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

  Bluntly, “No, he lives here.”

  “Oh, no he don’t live here,” Ruby quickly said in a matter-of-fact way.

  But that was a tap on the arm compared to the next haymaker she cut loose. “His name is Lynx and doesn’t Lynx and Bambi live here? This is their place of residence, right?”

  Boom! Wow! Calliope saw the look on Ruby’s face.

  The look on Ruby’s face was priceless and it read, what the fuck!?! But her thoughts were, God, please don’t let Bambi kill this young lady this morning.

  “Look, chile,” Ruby said leaning in closer.

  “It’s Calliope,” she clearly stated her name, stood up straight, and held her own.

  “My mama name is Calliope,” Junior said, and then his mother shot him a look that silenced him.

  Ruby glared at her, like her mother would and gave her a cold stare. “Listen, today isn’t really the day for this. Not being funny, but real talk. We got some real serious stuff going on in our world and today ain’t the day for the Maury Povich ‘you are or are not the father’ type bullshit. So.”

  Calliope put her hand up, and lowered her voice, not wanting to prompt drama or make a scene. After all, they did live in a high-class area. “Look, believe me,” Calliope interrupted Ruby, wanting to take control of the conversation because she knew she was dead wrong showing up on these folks’ door step in the wee hours of the morning. “If I’d had any other alternative at all, I would’ve never come here”

  Ruby stood in the door seal. “I’m listening.” She crossed her arms with a so serious look on her face, trying to talk herself out of pulling her pistol out and telling the girl to get the hell off of her friend’s porch.

  “Look, I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “Shit I can’t tell. Coming to somebody’s house in the wee hours in the morning, seems like you begging for trouble to me.”

  “Trust me I’ve had my fair share of it in my day and that’s why I try to fly under the radar. But trouble seemed to have found me.” She took a deep breath, then started back up before Ruby could say a word. “A little while ago, two men unlawfully came into my house, burned my house down to the ground. And I think that they wanted to take my baby.” The butterfly stole a quick glance at her caterpillar as if she wanted to make sure that her son was still there, like someone could have actually snatched the kid while she was holding on to his hand.

  Wow, now that was a doozy, Ruby thought to herself. Still standing there with her arms crossed and popping her gum loudly. Oh boy, the butterfly is Lynx’s sidepiece and the kid is his son. Now this is some real Jerry Springer shit here.

  “Lord help us,” she finally budged, but at least Ruby knew why the little caterpillar looked so familiar, now that she looked closer, the boy had Lynx’s nose and devilish grin that formed his little mouth. The features were cuter on Junior. Ruby slowly moved to open the door wider. She was dumbfounded at that moment. She gripped her pistol to make sure it was still there in case this girl tried something when she invited the mother and son duo to cross the threshold of her baby daddy’s wife’s home.

  “Honestly, like I told you, this isn’t a real good time, ’cause things are a little crazy,” as Ruby led them into the den. “But sit in here for a minute, I’ll be right back.”

  Once inside Junior spotted a photo of Lynx in a silver frame on the end of the table next to the sofa, and took off like a bottle rocket. “It’s daddy. It’s daddy. Look, Mommy,” he said with such excitement. He clumsily pulled the picture from its place on the table.

  Calliope the butterfly looked on with a sheepish, unapologetic half smile, but not one ounce of shame on her beautiful face.

  Oh, boy. Bambi already had more than enough to swallow on her plate without this …

  As Ruby slowly made her way down the hall, she kept trying to think of the words that she would say to Bambi explaining the visitors who she just invited into Bambi’s home. Then for the second time tonight, Ruby heard Bambi belt out a curdling scream.

  34

  Totally in a state of shock, Bambi screamed at the top of her lungs, prompting Ruby to come running. Her old-school princess-style Reeboks drummed against the hardwood flooring as she hightailed it down the hallway. Ruby busted into the room with her hand gripping the pistol on her side.

  “What is it?” she gasped, rushing through Bambi’s bedroom door not knowing what to expect.

  Bambi shook her head in dismay, her tongue temporarily stunned into silence with her eyes filled with tears. Things had gone from bad to catastrophic in a matter of seconds. One minute she’d been dumping old e-mails from her in-box, reading new postings, trying to keep her mind busy from thinking the worst of where her daughter was, and the next, her heart was trying to jailbreak its way out of her chest by way of jackhammer. She had never felt pain so intense that she thought she was having a heart attack. Still unable to locate her voice, she opted to point to the computer screen.

  Ruby peered over Bambi’s shoulder at what had rocked her to the core.

  Both stared openmouthed at the heart-wrenching e-mail, not wanting to believe what their eyes were witnessing.

  Finally, a mortified Bambi managed to croak out the words, “They got my baby.” She wasn’t the type that could be called a weak person, but seeing Nya tied up like a rodeo calf broke her down. Even though it was obviously the effect the kidnappers were trying to provoke, it was working.

  If they’d violated her in a sexual way … thinking about it was too much to bear right now for either of them to let their thoughts run wild.

  IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR DAUGHTER ALIVE, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS.

  Nothing about this madness is simple.

  1. IF YOU CALL THE POLICE—SHE’S DEAD

  2. I WANT 500K

  3. I’LL NOTIFY YOU IN 48 HOURS W/ FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS OF WHERE TO DROP BREAD OFF

  A JPEG file attached to the e-mail contained the horrible picture of Nya, wrists and ankles bound by a nylon-looking rope. Bambi zeroed in on her daughter’s eyes and she was terrified and scared shitless. Bambi at that moment felt useless and like she wished that she could change places with her daughter but it didn’t work like that. All she could think about was where was she supposed to get money like that from. Her lavish party-planning business wasn’t the thriving business it was five years ago. She still had steady clientele and events to put on, but the reality of it was, the country was in a depression and people didn’t have money like they used to. Everybody seemed to be cutting back on everything, and that included events. Now they were still partying but just on a lower scale, and she was thankful for that, even though they expected her to stretch a dollar as long as she could.

  She knew that she needed to get the money, and quick.

  “Where am I suppose to get a half million dollars from, Ruby? I got a little more than a hundred thousand and in our joint account is a whole other story, but besides that…” Her words trailed off.

  Blood coated the surface of Ruby’s bottom lip, she was biting down on it so hard. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said.

  Ruby wasn’t just talking out of her ass to make Bambi feel better. Ruby genuinely loved Nya with all her heart and would do whatever she had to do to assist in getting the baby girl back.

  Bambi snapped out of her zone when she heard a patter of footsteps racing down the hallway, causing Bambi to look up. At first, she thought she’d imagined the sound. Up until a little boy with familiar features teetered into her room.

  Bambi looked up and thought she was seeing double. She shook her head, to make sure her eyes were not lying to her or her mind playing tricks on her. There in front of her stood a mini Lynx.

  The two made eye contact. “Hello, where is my daddy?” Junior asked Bambi.

  35

  7:46 A.M.

  Sergeant Johnson kept it real funky for a jake. It turned out that this wasn’t the first time Officer McElroy had acted in a manner other than professional; th
is was one of the reasons he’d been assigned to the desk, and not on the street. Instead of slapping Lynx with assault and battery on a officer—a charge that would’ve netted him a parole violation and a few years off the blade—Sergeant Johnson went with the much less severe misdemeanor charge, which (if found guilty) only carried a maximum of twelve months, no violation.

  In total Lynx spent a little more than twelve hours locked down. His lawyer would eventually get the whole thing dropped.

  He was straightening out his clothes when Sergeant Johnson passed Lynx a large manila envelope. “Your personals.”

  The envelope contained Lynx’s wallet, cell phone, and car keys. “What about my daughter?” he asked, pocketing his things. “What’s being done about her?”

  Sergeant Johnson’s expression was somber. “We put out the Amber Alert.” He didn’t really sound all too optimistic about it. “And all of our mobile units have her description,” he said. “For now, that’s all we can do.”

  Lynx took his stuff, exited the cell, and made his way out of the jail to the streets to try to figure out his next move.

  Lynx quickly made it to his car and began cruising the streets of Baltimore as if he was going to find his daughter just strolling down the block or something.

  They all look guilty, Lynx thought of the characters he passed as he drove aimlessly through the ratchet streets of B’more: the three saggy pants, young street pharmacists trying to push mediocre dog food to the smack heads. The cat with the dreads down to his back, selling CDs and incense in front of the McDonald’s. The chick rocking too much makeup, white jeans, thigh-high faux leather boots, dodging through traffic like a bumper was attached to her ass. Even the gray-haired lady sitting behind the wheel of the Honda next to him at the stoplight seemed as if she had something to hide. Everyone was guilty of at least one misdeed or another, Lynx thought. Most of which were none of his business.

  The only crime committed in Baltimore that Lynx gave a damn about was the kidnapping of Nya. He wondered just how many people he may have passed were in on i—

  Honk! Honk! Honk!

  “I see the fuckin’ light.” Lynx tapped the gas just hard enough to make the high-performance Audi boogie thru the intersection, quickly eating up nearly two blocks’ worth of asphalt, before veering last minute into the parking lot of the Quick Mart/gas station, a good spot to tap off both the tank and his stomach.

  But first thing first, he thought. Instead of pulling up at the pump, Lynx guided the Audi into one of the three self-service car-wash bays, for a splash of privacy.

  In the glove compartment, next to the Glock 23, was a plastic sandwich bag. He cuffed the bag of exotic and twisted a blunt that resembled the shape of a baseball bat. After sparking the fat end, he took a long, lung-filling toke from it. Good weed always helped clear his mind and he was thankful that this batch was some of the best.

  Eight seconds later he coughed up a thick ball of blue smoke. A sense of euphoria rolled through his body, along with the feeling of lightheadedness. Then he imagined a rapid concussion of fireworks going off. Weird.

  Pop … Pop … Pop …

  This was a sound he knew; the fireworks. This shit is better than I thought. He held the burning blunt up to his face. Gazing at the fatty as if it were a bar of gold spun from straw.

  That’s when it hit him.

  Pow … Pow … Pow …

  “Oh shit!”

  A shard of glass from the blown-out rear window. It was turning out that the fireworks weren’t even fireworks.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  They were gunshots. “What the fuc—”

  A couple of copper slugs sparked off the trunk of the car. Before Lynx could react, two more slammed into the headrest of the passenger side. A fourth hammered into the rearview mirror, prying it away from the windshield. Ducking his head before slamming the car in gear, Lynx had no idea who was doing the shooting, or if it was more than one person. But as the storm of bullets continued to rain down on the car, he knew if he didn’t break camp it wouldn’t matter.

  The barrage was coming from behind him. The same direction he’d driven from. That meant at least one thing was in his favor. His car was pointed in the opposite direction.

  Wasting no more time, he punched the Audi’s R-8 gas pedal and yanked the wheel and put the high-performance vehicle to the test. The Audi fishtailed into an acute left turn like a scared horse out of a starting shoot. He had no intentions of allowing a dilapidated car wash to become his makeshift mausoleum.

  Not today.

  The bullet-ridden Audi and his pounding heart raced along Charles Street for a few blocks, then turned along a main intersection, him wishing and hoping like hell this wasn’t going to land him in a dead end. He drove for five or ten minutes before either of them slowed down. Lynx checked the rearview to see if anyone was behind him, but the mirror was laying on the floor, halfway beneath the passenger seat.

  Shit, he couldn’t blame the thing for hiding. If he hadn’t had to drive, he probably would’ve ducked under the seat also. He used the mirror on the side to survey tail. He exhaled when he didn’t see anyone following him. No longer under the immediate threat of gunfire, Lynx reflected on all the craziness.

  Somebody snatched Nya.

  He gets locked up for assaulting a police officer when reporting it.

  Now somebody was trying to kill him.

  Oh! And let’s not forget the fifty Gs he lost on the game.

  The day couldn’t go any more wrong.

  Okay, could it?

  A searing pain shot through his arm when he tried to fish the phone from his pocket. He’d been so hopped up on adrenaline and fear, he’d failed to notice the blood on his shirtsleeve. A bullet had ripped through his right bicep. He tried moving the arm again. It hurt like hell, but cooperated. Thank God it wasn’t worse, it was just a flesh wound.

  Managing to finagle the phone from his pants without too much pain, he thumbed one of the preset numbers in his favorites.

  “About time your ass called, where are you?” He could hear it in her voice, and she was pissed.

  “Try to calm down, baby. I know this isn’t easy, but it’s going to be okay.”

  “How the hell is it going to be okay, Lynx? My fucking daughter is missing and we don’t have the money to go get her?”

  “How much is it?”

  “Half a million.”

  “What you got in your stash?” he asked.

  “There is no stash—I told you. I have been moving money from my stash to float my business, and when I checked the personal account there is a lot of money that can’t be accounted for.”

  He paused, knowing she wanted an explanation and he felt less than that he was busted. He would have to admit to her that the gambling is more out of control than he’d ever wanted to admit. The truth of the matter, Lynx used to have a lot of money. He’d could win big, because he’d bet big. However, his luck hadn’t been the best over the past couple of years and with him not making money hand over foot like he used to, his gambling turned to excessive and his bets got more desperate, digging him deeper and deeper into the hole. He hated to disappoint his wife but he had to tell the truth. “We gonna talk about it, just real bad investments, baby, but I promise I’m going to get it back.” He was dumbfounded because he thought his wife was in a better situation financially.

  “I’m gonna get our baby back,” he said.

  “How?” she screamed. “With no money?” He knew she wanted to believe in him but the circumstances were telling her something else.

  “Listen, baby, it’s going to be okay. I promise you!” He felt bad and was angry with himself mainly but also just at the overall situation. He didn’t know how to react really.

  “I don’t think so. It’s hard to be optimistic at a time like this.”

  Lynx could hear it in his wife’s voice. She was about to break down. “Have some faith in me.” He tried to convince her although he had no idea how he was go
ing to make this entire situation right.

  “And, oh, I almost forgot to tell you that your mistress and your son is here, homeless. So you tell me, how in the hell is this going to be okay?”

  Before he could speak, she continued.

  “Her and your son. And when were you planning to tell me about your secret family? This double life you are living?”

  “Oh shit,” he said to himself with a lump in his throat. He knew one day things would hit the fan, just not this day. “What?” he asked, totally caught off guard.

  “You heard me. I said Calliope and lil’ Junior are here.”

  “Calm down.”

  “Calm down?”

  “Yeah,” he said, then it hit him that shit had really hit the fan at his house. “Calliope is there now?”

  “Yup,” Bambi said.

  Though he had been shot at, and could’ve almost died, he was still calm. But knowing that two of the most important women in his life had been sitting eye to eye and the two worlds had collided, he could have shit a brick, and balls of perspiration were all across his face.

  Just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, now this double life that he’d been living had finally come to light. He thought about how true that saying was: what goes on in the dark always comes to the light. He tried to think if there was a time before when he felt like he had been boxed in any tighter. And the answer was no. This was the first time he didn’t know how to handle himself in such a tight situation. So he did what first came to mind.

  “Look, how about this … I haven’t had the best day either, motherfuckers just shot at me. Trying to kill me, gunning me down. I just got shot and shit. So, I need to lay low, and try to figure out who is trying to kill me. So, you and Calliope gotta put y’alls head together and try to figure this shit out. Trust me, y’all resourceful as shit. Y’all basically on y’all own until I figure out who in the hell trying to kill me.” And just like that he disconnected the phone.