DIVA by Susan Fleet Page B

between the filthy carpet and the baseboard was a used syringe with a bent needle.
    Appalled by the squalor, he flashed on Chantelle’s roommate, Ramona, fourteen-years-old and pregnant, about to have a baby fathered by her uncle. Not much older than Janelle Robinson, a black girl in Boston who’d hung out with bangers and wound up dead. Different project, same sad story.
    Before Katrina, 673 of Iberville’s 836 units had been occupied. Now only 200 housed legal residents. Many of the others were occupied by drug dealers and crackheads. Forget finding someone to help him locate Chantelle. The bangers wouldn’t tell him anything, and the legal residents were too scared to talk. He scratched the scar on his chin. If Chantelle was hiding in one of the eight-hundred-plus units, he’d never find her.
    Lost in thought, he pushed through the exit door into the sunlight.
    “Yo!” a deep voice called. “Help you with sump’n?”
    A young black man with milk-chocolate skin leaned against the side of the building. He was five-ten or so and barrel-chested with powerful arms and shoulders. Looked like he’d just worked out, the skin on his shaven head gleaming with sweat, approaching him now with a self-assured swagger. Over the obligatory baggy pants, he wore a white dress shirt. Gold cufflinks at the wrists glinted with diamond chips. Heavy bling. Surprisingly delicate features decorated his face: almond-shaped eyes, a narrow nose, thin lips.
    Frank showed him the photograph. “Have you seen this girl around?”
    The man stared at him with dead flat eyes. “You a cop?”
    His voice was deep and resonant, sounded like James Earl Jones.
    “Detective Frank Renzi, NOPD. And you are?”
    A big smirk. “Mos’ folks call me AK.”
    Known to NOPD as Atticus Kroll, age twenty-four, gang leader and drug kingpin. Also known as AK-47 due to his preference for that particular weapon of destruction.
    “You live here, AK?”
    “Hardly nobody lives here. The city ain’t got no money to fix the place.”
    He tapped the photograph. “Have you seen this girl? She lived here before Katrina.”
    AK gazed at him, face closed, eyes hard. “Never seen her before.”
    The next moment an insolent smile parted his lips, and a gold tooth glittered at the front of his mouth.
    “Nice tooth, AK. The pharmaceutical business must be good.”
    The smile disappeared, the eyes hardened, and AK stalked away.
    _____
     
    Thursday, 19 October
     
    “I better go,” Antoine whispered. “It’s almost midnight.”
    “Stay a couple more minutes.” Spooned against him on the mattress, Chantelle felt his velvety-soft lips brush her neck. She loved the feel of his bare skin against hers. Loved it even more when he reached back and stroked her cheek. He’d brought her two bags of groceries, including a big package of Doritos, her sweet lover-man buying her favorite treat.
    Beside them on the floor, a flickering candle sat on an aluminum pie plate, the only light in her bedroom, but enough to see the love in his eyes, the cinnamon-scented candle masking the awful stink in her apartment.
    “Stay all night if I could, but Uncle Jonas be home from work soon.”
    She stroked his cheek. “Thank God the cops didn’t catch you.”
    “You got that right. Jesus-God-A’mighty, thought I’d die when AK shot that cop, idiot got the brains of a flea, you know, shoot first, think later.”
    “Wasn’t your fault, Antoine.”
    “Maybe not, but the cops’ll blame me, just the same. Woman died ‘cause AK only cares about saving his own ass. I shoulda never gone with him.”
    The truest words ever spoken. Only reason her lover man did was ‘cuz AK had told him he’d protect her. Bullshit. AK was the one bothering her.
    “I want you to go back to that foster home. You be safe there.”
    “No! Then I won’t be able to see you.”
    He kissed her mouth, a soul kiss that made her tingle. “I love you, Chantelle. I want you to be safe. Call that cop and tell him