Cornered Read online

  The Leon in front of him looked, in a word, tougher. There were crow’s-feet under his eyes, and a netting of heavy wrinkles across his forehead and cheeks gave his face the appearance of sun-weathered leather. Dark hollows ringed his sockets, as if he rarely slept. And those eyes of his, always fiercely intelligent, glinted with raw, kinetic energy, reflecting a personality far more dangerous than the young man Corey remembered-and that was saying a lot, because the Leon that Corey recalled was no one that you wanted to piss off.

  Leon took a draw on his cigarette and appraised Corey from head to toe. “You’re looking good, too. How the hell you been? It’s been how long? Fifteen, sixteen years?”

  “Something like that,” Corey said. “I’ve been. . I’ve been all right.”

  “All right?” Leon snickered. “You look like life’s been treating you exceptionally well, I’d say. Pushing the new five series Beemer, got the cute kid, the no-doubt lovely wifey? Do you live in a white castle in the clouds, too? When did you strike the Faustian bargain?”

  Leon let out a high-pitched giggle that sounded as if he’d inhaled a dose of helium. Same old Leon laugh-he sounded like an elf on crystal meth. For a long time, Corey had used to hear that grating laughter in his nightmares.

  “A lot of things have changed since I left Detroit,” Corey said. He looked at Leon’s Ford truck, and wondered, automatically, where Leon had stolen it from. “How long have you been in town?”

  “Not long at all, a few weeks, I’ve been living the knock-about life, you know, dashing from pillar to post, painting houses, doing odd handyman jobs here and there, trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.” He dropped his cigarette on the ground and snuffed it out with his boot. “Need any painting done at your house, man? Seeing you here, all grown up and spit-shined and polished, I know you’ve gotta be living in a mansion somewhere, most definitely, a palace, dozens of rooms, and no doubt the old lady’s been on your back about repainting some of those rooms, a woman is never satisfied, ever, and what better way to get it done than to hire your old, trusty running partner from Motown to do the work? What do you say?”

  Listening to Leon’s mercurial patter as sunshine burned into his skull, Corey began to feel a migraine headache coming on.

  “Listen, ah, Leon, we don’t exactly need any painting done. . right now. . ”

  “I’m only shittin’ you!” Laughing, Leon slapped his shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be in town, anyway, it’s about time to blow this pop stand and hit the road like Willie Nelson, although, damn, I’ve gotta say, standing here enjoying a tete-a-tete with my homeboy from back in the day . . I might have to change my modus operandi and settle in for a spell.”

  Heart knocking, Corey looked toward his car at the gas pump. He could see Simone and Jada watching them, curious about his prolonged interaction with a man they had never seen before.

  He’d given them only sketchy details about the life he’d left behind in Detroit. They knew that he had no close family left there, that he’d moved to Atlanta sixteen years ago, shortly after Grandma Louise’s death. They knew that he’d never gone back to visit, on the claim that there was nothing there for him any more.

  But they knew nothing whatsoever of Leon. They knew nothing about the past he shared with this man.

  And he’d always wanted to keep it that way. There were certain forbidden boxes of memories that, over time, he had closed watertight by sheer force of will, and he’d dared not open them, for his family’s well-being-and his own.

  But now Leon was here. Driving a new truck that had to be stolen. Probably in violation of parole for something or other. Maybe hiding a gun underneath his overalls.

  Those hermetically sealed crates of memories were already starting to creak open.

  Corey squinted, listening. He could barely understand what Leon was saying, and that brought back memories, too. Leon spoke in dizzying run-on sentences so generously peppered with idioms, foreign phrases, and archaic pop culture references that Corey had often found himself totally confused, and agreeing with whatever he said just to get him to shut up.

  Leon said, “Have you been back to Motown, recently? I haven’t, I severed my ties with the Motor City a few years ago, cruised into that wild blue yonder and haven’t looked back, but the last time I was there the downtown scene was exploding with casinos, nouveau riche tourists crawling through like so many cockroaches through the projects, and I’m of half a mind to go back to get a piece of the action for myself, a fresh and lucrative new hustle of some kind, though at this point if I ventured back someone might declare me non compos mentis, I’ll think better of it and keep drinking the wanderlust Kool-Aid and seeing what life brings to my doorstep, that’s the way I live, you know, in the moment, right, remember, huh?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Corey said. He made a dramatic show of checking his watch. “Listen, Leon, I’ve got to get going. We have an appointment.”

  “All right, all right, all right.” Leon bobbed his head, dreadlocks swinging. “You have a business card? We should get together sometime, grab a Heineken or two, reminisce about how we use to rock and roll back in the day when we were strapping young bucks, yeah, give me your card, all right, all right.”

  Without thinking, wanting only to get away, Corey pulled out his wallet and withdrew a card. Leon read it. His eyes got as big as billiard balls.

  “Gates-Webb Security Services? You own a security company? You?” Leon laughed his frenetic giggle. “The irony, my man, the irony is too delicious, the irony is downright scrumptious.”

  Corey felt blood rising in his face. “Good seeing you again, Leon.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Leon tucked the card into his pocket. “Yeah, yeah, it’s been real. We gotta get that beer sometime soon, don’t forget. We ran in to each other for a reason, there’s no such thing as coincidence, nope, fate’s slammed us together again and we definitely need to reconnect, uh-huh, all right.”

  Mumbling in agreement, Corey was turning to go when someone exited the minimart. It was the dull-eyed giant who’d been ogling Jada. Corey’s chest tightened.

  The giant tossed Leon a box of Newports and climbed in on the passenger side of the pickup.

  Jesus. They’re partners?

  Leon slid a cigarette out of the pack and fished a brushedchrome Zippo lighter out of his pocket. It was a vintage model, and it was the same one Corey had last seen fifteen years ago. He would never forget it; the image was firebranded in his brain.

  That old box of memories opened wider.

  Leon caught him looking at it, and winked. He struck a flame, lit his cigarette, and took a slow drag.

  “Your lovelies are waiting on you,” Leon said, lips curved in a smug smile. “Adieu.”

  3

  Corey got behind the wheel and gunned the engine. Mashing the accelerator too aggressively for a parking lot, like a hot-rodding kid, he peeled away from the gas station.

  In the rearview mirror, he spotted Leon waving at him. He exhaled through clenched teeth.

  He still couldn’t believe he had run into Leon, of all people.

  He felt Simone and Jada watching him, felt their questions. He tried to will his racing pulse to slow, but it was tough.

  “Who were you talking to back there?” Simone finally asked.

  “Who was that man, Daddy?” Jada said.

  Ignoring their questions, as if by doing so they would go away, he rejoined the sluggish flow of traffic on Haynes Bridge.

  That damn cigarette lighter. He couldn’t get it out of his head. What the hell kind of point had Leon been trying to make? Was he taunting him? Making a joke?

  With that sick bastard, you never could tell.

  He wished he hadn’t given Leon his business card. What had he been thinking? He had reacted to Leon’s request as automatically as he did when someone extended their hand to be shaken or asked how his day was going. Responding in kind was the ingrained, socially correct thing to do.

&n
bsp; But he worried about it. If Leon decided to stop by his office. .

  No, he won’t do that.

  But it was an empty attempt at self-assurance. The truth was, he didn’t know what Leon might do-hell, from one moment to the next, Leon didn’t know what Leon might do. In the past, that was partly what had made being his friend so exhilarating. Leon might, literally, do anything.

  He wished he had gone to a different gas station. Then none of this would have happened, and that Pandora’s box of old memories would still be buried in the cellar of his mind.

  He took a slurp of coffee, and immediately wished he hadn’t. His stomach was cramped in such a tight bundle that the coffee was likely going to give him indigestion.

  He felt both Simone and Jada observing him intently now, and he wished they hadn’t been with him that morning; he wished that he’d run into Leon on his own and they had no clue about any of it.

  He took another sip of coffee, and grimaced. It seemed he was wishing for a lot of different things right then.

  “Baby?” Simone asked.

  “Daddy?” Jada said.

  He blinked. “What?”

  “We asked you a question,” Simone said.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “That guy back there? Just an old friend from back home.”

  “From Detroit?” Jada asked.

  “Yes, from Detroit.”

  “What’s his name?” Simone asked.

  “Leon.”

  “Leon who?” Jada asked.

  Corey glanced at Jada in the mirror. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity. She’d inherited her inquisitiveness from her mother, and for her to have seen a man from her father’s fabled hometown was probably unbearably thrilling for her.

  But he wished she would let it go.

  “His name is Leon Sharpe,” he said.

  “You grew up with him?” Simone asked, eyes as intrigued as Jada’s.

  “He lived across the street from us, for a while anyway.”

  “What’s a homeboy?” Jada asked.

  “A homeboy is a good friend.”

  “Oooh, oooh. Really? Was Leon your best friend, Daddy?”

  “Mister Leon,” Simone said, gently correcting Jada. “We don’t call adults by their first names, honey.”

  “Was Mr. Leon your best friend, Daddy?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Wow, is that so?” Simone asked. “You’ve never mentioned him before.”

  “Well, I haven’t thought about him in years.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Simone asked.

  He looked at her. Simone’s interest was innocent, not suspicious. If he’d seen her run in to a former, admitted best girlfriend who she hadn’t seen in a long time, he might have been asking her similar questions, too.

  “Fifteen years ago, I guess,” he said.

  Jada’s face bunched into a frown. “You haven’t talked to your best friend in fifteen years, Daddy?”

  “He’s not my best friend any more.”

  “Why not?” Jada asked.

  “Because I moved away from Detroit and came here.”

  “But you could have kept talking to him,” Jada said.

  “I haven’t.”

  “Why?”

  Their turn was coming up. Corey took it too fast. Simone knocked against him, and Jada slewed sideways in her seat as if riding a roller coaster.

  Simone lightly tapped his thigh. “Take it easy, Mario Andretti. We want to get there in one piece.”

  He bit his lip. “Sorry.”

  “Daddy?” Jada said.

  “Yes?”

  “Why didn’t you keep talking to Mr. Leon?”

  “I told you, because I moved here.”

  “But you never called him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jesus, Jada.” He clenched the steering wheel. “Do you plan to be a prosecuting attorney when you grow up? Lay off with the questions, all right? I don’t want to talk about it any more. Period.”

  Simone stared at him, lips parted in shock. In the mirror, Jada’s face crumbled.

  “Sorry, Daddy,” she said softly. She wiped away tears.

  Guilt punctured his heart. He rarely raised his voice with her, and she didn’t deserve to be rebuked. She was only a kid with a natural interest in his past.

  “It’s okay, Pumpkin,” he said in a soothing tone. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  But Jada wouldn’t look at him. Simone looked away from him, too, jawline rigid.

  They were quiet for the rest of the drive.

  4

  At the clinic in Marietta, after conducting a series of tests and speaking with them at length, the specialist, Dr. Kim, declared Jada a suitable candidate for a bilateral cochlear implant. They scheduled her surgery, an outpatient procedure, for the end of June, a week after Jada’s summer school program would conclude and two weeks before their family vacation to Disney World.

  Corey’s attention had wandered continually during the appointment. Simone had picked up the slack, asking the important questions that were on both their minds, and Jada had come prepared with a handful of questions of her own, too, which the three of them had brainstormed ahead of time. Corey was left looking like the only unprepared member of the family, and he could sense the disdain in the physician’s gaze and an edge of irritation in Simone’s tone.

  But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop thinking about the possible ramifications of bumping into Leon. Not one of them was good. Not one.

  Around eleven-thirty, he pulled into the driveway of their home in Alpharetta. Simone would drop off Jada with her mother in Roswell and then go on to her own job, a solo therapy practice she ran in nearby Sandy Springs. He was heading to his office a couple of miles away.

  He kissed Jada on the cheek, and she bounded out of the car and raced across the walkway to the front door of their brick, two-story house. Simone started to get out, and then she paused, glanced at him.

  “You’ve been in a mood since you ran in to your old friend at the gas station,” she said. “Is something on your mind?”

  “It’s nothing to do with that,” he lied. “I’ve only been thinking about all the work I’ve got to do today.”

  She studied his face. “That’s it, huh? Thinking about work?”

  “That’s it. Work, work, work.”

  Her brow crinkled. She counseled people for a living, and was alert to the signs of deception. Besides that, she’d known him intimately for a decade, probably could read his body language and moods as easily as a roadside billboard.

  But he wasn’t prepared to talk with her about Leon any further. Not right then. Maybe not ever.

  She combed her fingers through her hair, shrugged. “Fine, I’ll see you later, then. Have a good day, honey.”

  “You, too.”

  He reversed out of the driveway and took the smoothly winding road out of the subdivision. The community, quiet at that time of day, was full of homes like theirs: contemporary two-story residences with three-car garages, fussily manicured lawns, and expensive landscaping. The residents were mostly well-scrubbed, corporate-ladder-climbing types with young children and hybrid vehicles; many of the wives were stay-at-home moms who could be found supervising their kids on the neighborhood playground or swimming in the clubhouse pool.

  They had moved in to their home seven years ago, faithfully paid their association dues, counted many of their neighbors as genuine friends, and participated in block parties and other community activities-but he suddenly felt as if he didn’t really belong there. As if he were a bad actor playing a role, and that if these people knew the truth about him, they would give him the boot.

  A sour taste rising in his throat, he turned out of the subdivision.

  Gates-Webb Security Services, LLC, was headquartered in an office building on a bustling length of road that featured dealerships for foreign luxury cars, strip malls, and fast-casual chain restaurants.
Corey parked in the shade of a blooming dogwood, grabbed his briefcase off the backseat, and went inside, taking the lobby’s elevator to their reception area on the third floor, where they leased an office suite.

  “Morning, Corey,” the receptionist said. A perpetually cheerful, silver-haired lady named Lynn, she sat at an oval mahogany desk, a telephone headset clipped to her ear. She handed him a sheaf of yellow note slips. “Lots of messages for you.”

  “Thanks, Lynn. Would you mind holding my calls for an hour or so? I’d like to get caught up on a few things.”

  “Sure thing, hon.” She cocked her head. “How’d the appointment go?”

  For a moment, he had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Then it hit him-he’d told her about the procedure they were considering for Jada.

  “We got the green light,” he said. “Surgery’s scheduled for the end of the month.”

  “Good, good. Your little girl’s one smart cookie, I tell ya. She’s gonna zoom her way to some Ivy League school, you just wait and see.”

  He smiled. “Let’s hope she does it on a full scholarship, or else we’ll have to take out a second mortgage.”

  He strode down the carpeted corridor, past the clusters of cubicles. On an ordinary morning, he stopped and said hello to each of their twelve employees, but that morning he did not slow, though a couple of workers noticed him and waved. He returned the greetings, but kept moving.

  Todd Gates, his partner, occupied the large corner office across the hall from Corey’s. Todd’s door was closed, and through the sidelight panel, Corey saw Todd speaking on the phone.

  Corey went inside his office and shut the door. He tossed the messages onto his desk and dropped into the leather chair.

  Normally, entering his workspace relaxed him. It was spacious and tastefully furnished. Cream carpeting, soft almond walls. Track lighting. Live potted plants Simone had picked out. His bachelor’s and MBA degrees, both from Georgia State University, and both framed, hanging on the wall, next to a laminated feature about Gates-Webb Security that had recently appeared in Entrepreneur magazine. Photographs of Jada and Simone gathered on the edge of his mahogany desk. A crayon drawing Jada had created for him was in a frame on the opposite edge of the desk, the picture a stick-figure representation of Corey in a shirt and tie and a heading that read, “Daddy, CEO” in her careful penmanship.