“Good morning,” the receptionist said.
“Good morning. Marcus Douglas to see Mondrya Foster, please.”
The receptionist took a deep breath. “I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but Ms. Foster was murdered last night.”
Marcus grabbed hold of the counter to steady himself. “Murdered?”
“Yes, murdered. She was at Starbucks in downtown Decatur last night when they were robbed. One of the robbers shot her three times. I'm sorry,” she said as the phone rang.
“Well thank you, anyway,” Marcus said and she waved goodbye, mouthing the words, I'm sorry, again.
As he turned to leave, Marcus saw Bill Hudson coming toward him. “Marcus Douglas!”
“How are you, Bill?”
“Fair to partly cloudy,” Hudson smiled. “What brings you here?”
“I was going to have lunch with Mondrya Foster.”
“Very tragic. A wonderful woman like that, shot down for no reason. I was on my way to have a drink. Why don't you join me?”
“I could use a drink,” Marcus said and followed Hudson to the elevator.
Marcus followed Bill to a very popular downtown strip club called Cheetah III on Spring Street. “I hope you don't mind drinking here, Marcus, but I like to have a little entertainment with my drink.”
“No, Bill, I don't mind. I've been known to enjoy a drink or two at places like this.”
“Have you even been here before?”
“Can't say that I have, Bill. I don't mean to sound politically incorrect, but I prefer to have my entertainment in color. But this might be an interesting change of pace for me.”
“I know what you mean,” Hudson said as he flashed his membership card to the doorman. “I've been known to go down to Magic City and Goosebumps every now and then. One thing I'll say for them black gals there, they sure do give you a show for your money. But they usually have one or two black gals dancing here.”
Hudson led Marcus to a table near the main stage. Marcus looked around. He had been to many strip clubs before, but this was different. At noon, the place was crowded with men in business suits.
“Vodka and tonic!” Hudson yelled over the loud music to the waitress. “What you having, Marcus?”
“Hennessy, straight. On second thought make it a double,” he said and the waitress departed to get their drinks. Once she cleared the table, a tall blonde woman with enormous breast approached the table.
“Hi, Bill! Long time, no see.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I was starting to think you didn't love us no more.”
“Just been so damned busy lately. But you know if I don't love nobody, I love you, honey.”
“Would you like me to dance for you?”
“Sure, honey, go ahead.” While she started to take off her outfit, Hudson leaned toward Marcus. “Them titties, fake as shit and hard as a rock. Most disappointing thing in the world.”
Since Marcus wasn't overly impressed with the entertainment, Hudson was right, sistahs give you a show, all she's doing is playing in her hair, and posing, so he turned to the business at hand.
“Do you know what happened to Mondrya?”
“I talked to her husband this morning. The police told him that the son-of-a-bitch shot her because she was looking at him. They didn't have to kill her, just take the money and go. But these young punks think that shooting women and kids makes them a man. Drug dealers with empty souls, all of them.”
Marcus looked at Hudson with a bit of contempt. “You're not saying that you think all Black people are drug dealers with empty souls?”
“Shit no! But a son-of-a-bitch like that, deserves to die a slow painful death. They oughta bring back firing squads. Line them all up and shoot them. I'd sure volunteer,” Hudson went on. “I didn't know that you knew Mondrya.”
“We only met last week. I came to talk to,” Marcus started to tell Hudson that he came there last week to talk to him about Frank Collins, but he thought better of it, “to talk to you. I was looking for some investment advice. When they told me that you were not in, Mondrya stepped in.”