“I make sure he drinks his glass of shut up every day,” Jamella said.
“No more clubbing. No more partying. No more drama. That’s why I rented out my place in Glen Cove and moved us here. It’s quiet here and that suits me just fine. I’m happy. My priorities are straight now. We’ll have us our baby. And I’ll walk the walk. Represent my family the right way.”
“What about the way you play the game?” Des asked him. “Aren’t you afraid Da Beast will lose his edge?”
“Da Beast is never afraid. Next season I’ll be a stronger, more dependable leader.” He studied her from across the coffee table. The piano that someone was playing fell silent. There was only the gentle gurgle of the shark tank now. “So why are you here?”
“To inform you that you’ve got some rich neighbors who are used to getting their way.”
He let out a laugh. “Hey, I know that. Justy Bond, right? I haven’t met him. Only know him from the pissed-off letters and phone messages he keeps leaving me. But it would appear he has himself a problem with a brother taking up residence next door. I pay him no mind. I’m not looking for trouble. Or attention. That’s why I said no to the reality show they wanted me to film.”
“We had two offers,” Rondell put in proudly. “Firm offers.”
“That whole media circus out front is Plotka’s doing, not mine. I’m strictly looking for peace and quiet, like I said. No muss, no fuss. And for damned sure no parties.”
“That’s probably a wise thing,” Des said.
“You telling us we can’t have a few friends over?” Clarence demanded.
“I’m not ‘telling’ you anything. Just advising you to be smart. Otherwise, I can guarantee you that we’ll have a situation. You know how to reach me if there’s trouble. How do I reach you?”
“I’ll give you our unlisted number.” Rondell reached for a notepad and pen on the coffee table and wrote it down for her.
Tyrone shook his shaved head. “These folks out here are terrified of me. I’m their worst nightmare. Your worst nightmare, too, right, girl?”
Des shoved her heavy horn-rims up her nose. “I don’t think I understand.”
“Sure you do. You’re one of those nice, polite girls. Did your homework every night. Stayed away from bad boys like me. Where’d you go to college?”
“West Point.”
He raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You saw action?”
“I saw action.”
“The real kind, too. Not a game like I play, hunh?”
“It was no game,” Des said, hearing footsteps approach them on the hardwood floor.
Rondell’s face lit up. “Resident Trooper Mitry, this is Jamella’s sister Kinitra.”
“Hey,” Kinitra said shyly. She was seventeen, maybe eighteen, and real cute in a baby-faced, dimply sort of way. Big, doe eyes. A soft young mouth. Actually, her face looked soft all over, as if it were constructed out of marshmallows. Kinitra wore her orange-streaked hair in a short, punky updo. She was petite, no more than five-feet-four, but she had a lovely, curvy figure. The brightly patterned top and shorts she had on were of the same patchwork design as her older sister’s shift.
“You ain’t heard singing until you’ve heard this little girl,” Clarence informed Des.
Rondell continued to glow in the girl’s presence. It was plain to Des that little brother was ga-ga over little sister. Des wondered if it was mutual.
“She’s not just a sister with a set of pipes,” Tyrone pointed out. “She hears a song one time and she can sit down at the piano and play the whole thing by ear. Been that way since she was, what, ten?”
“Younger. Five, six years old.” Jamella smiled at her. “My baby girl’s a prodigy.”
“Stop it,” Kinitra demurred as she sat down next to her. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Don’t be bashful,” Tyrone said to her. “Be proud. Trooper Mitry, this little girl is going to be the next Rihanna. Except with class and decency. No photos of her naked titties on the web. And no thug’s ever beating the crap out of her. We’re taking our time and doing it proper. She’s only eighteen. A fresh young sister from Houston. But she is going to be huge. Tell her, little brother.”
Rondell nodded his head enthusiastically. “She has an incredibly diverse repertoire-hip-hop, jazz, blues, folk. What’s critical now is how we fuse all of those flavors together. We intend to craft her sound before we present her to a label so as to retain full creative control.”
“And her career will be a family enterprise all the way,” Tyrone explained. “I have the resources to launch her. She’s why I installed a recording studio in the west wing. Cee knows everything there is to know about sound mixing. Rondell will manage the business end. And Jamella is choreographing her whole image-her dance moves, what she wears.”
“I’m designing a clothing line for her,” Jamella said. “Similar to what we have on now. I made these. They’re inspired by our mother’s Bahamian ancestry. Mama passed two years ago. It’ll be our way of honoring her.”
“I like the look,” Des said admiringly.
Jamella arched an eyebrow at her. “Do you really?”
“Absolutely. I’d wear it. It’s not as if I always go around in a uniform.”
“I’d like to see you in a bikini,” Clarence said.
“Oh, shut up, Cee,” Jamella snapped.
“Put on her demo for the trooper to hear,” Tyrone told him. “That old Joan Baez song. The one Bob Dylan wrote.”
“Do you have to?” Kinitra protested.
“Get used to it, girl,” Tyrone said to her. “People all around the world are going to be listening to you soon.”
Clarence reached for a remote control device on the coffee table and powered up the house’s sound system. Des heard a bluesy piano with a bit of a hip-hop beat. And then she heard Kinitra singing “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word,” the folk hit from the sixties that had showcased Baez’s amazing vocal range. Kinitra’s own range was equally astonishing. The girl could soar way up there into Minnie Riperton territory. And she didn’t just have range. Her voice was so angelic, so achingly beautiful that the hairs on the back of Des’s neck stood up.
When the song was over Clarence flicked the system off, smiling hugely. They were all smiling. It was something magical. This bashful young girl who couldn’t take her big brown eyes off the floor had it.
“She’s the real thing, am I right?” Tyrone asked Des.
“Yes, you are.”
“Hell, yes.” He squeezed his wife’s hand and said, “How do you feel, baby? Can I get you some orange juice?”
“That sounds good.”
“I’m on it. You just hang right here with your girl. Come on, trooper. I’ll show you around.”
Tyrone led Des back toward the entry hall, Clarence and Rondell tagging along. He had a bodybuilder’s rolling gait, arms out wide to his sides. And he limped slightly on his surgically repaired knees.
“Do they give you trouble?” she asked him.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“No pain, no gain?”
“No pain, no pay. Our bedrooms are up those stairs right there. Except for Cee’s. He’s down there in the east wing. This here’s our home theater,” he pointed out as they passed a plush screening room. Next door to it was the recording studio. The piano was in there. “And this here’s my game room.” He paused so Des could check it out. The game room had a pool table, poker table and a half-dozen old-school arcade games. His many trophies and awards were crowded into a floor-to-ceiling glass case that filled an entire wall. “That there’s Rondell’s office,” he said, continuing down the hallway past a closed door. “And this here’s my weight room.” Training center was more like it. Not just free weights but Nautilus machines, treadmills, stair climbers and exercise bikes. “I work out here every day with Cee. He used to start at small forward for Clemson until his scholarship was revoked due to an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
Clarence’s jaw muscles tightened but, for once, he had nothing to say-joking or otherwise. Des made a mental note to run a criminal background check on him as soon as she got near a computer.