Black Widow (18 page)

Brenda continued walking down memory lane and blaming herself. “It’s entirely my fault—if I wouldn’t have been so greedy, Sandra wouldn’t have killed Ice, and he’d be here. He woulda never let his two girls go through the shit y’all have been through. Ice wanted y’all to be strong black women. He didn’t want y’all to be submissive to no man. He wanted y’all to stand up for y’allselves, not be tied up in the web of these menfolks that don’t mean y’all nothing but trouble.”

Talking about Ice made Brenda feel a little better about the entire situation, but it also gave Isis a little more insight about how her father viewed life and wanted things to be mapped out for his daughters.

“Brenda, I got to get off the phone. I’m gonna call Phoebe.”

“She’s not gon’ come clean,” Brenda said. “She knows how to play it off over the phone.”

“Then I’ll fly to Texas,” Isis insisted. “She’s wanted me to go there anyway. I promised her I would.”

“Thank you.” Brenda actually sounded appreciative. “Will you keep in contact with me, please? I am really worried.”

“I will keep you posted,” Isis promised.

Isis got Brenda’s cell phone number, and then hung up. She sat on the edge of the bed wondering why she hadn’t had any indication of what her sister was going through. She knew they hadn’t talked lately as much as they used to, but she had chalked it up to the fact that they both were entering new phases of their lives. Isis picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s number anyway, just to feel her out.

The call went through. It rang a few times, and then Phoebe answered in a soft, low voice. “Hello.”

Her voice sounded a little pitchy, so Isis asked, “You crying?”

“No. I was umm…” Phoebe seemed to stall for a moment. “I was asleep.”

She’s never been able to lie to me worth shit,
Isis thought. “I was just calling because I wondered what you were going to be doing over the next few days.”

“Uh, why?”

“Sister, can you talk, or are you busy?” Maybe someone was listening or monitoring her calls, so Isis wanted to give her sister the benefit of the doubt.

“No, I’m not busy or anything like that.”

“Then why you sound so distant?” Isis asked. Phoebe sounded more and more suspect by the minute.

“I’m just tired; told you I was sleeping when you called,” she snapped.

“Well, you never answered my question. What are you doing in the next few days?”

“I’ll be caught up doing a lot of stuff here,” Phoebe said. “Pretty much housebound.”

“Then call me back later once you’re more awake. And sister…I love you.”

“Me too.” Phoebe quickly hung up the phone.

The entire conversation was very awkward. Something definitely wasn’t right. It was final: Isis was going to the Lone Star State to see her sister, right after she took care of a few things in Miami.

As soon as Isis got off the phone with her sister, she called Tony. She hit his number three times; the first two times the calls went straight to voice mail, but he picked up on the third. She could hear in his voice that he didn’t really want to talk, but she told him that she had some information that could save the day. This got his attention.

“Where y’all staying?” she asked him.

“We moved to the Sheraton in Bal Harbour,” he told her.

“I’m going to send you a package with a few important things in it,” she said. “Be sure to call and let me know as soon as you get it.”

The next call was to Sly. Isis asked Sly to meet her at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in South Beach.

Isis was sitting in the hotel restaurant when she saw Sly walk through the door. She recognized her by the white-and-yellow L.A. Lakers Kobe Bryant jersey she said she would be wearing.

Sly looked nothing like Isis expected. For some reason she thought the girl would be some big burly chick. Sly was the total opposite, all skin and bones. She was light-skinned and looked sort of Spanish with long coal-black, curly, bushy hair. It looked like her hair might weigh more than she did.

Isis raised her hand in the air to get Sly’s attention. It worked. As Sly walked over to the table where Isis was sitting, she understood why Logic was so head over heels for this girl. She was breathtaking, and the all-white Capri outfit looked marvelous on her. Sly sat at the table, told the waitress to bring her a glass of water, and then addressed Isis for the first time in person.

“Please tell me you got something for me to do,” Sly begged. “I have to tell Logic something when I talk to him again. And I can’t lie to him.”

“I’m glad that you asked. First, I’m going to need you to take me to an Anne Fontaine so I can get some white shirts.”

“No problem. That’s in Bal Harbour.”

“Good. Do you know where the Sheraton is from there?”

“Yeah, it’s right across the street from there.”

“What about a Hallmark store?” Sly had been twisting her hair between her fingers ever since she’d arrived. Isis wondered how long she’d had that habit.

“One of those shouldn’t be far from there either,” she answered.

“Okay. Then while I’m in the Anne Fontaine, I need you to deliver a package to my boy, Tony. He’s staying at the Sheraton, and the package is very important, so you gotta make sure he has it in his hands before you leave.

“I’m going to Texas to check on my sister tonight, and I’m not sure exactly how long it’s going to take. But for every day that I’m away, I want you to send Logic a card from me.”

“That’s not a problem either.”

“I’ll pick the cards out and sign them before I leave. That way all you’ll have to do is drop them in the box so that Logic can get mail every day so that he knows I am thinking of him.”

“He already knows that. Trust me, if he didn’t, you would be just some miscellaneous chick. Believe what I am telling you. Logic has never been caught up over no woman before, and I’ve known him a long time.” Sly took a deep breath and then said, “Anyway, though, mailing those cards are small things. Count it as done. Anything else?”

“Not right now,” Isis said, “but thanks, girl.”

“If there’s anything that you think of while you’re in Texas, please feel free to call me.”

“Okay.” She smiled, knowing deep down that she had just met a real live thorough chick. A lot of people made the mistake of underestimating Sly because of her small stature, but no one ever made that mistake twice. She was stronger than a lot of men twice her size, and she was a crack shot with a pistol. The latter was thanks to her father, who’d taught her how to shoot when she was only ten years old. Isis was happy to have her on her side.

Chapter 22

The King of Texas

Isis’s flight had landed in Texas earlier that morning, so she had decided to stay at the Westin Galleria Hotel and start on her save-a-sister mission—if she needed saving—first thing in the morning. It was now a little after 10
AM.
Isis had called Phoebe’s phone several times, but she wasn’t answering. Undiscouraged, Isis looked in the phone book for a car service. As her driver pulled the car up to the house for which Brenda had given her the address, they passed a couple of Mexicans working in the yard. They kept going around the winding road, up to the main house. Just when she was thinking that this might not be the right house, she saw a cute wooden sign with the name
Vanz
engraved into it. This was it.
Little sis is living large!

Isis stood on her sister’s doorstep and pressed the long chiming doorbell. Just like the phone, no one answered. She was about to turn around and leave when an older Asian lady opened the oversized front door with a blank look on her face.

“Yes?”

“Hello.” Isis smiled at the lady. “My name is Isis Tatum; I’m Phoebe’s sister.”

The lady stood there holding the door, giving Isis a cold look. “And?”

“
And
I came to see her,” Isis said calmly. “I’m not sure about how it’s done in your country, but here in America, it’s very customary for siblings to visit one another. Now is she here or not?”

Although Isis didn’t raise her voice despite her anger, the lady saw something in her eyes that said,
I ain’t to be fucked with today
.

“She no expecting you?” The Asian woman tried to look past Isis to see if anyone else was with her.

“No, she wasn’t.”

“She no say she expecting any company.”

“That’s because she didn’t know. It’s a surprise.” Isis threw her hands up and said, “Surprise!” hoping the woman would catch on. Instead the woman just stood there with the same old blank face. “She does live here, right?” Isis said, while nodding her head. “Phoebe here? Phoebe live here?”

“Yes, but her not here.”

“Do you know where she is?” Isis paused when she heard the grandfather clock inside the mansion strike noon. She and Phoebe used to always talk about getting an antique clock like that. “Do you mind if I wait?” Isis suggested, not giving up that easy.

“She back late. But I tell her call you.”

She really wasn’t satisfied with the outcome, but other than knocking the frail woman down and storming the place, what could she do? “Please do. Thank you,” Isis said.

She went back to the Lincoln town car thinking that she had seen crack stash houses that weren’t that hard to get into. Then she stopped. She had a strong feeling that someone was watching her from behind, but when she turned around, there was no one at the door or the windows. She disregarded the feeling and climbed in the car.

She told the driver, “You can take me back to the hotel.” She was going to lie down, then get up and do a little shopping, and wait on Phoebe to call.

Despite the mall’s being packed and her worrying about her sister, Isis felt that her shopping trip went quite well. She was carrying several bags from Versace, Ann Taylor, and Louis Vuitton when she stepped into the Gucci store. Before both her feet could cross the doorsill, a little blond saleslady walked up to her. “Hi. Welcome to Gucci. Is there anything that I can help you with?” The only other customers in the store were three guys, and it looked like only one of them was actually buying anything.

“Yes, I’d like to see everything you have in white or black,” Isis stated.

“Everything?” the saleslady asked.

“Everything,” Isis answered without batting an eye.

The saleslady was taken aback; it wasn’t every day that someone came in with a request like that. “Uh, no problem. I’m just going to need your sizes; then give me a few minutes to go in the back to pull out some of the hot things that may not have hit the floor yet.” Before she walked away she said, “Oh, my name is Sarah. Just call my name if you should need anything else.” The saleslady headed to the back of the store, past the chattering guys who were trying on shoes.

Sarah whispered into the ear of one of the three salesmen who were in conversation with the male customers. The salesman immediately headed over toward Isis and started helping her pick out stuff from the racks and shelves. Sarah carried out some other items as well.

Isis tried on a few pairs of shoes, looked at them from different angles, took a couple of steps in each pair, and fell in love with them. “I’ll take all three of these,” she said. “Do they come with matching belts or bags, Sarah?”

“Yes.” Sarah turned to the new woman whom she was training. “Sue, will you go get the two belts that I showed you earlier…the ones that match these shoes?”

Sue nodded and turned to do as she was asked.

“Oh, and, Sarah, I need a white baseball hat and white sneakers—the ones you have on display, I’m not loving. Can you call Karen at the Forum Shops in the Vegas store and see if they have any different ones?”

“I sure can,” Sarah said, impressed by Isis’s knowledge of their other stores and managers in different states.

Isis gave orders, and everybody in the store knew that today was their lucky day because they were dealing with a lady who knew what she liked and wanted. All attention was on Isis when she pranced around the store in a pair of brown stiletto sandals and asked, “Do you have these in white, Sarah?”

“I don’t think we do,” she said. “I know we have them in a reddish color.”

“No. I need them in either white or black.”

“What about blue?” the new girl jumped in. Sarah looked at her as if she was crazy. She would have to have a talk with her later.

“Either black or white, and with these,” Isis looked at the shoe, “I would love to have them in white.”

“I can try to make that happen,” Sarah said, “but I may need a couple of days.”

“No problem. I’ll leave you my card.”

One of the guys who had been trying on shoes was on his way to the register to finalize his purchase. He had been watching the attractive young lady buying everything in the two colors and was curious, so he stopped and asked, “What’s up with all the black and white?”

Isis never looked up from Sarah, who was buckling up a pair of black sandals for her. “That’s all I wear,” she answered.

“Is there a reason for that?” he asked.

Isis looked up and noticed the guy’s features for the first time. He was six feet tall and wore a long diamond necklace with a seriously blinged-out diamond cross pendant that rested on his beer gut. He wore long, neat, skinny shoulder-length dreads that really brought out his reddish-brown complexion.

“Yes.” She answered his question while standing up to see how the sandals felt on her feet.

“Care to share?”

She walked over to the mirror. “The world is either black or white. You do or you don’t. Will or you won’t. There really is no gray area.” She stared down at the mirror to see how the heel of her foot looked in the shoes. “So it doesn’t make much sense to me to have color in my wardrobe.”

“Makes a lot of sense.” He nodded. “So your entire closet is in black and white.”

“Every inch,” she confirmed.

“Damn. You seem like a diva. So how do you manage with such limited choices?”

“If you’ve got it in colors,” she said, “I’ve got it in white or black. If not, I can get it.”

Sarah spoke up. “I think you’ve been through just about everything we have, and I’m going to check on the sneakers and the other pair of sandals for you. Will there be anything else I can do for you?”

“That’s it for me, Sarah. I’m ready to get out of here,” Isis told her.

Everything that Isis had chosen during the hour-and-a-half-long spree was taken to the front of the store and rang up by Sue. “That’ll be $7,462.53,” she announced. “Will that be cash or charge?”

Isis pulled out her credit card to pay for her purchase, and there was Mr. Beer Belly again. “I’m sure you’re probably charging this shopping spree to your husband’s account today, but when you’re ready to shop with the real king of Texas, make sho’ you call me, ya heard?” He handed her a piece of paper with his number on it. “Some call me the emperor of the South.”

“Okay,
emperor
, I hear you.” She took his number. “And I will call you. I’m sure we can discuss some business somewhere down the line. I design jewelry.” Isis felt as if she might have landed a potential big-spending new client, judging by the looks of his chain. “I’m going to lock your number in my phone.”

“You do that.” He smirked.

Sarah cut in. “Did you use valet parking, ma’am?”

“No. I’m staying at the Westin.”

“Then would you like for me to have your packages sent over?”

“That would be good,” Isis agreed.

“Can I ask you a question?” Sarah asked.

Isis stopped in her tracks and looked at her. “What is it?”

“When you decided that you were not going to wear any colors, what did you do with all your colorful clothes that you did have?”

“Well, I took them to the battered women’s shelter and dropped them off for the ladies in need. Brand-new stuff, some of it, because not too long before, I had just got an entirely new wardrobe. But it didn’t matter. Someone blessed me with a lot of nice things, and I wanted to pay it forward.”

“That’s sweet. Well, have a nice day, and please come back and see us.”

“I will.”

She had left the Gucci store and was passing the ice-skating rink inside the mall when she saw the light on her phone indicating that she had messages. Her phone service wasn’t working in certain parts of the mall, so some of her calls had gone straight to voice mail.

There were three missed calls and one of them was from her sister. “Hi, sister. I got the message that you had came by. I’m so mad at you because I wish you would have told me. Randy and I went to Seattle to meet with one of his endorsement sponsors, so I am not in Texas and I won’t be back for another four days. However, you can hang around if you wish, or we can just see each other another time. Love ya. Call me!”

That was what she got for coming all this way unannounced. She tried dialing her sister back, but the call went to the voice mail.
Shit!
Sly was one of the other people who’d called, so she hit her back. She probably had a message from Logic.

“Hey, Sly, what’s up girl?” While she was talking, she watched as the king of Texas made his way through the mall with his boys in tow carrying his bags.
Emperor?

“Good. What about you?” Sly asked.

“Girl, can you believe my sister ain’t even in the state?”

“What?!” Sly exclaimed in disbelief. “Where is she?”

“In Seattle. I went to her house, and the housekeeper wouldn’t even let me in,” she said. “Anyway, why did you call?”

“When I called, I had Logic on the phone. He tried calling you himself, but your phone went to voice mail. But you need to get back here quick.”

“What did he say?” Isis became alarmed. “Is he okay?”

“He’s cool. He’s just worried about you. Cursed me out for letting you go OT by yourself. From now on, you can’t travel alone anymore.”

Isis brushed Sly off. “I hear you.”

“Plus, that dude Tony called me and said he’d tried to reach you too. You know, when I went up there to meet him, I called him from my phone, and I guess he saved the number.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“Yeah, he said that he needed you to have Breeze’s jewelry straight by Friday because that’s when he’s having the press conference.”

“Friday?” Isis said in shock. She’d figured that the last thing that would be on Breeze’s mind was some jewelry. Guess she’d thought wrong.

“Yeah, Friday!”

“Sly, today is Tuesday.” Isis thought fast. She could e-mail the idea she had come up with for Breeze to Ricco, one of her jewelers in New York. He could have the piece made in two days and overnight it back to her in Miami by Friday. She didn’t have any room for error, and it would be pushing it close, but it was doable.

“Well, all I can say is that you need to be on the first thing smoking back to Miami or wherever you got to go to get that shit right.” Sly switched gears. “Also, Logic said he’s going to try to call back tonight, so make sure you pick up.”

“Okay,” Isis said. She then turned to walk the other way to head toward the Westin. “I’m on my way back to my hotel; I’ll call you back with my travel plans.”

After hanging up the phone, Isis realized that she was lost. Finally making it to the Westin’s entrance, she noticed a nice car, which was nothing unusual for Texas, especially at this hotel. She thought it was a Bentley Azure but couldn’t be sure. Then
he
got into it, Mr. King of Texas himself. She watched from a distance knowing that one day she’d be driving one of those, and it would not be a present from a man. It would be from the success of Black Widow Jewels.