The Legend of Beautiful Bobby

Sepia and I didn't usually attend parties given by people we didn't know....but one of the last assignments Sean Jackson and I had worked on before he and Sheila got married was an interview of sometime rapper/producer... Bobby Darden aka "Beautiful Bobby"...So when he threw a gala Labor Day party at Mulberry Street...the rooftop Bar and Grille...How could we refuse?

Some of the younger guys and their girlfriends I knew were there...Chance Howard, his girl Anita Jenkins, Paris, Blake, Cherish, et al. Surprisingly enough, Guitarist Brooke Taylor and vocalist, Ingrid Rhodes and her on again off again fiance , Johnny Diamond, the baseball player was there too!

Downtown Rob Brown, the young jazz trumpet player was there with a young woman who I and everybody else thought was a lesbian...Connie, was her name...and the way she was hugged up on Rob...perhaps that wasn't the case at all.

Sepia and I got our drinks and stood in the corner....while the younger people flocked around Beautiful Bobby.... Beautiful Bobby seemed to flash a lot of cash around for a guy who had only had one hit...a song he ironically had written and produced for someone else. He had released half a dozen cuts on himself and none of them had cracked the top twenty. He may have fooled everybody here...but being in the line of business I'm in and with my ear always to the streets..I knew what he really did for a living.. He was a drug dealor!

Not Narcotics like Cocaine, Heroin or Meth.....No he dealt black market Viagra, Levitra and Cialis
and a lot of Ecstacy....the so called happy drugs....He did it quietly and had been doing it for years and had quietly made a little bit of a fortune... He supposedly had a large clientle list who dealt only with him... He had a partner...a bodyguard/enforcer named Bojack ,Lawrence Bojack who drove for him....interceded for him if necessary and who collected for him.. This kept him in money, if his music did not...

He was a bit theatrical in some ways, yet very quiet about that!... The streets were talking..but that was it...The police had no idea what he did on the side and he had no record...Players like Fathead Newton didn't care about him because he didn't encroach in anyway on what they did..It was a live and let live situation.

"Kevy Kev...what's happenin my man?....You alright? You bein taken care of? " he said as he passed me a drink I didn't ask for...

"Yeah man...I'm good." I said.

"And who is this right here with you??...my my myyyyyy.."he said leeringly.

"This is my wife...Sepia." I said.

"Your wife? For real?? Oh wowwww...nice.....nice...you got good tastes man..Her's is suspect..ahahahahahahahahahahaha...that's a joke." he laughed.

I didn't see the humor in it...but Sepia laughed... At this moment ,I would have given anything to be in Josies around my crowd...Not dressed up and certainly not making small talk, phony small talk with people I didn't like.

As the night drug on...I walked downstairs towards the men's room....I always wondered why it was so dark down here and why the only light was a red one that pointed to the restrooms...You could get robbed, a woman could get raped...anything could happen in this dark corridor!

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Bobby.....ouuuuuuuuuuuu....ohhhhhh, we are gonna be seen down here... ouuuuuuuuu, stop it now..." "Come on girl...give it to me...ummmmmmph...ohhhhhhhhh..." "Ohhhhhhhh Bobby, you're messing up my hair...stopppppp...wait until after we leave...I'll come over your place....If my old man finds out you down here doing this to me...He'll kill you." "I aint scared of him..."

"He's already mad about the money you owe him?" "Money I owe him? He should be paying me for putting his talentless ass on my last record..a record that flopped mind you...Now come on over here and give me some sugar...and stop talkin bout that loser boyfriend of yours.."
"Ohhhhhhh Bobbby, ouuuuuuu...ohhhhhhh..."
I didn't even want to think of what was going on...I went in the ladies room to avoid seeing Bobby and whoever he had in the men's room..I'd rather he not know I heard anything. After I was done, I returned to the party..

"Where you been?" said Sepia...

"Probably someplace I shouldn't have been." I said...

"Doin somethin you shouldn't?" she joked...

"No, just hearing something I probably shouldn't have." I laughed....

Just then...all of the power went off!!! The lights..the music..everything went dim...The crowd gasped...I figured it was probably part of the show...Beautiful Bobby was about to make a grand entrance....But it was eerily quiet...then flares and fireworks went off!!...What a showman! The sky was lit up with M80's and explosions.....but through it all, I heard a pop-pop-pop sound..that didn't sound like fireworks....It sounded like a gun!! But nah...Not here and for what???

The power remained off and the fireworks display came to an end...Then there was just nothing!
Everyone was just standing around....a half hour went by and finally people began to leave...Just as Sepia and I were headed for the steps...a scream was heard!

"OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDD! OHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Sepia and I ran towards the direction of the sound and there in the corridor on the next floor lay the body of Bobby "Beautiful
Bobby" Darden.....with a bullet hole in his forehead, a bullet hole in his chest near his heart and a
bullet hole near his abdomen...with blood running down the floor... He was very,very dead....

"Kevin....Let's get out of here " said Sepia tugging at my arm as I followed her and the thousands of party goers out the door...Soon the cops would be coming....My head was spinning...Who did Bobby owe money to? , Who's girlfriend was he screwing in the men's bathroom, did any of that have to do with who killed him?

My curiosity was tweaked......and of course, you know what that meant right?


(To Be Continued......)