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self out in the mirror, “send somebody back downstairs to get Nooni high, and then I want you to go down there and kick the shit outta her ass again.”
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    I stayed up at that hospital praying over Rita practically 24/7.
    The cops claimed they had searched the G-Spot and Nooni was nowhere to be found, and Chub was being held somewhere by child protective services. The homicide detectives were acting all clueless and they told me and Dutchy there were no leads pointing toward the identity of the gunmen who had pulled this bloody caper.
    “Fuck the cops,” Dutchy kept saying over and over. “This is me right here! Lemme find out who did this shit, man. Just lemme find out. The streets are gonna start talking in a minute and somebody is gonna get X’d the fuck out,” he swore one night as he stared down at Rita’s battered face with tears in his eyes. “That’s word to my mother. The muh’fuckin’ streets are definitely gonna talk.” 
    I was scared as hell behind all this. I didn’t know whether Rita getting shot was just a random act of violence, or whether it had something to do with all the people who were out there gunning for me. I got even scareder one day when I was sitting in the waiting room and Chiney called to tell me a big bouquet of sympathy flowers had been delivered to the crib. She said the card was made out to me, and it wished Rita a speedy recovery.
    “Who is it from?” I had asked her, suspicion jumping all up in my throat.
    Chiney didn’t answer for a second, and then she said, “You ain’t gonna believe it, but this shit is signed, “Love, Flex.”
    My heart pounded. That little buck-toothed fool had a lot of nerve sending me some damn flowers to Trey’s house. Yeah, him and Rita was cool and she was the one who had arranged for me to stay with him when I first got outta jail, but he didn’t really give a damn about her getting shot. Flex didn’t care about nobody but himself. Rita had thought she was protecting me from the G-Spot crew by sending me to hide with him, but she just didn’t know how twisted that niggah was. But I sure as hell did, and I wasn’t about to give him the kind of attention I knew he was trying to get.
    “Is your brother home?” I asked Chiney. “Is Trey there?”
    “Nah. He’s at the Crossover Center.”
    “Good,” I said. “Take the whole bouquet outside and throw it in the curbside trash. Get rid of that shit, Chiney. Just dump it.”
    I had gone back to Rita’s bedside clenching my jaw and making worry lines pop up all over my face. Even though the nurses only let me sit in Rita’s room for about thirty minutes at a time, I tried to be there for her the way my Italian friend Renata had been there for me when I got shot. Rita was still in a coma, but I still talked to her like she could hear me, mostly telling her not to worry and that everything was gonna be okay.
    And Dutchy was a dedicated soldier for her too. He took a week off from work right after it happened, and when he went back he still came up to the hospital every day on his lunch hour, and then he came right back to see her again as soon as he got off work at night.
    Trey hung out at the hospital with me sometimes too, and I appreciated all the concern he was showing for me and for Rita, especially with all the other stuff he was juggling on his plate. Trey was a real active businessman and he stayed on the run all the time working on projects that benefited the community of Harlem. His Crossover Center was scheduled to host its first annual D.I.V.A. Day soon, so Trey was busy running back and forth taking care of all those last minute arrangements that would assure its success. Still, he swung by the hospital every day so I could give him an update on Rita’s condition, and he always found time to sit and keep me company for a little while.
    Our relationship had definitely gotten closer since all this had happened, although I kept telling myself not to read