“Jerome is on the sixth floor, still in the ICU. Keyvon is on the third floor with a cop sitting outside his door. They’ve both been charged. Attempted murder, illegal firearms, a whole list. Cops are camped on both of them around the clock.”
“If those cops weren’t sitting on them?—”
“I know. Trust me, I’ve been trying to figure out a way around it. But it’s too hot right now. Every cop in the city knows about the casino shooting. Media’s all over it. We make a move on either one of them in that hospital and it’s over for all of us.”
“So we wait.”
“We wait. But we don’t forget.”
I went into Zephyr’s room. He was lying there with tubes coming out of places tubes shouldn’t come out of, machinesbeeping the rhythm of a life that was still going but would never be the same. His baby mother, Bella, was sitting in the chair next to the bed holding his hand. Her eyes were swollen from crying and her face was wrecked and when she saw me she stood up and walked straight to me and put her face against my chest and broke down.
“They have to pay for this, Quest,” she said into my shirt. “Promise me. Promise me they’re going to pay for what they did to him.”
“They’re going to pay.” I put my hand on the back of her head and held her and meant every word with every cell in my body. “I promise you that.”
“He was just standing at the bar. He wasn’t bothering anybody. He was just celebrating with his family, and now he’s…” Her voice cracked and she couldn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t have to because the machines were finishing it for her. The beeping and the hissing and the clicking of equipment keeping a man alive who was going to wake up and learn that his legs didn’t work anymore.
I stayed for about thirty minutes. Sat with Bella. Talked to Mekhi about logistics that had nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with making sure the people responsible for this experienced consequences that the legal system wasn’t equipped to deliver.
I was about to leave Zephyr’s floor when I saw Peanut coming down the hallway. She was walking fast with her purse clutched against her side and her face tight with worry.
She hadn’t seen me yet. I stepped back near the stairwell door and watched her go into Zephyr’s room. Through the window, I could see her rush to the bed, put her hand over her mouth when she saw all the tubes and machines, and then collapse into Mekhi, who was already standing to catch her. Bella moved aside to give them space.
I was glad to have gotten out when I did. I didn’t feel doing the dance with her ass. Now that I had to deal with this shit that my mother pulled, it made me even more angry with Pea.
I went to Keyvon’s floor. I wasn’t going to his room. I wasn’t that stupid with a cop posted outside. But I wanted to see the layout. Wanted to know the hallway, the exits, the shift change patterns. Information I’d need later when the heat died down and the cops moved on to the next case and this kid was sitting in a jail cell or a rehab ward thinking the worst was over.
The worst hadn’t even started yet.
I was walking past the nurses’ station when I saw her. A young woman, petite, brown-skinned, with long copper-toned locs pulled up in a bun and a belly that put her at about four or five months pregnant. She was signing in at the desk and I caught a glimpse of a viper tattoo on her inner wrist.
I slowed my pace and lingered near the water fountain close enough to hear her talking to the nurse at the desk.
“I’m here to see Keyvon Harris,” she said. “I’m his sister.”
She signed in and walked down the hallway toward Keyvon’s room. The cop outside the door checked her ID and let her through. I stood by the water fountain and watched and memorized her face because faces were currency in my world and this one had just become very valuable.
I took the elevator down to the lobby and walked to the parking garage. Then I waited. Sat in my whip with the engine off and my eyes on the hospital entrance. She came out about forty minutes later, walking to a silver Toyota in the visitor lot with her hand on her belly and her phone pressed to her ear.
I followed her. Kept three cars back. Standard distance. She drove east, took Georgia Ave north, and pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex that was clean but basic. She went up the stairs to the second floor and disappeared inside one of the units.
I sat in the lot for another five minutes. Clocked the building number and the floor she’d gone to. And then I saw the Kawasaki Ninja 400 parked near the entrance. Black with green accents. The same bike from the gas station footage Zephyr had pulled up months ago, the night of the warehouse fire. I’d been staring at that image for weeks, and now there it was sitting in a parking lot off Georgia Ave like it had been waiting for me to find it.
I pulled out my phone and texted Mekhi.
Me: We got a lead. Keyvon’s sister just led me to an apartment off Georgia Ave. Young nigga lives there. Keep your eye on this building. I’ll send you the address.
Mekhi:Say less.
I pulled out of the lot and drove back toward the hotel. The pieces were coming together. The Vipers had a home base, and now I had an address. The kid in that apartment was connected to Keyvon, which meant he was connected to the crew, which meant he was connected to whoever was pulling strings behind the scenes.
I was going to find out who that kid was. And then I was going to have a very long conversation with him about the price of shooting up a Banks casino and putting my brother in a wheelchair.
46
MEHAR
Dinner was perfect. This was the best night I’d had with Quest since before the birthday party blew everything up. He was completely focused on us and not distracted by all the drama that’d been occurring.
