“Why is it that so many people think we had something to do with Professor Green’s death?” Demetrius had put off saying anything to his father for several days, but Coach’s words kept eating at him. Then customers started telling him that they didn’t want to put their twenty dollar bet in because they heard Don Shepherd doesn’t like to pay up. The gang was getting ready to leave for the Bahamas the next day for the Ali fight, and Demetrius didn’t want to leave town without getting to the bottom of this.
“Who are these people?” Don snarled.
“Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t had as many bets this week?”
“Yeah, but I thought you was out spending your money instead of doing your job this week.”
“I’ve been on my job,” Demetrius defended himself. “But everywhere I go, someone is telling me that they don’t want to place a bet, because they don’t want to end up like Professor Green.”
“That’s just ridiculous. How many house fires do they think can be set in this town without the police asking questions?”
Demetrius just came out with it. “So, are you saying that you didn’t do it, or that you wouldn’t burn down another house in order to kill someone?”
Don stared at his son for a long moment. When he finally spoke his voice was calm. “Wasn’t I in Chicago when Danny’s house burned down? If the people are mad because I didn’t try to find a family member to give Danny’s winnings to, that’s one thing... but don’t accuse me of murder when I wasn’t even in town.”
That was true. Demetrius could verify that his father had been in Chicago. At least, he’d been there up until the time Demetrius left. From the timeline given by the newscaster Demetrius had been home, sleeping in his own bed when the fire started at Professor Green’s house. So, if he had made it back to Dayton before the fire started, then his father could have done the same. But if Don Shepherd had come back to Dayton the same night of the fire, then why would he have gone back to Chicago? Because from what he knew, Don, Joe-Joe and Stan partied hard in Chicago that weekend.
He shook the doubt off. No, his father was not in Dayton at the time the fire had been set. And his dad was probably right about people having sour grapes because Don wasn’t about to give Professor Green’s winnings to a family member. It wasn’t like they were some legitimate business that could be taken to court.
“You’re right, Dad. People around here just mad because they didn’t have enough money to make the kind of bet Professor Green made.”
“Exactly.”
Demetrius stood. “I’m going home to pack. Are you bringing Leo’s wife again?”
“What can I say,” Don popped his collar. “The lady can’t keep her hands off of me.”
“Is anybody else bringing a date to this fight?”
“Stan’s bringing his old lady.” Don laughed as he added, “Joe-Joe is trying to find a lady so he won’t be the odd man out.”
“Oh, but you don’t care if I’m the odd man out. What if I wanted to bring a date? Where’s my extra ticket?”
“Don’t get your nose out of joint. Al isn’t going to make the trip, so I have an extra ticket.”
“But I thought he was so excited about seeing this fight. Especially since he thinks it’s going to be Ali’s last fight?”
Don shrugged, “Changed his mind, I guess.”
Sticking his hand out, Demetrius said, “Give me the ticket. Angel would love to go to this fight.”
“Boy, you done lost your mind if you think I’m giving you this ticket so you can treat that girl to a Bahamas vacation. Vivian is the girl for you. Why don’t you call her up and see if she wants go?”
“Vivian threw a shoe at my head.”
“Vivian is cool people. Me and her daddy go way back. That girl will make you a good wife. That’s why I’ve been pushing you towards Vivian for years. But what did you do... you go and pull that little stripper out of an alley and try to make her a house wife.
Demetrius’ body trembled from the rage he felt inside. How dare Don act as if Angel wasn’t good enough for them. “What has Angel done that makes you dislike her so much? Okay, she was a stripper... but you used to be a pimp. How can you judge her?”
Smirking, Don said, “Being a stripper makes her my kind of people. It’s something about her that I don’t trust. She don’t know her place.” Don shook his head as his lip twisted in disgust. “I can’t trust her to be down when you might need her to be, so I don’t want her anywhere near me.”
“You think she’s not down just because she wouldn’t turn a trick for Frankie Day?” Demetrius’ nostrils were flaring. He was so angry he could hardly see straight. “Every woman on these streets isn’t like Ma...” Demetrius clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t say the words out loud. He wouldn’t discuss what his mother had been, not to the man who had done it to her in the first place. Demetrius was done talking.
Demetrius went to his car, took his ticket for the Ali fight out of his glove compartment and then stormed back into his father’s office. He threw the ticket on his desk. “You can have my ticket, because I’m not interested in being down for Don Shepherd either. So, I guess that makes me a liability too, huh?”
Don took the ticket in his hand, he studied his son as he asked, “Does this mean that you don’t want to get paid either?”
“I earned my paper. I got up early and stayed out on them streets late taking bets, so yeah, I want what’s mine. And don’t think you can just set a fire to get out of paying me.”
Don’s hand hit the desk hard. “There aren’t too many men still living who can boast about talking to me the way you just did. Being in the family has its privileges, but don’t overstep yourself, son.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the extra ticket. “Here, bring whoever you want.”
“I just told you that I don’t want to go.”
Don stood up, leaning forward, “And I’m telling you that I don’t want you in town this weekend. You will be with me in the Bahamas, got it?”
Demetrius didn’t reach for the tickets. He and his father just kept staring at each other as if in a contest to see who would break first.
Don finally said, “It’s like this, Demetrius. I don’t want anyone to be able to get at you while I’m all the way in the Bahamas. We are going to have a ton of angry customers when this fight ends. I need to know that you’re safe.” He pushed the tickets toward his son.
Demetrius took them this time, but he left without saying another word to his father. He just didn’t understand how Don Shepherd could judge anybody, when he had been a pimp, a loan shark, numbers runner and now they were getting into the dope game. Sure, his father had legitimate businesses like a car wash and a neighborhood drive-thru. But they were only fronts for the other illegal activity.
Still steaming as he drove home, Demetrius wondered if his dad had said anything to Stan or Joe-Joe about the women they were bringing to the fight. But as he was thinking that over, another thought struck him... Al wasn’t going to the Bahamas.
Al hadn’t gone to Chicago for the Frazier fight either. So, Al had been in town when Professor Green’s house had caught on fire. Demetrius didn’t want to believe it, but the more he thought about it, the more it all made sense.
As he pulled into his driveway, Demetrius turned off the engine but didn’t get out of the car. He was too busy thinking... His dad had been angry when the fight ended with a draw, he’d even snapped at him. Demetrius had expected his father to still be in a bad mood when he’d come home from Chicago, because it would now be time to pay up. But Don had been jovial about the matter. When Demetrius and Al had shown up to collect their earnings, Don had told them that Stan and Joe-Joe were making the rounds paying the winners from the Frazier fight. He had even said, paying up quickly ensured that most of them would put money on the Ali fight.
Paying a hundred dollars to the person who placed a ten dollar bet, was a whole lot easier than paying two hundred thou to the man who’d placed a twenty thousand dollar bet. But once that fire had been set, Don’s two hundred thousand dollar problem had been solved.
Beating down a man who owed money and wasn’t trying to pay it back was one thing; but killing a man and his wife to get out of paying a debt, was way past wrong as far as Demetrius was concerned. This wasn’t the business he wanted to be in. All of his young life he’d dreamed of being a hitter. Demetrius could swing that bat like nobody’s business.
But that was back in the day. Now he was a thug who beat up people and took bets for a living. If his mother could see him now, Demetrius knew one thing for sure, she would be heart broken. His father could talk all his a-woman-has-to-be-down-for-her-man stuff that he wanted, but the real truth was, his mother never wanted him to become anything like her husband.
Demetrius hit the steering wheel with his fist, as he screamed out, “How could you get pregnant by a man like him? How could you leave me with him?” He wished his mother could have answered those questions, but that would never happen and he had one person to thank for that.
“Hey, are you going to sit in that car all night or what?” Angel called out to him as she opened the front door.
Demetrius glanced at his watch. He’d been sitting in his car for over an hour. Still trying to come to grips with the fact that his father was a cold blooded killer, just as Coach Johnson had said. But there was nothing he could do about his father, so he decided to go into the house and make Angel’s day. “I’m coming.”
The moment he walked in, he showed her the tickets.
Angel stepped back as she looked at them. Then she asked as sadness crept into her eyes, “You’re taking someone to the Ali fight?”
“Oh yeah, I’m taking someone alright. And we are going to have a good time in the Bahamas.”
Folding her arms across her chest, she asked, “Are your bags packed already, or am I supposed to do that?”
Demetrius had been grinning as he twirled the tickets around. But he stopped as he looked into Angel’s eyes. He realized that Angel thought he would show her tickets to a fight even though he planned to take someone else. Frankie must have done a real number on her. He wished she’d never met that man, but Demetrius vowed right then and there to spend the rest of his life making up for what that low-life had done.
“No, I don’t want you to pack my bags. You won’t have time. You need to get in your room and pack a bag for you and DeMarcus because we are going to the Bahamas together, baby.”
“What!” she screamed as she started jumping around the room.
“You heard me. The only thing I need to do now is get you a plane ticket because I think DeMarcus should be able to sit on your lap.”
Without thinking, Angel jumped into Demetrius’ arms and kissed him. “I love you, Demetrius.” Her eyes got big as those words rolled out of her mouth. She stepped away from him and tried to clarify. “I... I mean, I love this. What we are about to do... the trip. Thank you.” She then scurried off to her room without looking back.
Demetrius watched her go, wanting desperately to pull her back and make her face the fact that what they were feeling was real and it was good and wasn’t nothing ever going to come between them. But he doubted that she would hear him.
~~~~
Demetrius hadn’t been able to book Angel on the same flight he and his father were on because it was full. So, he cancelled his ticket and booked both of them on a flight scheduled to leave out three hours later. He’d also checked with the airline to verify that he didn’t need an extra ticket for DeMarcus. And they’d confirmed that since the child was under two years old, he could just sit in Angel’s lap.
He and Angel spent the rest of the night talking about their upcoming trip. She was all smiles and totally jubilant, because she’d never dreamed that she would be able to go anywhere other than back home to North Carolina. And she told Demetrius just that.
He asked, “You’ve mentioned going back home a few times. Is it really that important to you?”
Angel nodded. “I don’t really care to see my father, butI owe my mom a serious apology. I blamed her for the break-up and wouldn’t listen to reason. I became a rebellious child and really let her down. Now I have a son and she doesn’t even know anything about him.”
Demetrius wasn’t so keen on his father these days either, so he didn’t bother to ask why she didn’t want to see her father. Instead he asked, “Why don’t you just call your mother?”
“I tried about a year ago, right before Frankie made me earn my living by stripping. But her phone had been disconnected.”
“What about your father? Do you have a telephone number for him?”
“I’m not trying to call him. One day I’ll just go home and find my mother. I still know how to get back to the house we moved into after the divorce.” Angel smiled down at DeMarcus as he lay on the sofa sleeping. “She’ll be so happy to see her grandson.”
Demetrius decided right then and there that he would take her down South to find her mother. Maybe they’d even spend a few weeks in North Carolina. He certainly needed some time and space away from his father. Once he collected his money, he would drive Angel down South. He’d let her in on the plan later this weekend. Right now he wanted to discuss another matter.
“You do understand that you and I will be in the same hotel room when we get to the Bahamas, right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Angel looked at him as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“It don’t mean nothing, except that I want you to be my woman... do you understand what I’m telling you, Angel? I want us to be together?”
She stared at him as she pulled at her lip. Then she asked, “What about Vivian? What about that girl who called the house the other day?”
“I don’t want nobody but you. Can you get that through your thick skull already?” He pulled her close to him, this time he kissed her. It was a hungry, throw caution to the wind kind of kiss that left them gasping for air. When he was able to speak again, he said, “I love you, girl. I don’t know how it happened or why it happened, but I’m not fighting it.”
“I can’t fight it anymore either, Demetrius. You’re a good man and,” tears were in her eyes as she said, “I love you.”
“Then let’s do the dang thang then.”
Angel nodded. Where else could she go? As far as Angel was concerned, this was Demetrius’ world and she wanted nothing more than to discover what he was going to do with it.