Tabu, page 8
Fuck.
He moved in slowly, to his right, away from the kitchen and to the living room. He didn’t touch the lights. He felt there still might be somebody there.
He was mindful of that damn coffee table that he has always hit his shin on, while at the same time looking out for some shit to jump off.
Then he heard something in the kitchen off to his left. He froze his muscles and his thoughts. All he heard was silence.
C-Mann continued on and SLAM. He banged his shin against that big‐ass coffee table.
“Shit, motherfucker,” he whispered in a grimace.
He made it hobbling to the bedroom. He gazed at the rumpled sheets, the thrown‐back covers.
Movement caught his eye and he saw Tanya’s feet high in the air. He continued to look up and saw that she was hanging from the high ceiling fan. She had been beaten bloody. Her eyes were darkened and not visible from where he stood.
He was choked.
He fought the thought of how the killers got her up there; the fan was at least twenty feet high from the ground. He noticed the fan was coming out of the ceiling a bit from the weight of his sister.
C-Mann took out his cell.
He could hear his heart beat while the phone dialed up his dad. Bernie did not answer any of his numbers.
C-Mann moved through the silence and stopped in his mother’s kitchen. That damned daisy print tortured him from the tablecloth, curtains and all about the kitchen.
He plucked the banana phone off its wall cradle and dialed 911.
It took a moment for C-Mann to find his voice and explain the incident to the calm operator.
C-Mann knew better than to touch anything, but he had to cut her down. He couldn’t leave her dangling like that.
He searched for a note. He wanted a clue, something to work on.
Heard the faint buzzing, the sound of a cell phone ringing while on vibrate. It led him back to the bedroom. He looked up to his sister again. The buzzing was down low and led him to Deke’s oversized designer jeans and inches away, Deke’s cold, dead body.
Somebody had beat his ass then shot him in the head on the floor of the bedroom. Deke was in his drawers.
Had they been fucking?
Obviously.
How long had they been fucking before this? Did he just move on her and got the pussy from his sister that easy?
Damn, and they got caught stroking.
C-Mann got rid of that thought. He sat on the porch, again considering how
little time he had spent there with his mother. He let that guilt come, believing it was a better thought than how fucked up shit in his life was then, and was about to be worse.
Stay for the cops or leave, became a sudden dilemma.
If he stayed the blue coats would keep him busy all day with questions about nothing real. How could the coppers know the real deal? They would keep him in Jersey until they understood what happened, and they would keep him alive.
If he got out of there before the cops arrived he could get some fucking revenge.
C-Mann was scared to leave and be unprotected, but the thought that he might save his father and get this crazy bitch who killed his mother and sister gave him motivation to be gone.
But first, he recalled, his father had some cash stashed for a rainy day, and it was coming down cats and dogs.
It took C-Mann a second to remember where his dad had the money hid. His mother knew where the money was, C-Mann smiled at the remembrance of Bernie bitching that Shirley was digging into his stash. Bernie really didn’t care about the money; he just hated that Shirley had been nosing around. Shirley would only take as much as she needed and then would spend the money on practical items.
His dad told him where the money was for such an occasion. But Bernie did not want him to use the money for ransom.
“Let them kill my ass if they got me. You just take this money and get your mother and sister out of town.”
Running just had never been in C-Mann’s protocol.
CHAPTER 18
C-Mann was driving his ride on silent mode ‐ no radio, no CD. The only sound was the expensive engine humming while it pulled that big hunk of a Caddy.
His mind was silent also. No thinking, no contemplating. He just wanted to get to Brooklyn, to his woman and forget. His eyes went everywhere, taking in the sights of the other cars, the other drivers and highway tar.
He had the windows open while he smoked a Newport. He drew in deeply, and then he released a sigh of satisfaction as the smoke worked its poisonous magic in his lungs.
It wasn’t easy to keep his mind blank. His family was going one by one.
His cell was ringing a few times before he recognized the ringing was in his car and on his person.
C-Mann stole a glance at the caller ID, one hand navigating the turn onto the Van Wyck. He was enlivened by the sight of POPS and his dad’s cell number.
Where you been? They got Tanya.”
“Charles?” an unfamiliar male voice said sternly. “Hold on, your father wants to talk to you.”
“Listen Charles, shit is all fucked up. Bad.”
“I know, I know. They fucking hanged Tanya like a damn runaway slave.”
“It’s bad, Charlie.”
“Daddy, don’t worry about this. I know what’s up. Duck told me. It’s going to get handled.”
Bernie kept talking while his son was trying to console him. He was telling about the death of a woman.
C-Mann moved his foot off the accelerator and listened hard. This was not his father. The meanness of a dictator was gone.
Something wasn’t right.
“Dad. Daddy?”
“It was a terrible, terrible accident.”
Bernie finally paused. He blew out air into the
phone.
“Dad, I know, I know. It don’t fucking matter. I got
this, we gonna handle this.”
“I didn’t realize she loved me. She was so beautiful, so easy to get. I was just fucking her while visiting. It was fun, shit. Everybody was getting pussy. I shouldn’t have fucked her. I just thought she was trying some shit to get me to marry her and move her to New York. I did not know she really loved me.”
“Where are you, Dad?”
“I am dead. I deserve it. I killed somebody. That shit comes back to you.”
Tippy let out a laugh. Her men smiled.
“I couldn’t be her man; I couldn’t be a father. It was my cousin. I was with your mother. I wasn’t losing Shirley.”
“Fuck.” C-Mann was getting frustrated with his dad’s uncharacteristic sound of defeat.
“Dad, hear me, I know that bitch got you. Don’t say shit, they gonna kill you anyway. Just fucking tell me where you are. I will get there and they will be dealt with. For real.”
Bernie looked at his killers. “C‐Mann. I want you to do that.”
Tippy sobered.
C-Mann was already circling back onto the Jackie Robinson Highway and heading for the city. His eyes were on Shea Stadium, his heart and mind were on his father’s hidden yet obvious pain.
“Yeah. Definitely. It’ll get done. Just tell me where you are.”
“Son. Charlie. Kill them.”
C-Mann zoned in on his dad’s voice as if he could see him and the killers.
“Where are you?”
“Charlie, kill them all. I didn’t do right, and I am asking you to do wrong. Do them for your mother.”
The phone went dead.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” C-Mann battered the steering wheel with the phone before tossing it to the passenger’s side of the car.
C-Mann could feel his father dying, and it hurt.
CHAPTER 19
Miami and Shout watched the sexy lady lead her men out of the house. The guys were struggling carrying a duffel bag down the steps. It had to be a body, Miami thought. The guys brutally tossed the bag into the back of the Explorer.
Shout shook his head, “Shit, yo, they worse than we is.”
Miami nodded. He was seeing but no yet understanding. Was there competition for the club or was this personal. Either way, Miami was thinking, he wanted to meet and fuck this hit ho.
Shout said, “You think they cut him up and shit?” “Shut the fuck up, please?”
They followed her back to Harlem. She had rented a brownstone in the 130s, between Fifth and Madison. Shout parked half a block away. They witnessed Bernie being dragged and kicked into the first level.
Tippy got on her cheap, old and cracked‐faced cellphone and made a call.
“Shit,” Shout whispered. “She’s looking right at us.”
“That bitch can’t see us.”
She hung up, still looking in the Cubansʹ direction. Her eyes had chilled Shout’s bones.
“What we do now?” Shout asked.
“What we been doing, follow the ho.”
Tippy and her men took Bernie to a house in the Bronx, near Van Courtlandt Park.
Bernie was quiet and didn’t put up a struggle. Why should he? He knew his shit was fucked up. He knew he deserved what he was going to get; he knew they were going to whip his ass before killing him, but he was going to make sure he didn’t give them money or his son.
He was sure that this was better than having raised his cousin and her baby and losing 31 years of being with Shirley; she surely would have left him had she found out he had fucked and impregnated his own cousin.
Either way, whether they killed him or took all his money and killed family members, it was all going to be over with.
Well, that was his intentions until the beating began.
Once in the house, the two men punched and kicked Bernie and he didn’t fight back.
Tippy was enraged by the sight.
“You coward. The first thing you are going to tell me is where I can find my mother’s body. You killer.”
Bernie sucked in the pain and tried not to hear his daughter.
“Take his shirt off.”
The men wrestled and fought to get his buttoned shirt and undershirt off even though they saw he had submitted. Their hate for him was growing at the sight of the man’s cowardice.
Tippy disappeared into the kitchen and put a large Rambo‐type knife she had purchased for this event on the stove’s top front burner.
He watched her return. Looking in her eyes he could see her mother’s beauty.
“Don’t fucking look at me.”
He closed his eyes in sorrow. His cousin’s pussy was so good. He wished for that weekend back. He wished he had stayed in New York. And he wished he didn’t have to kill her.
“Lay him down.”
One of the guys kicked him and he let his muscles relax. He let out a sob of nerves at the thought that his daughter was not going to make him suffer.
“I have money. I have a stash no one knows about. It is in my office. Take it and make a new life. We even now.”
She circled Bernie in a slow pace. Smiling, she said, “Your daughter bitched up just like you doing.”
Bernie let out a weak cry.
“She was begging, begging and begging. She did some nasty shit not to die. But, daddy I killed her away.”
“God damn. Fuck you.”
Whack! She slugged him with her big gun, swinging it down like the hammer of a God.
“No, fuck you! You selfish asshole. You getting yours, ain’t no getting out of it.”
Bernie absorbed the blow, damn near praying to black out. He had no such luck though.
“First of all, that ain’t enough money, whatever amount it is. Secondly, we far from even.”
Bernie blinked. Her words floated by, the sound of raindrops taking the forefront to his vision of this revenge‐ driven nut killing his son. He saw only one way to stop her, and the thought of somehow getting the upper hand and killing her seemed remote. He was a punk. The anger wasn’t there to fight his way out of this and survive.
Bernie realized Tippy was not just insane with revenge; it had consumed her. She was riding high on hatred. This wasn’t about money. It was about death.
“I want to know,” Tippy said suddenly. “Where is my mother’s body? That is what you can give me.”
Bernie tried to put his story together, get his mind right for the torture. Shit, he was thinking, they going to kill me anyway, so why tell them shit?
“I don’t know where the fuck the body is buried. You know how many years ago that was?”
She slapped him hard with an open right hand. A bitch move.
“Thirty years ago, motherfucker. I am thirty.”
Tippy caught herself. Anger was going to ruin the fun. She was going to kill him too soon.
“We are going to start this shit off again. This time we are going to be serious.”
Sobbing.
“There hasn’t been a day gone by that I didn’t feel guilty, sorry, for what happened. I swear to you, I have no reason to lie right now. It was an accident.”
“Fuck you! Fuck you! It was no accident.” Tippy moved away from her father. “Beat him. Beat the shit out of him.”
The dudes beat Bernie for a solid half hour.
Then she began the questioning. Tippy wrote down all he said and questioned him. When the answers didn’t match, she sliced at his upper body with the sharp, hot knife.
“Find some pliers; put them shits on the stove. We are going to get real now.”
She used the pliers on his private parts while her men got back to the punching.
Bernie was sweating and bruised and set to die and let it be done. He ended up telling his son’s address, Penny’s address, and describing her down to the auburn red toe nail polish she liked to rock.
“That’s his only true love,” Bernie sniveled between breaths. He put a hand down on the rug to balance himself. “That’s my boy’s only true love. Kill her, don’t kill him.”
CHAPTER 20
C-Mann decided to pick up Penny from her gig. Right then, spending time with her was as precious as having none of this shit happening to him.
He couldn’t think of anything else to do; he couldn’t think beyond the unknowing, the fear and confusion. They, his sister and whoever she had helping her, have the upper hand. They have his number and they’ll call when they are ready to talk this out, was his only course of assessment.
Honestly, he wanted to run, to be free of this situation. He had been thinking that day about how Penny often pleaded with him to take a vacation. He had the money to put them on a secluded island for a year or two.
But the ache to support his dad was thicker than his fright of doing battle with his sister.
He parked in a No Standing zone in front of her swank, imaginative white and glass office building like he always did. He knew the cops down that low in Manhattan wouldn’t fuck with him if he was sitting in the car.
He called her at her desk and lit up her day.
“Hey, baby,” she chimed.
“I’m out here, just come on whenever, and I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Okay, thank you, baby. I’ll be right down at six.” Penny liked little gestures like that more than the jewelry, designer bags or fly clothes he’d buy her.
Waiting outside of the building in his El Dog, he had his eyes doing a sweep of the area, worried that someone might be out to snatch his girl. In his ride he caught the eye of a sweet honey while he was looking for his Gratitude CD. Nothing better than the Elements of the ʹ70s live.
The distraction was in high heels, tight jeans, and what caught his attention completely were her enormous breasts pushing out of her baby blue leather jacket.
He looked until she was out of sight.
A second later Penny was pulling the passenger’s door open and sliding her petite body in. After a wet kiss Penny was full of questions.
“I was so worried about you. I thought something bad happened to you.”
“Never that.” He kissed her again, “Yeah, I know you called, I saw the missed calls. I was just busy.”
After he ignited the engine he switched CDs to the O’Jays.
“You don’t like anything new,” Penny scoffed as they hit traffic.
“That’s the problem, there is nothing new.”
At the apartment she made him a nice, home-cooked meal. She heated up some pigʹs feet and collard greens frozen from a Sunday dinner and some potato salad. She took time to bake some cornbread.
After eating C-Mann let relaxation come. He listened to the Latin jazz she was playing and tried like hell to not think. Penny put the food away and cleaned the kitchen.
She came into the bedroom and discovered her man asleep with his mouth open, snoring the sweet way babies do.
She undressed in front of him and slithered onto his body. He awoke and wiped away sleep.
“Tell me what you did today?” he said to get her talking instead of asking.
“You really want to hear about it, I mean I know this isn’t the time, right?”
“I need you to clear my mind. If I could just get away for these hours.”
“Are you going to the club tonight?”
“How was your day?”
She smiled, sighed and got to telling.
He listened to her sweet, earnest voice in the darkness of the bedroom and felt happy.
While she talked in singsong speak about her crazy co‐workers and relatively quiet day, she massaged his manhood. But it did not spring to life. She became nervous.
“Are you getting rid of me?”
C‐Mann looked up at her, “No. Where you get that from? You are family. I ain’t going anywhere,” he prayed that was the truth. That he wasn’t near death.
“But you don’t want me.”
His fingers slid into her long, thick hair. He was thinking how he should just snatch her up and run south to Florida or up north to Canada.
She must have read his mind because she was with it. She said, “I’ll go wherever. As long as I am with you.”
“I ain’t trying to run. But if I go, I ain’t going nowhere without you.”
She came up his chest and gave him the tongue kiss that always got him hard. Her tongue was thick and long but melted at touch.
Her light touch became rough in his crotch and it expanded and throbbed. She exhaled at the feel he did still want her.
