Slipping Into Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

your brother it’s going to be real bad. Tell your mother to get out her black dress if you don’t get that money.”
    The line went dead. I tried to push redial but the number was unreachable.
    For a moment I was too numb to move. Once I gathered my wits about me, again, I made sure my phone line was on, if the kidnappers decided to call back. I was so upset I needed to get my bearings.
    Now Mayhem had said to call Venita, but I didn’t want to call her. I was still mad at her for spending half my childhood in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. I was not on exactly the best speaking terms with her, but then something occurred to me. Who else could I call? Mayhem asked that I call Venita. Our mother. She’s the only person who would have Tank’s contact information.
    â€œVenita, it’s Z.”
    My mother’s voice sounded sleep filled, but I heard the alertness when she realized it was me. “Z?”
    â€œI need Tank’s phone number. Mayhem told me you would have it.”
    My mother was happy to hear from me, since I’d shut down my phone on her during our last contact via text. We didn’t exactly have a close mother-daughter relationship, you might say. “I have his address too. He’s in Imperial Courts.”
    I wrote down the phone number and address, then hung up. I could tell Venita was happy that I was on board. She didn’t seem to realize something. Not only was he her first born, he was also my big brother. I wasn’t doing this for her. I was doing this for Mayhem. Because when everything was all said and done, I remembered one thing: Mayhem killed for me when I was a child. The sad thing was, at the time, he was a child too. I was only nine and he was ten when the thing that destroyed our family happened. But I often wondered, what would have happened to me had he not pulled that trigger and killed Strange? I now wonder, where would I have wound up? Would my mother’s then boyfriend, Strange, had molested me, the same way Chica’s mother’s boyfriend molested her throughout her early years before she was placed in foster care?
    I thought about calling Romero, but changed my mind. After all, he was the law. Plus, he probably was out on his own surveillance case. We had an agreement never to interrupt each other when we were working.
    Instead, I called my foster mother, Shirley, who had been the linchpin to love in my childhood and my adult life. The way safety pins used to hold old-fashioned cloth diapers together on babies, she’d held my life together when I was a nine-year-old child, traumatized from witnessing my father’s murder, my mother’s imprisonment, and the subsequent breakdown of our family system.
    Two years ago, once again, Shirley had pulled my life together when I was a disgraced fired police officer, adult alcoholic, drowning in my own stew of demons. When I hit rock bottom, it was Shirley who climbed down in the cesspool of alcohol I was literally drowning in. She’d helped cleaned me up from my own vomit, sat through my detox, and got me into rehab until I could stand on my own two feet again. Up until then, I’d always thought I was so strong, but I found out I wasn’t.
    Sometimes when we can’t pull things together or handle things, someone else has to hold our hand until we can handle them.
    As soon as Shirley answered the phone, I felt a sense of comfort just hearing the sound of her voice. Unfortunately, just as I started my spiel, I realized I was talking to her voice mail. Dag-gonitt.
    Anyhow what can she do? I asked myself inwardly. I didn’t know, but I knew one thing for sure. Shirley was always the one to dust me off, and make me think I could make it.
    That’s why I needed to see her now. If anyone could make sense of this craziness, it would be Shirley.
    I left a short, cryptic message. “Moochie, I can’t talk on the phone about this. When I get home, can I