If I had been a gangster then Priest’s days would have been numbered. He was fortunate in one way but as good as screwed in another. After he’d sent his enforcer to come and do me bodily harm I got angry. I did my best to hide it from Khalil, who’d been my saving angel. But from the second I realized that Priest had sent Big George back to my home, obviously to silence me, it was now a war. A war that I was sure he was too stupid to win. I’d never met an athlete smart enough to outwit a groupie, let alone a cunning diva like myself.

My belongings were in storage for the time being. I was going to go hotel-to-hotel until I got it all straightened out and once I did, money would never be an issue again. Priest had me fantasizing about what it would be like to retire from the life that I lived. I’d go somewhere, warm preferably, to open up a boutique filled with the types of clothes that I like. I’d be able to drive every day with the top down and a pair of Jackie-Os on my face.

I sat patiently in the rental car, waiting for the private investigator to arrive. On cue the silver Navigator pulled up. I hit my lights and he drove over to the corner of the lot where I was sitting. We were in the parking lot of Morton’s, a steak house in Hackensack, New Jersey.

“How are you, Miss H?” he asked respectfully. He was a short man and I stared, almost rudely, as he climbed carefully out of the big truck. He might have been five foot three.

“I’m fine.” I reached into my purse and pulled out an envelope. “Three thousand, it’s all there. Mr. Amory spoke highly of you. Said you were the best. A real pro.”

He handed me two envelopes. “You’ll see for yourself. One of those is a set of copies. The third set, I mailed to the address you gave me. I hope that everything works out for you. I had to climb a telephone pole sixty yards up for some of those.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will. You especially made sure of that. All I was looking for was a house, a wife, and a few other tidbits, but you, Mr. Cason, are a phenom.”

He smiled and laughed out loud. My flattery had him tickled. “Well thank you much,” he said. “I guess I’ll be off. Call me if you need me.”

“I sure will. As a matter of fact, I might need you really soon. Do you work out of town?”

“How far?”

“Not sure yet.”

“How long?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “A day, maybe a week. No more.”

“You call, I’ll come,” he said, grinning ear to ear. I was sensing that the black Danny DeVito had a crush. “I might go to hell and stake out Satan if the price is right.”

I didn’t laugh with him. Instead, once he left I sat in the car and looked into the envelope. I had two addresses for Priest and a few pictures of him with a woman other than his wife. Mr. Cason had taken photos of him carrying diapers and toys up to the door, kissing a pretty Puerto Rican girl and a baby. I was sure that this was going to be interesting to his wife, if the child turned out to be his, but what had me thinking about retirement were the next few photos. I smiled at the clarity of the images of him leaning back in a truck, getting head from none other than Big George. I couldn’t believe the angle Mr. Cason’d shot the pics from.

What amazed me was that Mr. Cason had hit a goldmine himself, if only he’d wanted it. Instead he handed them over to me to do what I chose. He could have sold the pictures to any number of tabloids, but he gave them to me for the price we agreed upon. Either he was a real stand-up guy, or the name and face of the man he’d stalked for me hadn’t rung any bells. I was inclined to believe that he simply operated out of integrity, since Priest had been an All-Star more than once.

Then again the pictures were worthless if you weren’t going to sell them or you weren’t planning to commit a felony with blackmail. I was.

When Priest walked out of the restaurant and to his car I waited for him to pull out into traffic and I followed him. The white man he’d eaten with was his agent. They were both riding high, I was sure. A newly signed contract, a fat signing bonus, and life was good for them.

He was heading for Englewood Cliffs, where he had a three-million-dollar mansion. I had the address written down and could have used the portable GPS to beat him there if I chose, but he was oblivious as he blasted the music out the windows of his Mercedes. I lagged behind when we reached the entrance to his development and carefully waited as he turned each corner before I pulled too closely. A few minutes later he arrived at his driveway and the gate opened.

Once he drove through the gate I waited for it to shut and then I pulled up right behind him and parked right in front of it. I looked up the long driveway; a half a football field away I saw his brake lights and then, a moment later, the reverse lights lit up. He began to wheel back toward the gate. I remained in the car until he reached the gate and stepped out. I opened the door and stepped out of the rental.

We were face to face now, separated by the white metal bars. “What are you doing at my fucking house? Are you crazy?”

It dawned on me that he had the nerve to call me crazy, yet he’d sent his henchman/lover to my door. “I think you know why I’m here, Priest. You’re lucky I haven’t gone to the police. What did you think you were doing having your goon show up at my house?”

He looked at me quizzically. I was sure he was wondering if I was setting him up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. As a matter of fact, you know he got his fat ass kicked that night by my man. And if he comes back…”

“Your man? Bitch, you’re a fucking whore. A high-class one, but still a whore nonetheless. Any man who’s claiming you has got to be some pussy-whipped idiot. C’mon now.”

I don’t know why but his words hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t even know why I had called Khalil my man, but I didn’t appreciate Priest’s sick tail having the nerve or the grounds to put him down.

He went on, “So what the fuck are you doing here?”

“It’s okay with me Priest, that you’ve decided to take it there, but you should know you’re way out of your league with me. I’m not going to talk you to death,” I said as I stepped back to the car and reached for the envelope. I walked up to the gate and handed him the envelope. “It’s really simple.”

He opened the envelope and pulled the stack of photos out. It was like watching someone have their soul snatched from their body. I swear his eyes caved in and his bottom lip began to quiver. “Bitch, you’ve been following me? I’m going to kill you. You know who I am?”

I laughed at him. “You already tried that, remember? The fat faggot in the picture, you sent him to do a man’s job.”

He looked at me, his eyes full of hate. Just then his cell phone rang. He looked down at it then backed up toward his house. I waved him off and moved back a few feet but could still hear him clearly. “Hey, baby, I’m coming. I’m just talking to a Realtor. She’s trying to convince me to sell…no I’m not. Gimme a minute I’ll be there.” He hung up. “Honey, listen. All I wanted was to talk to you.” His tone had softened up and he’d changed his demeanor. “I only wanted to make sure that whole thing in Miami was going to stay quiet. I told my agent about it and he advised me to make an offer to you just to be sure…”

“To be sure that I was dead too?”

He shook his head. “No, no. Honey, you don’t understand. There’s a lot of money on the line. I have to keep my name clear of scandal. Like with that Kobe situation. You know how many millions of dollars other people lost when he lost his endorsements. It took him like three years just to get his image back to the point where he can use his persona to make money. I don’t have that kind of time left and my agent has been riding me like crazy. All he asks is have you talked to the…”

“To the whore.”

“I didn’t say that. He’s just been on edge like a motherfucker and that’s gotten me on edge.”

“So you sent your goon, or rather your boyfriend, to make sure that I’d keep quiet?”

“That’s all. I just wanted to make sure you and I were cool. We went to your room and you weren’t there.”

“I came after you did and what you did was break into my room.”

“Well you never even told us you were leaving. It looked strange. I thought you might have gone to the police.”

“Yeah, right. You know Priest, your ass is sounding real guilty right now.”

He shook his head “no.” “I didn’t do anything to that girl. I swear. The bitch just wouldn’t put the brakes on with the drugs that night.”

“What about her friend?”

“I don’t know nothing about her friend.”

“Yeah, well she was missing too and I’ve been following up on it and it seems like nobody has any answers as to her whereabouts.” That was the reason why I had barely been home. I honestly didn’t know what Priest was capable of. I was too smart to get caught slipping though.

“I swear I don’t know anything about that, but I’ll tell you this…the first trip to your house was merely because I wanted to drop some change on you to make sure everything with us was good. That’s the only reason I sent the big man. I just don’t need the controversy.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking. But I’ll tell you this.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “It’s gonna cost you more than some change, especially with these pictures.”

His hands were on the bars as if he were an inmate. “So what do you want?”

“Two.”

“Two hundred thousand? That’s robbery,” he shouted.

“Nah, my friend. Two million. I want two million dollars.”

“Have you lost your mind? I don’t have that kind of money. I can’t afford to pay you that kind of money.”

“From the looks of things, you can’t afford not to.” I looked at his house and the cars. “Suit yourself. I won’t negotiate. I won’t take one-point-nine-nine-nine and ninety-nine cents. Hell, I want a nice big house like this and someone to love me. Like you said. Who’d love a whore? It’s time for me to give this life up and unfortunately for you, it’s on you.”

“There is no way I’m giving you two million dollars. I’ll kill you and do twenty-five years first.”

“Really? I doubt that. You just got a nine-million-dollar signing bonus. I suggest you dip into it unless you want these pictures all over the Internet and a story in the papers. Not to mention how much your wife is going to take when she finds out you have a little brown baby on the other side of town. I think two million is less than half.”

He was silent. I handed him a card. “What’s this for?” he asked.

“Wire the money to that account. I’ll give you one week. Call me at that number and let me know when it’s done. But don’t call until it’s done. If you do, the deal’s off and I ruin you.”

I walked away and climbed into the car. As I prepared to back out I yelled, “Once I get the money, you’ll get the copies and the negatives. If anything should happen to me you can only imagine what the police and the newspapers will find waiting for them.”

“Goddamned whore.”

“Faggot.”

As I pulled off and headed for the airport I wondered how long it would take him to pick his jaw up from the ground. Secrets are a motherfucker.