CHAPTER NINE
The SUV pulled to the curb in front of the high-end boutique and Janita quickly got out from the front passenger seat.
Von quickly got out from behind the steering wheel, hurried across the sidewalk, and entered the boutique.
His job was to do a fast check inside, to make sure there were no obvious threats present, and then wait outside.
Janita’s job was to stay glued to their high dollar client no matter what.
While her brother went inside the boutique, she stood at the back passenger side door, her hand on the knob, as her trained eyes looked around carefully. When she didn’t see any threats either, and when her brother came outside and gave her the all-clear, then she opened the door.
Reecie Webster stepped out with her usual flare for the dramatic.
She was always to Janita a sister with an attitude.
Tall, black, and proud, she didn’t give a damn what those stuffy bluebloods of Brackenridge thought of her.
And although the woman was fifty-eight years old and no spring chicken by any stretch of the imagination, you wouldn’t know it to look at her.
Janita had just turned twenty-eight, but that particular sister could give her a run for her money any day of the week.
Janita walked behind her high-stepping client and continued looking around as they made it to the entrance of the clothing boutique.
Von opened the door. But as Reecie began walking inside behind their client, Von pointed to his wristwatch to remind his sister to hurry it up.
They were already super-late trying to get that woman to the wedding rehearsal, and they both knew it.
Von’s fear was that Mr. Webster would start blaming them for his wife’s constant tardiness, and thereby fire them as her security detail.
But even Von knew there was nothing they could do about it. Reecie Webster was going to do whatever the hell Reecie Webster wanted to do. And nobody, not even her husband, could stop her.
Janita knew not to try. She looked at her brother, hunched her shoulders to demonstrate just how powerless they were in such a situation, and went with the flow: She did her job.
Once inside, the owner of the boutique, surprised to see Mrs. Webster, hurried over and escorted her most prominent client to the VIP dressing room. Janita did a sweep of the room to ensure there was no danger nor hidden cameras inside, and then she left the client inside the dressing room.
After the owner fetched several dresses for Mrs. Webster to try on and returned to the dressing room with the handful of clothes, Janita waited outside the closed door as her client tried on various dresses.
Although the owner of the boutique was accustomed to Reecie Webster dropping by without any heads up, it still left the entire store flustered and excited all at the same time. Janita and Von were just flustered.
The owner came out twice, looking even more excited both times, as she brought in even more clothing for Reecie to try on. Then she left the room a third time to go get even more clothing. She no longer looked flustered. She looked mad.
But no angrier than Janita was getting. This was taking way too long.
“If it ain’t Janita Cooper.”
Janita looked to her left at the sound of that voice and then smiled when she saw her friend from high school walking her way. “Hey Peaches!”
Peaches looked around at the other salesladies who were helping customers, and at the owner who was in what they called the glass locker where only their highest-priced clothing was kept, then she eased up to Janita with a concerned look on her face.
“Girrl, don’t you dare call me that name around here.
” Her voice was low. “These white folks don’t know me by that name. ”
Janita found that crazy. “Since Peaches is your actual God-given name, what they know you by?”
“They call me Penelope girl,” she said with a grin. “Like I’m one of them.”
Neither one of them were one of them. Brackenridge, though considered one of the wealthiest towns in Tennessee, was a tale of two sides of town.
One side was super-rich blueblood old, or nouveau-rich blueblood wannabes.
The other side was working-class poor folks, or struggling middle-class folk.
Like Janita. Like Peaches. And only for work did the two sides ever meet.
“You? One of them?” Janita said with a grin.
“Now that’s what I call funny!” And they both laughed.
“But for real, girl, what’s going on? I already saw your brother walking around in this store.
I wanted to ask him what was his fine ass doing in a woman’s clothing store, but I had a customer.
Now I’m asking you the same question: What you doing standing all at attention at this dressing room like you some prison guard? ”
That was close, Janita thought. “I’m working,” she said. “So is Von. We own a security company.”
“Security? For real?”
“For real. It’s called Cooper Security,” Janita said proudly. “It’s been up and running for four years. We just got this gig three months ago though.”
“You’re telling me Mrs. Webster is one of your clients?”
She was their only real client. Everybody else used them for special events only, like club concerts or outdoor parties or neighborhood-wide cookouts.
Or, more often, as backups to major security companies who needed extra hands.
Although good gigs to have, it was their contract with Mrs. Webster that kept the lights on and their business finally above water with the signing bonus her husband paid them.
Though it was still barely above water. “She wanted an African-American company to be her security detail for a change. Since we’re the only black-owned security firm in Brackenridge, we got the job. ”
“Now that’s some for real shit right there,” Peaches said. “But that’s what I like about Reecie Webster. She didn’t marry that rich white man and get all bougie and stuck up like most black women around here do. She supports her people. She knows where she came from. She’s aw’ight.”
Although Reecie Webster wasn’t the friendliest person Janita had ever met, and that woman was a long way from where she came from, she couldn’t help but agree with her old friend.
They would have never gotten a high-dollar client like the Webster matriarch had it not been for her devotion and patronage to people of color like Janita and Von.
“So what have you been up to all these years?” Janita asked her friend.
“Nothing girl. Just working. I do hair on the side though. I got a big contest coming up.”
“A hair contest?”
“That’s right,” Peaches said as she began checking out Janita’s thick hair as it dropped down in wavy bounciness a quarter down her back. “You got that good hair I can use for one of my styles.”
“Don’t call it that,” Janita said frowningly. She absolutely hated that phrase, because it implied something that went all the way back to slavery days. As if black hair wasn’t “good” unless it was wavy like hers. “I despise that term,” she added.
“Okay, okay, I won’t use it again,” Peaches said with a smile.
She remembered just how much Janita hated that good hair phrase kids would always say to her all through high school.
“But you know what I mean. I got enough natural hair models. And they gonna be slammin’, don’t get me wrong.
But boy could I use somebody with your hair texture for a change up. Are you interested?”
Janita was lost. “Interested in what?”
“Come here, I’ll show you.”
Janita followed her over to the desk that was across the room from the dressing room, although Janita could still keep her eyes on the dressing room. Peaches went behind the desk and pulled out her portfolio booklet and opened it up. “Take a look.”
Janita smiled when she saw all of the outrageously creative hairstyles on the pages. “Wow, Peach. You did these?”
“Every one of them. But I always place second or third. I never win any of the contests I compete in. They say I need more diversity in hair textures. But that ain’t easy to get.
” Then she looked at Janita. Even in high school she always envied her quiet grace and unique kind of beauty even when Janita insisted she wasn’t beautiful at all.
But Peaches knew better. Boys told her all the time Nita had that special something. “That’s where you come in at.”
Janita looked at her. “Me?”
“You’ll give my hair line the diversity I need to win.”
“Girl bye.”
“I mean it, Neet. You’ll just have to rock one style. That’s all. Come on now. For old times’ sake.”
But Janita looked at her friend as if she was insane. She was a serious person. Even in high school she didn’t play games. There was no way she was going to be some hair model for anybody. Including her friend. “No can do, bud. No can do.”
“Ah Nita, please. It’ll take me over the top.”
“I’m no model and never will be.”
“It’s not the same thing. All you,” Peaches began saying when they suddenly heard a scream so loud that it felt as if their eardrums would burst. “What the hell?” Peaches said as the owner, who heard the scream too, hurried out of the glass locker.
But Janita was already running toward the dressing room and pulling out her gun as she ran.
When she flung open that door with her free hand, and stood in posture to shoot to kill, her heart dropped.
Reecie Webster wasn’t seated in that room.
She wasn’t standing in that room. She wasn’t in that room!
With her heart hammering, Janita quickly ran to the only door that was inside that VIP dressing room. It was a door that led to a private bathroom. But no one was in that room either, and the tiny window was closed. She hurried up to it, but it was locked!
And that was when she saw it. What she thought when she did her original sweep was a freestanding vanity sink had what looked like sawdust on the floor around it.
She hurried to it, but saw nothing. But as soon as she began to shake the vanity, it moved.
And when it moved, she pushed it and saw what looked like a hammered-out hole as tall and wide as the vanity itself. Her heart dropped through her shoe.
“Lord no, Lord no, Lord no,” she inwardly cried in panic as she hunched down and forced her body into the narrow hole that was big enough to get a body through. She crawled through the hole until it led her outside, in the alleyway.
She was yelling into her wristwatch as soon as she got out. “We got a breach, Von! We got a breach!”
When she looked to her left in that alley, she saw nothing. When she looked to her right, she saw the door of a van slamming shut. A glimpse of Mrs. Webster’s fur coat could be seen as that door slammed closed.
“It’s a van!” she shouted in her wristwatch as she began running toward that van. “They’ve got Mrs. Webster in a dark-blue van, Von, on the right side of the boutique. Come now. It’s a blue van!”
But by the time she ran up to that van, it had already sped away. She aimed and shot at the tires, even though Mrs. Webster was onboard. But she calculated that even if that van crashed, it would be a better outcome for Mrs. Webster than allowing them to take her to a second location.
But the van moved too fast and her aim wasn’t good enough. She didn’t hit any of the tires.
By the time Von drove up, the van was turning a corner. Janita jumped inside and they took off.
“Oh God, Nita. Are you telling me we lost her? We lost Mrs. Webster?!”
Janita couldn’t believe it either as they sped to the end of Sunset Drive, turned the same left that van had turned, and sped down the street looking for it.
But not only did they not see that blue van anywhere, they didn’t see any blue van whatsoever! Von kept driving. Kept turning corner after corner after corner. But nothing. It was gone. And the wife of the richest man in Tennessee was gone with it. On their watch.
They looked at each other. They were doomed.