Authors: Lori Jean Grace,S. Jay Jackson
* * *
F
rom the front bedroom, Michelle had heard Michael talking to someone as he entered the house and walked into the living room. Though the bedroom door was open, she was busy going through some of her parents’ things, so Michelle didn’t bother to see who was with her brother.
Michael probably didn’t even know she was there. Over the past few weeks she’d been swamped with finals and was rarely home. Yesterday had been her last exam.
She sat sorting through items, preparing to move out of the home she’d grown up in. Michael had pushed her to leave Anglewatts, to go to college somewhere out of the hood. After two years of community college, she was ready to go. They’d found an apartment close to California State University Northridge where, in a couple of short months, she’d start her junior year.
“Hey, you got any beers?” she heard her cousin, Gabe Jr., ask.
“Should be some in the fridge,” Michael replied. “You guys want a beer?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“No.”
At the sound of three unfamiliar voices, Michelle straightened. She didn’t care what they said; she’d heard it all many times before. She’d also learned a long time ago, when Michael did business in the house, it was easier to stay out of the mix. She didn’t like most of those guys, anyway.
“Come on back,” Michael said. “I don’t do business in the front room where my sister can come in.”
Michelle heard several people walk down the hall. Assuming they’d gone to Michael’s den, she reached under the bed and pulled out a box that held mementos—things she and Michael had made back in grammar school. The sort of stuff all moms collect. Michelle sat on the bed next to the box and pulled out a green, flat plaster cast with two paw prints embedded on the face and “Pike” scratched below the prints.
Pike. Her all-time favorite cat. She couldn’t say “Spike,” so his name became “Pike” instead.
BLAM!
Michelle froze.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
BLAM-BAM-BAM!
Silence . . .
BLAM!
Heart in her throat, Michelle spun around. Someone was coming up the hall. She jumped up, spilling the box’s items, and then ran around the bed and out the door, reaching the living room in time to see a man staggering across the front porch.
“Michael!” she called. “Michael!”
A squealing screech yanked her attention out through the open front door where a white Escalade shot past, gray smoke pouring from the rear tires. Michelle watched in horror as the SUV disappeared.
Shaking, she stepped toward the hall. “Michael, are you there? Michael?” The air was full of acrid, bitter smoke . . .
Somehow she reached the hall, and stopped just short of the still-open door to Michael’s den. The smell of blood had mixed with gunpowder, choking her, making her gag. Feeling dizzy, Michelle bent over to catch her breath, and when she stood up, she looked at her hand—fresh blood glistened on her palm. The nearby wall was streaked with it.
“Oh God, Michael!”
Michelle ran the last few steps to Michael’s den where he lay on the floor, covered in blood. With one hand over her mouth, the other on her stomach, she retched.
The room was a shambles. Michael lay by the door, while farther inside, Gabe Jr. and two other guys lay dead. On the coffee table sat two open briefcases—one full of drugs, the other full of money.
Michael’s eyes eased open. “Michelle . . .”
Michelle swooped down, grabbed her brother. “Oh God, Michael, I thought you were dead.”
Michael slid his hand into hers and squeezed hard. “Michelle, listen. You have to leave. If they find you, they’ll kill you, too.”
“I can’t leave you here. I have to get an ambulance.”
“No. You have to leave. Get Uncle G. He can get you someplace safe.”
“I don’t want to be safe. I want to get you to the hospital.”
He coughed, blood dripping from his mouth. “Baby girl, you promise me you’ll leave that shit sitting there. Don’t take nothing. You promise me. They’ll kill you if you take anything. Leave it. Get out. Just go.”
“No, Michael, I’m not leaving you here.”
“Promise me.”
“I won’t touch anything. Just don’t you die. Don’t you die.”
Michael’s hand went limp.
“No!” she cried. “You can’t. You have to stay!”
Michael looked up into Michelle’s eyes and whispered, “I love you, little—” Then his gaze went blank, and his last breath sighed from his lips.
With tears streaking down her face and sobs wracking her chest, Michelle sat on the floor rocking her brother back and forth.
She didn’t know how long it was before she turned and puked in great, wrenching spasms that echoed the heartbreak of her soul.
* * *
M
ichelle’s tears ran down her face as she told the last part of her story. Today was the first time in a long time she’d cried. For the first few months, she’d cried every night, and then one day, she didn’t—for almost two years.
But the re-telling had taken her back to that horrible day, and her tears had now turned to quiet sobs. Michelle strained to pull her thoughts back to the room where her friends’ own silent tears were spilling.
Michelle tried to wipe her nose with her overused tissue.
“Tissues?” Nikky asked.
“Bedroom,” Michelle said, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
Nikky brought out the tissue box and passed it around, while everyone caught their breath.
Michelle sat back, deeply shaken, and took a long drink of her cognac, then another, and another. Telling them about Michael’s murder had been harder than she’d thought it would be.
She’d told them most of the story, but not all of it. Trusting them with her life was a risk she accepted. Putting their lives in danger was also part of the deal, though she wanted to limit it as much as possible; she’d keep many of the real dangerous details from them.
“I can’t imagine it,” Nikky said. “Seeing Michael die like that had to be the worst. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to Taye.”
“There’s more if you want to hear it,” Michelle said.
“Sweetie, we can stay as long as you want,” Deja said. “Hearing all of this is breaking my heart, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ve had to deal with all this time. Of course, if you’re willing to tell us, we want to hear it.”
“Give me a minute to splash some water on my face.”
“I’m ready for something without alcohol. Do you have anything else to drink?” Deja asked.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Michelle said. “Dig around in the kitchen for whatever you guys want.” She handed her cognac to Deja. “Dump this and pour me a root beer with ice.”
After returning from the bathroom, Michelle settled back into her chair to munch on a handful of Doritos, sip her root beer, and decide on how much to tell her friends. She chose to stick to her original plan: tell them about her training and her job, but not about the money.
“Thank you, guys, for being here. This is the first time I’ve talked about any of this stuff since I left.”
Nikky and Deja both nodded.
“It was crazy,” Michelle said. “Michael was dead, I was sick, almost hysterical, and don’t know how I even saw it, maybe what Michael said sunk in, I don’t know. But there it was, an open briefcase on the coffee table, one of those silver metal kinds, packed full of big bags of oxy. Michael said if I took it, they’d hunt me down and kill me. I had to get out, so I called Uncle G. He got me out before the cops came.”
Michael had told her to leave everything. She’d promised him, and then watched him die.
* * *
B
ut Michelle had known it wasn’t a real promise. Ever since their parents died four years earlier in a car accident, she’d relied on Michael for everything. Now he was dead, and the only sure thing was she didn’t know how to make it on her own.
Scared out of her mind, Michelle couldn’t think, though she clearly understood two things: she had to get out of the house, and she had to have money to live. She left the drugs, took the money, and called her uncle, G-Baby.
“Oh God! Oh God! They killed them, they killed them, they’re dead, they’re dead, they’re in the house, dead. Oh God, they’re in the house, dead. What’re we gonna do? They’re dead. They killed them. Uncle G, they’re dead.”
“Slow down, Michelle. Who’s dead?”
“They’re both dead. They’re dead in the house right now, and they’re dead. Oh God. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.”
“Michelle, stop.”
“Oh God. Oh Jesus. Oh God.”
“Michelle! Listen to me. What’s my name?”
“What?”
“What is my name?”
“Your name? Your name is Uncle G, Uncle Gabriel.”
“Good. Now, Michelle, tell me who’s dead.”
“Michael and Gabe Jr., they’re . . . they’re . . . they’re both dead.”
Saying their names out loud had made their deaths seem more real, though Michelle couldn’t understand how anything could have been more real than seeing the life go out of her brother’s eyes.
For a long time, the phone line remained silent. Only much later did Michelle realize she’d blurted out to her Uncle G that his son had been killed.
“Uncle G . . . ? You there?”
Silence . . .
“Uncle G?”
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“In the garage.”
“Are Gabe Jr. and Michael there?”
“They’re in the house.”
“What happened?”
“There . . . there were . . . they were in the house with some guys back in the den. Then it sounded like everyone started shooting. It got quiet, and I went back . . .” Michelle started to cry. “Oh God, Uncle G, they were in there. They’re both dead.”
“Hang on, baby girl. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Yes.”
“You talk to anyone else yet?”
“No.”
“Okay. You’re safe for now. Do you have any idea why everyone started shooting?”
“It was drugs, Uncle G. I saw a briefcase full of drugs.”
“Are the police there?”
“No.”
“You can’t let the police see you. You’re a witness, and the men who own those drugs won’t . . . never mind. Shit, Michelle, we gotta get you out of there. You still got your passport from when the family went to Mexico on vacation?”
“Yes.”
“Can you go back in the house and get it?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to see them anymore.”
“You need to do this. Take a breath. Get yourself ready. Just go in and get that passport. Don’t think about anything else.”
“All right, Uncle G.”
“Okay, go now. When you come out, stand behind the back of the garage. Stay where you can see the alley, but not be seen from the street. Come to the car right away when I pull up. Don’t run, just walk, fast. Can you do all that?”
“Yes.”
A few minutes later, G-Baby’s car came up the alley, and as Michelle stepped through the back gate, she glimpsed a cop car, lights flashing, pull up to the front of the house. Her life as a young girl was over forever.
She jumped into the car. “Uncle G, they’re dead.”
“I know.”
Covered in her brother’s blood, Michelle, a scared twenty-year-old college girl, sat beside her uncle with a briefcase full of money on her lap. Her purse held her wallet, her passport, and a pack of Kools. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew it could never be back home.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“You have to hide for a while. At least until I find out what happened and if anyone is looking for you.”
“The police?”
“No, the police aren’t the problem. Did you pick up any guns or touch anything in that room?”
“No, only this briefcase.”
“Good. What’s in the case?”
“Money.”
“Anything else in it?”
“No, just money.”
“Hmmm, where did it happen?”
“In the den.”
“Did you see anything else in the room?”
“A silver briefcase full of big bags of oxy. I didn’t touch it.”
“Are you sure you didn’t touch it?”
“I’m sure.”
“Good. How much money is in the case?”
“I don’t know—it’s full. Must be a lot.”
“Okay, that changes things. If the bosses think someone’s got the money, they’ll be after them. That’ll be you, because only you and the police had time to get it. They might think the police or one of their own got it, but we can’t take that chance.”
“So what do we do?”
“First, we need to get you out of that dress. What size do you wear?”