Chapter 12
Angela waited for everybody to leave to before she opened the door to her room again. She was heartbroken. Not only had she lost her husband, but in his death her dignity went as well. Everyone had always thought that she and David had the perfect love story, but they didn’t know all the things she did to get to where she was at. Although she and David had met at a very young age the two didn’t start dating until she was almost twenty-one, the same year he had become King David. After they met the first time Angela knew she liked him, but she just couldn’t see herself dating someone like him. He was rough around the edges and not at all like the man she always envisioned for herself. Not only was he from the streets, but he was poor. Something she never told David was that her parents cut her off when she was eighteen, so she wanted a man with money.
After high school she went to college and found that it was much harder than the school in East St. Louis. She struggled with her classes and almost failed her freshman year. It wasn’t until her sophomore year when a few of her professors were showing her the kind of attention a professor shouldn’t show a student that she figured out just how much power she held. She was young, beautiful, and had a body that most girls her age wished they had. She began using it to get her what she wanted and when she wanted it.
Angela’s first victims, of course, were her teachers. All of the classes she chose were with male professors. Some were married, but she didn’t care. They got their nut and she got her grade, along with a few other material items. She preyed on her professors all the way until she graduated. Top of her class, at that. She didn’t stop there. She took many powerful politicians and even some celebrities to her bed just to make sure she maintained the lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to living.
However, when she ran into David Mason again and saw how well he had flourished, she knew she had to have him and only him. For, if she got him she would only have to sleep with him and only him for the rest of her life. In a way she did love David, but she could honestly say that she loved his money more. At first, she put on a front and played the part of the girl he met in school. But after she got the ring she slowly but surely began to show her true colors. When she got pregnant she was even happier because no matter what happened she thought she would always have access to her husband’s money.
She wanted the best for her children, but she wanted the best for herself more. Through all the love she gave them, she always loved herself more and would always put herself first. She tried to form a bond with Davita at an early age but it was apparent even then that she was a daddy’s girl. David Jr., on the hand, always seemed moldable. She knew deep down that even though the two children were twins David would leave everything to his junior, and because of that she needed David Jr. to stay in her pocket forever.
As they grew, she poisoned Davita’s head with lies about how a woman should be. Although she put up a front that the street life wasn’t what she wanted for her children, she silently guided Davita toward it. She taught her daughter how to use men to get what she wanted, and she passed along her love of money. For David she wanted him to be a scholar, just like she was, and graduate with a degree. Up until that moment everything had been going as planned. But in the end it all had backfired on her.
She sat alone in her room wearing a silk robe wrapped over her nightgown as she brushed her hair in the mirror. She could still see the beauty in her own face, but she had to get past the sadness first. She couldn’t believe that, after all the years she put in, she ended up with absolutely nothing. The only thing that she had left was David Jr.
“You okay, Ma?”
A voice surprised Angela. She looked in the mirror of the vanity that she was sitting at and smiled when she realized that she must have thought him up.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” David Jr. asked with curiosity in his eyes.
“Today has just been a long day,” Angela said with a sigh and set the brush down.
“I know, for me too. I’m just trying to figure out who would do Dad like this. The way they did it, it was sick and twisted.”
“You’d be surprised how many enemies your father had, David Jr. He has been king for several years now, and he’s made several enemies who want his head on a stick. I just never thought that they would ever try to come for his family, but I guess in situations like this there are no exceptions. In the life that your father lived it was inevitable that he would meet a sticky end. I just don’t want that for you or your sister.”
“You try telling Day that. She lives and breathes the life of hustling. She loves everything about it.”
“I can’t. You have to, because she won’t listen to me, especially after finding out that I cheated on your father. She won’t listen to me because she doesn’t understand.”
David Jr. didn’t respond to that because that was something that he didn’t understand. To his knowledge his father had been a lot of things, but the one thing he never heard of him doing was stepping out on his wife. Even though he had a strange way of showing it, family meant something to King David. David Jr. didn’t want to think about their mother being with another man. The thought made him sick to his stomach.
“After they find the person who did this to your father you both have to leave this street shit behind you. You have something going for yourself, baby: you’re about to get your degree. Day owns two businesses and is set for life now. What y’all need to run the street for? It’s time to put that life in the casket with your father. It’s time for a life with the fresh starts and new beginnings. He always wanted the best you; now all have to do is make a decision. These stories never end well, David Jr. Do you want to end up like your father, or do you want to live your life the way a real man is supposed to?”
David took a moment to think over her words. She was right; he definitely didn’t want to die the way his father had. Whenever he thought about it a knot formed in his stomach and it felt like he couldn’t breathe. That memory would plague his mind forever no matter how much he tried to remove it.
He leaned on his mother’s vanity and looked down at her, hoping to get some more guidance. “What should I do, Ma?”
“Sell it. Sell everything. You may be a junior but that doesn’t mean that’s how you have to live your life forever.”
* * *
The news of the death of King David had caused an uproar in the streets of East St. Louis. The streets had gone absolutely chaotic. It seemed as if nobody was safe unless they were locked away in their homes. The ones who had been dubbed the most loyal to King David had turned on him and started to rob his trap houses. With David Jr. and Davita shut away in the house for safekeeping there was nobody available to balance it all out. There was nobody to put fear in the hearts of the people, and there was no leverage between gangs. In three days the murder count went up to fifty bodies. Instead of thinking that maybe the chaos was due to absence of King David, the police department blamed it completely on him having power in the first place. In their eyes, if nobody like King David existed at all there would be no reason to act the way that these people were acting. They were acting like savage animals. There were more robberies and break-ins in history and not enough officers to take all the calls.
Detective Avery sat in his chair in his office, contemplating his next move. He was sad about King David’s death, but not for the reason that most would assume. He was sad because a five-year investigation had come to a screeching halt without any retribution. He was sad that he hadn’t been able to hit him with any criminal charges. There had been days where he dreamed about the look on King David’s face when he put the cuffs on him and hauled him off to jail in the back of a police cruiser. He dreamed of the day when the judge sentenced him to life in prison. Now he would never get that satisfaction, so he had to settle for the next best thing.
“I need somebody to give me a warrant to search Davita Mason’s apartment now. This case has dragged on way too long!”
Even though David Mason was dead, Detective Avery was still hell-bent on bringing down his whole operation. He knew that Davita Mason was a big part of his whole empire. He also knew that if anybody would take over everything then it would be her or her brother. He had done extensive research on David Jr. and found nothing to worry about. He learned that David Jr. despised his father and everything he did; he was just a college boy. So his main focus was on Davita. His main goal was to knock out the new queen before she was even crowned.
Ever since the mysterious disappearance of his star witness Antonio he had eyes watching her moves every day; still, however, she managed to stay ghost most of the time. He had gotten some new interesting news, though. Ever since the death of her father, he found out, she had been staying at the family house, for the past few days. Why she was there, he didn’t know. He was just happy that she was out of the way and that her house was vacant. Now the only thing to do was get a search warrant and hopefully find some of Antonio’s DNA in her home.
* * *
“Where you going?” Day’s voice shocked David as he tried to tiptoe down the stairs.
He looked back and saw his sister sticking her head out of her bedroom. He was wearing a pair of navy blue Air Max Classics, a pair of 501 blue jeans, and a navy blue Polo zip-up hoodie with a red Polo insignia. He was trying to sneak out of the house and he was positive that nobody had heard him. After talking to his mother, he went to his room and saw that he had a few missed calls from Indigo. She told him that even though they had made plans for her to come over the next day, she really wanted to see him sooner than that. He told her that he would see if he could get out of the house.
“I’m going to mind my business, damn. And don’t tell anybody that I’m gone. I’ll be back soon.”
“Nigga, I ain’t no snitch. You going to see that girl, huh?”
“What does it matter?”
“Because inquiring minds want to know. If you want me to keep my mouth shut you don’t have to be rude,” she snapped, but then softened her tone. “And I’ve never seen you actually like somebody before. She must be a good one.”
“Yeah, she is. I do really like her.”
“Did you first night her?”
“Bye, Day,” he responded, grinning. “I’ll be back before they know I’m gone.”
“You do know that they’re at the front door, right? And the back and the sides? But if you go out my window and slide down the rail they won’t see you.”
David looked suspiciously at his sister, wondering why she was trying to help him. Still, she had a good point. He turned around and went back up the stairs toward her room. He couldn’t remember the last time he had even been in there. Everything in there was new to him, even though it was clear that it was from back when they were kids.
“Is that a B2K poster on your wall?” he asked her, pointing to the boy R&B group. “I didn’t even know you had their CD.”
She felt her face get hot from embarrassment. She loved B2K when she was younger and now that she was older she refused to take down the poster. She put a hand on his back and pushed him to the window. “Shut up and just hurry up and get out of here before they come up here and catch you.”
She pulled out a pistol and handed it to him. “Whoever killed Daddy is still out there and I just don’t want them to catch you slipping. I ain’t ya mama so I can’t tell you what to do, so I’m just going to say be careful.”
David Jr. grabbed the gun from her hands without speaking and went out the window. Indigo said she was parked around the corner so all David had to do was get there. He was tired of being cooped up in the house; and nobody had a lead on who had killed King David. The video tape from the security camera that night had gone mysteriously missing. It seemed as if there was no hope in finding his father’s murderer; and even with that being said he didn’t want to be stuck up in the house for years.
Mac kept stressing the fact that he needed to keep him alive until the meeting on Saturday, but that was a whole four days away. The only thing sitting in his room for days had done for him was make him feel more guilty about how he acted toward his father until the day that he died. He kept thinking back to when he last saw him at Ruth’s Chris for lunch. He felt that maybe if he would’ve kept them out a little longer then he wouldn’t have even gone to the office.
Whenever he turned on the TV all he saw was death in the city. King David had only been laid to rest a couple of days ago, and the city already went up in flames. Mac had been right. They were all fighting to be the next kingpin. Brothers were robbing each other. King David’s operation had taken such a big loss that they had to shut down shop. Everybody was angry because nobody was eating. All David thought of was how he felt whenever he was with Indigo. At that point in life she was the only one who seemed to bring him peace.
He felt like a child all over again having to sneak out of his parents’ house the way he did in high school. But he felt that she was worth the ridicule. When his feet touched the ground he took off running before anybody could see him. He reached the front of the house and saw two men standing patrol. He thought fast and grabbed a rock from the bush that he was hiding behind and threw it high in the air so that it would hit the part of the house that was behind them. When they left their post he grabbed a couple more rocks and hoped his decoy trick would work again at the gate. It did, and when the guards there left their posts he slid his muscular body through two of the bars with some difficulty. Once he was through he looked behind him to make sure nobody had seen him. He put the hood to his Polo hoodie over his head, and began in the direction of where he’d told Indigo to meet him.
He half walked, half ran down the street until saw headlights flickering. He knew it was Indigo because it was the signal he told her to give when she saw him. He put his hand in the air to let her know that it was him, and she pulled up next to him so that he could get in the car. He looked over to where she sat in the driver’s seat, and smiled because she looked beautiful to him.