The Retreat. Dijorn Moss
about to have a good time. Then I’ll go to the casino, and hit up the blackjack table before I fly back to LA to work with my architect firm. Whatever joy or fulfillment I find out here, it will be gone by the time I reach LAX.”
“Well, I don’t want to hold you up, so if we could…” Candy held out her hand.
“Oh, of course.” Quincy pulled out his reddish-brown leather wallet and removed a stack of one hundred dollar bills. The money was so crisp that some of the bills stuck together as Quincy counted out $1,500.
“Hopefully, we’ll still see each other after the divorce. You’re lots of fun,” Candy said as she placed the money in her matching silver purse.
“We’ll always have Vegas.”
Candy put the cash in her purse and started to take her dress off. With her standing there naked, Quincy had an epiphany: for twenty years he had paid to be with a woman he no longer wanted, and he was about to pay for a woman he could never have.
Quincy checked the two jacks he had in his hand. Candy had done her job and relaxed him, but the night was far from over. He tapped on the table with his fingers as signal for the dealer to hit him.
The dealer flipped over the card, and before he knew it, Quincy was up ten grand and the envy of the entire table. It was just as well, he could have been down ten thousand and that would not have mattered. Quincy was wired differently than most people.
He either had to be the richest guy in the room or the poorest. Quincy had an either/or personality; no room for moderation. Quincy avoided contentment at every turn. His inner circle did not consist of people who were satisfied with being able to pay their rent on time and take an occasional vacation. He enjoyed the company of people who wanted to purchase a Lear Jet or an island.
Quincy checked his cell phone and noticed that Gregg had called, probably to discuss one of the pending deals.
Gregg remained in a constant state of worry. The Culver City deal was scheduled to happen on Monday.
Quincy was not about to waste a Wednesday night worrying about something that would not take place for several days. He was too busy trying to live in the moment. Quincy took a sip of his drink and tossed some more chips onto the table. Gregg can wait. And Karen could too, for now. Besides, she would suggest a prayer and a fast for an occasion like this. All Quincy needed to close the deal was a cranberry and vodka and a modest game of blackjack.
“You are being too kind to him, Dan,” a white woman in a blue evening dress said to the dealer.
“I guess it’s my lucky night.” Quincy took a sip of his cranberry and vodka.
“Not mine; half of my kid’s college tuition is on the table,” she replied.
Quincy had seen the woman before. She seemed to know the dealer on a first name basis and she would beg him to go easy on her and let her win once in a while. It seemed like a pathetic sort of friendliness; one side always asking and giving, the other side always taking.
Lost in his train of thought, Quincy was unaware he’d won until he saw the dealer push more chips toward him. The woman’s head dropped in despair. She began to comb her fingers through her hair, as if she were searching for loose change.
“I think I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.” Quincy gathered up his chips and walked away from the table. He turned in his chips and checked his voice mail. There was a message from Karen.
“Quincy, I don’t know where you are, but please call me,” she’d said.
Quincy felt the buzz of the alcohol, but still had good control over his faculties. Thursday he would fly back to Los Angeles with a divorce to finalize.
This had been a long week, and one that he still could not completely wrap his head around as he entered his hotel room and laid across the bed on his back. As he stared at the ceiling, his BlackBerry started to vibrate. He had a dinner planned tomorrow with his prayer partner, Jamal. They’d met at last year’s Men’s Retreat and were assigned to be prayer partners by Pastor Dawkins.
They barely spoke, but, occasionally, Quincy would take the young man out for dinner. He liked Jamal and thought he had a lot of promise. Quincy wanted to cancel the dinner, but Quincy had given Jamal his word. His father taught him that when a man gives a person his word to do something, no matter how small or insignificant it may be, it better be a matter of life and death that causes him to not make good on it.
Quincy started drifting off to sleep. He knew that tomorrow would require him to have fortitude. He would start to put the final touches on the Culver City deal and work with his lawyer to get the divorce papers filed. It was a good thing he’d had fun tonight with Candy and the roulette table, because it would be some time before he had fun again. Emptiness and heartache were what awaited him.
Chapter Six
Stealing a car was not that difficult. Will’s father was a smooth car thief and Will had become an able apprentice. By the time Will’s father had gone to prison two years ago on a seven-year sentence, he had taught Will how to steal everything from cars to a girl’s heart. Odell had also taught Will another trick, how to be invisible, since he was barely around for Will and his two younger siblings. Will’s mother did not mind Odell’s absence so long as she was able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle that did not require her to work.
Will got an adrenaline rush whenever he stole an exotic car. He loved to speed down the highway and test how fast a car could go before he turned it into Tony’s chop shop or his gang leader, D-Loc. The job, like all other jobs, had its down moments. Boredom grew from a lack of a challenge.
Like this Mustang GT that Will was about to steal. It was jet-black, with gold racing stripes along the top of the car. It had R1 drifting rims to match. The owner obviously cared more about the look of the car than its safety, because Will didn’t see any car alarm.
Will leaned into the window to double check the interior, but no red light flashed in the midst of the darkness. Will had had this car in his sights for a few weeks now. The occasion had arrived where he could finally claim it. Will removed the dealer-issued key from his pocket. It was amazing what a car thief could accomplish with a VIN and a stack of money. Car dealers were willing to part with duplicate keys to the cars Will planned to steal, which made stealing cars a lot easier, but more boring. It wasn’t the same as hot-wiring a car.
His suspicion was confirmed that there was not a car alarm as he entered the car. After he inhaled the vanilla-scented air freshener, he revved up the V8 engine. Will pulled away and got halfway down the block before he turned on the radio and was engulfed by Kelly Clarkson.
“What kind of crap is this?” Will said to himself.
He scanned the radio stations and found a hip-hop station that played the latest Jay-Z song. The music put him in an aggressive mood. So he scanned the stations until he found a jazz station. Will would not consider himself a jazz fan, but the slow melancholy sound of a saxophone or trumpet was soothing, checking any adrenaline that lingered after a boost.
Will had been a car thief since he was eleven. At fourteen he joined a local gang called the Untouchables. They found his skill helpful and lucrative. Now he was barely nineteen and he was already restless, ready to do something different. What, he was not sure of yet.
Lost in deep thought, Will neglected to stop at a red light, which prompted a siren to flash from a police car. The police siren grew louder as it approached Will and pulled just behind his rear bumper.
“Oh, shoot.” Will turned off the music.
“Pull over!” the officer said from the loud speaker.
Will’s size eight black-and-white shoe pressed on the accelerator. The Mustang GT went from sixty-five miles per hour to ninety in a matter of seconds. The police were in hot pursuit. The engine roared as the Mustang cleared one hundred miles per hour, leaving the scent of burnt rubber in its wake. He maneuvered around cars that obeyed the thirty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit,