Hold Me in Contempt (35 page)

“The best thing we can do right now is ask questions,” he said, walking Kent and me to the door. “If we get the answers we were expecting, we can move on. If we don't, we can get some help.”

“Thank you, Dr. Davis,” I said. “Thank you for not giving up on me. And for harassing me.”

He laughed and smiled at me. “I knew you'd come around. You're too smart not to.”

Kent and I took a cab to my place, and he came upstairs to make sure I got in okay.

“I'm really fine now. You can go,” I said, walking into my apartment in front of him. “I'm just going to lie down. Probably call the office. I know my assistant is going crazy. She's probably called every hospital in the city.”

“Need me to do anything before I go?” Kent sat on the couch as I went into the bedroom to slip out of my shoes. “Maybe I could make you soup.”

“Soup? It's spring. What do I need with soup?” I laughed, walking back into the living room with bare feet.

“I don't know. Ain't that what people eat when they sick? Chicken noodle soup?”

“That's for a cold, crazy.” I sat beside Kent and leaned my head on his shoulder. “You know, you have your flaws, but you're really the best brother in the entire universe.”

“The universe? Really?” Kent leaned his head on top of mine. “That's mad competition. I beat the fucking aliens, too?”

“Yup. Yup.”

He pointed at the table. “Where's your Jameson?” he asked. “That's where you normally keep it.”

“No more Jameson,” I answered, shaking my head. “I told you I was stopping. You didn't believe me?”

“Saying you're stopping and actually stopping—” he trailed off, “. . . you know.”

“Yeah. How's your thing going?”

“Great. I lead the meeting next week. Want to come—”

“I'm good,” I answered, giggling. “I think I had an earful last time.”

“All right. Don't say I didn't invite you though.”

We sat there a little longer. I felt so safe leaning on him that I fell asleep listening to him breathing.

When I woke up, the sun was down. Kent was sitting there looking straight ahead into the dim living room.

“I fell asleep,” I said. “I think I was really tired.”

Kent wasn't saying anything. He was just looking ahead.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“She probably ain't gonna get better, Kim,” he said firmly.

I didn't have to ask who he was talking about.

“I been sitting here thinking about what I could say to make you feel better. Something about what I think is really bothering you,” he said. “I think you worrying about Mommy. You always been. And I think I need to tell you she gonna be all right. But I don't think she will.”

“Me neither,” I agreed with tears in my eyes.

“I ain't never want to say this to you, but we might need to prepare for the worst.” Kent put his hand on my knee. “Our mother might die out there in those streets. She might not ever come home. You understand that?”

“Yes.” I closed my eyes and let the tears fall. I watched my mother's red hoodie disappear into the darkness beneath my eyelids.

I had a long cry on Kent's shoulder. One of those good cries that builds into sniffling and bated breath. I didn't say anything though. I just sobbed over everything I couldn't forget about my mother, everything I couldn't remember, everything I'd probably never know.

Kent comforted me through my wailing. He draped his arm around my shoulder and nodded along with what I was thinking but not saying. It was as if once again my thoughts were ours. He knew what each sob was for.

“So, where am I going to be visiting you? Bali? Dubai? Australia?” Kent said, trailing me to the door after my swollen eyes couldn't produce another tear and I convinced him that it was safe to leave me alone to go to sleep. I wasn't tired at all after my nap, and it was still pretty early, but my brain was exhausted and I really wanted some alone time to dig through the day and prepare myself for tomorrow. Dr. Davis advised me to get a mental health evaluation as soon as possible. He wanted me to talk with a professional about why I'd had a panic attack that led to me passing out.

“Atch-scray on Australia-ay,” I said, speaking the pig Latin Kent and I'd used to pass messages to each other in front of our parents as teens.

“Oh, you just went old school!” Kent said, chuckling, as I started unlocking the locks on the door. “But why scratch Australia? You know all y'all bougie black females going to Australia right about now.”

“I'm saying, you're trying to ship your sister off already? Let's wait and see how things go before you start planning stamps in your passport.”

“You know what I figured out when I was in Brazil?”

“What?”

“You only here once. Maybe there's a heaven. We don't know. But you only here once. And you should probably do some shit while you here,” Kent said introspectively.

I unlocked the last lock and turned to take in his depth. And for a few seconds every word of what he'd said sounded like it had come from the lips of Nietzsche himself. But then, after looking my brother over, his Timbs and fitted cap, his slang and swag, I burst out laughing.

“What? Why you laughing at me?” he asked, laughing too. “Niggas can't get deep?”

“So, is that how you ended up proposing to Latin Lydia—​because we're
‘only here once'?
” I asked.

“Shorty was bad, yo! For real!” Kent explained, regressing from Nietzsche to Tupac. “Could've been wifey—”

“Right! If she wasn't a prostitute!”

“True! True!” Kent said as I pulled the door open. He started walking out but stopped to hug me and ask if I was sure I'd be okay.

“I'm fine,” I repeated. “And thanks for coming to my rescue.”

“Anytime, Kiki Mimi. You know that.”

I pulled the door all the way open to let my oversized twin out and stepped into the threshold behind him.

Our laughter turned to gasps as we saw King standing there outside the door.

I let out an involuntary “King!” but Kent's fast reaction to the unexpected person beside my front door led him to draw back his fist to swing. I quickly jumped between Kent and King, ready to try to stop my brother's blows.

“Wait! No!” I cried to Kent. “Don't!”

“Fuck is you?” Kent asked King.

“Fuck is
you
?” King spat back, stepping in toward him.

“I'm the nigga that's about to split that wig,” Kent said.

King just laughed at this as I fought to keep them apart.

“Oh, you want to see? You want to know what's up?” Kent started patting his lower pelvis where he kept his gun.

“No!” I cried. “No! He's my friend.” I looked at King over my shoulder. “This is my brother!”

“You know this fool?” Kent asked me.

“Yes. He's here to see me.”

Kent kept his hand on his jeans but backed up from me. “Fuck is he standing out here by the door like a stalker if he's your friend?”

“I invited him,” I said, though I hadn't. “I told him to come here.”

I pulled Kent reluctantly down the hallway toward the elevator, tussling with his pushing and cussing the entire way. I was nervous but not surprised. If I'd thought about the two of them meeting, I'd realize it would have to go something like that.

“It's fine! Everything is fine! He's my friend!” I repeated to soothe Kent when we were at the elevator and actually couldn't see King anymore, but Kent was still bucking up like he was ready to fight.

“I don't like that shit! You know that!”

“Just calm down!” I insisted the way my mother would when Kent would get on some boy who'd shown up on our doorstep just to talk to me.

“That's the cracker from your job? The one who was up in your face today? He ain't look like no fucking lawyer. He look like a dope dealer.”

“No he isn't and no he doesn't,” I argued. “Look, just go home. I'll call you later.”

“I don't like that ofay—tell him I said that shit, too. I ain't feeling it. You saw how he was about to come at me?” Kent asked.

“You threatened to shoot him in the head, and you grabbed for your gun. What did you expect him to do?”

He ignored my logic, of course, backing into the elevator. “Tell him we ain't finished yet. I'll catch that ass on the flip side. He better be glad you was here. For real.”

“Sure. I will.” I blew Kent a kiss as the door closed on the rest of his rant.

I rushed back to my apartment. The door was closed, but I knew he was inside. I turned the knob and let it swing open.

King was standing by the window. He was wearing the same blue jeans from his place and a thin white polo.

He turned from the glowing city outside and looked at me. His blue eyes were like lasers through my skin. They could see any emotion I was even thinking of trying to hide to keep my distance from him. There was something like a buzzing or alarm in my ear. It wrecked all of my defenses and swept away the dirt of the day.

We ran to each other like there was a football field between us. Embraced and kissed and felt each other's faces like it had been forever.

I hugged him again, and my desperate hold proved that support can come in different ways from different people. With my brother, my sorrows came out by leaning on his shoulder. With King, I collapsed into his arms, resting my heart against his, and the tears all poured out. He held on to me.

“I'm here, Queen,” he said, and I realized for the first time that unlike Ronald and Paul, he'd never once called me “baby.” I was always Queen. He held me closer and kept repeating in my ear, “I'm here. I'm here.”

I suddenly pushed away, remembering Strickland's threats, Paul's work with the feds. “You have to go! You have to leave now!” I shouted fearfully.

“Why? What's going on?”

“Strickland—he was at my office today. He knows about us. Frantz told him—he's undercover.”

“I know about Frantz,” he said pensively.

“Strickland is moving fast. He doesn't want Paul to get the charges on you. He wants Brooklyn to claim your arrest.”

“Figures. He's had it in for me for months. It's okay though.” He reached for me and laced his arms around my waist. “He won't find anything to stick to me. I shut down operations in BK. Just like I promised. I told you, I'm getting out. I meant that.”

“No—there's more, King. You don't get it. Your case has been moved to New York County now . . .  ​We're—”

“Shhhh,” he said, trying to quiet me. “I got it. I've been working the law since I was a kid. I know what's up. I ain't worried about the DA. You don't have to worry either.”

“You don't know him. He's got a target on you, and he won't back down. It means too much to him. He's working with the feds. They've got tapes.”

King stepped back, clearly stunned as I told him about Quinn on the tapes. He sat on the couch and rested his head in his hands.

“Those offshore accounts—even if they can't get you for the drugs, they'll take you down for that if one dime came back into New York. They'll slowly pin each charge to you. Twenty-five years.”

“RICO,” King uttered.

“Yes,” I said, remembering the memory stick in my purse. It wasn't even worth mentioning. I might stall Paul for a few hours, but he could easily get another one from his contact—if the files weren't already online. Later, after everything had gone down, I'd find the memory stick in my purse and look at it strangely. Part of me would wonder how it got there. How I'd turned into someone who'd even think to take it out of my office. I was the law. I represented that. I'd upheld that. It used to be what moved me. What made me important. When did I lose it? “See,” I said to King, falling to my knees in front of him on the couch, “you have to go.”

He looked up from the ground and at me. “You're coming with me?”

“I can't. I . . .  ​I'm—” I stopped.

“Then I'll stay.”

“Don't be a fool!” I protested. “You stay here and they'll lock you up for the rest of your life. Paul will see to it. I know it.”

“You said you'd come with me, Queen,” he said simply.

“That was just a fantasy. Night talk. You know? Not real,” I said, trying to convince myself and my heart as images of King and I walking along so happy somewhere on the list of places Kent had named—Dubai, Brazil, Australia—looped in my mind. I felt so happy and free, but those were just images. This was my life. “I can't just leave to be with you!” I cried. “Everything I have is here.”

He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to him. “Everything you need is here,” he said, pointing to himself. “I'm not leaving you. I refuse to.”

There was a knock at the door. Just one rap at first, then three quick ones.

“Who's that?” King asked.

“Shhh,” I warned. I knew the knock.

“I know you're in there. I saw Kent downstairs. Open up!” we heard from the door. And then there were three more fast knocks.

“Who is—” King tried, jumping up, but I got up too and stopped him from charging the door.

“Shhh!” I repeated, hoping the knocking would just stop, but it didn't.

“I'm not going away. I need to talk to you. Stop being like this, Kiki!”

King looked at me.

More knocking. I began to panic. I tried to pull King back toward the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” he asked as Paul called from the door.

“I need you to wait in my room,” I said quickly, knowing there were only two places to hide in my tiny one-bedroom—the bedroom or bathroom. “I have to handle this. You can't be here,” I pleaded.

“I'm not waiting in the room,” he said.