CHAPTER ELEVEN
That same evening she went home, changed clothes, and was heading back out to go get her something to eat.
Her mother had cooked, but nobody had bothered to save her anything.
Which was fine by her. Her mother was giving her a roof over her head for free, and she was grateful for that.
The least she could do was feed herself.
But as soon as Toya sat down in her car and was about to pull out, Keisha’s boyfriend Bam ran out and jumped off of the stoop. “Toya,” he was yelling. “Toya wait!” He rushed up and tapped on her window.
She didn’t want to press it down, because she really didn’t want to be bothered, but she pressed it down anyway. “What, Bam? I don’t feel like picking up nothing for nobody tonight.” Because she knew it was going to be beer.
“I didn’t ask you pick nothing up for me.”
“Then what you want?”
“Where you going?”
“I’m going to get me something to eat.”
“Can I ride with you? Yo’ mama wants some beer.”
“Don’t you think she’s had enough to drink for the day?”
“I want some too,” Bam said, which, Toya knew, was the real answer. She unlocked her door, Bam hopped in, and she took off.
“Keisha said you got the job permanent.”
Toya smiled. “I did.”
“I thought everybody that worked at Burger King was on permanent.”
Toya shook her head. “I’m not working at Burger King. I answer the phones at the Carrington estate.”
Bam frowned. “What’s the Carrington estate?”
“You never heard of Carrington Capital? It’s a huge business in Brockhurst.”
“I don’t know nothing about what they got going on in no Brockhurst. Them rich folks wouldn’t let me step foot in that town. I never heard of no Carrington Capital.”
“To be honest with you, before I got this job, I never heard of it either,” Toya said, and they laughed.
“But according to what I found out online, they’re one of the largest venture capitalist companies in the country.
They buy businesses in danger of closing for little of nothing, and then they turn them around and sell them for a huge profit. ”
“They flip businesses the way people flip houses, in other words,” Bam said.
She nodded. “In other words.”
“Are they friendly there?”
“Some are. Some aren’t.” Then she added with an awkward smile: “One person is really nice.”
Bam looked at her. “Who? The supervisor I hope.”
“No, she’s terrible. But Mr. Carrington is nice.”
“Carrington? As in the namesake of the whole company?”
“Yup. He’s really nice.”
“Okay now.”
Toya looked at him. “Okay now what?”
“That’s that same shit you was saying about Richard Lowe of Leonard and Lowe, and you see what that got you. Be careful, Toya. These powerful white men love to sexually exploit our pretty black sisters and then toss them aside. Don’t let it happen to you again.”
“First of all,” Toya responded, “I didn’t even like Richard Lowe. And he didn’t exploit me, he tried to rape me. I stayed out of his way the whole time I worked there. But even that didn’t help me.”
She wanted to forget forever that bitter memory. “Don’t you worry about me,” she said. “I’m there to do a job and try to move up the ladder of success. I want a career again. That’s all I’m about.”
“Good,” said Bam, nodding his head. “Just don’t let that white man fool you.”
Toya smiled too. She always did like Bam. She glanced at him. He was one of the smartest guys she knew, but he just never did anything with it. “You still doing construction?”
“When I can get it. It’s been slow lately. But why would they hire Americans when they can hire them illegals they pay next to nothing to do the same work?”
“Ain’t that many illegals in this big city, Bam, come on now. There’s plenty of jobs to go around.”
“You say. But that ain’t what I see.”
“Then maybe you need glasses,” Toya said as she pulled into the parking lot of the gas station.
Bam laughed. “I been needed glasses,” he said, and they both got out of the car.
Bam waited for Toya to walk toward his side of the car. And with Keisha out of sight, he didn’t hide his admiration. “You sure fine girl,” he said, as he watched her in her short shorts and her tucked-in t-shirt. “You got the perfect legs. Anybody ever tell you that?”
“Don’t start, Bam.”
“Start what? I’m just being honest! You got the kind of figure I crave, girl. And I’ll say it in front of Keisha too.”
“Yeah right.”
“What’s wrong with giving you a compliment?”
“Compliment your own woman. I’m not the one,” she said plainly to him.
He held up his hands. “Don’t chop my head off damn,” he said, and they both laughed.
When they got in the store, Bam headed straight for the beer section while Toya headed for the chips. She was going by the Chicken Shack to get dinner, but she needed chips and lunch meat to pack for work. After getting the chips, she went over by the refrigerated section.
That was when she saw Bam. He was still fumbling around in the beer section of the refrigerator. “Damn, Bam. What’s taking you so long?” She opened the door two doors away from him to pull out a pack of chopped ham.
“I told you I need glasses,” he said as he suddenly grabbed a six pack and made his way up front.
She shook her head. He could be so weird sometimes! But she had her own problems. She grabbed the ham and made her way to the front counter too.
The cashier, a short Korean man, was ringing up Bam’s beer when she walked up, but Bam kept looking toward the entrance and around the inside of the store. Nobody was in there but the two of them and the cashier. What was he looking for?
But that was when he pulled out a gun. Toya couldn’t believe it. “Bam, what are you doing?” she whispered to him.
Then Bam pointed the gun at the cashier. “Give me all the money! All of it!”
“Bam put that away! Are you crazy? Put it away!” Toya was screaming at Bam as the terrified Korean was speaking a language she couldn’t understand.
But before anything could happen, the Korean jumped over the counter top and grabbed for that gun.
Toya backed up when he and Bam began fighting for control of the gun.
She was so stunned that no words would come out of her mouth.
But she knew what was happening. She had to help that Korean get that gun from Bam.
He might get that gun and shoot them both, but she wasn’t going to stand by and let Bam shoot that innocent cashier.
But Bam and that Korean were going at it too hard. They both were on top of the countertop, knocking candy bars and breath mints all over the front of the store as they wrestled for control.
Toya was just about to pull Bam off of that Korean when the gun went off. She backed up in horror when the Korean slid off of the countertop and fell to the floor.
Toya looked at Bam in shock. Did he just shoot a man? But Bam didn’t delay for a second. He jumped behind that countertop, opened the register, and grabbed all the cash inside. Then he hopped back over.
Toya was on the floor, to see if the Korean still had a pulse, but Bam grabbed her by her shirt. “Let’s go!” he yelled.
“He could die, Bam.”
“That’s his problem. I was defending myself. Now let’s go before somebody come in here and see us!”
“Us? There ain’t no us,” Toya said angrily.
But Bam put that gun to her head. “I said let’s go!” he demanded. When she still resisted, he dragged her by the catch of her shirt all the way out of that store.
Still holding her, he got in first, slid over, and pulled her into the car behind the steering wheel. “Drive!” he demanded. “Let’s get out of here!”
But they could hear the sirens already, as if that Korean had pressed his emergency button when Bam first brandished that gun.
“Are you insane?” Toya said to Bam. “There’s cameras all over this place.”
“You think I’m stupid? I scoped out this place for days. None of them cameras work.” He pressed that gun against her skull. “Now drive before I blow your head off too!”
She could tell Bam was scared out of his mind. She could see it in his eyes that he was regretting this whole ordeal already. But he was in it now. And he was determined to keep her in it too.
But she wasn’t about to be driving his crazy ass anywhere. She tried to snatch away from him and get out of her car, but Bam slung her back in. “I’ll kill you girl!” he yelled as he fired a shot just past her feet, which caused her to scream. “Quit playing with me! Now drive!”
That warning shot woke her up from any delusions she had about getting away from him. She drove.
“Take me home,” Bam said in a defeated voice. “Take me to Keisha. She’ll know what to do.”
Toya’s heart dropped. Because she knew he wasn’t going home for long to anybody. He just robbed a store and shot a man. And that man could be dead! “You done messed up now, Bam,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “You done messed up now.”
She knew he had to know it, too, because they weren’t a mile away from that gas station when police cars were racing up behind them.
“Floor it!” Bam yelled hysterically as he kept looking back to see where they were.
“What do you mean floor it?” Toya couldn’t believe he didn’t realize the jig was up. “We can’t outrun no police!”
“Floor it or I’ll blow your motherfucking head off, Toya! Floor it!” He placed the gun against her skull even harder.
Terrified, Toya floored it and found herself in a high-speed chase with law enforcement.
But her driving skills were no match for theirs.
They caught up to them in less than a minute, and one of the patrol cars initiated a perfect PIT that caused her Chrysler to go into a spin and then slam against a guardrail that mangled her entire front end.
Then the police hopped out, all guns pointed at both of them, and Bam finally dropped his gun and held up his hands.
Even his stupid ass realized in that moment that his successful armed robbery, a robbery that was probably going to put him in prison for the rest of his life, lasted five minutes tops.
But as the cops flung her out of the car as if she was resisting when she wasn’t resisting at all, and as they threw her to the ground and handcuffed her just like they were handcuffing Bam, she knew she could go to prison for life too.
If Bam was right and there were no cameras inside that place anywhere, what was to stop them from claiming that she was in on it too?
But unlike the last time she was in police custody, there was no way she was mentally prepared to languish in a jail cell for months on end on an armed robbery and shooting that could even turn into a murder charge. There was no way!
But if she wasn’t able to make bail on that assault charge, how in the world was she going to make it on a robbery - possibly homicide - charge?
As those cops grabbed her up like she was a piece of trash and threw her into the back of their squad car, she knew she had no chips to play. She had to go for broke.
She was calling Carrington Capital.
She was going to beg them to put Mr. Carrington on the line, even though she knew the chances of that were slim to none.
But the rumor mill said he had a thing for her.
The rumor mill said they were an item. Maybe that lying rumor mill would finally work in her favor and somebody would actually let him know that she needed him. Because she needed him!
And she knew that if she could just explain to him what happened, what really happened, he just might believe her. Somehow she knew it.
She also knew that getting whomever was going to answer that phone to put him on the line, if anybody answered that phone at all this time of night, was going to be hard. But when had anything in her life ever been easy?
Hard was all she knew.
Hard was all she had.