new music? When are you getting back together?” and there were some offers of shows and different appearances and I said, there’s something there. People still want to hear from Captivate. I asked all the girls—I mean, Jenny and Chrissy were a long shot. And Dreena and Gwen, you know they’d moved on to other careers. I thought for sure Blair would go for it. She always liked being in the group and was good at it. She made it pretty clear she was happy being Little Miss Suburban Housewife, so I moved forward without them.
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Bridget Johnson: Blair went to one of the shows a couple of years ago. The group was playing some street festival in Chicago and she promised to be there, to check it out. I think Neely even got her up on stage to sing “The Dream of You,” which Blair sang lead on, for old time’s sake. She told me later the show was just sad. Here was her former bandmate, fifty something years old, now a size sixteen tiptoeing around stage in a size four dress, with two girls not much older than Farrah behind her, lip-synching songs from the eighties. She said it hit her for the first time in all those years that Malcolm had saved her from that fate. That could have been her.
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Neely Smith: Listen, we can’t all marry some rich football player and live in a mansion. We can’t all have that life.
