All Hail the Queen (30 page)

The cold bite of the winter air nipped at her and the speed of the bike only intensified the chill. She welcomed it. Accelerating the bike, Naeema easily moved between cars to reach Springfield Avenue. She eyed the tops of the towering buildings of downtown Newark in the distance before she made the turn, enjoying the feel of the mechanical muscle she rode as the bike dipped a bit before she controlled it and sat upright in the seat as her ride continued up one of the major thoroughfares of the city.

The landscape changed with each mile, the inconsistencies
of the city becoming more obvious. The streets more congested and unkempt. The homes less pretty. The truth. There were areas of improvement but more was needed. The “renaissance” of the city had yet to reach beyond downtown and its surrounding areas.

A thin man stumbled into the street from between two cars and directly in Naeema's path. Her eyes shifted quickly to the left. A car was coming toward her in the other lane. Gritting her teeth she braked, praying her wheels wouldn't lock up, as she tried her best to avoid hitting him.

She felt the rear of her bike lift up and eased off the brakes as she turned the wheel around as soon as the car passed her. She had missed the man by inches. The squeal of the rubber against the road and the rise of smoke around her was enough to let her know she was lucky to still be seated. With her heart pounding, she turned her head and eyed the man.
You dumb motherfucker.

Naeema drove her bike forward slowly to reach him and grabbed the back of his dingy shirt in her glove-covered fist. Lips tight, she yanked back once, pulling him off his feet and down onto his ass before she released him.

“Hey,” he said, his voice devoid of any energy as he lifted his head to look up at her.

She shook her head. The dullness of his skin, the yellow of his eyes, the stench of his body and his breath, the scabs on his skin from scratching. The slow death he was bringing on himself. A heroin fiend.

Feeling frustration and disgust overwhelm her, Naeema checked for traffic before doing a U-turn and continuing on her way, leaving the man behind. She wished she could outrun the truth of the rising heroin usage in the city as well.
Naeema hated it.
Shit was mad hectic and getting worse day by day.

She wasn't dumb enough to believe that killing Diego and destroying that hefty package of heroin did a damn thing to stop the drug game. Not with the news flooded with the arrests, the rising number of heroin and opiate addicts across the state, and the government implementing different programs and bills to help fight the battle they were losing. Killing Diego was all about revenge and she took pleasure in knowing that whatever was left of his dead body—if anything at all—would never be found. Tank made sure of that.

Grip's, too.

The ends justified the means. They had to. Their conscience couldn't rest any other way.

Grip's family held a candlelight vigil for him. Tank and Naeema attended. To do otherwise would've seemed odd. She knew the tears that filled his eyes during the vigil had been the realest shit ever. Still, she knew his grief was more for the man he thought he knew as a friend than for the traitor Grip had shown himself to be.

No one was the wiser about Diego putting the hit on Tank, Grip trying to enforce it, or Naeema executing both.

Councilman Planter was still under Tank's thumb and taking credit for programs Tank pushed him to implement. Naeema was about ready to send him to his Maker for even fucking with Diego, but Tank was handling the corrupt councilman.
For now.

Murk's ass was living on borrowed time. Tank already assured her that as soon as he felt that enough time had passed where suspicion would not immediately fall at his
feet, that Murk was outta here. As good as got.
All in due time.

As she turned off Springfield and headed down Seventeenth Street she felt her cell phone vibrate against her fleshy ass in the back pocket of her ripped jeans.

Bzzz-bzzz-bzzz.

She slowed down the motorcycle and turned onto the same abandoned lot where she had killed the man who broke into her home. Not allowing herself to spare him an extra moment of thought, she pulled out her cell phone.

Her heart raced at an incoming text from Tank. She opened it with swipes of her thumb. “Forever and always,” she read aloud with a curve of the corner of her full gloss-covered mouth.

She quickly texted him back. “Missing you. Loving you. Forever and always,” she mouthed as she typed.

Tank, and a small number of his crew, including a reinstated Yani were out of the country doing security for a singer's comeback tour. She tried to not think of sexy backup dancers or groupies making a play for her man. Since his recovery from the gunshots she was trying to elevate their shit—their love. She wanted to trust him with her heart the same way she trusted him infinitely with her life. And she wanted the same from him. It was the only way they could have their “always and forever.”

With a quick glance at the snow covering Westside Park directly across from her, she pushed the cell phone back into her back pocket and pulled up the zip of the fitted leather jacket she wore. She steered the bike out of the lot and continued up Seventeenth Street, making the left turn on Sixteenth Avenue once she checked for oncoming traffic.

She needed the drive after a long day on her feet cutting hair but she was ready to go home, maybe cook her and Sarge some dinner, and crash on the bed watching television. Sometimes doing nothing was the best something in the world.

“Maybe some spaghetti,” Naeema said, just as she turned the corner on Eastern Parkway.

“Or we can order—”

The rest of her words trailed off as she eyed an ambulance, its red lights flashing, double-parked in front of her next-door neighbor Coko's house. “The fuck?” she whispered, slowing the motorcycle to a stop in the middle of the street as she eyed a stretcher with a body bag strapped to it. A dead body.

Naeema's face filled with confusion.

After many months of not seeing Coko or noticing any signs of activity in her home, Naeema was outside sweeping her front porch when a taxicab pulled up next door and Coko emerged from the back of it. Naeema had been so surprised that she stood there with her mouth open not even hiding her shock. She had to get her shit together when Coko turned on the sidewalk and headed toward her.

Any signs of her addiction had been gone. Her eyes clear. Her skin fresh. Clean. Neat. Sober.

Naeema squinted as she eyed the body bag. She then looked up the stretch of the street to the neighbors standing on their porches staring but not stepping up to ask questions. Show concern. Give a fuck. Bullshit rumors would fly.

Naeema rolled up closer to the ambulance just as the paramedics eased the stretcher into the back of it. She glanced up at the closed front door of
Coko's house. No sign of Coko standing there with concern over whomever was just wheeled out of her house in a body bag.

How could it be?

Naeema looked back at the ambulance. It was Coko's dead body on that stretcher.

“Excuse me? What happened?” she asked.

“Overdose. That heroin ain't shit to play with,” a short stocky Cee-Lo—looking dude said before slamming the door closed and disappearing around the side of the ambulance.

Overdose?

Naeema turned and looked up at the door again as the ambulance eventually pulled off down the street. There were no sirens to accompany the flashing red lights. There was no need for urgency anymore.

She felt sadness overwhelm her as she again remembered the day of Coko's sudden reappearance. She had walked over to Naeema's porch and genuinely thanked her for saving her life the previous year.

In the months since her return the two women had become friends who sympathized with each other over the plight of their relationships—or lack thereof—with their sons. Naeema's chance to do better was taken with Brandon's death. Coko was determined to reclaim her rights to raise her nine-year-old.

Naeema parked her motorcycle in the space left empty by the ambulance. As she climbed off it she spotted Sarge standing on her porch. Naeema stepped onto the sidewalk and then jogged up Coko's stairs. She peered through the window but couldn't see anything beyond the blinds.

Damn.

“What is it, Naeema?”

She turned and found Sarge standing at the foot of the steps. “They said Coko died from an overdose.”

Sarge just released one of his noncommittal grunts.

Naeema crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “But that's bullshit,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. “Coko was clean. I just saw her this morning, Sarge. She was
clean
,” she stressed, surprised at the tears welling up in her eyes.

“So what you sayin'?” Sarge asked.

“I
think
someone killed her. I
think
someone took her out,” Naeema said. “I
think
there is more to this.”

Sarge grunted again. And again it revealed nothing of what he felt.

“I'm going to get to the bottom it. That I
know
,” she swore, her eyes filling with enough fire to burn hell.

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MEESHA MINK
is the bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty books written under three names, including the critically acclaimed Real Wifeys series and the explosive Hoodwives trilogy, which she cowrote. She was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, and lives in South Carolina.

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