I shook my head and got up from the table. “I’ll be back,” I said and headed toward the ladies’ room. A waitress arrived just as I walked away, and I told her to bring me another drink. I glanced over my shoulder and considered whether it was wise to leave Bella alone with Chante. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I was on my way.
On my way back, I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but the look on Bella’s face told me she wasn’t feeling the conversation.
“Hey. Everything okay?” I asked as I took my seat.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” Chante answered, a little too quickly for my taste.
“You guys seen Diane?” I asked.
“Not since she left the table with that baller,” Bella answered.
Before I could take another sip of my drink, I looked up to see Diane walking toward us. “Jada, lemme holla at you for a sec,” she said.
I got up again and walked a few feet away.
“I’ve got a live one here, so I’m about to bounce,” Diane said and motioned toward a delicious looking thug who was waiting for her near the bar.
I usually didn’t allow that type of thing, but I recognized him. He was already a client, so I made sure he saw me.
“How much longer y’all gonna be here?” Diane asked.
“Not much longer. Maybe another hour. I don’t see many new prospects.”
“Well, I’ll catch up with y’all later then,” Diane said then sashayed over to her client. Again, when I came back to the table, I felt like I was interrupting something between Chante and Bella, but I wasn’t about to start trippin’. I made a mental note to get the 4-1-1 from Bella later.
Just then, Simone came back to our table. I could tell by looking at her that she’d been crying. I jumped up from my chair and rushed to her. “Simone! What’s the matter?”
“That guy was my ex-boyfriend,” she said, fighting back the tears. “He heard what-” she started, and then cut her eyes at Chante.
I quickly grabbed her hand, “Come on, Simone. Let’s go someplace quiet. Excuse us, ladies,” I said to Chante and Bella, and led her to the VIP room. Once we were inside I said, “Now, tell me what’s going on?”
“That guy who I left with, he’s my ex-boyfriend. He heard from some of his boys what I’ve been doin’,” she said and began to cry again.
“How would any of his boys know about what you’re doing?”
“He told me that his boy is a client.”
“Oh.” What else could I say?
“He came to make me stop.”
“What did you say?”
“At first I said that I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he just kept pushin’ it. Callin’ me a ho and a slut and this and that; tellin’ me I was better than this, and that he was taking me away from this life of sin ’cause I was a ho and needed to find God or whatever.” Suddenly the tears stopped and I saw the fire return to her eyes. “Then I just lost it, Jada, and started goin’ off on him. Then he grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me out the club. Well, you know security wasn’t havin’ that. They grabbed him and dragged him out the club. When they got him outside they started kickin’ his ass. I tried to stop them and tell them that it wasn’t that serious, and he just needed to go and not come back. But once they let him go, this fool spit in big Kevin’s face.”
“Wrong move,” I said, having seen how security here deals with problems.
“Kevin hit him in the face so hard that blood was everywhere, and then the police came to take him to jail, but he was trying to fight them too. He kept callin’ my name, callin’ me a ho and sayin’ that this was my fault. I swear, Jada, I didn’t want him to get hurt, and I damn sure didn’t want him to go to jail.”
“It’s not your fault, Simone. He shouldn’t have tried to manhandle you like that.” I reached in my purse and gave her the card of a bail bondsman. “But if you’re feeling that badly about him going to jail, here is the number for a bail bondsman. Let me know how much his bail is.” That was the very least I could do for her.
The next afternoon I made it a point to talk to Bella about the conversation she and Chante had the night before at the club. It must have been on her mind as well, because as soon as I sat down, Bella came to me with her concerns. “Chante doesn’t know what we do?” she asked that afternoon.
“No, what’s up?”
“Just curious, ’cause last night, she just seemed to be all up in my grill. I mean she was fishing for information; I didn’t say nothin’, though,” Bella had reported proudly.
“What exactly was she questioning you about?”
“Well, she wanted to know how we made money, what we did for a living, how we were able to buy such nice clothes and things like that.”
“And what did you say when she asked?” I had to handle Bella gently. I didn’t want her to think she’d done anything wrong.
She shrugged. “I just told her she needed to talk to you.”
“What did she say after that?”
Bella thought for a moment, smirked, then said, “You know, I don’t think she really said anything about it. But she wasn’t like salty or nothing like that. I just remember saying it to her; then I think you walked back up on us, so she dropped it.”
“I see,” I had said.
“Did I do good, Jada?” Bella asked, waiting for my approval.
“Yeah, Bella, you did just fine. You tell Chante, or anybody else with questions about our family, to come to me and I’ll handle them from there.”
Bella actually breathed a sigh of relief. The fact that she went at Bella was a bit troubling. I mean, Chante and I had spent a lot of time together and she had plenty of chances to ask whatever she wanted to ask. In fact, I’d been waiting for her to come at me with questions. I knew for sure I needed to check Chante out a little closer.
11
Chante
I woke up early that morning and got ready to go. When I started up my car, I sat there for what seemed like an eternity, thinking about what I was doing. “It’s just another job,” I told myself. “No different from any other. Then why am I making it so complicated?' I knew the answer and I was afraid of what I’d discovered about myself.
I know what they’re doing. They’re high-priced hookers, even though they are all so discreet about it. They were breaking the law and I had violated the rules and gotten personally involved.
The truth was I liked Jada; she was mad cool. Over the last few weeks I’d really gotten to like her and “the ladies,” as Jada called them. We were friends.
Jada rarely goes anywhere without calling me and inviting me to hang out with them. We have lunch and dinner together all the time in some of finest spots in town. We’ve gone to clubs, release parties, and we shop. Damn, Jada West is one shopping don’t-give-a-fuck-what-it-costs, I-just-know-it-fits-and-I-want-it woman.
Jada has a style about her that I liked, even envied. She always wore the finest clothes. She’s chauffeured around like a celebrity just about everywhere she goes. And I loved being a part of that lifestyle.
I put the car in drive and pulled off. While I drove, I thought about how I got into this in the first place. “Come on in and have a seat, Rachael,” Gineconna said to me as I came into his office.
First off, my name is not Chante. My name is Rachael Dawkins and I’m a cop. “Thank you, lieutenant,” I said and took a seat in front of his desk.
“How’s it feel to be back?”
“I was happy to be able to sleep in my own bed after seven months.” I had been on loan to the DEA,
