Unique II: Betrayal

Chapter 12 - Karma is a Mother...

Since the big confession, Kennard hadn’t said much to Unique, who had been tiptoeing around the house, trying to give him space to figure out what he wanted to do with their relationship. The energy in their home had been off since she had poured out her heart to him about her past. Even on the chilliest New York night, it had never been that cold between the two of them.
     She couldn’t really blame him and took it as if he was just trying to digest everything that she had told him the night before. She didn’t like it but what could she do? She was grateful that he hadn’t asked her to leave yet. In fact, she was thinking about going to stay at her friend Tyeedah’s house until his head was clear.
     This wasn’t the way she had planned it, but she was willing to accept the consequences of her actions.
    She was in the den, watching Lifetime, preparing herself because she was certain that her life was about to play out like a movie. She could hear him on the phone, and she had decided that when the flick was over she was to get up and get dinner going. Though she knew he was talking to someone, she couldn’t make out the words because she wasn’t ear hustling—she didn’t want to get in his way by any means.
    As she watched the last scene of the movie, tears started to form in her eyes and that’s when Kennard poked his head in the room. “Yo, throw on your sweats and sneakers and come on.”
    She perked up quickly. “Where we going?” She was glad to go anywhere with him—or glad he wanted her to go somewhere with him.
    “We’re going to deal with that nigga, Fat Tee’s bitch ass,” he said in a nonchalant way, but she knew it was about to get serious.
     Kennard had put the word out on the street looking for Fat Tee and had gotten an inside tip from a desk clerk that he was laying low at a hotel in the Bronx.
     “Awww, baby.” She was so happy that Kennard still cared. Unique could not believe that Kennard was going to roll out for her like this. This made her love him more and though she, more than anybody, wanted Fat Tee to get what he had coming to him, she didn’t want Kennard to get in any kind of trouble. “Thank you so much but I don’t want you to get caught up in this bullshit.”
    “When that nigga had the balls to enter my house and rape not just any woman but my woman, then had the gall to put his hands on you, that motherfucker made his own death wish.”
    “But he ain’t worth you getting involved.”
    “Baby, him making you lose my baby . . . Look, I understand that you have been through enough with this nigga so if you wanna stay here while I go deal with this problem, then I understand. But it might be the best therapy for you to see firsthand this motherfucker get his and hear him beg you for his shitty-ass, worthless, two-bit life!” Kennard emphasized every word he said but he wanted to see them wheel Fat Tee’s lifeless body under the white sheet out of the hotel.
    “Oh no, baby! If you go, baby, I go!”
    Unique tied her sneakers up and was on the way out of the door when the TV bolted to the wall caught her attention. She had turned to the evening news. They were broadcasting a story about stolen diamonds. The story stopped Unique in her tracks and led her to pick up the remote from the table beside the bed and turn up the sound.
    “Babe, babe,” Unique screamed out for Kennard at the top of his lungs, “come quick.”
    Kennard came rushing into the bedroom. “What’s wrong, babe?” He heard the volume of the television up loud and saw the stunned look on her face that was focused on the tube, which prompted him to immediately give his attention to the news’ breaking story as well.
     They both stood and listened to the newscaster’s report.
   “Thirty-one-year-old Mr. Terrell Gump, from Richmond, Virginia, was apprehended by TSA at LaGuardia airport yesterday after a body scanner revealed that he had an unusual-shaped, mass lodged in his anus.” She seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh as she read the teleprompter. “After a perfunctory cavity search,” she continued, besting her emotions, “the object turned out to be an estimated 1.2 million dollars’ worth of stolen diamonds.”
    The producers cut to a still frame of the hot ice lying on a table. The shiny gems glistened under the camera’s light.
    With a WTF expression on her face, Unique looked on with Kennard. The temperature of her blood going from warm to white hot, both nervous and shocked, her mouth opened, forming the shape of doughnut.
    The screen switched back to the anchor, Pamela Pitchford.
    “Sergeant McDaniel of the NYPD said that Mr. Gump had allegedly been trying to sell the stolen diamonds—one at a time—to various underground jewelers. The problem, which Mr. Gump obviously wasn’t aware, was that the diamonds were registered, making each diamond identifiable. There was also a tracking device in the bag in which they were originally stolen, which for some reason Mr. Gump kept.”
    They showed a mug shot of the suspect: a dark-skin dude with a mouth full of silver teeth.
    The two worst-looking pictures in the world always seemed to be DMVs and a mug shot and his mug shot didn’t do Fat Tee one bit of justice.
    “If convicted, Mr. Gump could get up to life in prison,” Pamela Pitchford pointed out.
    Her co-anchor chimed in: “That’s a long time to serve for trying to dodge a luggage fee. . . . In other news . . . ”
    “Yo, that shit is crazy.”
    “It is!”
    “Better that the spooks get him than me, I guess,” Kennard said, disappointed but there was still a devilish grin plastered all over his face.
    Unique was kind of relieved because she really didn’t want Kennard getting his hands dirty on that trash Fat Tee.
    But Kennard now had a puzzled look on his face.
    “What’s wrong?” Unique asked.
    “I just hope this bitch-ass nigga don’t start talking when he gets to the pen, that’s all.”
    Unique knew that what he was saying was true and was most likely going to happen. Fat Tee hated her guts and there was no reason he wouldn’t tell on her. It’s not like he even lived by the morals and principles of the streets. That’s why they were in the situation to start with: Fat Tee didn’t pay Took when Took went to jail because he had no regard for the rules of the dope game, which then caused Took to want revenge and his money. This then prompted Took to go to extreme measures to get what he felt like he was owed and to make a point that nobody does that kind of shit to him.
    Fat Tee indeed got a huge dose of his own medicine and then Unique not only played a big part in hitting him where it hurt—his pockets—but she hurt his feelings and made him the laughingstock of the hood.
    All these things confirmed any thoughts that Unique had, and tears formed in her eyes. “I’m pretty sure that Fat Tee is going to tell on me. As soon as he gets there he’s going to start singing like a songbird in a chorus line. That you can bet.”
    “Don’t worry your pretty face, I will take care of it.”
    “Easier said than done.”
    “Trust me!”
    And she did . . . that’s all she could do. She had learned the hard way what could happen when she took things into her own hands.