Suspenseful Tales Part 15

They had booked a room at a Best Western in Waukegan, a city fifteen minutes south of town. As Kisha dressed for bed, Michael grabbed his car keys.

"Where you going, baby?" she asked. Wearing a silk negligee, she lay on the bed atop the comforter. One of her hands touched her large, round b.r.e.a.s.t.s, lingered on a nipple.

Ordinarily the sight of Kisha, dressed provocatively and eager for s.e.x, would've kept him inside even if a tornado had been bearing down on them. But he only looked at her, shrugged.

"I need to go somewhere," he said. "Alone. I won't be gone long, an hour or so."

"You're leaving me here?" Her voice bordered on a whine.

"I'll be back soon."

He kissed her quickly and went to the jeep. Driving, he marveled at how easily he remembered his way around. While a lot had changed, some things never did, he thought.

The same thought occurred to him when he arrived in the small parking lot behind Big Daddy Jay's store. A collection of carsa"an Oldsmobile, a Dodge Ram, a Chevy sedan, a Buicka"occupied the lot. Cars that belonged to the players, for sure.

But a gleaming white Cadillac sedan was parked in the corner, beside the door. Big Daddy Jay's car. The man drove Cadillacs, exclusively, and used to joke that he'd be buried in his Coup DeVille.

Obviously, since the old man had died, no one had bothered to touch his car. Maybe out of respect. But it surprised Michael. He had a.s.sumed that Big Daddy Jay's son, Tommy Boy, had a.s.sumed full control of the business; since he'd been a teenager, Tommy Boy had done most of the work at the market, anyway (the legal work, that is). Why leave the car sitting there like that?

Michael's gaze traveled upward, to the shuttered windows, behind which lights still shone.

And why continue the card games?

Someone tapped on Michael's window.

Michael stifled a scream. He'd been so entranced with thoughts of what was happening up there that he hadn't seen anyone approach.

A lean, rangy black man waited beside the jeep. Dressed in a dark suit with a loosely knotted tie, the guy smoked a cigarette, puffing wispy rings into the night air. In his other hand, he held a brown paper back that, in the timeless manner of drunks, undoubtedly concealed a flask of whisky.

But his black, beady eyes focused intently on Michael.

Michael didn't lower the window. Although it was dark outdoors and he couldn't see every detail of the guy's face, he knew this mana" people around town called him "Peanut." Peanut, a veteran gambler, had lost a few grand to Michael, back in the day.

Peanut bent and peered closer.

"Don't I know you, brother?" He spoke in a raspy, smoker's voice.

"Uh, no. I don't think so. I'm not from here."

"I never forget a man's eyes." Rising, Peanut took a swig of whisky. "You got eyes just like a brother I used to know. Name was Mike B."

After faking his death, Michael had drastically changed his appearance. He'd lost thirty pounds. (It was easy to lose weight when your life, literally, depended on it.) He'd grown a goatee, wearing facial hair for the first time. He wore contact lenses, instead of gla.s.ses. He'd cut his hair short, ditching the wild, Michael Evans from Good Times Afro. He didn't look like the same person.

But he knewa"and Peanut knewa"that you never forgot someone you played cards with; especially if you'd lost money to the man. You remembered the eyes. The eyes never changed.

Big Daddy Jay's eyes haunted Michael's dreams.

"You've mistaken me for someone else," Michael said. He slid his hand to the gears.h.i.+ft. It was time to get out of here.

Michael's gaze flicked across the upper window of the building. A tall, broad silhouette had moved to the gla.s.s.

Michael's heartbeat accelerated.

"No, I ain't mistaken you for someone else," Peanut said. A smile twisted his face, and it registered with Michael that something was wrong with Peanut's face; it seemed bloodless, like dead skin.

"Naw," Peanut continued. "You know better, Mike B." Michael couldn't afford to stay around here another minute. He slammed the gears into Drive. He mashed the gas pedal and ripped across the gravel.

Behind him, Peanut shouted: "Wait till Big Daddy finds out!" Big Daddy Jay's dead, Michael thought, as cold sweat ran down his back.

But as he drove back to the hotel, he couldn't get the image of that tall, broad silhouette out of his mind.

Kisha was awake, watching Jay Leno, when Michael returned to the hotel room.

"Where was you?" She sat up. "I almost fell asleep waiting on your b.u.t.t."

"I wanted to do a little sightseeing." "This late?"

He stood at the foot of the king-size bed. Kisha had pulled up the bed sheets to cover herself. He yanked the sheets away; she was nude underneath, and the sight of her voluptuous body sent desire crackling through his muscles.

"I need you," he said. "Badly."

"Then come on, baby. I been waiting."

He stripped out of his clothes and climbed onto the bed.

He made love to Kisha with a fiercea"almost desperate-energy that he'd never known. Propped on his arms above her, thrusting wildly, he climaxed, shouting and sweating.

Kisha pulled him down on top of her. She ma.s.saged his back.

"Feel better now?" she asked.

"Yeah." His heart still pounded from the aftereffects of the o.r.g.a.s.m.

"Something's been heavy on your mind. I see right through you, you know."

He paused. "It'll be okay."

He made the statement to calm Kisha, but he found that he felt more composed, too. More clear-headed. He saw his ridiculous fears that Big Daddy Jay had returned as just thata"ridiculous. That shadow he'd spotted in the window had to have been someone else.

Wait till Big Daddy finds out!

And Peanut, his pallor showing that he was clearly ill, had been drunk and talking nonsense. Even when Michael had known him, back in the day, the guy had been p.r.o.ne to swigging whisky like an athlete drinking Gatorade. He'd been only trying to scare Michael with his drunken gibberish.

Big Daddy Jay was dead. For real.

Kisha squeezed his b.u.t.t, drawing his attention. "Will you take me to Chi-town tomorrow, Ricky?"

How could he turn down a woman who'd just given him a brain- busting o.r.g.a.s.m? Besides, he'd like to hang out in Chicago, too. Get away from his s.h.i.+tty hometown and all its ghosts.

"Sure," he said, "that'll be cool."

"I wanna see Navy Pier. And go shopping on Minnesota Avenue."

"That's Michigan Avenue." He yawned. "And yeah, we can check out Navy Pier, too."

"Can I get one of them Chicago-style hot dogs? And some deep- dish pizza?"

"That's a lotta eating, girl . . . don't want you to get too wide . . ."

Kisha continued to prattle on about places she wanted to see, things she wanted to do, food she wanted to eat. Michael eventually tuned her out. He fell asleep.

He awoke at seven-fifteen, according to the digital clock on the nightstand. Kisha lay beside him, slumbering quietly.

He rose out of bed and padded to the bathroom to take a p.i.s.s. And stopped short of the doorway.

Something lay on the carpet, near the front door, as if it had been slipped underneath.

A playing card. The red back faced up.

Coldness drenched him. He knew what he was going to see before he looked; his gut tightened with a certain, terrible knowledge. Nevertheless, he bent and flipped the card over. It was a Joker.

That was the moment when he realized two things, irrefutably.

Big Daddy Jay was alive.

And he was planning to kill Michael.

Michael carried the card into the bathroom. He laid it near the sink. As he did his business at the toilet, his gaze remained riveted to the card. The Joker's grinning face mocked him.

The wild card had a special meaning for Big Daddy Jay. Michael had once sat in on a poker game with Big Daddy Jay, Peanut, and a handful of other regulars. Peanut, drunk as usual, made a comment that Big Daddy didn't appreciatea"something about the man's daughter and how she was so cute. Big Daddy, who had warned all of them about so much as looking at his daughter, c.o.c.ked his head and asked Peanut, "I told you once before never to talk about my daughter, Peanut. You think I'm a joker?"

Suddenly quite sober, Peanut began to apologize, stuttering like a schoolboy.

But it was too late. Big Daddy whacked him upside the head with his pearl-handled cane. Peanut had required seventeen st.i.tches to repair the gash.

You think I'm a joker?

Big Daddy Jay asked that question only when he was being deadly serious.

The card was a clear message: he knew Michael was alive, and he most a.s.suredly was not joking with him about getting the money Michael owed him from eight years agoa"which, knowing how Big Daddy operated, would include substantial interest.

Michael could never pay him. He owed the man a hundred thousand dollars. He hadn't been able to pay it then, and he sure as h.e.l.l couldn't pay it now.

He never should have come back home. Big Daddy Jay was crafty, probably knew that faking his own death would flush out a lot of his debtors, like a tomcat retiring to the shadows to fool the mice into coming out to play. Michael had fallen right into the trap.

Holding the card, he went to the bed. Kisha continued to sleep.

I can run, he thought. Just clear out of Atlanta and start over again somewhere else, with a new name, a new look.

He looked at Kisha. He thought about the decent life he was building with her. He'd kept his nose clean for eight years, had left the old life behind. He'd become a stable, tax-paying citizen.

He didn't want to give that up. He didn't want to run. He'd been running from his past for eight years.

Anyway, now that Big Daddy Jay knew he was alive, running was not a viable option. Big Daddy Jay had connections everywhere. He would find him.

Michael had to settle this business once and for all. Like a man.

He threw on a t-s.h.i.+rt and jeans and went to the jeep. He stored a small leather case in the cargo hold. He carried it back inside the hotel, opened it.

It contained a loaded nine-millimeter pistol, and ammunition.

Some things changed. But some things remained the same.

Kisha awoke, brus.h.i.+ng her hair out of her eyes. "Why you up so early, baby?"

He quickly closed the case.

"I wanted to get a jump on our day in the city," he said. "Wake up, lazy girl."

She giggled, and tossed a pillow at him.

He laughed, but he was already thinking about paying a visit to Big Daddy Jay's store later that night.

At a quarter to nine that evening, Michael pushed through the front door of Jay's Meats & Foods. He wore a dark windbreaker that concealed his gun.

He found Tommy Boy behind the counter, running the store alone. Tommy Boy, with the same tall, broad-shouldered build as his father, had to be in his early thirties by now. But he looked exactly as Michael remembered, as if he hadn't aged a day. Michael guessed that was why they called him Tommy Boya"he had the face of an ageless kid.

Tommy Boy didn't appear to recognize Michael.

"Need any help, mister?" Tommy Boy asked. "We're closing in fifteen minutes, by the way."

Michael placed his hands on the counter, facing the guy directly. "You recognize me?"

"Naw, don't think so." Tommy Boy frowned, scratched his head.

"Cut the bulls.h.i.+t," Michael said. "I'm Mike B. I know Peanut told the whole world that he saw me in the back last night."

"Mike B.?" His eyes grew large. "But you dieda""

"Give it up, man. Or does Big Daddy really keep you in the dark like that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. My daddy pa.s.sed. And Peanut--"

"Big Daddy isn't dead, and you know it." Michael flung the Joker card onto the counter. "He left this in my hotel room this morning."