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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466853744 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/14/2014 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Sales rank: | 300,184 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
J.D. MASON is the author of Drop Dead, Gorgeous, Beautiful, Dirty; Rich, Somebody Pick Up My Pieces; Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It; That Devil's No Friend Of Mine; You Gotta Sin To Get Saved; This Fire Down In My Soul; Don't Want No Sugar; And On The Eighth Day She Rested; and One Day I Saw A Black King. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her two children.
J.D. MASON is the author of That Devil's No Friend of Mine, You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, This Fire Down in My Soul, Don't Want No Sugar, And On the Eighth Day She Rested, and One Day I Saw a Black King. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her two children."Mason's contributions to African American literature have dealt with life's problems head-on..."--American Library Association "Mason has become a major name in African American fiction. Her stark portrayals of her characters and their innermost thoughts bring the readers right into the emotional center of the story. Those who enjoy Carl Weber and Eric Jerome Dickey will add Mason to their list of favorites." --Booklist
Read an Excerpt
Crazy, Sexy, Revenge
By J. D. Mason
St. Martin's Griffin
Copyright © 2014 J. D. MasonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-5374-4
CHAPTER 1
Who was he? Plato could see the questioning looks coming from all of them as he climbed out of the car. Was he a detective? That dead woman lying on the steps of that shitty motel looked expensive enough to command an investigation from the grave, even from where he was standing. Maybe he was her husband, who'd somehow known that his woman was here and in trouble. Was he like the rest of them, just passing through, stopping here to sleep for the night? Hardly.
He studied each of them intently: hoes, addicts, homeless. These were desperate people, and desperate people were one of two things: afraid ... or dangerous.
"Damn, he got here quick," he heard someone murmur.
"That the po-po?"
"Too clean to be the po-po."
"A pimp? Her pimp?"
"Maybe."
Plato walked over to the woman. Beautiful! Even in death, or especially.
Waves of ebony hair fanned out on the steps beneath her. Red-stained lips parted slightly, making her look as if she was just about to whisper a secret. Dark eyes fixed on the stars above. Damn shame. Plato didn't have much time, ten, maybe fifteen minutes at the most before the Dallas Police Department started to arrive. It was an expensive fifteen minutes, but if you had the money and the power, you could afford it.
There was a door open on the second floor. Had she come from there? Plato stepped over the lovely figure and casually climbed the stairs. He looked inside and saw crumpled bedsheets and a towel tossed on the floor. Plato went into the bathroom to get another towel, then began wiping down every surface that could possibly contain a fingerprint, the faucets in the shower and bathroom sink, the linoleum counter, a small table and chairs in the main room, along with the headboard, nightstands, and finally, the doorknob, inside and out. He threw the towel on the bed and closed the door behind him.
He was down to eight minutes.
The crowd had begun closing in on the dead woman's body. Curiosity drew them to her, that and greed. Some of them eyed those gold bangles on her arm like they were candy. Diamond earrings called to them like sirens from the sea. Shit like that could buy a lot of nights in this dump or some good-ass hits of whatever it was these fools shot into themselves.
"Anybody see what happened?" he asked, eyeing them all suspiciously.
"I did." An overachieving, dirty white girl spoke up.
"Shut up, Lisa," her dirty black boy said, sliding up to her from behind.
Plato focused on the girl. Tracks had left her arms bruised and looking like someone had been chewing on them. "What did you see?"
"A black man, kinda tall, like you. He went inside that room you just came out of and then she came and went in. I think I heard them getting it on, but ..." She rolled her eyes. "He came out and she was screaming and then this other broad came out of nowhere and shot her."
There was no sound. The silencer stole the sound. There was just the gun. And blood. And wide eyes that had probably been ocean blue before the drugs, now gray, staring back at him in disbelief, before rolling back into her head. Her body fell at her dirty man's feet.
Plato looked at each of them. "Anybody else see anything?"
An old man with one leg, balancing on one crooked and socked foot, wearily shook his head, and slowly began backing up toward what was probably his room. The dirty black boyfriend of the dirty white girl held his mouth open to release a scream that refused to come. Two young prostitutes held on to each other's hands and stared wide-eyed and shocked at Plato.
He had five minutes.
"Can we go?" one of them asked helplessly. "Please don't kill us."
He started walking toward the front office. The two girls took off running.
The dude behind the counter was a relic, tethered to this place by some ungodly connection that only made sense to him. The portly man played some kind of game in his mind, make-believing that he ran a five-star hotel in the heart of Dallas instead of a dump on the edge. The green-and-gold bow tie he wore threatened to choke the breath out of him as it clashed violently against the brown-and-lilac button-down, short-sleeved shirt. His khakis were perfectly pressed, with sharp creases running down the front of his legs.
Plato could read it in his eyes that the man was afraid. He'd seen too much. He knew too much, and this fool would start talking to the first cop who showed up on the scene. Hell, he'd probably been the one to call them.
Plato stood across from the man with the counter separating the two. Being six-five, just about every man he came into contact with was shorter than he was. Plato's size struck fear into people who had something to hide. And this one looked like he had plenty, but Plato only cared about one thing.
"Y-yes ... sir?" he asked Plato nervously. "May I h-help you?"
He contemplated the man, realizing as he studied him that this man's fate was sealed the day he took his first breath from his momma's womb. Plato could see the recognition in the man's eyes, as the revelation slowly took root in his own mind, and he began to panic at the thought of his impending death.
"Room 204," Plato said. "Who was it registered to?"
The man hesitated. Ethics made him do it. "I'm sorry, s-sir, but I'm not at liberty to say."
Plato almost admired his conviction. Almost.
He took a step closer to him and slowly repeated the question. "Who was it registered to?"
Conviction took hold of ethics' hand and dragged its ass right out of the front door. The man frantically began typing on the keyboard to his computer.
"Smith," he said quickly. "John Smith."
"Who paid for it?" Plato probed.
The man swallowed. "Ross. Franklin Ross. He paid over the phone by credit card."
Plato had no idea who Franklin Ross was, but he knew that the man was a goddamned idiot using his own credit card to pay for a room registered to John Smith.
Plato turned to leave, and then he turned back to face the man, one last time.
Time was up.
Plato stepped out into the parking lot and could hear the sirens whirring in the distance.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war," he murmured, quoting his namesake.
Now the police didn't have just one murder to solve. They had three. They had no witnesses. Maybe they'd find the killer of that beautiful woman someday. Maybe not. Maybe they'd even catch up with Plato's ass. Maybe not. But for a while, the police would stumble and scratch their heads trying to figure out what these three people could've possibly had in common. They'd wonder why they'd all been shot on this night at this place. Naturally, the first thing the cops would try to do was to connect the three killings, but Plato knew that any detective worth his badge would soon see that there was no connection between the murder of the woman and the desk clerk or the junkie in the parking lot.
Plato climbed back into his car and turned on the engine, but before backing out of the parking space, he pulled out his cell phone and made a call.
"How bad is it?" Edgar Beckman asked as soon as he answered the phone.
"There's a woman lying dead on the steps. I'd say that's pretty bad," he said coolly.
"Witnesses?"
"Several."
"Should we be worried?"
"Death should always leave you worried."
The old man sighed irritably. "Do you think anyone will say anything to the police?" he asked impatiently.
Plato knew people, and he especially knew these kinds of people. They were the throwaways, the forgotten-abouts, the kind of people that were on their way to someplace else. The woman lying on those steps wasn't one of them. He could tell by the clothes she wore, the perfection to which her hair and makeup were done. He glanced back in the rearview mirror and saw the small scattering of the motel residents crouch around her body, begin riffling through her purse, and take whatever jewelry she wore.
"No," he finally said, satisfied in the affirmation he'd been so divinely blessed with in this moment as he watched those people that he truly did understand them. "I don't think you have to worry about any of them saying a goddamned thing."
"Who was registered in that room?"
"John Smith, but he's not the one who paid for it," Plato said.
The man paused. "Who paid for it? How?"
"Franklin Ross paid for it with his credit card. You know that fool?"
The old man sighed. "Thankfully, no, not personally." He hesitated and then continued. "And what about the car?"
"What about it?" Plato asked unemotionally.
"You have to take it. You have to get rid of it," he demanded. "I told you there'd be a car parked there and that you had to get rid of it."
Plato surveyed the parking lot.
"A Mercedes? A white Mercedes?" Beckman said frantically. "In the parking—"
"Ain't no Mercedes out here, boss," he said, hanging up his phone without waiting for a response. Plato's fifteen minutes were up.
CHAPTER 2Adrenaline had dissipated and Jordan was suddenly exhausted. Ten hours had passed since Lonnie had been killed. Jordan still couldn't believe it. It still didn't seem real that Claire had actually pulled that trigger. Two years ago Jordan had walked away from Lonnie, believing he'd killed her. He'd tortured her, and he'd meant for her to die that night. But he couldn't remember feeling the way he did now. He hadn't killed her and two years later she came back into his life, pissed as hell and bent on making him pay for what he'd done to her, but she was alive, and something inside him was relieved. The world was different without her—his world was different.
If it wasn't for this board meeting first thing this morning, he wouldn't have come into the office, but this meeting was too important to miss. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have missed it, and Jordan had to keep up appearances. He'd been calling Edgar for hours, worried that the old man might've finally let him down. Edgar wasn't answering his phone, though. And Jordan had spent the better part of the night pacing the floor and trying to drown out the sound of Claire's incessant crying. He'd spent the night expecting that knock belonging to the police to come to his door. Without even trying or meaning to, Jordan played out scenes in his mind of being taken into custody.
"Call my lawyer!" It would be the first thing he'd say to them, the only thing he'd say.
For some reason, he couldn't fathom scenarios of Claire's arrest. He'd be the one they'd take. He'd be the one they'd believe had shot her. And he'd let them because Claire was weak and she'd make him end up looking like a messy fool.
* * *
"There he is! Bravo, Jordan! Bravo!"
All thirty officers of the Gatewood Industries Board of Directors stood up and applauded as he entered the room. Jordan Gatewood was caught off guard by the reception and for a moment, Jordan forgot that a woman was dead—that Lonnie was dead.
"We did it, big brother." His sister, June, came over to him, smiling and wrapping her arms around him. "It's official. With the merger, Gatewood Industries is now the third largest oil company in the world!" She laughed and kissed his cheek.
He'd been awake all night. Jordan hadn't eaten since ... since ... It wasn't until dawn that he remembered about the board meeting, that he remembered how important it was to keep up appearances.
Forcing that smile was damn near impossible. "Yes! We did it!" He looked lovingly at his sister, and then appreciatively around the room at everyone else. Jordan had no choice. He had to hold it together. He had to be that confident leader, that CEO that everyone was expecting to show up this morning to this meeting. His wife had shot and killed a woman the night before, and he'd spent all night long expecting the police to show up on his property to make an arrest.
"Check it out, big guy!" one board member said, holding up the newspaper with a headline that read, Gatewood Industries—Big Oil's Next Giant?
A grainy photo of him speaking at some event was below it. For a moment, he felt proud. He felt strong and confident and on top of the fuckin' world. But on that page was another headline, smaller, and it damn near screamed at him above the cheers.
Award-Winning Reporter Found Dead
The sound of his sister's laughter broke through the fog engulfing him.
June gently grabbed him by his elbow. "Sit down, Jordan, before you fall. I know. I still can't believe it either."
"Do you have any idea how much the estimated worth of Gatewood Industries has increased since yesterday?" Bev Jackson, the controller, looked around the room and asked.
"Double!" someone shouted.
"Triple!" a few others chimed in.
"Try four times what we were worth this time yesterday and you'll be close to right," she finally said, holding up four fingers. Bev leaned back in her seat. "It's unprecedented."
It was true. If he were ever going to actually let that fact sink in, now was the time to do it. Lonnie Adebayo was dead, but the world had definitely not stopped turning because of it, and the very real fact remained that he was now head of one of the largest, most powerful corporations in the world, and that meant something. That ball that he'd had in his gut all night slowly began to unravel. The magnitude of that began to creep back to the surface. He hadn't killed anyone. Claire had shot Lonnie. Jordan was an innocent man. And today, in this moment, he was a very important man. If he didn't believe it himself, he could look at these people and see in their faces that he was their hero. They worshipped and adored him now, more than ever, and last night was behind him. Lonnie was gone.
"I'm meeting with the event planner this afternoon," June announced to the group. "The event is going to be the talk of the town, a black-tie ball, exclusive to all shareholders. I suspect there'll even be a few celebrities there," she said excitedly.
A party? Jordan felt an explosion go off inside him. With all that had happened, this fool wanted to have a party? Stop! Catch yourself! Jordan had to control himself. He was exhausted. Too much was happening too fast.
"Don't forget to send me an invitation," he quipped. The room roared with laughter.
June looked at him proudly. "You're the guest of honor, Jordan Gatewood," she said lovingly. "You'll get the first invitation, big brother."
Jordan needed to rest. He needed time to clear the thoughts clamoring in his head. He needed to calm the fuck down and work like hell not to appear guilty of something he hadn't even done. He needed to talk to Edgar to make sure that the man really had taken care of the situation like he'd promised. And he'd left Claire in a fuckin' mess this morning before he left the house. Claire was a liability, a problem, and no longer a priority.
Jordan was CEO of Gatewood Industries, and damnit, he needed to man up and act like it. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to give the marching orders. He was used to that. And he was damn good at it.
Jordan swallowed. "The easy part's done," he began, looking each person in the room in the eyes. "We've taken Anton Oil and made it ours, but now the real work begins," he said, sternly. "We've got two vastly different corporate cultures that we need to turn into one. Some offices will close, some new ones will open, jobs will be lost, new ones made." Everyone in that room hung on his every word, as Jordan pushed the events from the previous night back into the dark recesses of his mind to focus on the task at hand. "Anton had a nasty little oil spill in the Gulf that we're responsible for now, and for all the billions we've made, it's going to cost us at least that much to clean up the mess we've inherited."
The jubilation wafted out of that room like smoke, but as much as he needed to keep it real, this wasn't the time to douse the fire of these people. "But if anyone can turn that shit around, it's us," he said confidently. "The world's watching, people." Jordan stood up and adjusted his tie. "Let's give them a fuckin' show they won't soon forget."
Every back straightened, every chin raised, and as he turned to leave, they applauded him, again. Jordan was most definitely the man of the hour—for the time being.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Crazy, Sexy, Revenge by J. D. Mason. Copyright © 2014 J. D. Mason. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Griffin.
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