Unzipped: An Urban Erotic Tale (29 page)

“You done, bitch,” Kevvie said, advancing on her like a big black nightmare. A switchblade glinted in his hand. “You done.”

Kevvie wasn’t just krazy. He was a psycho. The niggah was way off. Pearl looked into his eyes and saw her death waiting there.
She scooted backward even faster, then turned on her stomach and tried to climb to her feet.

“Help!” Pearl rasped, her voice not much more than a whisper. “Help!” she cried out again, and this time it came out a little louder as she got her footing and started staggering back toward the lobby as fast as she could.

B
ut that maniac was on her.

She had only taken three or four steps when he slammed into her from behind, knocking her through the air with brute force.

“Where the fuck you think you goin’? Huh? Where the fuck you goin’?”

Pearl crawled on her belly. All the wind had gone out of her and her back hurt so bad it felt like an eighteen-wheeler had hit her. Getting to the hotel’s lobby was the only chance she had of surviving Kevvie’s wrath, but Pearl doubted if she could make it that far.

Especially when she felt something wet trickling down her back. Pearl reached around with her right hand. She felt a warm dampness below her bra strap on her right side, and when she brought her hand to her face it was covered in bright red blood.

“Yeah! That’s right, ho!” Kevvie shrieked as he stomped down
the hall behind her. “I stuck you! I stuck you! Bleed slow, jawn! Bleed slow so Mookie can get a piece of ya ass!”

Pearl tried to climb to her feet, but that krazy niggah just wanted to play with her. Every time she made it up on her knees and crawled a few steps he would laugh and shriek and grab her ankle and snatch her back down to the floor again.

With blood running from her body and her face pressed into the carpet, Pearl thought about her father.

One day you’re gonna be proud of me, Daddy. One day I’m gonna make you proud
.

She knew that no matter what happened now, Irish really was proud of her. She had handled the family business. She’d taken down the scumlords who had decimated her family. She had exacted street justice for the Baines blood that had been spilled. She had gotten hers.

Daddy’s Pearl had gotten even.

Krazy Kevvie could be as psycho as he wanted to, but Pearl wasn’t going down without a fight. She pretended to crawl toward the lobby again, and this time when he grabbed hold of her ankle, Pearl kicked out sharply with her other foot, snapping it from a bent knee and cracking him square in the face.

Kevvie buckled. That niggah grabbed at the bone she’d popped in his nose with one hand, and reached over and capped Pearl in the face with the other.

“Bitch!” he screamed, then let go of his nose and released a flurry of furious blows that sent Pearl to the carpet for good. He beat her down like she was a niggah who owed him money, slamming his fists anywhere he could get them.

Through the haze of pain and punches Pearl heard several room doors open, then close quickly again, like whoever had peeked out knew better than to get involved in somebody else’s ass-kicking.

She managed to roll over and protect her face while giving Kevvie her knifed and bloody back as a target. His fists felt like hammers, and Pearl cried out in pain. She wished he would just stab her again so that death would come quickly. Pearl was preparing herself to leave this world and join her family in the next one when the blows suddenly stopped and she sensed something leap over her and slam into Kevvie.

It was Menace.

Once again he’d found her, and instead of helping her stuff dead bodies in air-conditioner vents, this time he was going toe to toe with Krazy Kevvie and fucking him up like a wild gorilla.

Menace moved with strength, grace, and speed.

He was a street fighter and a martial artist too. There was brute power and precision in his blows, and Kevvie went down to his knees as Menace snapped his wrist, breaking bone, then slammed the psycho’s face into his bended knee.

It was a mismatch and all three of them knew it. Pearl could only watch in relief as Menace broke Kevvie up in pieces. But when Kevvie tried to reach into his pocket, Pearl found the strength to call out.

“He’s got a knife!”

Life moved in slow motion as Menace reached back and slid a gat from his waistband. His arm came straight up as he aimed the tool at Kevvie’s head, then swung back and bitch-cracked him across the face with the chrome weapon, denting Kevvie’s skull and sending him down to the ground with a thud.

Quick as shit, Pearl scurried over to the downed man. Once again Menace had galloped in right on time, but Pearl had started this shit by herself and she was determined to finish it by herself too. Fighting the pain lancing her back, she grabbed Kevvie by his chin and the top of his head. With one swift motion she twisted sharply, breaking his neck.

Long seconds passed in silence, and it wasn’t until they heard another room door open then quickly slam shut, did either one of them move.

“Owww …” Pearl moaned as she tried to stand up.

“Damn, girl,” Menace said as he ran over and cradled her in his arms. “You slumped him, baby. Straight slumped him! Yo! I told you to stay ya ass at my crib! You so damn hardheaded, Pearl!”

She frowned up at him for a moment, then smiled as he kissed her forehead, her nose, and then finally, her lips.

“Goddamn, your head is hard!”

Pearl winced as he helped her to her feet.

“Lemme carry you,” Menace said, and lifted her easily in his big, muscular arms. He held her like she was no more than baby weight as he hurried toward the front lobby where his whip waited at the curb. “Just relax. I’ma get you to the hospital, baby girl. I got you.”

But Pearl couldn’t relax. Precious minutes had passed since Kevvie had jumped her, and it wouldn’t be long before Mookie’s entire penthouse suite was up in flames.

Menace’s route out of the hotel took them in the opposite direction from where Pearl had been heading. He carried her past a restaurant and the indoor pool where families were lounging on deck chairs and children were splashing and playing in water that was so full of chlorine it stung her nose. A few passersby glanced curiously at Menace as he carried a full-grown woman in his arms, but after one look at his killer face, none dared stare too long.

Pearl lay weakly in his arms as he hurried past the indoor swimming pool. The sound of laughing children met her ears, a sound that she would never again hear without reliving the pain of her loss.

But nobody else should have to feel that pain.

Pearl knew it was already too late for Mookie. By the time they found him he’d be good and crunchy. Burnt to a crisp.

But every precious child on every floor in that hotel deserved to live a beautiful life.

“Hold up,” she demanded, squeezing Menace’s shoulder to make him stop. “Go that way, baby,” Pearl said, nodding toward a small corridor that was right near the pool.

“Yo, my car is in the front, Pearl. I gotta get you to a hospital, baby.”

But Pearl knew what she had to do, and it was no less important than everything else she had already done.

“Please! Go that way!” she insisted, struggling to get out of his arms.

Menace looked into her eyes and saw something that made him comply. He turned down the small corridor as she’d demanded, and he hadn’t gone very far when Pearl saw what she was looking for.

A small red plaque mounted on the wall read:
IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK GLASS
.

With thoughts of happy little girls on her mind, Pearl smiled as Menace lowered her gently to her feet and watched as she broke the glass.

And two seconds after the alarm was pulled, the man she loved gathered her up in his big strong arms again and they broke the hell out.

I
t was hard for Pearl to believe that a whole month had passed since she’d taken down Mookie’s crew, but the days had flown past before her eyes. She had chilled with Menace in Midtown for two weeks, resting and healing in his phat little crib, and thinking about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. They’d gone to the morgue together and claimed Diamond’s remains, then had a small ceremony at a funeral home in Midtown, where they had her body cremated and her ashes placed in a beautiful, diamond-studded urn.

At Pearl’s request, Menace had accompanied her to the cemetery. They stood quietly before the small plot where the rest of her family was buried and Pearl talked to God and confessed her hopes that her people hadn’t suffered too badly, and offered her prayers that they were in a better place.

“Love doesn’t die, Pearl,” Menace told her gently as she cried.
Pearl knew he was remembering his mother, who he’d lost so long ago and at a very tender and vulnerable age. “It never dies. They can still feel us, just like we can feel them,” he said as he kissed her forehead and wiped away her tears.

Pearl snuggled closer to him as she gazed over her shoulder at the grave that held the bodies of her family members. She knew then that Menace spoke the truth because she actually felt her father’s love in Menace’s protective embrace. There was no doubt that Irish had raised his young pup to be the kind of man that Pearl could trust with her love and with her life.

Just being in the presence of so much death drove home the reality of the tragedy, but Pearl managed to hold herself together much better than the last time she was there. The pain of her loss was still immeasurable, and the urge to be with her family still persisted, but she was getting stronger each day and better able to deal with her grief.

That didn’t mean she had gotten over the ache of their murders, though. Pearl still had some really bad episodes where the reality of how she had come so thoroughly unzipped and of what she had done to avenge their murders came down on her. Sometimes it hit her so hard she got sick.

During these dark moments Pearl reminded herself that it was Mookie Murdock, not her, who had brought destruction down on all of them. Mookie Murdock had started it. Pearl had only finished it. But it still hurt. She reminded herself that it was okay to miss her daughter and to grieve about not being there with her more while she was alive, but Pearl also acknowledged that even from a distance she had built a wonderful relationship with her baby girl. There had been nothing selfish about leaving Harlem to establish a better life for herself and her child. Her parents had wanted her to leave. They had encouraged her to go as far as she
could in her career, and they were proud that one of their daughters had escaped the brutal streets and become progressive and accomplished in life.

And it wasn’t like she had abandoned Sasha or left her with just anybody, Pearl reminded herself. She had left her baby in the most capable hands in the world, hands that were far more capable than her own. Irish and Zeta had given Sasha and Chante all the love they could have ever wanted in their short lives, and Pearl knew that even if she had stayed put right there at home, she couldn’t have loved her daughter any better than that.

But she
had
loved her daughter. Loved her more than she loved her own life. Sasha had been happy, indulged, and surrounded with affection. There was no way Pearl was gonna let Mookie Murdock and the terror of what he’d done rob her of those beautiful memories. She was working toward putting the blame for her daughter’s death squarely where it belonged—on the treacherous crew who had killed her. Instead of bearing their burden, Pearl was slowly letting go of the guilt and pain that allowed Mookie and his boyz to continue wielding power over her from the grave. Instead of covering her ears from the phantom sound of her daughter’s cries, Pearl was learning to embrace the memories of her family’s special love. She was paying tribute to them by living a life that would make each of them proud.

And there was something else Pearl was doing that she knew would have made her parents proud. There had been a few things that she just couldn’t shake from her heart and mind, and Pearl had made quite a few trips back downtown to the Sunset Motel to see what she could do about that.