Unique II: Betrayal

Chapter 9- Pop Goes the Weasel

Two hours after the police had left, Tyeedah found herself standing in front of the main entrance to the hospital, watching as the sun reflected off of the skyscrapers. She was ready to call it a day, while inside of her being, optimism, misery, and hopelessness shared the same space. She thought back to her conversation with Kennard that took place moments ago and things were not sitting right with her.
    Tyeedah was mad, angry, and just like Kennard, all together emotionally fucked up. It was one thing not ratting her girl out to the police or her man, but Tyeedah refused to stand around doing nothing while the idiot responsible for putting her friend in an emergency operating room ran around as if everything was all good. Awww hell no! She tapped her foot, about to get a whole other attitude at Fat Tee.
     It was graveyard quiet since the police had left and Kennard was right beside Unique’s bed in the corner of the room facing the door. Tyeedah, sensing he wanted to be alone, had let him marinate in his own mental anguish. Until she couldn’t take it anymore, she knew that she had to act.
     She spoke softly in a tone right above a whisper as Unique slept. “I have to leave.” Kennard was standing in a corner, but his mind was surely in another place. “I’m sorry, but there’s something that needs my immediate attention. It just can’t be put off any longer.”
     Unique had called the Big Apple home for less than a year and she didn’t have any family in New York. Besides a few acquaintances at culinary school, Tyeedah and Kennard were her only real friends. All the family she had, and Tyeedah felt terrible for having to temporarily run out on her.
     Kennard’s face was a mask of agony and anger. His eyes—twin volcanoes, bubbling just below the surface, capable of erupting at any provocation—met Tyeedah’s as he thanked her for coming. “I’m just really appreciative of you showing up and being here and being her friend.”
     “No thanks ever needed. I love that girl! I will ride with her until the wheels fall off.”
     There was nothing else left for either one to say.
    His grief was palpable. Unique was the mother of his unborn child. His fiancée. His best friend. And until retribution was exacted upon the person responsible for the pain that was brought upon his family, the healing couldn’t begin—neither his nor Unique’s. Kennard was not the forgiving type. God forgave freely; but Kennard didn’t.
     Watching the pain simmering in his eyes, Tyeedah wanted to tell Kennard that she knew how he felt, that she understood the myriad of emotions fighting for supremacy in his head: guilt, sorrow, vengeance, and anguish. She knew that a powerful man rendered powerless over any situation felt less than a man.
     Not knowing what else to do, Tyeedah wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him as tightly as she could. She tried to force his pain away with that hug, hoping and praying that she could comfort him the way a sister would console a brother, a mother would her son. In her embrace, Kennard’s muscles were so tight, his body felt like a steel beam: Hard, cold, unyielding, not reciprocating.
     After breaking her hold she said, “Let her know that I’ll be back as soon as I’m done. You gonna be okay?”
     Kennard nodded. His voice was low and haunting. “I’m a little fucked up right now, but nothing I can’t handle.” He sounded like Clint Eastwood in one of those old westerns where Clint kills all the bad guys, leaving their bodies stretched out in the middle of a dirty street of a dusty town, not giving a fuck about witnesses.
      Honk. Honk.
    The horn from a green 2007 Taurus with a dent on the passenger-side door snatched Tyeedah from her thoughts. The driver double-parked as Tyeedah walked toward the car and got in. The door was barely closed when she asked, “What took you so long?”
     “Traffic’s a bitch,” her brother said as a silver Honda Prelude slammed on its brakes to keep from ramming into the back of the Taurus. The driver of the Honda, an old Caucasian lady who resembled Betty White, leaned on the horn. Lil-Bro showed the irate “Senior Citizen Gone Wild” the finger and then he asked his sister, “Where to?” before pulling off.
     Tyeedah ignored Lil-Bro’s question, asking one of her own. “You got your pistol?”
     “Does Hugh Hefner have a lifetime supply of Viagra?”
     Taking shots at the oldest playboy in California and his playmateswas something they’d always done in the past. Nobody told a dirty joke better than Tyeedah. Lil-Bro, whose real name was Mark, smiled at his mediocre attempt at lightening the moment. Bereft of levity, Tyeedah failed to crack a smirk.
     Instead, Tyeedah answered her brother’s initial question. “We’re going to the Bronx.” After she and Unique had robbed the courier for the diamonds to pay blackmail money to Fat Tee, Tyeedah recalled Fat Tee mentioning where he had been staying because he didn’t want to stray far from his motel when he was going to meet the girls to get the diamonds. He was so eager to get his hands on the million dollars he demanded, Fat Tee had been careless. “We’re going to Bugley’s Inn. But I’m not sure where it is, except that it’s near the stadium.”
     Lil-Bro cut his eye at his sister. When Tyeedah had called him to pick her up from the hospital she didn’t give an explanation, nor was one asked or needed for that matter. Lil-Bro loved his older sister unconditionally, more than life itself, and would do anything for her.  After all he played a key role in  the heist, taking the diamond courier down so that the girls were able to the jewels.  He owed her that. When Tyeedah was fifteen and Mark ten, their mother OD’d on some bad dope. On the day their mother left this earth to go wherever it was that drug-shooting, bad parents went to when they passed away, Tyeedah promised her brother that she wouldn’t let the state of New York take them away. She didn’t care what she had to do, she wouldn’t allow anyone to come and split them up. She would do whatever was necessary. It wasn’t always pretty, but Tyeedah kept her promise. Lil-Bro loved her for it.
     Bugley’s Inn was a hostel near Yankee Stadium. It was mostly used by prostitutes to turn their hourly tricks and a sprinkling of crack and heroin distributors. Back in the day, Mark off and on fucked with a chick from that neighborhood, her brother used to brag about all the money he made out of Bugley’s Inn selling crack.
      Lil-Bro said, “I know where Bugley’s Inn is.”
     “Cool.” At least they wouldn’t have to waste time searching for a building. A bullet in the head of Fat Tee wouldn’t make Unique better, but it was a damn good start.