smiled cockily. “Told y’all I could do better.”
Jimmy face was impressed. He hadn’t expected this and Power could see it in his eyes.
“Man, you’re a fuckin’ genius!” Jimmy said with feeling. He picked up the phone on the mixing desk and dialed a number, smiling and shaking his head at the same time.
“Yo, you need to get down here ASAP,” Jimmy said, then hung up.
“Who you just call?” Power questioned.
Jimmy looked at him. “Duppy”
Duppy hung up the phone and looked at the woman sitting in front of his desk. He had seen plenty of beautiful women before, exotic beauties of every ethnicity, but he had never seen one so mesmerizing. Her mother had definitely named her right…
Egypt.
She had the natural cat-eyed look that most women need eye-liner for. Her skin tone was the color of an Arabian sunset. She was slim, but statuesque and shapely. She could’ve been Greek, Latin, Italian or a mixture of it all.
But she was a black woman through and through, and she had the voice to prove it. Her voice was just as beautiful as she was. It was as soulful as Alicia’s and as strong as Whitney’s - she was the truth and Duppy knew it.
“So you want to be a star, huh?” he asked.
Egypt smirked, crossed her legs and the sun through the window lit up her hair like a spotlight, “I’m already a star, I just want the world to know it.”
Duppy chuckled. “Confidence. I like that in a woman.”
“Thank you. I come from a long line of confident women. My great grandmother punched Al Capone in the face.”
“Get the fuck outta here,” Duppy said, covering his incredulity with a snicker. This woman was a fine thing, but he didn’t want to give too much away about how much he wanted her as an act in his growing stable. Business first. Pleasure later.
“True story. She worked at the Cotton Club in Harlem, you know, back in the 20’s. She was a dancer and a singer. She could’ve been a headliner, but she was darker than a paper bag,” Egypt explained.
“Darker than a paper bag?” Duppy hated showing there was shit he didn’t know.
“It was a Cotton Club thing. If you were darker than a paper bag, you couldn’t perform. My grandmother was an exception, but they still wouldn’t let her headline. Anyway, Al Capone wanted her to come back to Chicago with him and work in his club. ‘To headline?’ she’d asked. He said, ‘No, but you’d make a good whore.’ So she punched him in his face,” Egypt shrugged.
Duppy laughed. “Word? Your grandma was ill. What did Capone do?”
“He bought her a drink, and when she died, he sent a hundred roses. You want to know what the card said?”
“What?”
“You’ll headline in heaven.”
Duppy nodded. “Classy move.”
“Classy lady.”
“I see the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree,” Duppy complimented.
Egypt smiled. Duppy had to forcibly lift his eyes from the stretch of blue jean material across her inner thigh. She was beguiling him with looks and personality, and Duppy was drifting. It would be easy to get lost in the notion of this woman. Very easy indeed.
“So does that mean I get to headline your label?”
They looked at each other across the desk. Duppy’s wolf-eyed look said everything his words didn’t - I’ve got a whole lot more in mind for you.
Egypt’s face said, reading him perfectly - whatever it takes.
“I need to run down to the studio. You wanna ride with me?” Duppy inquired, getting up from behind the desk, coming around and offering his hand like a Knight to a Queen.
“I’d love to,” she said, taking it.
“A’ight, let’s take it from the top,” Kane said into the mic as he adjusted his headphones. The booth was full of smoke and magic. He passed the blunt to Power, exhaling hard. The screw turned to the max inside him. This was living.
There was smoke everywhere by this time, because Jimmy was totally caught up in the vibe. All rules were out the window. It was hot and dark in the studio. Just a lamp over the mixing desk, the glow from the LEDs hitting Jimmy’s face and turning it into a Halloween mask. In the booth all lights but a tiny spot was off. The studio was as dark as the beat, and the beat was lower than Hell.
The beat cracked open and filled the room like poison gas. Niggas jerked and bopped uncontrollably. This wasn’t music, this was voodoo that the street melted down and poured into your ears.
Kane ripped through his verse while Power chugged Henny, bobbing his head like his neck was broken. He was just about to kick his verse, when light from the studio door spread across the room as it was opened. Power was about to throw down at whoever had spoiled the atmosphere, breaking the mood, when he saw who had come in. It wasn’t only Duppy who had invaded - if it had, Power would have torn the nigga a new asshole - but it was who was with him that drained the anger from his lips.
Power passed the Henny to Kane, and just stared through the glass. The woman with Duppy was like something from a fever dream. If you put all the best aspects of the opposite sex into one body, and then made her walk like she owns the whole damn joint, then she would look like this.
Her eyes caught Power across the studio and through the glass. This was the kind of woman who knew exactly the effect she had on niggas. And she was working it like there were no more Saturday nights left in the universe.
Power stepped out of the booth and giving Duppy a just above zero nod of respect for a welcome took the woman’s hand.
And that’s when time stopped.
The night was thick layered around the dirty streets.
Her way into the alley was lit from above only by the yellow windows of the tenements around her. Her every step was firm but cautious. She knew her life depended on each eye movement and swing of her gaze.
A lid from a trashcan clattered to the ground. She spun her head, just in time to see a scrawny cat slinking into the shadows with its fish-head prize. Sirens wailed in the distance and the city seemed to breathe darkness along the lonely streets.
A white man with a knife jumped out from an alley. His eyes were wild, his face set. The knife glinting as he scythed it down through the cold air.
Buc! Buc!
She
