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Jude sighed. The phone call with Kash had triggered all these self-reflections. He was damn good at this hustle, but it aged the mastermind behind it all. Some days he popped aspirin like candy due to headaches brought on by stress. The suspicions of others were forever growing, and he always had to put out fires—morning, noon and night.This shit is getting old…
Back in the day, he actually enjoyed what he was doing. The power. The fame. Now, it was a necessary means.
I don’t see myself only running and managing the distillery. That’s not enough. I’ve got no formal education. I’ve got a criminal record. I come from a family that’s internationally known, and not in a good way. A family the law hates, but the brethren revere. There are books written about my damn parents, for God’s sake. This is all I know. That’s what makes it even more important that I keep off the radar.
He was serious about ensuring no trace of evidence was left behind. He paid a lot of money to get the right supplies to efficiently hide his tracks. To him, this was worth every penny. Even though his stint in the penitentiary hadn’t been directly for drug charges, the county, having had enough of the Cooper clan, tried to throw everything at him, to see what would stick. So he got hit for the racketeering and a third-degree manslaughter charge, which to him, had been actually self-defense. All he did in prison was learn from his mistakes, but not in the way many would’ve hoped. He had absolutely no inclination to walk, trot, or crawl a path of straight and narrow, but he was driven to fine-tune the wisdom on how to never get caught.
His phone buzzed. Another sale confirmed.
Life’s been fucked up most of the time, but not all of my days walkin’ this Earth have been bad. Mama and Daddy tried their best, but sometimes a person’s best just ain’t good enough…
He took a drag of his cigarette, blew smoke out the cracked window and shook his head as their faces popped into his mind.Mama, you were the perfect sidekick to Daddy. You were a twisted version of Bonnie and Clyde.He chuckled, pushing back the emotions. Flashes of his mother’s bullet-ridden body at the hospital still haunted him. He and Cain had never been allowed to view their father. The damage had been too extensive. They’d been young, but he’d never forget how his grandmother had cried and cried so much.
Yeah, I ain’t never going to be prison again. I ain’t going out like Mama and Daddy, either, in a blaze of bullets… They kept talkin’ about it on the news. It became the soundtrack of my nightmares.
The wheels in his head turned and turned. Life was changing. He was getting older. The tweakers were pushing their luck more and more. He felt anxious some days, and the thoughts of settling down and having a family had entered his mind more than once, too.A little girl to hold and spoil… a little boy to hug, teach how to play catch, and go huntin’—despite him pretending he didn’t care about any of that, that he was just fine being seen only as Judge… never someone’s husband… someone’s daddy… He swallowed his true feelings and let more of that good old bitterness take hold. Cynicism tasted like sewer water. Rancid, nauseating. Sickening.
He tapped the steering wheel, his emotions wound up like twine, squeezing his heart to death.
Starting up the truck at last, he made his way down the street and turned on the music. Lil Migo’s, ‘No Love In My Heart’ was airing. He bobbed his head to the rap song as he drove into the middle of a daydream.I wonder what she’s doing right now?He’d been thinking about the petite cutie all day. It’s time I made another move.
Iris had been thwarting his advances, causing his frustrations to grow. Never had he dealt with someone so damn stubborn. He’d met his match, and he’d had about enough. He knew the woman wanted him as much as he wanted her, but her sense of morality and cock-blocking were unmatched. After a couple of minutes, he lit a fresh cigarette and checked the time on his Rolex.
‘Call Iris…’ he asked Siri.
The phone rang through the truck speakers.
“Hey, Jude,” she answered, then yawned.
“Hey… I’m dropping by to take you out for coffee.”
“No, you’re not. I’ve got plans this afternoon.”
“No, you don’t. We went over your schedule.”
“Sir, you don’t own my free time. I don’t have to tell you everything I’ve got planned and what I’m doin’.”
“Ma’am, I didn’t ask what you were doing, but I know in a little bit, you’ll be in a coffee shop with me.”
“Dunkin’ told a story. Starbucks fibbed. McDonald’s weaved a falsehood. In other words, whoever told you that we were having coffee, lied.” She chuckled.
“My crystal ball tells me otherwise. Eli has been enjoying your visits.”
“I know, and I’ve enjoyed his company, just like I told you. He’s a sweet person, something you’d know nothin’ about.” She mitigated the sting of her words with another laugh.
“Well, like I told you, Iris, we’re now goin’ on four weeks of you visiting Eli. In fact, he and I spoke earlier today. He can’t wait to see you again tomorrow. He gives me a full report each time.”
“No, he told me that youaskhim for a full report, and he’s about fed up. You ring his phone and harass that poor man, askin’ what we’re doing all the time. We’re finished with the two-week trial period, just like you said, and you’ve only eased up a little bit. If I do something crazy, he’d tell you. No need to keep blowing up that man’s phone. He said he’s going to stop answering it when you ring him. He’s sick of you and so am I.”
He laughed at that.
“I’ll be there in,” he glanced at his watch again, “twenty-five minutes.”
“Jude, don’t bring your ass over here. I don’t know what kind of games you’re playin’, but—”
He ended the call and turned the music back up. Twenty-four minutes later, he pulled into the apartment building parking lot. He noticed the debris, litter and trash scattered about the place, a lack of maintenance and neglect of the common areas. Taking one more drag of his cigarette, he snuffed it in the ashtray and got out of his truck. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted an unusually thin White woman, her glassy, bloodshot eyes practically hanging out of her skull as she observed his vehicle.
“That’s a nice truck!” she said, pointing at it, most of her teeth missing. She sounded young but looked well past her years. “Damn, you’re sexy.”
