Expired Page 10

  Unadulterated hatred coursed through his veins at the sight of Me. He threw the ball at him. He only tolerated Me because they were bonded in a higher calling, but he found him to be an extremely disturbing individual.

  The man walked around chatting with the spirits of his dead victims. Hell, once they were dead, they were dead. Me was downright creepy. And he was out of his territory.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Me ignored his question, asking his own. “How come you’re not doing your job?”

  He laughed. He had a lot of damned nerve. “This ain’t Jersey. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re on New York soil. More specifically, you’re on the promised land, Harlem. That means you’re out of bounds and on my turf.”

  “We have to collect the gifts,” Me said.

  “I’m collecting the gifts.”

  Me shook his head. “You’re playing with the girl. It’s not the same. That’s personal, not business.”

  “You know what? Why don’t you get up and out of my business. Your timeline’s a little early here. I’ll do what I need to do. So why don’t you hop on back over to Jersey and let me handle my business.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Me repeated. “I have already started. Here I will stay.”

  His blood ran cold. Then, with startling clarity, he realized that Me had kicked off a serial marathon. “Ms. Virginia . . . the bookstore . . . Visionaries. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Someone sneezed, but Me’s lips didn’t move.

  He rolled his eyes in disgust at Me. “Don’t get in my way, okay? Just don’t get in my way. And stay away from Tracie Burlingame. She’s hands-off, and I mean it.”

  Me shrugged.

  “Give me the ball.”

  Me threw the ball awkwardly to him.

  “And take your ass back to Jersey until the real time comes.” With that he walked off the court, leaving Me to his own thoughts.

  “You’re not in charge!” Me yelled.

  He kept walking.

  “There’s only one boss. You’re not it.”

  He didn’t break stride. When he reached the street, he took a couple of pulls off his pipe, so he could erase the blot on his spirit that was Me.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a glassine bag, and took a couple of hits of cocaine.

  The rush of the potent white powder was good.

  24

  The following morning Tracie stood in the steamy shower, letting the hot water pour over her. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep, and her very bones felt weary. She was going to call into the shop today and have her manager run the salon.

  She just didn’t have the energy to face people. She wouldn’t be able to get away with that for long, because Whiskey’s shipment had to be moved out. But that was for another day.

  Stepping out of the shower, she went to the mirror. She rubbed the steam off the mirror so she could see. She began her facial with a special cleanser she had. As she cleansed her face, eyes of desolation stared back at her from the mirror.

  Her usually bright eyes lacked luster. She lightly rubbed her hands over them, trying to massage in some life.

  Suddenly she frowned. She put her face in the sink and splashed pure, cold water on it. Then she dried it quickly. She didn’t have time for a leisurely facial.

  A thought had been plaguing her that she couldn’t shake, so she needed to put her mind at ease. She dried herself, put on her thick velour robe, and walked out of the bathroom, down the hall to Rashod’s old room.

  The boy hadn’t slept in the room in so long Tracie couldn’t even remember when. There was a cocky sign on the door that read RASHOD’S PLACE. An arrow was taped underneath it that led to the words DO NOT ENTER IF YOU AIN’T BEEN ASKED. Tracie shook her head at his usual brashness.

  Turning the knob, she went into the room. A smell of musk hit her in the face as soon as she opened the door. The room was dark and musty-smelling. She could kill this boy. He knew damn well that she didn’t keep her house like this.

  She rarely ever went in the room, because it was just too painful since their relationship was so estranged. However, if she had known he’d turned it into a pigsty, she’d have gone over to that damned crack house he hung out in and kicked his behind until the cows came home.

  Frustrated, she stepped over the clothes, electronic gadgets, and shoes strewn all over the floor, to go to the closet, when she felt something crunching under her feet. What the hell could be crunching under her feet when the room had wall-to-wall carpeting?

  She flicked on the light and closed her eyes at the disaster of a room that loomed up in front of her. She went to the edge of the carpet, pulling it up and back from where it had been tacked down.

  She gasped. There were hoards of sunflower seeds, mountains of them. Rashod had a fixation with those damned seeds, and it looked as though he’d been collecting them under her rug.

  A memory flashed, hot and painful. A sunflower seed had been lying on the nightgown next to the silver heart.

  Tracie got up and went to the closet, yanking open the door. She was having a fuming fit. She just started pulling things off the hangers, down off the shelves, and throwing things around. From high up in the closet, a shelf shook from all her shaking, and something fell down, hitting her on the top of the head.

  Startled, she rubbed her head and looked down at the other black and gold Karl Kani boot belonging to Randi. Spent from her tirade, and aghast at seeing the boot, Tracie Burlingame sat down on the floor and wept like a baby. This was too much. Why the hell was that boot hidden in Rashod’s old closet?

  25

  Lonzo and Monica sat in the coffee shop on 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard across from Harlem Hospital, sipping coffee. The shop was crowded to distraction, but it suited Lonzo’s state of mind. His thoughts were in a jumble.

  For Monica’s part, this case was bothering the hell out of her. They literally had no leads. There were no prints. The one witness was a joke. Actually, she couldn’t even really be called a witness just because the body fell at her feet. As much as Monica hated to admit it, just as Lonzo had, voiced, the girl Sinead was a trembling, non breathing mass of a mess. And she was everything they had.

  Her total testimony: “The body fell at my feet.” Period.

  That’s all they had. It was hard to believe, but it was truth. There was no DNA and no motive, and the killer was toying with them. It was a totally senseless murder.

  Monica sipped her coffee and ate a bagel slathered in cream cheese that she really didn’t need.

  Lonzo’s phone rang. He clicked on, listening to the voice on the other end. When he was done, he said, “That was Alexandra. The final report on Randi Burlingame just came in.”

  “And?”

  “The sunflower seeds crammed in Randi’s throat were what actually killed him. The official cause of death is asphyxiation. His windpipe was blocked. The ME says he died of obstruction of the respiratory apparatus. The seeds cut off his air supply. He was dead when he hit the ground. He drained off his blood after he was dead.”

  Monica grimaced. “Now, why would he stuff his throat with sunflower seeds? It doesn’t fit well with the rest of the injuries he inflicted. I mean, he drains his blood, takes his boots, tosses him off the roof, but before he does, he stuffs his mouth with sunflower seeds, essentially choking him.”

  Monica realized that was what was bothering her. Clearly the sunflower seeds were part of the killer’s distinct signature. But what did they mean?

  Lonzo stood up and threw some money on the counter. “Come on, Monie. Let’s visit the funeral home that handled the burial services and see if we can find out why Andre Burlingame was photographing his dead brother’s funeral. That’s really been bothering me. Most relatives wouldn’t want to be the one to do that.”

  “If there were something in particular you wanted to capture, maybe you would.”

  An electric vi
be shot between them.

  26

  A Hundred thirty-third Street was crowded and busy. The traffic was hectic; horns were blaring. Kids were running and playing, and the drug dealers were out in full force. Apparently their trade started earlier than Tracie remembered, because they were definitely out clocking dollars.

  Tracie ran down 133rd Street as though her life depended on it. She ran in front of cars, not paying attention to the traffic or the signals. Once she had gotten over her weeping jag, pure fury had swept through her body and propelled her out into the streets.

  She headed to St. Nick’s, the crack house that was Rashod’s home away from home. She didn’t have time to play. Knowing about the security procedure, she used her visibility in the community plus five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills to gain entry.

  The young boy handling security lowered his nine-millimeter. He pocketed the money, waving her through. She wasn’t worth a hassle, and he knew she was Rashod’s mother.

  Every once in a while some mother had been known to show up, trying to save her child, although not usually with hundred-dollar bills in hand, and not nearly as fine as Tracie Burlingame.

  He’d have done it for three hundred. Tracie Burlingame was fine with a capital “F.”

  Tracie stepped over people in the smoky, crowded room. She spotted Rashod, sitting in a corner of the room with his back to the wall. Lying next to him were his sketch pad and charcoal. Tracie immediately noticed that he wasn’t sketching. Rashod usually sketched no matter what he was doing. Tracie knew that getting high wasn’t an exception.

  When she reached him, she knelt in front of him. Rashod was high as a kite. He groggily tried to focus on the kneeling figure in front of him. He hoped it wasn’t the man in agony from his sketch, with the raindrops pelting him, although, the way things were going, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Slowly he came to his senses, and Tracie’s image weaved in front of his eyes. This was worse. He wished it were the man in the sketch, the one who looked like his brother Michael.

  Rashod shook his head in disgust as he focused in on Tracie. “Get out,” he said.

  Tracie swallowed hard. “Rashod. I want you to come home. You need some help. I can help you.”

  “I’m at home,” Rashod told her. He waved his hand around the room and started laughing. “I don’t need your help. Don’t you have money to be made or something? Go clock somebody else.”

  “Making money is not more important to me than you, Rashod.”

  Rashod fumbled to light his pipe, got it to his lips, lit it, and took a long pull. His morning was definitely heading downhill into complete ruin, and he was not about to face it without his fix. He took out a glassine bag, stuck in a little silver spoon, and took four good hits right in front of Tracie’s face.

  Feeling more fit to continue the conversation, he told Tracie, “You could have fooled me. I thought clocking bank was everything to you, since that is what you spend most of your time doing—that and trying to control other people’s lives, baby.”

  “Don’t call me ‘baby,’ Rashod. And you know that’s not true.”

  “You calling me a liar?” he said. He gave her a sharp, focused look.

  “No,” Tracie said, trying hard not to fight with him.

  “I ain’t interested in replacing Randi the Shooter for you, Tracie. He’s dead and he ain’t coming back.” Rashod laid down the pipe, suddenly more interested in tormenting his mother than smoking crack.

  “That’s not what I want.”

  “Oh, really. Then what do you want? It ain’t me. After me you had . . .” Rashod’s voice trailed off for a moment as he counted off on his trembling fingers.

  “Let’s see, you had Dre, the Image Maker; Michael, the Great Rebounder; and Randi, the Shooter. Mr. Poetry in Motion. I guess I should say, the Dead Shooter, all motionless now. All you ever did was sing to Randi.”

  Rashod mimicked Tracie’s singsongy voice. “ ‘Rock-a-bye, baby . . .’ ” he sang.

  Tracie stared at Rashod in shock. Through no will of her own, she found her hand flying through the air as she slapped him viciously across the mouth. Immediately they both rose to their feet, and the room around them awakened. The slap had resounded throughout the room, echoing across the bareness, catching everybody’s attention.

  The boy who had been on guard with the nine-millimeter stepped into the room, assessed the situation, and then stepped back out into the hallway. He wasn’t about to interfere with nobody’s mom. He might be a drug dealer, but still some forms of respect hadn’t died. He went back to his post.

  Rashod stared at Tracie, livid with white-hot hatred and rage. He shoved her so hard, she stumbled backward. “You ever put your hands on me again and I’ll . . .” He stepped right up in Tracie’s face as people scrambled to get out of the way.

  Tracie hissed at him and took a step back, pulling her gun. The clicking off of the safety reverberated through the air. She flipped the trigger back in one smooth move as she pointed the gun at Rashod’s forehead, dead center. This happened within the space of a second.

  “You’ll what, Rashod? Come on, punk. You want to try me? What the hell will you do?” She screamed.

  Her breathing was shallow. Her chest heaved in and out as though she couldn’t get enough oxygen.

  “I brought you here, and I’ll take you out. What will you do? Did you kill my baby, Rashod? Come on. Tell me. Did you?”

  Tracie’s voice had turned into a high-pitched, piercing scream, and it scraped like a siren gone wild. “I asked you a question, damn it.”

  Tracie kept the gun trained on the middle of his forehead. She never wavered. “I’ll blow your head off and scatter your brains around your new home—what’s left of them. Now, I’m gonna ask you again, boy.”

  Her tone was gutter nasty. “Did you kill my son?” The room had gone totally still. There was not a sound to be heard except for Tracie’s harsh breathing.

  Rashod looked at her, crumbled, and broke down before her eyes. Tears streamed down his face as he stared at the mother he had tried so hard not to love. Her anger and doubt in him sliced like a hot arrow through his being.

  The tears poured, and he tried to wipe them with the back of his hand. “I didn’t kill him, Mama. I didn’t. The only one I’m killing is me.”

  It was the word “Mama” that broke through the icy insanity that was covering Tracie like a glassy sheen. This was her son, and it had been a long time since he had called her that. And she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him cry.

  Tracie stared at him for a long moment before lowering the gun. An eternity seemed to pass. She loved her son. She must be losing it. How could she even think about taking him out? But for one totally insane second she had intended to do just that: take him right out of his misery and let hers go with him.

  Tracie reached out a hand, wiping the tears from his eyes. She put the gun back in her inside jacket pocket. She pulled Rashod close to her, loving him and missing him all at the same time. Although she had had three other sons, none of them could take his place or be him. He was her firstborn.

  She missed him in her life so much that the realization of that one thought swamped her in pain. It was a visceral physical reaction. Her body trembled and shook. “You can come home, Rashod. My door will always be open to you.”

  Rashod shook his head sadly. He hugged her for the briefest of moments, feeling her warmth, the sweetness, and the love he never had but had always craved. All he had ever wanted was for her to hold him and love him. But he knew he couldn’t buy into it. It just wasn’t meant to be.

  “I know about Raymond, Tracie. I know. I can’t come home. I’d be a walking dead man. Your door has the shadow of death on it.”

  Upon Rashod’s words there was a time warp. The two of them were frozen in it. They were locked in, solid. Stark, cloying fear rose up and sprayed out of Tracie’s eyes.

  She hadn’t heard Raymond’s name spoken aloud in many, m
any years. Raymond was her children’s daddy.

  27

  Michael Burlingame stood in front of the garbage chute in the Abraham Lincoln apartment projects, on the fifteenth floor. He listened as the last of the clothing and paraphernalia of his other life tumbled down to join the rest of the refuse.

  He felt secure dropping these items in the projects, since none of them would surprise any trash collector or superintendent who might happen upon it. Also, no one would be able to link it to him. He didn’t even live here.

  He pressed the button for the elevator and waited for it to creak its way up to the fifteenth floor. Good thing he wasn’t in a hurry, because this could take a significant amount of time.

  While he waited, a kid who looked to be about six years old came running out of one of the apartments, dribbling his basketball, and lost control of it. The ball was almost as big as he was. Michael stopped the ball and dribbled it back to the little boy. Recognizing him, the little boy beamed. “Mama, it’s Rebound; look!” He pointed at Michael excitedly. The mother smiled. “Can I have your autograph on my ball?” the boy asked.

  Michael smiled at him. “Yeah.” He turned to the mother. “Do you have a pen?”

  “I’ll get one,” she said.

  “Tell you what, little man. I’ll do you one better than that. How about two tickets for you and your mother to the benefit game that I’m going to be playing with the Harlem Globetrotters?”

  “Are you for real?” the boy asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Yes!” The boy jumped up and down excitedly, and his mother smiled her gratitude at Rebound. She retrieved the pen. He signed the ball. He reached into his pocket, giving them the tickets just as the elevator finally arrived.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Rebound looked at the boy. “Naw, thank you. That’s a cool little man you’ve got there.”

  He remembered when Randi had been the same age. He had been so excited about playing basketball. Michael couldn’t believe he would never hear the echo of Randi dribbling downcourt again, and that he would never hear 135th Street screaming as Randi ran up and down the court barefoot.