Black Lace

  She wiped at her eyes with a wadded tissue. “I’m hanging. They say the surgery may take another two hours. The bullet is lodged near his heart.”

  Lena shook the chief’s hand and said, “Thanks for coming down.”

  She then introduced them to the large contingent of family members waiting with her. Drake shook the hands of those he didn’t know and gave hugs of hope and consolation to the ones he did, like Lena’s mother and her father, Lupe and Ricardo. Detroit Receiving Hospital was one of the nation’s premier trauma facilities, and being a physician, Drake knew that Leo was in the best of hands. If there was any chance for survival, the surgeons would make it happen.

  He spent a few more minutes talking with Lena and her family, then he and the chief excused themselves and headed to the parking lot. As Cassandra got into her vehicle, she said, grimly, “Sometimes I hate this job.”

  “I do, too,” Drake echoed. “Call me when the word on Leo comes down. I don’t care what time it is, and I want to be kept current on the search for the shooter.” He couldn’t get the angry face of Harold Carnegie Jr. out of his mind.

  “Will do.”

  She drove off, and a saddened Drake walked back to his car.

  Reynard Parker looked at the grainy film on his computer, his henchman Fish beside him. Parker was trying to determine if any of the men in black might be the mayor. He’d gotten the tape of one of the old Drug Buster raids from a friend of his at the police department. The police had gotten it from a citizen who’d filmed the raid on a home video camera. Because the footage had been shot at night, details were hard to determine. In reality, the masked men coming out of the house could be any males anywhere, and just because Parker wanted one of the them to be Drake Randolph didn’t make it so. One man in particular drew his eye, however. He was built like Randolph, and as he stood with his weapon raised while looking up and down the street, the camera had gotten a clear view. Parker asked his hacker employee sitting at the computer’s keyboard, “How tall would you say that one standing by the van is?”

  The blond man looked at the individual. “Six-one, six-two, maybe.”

  Parker knew that Randolph was six-two. “Could that be the mayor?”

  The man turned. “The mayor? You think he’s in on this?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  The employee shook his head. “I can’t say, and unless you know of a software program that can take masks off of video images, we’ll never know.”

  Parker had no idea if anything that sophisticated existed.

  Fish said, “Now if somebody wanted to start a rumor that this is the mayor, there’s really no way to honestly prove it isn’t him, if you think about it. I mean the body types and the height are real close matches.”

  Parker agreed. So if he were to anonymously send this film to the newspapers with the simple question, “Is this Mayor Randolph?” would they run the picture or ignore it? He knew that papers were in business to sell papers, and a story like this would definitely cause a stir. It would also put Randolph on the defensive, maybe even start enough clamoring to have the Dope Busters investigated for real. He himself, of course, would go on record as being against the vigilantes and for a complete and thorough investigation. Parker wanted to make Drake Randolph’s world hell, and this was as good a way to start as any.

  Eleven

  Drake got the word on Leo Vasquez’s condition around midnight. The surgeons were able to remove the bullet, but the next forty-eight hours would be critical as to whether he’d make it or not. Drake knew how strong Lena’s husband was in both mind and spirit, and if anyone could survive, Leo would. There’d been no word on the shooter, however. The street investigation and canvassing was ongoing. According to witnesses, two perps had burst into the party store with guns. They’d demanded cash from the clerk, only to be confronted by Leo and Mary, who were in the store buying coffee. When Leo yelled for the perp to drop his gun, the second shooter somehow came up behind Mary, shot her, and put a bullet in Leo’s chest. Leo managed to plug the killer in the leg before collapsing. Then Mary’s killer and his bleeding friend ran, jumped into an old Buick, and disappeared into the night. The store clerk guessed the whole incident took less than thirty seconds.

  Drake shook his head at yet another senseless loss of life. He was home, and the interior of the mansion was dark. He’d drawn the drapes back and was standing in front of the living room’s wide window looking out over the black ribbon of the river at the lights of Windsor on the other side. Myk had been pressuring him to make a decision about reelection, but he still hadn’t made up his mind. On one hand, he thought that given four more years he could make a difference in the city’s quality of life, but on the other hand, the job seemed to be a thankless one, not to mention having to deal with evenings like this one.

  At this point in his life he should be coming home to a wife and a couple of kids every night. Having never had a father, he planned on playing a major league role in his hypothetical children’s lives, but because of the choices he was making, he hadn’t had time to look for that special lady. He’d done med school, then interned, then took a coveted residency position in Boston. Coming back to Detroit, he chose to go into thoracic surgery, which turned out to be a good move, especially after his successful work on a linebacker for the hometown Lions. The linebacker and the team were so impressed by his skill, they began referring other players to him, who told other players, who in turn told other players, and soon Drake was working on football players, hockey legends, and basketball phenoms from across the country. For a kid from the east side of Detroit, his life back then was off the chain, because everywhere athletes went, parties and women followed.

  He had tickets to Super Bowls and NBA All-Star weekends; he went to birthday bashes thrown by athletes, complete with pools and half-naked video hos on the arms of the rapper of the week. He’d partied, tasted the caviar, the women, and he looked up one day and was thirty-five and tired of doing surgery by day and the clubs with his boys at night. For some reason the fast lane became mundane. He seemed to need more in his life. So he closed his private practice and donated his skills to the Detroit hospitals, treating the uninsured. A year later Myk convinced him to run for mayor, and the rest, as they said, was history.

  And now here he stood, wondering about the future and what it might hold. He knew he owed Myk an answer, but he didn’t have one.

  He turned away from the view and looked over at the lighted clock on the fireplace mantle. One A.M. Way too late to call Lacy.

  “Might as well go on to bed,” he told the darkness. Intent upon doing just that, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom but it took a long time for him to close his eyes and sleep.

  Sunday morning Drake got dressed and drove the Mustang to meet his mother, sisters, and their families for the eleven o’clock service at St. Matthew’s and St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church. The building was on the National Register for historic sites, and for Drake it was historic; he’d been baptized there, taken his first communion there, and even kissed his first girl there. Cathy Kelly. The memory made him smile. He was a thirteen-year-old acolyte, and she’d been twelve and in the junior choir. He remembered being in puppy love with her for months, but when her parents moved to Cleveland, he never saw her again.

  Drake pulled into the church parking lot just as his mother Mavis stepped out of her fresh-washed, steel-gray Chrysler 300. The paint sparkled in the April sun, and she smiled and waved a gloved hand. Drake understood why the widowers were always walking behind her with their tongues hanging out. His mama was still hot. She was trim and carried herself like the confident sixty-three-year-old dark-skinned beauty that she was. As always, Mavis had on an elaborate but stylish hat. Today’s choice was navy blue to match the fine navy blue suit she was wearing.

  When he got out of the Mustang, she walked over and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “So sorry to hear about the policewoman last night. How’s Lena’s Leo?”

&
nbsp; “Still critical.”

  She shook her head sadly. “I remember their wedding. Ricardo wasn’t sure he wanted to give his baby girl away to someone from California.”

  Drake smiled. “He did give Leo a hard time, didn’t he?”

  They began to walk

  “Did the police catch the shooters?”

  Drake shook his head. “Not yet.”

  They started up the great stone steps that led to the door of the big church that was originally known as St. Joseph’s. It was built in 1927 and had a White congregation. St. Matthew’s, originally established in 1845, was an historic Black Episcopal church, and the third oldest Black church in the state. In 1971 urban renewal forced a merger of the two congregations and the church name was changed to St. Matthew’s and St. Joseph’s.

  Inside, the hushed atmosphere of the sanctuary resonated off the stone columns and statuary. It was an English-style Gothic church with gray limestone trim, and the congregation these days was all Black. Drake ushered his mother into their traditional pew, kissed his sisters and the cheeks of his nieces and nephews, shook the hands of his two brothers-in-law, then stood as the organist began the processional.

  After church, the Randolph clan gathered at their mother’s place, like they did every third Sunday of the month for dinner, good times, and the chance to catch up on each other’s lives. The topic of today was, of course, Drake and Lacy.

  His big sister Madey asked, “So, when do we get to meet her?”

  He bit off a piece of his fried chicken leg and shrugged. “Soon.”

  Baby sister Sharon, spoon-feeding mashed potatoes to her toddler in the high chair, asked, “You said that last Sunday. We want to see her, Drake. Are you ashamed of us?”

  “Maybe she’s hard on the eyes,” quipped his brother-in-law.

  Drake looked at him. “Et tu, Brute?”

  Everyone around the table laughed.

  Drake tossed back, “No, the lady is fine, but she is the only child of an only child. I don’t want this horde scaring her to death.”

  Angela, Drake’s baker sister, said, “I’ve seen some of her mother’s work and it’s very good. Is Lacy an artist too?”

  “Not that I know of,” Drake said honestly. “I’m still getting to know her.”

  “Well hurry up. You know how nosey we are,” his sister Denise announced. “If she’s a potential sister-in-law, we need to check her out.”

  Drake looked over at his mother. He knew this sister-in-law talk stemmed from her. To which Mavis replied innocently, “Don’t look at me. I didn’t say a word.”

  Drake rolled his eyes and tried to ignore all the female giggles.

  By five that afternoon it was time for everyone to pack up and go home. As his sisters rounded up their children and his brothers-in-law went out to start the cars, Drake watched his mother turn on the dishwasher. His four teenage nieces had pooled their summer job money last summer and purchased the dishwasher for their grandmother. Mavis had appreciated the gift, but she and everyone else knew the teens had made the gesture just so they wouldn’t have to hand-wash so many dishes when the holidays rolled around. Drake asked, “Where was Uncle Burt today?”

  “In Chicago,” Mavis answered. “Some kind of racetrack convention.”

  “Is he still mad?”

  “Yes, but he’ll get over it. He could have killed that girl with his crazy driving. I don’t let him drive me to the curb.”

  Drake chuckled. “Oh, I forgot. Duke over at the barbershop says hello.”

  Mavis shook her head. “Duke. He’s persistent if nothing else.”

  “You’re not too old to have a man, Mama.”

  She gave him a look. “I know that, Drake, but Duke has never been and never will be on the list. Trust me.”

  “Okay.”

  When the dishwasher started up, they both left the kitchen. Drake picked up his coat and she walked him to the door. “What are you doing about all these barrels of poison folks are leaving all over town?”

  He shook his head with amusement at her fierce love for the city. “We’re working on it.”

  “Good. The sooner you put them in jail, the better off we’ll be.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Keep yourself safe, and bring that Lacy around so we can meet her, please.”

  “I will, soon. I promise.”

  “Promises, promises. You politicians are all alike.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. “So are you mamas.”

  She laughed, and he took the familiar sound with him to his car. He waved good-bye and drove away.

  Lacy should have been at home hours ago, but she was still in the office Monday evening finishing up a report. She figured she had at least another hour and half before it was done. The department’s ancient computers were taking a lifetime to crunch the numbers she’d put into the program. If the new software was able to do it, she’d be able to head home. But would she get the answer before next week this time? she wondered wearily.

  The report was on the outcome of the federal cleanup of lead-laced soil in one of the east-side neighborhoods. The pollution came from Metro Metals, a large smelting plant that had operated in the area for thirty years before closing in 1984. At the height of Metro’s operation, the company’s smokestacks sent up two pounds of lead per hour into the surrounding air. The cleanup had taken eighteen months at a cost of $3.4 million taxpayer dollars. But what amazed, angered, and saddened Lacy all at once was that federal and local authorities knew about the site, but no testing had been done until one of the local papers put the issue on the front page. By then hundreds of children had been exposed to the potent neurotoxins inherent in high levels of lead. Lacy knew there were sites like Metro Metals all over the nation, and most were in the neighborhoods of people who looked like her.

  To distract herself from her growing anger, she added more paper to the printer.

  Twenty minutes later she heard a knock on the door. Because she was the only person still in the office, she’d locked the outside doors for safety reasons. There were security personnel in the building, but she felt safer with the locks on.

  She walked to the glass and saw Drake on the other side. In his hands were white cartons from somebody’s takeout. Smiling, she flipped the locks and let him in.

  He grinned. “Heard you were working late.” He stopped a moment to kiss her so lusciously, her toes curled. “Thought you might want to take a break and eat.”

  Rocked again by the power of his kiss, Lacy finally opened her eyes and asked, “Who told you I was still here?”

  “Saw your lights on when Malcolm brought me back from my meeting downriver about an hour ago.”

  “You know my window from the street?”

  “Sure,” he told her without a lick of shame. “That’s what we men do. Never know when I might have to fly up here and rescue you or something.”

  She chuckled. “Or something.”

  They spent the next few moments silently checking each other out, and Lacy could feel herself becoming warm in places that let her know the woman inside herself was arising. Looking away, she asked him, “What’s in the cartons?”

  He set the four containers on her desk. Two were shaped traditionally, but the other two were long and thin. “Let’s see, we have Coneys. Fries. Chili. And some peach cobbler.”

  She grinned.

  “I did good.”

  “You did good. I love Coneys.”

  “Enough for another kiss?”

  “Enough for as many kisses as you want.”

  He raised a pleased eyebrow.

  Lacy walked over to him and placed her arms around his neck. He looked down with amused eyes. “If I had known you were turned on by Coneys, I’da brought you some a long time ago….”

  She chuckled, then raised up so she could give him his just reward. The moment her lips met his, the playfulness fled. Passion flared, the kiss deepened, and Drake was pulling her so close
Lacy felt the heat of his body merge with her own. He slowly moved his hand to the back of her neck and ran his hand over the tempting twists in her hair while she shimmered with the desire rising in her blood. He placed short, lingering kisses on her mouth that made the fire within increase, and she answered him as sweetly as she knew how. Hands that were warm as a summer night began to move languidly over her back and up her sides, then a palm slid over her already hard breast, causing Lacy to moan softly in response.

  Drake wanted to spend the next hour removing her clothes so he could pay sensual tribute to each and every dark and lovely inch of her; take her nipples into his mouth and tease them until she blossomed and ran wet; part her thighs and show her all the ways he could make her come; but right now he was content to explore her, learn her, and show her just how much he wanted to please her.

  The kisses continued; dazzling, lingering. Lacy was so caught up in the sensations flowing through her that she didn’t protest when his hands began undoing the pearl buttons of her white silk blouse. She wanted his hands and lips in the places that were pleading the most: her breasts; the cove between her thighs. The thought shocked her, but she was too busy pulsing and throbbing to chastise herself for more scandalous wishes; too busy trying to catch her breath as he nuzzled his hot lips against the edges of her black lace bra; too busy savoring the way he made her feel. When he unhooked the clasp and she tumbled free, he took one nipple into his mouth and she came with a raspy cry.

  Drake smiled and lifted his lips to hers again. Her small breasts were dark as the night, and he rolled the damp bud with an expert touch. He whispered against her mouth, “We have to work on your stamina, baby….”

  Lacy couldn’t respond because of the orgasm still echoing within, but knew she would work on whatever he wanted. Lord! Had she come so quickly because it had been so long, or because of his scandalous expertise? The only thing she was sure of was that Mayor Drake Randolph knew his way around a woman’s body, and her body was glad he did.