Zero Ave 1998: Chapter Forty Two- Flashing Lights
(This chapter is part of a series. Click here to read chapter forty one.)
“Miss? Are you ok?” the man calls out to the hysterical woman through his open passenger side window.
Jada stares back at him through bloodshot eyes. It’s a setting she’s familiar with; a car creeping slowly alongside her while the driver inside pitches a business proposition.
“Please leave me alone,” she whimpers, speaking more to the unpleasant reminder of who she is than the concerned citizen checking on her wellbeing.
The car speeds away and Jada clenches her fist around the stacks of cash in her hand. Her head is spinning from the combination of sunlight and vertigo while anguish cracks and peels away pieces of her heart. She knew someday she would have to confront some hard truths with her son, but not like this. There’s no coming back from this.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The pounding on Steve’s door causes him to awaken from a nap and sit up on the couch. He rubs his eyes and listens again for the banging, unsure if he had dreamed it or not.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
‘That’s a cop,’ he thinks to himself, leaping to his feet and peeking out of the balcony window to the driveway. He assumed he would be receiving a visit from a detective since the previous detective who was investigating him wound up with a bullet in his head.
The wooden stairs creak beneath his feet when he descends to the front door. He didn’t spot a police cruiser in the driveway and can only assume they parked down the street so as to not prompt him to run. But this time around he’s confident speaking with police since he truly doesn’t know anything.
“I can’t take this,” Jada says before Steve can open the door all the way.
Steve looks back at her startled. He had no idea she knew where he lived.
“Huh?” he reacts, confused.
“The money,” she sniffles, the handful of cash outstretched toward her admirer. “I don’t want it.”
“No, I want you to have it,” Steve explains, his mind still trying to wrap itself around Jada’s surprise visit.
Jada steps forward and forcefully pushes the cash into Steve’s chest.
“I told you I don’t fucking want it,” she seethes as tears fill her eyes again and her chin begins to quiver. “I don’t want to owe you anything. You can’t fucking buy me. Nobody can buy me anymore.”
Another rush of emotion causes Jada to breakdown while Steve stands in the doorway perplexed.
“Whoa, whoa,” he says, reaching out to grab Jada’s forearm. “Come inside. Please, just come in.”
Jada reluctantly steps into the entranceway, sobbing uncontrollably. She has nowhere else to go.
“What’s going on?” Steve asks, closing the door behind Jada.
“I’m tired of being a fuck toy,” Jada growls through her tears. “I’m sick of men thinking I’m just a fucking hole to dump all of their bullshit in.”
Unsure of what to do, Steve instinctively wraps Jada in a tight hug and she weeps into his chest.
“I don’t think that about you,” he says softly. “I wanted you to have the money because I know things have been tough for you and Richie.”
The mention of her son causes Jada to cry harder; their relationship irreparably damaged by her own actions. Steve holds her in silence while she sobs and his embrace feels comforting, like a blanket protecting her from the cruelty of the world.
“Come on,” Steve calmly insists. “Come upstairs and talk about it.”
Steve helps Jada up the steps and they sit on the couch, where Jada curls up next to him and rests her head on his chest. Strangely, the intimate gesture feels natural to both of them and Jada takes Steve’s hand, wrapping it around her torso.
“So what happened?” Steve queries when Jada’s cries begin to subside.
“This guy. He offered me a thousand dollars for an hour,” Jada reveals before the tears return. “I’m so fucking stupid… They took pictures of me and gave them to Richie… I didn’t know they went to his school. I swear to god… I was desperate. I had to do it.”
Jealousy blooms in Steve’s stomach and he grits his teeth to suppress the confusing emotion. He has no reason to be angry- they’ve never even discussed the prospect of an exclusive relationship. Perhaps it’s knowing that while he was drunkenly fantasizing about a potential future with her, she was fucking another man in a dark hotel room.
“I’m done,” Jada declares. “I’m finished with that shit forever.”
Steve takes a deep breath and exhales. Jada’s declaration brings a bit of relief to the resent twisting inside of him, even if he doesn’t fully believe her.
Then, as if by some magical ability to turn her emotions off, Jada sucks up her sadness and moves onto another subject- the shame of her vulnerability overpowering her despair.
“How was your trip?”
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Steve tells her.
“Do what?” Jada responds, wiping her eyes.
“Turn it off. It’s ok to cry,” Steve says.
“No, I actually wanna know,” Jada assures him through a forced smile. “How was it?”
“Well… It was, um… It was alright,” Steve sighs. “James is gonna put me on the north side. I’ll still be living here but I’ll be there a lot. I have no clue why he’s sending me out there.”
“You’ll do great,” Jada says, pushing her smooth fingers through his. “Did you hear about the girl?”
The jealousy dissipates and turns into butterflies while Jada rubs her fingers between his.
“No,” he says, bracing for more bad news. “What girl?”
“They found some girl in a creek on the west side,” Jada tells him. “It just reminded me of Candice.”
“Candice?” Steve asks.
“Yeah,” Jada replies, turning onto her back and resting her head on Steve’s lap. “She was my best friend. We were close… Like sisters. We did everything together. When she got pregnant, I got pregnant a few months later- totally unplanned. It was just, like, fate.”
Jada pauses while she sifts through painful memories before continuing, “She started dating this cop after her son was born. He was so much older, I don’t know what she saw in him… He was an alcoholic. He’d push her around and beat her up when he got drunk. Then one morning she was found dead in a park. I know it was him. Everybody loved her, nobody would want to hurt her like that.”
“Did the cop go to jail?” Steve questions, already knowing the answer.
“Fuck no,” Jada scoffs at the idea of a cop being convicted of a crime. “They said she was a prostitute, you know, got picked up by the wrong john or whatever. But that’s bullshit. That was the only thing she never did with me. She wasn’t like that.”
Jada’s eyes flicker back and forth while her mind skips through the darkest period in her life.
“And now all these years later our sons are best friends,” she says. “If that isn’t fate, I don’t know what is.”
“Richie!” Kevin shouts from the grass below Richie’s bedroom window after numerous unanswered knocks on the front door. “Come downstairs! We know you’re in there!”
Derek and Kevin stare up at the window waiting for a response, blood still caked around Derek’s mouth and staining his t-shirt.
“Derek’s covered in blood, dude! We need to get off the street!” Kevin shouts again at the empty window. “The cops are looking for us!”
Richie’s head pops through the open frame, curious to see if Kevin’s telling the truth.
“Look!” Kevin yells, pointing at Derek who’s holding his shirt out so Richie can see the damage. “Come downstairs!”
The door unlocks and Richie steps onto the front steps where Kevin and Derek are waiting. His eyes are red and swollen from the hours spent crying in his bedroom.
“What the fuck happened?” he asks while his eyes carefully examine Derek.
“Dude, you should’ve seen it,” Kevin begins to illustrate. “There was blood everywhere. Derek beat the shit out of Chad so badly he had a fucking seizure. Broke every bone in his face.”
Richie’s eyes widen before asking Derek, “Is that all his blood?”
Derek looks down at his shirt, his mind fully registering the outcome of his savagery for the first time.
“Mostly his… A bit of mine,” he explains. “Went home and ran into my dad.”
“Fuck,” Richie mutters, exasperated. “You know they’re gonna kick you off the wrestling team, right?”
“I don’t think they’re gonna let me back in school,” Derek answers.
“So where are you gonna go?” Richie questions, knowing Derek’s entire life was just flipped upside down on his behalf.
“I don’t know,” Derek replies. “I haven’t thought about it yet.”
“You can stay with us,” Richie offers immediately, quietly excited about the prospect of living with one of his best friends.
“You think your mom would be ok with me staying a few nights until I can figure something out?” Derek asks, hesitant to commit beyond a week of living in their chaotic household.
“Right now, she’ll do whatever I tell her to do,” Richie assures him. “When she finds out what you did she’s gonna adopt you.”
Suddenly the conversation is cut short when blue and red lights flash against the wooden exterior of the building. Kevin and Derek look back as 2 patrol cars come to a stop in the parking lot and officers step out onto the pavement.
“Derek Baisley?” an officer calls out to the bloody teenager staring back at him.
“Guess I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit,” Derek remarks before slowly stepping down the stairs toward the officers.
Kevin and Richie watch when an officer grabs Derek by the arm and cuffs his hands together before searching him.
“You have anything that’s gonna poke me?” the officer asks him.
“No sir,” Derek answers calmly while the officer shoves his hands into his pockets.
In this moment Kevin realizes the feeling of inevitable change that began just a few weeks ago had nothing to do with a foiled drug running attempt or his introduction to a crime lord, in fact, it had nothing to do with him at all. He was sensing the end of innocence in the lives of his 2 best friends; a shift from childhood into something not quite mature enough to be classified as adulthood, but complicated enough to force them all into an evolution of sorts. The Derek and Richie of old had been baptized by fire, and only time would tell what versions of them would emerge on the other side.
The garage door closes and Bobby exits his SUV with a large black duffel bag in his hand. His exhausted fingers twitch as he punches in the security code on the entrance to the house; a thick steel reinforced door inside of a sturdy walnut shell.
Beep Beep. Beep Beep. Beep Beep.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he grumbles at the sound notifying him of the incorrect code. The codes on the front, back and garage entrances are all different and he always gets them confused. He’s only allowed 4 chances to input the codes before they lock the steel doors permanently and a call to a locksmith is required.
Beep.
A solemn beep of approval rings out after his second try and the steel bolt retracts into the door.
Bobby steps into the ground level of the 4 story townhouse and turns on the lights. He grunts as he traverses the stairs to the top floor, his knees aching with every step. After years of hard living his joints have ground down to the bone and his ligaments are like worn elastic bands barely holding them together. Years ago he was told that he would require extensive surgeries to repair his deteriorating body, but time would never allow him to be off his feet that long. Instead, he opted to medicate with painkillers and alcohol- a combination that slowly lost its effectiveness as the decades wore on.
The townhouse is furnished with black leather couches and thick wooden tables; each room meticulously decorated in a fashion one wouldn’t expect a barbarian like Bobby to appreciate. For all intents and purposes this is his home, but it didn’t start out that way. Hidden within a cookie cutter neighborhood on the west side of the city, this property was purchased by James and registered to an offshore numbered company under his lawyer’s name. It’s the only property he owns that he has taken careful steps to conceal from both law enforcement and public knowledge. Bobby moved in when the paranoia that somebody would discover its whereabouts contributed to a string of sleepless nights.
The doors slide open revealing a vault fitted to the exact measurements of the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, held in place by steel beams built into the floor beneath it and held up by vertical beams in the room below.
1–8–1–1.
Beep.
The first steel bolt in the vault door retracts.
7–24–17.
The second steel bolt retracts after Bobby spins the combination lock, metal pins clicking together with every turn.
The sound of the metal door opening echoes inside of the vault. Bobby tosses the duffel bag inside, too tired to empty its contents and record the value in his ledger. This vault is the key to James’ organization; affectionately referred to as The Bank, it contains nearly all of his liquid cash and can hold anywhere from 3 to upwards of 100 million dollars on any given day. This is where the majority of the proceeds from his operation are held- cash waiting to either be distributed or laundered through his businesses. Much like The Mine, The Bank is a closely guarded secret and Bobby is the only person outside of James who is aware of its existence. Not even Giorgio is privy to such sensitive information. The current total inside of The Bank: $21.6 million.
Bobby steps back and sits on the bed facing the open steel door. He glares inside at the stacks of cash as if he were standing on a beach observing an oncoming tsunami. For over 20 years he followed James blindly, administering cruel punishments when instructed and carrying out intricate smuggling operations that would confuse even the most experienced CIA agents. He was the muscle that forcefully tossed the opposition aside and stood behind James as he weaved his way into the criminal underworld until he became its only authority.
But now the tides are changing and Bobby can see the tidal wave rolling toward him. The shooting at the bar was never intended to be retribution for Vince; it was a feeler to see what the response would be, and nobody would dare challenge James in such a way unless they had the firepower to back it up. The meeting with Dustin was a misdirection; he was to tell James he was taking the north side in order to nudge him into shooting first so they could locate and eliminate his biggest weapons. They were trying to lure him into a trap.
The deal with Dustin is nothing new- James had cut deals with enemies before. But this time it was different. This adversary is nowhere near intelligent or honorable enough to uphold his end of the bargain. By empowering Dustin, James is strengthening the very people who have waited years for the chance to bury him in the hope that maybe they’ll be grateful for the small bone he’s throwing them while he digs into the third of a four course meal. But Bobby knows better. They would only accept James’ scraps if they knew eventually they would take his seat at the table.
Never has Bobby so vehemently disagreed with James, and for the first time in his life he’s genuinely afraid. He knows when karma sets its eyes on him he will be met without mercy. As much as the north side wants to annihilate James, they’ll take greater pleasure in disemboweling Bobby. It’s only right that his own entrails be spilled into the river of blood flowing beneath him, after all.
‘It would be so easy to take the money and run,’ he thinks to himself. He knows James’ blind spots and could discretely retire to a small island in the South Pacific with enough money to last him 5 lifetimes. He could live quietly near the ocean under the sun and palm trees; a future he has often envisioned for himself late at night in the space between sleep and consciousness.
But running isn’t an option. And if Bobby is going to survive, James has to go.
