Fools Rush In Page 21

  He parked on Bladensburg Road in front of a fried chicken carry-out, got out, and started toward Fifteenth Street. The air didn’t smell right, and the flesh on his back was too warm for a cold night. Suddenly, his hair crackled, and he dived behind an old Chevrolet minivan seconds before a bullet whizzed past. He didn’t think it was intended for him, but what difference would that have made if it had torn into his head? He eased up from his crouched position, sped down the narrow side street, and didn’t breathe deeply until he was a block away. Winded, he ducked into Hurley’s combination poolroom and bar, took his usual booth near the door, and cocked his ears. “What’s going on?” he asked Hurley.

  But the usually loquacious man was tight lipped, and merely shrugged. Something untoward had the regulars in a state of disquiet. Not even Buck, one of his most reliable informants, had anything to say.

  “Anybody dead?” he asked a bystander.

  “Who knows?” the man replied. “Could be several. We all heard the shots and the ruckus, Pops, but we don’t know who got brought down.”

  Duncan thought of the bullet that had mercifully missed his head and asked, “Where? Right around here?”

  The man raised his shoulder nonchalantly. “The police set up another one of their sting operations, man, and it turned deadly.”

  His blood pounded in his head. “Any kids?”

  The man nodded. “Bunch of ’em. Couple of blocks down.”

  He didn’t wait to hear more, but raced toward Benning. As he hastened along, pictures of Tonya and Justine flashed through his mind along with the thought that he’d better be careful, because they needed him. He forced his mind away from Justine. If he started thinking about her, he’d be a sitting pigeon for any crook who wanted to take a shot at him.

  Duncan turned a corner into Rock Alley and stopped at the sight of Mitch sitting alone on the steps of the Christ First storefront church.

  “Mitch! Where’s Rags?”

  His flesh began to crawl when the boy dropped his head in his hands and sobbed.

  “I said, where is he?”

  Horror siphoned off his breath as Mitch sputtered and sobbed until Duncan understood that a junkie had attempted to rob Rags and, when he found that the boy had no money, had spitefully pulled the trigger of his semi-automatic.

  “The ambulance took him to D.C. General.”

  “Was Rags involved in that ruckus around on Benning?”

  Mitch shook his head and explained that the junkie had escaped the sting, but hadn’t gotten his fix and probably didn’t have the money to buy anything from an unfamiliar source.

  “Whatever. Maybe he was just mean.”

  “Do you know that junkie?”

  Mitch nodded and described the man who had attempted to sell a substance to Duncan a week or two earlier. “Calls himself Joe, but his real name is Rudolph Hester.”

  Duncan nodded. “You and I are going to the hospital to see that Rags gets proper care. Then you’re going home.” He watched Mitch drag himself up, a seventeen-year-old who’d seen ninety years of hard living.

  “Where you going after that, Pops?”

  He didn’t want Mitch to follow him. “I don’t know. Let’s go.”

  Duncan had Rags, who was recovering from a shoulder wound, moved to a semi-private room, sent Mitch home, and went looking for the junkie who’d shot his young friend. If he gave the information to the police, the case would end there. In a file. Forgotten. But if a journalist of his stature handed the man over to them and reported the crime, the junkie would be off the street for a long time.

  His search of local bars and dives proved fruitless, but he went on looking. He couldn’t stop, because that man knew Rags could identify him, and he’d kill Rags to prevent it. With seconds to spare, he slipped through a broken window on the ground floor of an abandoned building when he recognized the slip-slide gait of the man he hunted, the man who might have recognized him had it not been for the smog.

  Crouching out of sight, he used his cell phone to call the police, saw the man get a ride to police headquarters and, as the sun broke through the clouds, he crawled out of the old building and limped four blocks to his car. Once inside of it, his clothes dirty and torn, he slumped in the driver’s seat, exhausted. He had his story, but every word he wrote would come out of him as though he were trying to chisel stone with a blunt object.

  Justine fed Tonya, but had no taste for food herself. Eight-thirty in the morning and Duncan hadn’t come home.

  “No point in driving ourself crazy,” Mattie told her. “No news be good news.” She took her usual place at the table. “It ain’t like him though. I tell you in this life they’s always problems. Me and my Moe been looking at houses and axed the agent to hold one for a few days while we thought it over. Now the agent says we got to buy it, ’cause some people wanted it but she kept it for us. Justine, we can’t afford no eighty-thousand dollar house.”

  In spite of her own uneasiness, it saddened her to see Mattie so deeply worried, and she patted the woman’s frail shoulder. “I know someone who’ll straighten that out for you, Mattie. So stop worrying. He’ll make certain that agent doesn’t try that trick again.” She made a mental note to call Kenneth’s fraternity brother in the Mayor’s office and ask him to deal with it.

  Mattie thanked her. “You know, Justine, you be one beautiful, classy lady. Such a good person. I can’t see why you want to be a nanny, but I’m sure glad you come here. You and Mr. B shore oughta get things together, though, ’cause you’d make Tonya a good mother. Shucks, she already look like you. I’m gonna have to pray for this, and especially since you getting me and my Moe outa hot water with that real estate agent.”

  Cold tentacles of fear began a wild rampage through her body like sharpened icicles stabbing whatever they touched. Tonya sat in the high chair beside her, and Mattie faced them. How much more time would she have with Tonya before Mattie guessed, or Duncan realized why she seemed familiar? She left the table as soon as she could without exciting Mattie’s curiosity, put Tonya in her crib, went to her room, and looked around for something to distract her—something to take her mind off the inevitable.

  Her right eye began to tear, and she went to the bathroom to cleanse her contact lenses. Looking at herself in the mirror, an idea sprang to mind. Eyeglasses. She didn’t have to wear contacts, and the resemblance between Tonya and herself would be less noticeable if she wore glasses. She phoned her optometrist, told him that she wanted to stop wearing contacts for a while, and asked that he check her records and send her a pair of glasses.

  Satisfied that she had at least postponed her day of reckoning, she decided to develop a teaching course for barely literate and illiterate adults. She’d give the materials that she developed to the Literacy society without charge and with the understanding the gifts were to be recorded as anonymous. That would keep her busy. Unable to work, she decided to write a song for use in the literacy classes. She scored a few bars, gave up, and walked out on her little porch and let the bracing air chill her body. She couldn’t let herself give in to her feelings—if anything had happened to Duncan. Anything. She dare not dial his cell phone number, because she didn’t know whether a ringing phone would cause trouble for him. But suppose he…needed her.

  Riddled with anxiety, she threw up her hands and went back inside. What would she do? How could she live without him? She couldn’t. She stood at her bedroom window, staring down at the cold, wind-swept garden. What a fool she’d been to let herself fall in love with him, when she knew he’d one day shut her out. Away from Tonya. Out of his life.

  Mattie’s soft knock shattered her reverie. “I don’t know if I ought to leave, Justine, when Mr. B ain’t home yet, but today’s Thursday, my regular afternoon off. I could stay if you think you need me.”

  She draped an arm around Mattie’s slight shoulders, intent on comforting her, but the gesture showed her how much she herself needed caring, assurance that someone loved her. She hugged Mattie a
nd sent her home with the promise that, if there was a problem, she’d call. The doorbell rang, and she nearly fell down the stairs getting to the door, but was relieved to discover that the caller was a messenger with her eyeglasses.

  She was halfway back up the stairs when the doorbell rang continuously as if someone leaned on it. With marbles fighting for space in her belly, she went to the door and called out, “Who is it?”

  “Duncan.”

  The voice, tired and sluggish, was unlike the dark, mellifluous sound that always flowed from his throat. She locked in the chain, cracked the door, and peeped out.

  “Open up, sweetheart. I’m bushed.”

  She slid off the chain, flung open the door, opened her arms, and clasped the big man to her breast. “Are you all right? Tell me. Are you all right?” As best she could, she pulled him into the house and locked the door.

  He let the door take his weight. “If I can eat, take a shower, and get some sleep, I’ll be fine. You must have been terribly worried. I would have called a couple of hours ago, but I fell asleep in the car.”

  She released a long breath. He hadn’t been with a woman, though from the looks of him, he’d been into something. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m just so happy you’re here and that you’re all right. I sent Mattie home. If you want to take a shower, go ahead. I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  “No, you don’t have to—”

  “I said I’ll get it,” she broke in.

  A sheepish grin crawled over his face. “Thanks. I’ll be back down in a few minutes.”

  She knew he’d opened Tonya’s door when the child’s joyous squeals reached her ears. He never came home without greeting Tonya and never left without kissing her good-bye. If only there was someway that they could both love and care for their daughter openly without deceptive charades. But she’d tested fate already, been given a chance to know and love her child, and she wouldn’t count on anything more.

  It was already afternoon, so she made a brunch of waffles, sausages, fresh fruit, and grilled chicken nuggets, set the table quickly, and looked in the refrigerator for the biscuits that he and Tonya loved. She glanced toward heaven and gave silent thanks at the sound of his footsteps loping down the stairs. Twice in one week, she’d wondered if she’d ever see him alive again. But he was alive, and he was there.

  “What can she eat?” he asked, referring to Tonya, whom he held in his arms.

  “Scrambled eggs, banana, and biscuits. Some orange juice, maybe.”

  He ignored the high chair and put the child on his knee. “You sit here and behave yourself so daddy can eat. Okay?”

  Tonya bounced up and down, her face glowing in smiles. Justine wondered how he’d feed himself and the child, and watched in awe as he managed and Tonya cooperated.

  “Thanks for that great meal. Don’t let Mattie catch you cooking like that; she thinks she’s the only one who can do it. If you’ll straighten up the kitchen for me, I’ll get Tonya ready for her nap. Then I’ll stretch out for a while.” Minutes later he was back in the kitchen, obviously intending to wash a cup that Tonya had no doubt dropped.

  She gazed at him, a far cry from the beat and bedraggled man who’d struggled into the house an hour earlier. She had no idea what kind of expression her face showed to him; she only knew what she felt—love from the tip of her longest strand of hair to her toes. As swiftly as lightning strikes, his own visage changed, and what she saw there wasn’t gratitude for a good meal, but explosive desire. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he swallowed with obvious difficulty.

  Frightened at her vulnerability and for want of other words that might reduce the heightened tension, she asked him, “You still angry at me for—?”

  He looked into her eyes, rested the cup on the counter, and stroked her left cheek. “I’ve never been angry with you in my life.” His voice wooed her, made love to every inch of her. He stared down at his fists, his legs wide apart, the way he always stood when he was hot for her, and when he looked up, his eyes were fiery orbs of primitive want. His hands went toward her body, but when she thought she would feel them on her, he dropped them to his sides. His intense stare held her riveted, and she bit her lip to stop its quivering response. His heat swirled around her, and she could see every masculine inch of his body revolting against its prison of denial. His aura sucked her to him until she smelled him, tasted him, and wanted him. Near panic, she spun away from him, but her backward glance nearly undid her, for his full arousal greeted her eyes.

  Stunned, she rushed to the kitchen sink, gripped its rim, and held on to it until, fully fifteen minutes later, she heard him walk slowly up the stairs. He’d wanted her many times, but never like that. Whatever he’d done and wherever he’d been the night before, the experience had intensified his need. She rubbed her sides with her palms, now damp because she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Damp, because the lessons of her life told her that they flirted with disaster. Hers, if not his.

  She cleaned up the kitchen, went to her room, and tried to outline some reading lessons for the Literacy Society, but she couldn’t get her mind on the lessons and had to put them aside. She could clean out her closets, but she had done that last week. Frustrated and unsettled, she fell across her bed and rested her face on her arm. In her mind, he stood before her holding Tonya, his eyes declaring his desire and promising her the ecstasy of which she had dreamed, longed for, and never experienced.

  Desire burned the seat of her passion, stunning her, and she gripped the bed covering, her nails scoring and streaking the silk satin material. For once in her life, couldn’t she have what other women took for granted? In a few weeks she’d be a thirty-year-old woman who’d had a four-year marriage but still wore the flower of her birth. He would love her. She knew he would, because whatever she’d seen him do, he’d done it thoroughly. Maybe tomorrow or the next day or the next, he’d discover her secret and ask her to leave and she’d never have known him. She twisted and turned until the bed covering entrapped her, and she fell over on her stomach and her breasts, themselves erect, rubbing the bedding.

  “I can’t stand it,” she confessed to the silence. “I may lose, but I will have known passion in the arms of the man I love.”

  He’d told her that if she came to him, he’d welcome her. She forced herself not to think, took a quick shower, slipped into her favorite lace underwear and red silk kimono, crossed her fingers, and tapped on his door.

  “In a minute.” Suddenly, she wondered what he was doing, whether she was disturbing him. How would he react? He didn’t keep her guessing.

  She’d picked the devil of a time to knock on his door. Temptation personified. If she’d learned anything about him, she had to know that when she’d walked away from him, he’d been a man trussed and immobilized. Tired as he was, he hadn’t slept a second, and anybody looking at his bed would know that he’d spent the last hour in it, wrestling with himself and his demons. He didn’t blame her for rejecting the idea of intimacy between them; he also knew it wasn’t wise. But he’d never wanted a woman as badly as he desired her, never felt as if he had to have any woman except—Justine Taylor. Damn all his reservations if she lingered at that door; he was starved and hurting with the pain of it.

  That soft tap again. She’d never been in his room and, as best as he could remember, had never knocked on his bedroom door. He slipped a robe over his nude body, walked in his bare feet across the room, and opened the door.

  “You wanted me for something?”

  He looked down at her—hair flowing around her shoulders, those silver hoops in her ears and red silk on her body—vulnerable. Tension gripped him and threatened to settle in his groin. Her face was open, sweet, questioning. He told himself not to let her blind-side him, but her tongue rimmed her lips, dampening them for his mouth, and shudders raced through him.

  “Justine! What do you want?” he hadn’t meant to frighten her, but something akin to terror flashed across her face, and she turned as if t
o go back to her room. His hand shot out and grasped her arm. “Why are you here?” he asked, this time as softly as he could make the words.

  She didn’t look at him. “I…I was just…just…”

  It couldn’t be. Not when he needed…He had to take the chance. “Have you come to me? Have you?”

  She looked up into his face, and when she didn’t answer, his heart pounded so furiously and loudly that it nearly frightened him.

  He opened his arms to her, and she dashed into them. His hands rested on her body, but he couldn’t let himself hold her to him the way that he needed to. “Sweetheart, if you’re not staying, please go now.” She held him tighter, and he nearly choked on his breath.

  “I…I want to…to stay here with you,” she finally managed.

  Blood rushed wildly through his body as desire gripped him. He wanted to shout to the world that she would be his, but he set her away from him and looked her in the eye. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to be sorry later, or ever.”

  Her voice came to him like a newly polished bell, tinkling in a warm breeze. “I need…to be with you.”

  Air hissed out of him, and he lifted her in his arms, stepped into the room, and kicked the door shut. He ran his hands beneath her kimono, found the naked flesh of her back, and crushed her to him. Her mouth, ripe and sweet, opened like rose petals beneath his searching lips and, this time when she asked for his tongue, he plunged into her, giving in to her greedy request.

  Her fingers at his nape moved restlessly as though unable to find enough of him to touch. Then, with her hands at the back of his head, she increased the pressure of his kiss.

  “Duncan. Duncan. I’m…I’m on fire. I’m…”

  He swallowed the rest of her words, and she moved against him. Asking. Demanding. He held her closer, and the tips of her breasts teased him until it was all he could do not to throw off his robe. He let his hand roam her naked back until she twisted, letting him know she wanted his hands on her breasts. Nearly out of his mind with desire, he put his hand in her right bra, cupped her breast, and toyed with it until she undulated against him.