The Man in 3B (32 page)

“Excuse me for a minute,” I told them. “I have something you should see.”

I headed to my bedroom and returned a few moments later with proof in hand. I gave the DVD to Anderson. “Maybe this will convince you.”

She looked down at the disc. “What’s this?”

“It’s a private video Daryl and I made, buck wild and naked. Watch it. He refers to me as his phat ass at least thirty-five times. Oh, and you can have that one. I’ve got another copy.”

Anderson looked at her partner, then threw the DVD onto the table. She finally looked ready to back off a little. The silence in the room was so awkward that I almost felt embarrassed for her. I decided it was a good time to help her out a little bit, steer her in another direction now that I’d shot down her flimsy theory about me.

“Look, I promise you that you guys are barking up the wrong tree… with both Daryl and my husband’s former wife. Between you and me, you might want to look into my stepdaughter’s boyfriend.”

Anderson and Thomas shared a pointed look. This was obviously not the first time they’d heard this.

“And what reason would we have to do that?” Anderson asked, trying to play dumb. I was sure the stoop ladies had already been flapping their gums about everyone, including Slim.

“You haven’t heard from the curb? Slim and Daryl couldn’t stand
each other. Slim even threatened to kill him. I would have expected him to be your number one suspect.”

It wasn’t long before we wrapped things up and the detectives were heading out my front door, leaving me with their last words: “We’ll be in touch.”

Have you ever had that uncomfortable feeling that you were about to walk into a place you really had no business being? Well, that’s how I felt as I walked up the steps of the J. Foster Phillips Funeral Home for Daryl’s wake. This was the last place I wanted to be—and the one place I had to be. I owed that much to Daryl. I’d never had the chance to apologize to him, so the least I could do was show my respects to his family now that he was gone.

When Slim and I walked in, I stopped in my tracks, thinking we had accidentally stumbled into the wrong wake. The place was jam-packed with people from every walk of life: black folks, white folks, bougie folks, hood folks, and quite a few famous people. I took Slim’s hand and was about to walk out until I saw Nancy, Bertha, and the rest of the stoop crew huddled in a corner, whispering and pointing at some woman who looked a lot like Foxy Brown.

An usher approached us and handed me a program. One look at the picture of Daryl printed on the front and my knees buckled. It took everything I had not to break down right on the spot. The usher gave me a sympathetic nod as he held out his hand in a gesture for us to be seated. Of course, there really weren’t many seats left with the place being so full.

“Slim, I’m going to see if I can find us seats near the front,” I said.

Slim kind of rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever.” He leaned against the wall in the back of the room. “I’m gonna stay right here.”

I let him stay put and headed to search for a seat for myself. I could have used a little support during the wake, but I wasn’t about to
argue with him. If things were reversed, I don’t know if I could have sat through one of his ex-girlfriend’s wakes. I gave him credit just for sticking around—even if he was only making an appearance to squash the rumors about him having something to do with Daryl’s death.

I found an empty chair between two women, who were both staring straight ahead, dabbing away tears from their eyes. Looking in the direction they were staring, I saw the closed casket with a framed photo of Daryl on top, and I had to reach for a Kleenex of my own. I couldn’t believe that Daryl was really dead. I would never get the chance to make things right between us. All of a sudden, I was itching to take the blue box out of my purse and do a line to ease my pain.

The funeral director asked everyone to get settled so they could start the memorial service, led by none other than Bishop T. K. Wilson, one of the most influential preachers in all of New York. Everyone in Queens knew who Bishop Wilson was, but what surprised me was that when the bishop spoke about Daryl, it sounded like he knew him personally. How did Daryl, a Hebrew Israelite, become a close personal friend of a Baptist preacher?

As the memorial proceeded, I had to ask myself the same question over and over: How well had I really known Daryl? I reflected on the time we’d spent together and realized that he spent a lot of time listening to me but not much time talking about himself or his past. When his mom, brother, and sister got up to speak, it dawned on me that I’d never even met them. Daryl never talked about introducing me to them, so I just assumed they weren’t close. But now, hearing the way they talked about him, it seemed like he had a great relationship with his family.

I was even more surprised when the infamous New York rapper Buck-Fifty read a poem he’d written in Daryl’s honor. He called it “The Thug You Could Take Home to Your Momma.” Again, I was left feeling like this famous rapper knew Daryl personally—and I had never really known him at all. Who was this man whose death had summoned a crowd as if Barack Obama himself were delivering the eulogy?

By the end of the wake, I was more confused than ever. I made
my way through the crowd to find Slim in the same spot where I’d left him.

“Thank God this thing is over. Can we please get the hell outta here now?” he said as soon as he saw me.

“Okay, babe. Let’s just go up there and pay our respects to the family and then we can leave.”

“I’m not going up there.” He shook his head. “I don’t know those people, and I didn’t particularly like their son.”

“Hush.” I slapped his arm and looked around to make sure no one else had heard him. “You know why we have to make an appearance. We talked about this earlier.”

“No, you talked about it. I only agreed because you were giving me head at the time. Now, all we gotta do is sign that book up front to prove that we were here.”

“But…” I stood my ground even though I couldn’t deny that Slim was right. We could have signed the guest book and headed out. Truth was, I wanted to meet Daryl’s family. I wanted to know if they’d ever heard of me. Had Daryl loved me enough to tell them about me, or was I some big secret?

Somehow, I think Slim sensed what I was thinking. “If you wanna go up there for some other reason, that’s on you, but don’t be expecting me to be happy about it.” His tone was nasty, and I knew what he was threatening.

Him not being happy meant no more blue boxes anytime soon, and it didn’t matter how well I sucked his dick. I wasn’t sure if I could deal with that, especially when I desperately needed something to dull my pain.

Speaking of pain, my heart ached even more when I turned and saw Connie all hugged up with Daryl’s mother and sister like she was part of the family. A flash of jealousy, accompanied by a whole lot of anger, raced through me, and I started trembling. That damn Connie had to be the biggest phony I’d ever seen. I swear she was determined to ruin my life.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said to Slim.

“Yo, look at Benny over there with his pops. Poor kid’s really
broken up over this, huh?” Slim said in what almost sounded like a sympathetic tone. He was a hard-ass most of the time, but Slim did have a soft side that he let me see once in a while.

I turned to see Benny, standing in line to walk by the casket, crying on his father’s shoulder. “Yeah, he looks like he lost his best friend,” I said.

We stood there for a minute, watching the raw grief and emotion that Benny was displaying. I don’t know what Slim was thinking, but I was wishing there was some way to take away Benny’s pain. Hell, I wished someone would take my pain away. Of course, that’s when I thought of my best friend in the little blue box in my purse. I needed a hit badly.

I turned to leave and almost ran right into Connie. She’d moved from the front of the room without me even seeing her, like some damn sorceress or something, and now she was in my way. She had the nerve to be smiling at me as she wiped tears from her raccoon eyes. I had to resist the urge to slap her.

“What are you, the grieving widow?” I asked her curtly.

She looked me dead in the eyes. “You know what, Krystal? You have absolutely no class. You are pathetic.”

“I know you ain’t talking about class. Not you, the woman who was screwing Daryl and my father at the same time.” Her jaw tensed up, and I could tell she was trying to keep it together.

I really wanted to see her lose it in that place in front of all those people, so I kept trying to push her buttons. “Oops. Was that supposed to be our little secret? ’Cause I’ve told damn near everyone who will listen.”

“Kris, this is not the place.” Slim tried to push me on, but my feet stayed planted.

“You’re right, babe. Don’t worry. I’ll be nice.” I gave him a pacifying smile, then turned back to Connie. “Have you heard from my father?”

“You might wanna listen to your boyfriend. This is not the place or time to talk about this.” She tried to walk past me, but I stepped in her way.

I knew I should have shut my mouth and left well enough alone, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed an outlet for all the pressure building up inside me, and she was as good a target as any. “You don’t wanna talk?” I taunted. “Well, maybe I should go talk to Mrs. Graham about the similarities between Daryl’s death and my mother’s.”

Connie’s yellow face turned red as she checked left and right for eavesdroppers. Oh, how I wished Nancy and her crew were standing closer.

“Now, I asked you a question. Have you heard from my father?”

Aside from the fact that I was enjoying Connie’s squirming, I really did want to know if she had any news about my father. I hadn’t heard from him in three days and I was starting to worry.

“No, I haven’t heard from Avery since he broke into my apartment and forced me to give him the money back from our divorce settlement.”

Slim interrupted us. “Um, Kris, maybe we should be getting outta here.”

Without looking at him, I raised my palm in his face. Most of the time, I let him be the one in control, but even he knew better than to get in the way when it came to my father.

I glared at Connie. “You need to stop exaggerating. You know my daddy didn’t force you to give him anything.”

“Krystal, your father is not the man you think he is.”

“No, thanks to you. I’m sure any trouble he’s in now has something to do with you.”

She still refused to back down. “Nope, he’s a fugitive from the law, and whether you want to admit it or not, it’s his own damn fault. And as far as me hearing from him, he knows better than to call me. If I know him, he’s probably somewhere in some foreign country right now, blowing that money he took from me.”

I waved my hand, dismissing her accusations. “Anyway, just tell him that I’m looking for him if he calls or something.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” she said. “Right after I call the police.”

“Let’s not talk about police because there’s plenty I could say to them,” I shot back. Of course, I had already spoken to the cops, but
she didn’t know that and neither did all the people in the room, who were about to find out.

I was about to tear into her ass loud enough for everyone to hear what I believed in my heart of hearts to be true when Slim grabbed me. “Um, Krystal,” he said through gritted teeth.

“What, Slim? You’re hurting me.” I slapped his hand off the back of my neck and turned to face him.

“Po-po, nine o’clock.”

I turned to my left to see Detective Thomas and his partner, who didn’t like me too much. I immediately thought of the cocaine in my bag.

“Shit,” I cursed under my breath.

“What’s the matter? I thought you had so much you wanted to say to the cops. Here’s your chance.” Connie sounded almost gleeful, like she knew what was about to go down.

My instincts told me to run, but a quick check of the exits showed that there was a cop stationed at each. I glanced over at Slim, who had a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. He hated cops for obvious reasons and had recently told me that he felt the cops had been watching him more closely. The way the detectives were striding across the room now with a few uniformed officers following them, I knew it had been a huge mistake not to leave when we had the chance.

I was so relieved to have Pop with me for support as I stood in line waiting to pay my final respects at Daryl’s casket. I wiped away my tears and blew out a long, slow breath, trying to get my emotions under control. It seemed like I’d been crying for days, ever since the fire. No, actually I’d been crying for about two weeks, ever since my father found out I was gay and I blamed it on Daryl.

Fortunately, Pop and I had had plenty of time to talk over the past few days so things between us had improved, but it was killing me to know that I’d never get the chance to make things right with Daryl. If it weren’t for Pop, I might have done a header off the roof into the street. I mean, I was seriously depressed, and Pop was the only reason I was still standing. He’d always been there for me, but this time he was there for me in a way I would have never expected. He was there as my friend. Sure, we’d always been close, but we were never friends in the traditional sense of the word. He didn’t always value my opinion. He was the father and I was the son, and what he said was the law. We weren’t equals.

After Daryl’s death, I’d spent a few days in the apartment, getting over the shock of the fire and talking to Pop almost nonstop. We talked about our feelings in a way that we’d never been able to. When my mother died, I was really young, and I think my father thought he was protecting me by keeping things from me. Since then, I guess we’d developed this sort of habit of not really addressing our emotions. But after the traumatic events of the last two weeks, I decided I couldn’t keep things bottled up anymore. It didn’t make sense to me
to be anything but open and honest because we never know when it will be the last time we talk to someone. I guess Pop must have felt the same way because he really opened up to me.