Crimson Footprints Part 1

Crimson Footprints.

Shewanda Pugh.

For my family, who remind me daily of what it means to be a Pugh. For Caleb, who gives me motivation for all things I do. For Pierre, whose enthusiasm made this story possible, and for Dr. Christine Jackson, who helped it all come to fruition.

PART ONE.

CHAPTER ONE.

With the quiet hiss of an old and burdened bus, the number 62 unfolded its doors and welcomed Deena Hammond to the night. She took the invitation, hand on a sliver of cool metal, gravel grinding under black pumps and stepped down.

Liberty City. A s.h.i.tty place in the bowels of Miami. Where she was raised and where her grandmother still lived.

p.i.s.s and Hennessey singed her nose and Deena blinked, giving herself a moment for acclimation. Enveloped in the dark thickness of a Miami evening, an old black man slept, cheek to weathered wood on a bus stop bench. Matted dreadlocks formed a pillow as sheets of The Herald covered his middle. Deena stood there, eyes trained on the sleeping man, as her bus disappeared into darkness. Dirt and twigs clung to his hair and valleys creased his face. He was 40, 50, maybe 60.

He opened his eyes.

She should've been afraid. Would've been, had she had a different life, been a different woman.

He looked her over, before cracked lips hinted at the beginnings of a smile. But they would get no further. Smiling here was so hard.

She hurried on.

The heat of Miami clung like a sleeve, dampening her neck and smothering her breath, night never alleviating its burden. She was flesh in Liberty City-all flesh. Everyone was.

Used to the stares a near-white woman got when ambling through the hood in a suit, Deena moved, head high, towards her grandmother's house.

Darkness engulfed block after block of dilapidated row houses, public housing that a.s.saulted her architect's eye. Boarded windows. Peeled paint. Sticks that propped up exhausted AC units. Torn fences that imprisoned rather than embellished. Toys, sandwich wrappers, tire irons, lawn chairs, beer bottles and bicycle parts sat helter-skelter in yard after yard, as if paying homage to the American landfill. Under cover of night, elderly men and women sat in cheap plastic lawn chairs, no doubt reminiscing about the Peppermint Lounge on 79th, back before Liberty City was downright scary. It was a long time ago, longer than Deena could remember.

Black teens in saggy jeans, tall tees, socks and flip flops, strutted the streets, pockets bulging with the wares of their livelihood. Deena spotted her brother, Anthony, among them.

She stopped to watch him from a distance. He stood on the corner of 14th and 63rd, fists clenched, pretending not to be alert. He was tall in the night, oversized red shirt and golden skin bright against the night. Breath held, Deena waited for what she knew would come. Her brother glanced over his shoulder, paused, and did a sleight of hand with a nasty black man whose head swiveled as he scratched himself.

She looked away, blinking back loathsome tears.

Head lowered, she crossed the street, eager to close the distance between her and her grandmother's front door. A block more and she was there. Another peeling and rotted door, held fast with deadbolts. She'd wanted to replace it, but Housing wouldn't let her. With a sigh, Deena slipped her key in the latch, unlocked it and stepped inside.

"Listen, girl! How many times I done told you, you better talk to that devil of a brother of yours!"

Greeted by her consistently hostile grandmother, Deena shut the door and gave a half, and what she hoped was a disarming, smile.

Grandma Emma placed an authoritative hand on her hip and eyed Deena's Louis Vuitton handbag and chocolate linen suit with stark disapproval.

"Hmph. Why you always got on that high cla.s.s stuff ?"

She waved an immense and dismissive hand in Deena's direction before rolling her eyes in impatience.

Deena frowned. It was more than the ma.s.sive stature and booming outdoor voice that made Emma Hammond a figure of intimidation, it was the old school, never-too-old beat mentality her grandmother housed which made her tread in fear of a discipline last doled out better than seven years ago.

Roused by the image of a belt at her backside, Deena dug into her purse and fished out five twenties before hurriedly handing them over. Her grandmother s.n.a.t.c.hed them and continued to stare.

"What?" Deena whispered.

She hated that look. The one that said she did nothing right.

Her grandmother shoved the twenties under her barnyard red housecoat and into her bra before turning the scowl back on her once more. Behind her, the furnishings combined for a cluttered, pop art-gone wrong kind of feel. A corduroy couch, burnt orange and sagging, a tiny TV mounted atop a taller one, and a wood-carved stereo with an eight-track component sat contrary to dozens of old and chipped figurines arranged in a battered china cabinet like a poor man's Terra Cotta Army. A threadbare peac.o.c.k blue carpet played host to it all.

Grandma Emma continued to glare.

"You heard me the first time, gal. Get out there and talk to that boy before I put him outta my house. Now!"

Deena was turning before she knew it, whirled by two big hands and shoved at the door. She stumbled briefly, righted herself, and resolved to exit with dignity. Apparently, she was talking to her brother whether she liked it or not.

She spotted Anthony outside, not far from the curb where she'd left him. Deena crossed the street and parted the two dark figures that stood near before touching his arm.

"Anthony. I need to talk to you." It came out like a whisper, weaker than she'd hoped.

"d.a.m.n Ant, who's this?"

A dark and burly teen turned a hungry eye on her. His jaw was prominent, his face hard, eyes cruel. Crude tattoos covered his hulking body, one claiming him to be the "enforcer." In addition, the bulge under his ribbed tee was unmistakable. But Anthony turned a cold, corrective, unforgiving glare on "the enforcer" and he looked away.

"What do you want?" her brother snapped.

She met his impatience with a tight smile.

"A walk. Take one with me."

Deena turned and headed down 17th. She didn't have to look to know he'd scurry after.

On the opposite side of the street, a black prost.i.tute yanked at her blonde wig before giving her leather mini the same treatment. Too-high fuchsia pumps made her stumble.

"Listen," Anthony said, falling in-step alongside her. "Say whatever you gotta say so I can go. I got business I gotta deal with out here."

Deena stopped. Her brother did the same. They stood under a busted street lamp with a tattered sneaker hanging from a phone line above, the words "f.u.c.k the Police" scrawled in blue below, and an old syringe lying forgotten in the gutter.

"You're so selfish," she whispered, voice etched with a disbelief she'd been unable to shake after so many years. "And G.o.d only knows what else you are. I try not to think about it."

She turned, the sight of him sickening her. But he whirled her to face him, his honeyed eyes hard and narrow.

"I'm selfish?" he demanded. He shook his head. "Listen. Say what you want. But I make food happen. I make rent happen. I make your f.u.c.king safety happen."

Deena recoiled at the curse.

"But at what cost? At what cost, Anthony?" She was somewhere between a sob and shout of enragement.

Anthony inhaled. "Deena-"

"Please. You don't have to do this. I can get more money. I can get a second job-"

"You work hard enough as it is."

"I'll work harder if it'll keep you alive!"

They were the wrong words, she knew, even before he turned to leave.

"You're so smart," she said to his back. "You could be anything."

He had the shoulders of their father-broad, st.u.r.dy, rea.s.suring, and a mind just as sharp.

"Remember when you were a kid?" Deena whispered. "You wanted to be a-a firefighter."

Her eyes moistened.

"You still could, you know."

He turned and gave his sister a once over, eyes sad, smile sadder.

"You could," she insisted.

In the distance, a siren wailed.

"You always could make something out of nothing, Deena."

He placed a hand on her shoulder, leaned in and kissed her forehead.

"Get back in the house, ok? It's not safe."

He shot her a single, regretful look, and jogged back to his corner.

When Deena returned, Grandma Emma resumed her rant about Anthony. As Emma yammered, Deena tried to recall where she left a set of concrete specs for a prep school in Miramar. She needed them ASAP. It was possible she'd left them on the bus. But if they were on the bus, then they were halfway to- Shouts pierced Deena's thoughts. Grandma Emma, ever the enthused spectator, abandoned her tirade for a glimpse of the outside commotion.

"Grandma!" Deena scolded. "Get away from the door before someone shoots you!"

Emma dismissed her with an impatient wave, wide backside jerking as she tilted forward, cracked the door and peeked out.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, girl! This your brother out here acting a G.o.dd.a.m.ned fool again!"

Grandma threw the door wide and Deena pushed past, intent on kicking her brother's a.s.s. She'd just talked to him. What kind of trouble could he possibly have- Before she could finish the thought, Deena froze, immobilized by what she saw.

A slender, striking man of Asian descent was on the wrong end of Anthony's .32. Arms raised, his hands were splayed in a show of defenselessness. Despite the growing crowd of onlookers and the pistol in his face, his expression was calm, to his credit. Behind him, an old woman mouthed something and made the sign of the cross.

"Anthony!" Deena cried, rushing forward.

Her brother cast a single sideways glance, but kept the gun level.

"Get back in the house," he said, an edge in his voice.

Deena turned her attention to the Asian man once again. She was struck by his eyes, wide and heavy-lidded. His mouth was generous, his square face softened by layers of thick black hair. He had boyish good looks and a long, lean athletic frame.

j.a.panese.

She was certain he was j.a.panese.

It was only when his eyes caught hers and vaulted back towards her brother did she face Anthony once more.

"Will you put that G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing away?" Deena hissed.

The two stared at each other, older sister, young brother, eyes narrowed. When he didn't move, Deena stepped between gun and stranger, eyes level with her brother's. A tense moment pa.s.sed and in it Deena thought a thousand thoughts-figures about accidental deaths and the number of people killed each year by family members. Still, she stayed until Anthony lowered his gun. She took the opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h it. Only afterwards did it occur to her that it could've misfired.

Breathless, Deena turned to the stranger.

"I a.s.sume that's your car," she said, nodding towards a sleek gray convertible parked haphazardly, a shiny nickel in a murky puddle.

He nodded, glossy black tresses falling into wide almond eyes.

"Yeah, um, about that." He cleared his throat. "He, uh, took my keys."

Deena turned to her brother, hand extended in impatience. Anthony dropped the keys into her waiting palm with a sigh, a new Ferrari slipping from his grasp with reluctance.

She pa.s.sed the keys over and their fingertips brushed. Something warm and foreign turned over and her lips parted in surprise. She thought she saw the makings of a smile in his eyes, but she dismissed it. He took the keys and thanked her. And as she watched him peel off with the top down on his sleek convertible, Deena's pulse skittered then and long after.

CHAPTER TWO.

Tak.u.mi Tanaka was possessed. Only days had pa.s.sed since he'd last seen her, but in that time, he'd been consumed. She was everywhere. Pages and pages of his sketchpad were devoted to her, the canvas on his easel, the canvas in his mind. She'd haunted him that first night, that first moment really, so much so that he'd rushed home and put pencil-to-paper like a madman.

There was something about her eyes. He couldn't convey what he saw under those heavy lashes-pain, sadness, defeat? Whatever it was, he'd wanted to smooth it away with his hands, his lips and his heart.

He stared at the floor of his studio, littered with sheets of ruined canvas, and knew he had to see her again. With a groan, Tak.u.mi abandoned his work for the morning paper. He had a love-hate relationship with The Arts Section of The Herald, where he could laude their brilliance one minute and curse their convoluted conclusions the next. So, he ventured out into the hall and grabbed the paper from the corner it rested in. He was grumpy and needed coffee, even as he opened the paper, an act that would undoubtedly make him feel worse.

He scanned the front. There, below the fold, was a common South Florida headline: Liberty City Teen Found Slain. And beneath it, a picture of his would-be a.s.sailant, the six-foot hooligan who'd put a .32 to his face.