11. Omar
Omar
The barbershop on Flatbush was quiet when I walked in just after noon. Three chairs, two barbers, one customer getting lined up in the back. The bell over the door made everyone look up. The barber working the clippers stopped mid-fade.
"Shop's closed," he said.
I walked past him to the office in the back. The door was locked. I put my shoulder into it once and the frame cracked. Second time it opened.
Darius Webb sat behind a desk counting cash.
He looked up when I came through and his hand went for the drawer but I was already across the room.
I grabbed his wrist, pinned it flat on the desk, pushed my thumb into the pressure point until his fingers opened and whatever he was reaching for stayed where it was.
"Omar." His voice came out strained. "Man, what the fuck?"
I let go of his wrist and sat down in the chair across from him.
The cash was still spread across the desk.
Looked like maybe four thousand, all small bills.
Protection money from the block, probably.
Darius ran collections for one of TK's mid-level guys.
Not important enough to matter but connected enough to know things.
"You been moving product through Bed-Stuy," I said.
"Nah, man. That ain't me. I don't touch that side."
I reached across the desk and picked up one of the stacks. Counted it without looking at him. Two hundred. I set it back down.
"Two of your boys got picked up last night on Nostrand. Both talking about how they work for you. Both saying you sent them to set up on our corners."
"They lying." Darius's voice went higher. "I ain't never sent nobody to Bed-Stuy. That's on them."
I stood up and walked around the desk. He tried to push his chair back but there was nowhere to go. I put one hand on the armrest and leaned down close enough that he had to look at me.
"You got two choices," I said quietly. "You can tell TK to keep his people off our blocks. Or I can make sure you ain't running collections for nobody no more."
"Aight, aight." He put his hands up. "I'll handle it. I'll talk to my boys. Won't happen again."
I straightened up and walked back around the desk. Picked up three of the cash stacks and put them in my jacket.
"What you doing?" Darius half stood. "That's TK's money."
"Now it's tax for stepping on our territory." I looked at him. "You got a problem with that?"
He sat back down and shook his head.
I walked out of the office and through the shop. The barbers and the customer all had their eyes on their phones, nobody looking up, nobody seeing anything. The bell rang when I pushed through the door and the street noise came back in.
Devon was in the car half a block down. I got in and handed him the cash.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Darius gon' keep his boys out of Bed-Stuy."
Devon counted the money and put it in the glove box. "Kadeem want you back at APEX. Said he got some intel on the TK situation."
I checked my phone. No missed calls. "Tell him I'm running down a lead on the vehicle plates you flagged. I'll be there in two hours."
Devon looked at me. "You good?"
"Yeah."
He didn't look convinced but he didn't push it. I got out of the car and walked two blocks to where I'd parked my own. Started the engine and pulled into traffic heading toward Crown Heights.
Asha's salon was on a corner in a neighborhood that used to be rough but was cleaning up now, coffee shops and boutiques moving in next to the bodegas and check-cashing places. I parked three blocks away and walked back. Cee was outside in a black sedan, driver's seat, eyes on his phone.
I stood on the corner across the street with a clear sightline to the salon entrance. Cee couldn't see me from where he was parked. I waited.
She came out twenty minutes later wearing jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled back, bag over her shoulder. She said something to Cee through his window and he nodded. She turned and started walking up the block away from where he was parked.
I crossed the street and fell into step behind her. She made it half a block before she must have heard my footsteps because she turned around and stopped.
Her face went through three things fast. Recognition, something that might have been relief, then fear.
"What are you doing here?" She looked past me down the block toward where Cee was parked.
"Wanted to see you."
"Omar." She said my name like it hurt. "You can't just show up like this. I just told Cee I needed to pick up some things from the shop. There are eyes on me."
Cee was old school hood nigga that used to roll with Supreme's pops and now wanted easy work. Everyone knew Cee. Harmless, but loyal. He'd bring any shit straight back to Supreme no questions asked.
As if on cue, two women came out of a store ahead of us laughing, their voices loud enough to carry. They looked at us as they passed and one of them slowed down like she recognized Asha. Asha smiled and said something I couldn't hear and the women kept walking.
"Come on." She grabbed my arm and pulled me around the corner into an alley between two buildings. We were out of sight of the street but not by much. "You can't be here. Cee is waiting for me."
"So let him wait."
"You don't understand." Her voice dropped lower. "Supreme has people everywhere. Someone sees us together and tells him, he'll know. And then..."
She didn't finish the sentence but she didn't have to.
I looked at her standing there trying to figure out how to make me leave and I couldn't do it. Couldn't walk away. Not again.
"There's a park two blocks from here," I said. "Come with me."
"Omar."
"Just for a few minutes."
She looked back toward the street like she was calculating how long she had before Cee came looking. Then she looked at me and something in her face changed.
"Okay," she said quietly. "But we have to be quick."
We walked fast, not touching, both of us watching the street. The park was small, just a block of green space with benches and a playground where a few kids were running around screaming. We sat down on a bench at the far end away from everyone else.
"But why are you here?" she asked again.
"I told you. I wanted to see you."
I knew I shouldn't have said it, but this was Asha Cole. THE Asha Cole. How the hell was I supposed to hold back now?
Her eyes searched over every inch of my body before they rested on the scar on my arm. The knife scar where I'd been stabbed in a fight two years back.
"I thought you were going to get out?" she said quietly.
I looked down at the scar her eyes were fixed on before they met mine again. "I wanted to, but it was inevitable. This is where I'm supposed to be. Working that Baptiste name. That scare you?"
"No." She paused while a couple walked past with a stroller. "I wanted better for you, you know that. It's what we planned. The life we planned."
I remembered it. Remembered what she had dreamed of. The life by the sea or some shit like that and the memory of her little self with these big hopes and dreams made me smile.
"What you cheesing about?" she asked, nudging me. "Ain't nothing funny about missing out on fourteen years."
My smile faded. "You right."
"I've been holding it down with Preem for three years, you know. Ray... my pops traded me over like it didn't matter."
"Traded you? The fuck?"
"When you move in these dangerous circles there's always a price." She sighed and tilted her head back, eyes closed. "He brought me back here to keep me close as things were heating up and I've never felt more..."
She stopped herself but I could work out what she meant. My girl was trapped.
"Why haven't you left yet?"
She opened her eyes and faced me when I asked, brows furrowed like I'd asked the dumbest question.
"You know who that man is. The minute I try to walk, I'm finished.
You saw what Marlon did. That was a threat.
So I just do what I gotta do. I perform as his girl then go to work and put money away.
And if I don't? I stop the performance, the loyalty, and run?
He'll find and kill me and probably my sisters too just to make sure I understood what happens when you try to leave him. "
My hands tightened on my knees but I kept my voice level. "You know I'd kill him first. If he touched you I'd..."
She stopped me by pressing her finger to her lips. "Uh-uh, can't be talking like that. Anyway, enough about me moaning," she said. "I heard about your dad. I'm sorry."
I went quiet. She waited.
"For two years we've been trying to find out what happened," I said finally. "But that kind of shit stays with you, you feel me? I'm never going to stop looking for answers and I'm never going to stop searching."
"That's love. Your dad adored you, I remember that." She gave me a small hopeful smile. "Do you think he's still alive?"
"I used to hope so, but it's been so long now, I just..."
I didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
She put her hand on my arm, her thumb stroking against my skin. Just for a second. The weight of it registered and then it was gone.
We'd been sitting for too long, but neither of us moved. The sun was sinking, Cee was waiting. The urgency was pressing in, but I didn't want to let go. Not yet.
Then, slow like, she pushed herself up from the bench. I stood with her, close enough to feel the heat of her body. Her breath hitched, just once, and I kissed her.
It wasn't just one kiss. Her mouth was soft, warm, and she made a sound low in her throat that settled deep in my chest. Her hand came up to my jaw, fingers pressing into my skin like she was memorizing me.
For a heartbeat, she stayed there, her body leaning into mine.
Then she stepped back, her eyes wide and scared, darting over my shoulder toward the street like Supreme might pop up out of nowhere.
"Shit!" she hissed. "I'm sorry, I... we shouldn't have... this is gonna be huge if we've been seen." She looked around us, searching for any sign of Supreme's boys.
I reached for her but she put her hand on my chest and stopped me.
"This only ends badly," she said. "You know that, right? There's no version of this where we both walk away okay."
"I know. I get it."
"Then why did you kiss me?" Her fingers went up to her lips as though she could still feel me there.
"Because I've been wanting to do that for fourteen fucking years."
She opened her mouth to say something but her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the screen. Her face went tight.
"It's Cee." She answered it. "Hey. Yeah, I'm sorry. I ran into a friend and we got to talking. I'm heading back now." She paused, listening. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be there in two minutes."
She hung up and looked at me.
"I have to go."
I started to follow her but she pressed her palm flat against my sternum and held me there.
"Don't," she said. "Please. If he sees you walking me back he'll know. And I can't..." Her voice cracked. "I can't have him know. Not yet."
"Asha."
"I have to go." She stepped back and her hand fell away. "Don't follow me. Please."
She turned and walked fast back toward the street, then turned the corner and disappeared.
I stood there with my hands in my pockets and the park going on around me. Kids screaming, mothers yelling, cars passing on the street. None of it registered.
I was thinking about her hand on my jaw and about the way she'd said my name and the fact that she was going back to Supreme's car and house. I didn't even want to think about her in Supreme's bed.
I had to remove that smug nigga from the picture.
It was a bad idea. The worst idea. Kadeem would lose his mind. The Associates would never approve a move on Crown Heights without a war council and six months of planning. Devon would run the numbers and tell me it was suicide.
But I couldn't stop thinking about it anyway.
I walked back to my car and sat in the driver's seat with my hands on the wheel. Started the engine and pulled into traffic heading back to Bed-Stuy. My phone buzzed with a text from Devon asking where I was.
I didn't answer.
I drove and I thought about her mouth and her hand on my chest and the way she'd looked at me like I was the problem and the solution at the same time.
I thought about Supreme.
And I knew this wasn't over.