My Thug Got A Rider (9 page)

“Ms. Woods we would just like to ask a few questions. Please note that everything is being recorded.” I watched as an episode unfolded in front of me in real life.

“Do you have any questions before we get started?” The tall Hispanic man asked from the two-way mirror. I frowned up my face at him. There was something about him that I didn’t like or trust.

“No.”

“For the record would you please state your name?” the short, bald black officer asked me from across the table.

“Ashanti Renee Woods.” I wanted to keep my answers short, sweet and to the point.

“How old are you, Ashanti?” the bald man identified as Officer Roosevelt asked as he scribbled in his legal notepad.

“I’m eighteen years old.”

Finally, the other officer, Gonzales, walked over and sat down on the edge of the table, letting it all out. “Ms. Woods, can you tell us where you were on the night of March 21, 2015 at around 1:45am?” He asked. I left the club around 12:15am, that morning so I knew I had nothing to worry about.

“At the Westin Hotel.”

Again, Officer Roosevelt scribbled, looking tired. “Can you tell us who this young lady is?” He pulled out the same picture of the mangled corpse, causing my stomach to turn.

“Alexiana Marie Suarez.” I held back the incessant watering in my mouth, urging me to vomit. He took the picture away.

“How would you describe your relationship with Ms. Suarez?” How could I say that I hated her, but not enough to kill her? Was there a right way to say we fought every day and I slit her jaw, but I never wanted her to die? How effective was it to cry big crocodile tears, but mean everything I was saying? Lexi was young and wild but out there. Not to mention pregnant but as much as I hated her, I really couldn’t see anyone killing her. Beating her ass, yes. Killing her, that was a bit much.

“We weren’t the best of friends.” I admitted, hating myself for saying that on record.

“Do you have a receipt for your overnight stay at the Westin?” I had put all my belongings on a conveyor belt to go through the metal detector so I had no way of showing him my texts from my bank, confirming my card transaction. “Check with the hotel. My bank card and my name should show up in their reservations.” I wondered how cold I looked to them with my hair all over my head and my face showing no emotions. “Is that all?” I finally felt the need to ask some questions for myself.

“Yes. That’ll be all Ms. Woods. You’re free to go.” I hurried up and got up from the dingy room and all but ran out the door. I rode in the squad car so I didn’t have a ride home. I called Shauna and she answered on the third ring.

“Hey babe, what’s up?” She sounded out of breath and I was almost scared to ask her, what she was doing.

“Where are you at?”

“Still in cold ass Colorado. Daddy wanted me to come with him for the weekend and I finally introduced him to Ma. We’re all here, sledding and shit in the mountains. What’s up though? Are you okay?” Damn. I forgot all about their mini vacation.

“I’m at the police station. They were asking me questions about Lexi.”

“Wait. What kind of questions?”

“Lexi’s dead.” I couldn’t find a better way to say it, so I just came out with it. Shauna got quiet. “They think that you did it, don’t they?”

“Yeah, even Ms. B. hugged me and said she was sorry that they were taking me in for questioning. Since they couldn’t hold me they just asked me a bunch of questions.”

“Damn. Well, did you at least drive? I mean, if you don’t want to go home, you can stay at my place. You got your spare key, don’t you?” I reached in the bottom of my purse. No key. That meant it must’ve still been in my glove compartment from the night of her party.

“No, I’m about to call Kenyon. I’ll call you back later.” I hung up with Shauna and scrolled past Kenyon’s number, stopped, then scrolled past again and decided to call. No answer. I tried two more times before I finally left a voicemail. “Hey, it’s me, Ashanti. I wanted to know if you could come get me. I really need you right now.” I couldn’t help but get super emotional having never said those words before. My choices were so few. Either go home, where I was without a doubt going to be labeled a killer or go out and spend the day with a possible killer. If he didn’t answer his phone or call me back, I was going to walk home.

Kenyon

I had been running behind all day because of Tae. I don’t know what that nigga has been on lately, but if he didn’t get his shit together he was going to get his ass beat. The only reason I hadn't capped his punk ass was because he was my top money-maker. He told me that he was on his way to re-up and that he’d be there in a few hours. I filled most of my client’s needs while I was on that side of town and waited for exactly three hours before my phone died and I bounced. I made sure to send Ashanti a text and ask her to let me pick her up for our date tonight, but she didn’t answer. She had hung up on me earlier because she heard me arguing with Tae about him being on the same side of town, yet he had niggas hitting me up asking for nickels and dimes. I don’t know what the fuck they thought. I really lost it when some dirty ass Slim Shady looking nigga walked up to my car window. I loaded the clip and pointed it at him through the window while I rolled it down real smooth. You would’ve thought ‘ol boy had seen a ghost.

“What the fuck do you want?” My gun was still pointed at the center of his forehead.

“I-I-I was coming to see if you had some blow, man. T-T-Tae told me I could find you here. Please don’t kill me.”

Tae? That nigga had to be out his mothafuckin’ body, sending niggas up to my car. If he had the shit, and he swears he’s selling it but if he has niggas asking me for it, who the hell was he selling it to? My number one rule was no new customers. When I put the gun down I looked homeboy dead in his scary ass eyes. “Get the fuck out my got damn window! I don’t know a nigga name Tae.” I had shit to do and he was in my way. Riding down West 10
th
street, I didn’t know if it was fate or if the drop I needed to make was just in the right place at the right time, but I could’ve sworn I had just seen Ashanti walking down the street looking messed up. I made a wide illegal U-turn in the middle of the empty street. It was definitely her.  She was still fine as hell, but I knew she was having a bad day. I pulled up on her real slow to mess with her. Her mean ass kept walking, but I guess she couldn’t see me through the tints.

***

Ashanti

I walked nearly half a mile before an all-white 2015 dodge charger pulled up beside me. The windows were tinted so I kept walking. I hated when niggas did that lame shit. Especially when they rolled the windows down and are busted as fuck. “Excuse me Shorty. What are you doing in my neck of the woods? Shouldn’t you be at home getting ready for our date tonight?”

I turned my head around so hard I thought I was going to snap my neck. “Who the fu--” I realized I didn’t recognize the voice when I saw Kenyon smiling from the driver’s seat.

“Are you going to get in or get me a ticket for driving too slow?” He parked the car beside me and waited until I made up my mind. I walked around the car and got in. It was nice and plush on the inside. The red velvet material gave it a modern, yet vintage look. I was feeling it and I wanted him to press on the gas so that I could feel the horses under the hood. Having a fascination with fast cars, something told me the one I was sitting in could do some damage on an empty freeway.

“New car?” I asked, looking at the tag on his keys.

“Naw, I just had to get a paint job. Smell new?” I wondered what he needed a paint job for and if it had anything to do with hiding from the police. “Why you out here walking this late? I can tell you not from this side of the tracks. Don’t you drive?”  I didn’t know how to answer that so I just nodded. I wanted to tell him if he had answered his damn phone, he would’ve seen me calling him but it was getting dark and much colder outside. “You didn’t answer my first question. Did you even get my text about our date?” I looked over at the thugged out nigga across from me. I didn’t get not one text about a date. Maybe he was trying to be smooth. My phone buzzed in my pocket, letting me know it needed to be charged.  I looked at it and smiled. His text was there, waiting on me to read it. I figured he must’ve sent that while I was on the phone with Shauna. “That your nigga calling you? Tell him we’re busy.” Kenyon glanced over at me. Arrogance could only be so sexy, and in his case, it was.

“Nah, my phone is dying. I haven’t heard yours go off yet. Did you turn it off so your girl couldn’t blow you up?” I was playing the hell out of him, knowing she wouldn’t be calling or checking up on him ever again.

“I need to talk to you about that. Later though.” We pulled to a stop in front of some abandoned house.

“Wow. This is your idea of a first date?” The streets were lined with paper, plastic bottles, and disposable syringes that held God knows what. I was so uncomfortable with kids walking by the car, admiring it with no shoes on their feet, dirty clothes on and nappy-looking hair. Most of their noses were running and they were walking around wiping snot on their sleeves. I had been all through Indianapolis from being at all the different foster homes, but never had I been in the ghetto like I was now. Every other house was abandoned or looked so bad it was on the verge of it. A tall, bald man who looked to be about 60 years old stood on the porch of the house we were parked in front of, as if he was waiting on Kenyon to get out of the car.

“Chill, lock the doors if you’re that scared and no, give me a little bit more credit than that. I can be a gentleman and shit.” I laughed to myself. The only way I’d perceive him as a gentleman is if every sentence he spoke didn’t end with ‘and shit’. “I need to drop this thang off and I’ll be right back. He bent over me and opened the glove compartment, pulling out a .40 caliber glock. My mouth dropped open. It looked exactly like the one I held in my dream. Shit was getting too freaky for me. I watched in silence as Kenyon grabbed two small bags of weed and what I assumed was cocaine from a hidden compartment under the cup holders. “Be right back. Don’t get out of the car.” He locked the door behind him and disappeared into the house. Whether I was more upset at the fact that he brought me on a run with him or that he left me in the car by myself, I wasn’t sure.

It took longer than I expected for Kenyon to come back out of the house and when he did, I was more than ready to go. My stomach was growling and I was drained.

“Is this where you used to stay?” I looked around as he pulled off through another alley. The people on the next block looked more like Kenyon, dressed in Roc jeans and Levi’s with long dreadlocks and hats pulled low on their foreheads.

“This is where I stay now.” My eyebrows shot up. Niggas like him, with the money, the cars and the clothes, usually tried living above their means with three and four story homes that were practically empty. I was shocked that he still lived in the hood. “I stay here to handle business and take care of my people. When I eat, we all eat. Real niggas don’t go live it up while their people are still struggling. I don’t give a fuck how much money we got.” Damn. That was some of the realest shit I had ever heard.

“Does your family still live here? Like your mama and your daddy?” I looked out the window as we pulled up to one of the biggest houses in the neighborhood. It wasn’t anything fancy on the outside. “Nah. My Mama was a dope fiend and Pops was the one who gave it to her, he got busted in ‘07 and I been without them since. I see Moms from time to time.”

“She comes and goes, huh?”

“Nah. She passed a year or two after my Pops got put in the joint. I still go see her and talk to her at the cemetery. My aunt took me in for a while, but my way of life didn’t fit in with hers, just the money. Eventually I got tired of having to break bread and being chastised for the way that I made it. So I just started running the streets.” He lost his parents around the same time I had lost mine, but I was sure he was a bit older than me, not that it prepares you more, and I imagine it still hurt the same.

“How old were you when you lost your mom?” He cut the engine and we sat there in the car talking.

“I had to be about twelve. What about you? Where your folks from? I haven’t heard a peep out of you except to play twenty-one questions with me.” I laughed uncomfortably and shifted in my seat. I didn’t want to cry in front of this man, who didn’t even look bothered talking about his situation. I didn’t want to look weak and I certainly didn’t want his sympathy. Or maybe I did, but I couldn’t tell what I was feeling or what I wanted from him. “Ah, shit. Did I hit a nerve? If I did, we don’t have to talk about it.” He looked over at me with those brown eyes and aside from his permanent scowl, I saw some sincerity.

“They were both killed in front of me when I was six years old,” I let it all out in one breath, catching Kenyon off guard.

“Damn baby, I’m sorry you had to go through that. That shit isn’t easy no matter how old you get.” We sat in silence for what seemed like forever.

“Y’all gonna get out of the car or am I interrupting something?” A young brown skinned girl, who favored Meagan Good, came to Kenyon’s window. “What’s up cuz? Who is she? She’s cute.” The girl waved at me and I nodded. I didn’t have anything against females who liked females, but I didn’t play that shit when it got directed at me.

“Sevyn, you can’t be flirting with my girl, now. This is Ashanti. Ashanti this is my little cousin, Sevyn.” My girl? I was flattered. I waved at her this time.

“What’s up Ashanti?” Kenyon stepped out of the car and came around to my side and let me out. I guess he could be a gentleman when he wanted to.

“So, this is our first date?” I know, I was going to get on his nerves asking the same question over and over again.

“I don’t think so. I need to go shower and change clothes.” I followed him up the steps of the front porch and through the door, into the large foyer.

“Damn. You’re doing it big, huh?”  There were two big leather sectionals facing the mounted plasma screen TV. The crystal chandeliers hung in both rooms that were separated by only a short wall. African sculptures decorated the full walls along with paintings in nudes, brown and black. I was impressed. He couldn’t have been the one to put all of that together. His home had a feminine touch.

“This isn’t nothing. I’m never even here. I stay at my other spot most of the time. My cousin and her moms live here.” So, that’s who set it up. I made a mental note to explore the rest of the house. “I’m about to go take a shower, you can wait down here on the couch or you can come upstairs with me and wait in my room.” He licked his lips when he said it. I felt a thump between my thighs and instantly declined. I don’t know why he made me so nervous.

“I’ll wait down here.”

He brushed past me and grabbed the remote control off the glass coffee table saying, “Cool. I’ll leave it on cartoons for you, since you’re being childish.”

I mugged him. “I’m not being childish, just careful.” 

His laugh was just as deep as his voice. “I should be being careful of you. Playing twenty-one questions investigator and shit. How do I know you’re not working with the feds?” He was clearly playing, but something told me he had his suspicions about me too. I knew he was feeling me, but I knew what it was like to have a wall up. I rolled my eyes and flopped down on the couch. “I’ll be right back.” He took two steps at a time, loudly stomping up the stairs.

***

Kenyon

When I finally checked my phone, I realized I had hella missed calls and text messages. All of them were from Geno. His texts said to call him as soon as I woke up. Shit, it was 5:30 pm already and my phone had been on the charger all day. The burner or ‘Obama phone’ I had with me stayed buzzing the whole time. Most of the calls were from customers. I had no missed calls or unread messages on that one besides from Tae, asking to re-up.  I had been ignoring his bipolar ass lately and I was on the verge of replying to his messages and cussing him out for not handling his business. I tried calling Geno back one last time before I hopped in the shower, but I got his voicemail again. Maybe he and his girlfriend were back together, but I doubt that’s what he wanted to talk about. Whatever it was sounded important, so I sent him a text and told him to get back at me when he had the time. Walking back to the bathroom, I listened for Ashanti and when I didn’t hear anything, I assumed she was sleep. She would’ve looked better lying in my bed, but she was still acting scary. When she told me in so many words that she couldn’t trust me, I knew why. Shauna had already put me up on game and told me that Ashanti knew about TaNeeka. Apparently, she had overheard me and Carter talking about getting rid of her. By bringing her up to me, she was trying to get me to say something. I wanted to talk to her and tell her all about it, but I needed her undivided attention.

***

Ashanti

I watched the cartoon on TV for about five minutes before I fell into a restless sleep.

“Aye, wake up, wake up.” Kenyon’s cousin, Sevyn shook me. I opened my eyes in a dazed confusion.

“Huh? Where am I? What happened?” I didn’t remember anything that I had just been dreaming about.

“You said something about TaNeeka. You knew her?” Sevyn looked at me wide eyed. She was too close for one and for two, she still had her hand on my shoulder.

“Who?” I played dumb.

“Kenyon’s ex-girlfriend. They broke up about three weeks ago and a few weeks ago they found her on 38
th
and Georgetown with two bullets in her head. She was a sneaky bitch and I really didn’t like her, but I didn’t want to see her dead. Know what I mean?” I knew exactly what she meant because that’s exactly how I felt about Lexi, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.