Pastor Needs a Boo (27 page)

“Nah,” his superior answered with a casual wave of his hand. “No need to take this game that far. In fact, that's going too far. You don't want to pretend like something like that has happened.

“What you need to do, young blood, is think of something that messes you all up.”

Xavier had stood there in Germany, cold, practically covered in snow, trying to think of something that would get him that upset. As he was standing there, thinking and freezing his butt off, an ugly woman from his unit walked up to him. She said, “Xavier Franklin! I thought you were going to call me after last night. You know, the way we were carrying on, we could have made ourselves a baby if you hadn't used three wrappings of protection.”

His superior was trying hard not to laugh in that woman's face. It was clear Xavier didn't want anybody on the base to know he even knew the woman, let alone had slept with her. Xavier was standing in the snow looking like he wished a missile would land right on top of his head.

Xavier stared at the woman, wondering what would make her think he wanted a baby with her. That baby would come out looking like a jacked-up ghetto fox—a real fox, like the ones in the woods, only it would probably have a mouth full of gold fox teeth. Just the thought was painful enough to make him want to cry. What if his boys found out he had gotten desperate enough to sleep with her?

“So, are we on for another date, Xavier?”

“No, Private, you and Xavier are not on for another date. Because he will have his hands full doing all the work I'm giving him for sleeping with you. And if you know what's good, you will forget that ever happened between you and Franklin here. Are we clear, Private?”

“Sir, yes, Sir,” the woman said, and then moped away. She had been plotting and scheming to get with Xavier Franklin since she first saw him walking across the base. Now his superior officer had shut it down. Life sure did suck sometimes.

“Thank you,” Xavier whispered, so relieved there were tears in his eyes.

“See, you have something to think about that will bring you to tears, young blood.”

Tatiana ran her expensive, twenty-four-carat-gold-tipped, French-manicured nails across Xavier's chest. She knew how much her man loved the feel of real gold on his body, simply by the way Xavier relaxed and then tensed up almost at the same time. She'd bet Camille never elicited a response from him like that.

Tatiana snuggled up in Xavier's arms. She said, “How much time do we have left?”

“How much time do you need, Baby?” Xavier answered, hoping Camille wouldn't call or text him and spoil everything.

He wondered how long he could keep Tatiana content to remain his other woman on what was beginning to look like an indefinite basis. Getting elected bishop meant everything to Reverend Xavier Franklin. And he realized, in this very moment, that he was willing to do, and capable of doing, anything to get that position.

Until experiencing this in-the-moment epiphany, Xavier hadn't known he was also willing to give up the only woman he almost ever loved to get what he wanted. Now Xavier Franklin had a new problem resting on his shoulders. He was going to have to convince Tatiana to divorce Todd without the imminent prospect of marriage to him. Even though Xavier couldn't get divorced so he could marry Tatiana, he still didn't want to share her with her husband.

“Xavier?”

“Yes, Baby.”

“The new law for the church. You can marry and be a bishop if your ex is dead, right?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Okay, good,” was all Tatiana said. She had been thinking about how she could get out of her marriage to Todd and keep the money for months. Tatiana had been thinking about how to get rid of Camille, too. She and Xavier needed their freedom, and they also needed their incomes.

A shiver went up Xavier's spine. He knew Tatiana was thinking the same things he'd been thinking about for a while. It was a relief to know he was not all alone in pondering if there was another better, swifter, and more economically feasible way for the two of them to be together.

 

Chapter Eighteen

“We may have a problem,” Marcel said.

“Problem?” Luther Howard asked in a voice that was so cold and hard it made Marcel Brown nervous. In fact, everything about Luther Howard made Marcel nervous.

Luther Howard was amused over the effect he was having on Marcel Brown and Sonny Washington. It was crystal clear that both men were afraid of him. But then, they needed to be afraid. Luther didn't have any qualms about ordering hits on people he considered a useless nuisance.

“Are you okay, Marcel?” Luther asked with a smile that was so menacing, Marcel and Sonny began to have some serious doubts about working with this man.

“Yeah, man. I'm good,” Marcel lied.

“Well, you look paranoid to me,” Luther said.

“Naw, nothing paranoid here,” Marcel lied again. He was more than paranoid. He was petrified. Luther Howard was mean and he dealt with some terrifying people.

Whenever Marcel knew he had to meet with Luther, he always came up with an escape plan, just in case Luther got mad and tried to kill him. He even practiced holding his breath, keeping his eyelids from fluttering, and lying completely still, as if he were dead when he was at home alone. It never hurt to be prepared when dealing with a man like Luther Howard.

Marcel Brown had spent over half of his life being unprepared whenever he was knee-deep in some dirt. This time he was not going to get caught, he was not going to get hurt, and he definitely was not going to get himself killed.

Xavier Franklin's phone buzzed. He hit the end button. The phone was silent, then it buzzed again.

“Are you going to respond to your wife, Reverend Franklin?” Luther asked, with a great deal of impatience.

“How did you know it was my wife?”

“From the look on your face that said, ‘Why is the B calling me,'” Luther answered, and got up out of his chair.

“Handle your business while I'm handling my business in the toilet, Franklin,” Luther said. “I don't want to be bothered with you and your woman when I'm done.”

Xavier nodded and started to text his wife. Luther snatched the phone out of his hand and pushed the end button on the phone. He said, “Call that woman,” and hurried into the toilet.

Xavier took the phone back, and got up and went over to the window. This hotel suite overlooked Lake Michigan. He hadn't been too keen on coming to Chicago from North Carolina in December. But this view was so incredible it was almost worth his teeth chattering every time a gust of arctic air rushed over him in the Windy City.

“What do you want?” Xavier snapped into the phone.

Sonny Washington looked at Marcel. Shaking his head he said, “Man, Franklin is dumber than I thought he was. How is he going to talk to his woman like she's his ‘I need to call somebody ho' and think that crap is gonna fly?”

Marcel shrugged and shook his head in disgust. He stared at Xavier over by the window trying to make Camille get off the phone without provoking her to throw one of those good old if you loved me tantrums. He hated it when a woman did that. It was so stupid to act out with a man you knew did not love you. Because if he did, he wouldn't do the kind of things that provoked such a volatile emotional response. When would women learn that when a man truly cared about you, there were things he wouldn't dream of doing?

“If playa had it going on like he says he does, he would have had this in check as soon as that girl said hello,” Marcel said to Sonny.

“I know,” Sonny replied. “I still don't know why Xavier married Camille Creighton. I tried to tell him that girl was spoiled rotten and a pain in the butt. And she doesn't even look like much to me. Does she look good to you, Marcel, man?”

“Hell, naw. She looks like a brown Twizzler.”

Sonny started laughing. He'd heard Camille Creighton Franklin called many things. But nobody had ever called her a Twizzler.

“You know she looks like that because you are laughing too hard,” Marcel said with a chuckle. “And you know why Xavier married that girl. Her old man was the dean of the Divinity School at Eva T. Marshall, and both of her parents left her a toilet-bowl load of money.”

“Well, obviously it wasn't enough money, if that conversation is any indication of the amount,” Sonny said.

Marcel looked in the direction of the bathroom. Luther had been in the toilet for a good ten minutes. He hoped he stayed there until Xavier finished his phone call.

“What do you want me to do, Camille?” Xavier snapped, resisting a powerful urge to push end on his phone. “I want you to love me,” Camille whined loud enough to be heard by Marcel and Sonny. “I want you to admit you wouldn't be the great Reverend Xavier Franklin without me and my daddy's clout and my mama and my daddy's money. I want you to kick Tatiana to the curb and quit taking her to the Umstead Hotel.”

Xavier was quiet. He rubbed his ear. Camille was talking real loud. He looked over at Marcel and Sonny. They were deep in conversation and appeared oblivious to Xavier's conversation with his wife. When Xavier went back to talking to Camille, Sonny and Marcel went back to listening to that conversation.

“Did you hear me, Xavier?” Camille screamed into the phone.

“Not really,” Xavier lied, hoping Camille would drop the issue. His response made her get angrier and louder.

“I thought you were stupid enough to think I didn't know your newest woman was Denzelle Flowers's ex.”

“But, Sugar…”

“Don't you say that to me, Xavier Leon Franklin! I want you out of my house, out of my bank account, and out of my life!”

Xavier started sweating. Just last week Camille told him if he left, it would be over her dead body. Now she wanted a divorce. What had influenced this decision? He was going to have to play this play better than when he ran it on Tatiana. He hated doing this over the telephone. Women responded better when the game was run face-to-face.

“How am I going to live without you, Camille?” Xavier asked.

“You should have thought about that before you bought that heifer some nine-hundred-count sheets with my money.”

Marcel watched the bathroom door, hoping Xavier would get off of the phone before Luther came out of the toilet and heard this craziness.

“Nine-hundred-count sheets,” Sonny whispered. He glanced back at the bathroom, too, but not for the reasons Marcel was watching the door. He said, “I hope he took some Lysol in there with him.”

Marcel nodded.

Xavier's first ploy wasn't working, and he needed to modify his line of attack. Camille wasn't the only one walking around with information you didn't want someone to have. He said, “I strongly advise you to remain in this marriage if you know what is good for you.”

“Really?” Camille yelled.

“Well, why don't you let me send you a little somethin' somethin'?” was all Xavier said, as he pulled up a picture of Camille sitting in a man's lap and kissing him in a silk bathrobe.

He waited a minute, and then smiled when heard his wife gasp.

“How…?”

“How did I find this?”

Xavier smiled at his phone. He wished Camille could see the smug expression on his face.

“Did you honestly think I wouldn't find out you were sleeping with Jimmy Gordy?”

“Jimmy Gordy,” Sonny whispered to Marcel. “Isn't he the head of the Usher Board at Xavier's church?”

Marcel nodded. Everybody knew Jimmy Gordy. In addition to heading up the Usher Board, Jimmy Gordy was also in charge of transportation when a major Gospel United Church meeting was held in North Carolina.

Jimmy Gordy had made quite a name for himself, and he should have been pretty well-off. But the curious thing is that Jimmy Gordy walked around looking and acting like he was barely making minimum wage. Marcel always believed Jimmy Gordy was the front man for that transportation business. Somebody way up, with a whole lot of money, needed a huge tax write-off. That is the only way they would set up a man like Jimmy Gordy as the so-called owner of their business.

“What woman in her right mind would go with Jimmy Gordy?” Sonny was saying, thinking that if Glodean ever went with Jimmy Gordy, he'd take his Bentley and run her over, flat as a pancake. That was just disrespectful to your man—for a woman to go and lay up with the likes of a Jimmy Gordy.

“I don't know,” Marcel said. “'Cause for starters, the brother is butt ugly.”

Sonny nodded. Jimmy Gordy was a gold-colored man with freckles that were so big he looked like he had spots on him. His eyes were a weird black color—they looked like animal eyes. He was hairy and had a low hairline—he looked like his forehead was always trying to touch down on his eyebrows.

“I always thought Jimmy Gordy looked like a hyena in a cheap suit,” Marcel said, and then stopped the conversation when Luther came out of the bathroom looking a bit pale. He was so glad Xavier had finally gotten off the phone with Camille.

“So, where are we with this?” Luther asked, hoping he sounded better than he felt. He should not have eaten that lobster salad.

“Xavier, I hope you got your wife straightened out. I would hate to see something happen to her because she didn't get with the program.”

Xavier was superquiet. He didn't like the threat. But he was in too deep to get out now. Men like Luther Howard didn't let go of folks who knew too much about what going on.

“Can he stomach this deal, Sonny? I told you and Marcel to choose our candidate carefully.” Luther knew Marcel's ‘we may have a problem' was about Xavier being weak, squeamish, and scary.

“I'm fine,” Xavier said to Luther. “and Camille will be onboard, or deal with the consequences.”

Xavier wished he could wipe that smug grin off of Luther Howard's face. Even though he constantly wished Camille would keel over and die, he still didn't appreciate another man threatening his wife. Camille was his problem, not Luther's.