One Safe Place Read online

  “I am going to say goodbye to someone and visit the ladies’ room. If you’re here when I get back, you’re here.” Her eyebrow arched high.

  He nodded.

  She walked away, but looked back and the man had his eyes on her ass—glued.

  When she came back from walking Jamie to her car and each smoking a separate joint, she found Pretty Boy waiting for her with a fresh drink. She drank her sweet drink and stared at the man awhile before they began to have a decent conversation. His earlier pretentious actions didn’t come through in his conversation, but… pretty quickly, Evita started to feel uneasy in her head. She might need some food in her stomach, she thought.

  She felt some numbness. Her mind went cloudy, and she lost her ability to speak clearly. Her eyes were open, but her body and mind were escaping somewhere outside of her control. With what little sense she had left, Evita knew she had been drugged. A silly grin graced her face, thinking, I was going to fuck him, but it looks like I’m fucked. Whatever this shit is, it won’t let me respond like I want to…Damn! How do I let PB know…he might not come by the house or call for a week or more. I’m not ready for this…it can’t be…help, I…I’m not ready for this . . .I need to call… Her mind went blank.

  Evita left the happy hour.

  Two impeccably dressed gentlemen helping a lady out of the door and to a car is what it looked like. It wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 8

  Aware Of Your Life

  Psalms Black

  Blue and red lights flash reflections in windows. Police position themselves in “I’m here on official business” stances near their vehicles in tactical locations to keep the uninvited public at a distance.

  I’m standing inside by the front doors of the East Seattle City University Performance Hall. Gabrielle is at the podium speaking about world affairs, tangling the truth for those who want things to sound a certain way when the reality is something else.

  I’m waiting for Velvet’s friend, Darcelle. Ms. Darcelle Day. She is a prominent Seattle lawyer who made poor choices in the court of love. Yeah, I said something made for a movie, but her choices in men have helped endanger her daughter and her career. Careers can be reconstructed or rearranged, but a child’s life—I have to step up.

  My phone vibrates and buzzes like the buzzer sound on Lockup Raw when a door is opening and an inmate is coming or going, always into potential death. I answer it.

  “Yeah, Q. No, leave tonight. Tylowe will fly out in the morning and join you by tomorrow afternoon. This will give you time to check the lay of the land. Yeah. He’ll meet you with the paperwork, and it looks good. Just keep in mind we don’t know if the mother is living, hiding, or what. We don’t know the whole story. We have no way of knowing if the Russian, Sasha Ivanov, has a bead on all this, but for sure, she cannot be too far behind.

  “I don’t have to ask, but you will have your federal gun carry permit with you? I know you’re not a virgin to any of this. I really wasn’t telling you what to do, crazy ass—you know where I’m coming from. Now don’t let Tylowe get hurt…right.” Suzie Q hangs up the phone, but not before telling me to kiss her little Canadian Rocky J Squirrel ass, as she always does.

  People mingle outside of the hall auditorium. Security. They see me, and want to call other security. I have on glasses that most believe are to hide my eyes, and they are, but they’re not tinted as much on my viewing side as someone might think. The glasses are multipurpose. An imbedded high-powered directional microphone is on each side. From thirty meters away, I can hear someone’s private conversation, and dial in by turning my head at angles. One of the tools of the Secret Service, FBI, and for sure the CIA—and one I use in my civilian work.

  I’m in a dark blue blazer, blue jeans, and blue suede shoes. My fashionable shoes, if I have to move fast, have rubber gripping pads on the ball of the foot area. The heels look hard, but they are rubber, and the tips are steel toe in case I have to kick some ass.

  It’s tux heaven in here. I don’t fit in, and I’m not trying to. Standing out is a way to see almost everything of significance around me. People not wanting to been seen by anyone will avoid looking at me, when all others look in my direction.

  The description I have of Ms. Darcelle Day lets me know that’s her walking up the stairs. She is short, maybe five feet tall and petite in a sense, but she has breasts clearly coming and an ass trailing. She has fine facial features, except for her lips. Even from a distance, I can see her thick lips infused in to a permanent puckering position. She walks as if she is self-assured—at least, that’s what her walk says.

  Ms. Day is one sexy lady. Small women, generally, don’t get a second look from me. Pretty and petite is cool, but I feel as if I might break a small woman just by the wind I make walking by. Ms. Darcelle Day walks as if she can handle herself. I block out the mental image of her changing a diaper on a man, and then having sex with the mental mutant MF.

  People we come in contact with daily, weekly, or once in a lifetime—we never know what goes on in their world behind closed doors. A serial killer can be the coworker you worked with for ten years or more. A sweet, giving female elementary teacher can be a molester of young boys. The little old lady at church could be an embezzler or money launderer. A soccer mom with the minivan might be a high-priced whore on the weekend to help pay for an overpriced-sub-division-cracker-jack-fake-looking- like-I-have-money-mini-mansion. A saintly acting man leading his church congregation to heaven might have ten married women in that church he is sexing up. Take a look at the next person you come in contact with, and ask yourself what lies beneath their skin.

  I open the door for Darcelle, and nod my head in the direction of the lounge area. We take seats at the end of the bar. “Thank you, Ms. Day, for meeting me here. I kind of needed to be over this way.”

  “I’m a little underdressed with most of the women here wearing sequined cocktail dresses. I see most the men here own more than one tux. Looks like I should have stopped over at Neiman Marcus and picked up a little black dress.”

  Her voice. She might give Velvet a run for the sultry award. Why did she have to say little dress? I’m smiling when I don’t want to.

  She smiles, and I listen to her voice do tricks to make her bigger than her outward persona. “Money is floating down from the Issaquah hills tonight, I see, and into the Bellevue city limits by way of Benzes and BMWs on Interstate 405.”

  I nod.

  “All this . . .Microsoft and other Seattle-based companies playing Northwest Wall Street games. Six and seven-figure salaries spawning like salmon, and dumped like thrown-out coffee grounds.”

  She shakes her head, and I nod again. The waiter brings us water, and she keeps talking.

  “Most of the folks sitting in the Performance Hall don’t know the poor they push into corners, away from their world and their gated communities. To soothe their souls, they make donations to other countries in hopes of curing ills, but ignore their own backyard garbage.”

  Darcelle is nervous. She wants to avoid the subject we must discuss. Her nervous tic is drinking water as if the water in Seattle will run out. I hear handclaps and hear Gabrielle over the outside hall speakers. She had said, “We must take care of home in order to help the world.”

  Ms. Day piggybacks on Gabrielle’s statement. “Yeah, to most that means more tax breaks and tax shelters, and more police protection for their neighborhoods. They want to give less money to inner-city schools while they have high school campuses that resemble a mini Penn State university; a place to hide their elitist crimes and ‘I-don’t-care-about-anyone-else-but-my-babies’ attitudes.’ ”

  I have to ask, “Do you have fixes or merely ethical political rants for votes? I’ve spent my life around elected officials; I’ve heard it all. All you said is true, but do you have fixes?”

  Darcelle lifts her head high and angled while her lips spread wide, smiling but not parting. “Velvet told me you weren’t to be messed with on any level. You cut
that fat in one slice.”

  She gulps another glass of water. I know she wants to avoid why she is here to meet with me, but I lay it out. “This place will be lively after the former Secretary of State, Ms. Brandywine, finishes with her speech. The few in here with us drinking now will change soon. The elbow rubbers who couldn’t afford the hundreds of dollars to buy tickets to be inside the hall for dinner and speeches bought tickets to the after-party. Let’s talk about why you are here.”

  “Okay, Mr. Black…Velvet saw the trouble I’m in and told me she knew someone who might help me. So, I ask. Please help my daughter and me. Conventional means—police and courts—will leave us in more trouble, costing more money, which will do nothing in the long run. I value my career and where it can go, but my daughter is the only thing that matters when the dust settles.”

  I nod.

  “My repulsive ex-husband and his foul mother…I don’t know how or what you do, and I may lose some sleep over it if I did know, but knowing my daughter is in a safe place, I’ll happily cry myself to sleep.”

  “Ms. Day, we will never discuss what I can do or what can happen unless I have something for you to do. Your little girl is all that matters. I’ll need to get more information. Mostly, where are these people, meaning where do they lay their heads and where do they go, and who do they know? I can find out on my own, but it will be quicker if you help.”

  Darcelle is looking at me with fear as she most likely is dreading what her mind is concluding.

  “Ms. Day…Ms. Day, focus on your daughter and do me one favor.”

  She takes a long draw of water, and swallows twice before her eyes seem to clear, and I have her attention again. “Mr. Black, could you call me Darcelle? It might feel less like I’m in something so deep.”

  “Okay, Darcelle.”

  “The favor you ask, sir?”

  “If you do become an elected official, do some good for the people and not yourself. Don’t talk to the public using semantics to confuse those of lesser understanding, even if it means you won’t be elected. If you’re elected to office, don’t do as other city officials have. Please stand up and do not allow the police to terrorize the common citizen. Do not represent the deep pockets who tear down necessary public housing and build new condos, and then make only ten percent available to the poor.”

  “Mr. Black, if I do become an elected official, I will be for the people. It does seem you have your own rants of moral righteousness.”

  “Not a campaign slogan to me, Ms. Day…Darcelle.” I want to smile but don’t. However, she does.

  “Sir, please right a wrong for me, and I’ll do what is right, no matter what the cost.”

  I nod, and she lets me know she is going to the restroom. In the time we’ve been talking, the waitperson has filled her water glass four times. Stress does unpleasant things to the body and kills brain cells the same as alcohol. She comes back, and I have other questions on another subject.

  “Darcelle, many have woke up and found the wrong person next to them, and tried to turn the nightmare in to a romantic dream come true. We’ll call it love trying to force it to work when it sure in the hell didn’t fit in all our squares and triangles.”

  “Squares and triangles, huh? I’ve been called an L7.”

  “Whatever you want to call it, love has not fit into your grooves.”

  “No,” she agrees. Her lips roll, smoothing lip gloss. Weak men would fall and worship Darcelle’s facial expressions, but she has little concept of her allure, or her concept has been destroyed.

  “Darcelle, I don’t know you, but you do whatever you think is best for you. Cool, but when I step in to do anything for anyone, I have something to say to that person about how they got to the point that they needed me. I don’t work for money or Atta-boy awards. I work for what is right.

  “I feel I have the right to play devil’s advocate in the hopes of helping you see the devil next time he tries to put a triangle in your square. I don’t know either of the men you have been married to, but it reads like each time, you were reaching for something to complete you or fill a void. Enlighten me, please.”

  “You have an answer for everything. They’re just not good ones when it comes to me. I didn’t think I would get judged, but it’s like this. As I see it, Mr. Black Man with those golden eyes and thick-cream-in-your-coffee skin, your appearance tells me you’ve had struggles at some point with someone. Your short hair doesn’t hide the mixed curls that would stand out if your hair was longer.

  “No matter how black you live, another black person, or white person, has insulted your mind and soul. I’m one hundred percent black—hell, I even had a DNA test to see what’s in me. No Native American as many blacks claim and no European blood flows in my blood. Do I understand what it means to be black? Hell no! I see mentally confused black people who were raised in all-black families, churches, and had the total black experience of an environment. I was raised in a totally white American world. My black skin and black hair, black ass, and black lips were loved by a white couple who loved me with all their heart, yet that seemed to make me dysfunctional.

  “When I say dysfunction, it’s not to mean I hate or hated my dark, black skin just because I never ate black-eyed peas and greens or did any other stereotypical black things. My dysfunction means there have been times when I’ve been confused on where I should be and where to go. On many levels and situations, love for a man has been confusing.”

  Darcelle’s voice has hurt and some anger. She drinks another full glass of water. We sit in silence for a long moment.

  I do know that my questions and statements, at times, can be harsh. I can tell she is a good woman, and I have made her feel guilty about her choices when she’s already hurting. I let my I-wanna-fix-the-world attitude cross the line.

  She is accurate to the personal attacks I’d dealt with as a mixed-race child. I don’t experience it as an adult, but light skin versus dark skin and all the in-between effects on black people are here to stay.

  How we as black people got to this internal conflict doesn’t matter. I know some people think if we all study how we got here, we’ll have some kind of Kumbaya awakening. Bullshit. Yet, I have no answers. I try to clean up the hurt I put on her.

  “Darcelle.” She takes five seconds to look at me. “Darcelle, love is all about confusion. We can meet a good person, but they could be ten years older or younger, and to them that could mean you’re not perfect enough for what they seek in life. We can meet a person who is attractive and loving, but their size is wrong for the activities or lifestyle we live. Maybe we meet someone with children, and we don’t want children, or shit, some people have families that are just too damn crazy to deal with. A person cannot trade their family like a used car.

  “How I worded what I said—I apologize. I know anyone can find themselves in a situation they had not intended.” The blue and red police lights reflect in the window. My heart and mind go back in time and visualize a dying, bleeding woman in my arms.

  I must have been lost in thought for a moment; Darcelle taps me on the arm. “Can I call you PB like Velvet tells me you go by?”

  “Yeah.”

  “PB, I make good money, and for some men that’s a problem. Maybe some women don’t make it easy for a man in that department. You know, just because a person doesn’t say something is a problem—harboring resentment is a death sentence to be handed out in any relationship. Being a lawyer, I have handled a few divorces. I had to stop handling them. The worst of ugliness can walk through the door seeking representation. I have represented men and women, and detested what they wanted to do to the other side. Men and women can be some fucked-up people, and I’ve had my moments.

  “PB, you’re puzzled about how I could have married a man who wore diapers, peed on me, and who fucks his mother. Everything you can think of…well, let the nastiest imaginable thoughts come to mind and it happened. I let him do it in the name of love, and to fit that old-school train
of thought that what goes on behind closed doors is behind closed doors. If you wonder if I liked it, it doesn’t matter. I did it, and I’m paying for it now, for loving unconditionally, although utterly foolishly.

  “So, Mr. Black, I need you! Help me, please. Yes, I have issues; yes, I do! Maybe, with that critical mental stick you carry around, you may be helping me see the devil next time, and I’ll keep the triangles and circles out of my square ass.

  “Maybe you should look at your own life, though. Not everyone can liberate themselves. Here is a thought, PB—while you’re saving or protecting everyone, think of the ones you don’t or cannot save. That should tell you that you’re not the answer. You’re a fix after the fact.”

  “Good point. I pray over that often, and all I can do is continue to pray. But Darcelle, you didn’t give me an answer to the one thing I needed to know despite your situation.”

  “And that is?”

  “Backbone. I needed to know, do you have a backbone? I needed to hear are you aware of your life, and life itself. If not, when I fix your problem, you’ll make the same mistakes again, and as you said, I cannot save everyone, especially if I have to save the same people over and over.

  “No matter how I put it to you or anyone else, they have to face their own hell and become stronger, not weaker. All shall rise to joy when after laying aside insecure emotions in thoughts and actions and by gaining faith in yourself, and first and foremost, in God. Neither man, nor woman, can steal one’s joy if we are leaping to new heights, or rewriting a failed history by staring into the face of the enemy. The enemy is the old self, which lacked faith in its own soul and relied on someone else’s. Excuse me if I seem to be preaching my point, but my grandfather had a Bible in his hand morning and noon, and a woman many nights, as he was studying. He shared his observations and analyses with me and I have found many to be true.”

  Darcelle stares at me and finishes another glass of water. Her eyes are watery. She slowly shifts the scope of her vision to the windows. The outside lights, in reds, blues, yellows, and greens, reflects in her watery eyes. They reflect arresting of the old. Dinner jazz volume goes up as conversation filters out of the Performance Hall. I don’t hear Gabrielle’s voice or any other speaker’s anymore. Darcelle Day and I finish our conversation with her giving me information I need.