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

  “That’s not my mother’s…”

  The stranger pressed the red scarf against her nose. It was wet with something that smelled sweet. Then, suddenly, she fell asleep.

  The chloroform would keep her out for at least an hour. The stranger picked up what looked to be his very sleepy daughter into his arms. The makeup on both of their faces helped with the charade and, just in case anyone did get suspicious, it concealed his true identity.

  29

  “Nyy-aaah!”

  Lynx yelled out his daughter’s name again and again and again, spinning in circles in search of her. “Fuck!” He didn’t see her anywhere. He’d only taken his eyes off Nya for just a split second to answer the phone, and just that quick, she was gone. Vanished.

  “Nyy-aaah!”

  People started to stare. Who you talking to, Daddy? Mama say when you talk to yourself, people may mistake you for crazy or stupid. I don’t want people to think you are.

  Nya’s voice continued to echo in his head as Lynx randomly stopped a man wearing a #20 Ed Reed jersey.

  “Excuse me, my man? But have you seen a little girl, about this tall?” Lynx held his hand waist-high. “Long, black pigtails and raven-colored ribbons in her hair? Face painted purple?”

  Lynx noticed that the man’s face was painted purple also. And so were the three young boys’ that were with him. Hell. Half the damn stadium had painted their faces for the game.

  The man seemed empathetic to Lynx’s situation, or maybe the look that Lynx saw in his eyes was just sympathy, one parent feeling sorry for another’s misfortune. Whatever the emotion that he may have felt, the man shook his head.

  “Can’t say that I have,” he said, and dropped his head. “Sorry.”

  There was no time to be sorry. A lot of other folks were going to be sorry.

  Lynx quickly moved on to the next closest person, then the next … and the next … and the next … With each person he asked, Lynx became more desperate. And more frantic with every “no.” He began to run into the nearest ladies’ restroom like a mad man screaming Nya’s name

  Lynx startled a lady who was on her way out. “Did you see a little girl in the there?”

  The woman shook her head, and he strode past her.

  “Nyyaaahhh,” he desperately called out, praying that she was in one of the stalls.

  Women shot him nasty stares, fused with a few choice obscenities. A two-hundred-pound, trigger-happy blond chick dug into her purse for a can of mace, but slowed her roll when she saw the I-got-no-problem-with-putting-a-foot-up-your-ass look on his face.

  Luckily, he made it in and out of the restroom without anyone getting hurt. After roughly forty-five minutes of fervent searching Lynx found himself inside a police precinct. Primarily used to detain finger smiths (pickpockets) and other types of thieves, bush-whackers (perpetrators of assault and muggers), and junkies (illegal pharmacists), the in-house precinct was built on one of the sub-levels. A policeman behind a desk was unceremoniously pushing papers while chowing down on a roast beef and pickle sandwich. The name tag pinned to his uniform read OFFICER MCELROY. “What can I do you for?’ said Officer McElroy with a mouthful of the stinking processed sandwich meat.

  It hurt to say it. The five words burned the lining of Lynx’s stomach en route to his mouth. “I can’t find my daughter.” The shit didn’t even sound right, Lynx thought. You’re supposed to lose keys, maybe your cell phone, but not your child. Never your child.

  Officer McElroy said, “Pretty nice trick you managed to pull off there. I wish I had that problem with my wife.” The man couldn’t have been more callous if he tried.

  Surely the cop didn’t understand what he was saying or maybe Lynx wasn’t clear on the way he was conveying what he was trying to say.

  He still had not digested the words that had just come out of his mouth when he had to cough those same words up again. “My daughter is missing. I can’t find her.” And the words tasted bitter coming out the second time.

  “How long has she been missing—your daughter?”

  At this point, the police in general and Lynx had a long history of not seeing eye to eye, and this comedian in blue wasn’t doing much to change that.

  Lynx took a deep breath to keep from snapping. His going off on the man wasn’t going to help the situation any. He looked at his watch. “It’s been nearly an hour now. Maybe a little less.”

  “And where was the last place you saw her?” McElroy asked.

  Lynx explained to the officer how Nya was right by his side when they were leaving the stadium—on entry level—when he took his eyes off her for a second to answer the phone.

  Derisively, Officer McElroy mumbled, “I see. The phone, huh? I don’t even know why you people carry those things around glued to your ears. What did you do before?”

  You people. Lynx thought about straightening this lazy, sandwich-eating moron. Lynx was about to respond when the simple cop got to the issue at hand.

  “Did you try paging her over the PA system?”

  Lynx had gotten a lady from the information kiosk to page Nya three times. After no luck, she was the one who had suggested Lynx try the precinct.

  “Yes, I have,” Lynx said.

  “And?”

  And.

  “The fuck do you mean? And. If I’d found her I wouldn’t be here. I’ve looked everywhere,” Lynx said, getting more upset than he already was. “I want an APB put out on her. I want people looking for her. What’s the name of that shit they do for those white kids that go missing?” He snapped his fingers with the answer to his own question. “Amber Alert. I want a fucking Amber Alert issued.”

  Unmoved by Lynx’s situation, or his demands, Officer McElroy said, “I understand your anxiety; however, I do know how to perform my F-ing job.”

  Praying for the strength and discipline to keep from wrapping his hands around this asshole’s neck, Lynx held his tongue and kept his hands deep in his pockets.

  “Now let’s try this again,” Officer McElroy continued, “I’m gonna need a description: Age? Height? Weight? And the clothes she was wearing when you last saw her?”

  Lynx gave McElroy what he’d asked for, glad to be finally getting somewhere.

  McElroy keyed the necessary information into a computer that sat on his desk. “Do you have a recent picture?”

  “Sure.” Lynx got one from his wallet. It was of Bambi and Nya at Nya’s cousin’s birthday party. He handed it to the officer. “Will this do?”

  In the photo Nya and Bambi were dressed alike in yellow dresses and big floppy hats.

  “Pretty girl you got here,” said McElroy, smiling at the picture.

  “Thank you.”

  His eyes still on the photo, McElroy cracked, “Yeah, your daughter is cute too.” Then he laughed like the shit was too funny.

  It happened real quickly.

  Lynx shut McElroy up by slamming his fist down his throat hard enough to loosen a couple of his teeth. Immediately the jokes came to a screeching halt. Should’ve whipped his ass. Lynx thought about the jokes while pounding McElroy a few more times for good measure. Two other policemen rushed in from the back room when they heard the commotion. Too bad for McElroy they didn’t show up quicker.

  “What the hell—” one of them shouted.

  McElroy’s partners in blue wasted no time breaking up the lopsided fight, giving Lynx a few well-placed wallops with their nightsticks in the process.

  30

  A black SUV sporting tinted windows hugged the middle lane of I-495, heading north. The driver of the SUV went by the name Big Jack for obvious reasons: he was six four and a cheeseburger short of weighing 275 pounds. His partner Mo rode shotgun.

  Mo turned to Big Jack. “You sho she ain’t dead?”

  Big Jack put a Rick Ross CD in the deck. He wasn’t a big fan of the artist as a person (the fact that dude was a correctional officer before becoming a gangsta rapper was hard to overlook), but he liked the music the guy put out.<
br />
  Once Big Jack found the track, he said, “She’s still breathing, ain’t it?” as if Mo had asked a stupid question.

  “That shit can kill a person that small, if you use too much,” Mo said in defense. “She ain’t no good to a nigga dead,” he pointed out.

  Big Jack would have preferred not to have used the strong anesthetic at all, but he had no reason not to believe the girl when she told him that she would fall on the ground and scream if he didn’t let go of her hand. That would have been no good.

  Mo looked in the backseat.

  Nya was still unconscious. A black scarf around her eyes, just in case she woke up before they reached their destination. But like Big Jack said, she was still breathing. Mo could see her little chest moving.

  31

  “Yoooooo,” he called out nonstop, Lynx demanded his one phone call. “I have a right to call my attorney,” he said. “This is against my constitutional right.”

  Finally, an officer wheeled a portable jack down the hallway and parked it outside of Lynx’s cell. “You got ten minutes.”

  The contraption looked like a pay phone welded to a skateboard. The metal cord attached to the receiver was about half the length of his arm. So short he would have to squat down and lean against the bars for it to reach his ear.

  Lynx assumed the necessary position and instead of calling his lawyer, he dialed his wife, Bambi.

  “Hello.”

  “Bambi.”

  “Lynx?” There was a pause before she asked, “Who phone are you on?” Before he could explain, she asked, “How far are y’all from home?”

  This was going to be more difficult than he thought it would be. And he thought it would be god-awful.

  He said, “I need for you to sit down. Are you sitting?”

  “What’s going on, Lynx? Just spit it out.” He was sure that she probably thought the call was about him being late again. It seemed like this was what the majority of his calls were about nowadays.

  He paused for a second, then said, “I’m still in Baltimore.…”

  “You know it’s a school night,” she shot back, wanting Nya to get her proper rest and not be cranky in the morning or unproductive at school.

  He took in a deep breath, and started filling her in. After giving Bambi the quick version of the situation (yet no less painful), she screamed, “What do you mean, missing?”

  Her voice vibrated through the earpiece, bouncing off the three walls of the monkey cage he was in.

  “I know you’re upset,” he said. “But listen to me. I need for you to stay calm. We’re going to find her.”

  “You know I’m upset? Lynx, I’m way past upset. My fucking daughter has disappeared. You lost our daughter at a damn football game. How could you lose our child and then turn around and get yourself locked up? Who’s looking for her?”

  She stopped to take a breath. Lynx used the opportunity to promise, “I’m going to find her. The police are doing their thing, and the minute I’m outta here, I’m back on the streets searching high and low.”

  Bambi wasn’t satisfied with his plan of action. “I’m on my way there now,” she said.

  Lynx could hear the anguish cutting through her vocal cords. Over and over and over, he butt his head against the cold steel bars. Bambi was one of the strongest women he knew. But the right blow had knocked heavyweight champions on their backs for the count.

  “No,” he said. “It’s best if you stay home. Nya might try to call you. Imagine how she may feel if she did, and couldn’t reach you?”

  Bambi was thinking about Lynx’s suggestion when the officer that had brought the phone returned. “Time up.”

  Lynx put his finger up, gesturing for one more minute, but the line went dead.

  “Bitch!” Lynx threw the phone down. “Fuck you hang up for?”

  “Wasn’t me. The phone is on the ten-minute timer. It hangs up on its own, tried to tell you.”

  Not appeased, Lynx questioned, “How long before I get a bond? So I can get the fuck outta here.”

  32

  It was somewhere north of midnight and the lower-middle-class neighborhood was as quiet as a sleeping baby with a full tummy and a soft mattress. Besides the porch lights that lined the manicured yards along the U-shaped street, the other light was the full moon shining down.

  There was a night-light still on inside the yellow, two-story home on the edge of the cul-de-sac.

  “Mommy, where is Daddy?” a cute, bright-eyed little three-year-old with jet-black curly hair asked his mother.

  “I don’t know, baby. I think he’s still working,” Calliope told her inquisitive son. The truth, she had the foggiest idea where her baby’s father really was. “Now come on out of the window and get ready to go back to bed.”

  “But he said he’d be here to tuck me in,” Junior told his mother, his little face twisted into a defiant pout. The sight of him was too cute, warmed her heart.

  Calliope hugged her son. “I know, baby. But I think he might have gotten a little caught up at work.”

  After a few more hugs, which probably comforted her more than it did him, and a warm glass of milk, Junior was ready to go back to sleep.

  “Mommy, I want to sleep with you.”

  One look into his half-closed eyes and she couldn’t say no. Calliope knew that her son liked sleeping in her room so he could lie on the side of the bed closest to that window. That way he could sneak and peek out at the cars’ headlights going past the house, hoping and praying that they belonged to his father. The fact of the matter was that the boy loved the ground that his father walked on and whatever the man said was law.

  To the little con artist, she said, “If you promise to lie down and close your eyes.” Then she pulled the covers back on her queen-sized bed so he could climb under them.

  “I promise,” Junior said with a smirk so big that his mother knew that he was telling a huge fib.

  “You have to get your sleep and be rested for day care in the morning,” she told him as she tucked him in.

  “I don’t want to go to that day care anymore.” His defiant face popped up again.

  A kiss on the forehead. “You always say that until I get you there,” she said.

  “I just want to stay with you, Mommy.” He was stubborn, just like his father.

  “You should be with other children, and play games with them.”

  “But I play games and have a whole lotta fun with you, Mommy.”

  “Junior, I know what you are doing, and you better start playing the go-to-sleep game.”

  He just closed his eyes tight, thinking he was fooling her, but he wasn’t.

  “If your daddy comes, I promise, I will wake you up,” she whispered.

  “Why isn’t he home, Mommy?” he asked again, trying to fight sleep, but slumber was getting the best of him.

  She didn’t know what else to say, so the lie rolled off Calliope’s tongue, like a bedtime story: “He’s working, baby.” Then she lay down beside her son and put her arms around him until he fell off to sleep. But the truth of the matter was, she wanted and wished that she could say to him, although I love him to death, your daddy ain’t shit, and frankly she was getting tired of him acting like her house was a revolving door, walking in and out of her life and house whenever he pleased. But she didn’t want to be responsible for turning the boy against his father. When it happened, it wouldn’t be on her account.

  Convincing her son that his father must have gotten tied up and would get there when he could—and finally getting him to sleep—was mentally exhausting. She thought that after all that she would be able to fall off to sleep immediately, but she couldn’t put her finger on it—there was something definitely keeping her up. She looked at her son, who was sound asleep on the other side of the bed. She contemplated taking him to his room, but then decided that since he was sleeping so peacefully, by no means did she want him to wake up. So she’d let him stay right where he was, even if his jive-ass daddy decide
d to show up.

  For the life of Calliope, she couldn’t understand, as tired as she was, why in the world she could not get a wink of sleep. She damn sure wasn’t losing any Zs over her baby’s daddy. She knew the type of bullshit the man was knee-deep in when she first got involved with him. She should have listened to her head instead of her heart and her coochie. She was attracted to his honesty, she guessed, the fact that he never lied to her about his circumstances no matter how crazy they were. In a strange funny kind of way this seemed to have turned her on. And the fact that he was just so handsome filled with swagger and always showed her a good time even while schooling her to lessons of the game called life.

  Calliope was wet behind the ears about a lot but had a great understanding about everything.

  Tired of tossing and turning she got up, careful not to wake Junior. It was hard enough to get her son to sleep—since he went to sleep disappointed that his father had not come by to spend time with him or tuck him into the bed like he had promised him earlier that day when the two FaceTimed—that she didn’t want to keep moving around in the bed and wake him up. She wished things were different. Well, something had to give.

  She finally had both feet on the floor and then she heard something.

  What was that noise? she wondered. It sounded like someone was on the steps. Her baby daddy had a key but he always called first even if he was right outside, but it was late still. She peeped out of the window to see if his car was outside and it wasn’t. Hmmm, she wondered.

  Afraid to admit that she was afraid, Calliope cautiously peeped out of the bedroom door to see who it was. Her heart almost jumped out her chest when she saw a man, not her baby’s daddy, holding a gun in his hand. Shit, she said under her breath.

  The home invader wore all black that matched the gun in his hand. She had no idea what the man wanted but she knew he didn’t come there to have tea and sing “Kumbaya.” She had to think quick to find a way to get her son and herself out of the house and out of harm’s way.