The Glamorous Life 2: All That Glitters Isn't Gold Read online

  On her way to the door, she bumped into her brother. When he grabbed her hand and asked, “What’d it do sis?” she sucked her teeth under her breath, wishing he hadn’t seen her. “How come you leaving so early with all this money in here?”

  “What I tell you about coming in here to party anyway?” she snapped back at her brother, like she was his mother, but knowing good and well he’d been hanging out at the strip clubs against her wishes for many years. Besides, he was practically raised in the clubs and was no stranger to that whole strip club life.

  “Bam just got out of jail and we celebrating.” Then he focused in a little closer, “But what’s up wit yo lip?” He looked closer still. “Blood? A busted lip?”

  She wiped her face in the dressing room but obviously hadn’t done a good job.

  Unconsciously, her tongue dotted out, removing the speck of dry blood from the corner of her mouth.

  “Don’t lie to me, Calliope.” Compton never called her Cinnamon ever. It was only her stage name and alter-ego. He would never acknowledge it. To Compton she was and always would be Calliope, his big sister, the woman not only who raised him but to whom he owed everything.

  Toxic was walking by and said in Compton’s ear, “Jiggilo hit her,” and made eye contact with Calliope and kept going.

  He couldn’t believe his ears, and then he needed confirmation. “Did this fuck boy nigga Jiggilo hit you?”

  She couldn’t lie to him. Never had and though she knew this would probably be a good day to start, she couldn’t do that to her brother. “Yes. Jiggilo hit me,” she confided.

  A cloud of anger washed over Compton’s face. Eyes got dark, darker than she’d ever noticed.

  “I’m gonna kill that nigga,” Compton said calmly.

  She’d expected him to make a scene, hooping and hollering. But the way he’d said what he’d said, Calliope knew her little brother, who wasn’t even of age, was dead-ass serious.

  “I can’t let you do that,” she said. “Not tonight. Not like this.”

  Compton wasn’t trying to hear her passivity, even if it was for his own good. “Promise me,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “I promise, sis.”

  “Thank you.” She let out a sigh. “I’ll see ya later then?”

  “Sure,” Compton said, “I’ll call if I don’t come home. Might check on one of my lil’ chicks.”

  Calliope walked away knowing that this chapter of her life was officially over but not knowing that Compton had made his promise to her with his fingers crossed.

  22

  “Fuck that!” Compton said out loud once his sister walked away and was out of earshot.

  His blood was boiling so hot he could’ve lit a spliff off his forehead. Compton took a long swig from the green bottle he was holding. The imported, amber-colored beer, although cold going down, did nothing to extinguish the inferno of anger burning in his belly. All he could seem to hear in his head was Big Jack’s words about him protecting his sister and how she was all he really had. It was true and there was no questioning or second-guessing what he had to do or the lesson he had to teach or the point he had to make.

  The Glock, concealed on the small of his back, felt like it weighed a ton, reminding him of its presence. “What you gonna do?” it seemed to ask. “Barbecue? Or mildew?”

  For as far back as Compton could remember Calliope had had his back. When Shelly—the bitch that hadn’t earned the right to be called Mom—used to go to town on his hide, simply for looking too much like his deadbeat sperm donor, it was Calliope who came to his rescue time and time again. Even if it meant getting her butt waxed too.

  His sister never bothered a soul or took advantage of anyone at times when opportunities presented themselves to her. As many drunk dudes that went in and out of that club, and were so wasted when she had them in the VIP room, she could’ve gotten them for all the money in their pocket but she never did. She didn’t deserve anybody putting his or her hands on her and Compton wasn’t going to tolerate it. If Jiggilo didn’t know, he was going to learn tonight.

  In front of the metal door that was put in place to fortify Jiggilo’s office, Compton stood with his gat in hand. He’d wait all night if he had to for the coward to come out. For some reason, not sure why, he put his hand on the brass knob. And to Compton’s surprise and Jiggilo’s the knob turned.

  “What the fuck you doing?” Jiggilo shouted when the door to his office flew open. Tried to sound like he was in control, but his eyes—especially when he seen the gat—conveyed shock and fear. In the corner, some gay-looking dude wearing a pair of super shiny, white slacks pissed on himself. Seeing the chrome, he knew it was going to be trouble.

  Compton told Jiggilo, “You and I have a piece of business to settle.” Then he looked to the pink shirt. “Mind your business,” he firmly said. “Now sit the fuck down before I lay you down.”

  Peter plopped his ass down. Jiggilo sucked air into his chest. Compton figured that it was a fusion of drugs Jiggilo had sniffed and the fact that the man had known him for quite some time from afar that brought on the air of arrogance.

  Did Jiggilo see a weakness? Compton wondered.

  Stepping from around the desk, Jiggilo said, “Put the gun away Compton. We can talk like men if you got a problem, huh? You know you like a son to me.”

  “You ain’t no father to me, nigga. Not even a brother, so don’t even come with that.”

  “Well, I always looked at you as one. Like me, you were raised in these clubs. We can talk like brothers.”

  “Let’s talk then,” Compton offered.

  Maybe what went down between Jiggilo and Calliope was just a misunderstanding. Calliope could go hard when she wanted to but it didn’t matter; the thought of anybody wanting to put his or her hands on his sister to hurt her didn’t make any kind of sense to him. His sister’s face with the blood popped in his head, prompting him to talk. The heel of the Glock slammed against Jiggilo’s temple, splitting it to the white meat. “Do you hear me now, Jiggilo?” Two more cracks upside the dome. “How ’bout now? This is the way men talk, Jiggilo. Bitches put their hands on women.”

  Crack! Crack!

  Blood spurted from Jiggilo’s face like a faucet. The last blow broke his nose. Jiggilo dropped to his knees and put his hands up to his face. “Okay! Okay! Okay!”

  By the way he strained to get the words out Compton figured he’d broken Jiggilo’s jaw as well. “You took care of your business, young blood. Let it go.” It came out: ooh ook air uv oar izness, ung bud. Et it ’O.

  The jaw was definitely broke, but Compton wasn’t finished.

  Click! Clack!

  Compton ratcheted the gat, a fresh .40 caliber slug jumped in place.

  “You ’fraid to die, Jigg?” he asked him with the tip of the gat in his ear.

  Promise me, Compton.

  Sometimes … promises are made to be broken. Nothing was promised in the streets, that’s what made it fair … the equality of the unfairness.

  Compton wrapped his index finger around the trigger. Like the coward he was, Jiggilo begged for his life. It took eight pounds of pressure on the trigger and he was currently at five pounds.

  A little more pressure: six pounds.

  What was that smell?

  “You shit your draws, Jigg?” Compton asked. “Don’t worry, I heard that’s what happen when you die anyway. So, no one’ll know you let go a few seconds early.”

  Seven pounds … one to go …

  Promise me, Compton.

  Plow!

  The only sound after that was Compton’s heavy breathing.

  Jiggilo, stretched out on the floor, was still alive. He was knocked out from the last blow. He’d hit Jiggilo instead of killing him for a few different reasons. He would’ve had not only Jiggilo’s death under his belt, but he would’ve had to rock the friend to sleep too. Double homicide wasn’t what he needed over his head. Not for nothing Jiggilo d
id take him and his sister in and Compton appreciated that. And lastly, he’d never broke a promise to his sister … crossed fingers or no crossed fingers. But the one promise he’d made to her years ago on that old raggedy porch was that he was going to take care of his sister, and that was one promise he never intended to break.

  Pink polo was trying to disappear under the chair, butt all in the air. And just for the hell of it, Compton took a running start, and broke his foot all up in his ass, simply for just being a pussy. Then he laughed because he was a smart guy not wanting any parts of it.

  Before he dipped, Compton whispered in Jiggilo’s ear, “Next time, all bets are off. You feel me?”

  23

  4:00 A.M.

  From an aluminum thermos, Officer Conners swallowed a sip of his famous home-brewed, premium coffee that his wife always sent him off to work with. He always bragged about the fact that even hours later, it was still hot. The thermos had been a Father’s Day present two years ago from his youngest of four daughters. He loved it and the coffee, which always seemed to give him the energy he needed to take on the bad guys.

  Senior Officer Theodore Conners was a veteran on the force for decades for the Miami police department. He could’ve made detective a long time ago, but he simply didn’t want it. He didn’t need the hassle, paperwork, or the extra hours the job demanded. In six more months Conner would retire to a full pension, God willing, and he just was buying his time.

  His partner, Officer Adams, drove the squad car. “Don’t know how you drink so much of that stuff,” Adams said with a sour face. They’d only been partnered up for a year now, but Conners liked the kid, even though, at twenty-four and still wet behind the ears, Adams could be a little pusher and gung-ho at times.

  “Been drinking coffee since I was in the army.” He nodded at the can of Red Bull holstered in the cup holder. “They didn’t have that shit back then,” Conners said.

  Adams beamed that cocky smile of his and downed half of the can. This was his eleventh of the night. “Lot of things you guys didn’t have back in the day, huh?”

  “That’s one of the things wrong with you new pups,” Conners fired back his own jab, “you all too caught up with computers, smartphones, and energy drinks.”

  “Is that so…” said Adams, piloting the squad car into the Miami Gardens subdivision.

  “Yep. I do believe that it’s quite so, young pup.” Conners, knowing how much Adams hated being called an immature canine, laughed when Adams rolled his eyes.

  “Hey.” Adams suddenly perked up. “Didn’t we get a call on a suspect driving a new model, platinum Range Rover? Big rims?”

  “Assault and battery,” Conners answered.

  “Look up ahead.”

  Sure enough there was a truck matching the description. The occupant, possibly the suspect, still inside.

  Adams, eager to the end the shift with a collar, said, “I think we found it.”

  After taking another sip of his coffee, Conners made the call. “Light it up.”

  Going upside of Jiggilo’s biscuit with the gat had felt hella good … his only regret, not croaking the bitch-ass nigga.

  After bashing fuck-boy’s face in, Compton dapped his boys for holding him down, in case any of Jiggilo’s goons popped up. “Don’t mention it,” they’d said. His three top dogs. “Calliope’s like a sista to us all.”

  The four left Imagination before anyone was the wiser. Too early to call it a night, Compton hit a few more spots on his own, getting his swag up. Decided to bring the morning in with a drive-by booty call from his girl Melody. She had the body of a goddess combined with a devilish sex game. After he smashed the two, he planned to go home and take his sister out for breakfast.

  Breakfast was Calliope’s favorite meal. Compton navigated the Range into a parking space. Radio on 99 Jamz, left to turn signal, push the cigarette lighter: a mechanical hum … as the hydraulic stash box blossomed from the dash. Compton removed the pistol from the passenger seat and placed it in the secret compartment then closed the box back into its original position.

  Next, he killed the engine.

  Getting out of the Range, something didn’t feel right to him. Like how an antelope must feel in the wild, just before being attacked by a predator lion. Out of his peripheral he spied his predator.

  Five-O. Fuck!

  Be cool, he thought. Click. Locked the doors to the Range. If the police did get at him, they wouldn’t be able to enter the truck without his permission, which they wouldn’t get, or a search warrant. Even if Jiggilo’s punk ass had pressed charges, an assault beef was candy, as long as the five-o didn’t knock him with the cannon or the work he’d be fine.

  Woop-Woop!

  They flashed the strobes to see how he would react. Then it dawned on him. How could he have been so fucking careless?

  Forgot about the zone of hard in his jacket pocket. He was supposed to’ve hit Black Mike off with the coke at the club, but told him to kick rocks after Mike tried to play him with short paper.

  The black-and-white came barreling down the street, V8 engine roaring.

  A lion in pursuit of its prey not waiting to be knocked with the work, Compton got in the wind.

  Hopped a six-foot wooden fence.

  The black-and-white skidded to a stop. That’s all the time he needed to toss the coke. But before he could get it out of his pocket, there he was.

  Flying over the gate came a young cop, like he was king of the jungle. The coke was stuck on the zipper of his jacket pocket. He tugged harder and his hand came out with the bag. Now all he had to do was lose the wannabe king of the jungle.

  Four shots rang out. He was hit. The first one caught him somewhere in the back. Felt like the spine. His legs quit working instantly. Before he collapsed the other three hot balls slammed into various targets on his body. He had no idea where the bullets had struck, because he’d already blacked out.

  His last thoughts were: lion, one, antelope, zero … I love you, sis.

  6:48 P.M.

  A spectacular orb of fire arose from the eastern horizon. A picturesque view, worthy of a being eternally captured on a postcard. A few hours from now, basking under the brilliance of the sun’s rays. Every vacationer’s fantasy.

  There’s that … then there’s reality. Yellow police tape cordoned the area from curious onlookers. “Where the fuck is it?” Senior Officer Conners was exasperated. “We need to find the gun, Joe.”

  Thus far the only thing the eight-block search had turned up was a small bag of rock cocaine. Nothing close to the deadly weapon Officer Adams swore he’d seen the suspect brandish before discharging his own service pistol.

  Adams swore on everything he loved, “There was a gun. I wouldn’t have fired if there hadn’t been.”

  Adams seemed a lot less sure than he’d appeared before they’d canvassed the area. The other officers, Conners could tell by their body language, were ready to call it a day. The only reason most of them hadn’t was because they wouldn’t have wanted to be hung out to dry if the boot were on the other foot.

  Conners listened as his partner went over his version of exactly what had taken place during the pursuit for the twentieth time. It didn’t change the fact that no weapon was found, which would substantiate Adams’s account of the events.

  “The victim of the assault,” Adams asked his partner, “said he’d been beaten with a pistol, right?”

  Conners gave him a sympathetic look. This wouldn’t be the first time, and surely not the last, that an unarmed perpetrator was mistakenly shot. It came with the job. Normally, the incident would go down as just another day in the streets, trying to serve and protect. However, this wasn’t the best of times for fuck-ups.

  “It don’t matter what the guy at the night club says,” Conners lamented. Al Sharpton was in town bloviating about a black kid that had gotten shot by a white convenience store owner. This was the type of situation Mr. Sharpton loved to make a spectacle out of. If he sank his t
eeth into it, he’d not only ask for Adams, but he would be hit with a ridiculous wrongful death suit and the city would have one too many. Maybe Adams would even get time in the joint himself. “You better pray that kid lives,” Conners advised in a foreboding tone. “Pray he lives.”

  24

  Franklyn Memorial housed one of the best trauma units in the country. But not even the best surgeons in the world could save every life, every time.

  When Calliope rushed through the sliding double doors of the emergency room, she was only concerned with the life of one.

  She’d found out her brother was injured by a call that came in the middle of the morning.

  “They shot your brother,” the voice screamed from the other end of the phone. Panic and despair in the caller’s words jotted Calliope from her sleep. “They shot Compton. They shot Compton!” Then hysterical crying.

  Praying that this was someone’s bad idea of a prank, Calliope asked, “Who is this?” Hoping the person would hang up and say sike but they didn’t.

  The girl said a name, but Calliope was too startled to process it. The caller’s name wasn’t important and the call wasn’t a prank.

  Oh, my God.

  Calliope jumped out of bed.

  Already getting dressed—jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers—she asked, “Who shot him? Where did it happen? And what hospital?” At least he was still alive.

  The caller filled her in best she could. “It’s all so crazy,” the girl said.

  The emergency room was filled with the sick and injured, waiting to be seen—all emergencies weren’t created equal. Some people were filling out forms while others tried to convince their friends or loved ones that everything is going to be all right.

  Mostly lies.

  Calliope hustled to the reception desk, where an overweight white lady with smokers’ breath and teeth casually asked, “How may I help you?” The nametag pinned to her lavender smock read Annie.