For all I knew, Pumpkin may have ended her visit. Gone back to wherever it was that she came from. Maybe she was somewhere whipping that dangerous pussy on another hopeless soul, offering him salvation through his salivation.
I couldn’t believe such things. She had to be here. It was just a matter of waiting.
Left with no other choice, I continued my mindless trek, hoping the cops weren’t called on me.
It was on another of my passes in front of Pumpkin’s apartment. I was trudging with my head down, and carelessly bumped into someone. They quickly brushed themselves off, distancing themselves as if I were a leper. When I turned to offer some words for acting like I was a bum, something else caught my eye. I was suddenly robbed of speech.
A woman walking in the same direction, several yards ahead.
She must’ve crossed the street behind me. I would’ve ignored her except that her attire was familiar: the business suit worn by Pumpkin when she gave me the money. It was another sign dropped on my big fat head.
It was her.
It had to be her.
“Pumpkin!” I shouted. She didn’t turn around. She was almost a block away. Probably didn’t hear me with all the traffic.
Soon she would be out of reach. Behind the golden doors guarded so ferociously by my friend.
I broke out into a full-blown sprint, fueled by the emotions of the moment.
“Pumpkin!” I yelled, a little less desperately this time, as I sprinted through the leisurely gaggle of pedestrians. I could almost reach out and touch her. I was glad I held back.
In my haste, I hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t alone. She was accompanied by an eerily familiar man. His distinguished gait set him apart. He could’ve possibly been the brother-in-law she was staying with. The “controlling dick,” as I recalled her saying the night I’d pulled her from that car. They were almost to the door. I couldn’t waste any more time debating the issue.
I jogged briskly, getting closer, but not attracting attention.
“Pumpkin,” I yelled again, to no effect. I debated over grabbing her, deciding I had to do it.
When I touched her shoulder, I knew something was wrong.
The woman flinched at my grip, spinning her shoulder free as if it were something she’d learned in a self-defense class.
“Excuse me?” said the woman wearing the exact same dark green outfit (closer to olive, now that I was seeing it in broad daylight) and with virtually the same measurements as Pumpkin.
Except she wasn’t Pumpkin.
Much shorter hair. One of those wavy, sassy styles, but everything else was so . . . similar.
Her sister. It had to be.
“Pumpkin?” I pleaded, knowing it wasn’t her, but hoping the mention of her sister’s name would alleviate the tension. It was a desperate shot before I resorted to throwing myself at their feet and depending on the kindness of strangers. Blanche Du-Bois never was in the shit I was in.
Her companion took notice. He stuck his arm out, barring any further interaction between me and Pumpkin’s sister. His back was turned, the bum not even worthy of his gaze. He seemed more infuriated with the woman. “You know him?” he asked accusingly.
“I’ve never seen this man before in my life,” she stammered, both frightened and repulsed by me. I forgot how bad I looked . . . and smelled.
Satisfied with the timbre of her answer, he unleashed his disdain on me. Tired of being hit, I defensively raised my cast, expecting a blow. He didn’t swing. Just barked as men such as he were apt to do.
“Go away, man,” he chastised. “My wife doesn’t need this shit.”
His voice seemed so familiar. “No disrespect. I just need to see Pumpkin.”
“You need to go! We don’t know any damn . . . Hold up.”
He’d paused with the lowering of my cast from my face. We traded glares, recognition dawning simultaneously. The past twelve hours had made my thinking ragged. It hurt as I tried to fathom what I was in the middle of.
Her sister.
Her brother-in-law.
Tanner Coleman?
“You!” I growled, feeling twelve feet tall before the asshole who had fired me just days ago.
“Henry? What the fuck?” He smiled, but it was one of irritation and annoyance. His wife’s weary eyes darted between the two of us, sensing the emotional wave as it came crashing ashore.
What the fuck was this about?
Pumpkin knew. Everything.
Tanner acted before I could dwell on the ins and outs swirling around me. He clamped his hands on my shoulders and tried to throw me. I almost fell over, but held on in return. The two of us spun around in a strange tango until it ended with him slamming me into the brick facade.
“I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but you made the worst mistake of your life fucking with me and my wife.”
I wasn’t his lackey anymore, so I wasn’t hearing it. My answer to his indignation was to swing with my cast and hit him upside his pompous head. It dazed Tanner, sending his wife into a shrill shriek. When he staggered back, I tackled the old man. We crashed over a stack of newspapers being sold by a vendor. People on the street awoke from their self-absorption to see two grown men having a midday rumble.
Although older than me, Coleman was quicker and more muscular. A wad of advertisements from Target flew into my face as I brought my cast down in a pounding motion. I missed him as he rolled aside. Before I knew it, he’d grabbed me again, this time wrapping me up in some kind of choke hold. As we tumbled across the papers, I got an elbow into his gut. He broke his grip from around my neck. I hit him upside his head with my cast again, thinking about how I had been willing to kill him a few nights earlier.
Before another blow could be delivered, I was hit from behind. Coleman’s trophy wife had run inside, seeking out the inquiring doorman. The young brother had come running and was proceeding to whale on my ass. Coleman had to be a good tipper, because the boy was a zealot, I tell you. He mashed with a ferocity I hadn’t seen in Lupe’s beat-downs. And I was familiar with those. Once he was sure I was free of his benefactor, he relented, hurling me onto the sidewalk like so much rubbish.
“I knew you were up to something! Now get out of here before I call the cops on your mangy ass!” the doorman yelled as I rose to my feet. He reached down to help Coleman up, but Coleman shrugged him off. He looked perfectly fine. Nothing but a bruised ego.
Police sirens told me this last chance for me was nothing but an illusion. When I was in jail, Kash would be sure to get to me. My immediate choice was simple: I had to flee. As I ran by, I traded looks with Coleman’s wife, sensing that something wasn’t quite right about her. The uneasy look on her face told me she knew more than she was letting on. Let her have her secrets, then. I would get my answers from her scheming sister.
26
BIANCA
Sure, he’d assaulted Tanner, but our doorman had relished beating that poor soul a little too much. Christ, the man already had a broken hand or something.
He knew Pumpkin—just what no one in this town needed. As he ran by, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for whatever she’d gotten him caught up in. It had to be horrible to have reduced him to this. I wondered if the money Pumpkin had stolen had anything to do with his desperate state. With him gone, only one person could provide me with that answer.
“Get away!” Tanner shouted as he shoved Ruben aside. Our doorman was only trying to aid him, but my husband was enraged over the perceived humiliation he’d suffered. “You came out a little late to help. What do we pay you for? What if he’d had a gun?”
A gun.
I hadn’t even considered it. And he was so close. I shuddered at what could have happened just now.
After threatening to fire Ruben, Tanner was on a slow burn during the elevator ride up. He looked at me a few times, but backed off without saying anything. He’d been so tender when we left the hospital. Now this unfortunate event had his nostrils flaring.
Opening the door to our place, he let me enter first. The door was barely closed before he erupted. He hurled his keys across the length of the foyer.
“Who the fuck is Pumpkin? Why’d he call you that? Do you know him? Huh? Answer me!”
I shielded my ears from his verbal assault. Instead of running away, I stood my ground and tried to make him listen. “Stop it! Stop! I don’t know why he said that!” I barked in response to his accusations. “I don’t know that man. Now, please. Stop yelling.”
Tanner didn’t know her nickname, only her birth name. Revealing that Pumpkin was visiting now would have set him off again. And with all that had happened today, I couldn’t take it.
“Are you sure?” he pushed, assuming a more reasonable posture and tone. “Because this motherfucker used to work for me. His name’s Harry . . . No. Wait. Henry. That’s it. He’s the one I fired last week. I told you about that. Are you certain you don’t know him?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Tanner, I’ve never seen that man before.” But Pumpkin had. I was certain. What the hell was she doing?
He analyzed my demeanor as if I were sitting across a boardroom from him, a business ripe for a hostile takeover. His irrational fear of my cheating on him averted, he relaxed and backed down.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. That man is the last person I expected to come across. Did you see how he looked? So irrational. Almost a completely different person.”
“Why did you fire him, again?”
He was pissed that I didn’t remember, but indulged me. “He was misappropriating company funds. Over a hundred thousand was being diverted when we caught him. From how he looks, he probably was blowing it up his nose.”
“Did you think about maybe getting some treatment for him?”
“No. He’s lucky I didn’t have him arrested when I threw him out on his bony ass. You don’t take what’s mine.” He grunted, his eyes showing the same faint accusatory trace as before. “What I am going to get is some additional security around this place. Make him think twice about coming around my home.”
I sat on our sofa, really taking in how alone I was. Lorenda was gone. Pumpkin may have been lurking in here somewhere, but was wisely hidden. And my best friend . . . my best friend was in the hospital, possibly blinded for life.
Right on time, Tanner wondered aloud, “You think he had something to do with Rory’s face?”
I choked on that one. Clearing my throat, I replied, “That’s a reach, don’t you think? Why would he attack Rory?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’d been stalking me . . . you. Maybe he saw you with Rory. Who knows how long he’s been watching us?”
An odd conclusion to come to for sure. My husband seemed utterly paranoid now. Of course, we didn’t know who was responsible for Rory’s fate. Maybe I was naive.
“Let’s not think like that. You’re scaring me, Tanner.”
He was on his own track, not to be deterred. He hustled over to where he’d thrown his keys and was picking them up. “I’m going to the office. Get some rest, baby. I’m going to look through Henry’s personnel file a little more thoroughly. And if I find he did have something to do with hurting your friend, he’ll pay.”
A shocker that my friend he hardly seemed interested about was consuming more than the bare minimum of his time. Maybe it was all too close to home: Rory’s attack, then that man Henry making Tanner feel vulnerable. He needed to channel those feelings of helplessness that the rest of us learn to live with.
He left.
I waited.
Waited for my husband to be stuck in traffic, listening to talk radio en route to his office.
Waited for the silence of my home to suffocate me.
“Pumpkin!” I shouted.
No answer.
The couch was feeling good. Too good for me to get up right now. I groaned. Her not answering didn’t mean she wasn’t here. It was a big place, and maybe she didn’t hear or care to answer. I willed myself to rise and grudgingly went about my sweep of the rooms.