In Sheep's Clothing Read online

  Also by Mary Monroe

  God Ain’t Blind

  The Company We Keep

  She Had It Coming

  Deliver Me From Evil

  God Don’t Play

  Red Light Wives

  God Still Don’t Like Ugly

  Gonna Lay Down My Burdens

  The Upper Room

  God Don’t Like Ugly

  Borrow Trouble (with Victor McGlothin)

  Published by Dafina Books

  IN

  SHEEP’S

  CLOTHING

  MARY MONROE

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by Mary Monroe

  Title Page

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  GOD AIN’T THROUGH YET

  THE COMPANY WE KEEP

  SHE HAD IT COMING

  Copyright Page

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the following:

  Karen Thomas for being my editor and my friend.

  Andrew Stuart for being the best literary agent in the world as well as my friend.

  Peggy Hicks and Roxann Taylor, my publicists at Tri-Com, for organizing my tours and interviews. Oops! You two are my friends, too.

  Maxine Thompson for making me feel so special on your radio shows.

  Lauretta Pierce for creating my website.

  Kar Kar, Xavier, and Rasha for letting me have some peace.

  Special thanks to the many bookstores and reading groups. Without your support I’d still be doing day jobs from hell.

  A very special thanks to the devil who stole my identity! You gave me the idea for this book!

  To my readers, I hope you will enjoy this one, too. Please visit and sign my guestbook at www.Mary monroe.org. This is my sixth novel, but brace yourselves because I’m just getting warmed up.

  Thanks to Janet Salessi at the Plaza Travel Agency in San Francisco for answering my questions.

  CHAPTER 1

  I didn’t know if the gun aiming at my head was real or not. But the sudden wetness between my legs told me that my bladder malfunction was real. So was the sweat that had saturated my hair and covered my face like a facial. I expected to look like a wet duck by the time my ordeal was over that dreary Friday afternoon. And the way things were going, it looked like I’d be a dead one, too.

  “You might die today, bitch.” My assailant didn’t raise his voice or even speak in a particularly menacing tone. He was just as cool and casual as he’d been when he entered the store a few minutes earlier. A moment before he had given me a possible death sentence, he’d asked, “Do y’all take checks?” Before I could respond, he had whipped out a gun. Just the sight of it would have been enough to bring me to my knees. It was a long, dark, evil-looking weapon, complete with a silencer. His threat streaked past my head like a comet and bounced off the cluttered wall behind me. It even drowned out the piercing, ongoing screams of the spoiled Porter baby in the apartment across the parking lot.

  “Please . . . please don’t hurt me,” I managed. “I’ll do anything you want me to. Please . . .” I had never begged for anything before. I never dreamed that the first thing I would beg for would be my life.

  It seemed like every part of my body was in pain. My throat felt like I had swallowed a sword and my stomach felt like it had been kicked by a mule. Cramps in my legs made it hard for me to remain standing. Even my eyes were in pain, throbbing like I had run into a door. But that didn’t stop me from staring at what I thought at the time was the last thing I’d see on earth: the face of my killer. And on the last day of one of the most miserable jobs I’d ever had before in my life at that.

  “You goddamn right you gonna do anything I want you to do! You stupid-ass heifer! I’m the one with the gun!”

  “Well . . . please do what you have to do and leave,” I pleaded, ever so gently. It was bad enough that I had already emptied my bladder. Now my stomach felt like it was about to add to the puddle of pee that had formed on the floor around my feet. I heaved so hard I had to grab onto the counter and cover my mouth.

  “Look—I just et lunch. If you puke in front of me, I’m gonna whup your black ass before I kill you!”

  I had almost used a “sick” day that morning. I had almost asked to work the evening shift, but had decided not to because it was the shift that most robbers usually chose to do their dirty work in our neighborhood.

  “Bitch, don’t fuck with me today!” My tormentor waved his gun at me as he spoke. His beady black eyes shifted from one side to the other as thick yellow snot trickled from both sides of his wide flat nose. This seemed to embarrass him. He turned his head so abruptly his knitted cap slid to the side, revealing neat, freshly braided cornrows. With a loud snort he swiped his nose using the sleeve of his baggy plaid flannel shirt. “Do you wanna die today?” This time his voice sounded like the thunder I’d heard just before he had entered the store.

  “No, I don’t want to die today,” I told him, my voice barely above a whisper. A purple birthmark about a square inch in size and shaped like a half-moon occupied a spot directly below his right eye.

  “Then you better stop lookin’ at me and do what I told you to do! Open that fuckin’ register and gimme every goddamn dollar in it! I ain’t playin’ with you, bitch! Shit!” He glared at me as he rubbed the mark under his eye. But it would take more than that to remove it. He had been branded for life. You would have thought that somebody with such an identifying mark would have concealed his face. But most criminals were as stupid as they wer
e crooked.

  The individual who held my life in his hands reminded me of my eighteen-year-old cousin, Dwan. He was the same age and height. He was even the same shade of cinnamon brown. And, like Dwan, he wore clothes big enough for two people. But my cousin had come to his senses before it was too late and was now in Iraq risking his life to keep America safe for me and fools like the one facing me.

  Even as scared as I was, I was so angry that I was not able to keep my thoughts completely to myself. I pressed my sticky wet thighs together, angry that my urine had drenched my favorite pair of socks and my only pair of Nikes. “It’s a damn shame that Black folks are the ones keeping other Black folks down. If you just got to rob somebody—why us? You know how hard we work for our money!” I yelled. “How can you sleep at night, brother?” I asked, folding my arms. Bold was one thing I was not. At least not under normal circumstances. But even meek women like me had a breaking point. Especially when I thought I was about to die anyway.

  “Aaah . . . I sleeps like a baby,” the young robber sneered, his eyes rolling back in his head in mock ecstasy. Then his face tightened and he gave me a sudden sharp look. “No wonder you Black women so evil—y’all too hardheaded! Don’t know when to listen! Didn’t I tell you to keep your hands up in that goddamn air?”

  “I can’t open the register and do that, too,” I smirked, placing my hands on my hips.

  “Uh,” the bold thief began. He paused and whistled to get the attention of his even younger accomplice guarding the door, not taking his eyes off of my face. “Snookie—everything still cool?”

  “It’s all good, dude! Hurry up so we can get up out of here!” Snookie yelled back, sounding almost as frightened and nervous as I was.

  Armed robberies in broad daylight had become a way of life in certain parts of the south Bay Area. Liquor stores seemed to be the most popular targets. Especially “Otto’s Spirits,” the liquor store conveniently located between Josey’s Nail Shop and Paco’s Bail Bonds.

  My daddy, Otto Bell, owned the liquor store where I’d been working for the past six years, six days a week, eight hours a day. While I was being robbed and terrorized, Daddy was at home, in his frayed gray bathrobe, wallowing in depression on our tattered couch. This was how he now celebrated Mama’s birthday every year. Even though she’d been dead for sixteen years. The sudden thought that I might die on my mother’s birthday increased my anger. Not just at the young robber, but at life in general. No matter how hard I tried to enjoy life, things always seemed to blow up in my face. Even the little things. Earlier that day, a drunken prostitute had sprayed my face with spit when I’d asked her not to solicit in front of the store.

  “Gimme the money, bitch! I ain’t tellin’ you no more.”

  I popped open the cash register and scooped out every dollar. I dropped the small wad of bills on the counter next to the Ebony magazine that I’d been reading, and the two bags of Fritos, six-pack of Miller Light, and six candy bars the perpetrator had pretended he’d come in for.

  He snatched up the money with two fingers and counted under his breath. “A hundred and seventy-five dollars?” he gasped and looked at me with his mouth hanging open. “Now that’s a damn shame.” His eyes were as flat as his voice.

  “That’s all we have,” I whimpered, wringing my hands. It was hard not to look at his face. His eyes and the birthmark kept grabbing my attention.

  He rolled his eyes then looked at me with extreme contempt. “Stop lookin’ at me so hard!” he screamed as he lunged across the counter, punching the side of my arm. His hand, the one with the gun, was shaking. I could not decide if it was because he was nervous or just that angry. “You stingy bitch, you,” he roared, grinding his teeth. “I went to all this trouble for a hundred and seventy-five fuckin’ dollars.” He gave me an incredulous look. “What is the matter with you people? Brokeass niggers! Don’t y’all know how to run a business? Them damn Asians puttin’ y’all to shame! At least with them, I get paid right!”

  “It’s been a slow day and people around here barely have enough money to live on,” I explained, my hands back on my hips. “Look—uh, the other cashier will be back any minute so you better leave now while you still can,” I said.

  He blinked and released a loud breath. He slid his thick tongue across his lips then formed a cruel smile. “Not unless he Superman he won’t. I seen that lame old motherfucker leave ten minutes ago. Matter of fact, I know for a fact that old dude was on his way to that massage parlor around the corner to get him some pussy. I been checkin’ him—and you—out for two weeks now.” Looking around he added, “I done did my homework. I ain’t no ignorant punk. I know what’s up around here . . .”

  “You know Mr. Clarke?” I asked, praying that another customer would wander in and possibly save me. Even if Mr. Clarke had come back in time, he would not have been much help. The last robber had beaten him and Daddy to the floor with the butt of his gun. Then the greedy thug had helped himself to what little money we’d had in the cash register at the time, a sack full of alcohol, and other light items.

  “I know everybody and everything that go on in this neighborhood, girl. I ain’t stupid.” As cold and empty as his eyes were, he managed to wink at me. Then he leaned forward far enough for me to feel and smell his hot sour breath. My face was already sizzling with rage, so it didn’t make that much more of a difference. “I know about you and James and I know you give him some mean head,” he told me, his voice low and hollow. “If I was a little older, I’d let you be my main woman . . .” He paused and whistled again and yelled over his shoulder. “Snookie, if anybody come up in here—pop ’em in the head. I’m fin to take this stingy ho in the back room and get my dick sucked.”

  CHAPTER 2

  It was March. For most of the people I knew, it had been a pretty good year so far. A few were still grumbling over the fact that California now had a movie star, who had played the Terminator of all things, sitting in the governor’s seat. Daddy wouldn’t even call our new governor by his name. “I can’t even fix my lips to pronounce his whole name no how. Arnold Swattzen . . . Swattzuh . . . oh, shit! If he don’t do nothin’ to help Black folks and cut taxes, he ain’t nothin’ but a terminator after all,” Daddy complained.

  I had done my taxes myself earlier that morning before the robbery, and I was still upset because I had to pay Uncle Sam three hundred dollars. After that, and what the robber took and did to me, I felt that I’d been “fucked” twice in the same day by two different hounds from hell.

  It had been raining off and on for most of the week. The cool air and dark clouds seemed to fit the mood that had already settled over me before the robbery.

  The robbers had entered the store just after the noon hour, and the whole episode, the robbery and the violation, had taken only a few minutes. But it had taken the police more than an hour to show up, which was quicker than when they usually arrived to investigate crimes in the inner city. A month ago the jealous ex-husband of a waitress on Mercer Street had stormed her apartment waving a tire iron. By the time the cops showed up, the woman, her new lover, and the pit bull she’d bought for protection had all been beaten to death. I was one of the fortunate ones.

  Before the cops arrived, I snatched a bottle of Scope off a shelf, rinsed out my mouth, rearranged my clothes, and composed myself. My urine had almost dried on my jeans but I smelled like a nanny goat. Several other customers had entered the store during that hour, but I’d turned them all away and placed the “closed” sign in the front window.

  I told the cops as much as I could. How much money had been taken, the robbers’ clothes, and how they sounded. The only thing I left out was the sexual assault. How do you tell a cop, one who didn’t seem to care anyway, that a robber had made you suck his dick, too?

  “Did the perpetrators harm you in any way, miss?” The young white policeman couldn’t look more bored if he tried. With a grunt and a sigh, he paused and chewed on a toothpick as he scribbled on a notepad. He was the
same officer who had come to take a report the last time we got robbed six weeks ago. “Did they touch you?”

  “No, they did not,” I lied, rubbing the sore spot on my arm where I’d been grabbed and dragged into the dim broom closet–size restroom to be further humiliated. “They just took the money and some beer.” I slid my tongue across my lips and clenched my teeth. I knew then that I would never look at oral sex the same again after this day.

  “And do you think you could identify the suspects in a lineup? Maybe look at a few mug shots?” Lineups and mug shots would not have done any good even if every face I looked at was the face of the boy who had robbed and assaulted me. I knew enough not to identify my assailants. From past experiences I knew that it would only make the situation worse. I knew of too many shady lawyers who got their clients released on bail long enough for them to come back to retaliate.

  I started to shake my head but stopped because it was now throbbing on both sides. My assailant had gripped my head like a vise, and held me in place between his hairy legs until he had had his way with me.

  “I’d never seen them before and they had on masks,” I lied. I looked away from the policeman because I didn’t like the indifferent look on his face.

  My mind went off on its own. It didn’t matter what I said. I knew it would do no good. I’d given a lot of thought to what I’d experienced. I’d been lucky that all I’d given up was the money, the beer, and a clumsy blow job. It was times like this that I really missed my mother. She had always soothed me when I was in pain by buying me something nice. She had rewarded me with a new bike when I was seven after I’d been hit by a car. She would take me on shopping sprees at the mall every time one of the neighborhood bullies harassed me. There was not a time I could remember that I didn’t get some type of reward from somebody to help me get over some trauma. Until now.