His Last Wife

“So there’s no more money?” Val asked.

“No. Not until the end of this quarter when the next dividend check is cut.” David Bozeman was sitting in his high-back leather chair in his office in Decatur. His arms resting over his lap, he tried not to look as annoyed by another one of Val’s random visits as he actually was. It was common for widows and widowers and just anyone feeling like they needed to seek some kind of justice after such a tragedy as the one Val had encountered at the beginning of their grieving process. Bozeman was an Atlanta lawyer. His father had been one too. And so that had been the only thing he ever really wanted to be. He’d gone to Morehouse and pledged Alpha with Jamison and after he graduated from law school, his Morehouse and frat brother became his first major client. When he’d heard about Jamison’s death, so many things about their last encounters suddenly made sense. But then again, maybe none of this made sense at all.

“But that’s two more months. I can’t survive two more months. I don’t have any more money,” Val said, looking at David like most of his clients did when they were down on their luck—like he was supposed to do something efficient and magical. Make it better than all right. Make it go away.

“You paid off the house. The cars. And that last dividend check was for sixty-eight thousand dollars,” David said, looking down at the sheet on his desk, though he knew the number very well.

Val hardly blinked at this retelling of her history. She knew it all. Val was no top-ranking collegiate scholar, but she wasn’t stupid, either. When she realized the only insurance money she was getting from Jamison’s death was a paltry six-figure payoff from the state after his short term in the mayor’s office, she immediately used his savings and any red dime she could find to pay off that big, beautiful house, those brand-new, drop-top Jaguars, and any other bill she could find that might pop up and put her out. But then Mama Fee came calling. Big Mama’s old property was in foreclosure. And then Mama Fee couldn’t pay her own mortgage anymore. Val bought both properties with the rest of the money and enjoyed looking like she’d done something right in her mother’s eyes for the first time ever.

“So, you have no money?” David pushed.

“I’m eating. The power isn’t about to be turned off, but . . . ,” Val paused and looked off. “There are other things.”

“Look, Val, I’m no financial adviser. I was only responsible for giving you—”

“Coreen wants money,” Val said, cutting David off. She waited and watched him struggle to swallow the spit in his mouth and loosen his tie. “And don’t pretend that you don’t know who she is. No way Jamison didn’t tell you.”

“I don’t want to get involv—”

Val cut in again. “You already are. Jamison got you involved when he put you in charge of his will. She wants fifty thousand dollars or she’s going to the media. She’s going to tell everyone about . . . you know.”

“Let her. What’s the big deal?” David said nonchalantly, shuffling around more paper.

“The big deal is the bottom line. The money. You know Jamison’s major clients are nothing but a bunch of Southern good old boys, who are only a generation from the Klan and probably only gave Jamison a contract because of his low prices.

The first thing they’ll do after hearing about Coreen is switch services.”

“So? Rake it Up will lose some clients. And gain some more.”

After hearing David say this, Val crossed her legs and sucked her teeth at him.

“What?” he said. “That’s not enough to keep you in Chanel? Keep you in Hermès? You’re in business now and you can’t worry about that. You’re going to have to take some blows. What does Kerry say?”

“I haven’t told her.”

David exhaled and shook his head worriedly. He remembered the first time he saw Val. It was at a dinner party where one of his and Jamison’s frat brothers planned to celebrate the mayoral victory. The brother, who was much older and had over fifty years in the fraternity, was one of Jamison’s biggest donors, so the party was guaranteed to be well attended and highly publicized in their social circle. David’s own wife begged to come with him so she could get a “posterity” picture with Jamison. When Jamison walked in the door with the woman he was calling his “assistant” on his arm, all the talk shifted from being about the magnificent affair to everything from Val’s red dress to her twenty-inch curly weave, red lips, thick hips, and boldly displayed breasts. Of course, the brothers gave Jamison winks and hand grips of support for the vision on his arm. But they also knew how dangerous the whole thing could be, could get. Just by looking at Val in those six-inch stilettos and fake eyelashes, they knew what it was. She didn’t look anything like anyone’s assistant. David’s wife leaned into him in the car on the way home, hollering, “How is she going to type anything with those long-ass fake nails? Yeah, right, that’s his assistant. Yeah, fucking right. And I’ll tell you right now, if you ever get an assistant that looks like that, I’ll kick your black ass and then her ass and then I’ll kill us all.” David rolled his eyes at his wife’s jealous rant, but she was right, as usual. Even if Jamison wasn’t sexing the girl in the tight dress, he would soon. And then, what next? Well, all men knew what was next with a woman who looked like Val. She’d bleed him dry.

“I can’t believe there’s no money,” Val wondered aloud in David’s office. She’d leaned into the desk and he could see straight down the path between her breasts to her belly button. “Well . . . what about the other money? That twenty percent from Jamison’s will? You know.”

“No. I told you I can’t talk about that. We already had that conversation.” David struggled not to look down Val’s dress. He felt some electricity roll through his body to his groin. He slid his cell phone off the desk and sent a text to his assistant to come in and save him with a list of things he had to do.

“No, we didn’t. Look, I want to know where that money is going, David. I have a right to know,” Val pleaded.

“I already told you. When Jamison came in to update his will, he said he wanted to donate his money to charity. His entire life insurance policy and half of his dividends from Rake it Up.”

“That policy was worth five million dollars and half of what I get each quarter. All to some charity?” Val said. “And what is the Fihankra Organization, anyway?” she added referring to the group where Jamison’s monies had been wired. “I looked it up and I can’t find it anywhere. No organization operates with that name here in Atlanta or anywhere else where I could find it. That doesn’t sound odd to you?”

“It’s really not my business to know. I simply follow my clients’ wishes. And, if you really want to know: No, actually, it doesn’t sound odd to me that someone like Jamison would want to donate money to charity,” David answered as his assistant walked in, holding the stack of files she kept beside her desk for such occasions. “Many of my wealthy clients donate their money to charity. Especially when they have so much money to go around.” He looked at Val as the assistant came and stood by his side with the files. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do need to get back to work.” He pointed to the folders and his assistant worked to look especially annoyed with him. “I have all of these contracts to look through. A tough afternoon of litigating ahead of me.” He smiled graciously at Val, as if he’d been so generous with his time and was sad to indirectly send her away.

Val sucked her teeth loudly again to demonstrate her displeasure. The assistant had come trudging in with that same salty face and pile of papers during her last visit. “Something ain’t right about that twenty percent and either you know it or you’re hiding what you know. It don’t matter to me which one.” She stood and slung her Céline purse over her arm with marked attitude. “I’m going to find out either way.”

“Don’t go making trouble, Val. Come on,” David said. “Stop while you’re ahead. Just do what you were supposed to do with that money in the first place. You know what Jamison intended. It was for the child—”

Val’s coldest stare stopped David’s lips from uttering another word. He knew not to go any further with anything he was going to say.

Val turned from the desk and started to walk out.

“I’ll be back,” she said without looking back at David and his assistant watching her walk away with their mouths open. “And don’t try to play me with that stack-of-files routine again. I ain’t stupid.”