As the Wicked Watch(109)

“Hi,” I said back.

“You look lost,” she said.

And you look like the woman who just got out of the car out front.

“Can I help you find something?” she said. “This place is a maze.”

I could say no or I could make up a name. I decided to improvise.

“I’m looking fo-o-o-or Mad Cash Talent Management?” I said, sounding intentionally unsure of myself.

“Good news! You made it,” she said. “Is Terrence expecting you?”

Before I answered, I paused to see if she recognized me. “Yes, I think so,” I said. “I’m not sure if he got my message.”

“Okay, well, come on in and have a seat in his office. He’ll be with you in a minute,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“What’s your name?”

Damn it, I knew she was going to ask me that.

“J,” I said. “Everybody calls me J.”

“Okay, J.”

“Is there a bathroom?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Just to the left of Terry’s office,” she said.

I walked through the sparsely furnished room Terrence Bankhead called his office and wondered how anyone in their right mind would believe this guy was legit. I’d seen chicken houses in East Texas with more swag. The plaques on the wall looked like they’d been printed off the internet, and crooked photos of celebrities that Terrence in no way had anything to do with decorated the area: Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Johnny Gill, and Toni Braxton.

People believe what they want to believe.

The bathroom was fairly clean but cluttered. The wastebasket needed emptying, and a constant drip-drip-drip of the faucet explained the tea-colored brown stain that encircled the drain. I went in and locked the door behind me, then pressed send on the text to Joey. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I would know it when I found it. The overflowing wastebasket seemed like a good place to start. I reached inside my purse and pulled out a state-certified evidence collection kit complete with swabs, fingerprint lifts, zip-top bags, and most important, gloves. The bin was full of crusty paper towels and balls of toilet paper. Near the bottom, I came upon a used condom, which I gathered up with tongs and placed in a zip-top bag, and a large Band-Aid with a substantial amount of dried blood, which I collected, too.

I heard voices outside the door.

“Who’d she say she was? J? I don’t know no J. Where is she at now?” said a man’s voice.

“She said she was going to the bathroom,” she said.

“All right. Put the girls in the studio so they can work on that verse,” he said.

“Okay,” the woman said. “Hey, Tashena and Robin, come on! Let’s go!”

The next thing I heard was a knock at the bathroom door.

“J?” a man said. “Come on out.”

“Just a minute.” I knew the minute I stepped out of the bathroom, it was on, and I didn’t have the friendly receptionist in the room with me anymore as a witness.

“I don’t do drop-ins, lady. Appointments only,” he said from the other side of the door. “Come on out.”

I took a deep breath and pulled the hoodie off my head. Fear was not a luxury I could afford at this moment. Strength was all I had, and I wasn’t sure about that. I unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out to meet Terrence Bankhead at last. His back was to me, but he turned around when he heard my heels clacking on the floor.

He looked and dressed young, in black jeans and a white T-shirt, with a black, red, and white jacket that resembled a race-car driver’s.

A dope-ass jacket.

It took him a moment to recognize me. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I didn’t know if it was what I already knew about him or those thick eyebrows of his practically growing into a unibrow, but he looked sinister, like a snake about to strike.

“You know who I am?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I know you,” he said. “You’re that bitch on TV who got her ass beat.”

Right then, I started praying that the squad car would show up.

“Wow, that was hostile,” I said, struggling to hold my poker face. “How do you know that I’m not here to make you famous?”

“What are you doing dropping my name to the police?” he asked me.

How did he know about that?

“Terrence, I’m here for one reason. To find out what you know about what happened to Masey James,” I said.

“What makes you think I know anything?” he said.

“Are we gonna play this game?”

“Who the fuck are you? A cop?” Terrence rose out of his chair and took three steps in my direction.

“Don’t come any closer,” I said.

“Bitch, this is my house!”

His quickness to anger told me everything I needed to know about how my being there made him feel.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” I said, stalling. “I know that you were picking Masey up from school. Somebody saw you and identified you. Oh, and I told the police that, too.”

He stood there silent.

“And another thing,” I said, taunting him, “there’s the matter of a picture of you with the victim with your hand on her ass. How old was she? Fifteen? That’s statutory rape.”