All Hail the Queen (25 page)

14

N
aeema kept pushing the button for the lobby as if it would make the elevator move any faster. Not that she had to lay eyes on the hospital's cafeteria to know Sarge was not in it.
He took his ass back to the house. I just know it.

As far as she knew Sarge never ventured into the caf during any of the days she had him watching over Tank. She assumed as much because she always brought his food. Always. The fact escaped her notice until her and Tank's hot moments in the bathroom were over. She couldn't think clearly until then. His failure to return to the room after nearly a half hour just confirmed her doubts.

Ding.

As soon as the doors opened enough for her to get through them she did. She followed the signs on the walls to the cafeteria. The doors were locked.

Fuck it. Fuck this. Fuck him.

But she didn't mean it. She didn't mean that shit at all.

Retracing her steps she headed back to the lobby, flipping over her cell phone in her hand to dial Sarge's number.
Answer. Answer. Please answer.

“I told you I was ready,” he said.

“Sarge—”

Naeema looked up and spotted Grip coming through the
front doors of the hospital. She smiled at him and crossed the distance to stand before him. “Grip,” she said, reaching to hold his wrist.

“I was just headed up to see Tank,” he said.

“Sarge don't hang up,” she said into the phone, before pressing it against her chest and looking up at Grip. “Stay with Tank 'til I get back.”

She moved past him and quickly walked out of the hospital suddenly aware that she didn't put her underwear back on. “Where are you now, Sarge?” she asked.

“Almost home.”

“Don't hang up,” she said again as she made her way to the parking lot and eventually inside the Tahoe.

He grumbled but didn't hang up.

As she made her way from New York to New Jersey, Naeema left the phone in the cup holder on speakerphone. She focused on the road but she could tell from the noises Sarge made that he haggled with the cabbie over the fare, noisily entered the house, cursed and then threw a shoe at a mouse, stomped down the stairs, took a noisy piss, turned his television on, flipped channels, farted, and noisily chewed on what could only be chips or ice. That didn't include the dozen or so times he dropped the phone and cursed her for it.

Naeema kept her eyes focused on the road ahead and checked the road behind her in the rearview mirror to make sure she wasn't being followed. She still wasn't sure she was successful even as she turned the Tahoe onto the drive and pulled all the way into the backyard. Quickly she grabbed her gun as the sound of Sarge alternating between farting and laughing at
Martin
reruns echoed.

“I'm home, Sarge,” she said into the phone, climbing from
the car and then taking the short set of stairs to the back door, which she unlocked and entered the house.

“Good.”

Beep.

She stood at the entrance to the basement. “We're headed back to the hospital, Sarge,” she yelled down the stairs to him. “You got five minutes.”

“Not,” he yelled back.

Another fart sounded off.

Knock-knock-knock.

Naeema went still as she cocked the gun and raised it as she looked around the open basement door to the back door. She eased along the wall to pull the blinds and curtain back enough to peek out.

“It's me, Miss Naeema. Mya.”

With the help of the porch light her eyes locked with the teenager's through the glass. Reluctant as hell, she lowered the gun and opened the door. “Mya, you can't be here. Go home,” she said.

Mya was dressed in the same colorful sleep pants she wore the night she killed her stepfather. Same pants but not the same girl. That was impossible.

“We're moving tomorrow,” she said, wringing her hands together as her big bright eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to th-th-thank you for what you did. I want you to know that I know it's a second chance and I won't fuck it—I mean—
mess
it up.”

Naeema had been more of a mother to this young woman standing before her than she had to the child she bore fifteen years ago. Hearing that her mother was moving them away and knowing just how far Mya felt she had
to go to be free of her stepfather was tougher than she ever thought. “You promise?” she asked, her voice soft with emotions she wasn't comfortable with. At all. “Good grades. College. Only young men worth your time. Good job. Marriage. Beautiful babies. You promise not to waste your second chance? You promise not to
fuck
it up?”

Mya nodded before she stepped into the house and hugged Naeema close enough for her to feel the girl's heart beating hard in her chest. “Okay. You gotta go,” she said, giving her an awkward pat on the back with the hand not holding the loaded gun.

Mya released her and turned to walk down the stairs. She gave Naeema one last glance over her shoulder before she waved and strolled around the rear of the house. Naeema pulled the door closed and went down the stairs to stand at the corner to watch the shadow of Mya's figure move down the driveway in the darkness.

“Oh fuck me,” Naeema said as the small blue car rolled by the house.

She gripped her gun tighter and raced forward to grab Mya's arm and then roughly push her back against the house. “Stay here,” Naeema said to her, continuing down the drive with the gun behind her back.

She spotted the brake lights of the car just as he pulled into a parking spot up the street.
This bold motherfucker.

Naeema looked up and down the dimly lit street. Her breaths came in short bursts as she tapped the gun against her thigh.
What do I do?

“You want me? Then you got me, motherfucker,” she said, coming up behind her neighbor's pickup truck and creeping across the street before she took off at a full run.

She came up on the passenger side of the car and with a little grunt, she gritted her teeth and jerked the door open as she held her gun steady in her hand and pointed it at the man's head.

“Don't you fucking move,” Naeema said, keeping her gun trained on him. “Kevin Greene, right?”

He dropped his head as he shook it. “Shit,” he swore.

“This not your first night outside my damn house, is it?” she asked, realizing she caught him off guard because it was just another night for him. Watching her.

The fuck?

“What the fuck do you want?” she asked, her voice hard.

The lights from an oncoming car flashed across their faces. She saw a hint of fear in his brown depths. She hoped he saw her capability to kill in hers.

“Miss Naeema, you okay?”

His eyes shifted past her but Naeema fought not to let Mya's sudden appearance behind her rattle her. “Go the fuck home,” she said to her, never once taking her eyes or her gun off him. “Now!”

Mya's face suddenly pressed against the driver's side window.

Again Naeema had to steady herself. For one hot second she considered pointing the gun at Mya to get her to finally go the fuck home.

“That's the man that broke into your house. That's him,” Mya said excitedly as she pointed her finger against the window toward his face.

He lightly pounded his fist against the wheel.

“Don't move, you thieving little bastard,” Naeema said, as she climbed into the passenger seat. She reached over
to pat him down from head to toe. With a smirk, she took the small gun in the ankle strap he wore and the stun gun pressed between the driver's seat and the armrest.

She pushed the stun gun under her thigh and sat his gun in her lap. “Drive,” she ordered him, reaching behind her with her free hand to close the passenger door. “And you better not hit her.”

Naeema picked up his gun, now holding a weapon in each hand as she eyed him with a hard stare.

He gripped the wheel with both hands and pulled out into traffic carefully, leaving Mya behind standing in the street watching them drive off.

She put one gun to his head and pressed the barrel of the other to his belly. “Make a left at the corner and then a right on Sixteenth Ave,” she said.

He followed her directions as he cast her side-eye glances, revealing that he was nervous.

Good.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” Naeema asked him, not even flinching when he suddenly swerved the car. She just pressed her knee against the dash to steady herself.

She moved the gun from his belly to press between his legs. “Do that bullshit again and I will blow what little bit of a dick you have the fuck
off
,” she promised him.

He pressed his thin lips closed and squinted.

He was thinking just as hard about a way out of the jam she had him in as she was trying to figure it all out.

“Make the right on Seventeenth Street and pull into the empty lot,” Naeema said.

“Fuck,” he swore under his breath.

“Basically,” she said, agreeing with him.

He pulled into the asphalt-covered lot.

“Park,” she ordered him.

He did.

“Turn the car off and toss the keys on the floor,” she said.

He did that as well.

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

“He told me in advance to say ‘Fuck you' if asked,” he said, his voice almost as thin as he was.

“Fuck
me
?” she asked with a little laugh.

“You're playing some dangerous games,” he said.

Naeema arched a brow. “You think I'm playing?” she asked.

He nodded and glanced at her briefly. “And out of your league.”

“So I'm playing? I wasn't . . . but now we can. Let's play baseball. Three strikes and your motherfucking ass is out,” she said, dropping the gun to the floor to press down on with her foot.

He shifted in his seat. “Put the gun down before you slip and shoot it,” he said, the slightest tremble in his voice. Almost undetectable.

Almost.

“Strip,” Naeema ordered him, moving the gun away from his head but holding it steady and aimed to shoot the fuck out of him.

“Listen, I was just looking out for you like I was asked,” he said. “That's why I was outside your house.”

Naeema twisted her full lips, picked up the stun gun, and flipped the switch. A small red light on the side came on. “Lies,” she said, before reaching over to press it against
his bare arm.

Bzzzzz-zap.

He released a high-pitched shout that could shatter weak glass as his body went rigid.

“Let's try this again,” she said, finally removing the prods from his body. “Strip.”

“You—”

She backhanded him twice.

WHAP-PAP.

“Shut your smart-ass mouth up,” she snapped.

He glared at her as he massaged his jaw and mouth.

“You hard-headed motherfucker,” she grumbled, reaching out to him with the stun gun again.

“Aight. Aight,” he said, pressing his body back against the door away from her as he yanked the polo shirt he wore over his head. He unbuttoned and worked his shorts and boxers down over his hips and ass.

She eyed the tattoos randomly scattered on his chest. Some of them looked more like fucking Etch A Sketch than real tatts.
Hmmm . . .

Naeema turned the stun gun and pressed it against his chest with the two prods flanking his brown nipple.

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

He raised his hand as if to grab her wrist.

“Strike one,” she said.

Bzzzzz-zap.

He shouted out again from the voltage as his body convulsed.

“Who do you work for?” she asked again.

“Ask your snitch of a man,” he said between deep gasps for air.

“Strike two,” she said simply, now reaching to press the
stun gun against his fleshy balls so deeply that she could feel the warmth of them against the back of her hand.

“No, no,” he begged.

Yes, yes, yes, motherfucker.

She notched her chin higher as she pressed the button.

Bzzzzz-zap.

He hollered out sharply in pain and rocked back and forth in the seat as he clutched at his tortured balls. Naeema calmly looked in his backseat, which was filled with takeout containers, empty wrappers from snack foods, and clothes that needed to find a Laundromat fast and in a hurry. She snatched up a musty shirt and shoved it into his mouth until he quieted down.

“Where all that smart mouth now?” Naeema asked before she raised her hand and zapped his chest again and again methodically.

Bzzzzz-zap.

He shrieked.

Bzzzzz-zap.

She didn't give a fuck.

Bzzzzz-zap.

He broke into her home.

Bzzzzz-zap.