Sins of a Siren (35 page)

As her head began to clear and more memories of how King Gee had blown her car up—damn near killing her—filled her mind, the angrier she got. “I'm not about to let that fake-ass pimp punk me…and I'm through runnin' from Darius, too. I'm gonna handle my business with these fools or die tryin'.”

In the distance, she spotted a bus heading toward downtown Oakland. Hitching up her bag on her shoulder, she walked to the bus stop across the street. The lump on the side of her head served as a reminder of how bad she wanted to get King Gee. “First thing I gotta do is find someplace safe to chill.”

The bus sat at a red light about six blocks away. She removed
her “Travelin' Bag,” opened it up and took out her wallet. Her bankroll had dwindled down to her last seven-hundred dollars.
Shit…maybe I should have kept that check from Eli.

Ripping up that five-grand check she had received from Eli still felt good to her. She knew it was the right thing to do. Shoving those thoughts aside, she focused on how to draw King Gee out so she could extract her revenge.

As the setting sun's light reflected off the post office windows across the street, the lights of the club Fats came to mind. She recalled how she and Lollie had had a good time there until that bastard King Gee had fucked up the groove. She took her phone out of the bag and dialed information to get the number for the club.
I wonder if they have anything going on down there tonight.

According to the recorded message, on Monday nights they featured an amateur exotic dancer night from nine to closing. She hung up her phone—ignoring the many missed calls and voice mails—and put it in the bag, then stood. The bus was a block away.
I bet money that cockhoundin' bastard will be there.

After taking her seat on the bus, she pulled her phone out of the bag and scanned the missed calls. She exhaled loudly at the five calls from her parole officer.
Ain't no need in me callin' her back now; she told me after I missed my first two meetings with her that she was gonna do everything in her power to put me back in the pen if I missed one more.

The monkey on her back morphed into King Kong. She grimaced as she listened to her voice mails. She deleted the ominous messages from Mrs. Kennedy, her parole officer, as soon as she heard her voice. Two other messages were from some of her underground cronies back east offering her big bucks to do some “work” for them. Trenda almost choked up after listening to the worry in Lollie's voice in the messages she had left.

The bus passed a familiar sight, which made her do a double-take. “Oh, shit! There goes the motel me and Eli went to.”

Reaching up, she pulled the cable signaling the driver she wanted off at the next stop. Once off the bus, she turned and walked back to the Come On Inn.

Half a block from the motel, she walked past Solar Beauty Supply. She paused to look at the goods on display in the huge plate-glass window. “Cool. They have just what I need.”

The sign on the window told Trenda she only had about ten minutes before they closed for the day. “Hello, how can I help you?” asked the fast-talking, cheery, middle-age Filipino woman. Her hazel eye contacts gave her an exotic look. The tight jeans and form-fitting purple blouse she wore did wonders for her petite frame.

Trenda walked over to the wall of wigs on display. She touched a black, shoulder-length curly wig.
My hair ain't been this long in years.
The store was stocked with a high percentage of African-American hair care products. Trenda picked up a bottle of hair shampoo and looked at the black woman on the label. “This is a damn shame; all these black hair products, in this all-white neighborhood, sold by a Filipino woman.”

The clerk stood a few paces behind Trenda. “That curly wig would frame the shape of your face nicely.”

Trenda put the shampoo down and let her bag slide down her arm and rest by her feet. “Can I try it on?”

“Sure!” the clerk said. “I'll be right back.”

As the clerk went behind the counter to get a disposable stocking cap, Trenda noticed the row of colored eye contacts in the glass counter next to the cash register.
I'll need a pair of those, too.

“I can't
believe
you are serious about killin' a
preacher
…this shit is way outta hand now,” Tyrone said as he and his partner, Darius, stood on the deck of the beachfront vacation rental owned by Darius's brother.

The smell of the Atlantic Ocean air usually relaxed Officer Darius Kain, but tonight, with the cloud of doom hovering over his head, it made him want to upchuck. “Relax…I'm just gonna use him for an insurance policy. I'm sure that once Trenda finds out I'm putting a contract out on her daddy, she will turn herself in to me.”

A pair of stray dogs descended from a sand dune, onto the beach, in search of a meal in the trashcan, ten feet from the deck. Tyrone flicked his burning cigarette butt at them. “Have you considered how many fuckin' felonies we are now mixed up in behind that ho?”

Darius looked into the red eyes of his dark-skinned partner's worried eyes. “Look, once she is dead, it's over. So go find yourself a pair of balls and quit whinin' like a lil' bitch.”

Tyrone grimaced at Darius. “Fuck you! I ain't tryin' to go to jail. And what makes you think she's gonna turn herself into you just because you are threatening her father? From my count, she ain't had a relationship with her family in years.”

Darius took a swig of his Corona beer and eyeballed his partner.
This fool is scared as a ho in church. I gotta calm him down before he does somethin' stupid. “
Check this out, Tyrone; how would you feel if I told you I had somebody trackin' Trenda right now?”

Just as Tyrone's beer touched his lips, he paused. “What are you talkin' about?”

Darius set his beer on the railing of the redwood deck. His gift of being a world-class liar served him once again. “I wasn't gonna tell you until I got the first update from him,” he gave Tyrone a
sympathetic look, “but I said to myself, ‘I can't hold out on my partner.'”

As he had done for many years, Tyrone bought Darius's line of bullshit. A pound of stress fell from his face. “Say what? You have somebody tracking Trenda?”

The sound of an oceanliner's horn sounded in the distance as Darius crafted his lie. “Yeah…as soon as my flight landed in Jersey, I called up a private eye in Oakland, gave her all the info I had on Trenda and told her to go to the hospital where Trenda is and keep an eye on her.”

“W
ow! Between this cute wig and these new dark-brown contacts, you will look like a new woman!” the Asian clerk said as she rang up Trenda's purchases. She looked into Trenda's green eyes as she handed her, her change. “If I had eyes as pretty as yours, honey, I would definitely show them off!”

“Thanks,” Trenda said as she pocketed her change. “But you know it's good to switch up every once in a while, give the fellas a treat.”

Game recognized game as the clerk smiled and winked in agreement. “Yes…you give one treat, get many in return.”

Trenda smiled on the way out the door. “I'm counting on that.” As the first stars began to twinkle, Trenda walked over to the Come On Inn motel and entered the lobby.

The smell of the incense in the air reminded her of the fucking she and Eli had done in the same motel a few days ago.
Damn, I love the way his weight felt on me while he was cummin
'. Moisture formed in her vagina as she relived the way she had handled Eli's heaviness. Thick men seriously turned her on. Being forced into submission by the weight of a heavy man made her insane with orgasmic desire.

She was shaken out of her reminiscence by the sound of an Arabic voice. “Can I help you?” the Arabian man behind the registration counter asked. His eyes locked on Trenda's body like a pit bull.

Homeboy is mighty bold now that his wife ain't around,
Trenda
thought as she approached the lusting man.
The last time I was here his wife had his ass in check. “
Yeah, I need a room for the night.”

The balding, fifty-something, olive-skinned man placed both arms on the counter and leaned over toward Trenda. The black chest hair climbing out of the throat of his multicolored Hawaiian shirt made her think he was part werewolf. “I have room for you, my pretty friend!”

The three missing teeth in his smile was a bad look. “Your rooms are still forty-five dollars, right?”

He broke eye contact with her bosom and glanced down at the laminated room price sheet on the counter top. “Yes…yes.” He went to the rack of keys on the pegboard behind the desk. “I have a vacancy on the second floor. Will that do, pretty lady?”

Trenda set her bag on the counter, removed her wallet and the cash. She looked at the black cat clock on the wall. Its eyes moved back and forth as the tail swung like a pendulum. It was nearly seven. Weary of his lustful gazes, she slapped the cash on the counter. “Can you just give me the key? I am in a real big hurry.”

Realizing his flirtatious moves had no effect on the green-eyed honey in front of him, he picked up the cash and handed her the key. “Checkout is eleven in the morning.”

I'll be gone way before then, asshole,
Trenda thought as she headed for her room. The next few moves she had to make consumed her thoughts. After entering the room and tossing her bags on the desk, she paced back and forth as she did when she was scheming. Stress caused the knot on her head to throb.
I need some Motrin and a nap.

Seeing she had a couple of hours until amateur night began at Fats, she set the alarm clock on the nightstand to go off at ten, then stripped and got in bed.
I wanna be nice and rested when I see the King
.

After fifteen restless minutes tossing and turning, Trenda hopped out of the bed, naked, and paced the floor. “I can't even relax knowing that bastard tried to kill me.”

A little past eight in the evening, in his office on the third floor of the Oakland Police Department building, Detective Winslow took a sip of his vending machine coffee. Twelve-hour days were the norm for him as the city's crime rates continued to climb. “Something here is definitely strange.” He stared at the day-old newspaper story in the
Oakland Tribune
about the tragic murder of a prominent Baltimore businessman's daughter who was visiting the Jack London Square area.

He then turned his attention to the report he'd just received. The fingerprints he'd lifted off the plastic cup he'd retrieved from Mya Collins' hospital room belonged to a felon named Trenda Fuqua—coincidentally from Baltimore also. “One woman visiting from Baltimore gets shot to death; another woman who just arrived from Baltimore damn near gets killed by a car bomb. What are the odds of two women from the same town, on the other side of the country, being attacked less than one hundred yards apart, minutes apart?”

The ringing of his fax machine broke his concentration. Rising from the worn, wooden desk he had occupied for twenty-two years, Detective Winslow walked across the room and watched as the cover sheet informed him there was a three page fax to follow. While waiting for his faxes to finish printing, he stared out his corner office window at the nightlife in the Oakland streets below him he had patrolled and protected for his entire adult life.
Please don't let this be another, senseless, stupid black-on-black crime. The act
of murder is unforgivable enough; but throw in black folks committing self-inflicted genocide, and that's when I really wonder if we will be around another hundred years…

After briefly glancing at the wall full of accommodations he'd earned over the years, he turned his attention to the now silent fax machine. “Let's see what we have here.”

Removing the reading glasses from the breast pocket of his crisp white dress shirt, he began reading the first sheet. He shook his head. “Son-of-a-bitch! No wonder she was in such a hurry to get out that hospital; she is wanted by the Baltimore PD for aggravated assault on Ms. Langford.” Removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose, he looked at the third sheet, which was a mugshot of Ms. Trenda Fuqua.
Damn, she is one gorgeous criminal.