23. Omar
Omar
The call came in just after eleven. Rashid's number on the screen, which was unusual because Rashid texted. He didn't call unless something was wrong.
"Yo." His voice was tight, clipped. "I need you to come get me."
"Where are you?"
"That bar on Franklin. The one above the chicken spot."
"You okay?"
"Just get here, O. Quick."
I was in my car in under a minute. Franklin Avenue was a ten-minute drive from my apartment if you caught the lights. I caught them all and made it in seven.
The bar was upstairs from a fried chicken place that served until two in the morning.
I took the stairs two at a time. The door at the top was propped open.
A narrow room with a bar along one wall, booths along the other, a jukebox in the corner playing something nobody was listening to.
Four or five people scattered around, most of them at the bar, none of them looking at each other.
Rashid was in the last booth near the bathrooms. He was sitting with his back to the wall, a napkin pressed against his lower lip, his knuckles raw on his right hand. A glass of something dark was on the table in front of him, mostly full.
I slid into the booth across from him. "Talk to me."
"It's nothing. I handled it."
"Your lip is split and your hand is busted. That ain't nothing." I took the napkin from him and looked at the cut. It was small, already clotting. His knuckles were worse. The skin was torn across two of them, the blood drying into the creases. He'd hit someone hard enough to open himself up.
"What happened?"
Rashid picked up his glass, took a sip, winced when the alcohol hit the cut on his lip.
"I was here with Tre after the studio session.
We were in this booth, just chilling. These two dudes at the bar were talking loud.
One of them was telling a story. I wasn't listening at first but then I heard Pops' name. "
My hands stopped moving.
"He was telling his boy about something he'd heard.
Said his cousin or somebody had seen Malik Baptiste.
Said they'd seen him on his knees with a chain around his neck being dragged into a building.
" Rashid's voice was steady but his eyes were burning.
"He was laughing about it, O. Both of them were.
Like it was a joke. Like Pops was some punchline. "
"What'd you do?"
"What do you think I did?" Rashid looked at me. "I walked over there, asked him to repeat what he just said, and when he laughed in my face I hit him. His boy tried to grab me from behind. I caught him with my elbow and then the bartender jumped in between us before it went further."
"Where are they now?"
"Gone. Bartender kicked them out first. Then he told me to sit down and cool off." Rashid drained the rest of his drink. "I been sitting here waiting for my hands to stop shaking."
I looked at my brother's split lip, his torn knuckles, the adrenaline still running through him in waves that made his leg bounce under the table.
Twenty-five years old. Twenty-three when Pops disappeared.
He'd spent the last two years carrying that absence, spiraling through it, using it as fuel for music and fights in equal measure.
Tonight some stranger in a bar had turned his father into a punchline.
"The man who was talking," I said carefully. "You get his name?"
"Nah. I wasn't thinking about names. I was thinking about putting my fist through his face."
"What'd he look like?"
Rashid described him. Average height, heavyset, dark complexion, wore a Nets cap backward. His friend was skinnier, lighter, had a gold chain and a gap between his front teeth.
"Would you recognize them again?"
"Both of them."
"And the story he told. Pops on his knees. A chain. Being dragged into a building. He say where?"
"Nah, his boy cut him off before he got that far.
Said something like 'chill, not here' and that's when the first dude looked around the bar and spotted me.
He saw my face and he knew I'd been listening.
He still laughed though. He looked right at me and laughed.
" Rashid's hands balled into fists on the table. "That's when I got up."
I sat there across from my brother and processed what he'd just told me.
Pops on his knees. A chain around his neck.
Dragged into a building. That was new. Everything we had so far, the financial trails, the shell companies, the Hampton Royal hotel records, Tommy Vicks' testimony before he vanished, all of it suggested Pops had been taken.
But none of it had described what happened to him after.
This was the first time someone had put an image to it. Pops on his knees.
My hands were gripping the edge of the table hard enough that the wood was pressing lines into my palms. I let go, flexed my fingers, breathed.
"Come on," I told Rashid. "We're going to Ma's."
"O, I don't need to..."
"We're going to Ma's."
I drove Rashid to Bed-Stuy. He sat in the passenger seat with his torn-up hand resting on his thigh, his head against the window, quiet. I called Kadeem from the car and told him to meet us at the house.
Kadeem was already in the kitchen when we arrived. He took one look at Rashid's face and his expression went tight.
"Sit down," he told Rashid. "Let me see."
Rashid sat at Ma's kitchen table. Kadeem got ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a towel, handed it to Rashid for his lip. Then he looked at the knuckles.
"You hit someone."
"Yeah."
"Who?"
Rashid told the story again. The bar, the two men, the story about Pops.
Kadeem listened without interrupting, his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the counter.
When Rashid got to the part about Pops being on his knees with a chain, Kadeem's face didn't move but something changed behind his eyes. A door closing. A lock turning.
"You got their names?" Kadeem asked.
"Rashid didn't get names," I said. "But he can ID both of them."
"That's not good enough." Kadeem looked at Rashid. "You can't keep doing this. Every time someone mentions Pops' name you swing first and think later. That's how you end up dead or locked up, and I ain't burying another Baptiste."
"They were laughing about him, Deem." Rashid's voice cracked. "They were sitting there in a bar laughing about our father being dragged around with a chain on his neck like he was an animal. What was I supposed to do, sit there and finish my drink?"
"Yes!" Kadeem stepped toward the table. "That's exactly what you do.
You sit there, you finish your drink, you memorize their faces, and you bring the information to me.
Then we handle it properly. We find out who they are, who their cousin is, how they know what they know, and we use that intelligence to find Pops.
That's how this works. Getting into bar fights doesn't bring him home. Following the evidence does."
Rashid stared at his brother. The ice pack was dripping onto the table. His eyes were red.
"You expect me to just sit there," he said quietly.
"I expect you to be smart. I expect you to think like a Baptiste instead of acting like every hothead on the corner who catches feelings and throws punches.
" Kadeem's voice was firm but the strain underneath it was clear.
He wasn't just angry. He was scared. Scared that Rashid was going to get himself killed chasing ghosts in bars while the real work was happening in spreadsheets and surveillance files.
"You got a career, Rashid. You got music, you got talent, you got a future that doesn't involve any of this.
Don't throw that away because some lowlife in a bar said something stupid. "
The kitchen was quiet. The fridge hummed. Somewhere upstairs Ma was moving around, her footsteps crossing the floorboards. She didn't know we were here. She didn't need to know why.
"He's right," I told Rashid. "But so are you."
Both of them looked at me.
"Kadeem's right that you can't be fighting in bars.
It's reckless and it puts you at risk." I sat down at the table across from Rashid.
"But you're right that what they said matters.
If someone saw Pops alive after he disappeared, even if it was in chains, that changes things.
That means he wasn't killed the night they took him. He was held somewhere."
Kadeem didn't move.
"Devon can work with the description Rashid gave me," I continued. "We find the guy from the bar, we find his cousin, we find out where they saw Pops and when. That's a new thread. That's something we can pull."
"And Rashid?" Kadeem asked.
"Rashid goes back to the studio, keeps his head down, and stays away from bars on Franklin for a while." I looked at my little brother. "Can you do that?"
Rashid held the ice pack against his lip. His eyes were still red, his knuckles still raw, his leg still bouncing under the table. But he nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "I can do that."
Kadeem looked at me. I looked back. Between us, something unspoken passed that didn't need words.
Pops on his knees. A chain around his neck.
Alive, at least for a while after they took him.
That changed everything we thought we knew about the disappearance.
And somewhere in Brooklyn there was a man with a story about a cousin who'd seen it happen.
Devon would find him. Devon always found them.
"Go home," Kadeem told Rashid. "Get some sleep."
"I'll drive him," I said.
Rashid stood up from the table, wincing as he flexed his injured hand. Kadeem grabbed his shoulder on the way out, held it for a second, then let go. He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to. The grip said it. Be careful. Be smart. Be a Baptiste.
I drove Rashid to his apartment. He was quiet on the ride, his head against the window, the ice pack melting in his lap.
"You really think he's still alive?" Rashid asked as we pulled up to his building.
"I don't know. But I ain't stopping until I find out."
Rashid looked at me. Pops' eyes in a younger face. "Good," he said. "Cos neither am I."
He got out of the car and went inside. I stayed parked, watching his building, making sure he made it upstairs. Then I pulled out my phone and texted Devon.
I need you to find two men who were at a bar on Franklin tonight. Nets cap, heavyset. Skinny friend, gold chain, gap teeth. They've got a cousin who saw Pops after the disappearance. Alive. In chains. Find them.
Devon replied in under a minute: On it.
I put the phone down and drove home. The image Rashid had described was sitting in my head and I couldn't make it leave. Pops on his knees. A chain around his neck. Being dragged into a building.
My father. The man who'd raised us, built an empire, loved Ma with everything he had. On his knees. In chains.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. Then I loosened my grip, one finger at a time, and drove.
There was work to do.