Immediately, I asked Sarah to join me inside the ladies’ room. “We girls need to do some talking and mending ourselves.”
Two women were coming out as we approached the rest room. Drunkenly laughing and poking fun at each other, they purposely paused in front of the entrance so that we could hear them. This sort of plump-bodied but cute, short-afro-wearing woman said to her frail ugly-duckling-type girlfriend: “Girl, I just pulled this nigga tonight who is spendin’ money like crazy. He’s packin’ meat, if you know what I mean. Child, I’m gonna spend his money, then fuck his brains out.”
As they passed, Sarah and me entered the bathroom and moved to the far end by the wash basins and toilets. Large mirrors were positioned on the walls above the sinks, which had stools under them. We sat next to each other and began to chat.
I told her that I was sorry for all that had happened between us, that since she was my brother’s woman we were sisters in a way, that none of us should be at each others’ throats. It would take time for everything to mend properly between all of us, but me and Zack were willing to forgive and make a new start.
Then I got up slowly, patted her on the shoulder, and told her that I’d be right back — I had to get my purse for a few items I needed to freshen up.
As I dodged around the frantic dancers on my way back to our table, I turned to gaze back at the ladies’ room entrance. At that instant, undercover officer Ted Jenkins darted inside the rest room without anybody other than me noticing. I proceeded to our table.
“Back in the nick of time, baby. Where’s Sarah?” Zack asked.
“She’s still in the rest room waiting for me to come back,” I responded. “Came back to get my purse. Need to freshen up to keep looking good for you, Daddy. How’s it going with you and Junior?”
“We’ve reached an agreement,” Zack said. “But Junior needs to tell you something, so hold tight for a second. Run it, Junior.”
I could see the hatred for me in Junior’s eyes. But he spoke with remarkable calm. “Let’s get one thing straight, Fee-Fee. I’m only here to prevent a stupid war between Zack and me. Fighting will only cost the loss of lives on both ends, and the loss of a whole lot of money. None of us need this shit, so Zack and me have agreed to stop going at each other. Sarah won’t be going at you anymore and I expect you to stay clear of her. Another thing: I got what I want, you got what you want. We ain’t brother and sister no more, and it’s best that we keep it this way. Do I make myself clear?”
As I listened to my brother, I saw Ted Jenkins exit the ladies’ room and lose himself in the crowd.
Before I could get a word out in response to Junior, all hell suddenly broke out. Screams of terror could be heard coming from within the rest room. The music and dancing abruptly stopped and the crowd rushed to see what had happened. Junior sprang from the table and ran toward the rest room.
Moments later, a squad of D.C. police were on the scene, directing the crowd away from the crime area. Three other officers led by Ted Jenkins hurried over to where Junior was trying to muscle himself through the crowd to the club’s entrance. With their guns drawn, two officers grabbed Junior, slung him to the floor, and quickly handcuffed him.
The crowd went silent as Junior yelled out at his captors, “What the fuck is going on? Get the fuck off me, you pieces of shit. I ain’t did nothing!”
“You are under arrest for the murder that just took place,” Jenkins announced. “You have the right to an attorney…” and so forth, his words drowning beneath the chatter of the confused crowd, watching as the cops swiftly moved Junior outside to the waiting police car.
A year later, after a series of court hearings, Junior was tried and convicted of murdering his fiancée, Sarah Ward. Undercover officer Ted Jenkins told the court that he had been there at the club doing surveillance work and had witnessed a heated argument between the two in front of the rest room entrance before they both entered. That was right at the time of the murder. He hadn’t thought that the argument would carry over to something violent.
“Couples are always arguing, then quickly making up,” Jenkins concluded. “I just feel so bad that I probably could have prevented that fool from killing her.”
Zack and I were summoned to the grand jury to state what we knew or saw. We both emphatically claimed that we didn’t see, hear, or know anything.
Junior was convicted and given a sentence of twenty years to life. Throughout the entire process he insisted that he was being framed. He’d figured out that Zack and I set him up, but he didn’t call names. Lacking evidence, it wouldn’t have helped him anyway.
With Junior and Sarah out of the way, Zack was very much on cloud nine. He completely ran the city again, and we were loving the good life.
Junior had my father visit him in prison. He told him that Zack and I had killed Sarah and set him up. Immediately, my father tried to get in contact with me. For months I avoided him, then finally agreed to sit down and talk. He told me what Junior had said. I denied everything and said that Junior had lost him mind.
“Remember one thing, girl,” my father warned me, “God don’t like ugly. If you had anything to do with the murder of that woman and the jailing of your brother, you will pay a terrible price for your sins. And God be my judge, I’ll be the first to rejoice over your suffering if you did what your brother said you did.”
My father’s words have stayed with me, surfacing frequently and torturing me badly. They were spoken nearly four years ago, shortly after Junior’s conviction. My father never found out what really happened, nor did he know that his words had weakened me and that he was one hundred percent right — that I would pay a terrible price for my sins. A month after talking with me, my father died in his sleep of heart failure. But I know that he really died of a broken heart.
Zack noticed my change instantly when I returned from the visit with my father, as well as my deepening depression after my father died. He did what he could to try and cheer me up, but I was locked into despair. The tough, selfish girl that I had been was gone.
Two weeks after my father’s death, Ted Jenkins was gunned down by two masked men as he left his house on Longfellow Street, N.W. He was about to get in his car when the men pulled up and unloaded twelve .38 Special bullets into his body at point-blank range, four head shots killing him instantly. The newspapers reported that the motive could be revenge from loyal members of Junior’s crew, but street rumor had it that Zack might be responsible.
Even in my lethargic condition, I found strength to question Zack about the officer’s murder. He told me that he didn’t have anything to do with it — that Junior probably had it done and that we had to be careful because his crew might be plotting in on us as well.
“You need to snap out of this shit you’re going through, woman! We need each other, and I need you at your best,” he’d tell me daily.
Approximately a month after the Jenkins murder, Junior was found stabbed to death in the mop room of his jailhouse unit. No witnesses to the crime, no one picked up for the murder.
I knew then that I was next.
Two days after I received word about Junior’s death, I put six bullets inside of Zack Amos’s head. I used his own gun, which I’d taken from his shoulder holster in the closet. Just for that night I found the strength to be my old self again — cunning and manipulative.