He drove down North Philly across Twenty-ninth Street over to Lehigh Avenue. Then he went down Lehigh to Seventeenth Street and took Seventeenth Street all the way up to Erie Avenue, then Erie over to Broad and back down. The streets were so familiar it all seemed like yesterday. But it wasn’t yesterday and things had somehow changed over the last six months. He thought of Gena and wondered where she was. Still on Broad, he took it down to Girard and crossed over to Thirteenth and took it down to Wallace, entering Richard Allen. He had hoped to see Gena’s baby-blue Mercedes parked in front of her grandmother’s house, but it wasn’t. He rode around the block a few times but he didn’t see the car. He looked down at the time clock display in the BMW. It’s getting late. Quadir decided it was time to go back to Amelia’s house. I’ll be back, first thing in the morning. We’ll see what you’re up to then.

The next morning, Quadir was again waiting outside Gena’s grandmother’s house. He followed her to a mall, maneuvered the BMW into a parking space just across the street from a Porsche dealership, and sat quietly and watched. Gena had started her day rather early. Had he gotten to Richard Allen a minute later, he would have missed her. As soon as the mall opened, she was the first one through the doorway. Quadir watched her as she loaded up the Mercedes with shopping bag after shopping bag. Then she went down Jewelers’ Row. No telling how much damage she did at the jewelry store. She looks happy though. She don’t look like she misses me at all. Watching Gena, he couldn’t help but wonder what in the world she was thinking. She was like a madwoman with money and she was spending it and spending it big. He looked across the street at an unmarked police car and watched the detectives inside. It seemed Gena’s start wasn’t that early; she had company. Quadir watched as the detectives snacked on bagels and their morning coffee. He wished he could get out of the car and go to her. He wanted so bad to rush to her, to embrace her, and to tell her that he was alive and kicking. But to do that would have been too dangerous. Those extra eyes watching her would then be watching him, and he definitely didn’t want that. Instead, Quadir lay low and stayed out of sight. He had no time for the Philly PD or whoever those guys were. Maybe they’re following her, hoping that she’ll lead them to me. That was his first thought, but then he thought again. Maybe they know about the money and they’re hoping that she’ll lead them to it. It could be anything, but one thing was for sure: She was definitely under surveillance. He knew he would have to keep his distance if his plan was to have any chance of success. He couldn’t even get close enough to Gena to warn her.

The fact that Gena had found his money certainly complicated things. Now she was being watched. How the hell am I gonna follow her, if ola is on her ass? How the hell will I ever get my money back? His plan was simple: Follow Gena until she led him to his pot of gold. But now they had company and Gena was moving around a lot. She was all over the place. He couldn’t afford to let the Philly PD catch him following Gena. Not those jokers-that would be a nightmare. I bet it’s a hefty sentence for faking your death. Not to mention that Quadir certainly had not come this far to end up behind bars. The plan was the Bahamas, not the pen. He would have to shadow Gena carefully and he would have to do his best to keep her safe from a distance. But how?

Gena exited the Porsche dealership and stood patiently by the front door. Soon, it became evident what she was waiting for. A saleswoman pulled up in a guardsman black 911 Gemballa convertible.

“Holy shit, she’s fuckin’ nuts!” Quadir exclaimed. “Don’t do it, Gena. They’re watching you; don’t do it!”

He watched from across the street as the Philly PD pulled out surveillance cameras. Gena finished with the saleswoman, shook her hand, then pulled out of the dealership parking lot. She had just blown over three hundred thousand dollars of his money and it wasn’t even lunch time.

Several weeks later Quadir sat on the sofa silently as he pictured himself flipping over the coffee table and the stacks of medical journals lying on it.

“Dammit!” he muttered as he moved away from the table before he could actually trash it.

“What? What’s the matter with you?” Amelia calmly asked.

Quadir looked at her, not even wanting to explain. “I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Talk about what?”

“Nothing. Please, not right now, Amelia.”

He looked at her smile slowly fade. He had hurt her feelings and he knew it. Her entire mission in life was to help, to save, to be a hero. He completely understood that, but there was no way in the world she could help him. No one could.

“Why don’t you sit down, Quadir? Just take it easy and get your thoughts together.”

“Gena is seeing someone,” he said.

“Gena? Your Gena? No way,” said Amelia surprised at his accusation.

“Not only is she seeing someone else, she’s seeing the guy that tried to kill me. His name is Jerrell Jackson.”

“Oh, my god, Quadir, are you sure? That doesn’t make sense. Does she know he tried to kill you?”

“I don’t know what she knows, but even still, the streets is always talking and everybody knows that Jerrell was behind my murder. Everybody. What the fuck is wrong with her?”

That’s when Quadir’s vision came to life. Amelia sat calmly as her coffee table was flipped over and knocked to the floor, while her medical journals landed all over her living room.

“Are you done? Because tearing my things up isn’t going to fix the problem, and it certainly won’t help,” said Amelia, turning over her coffee table and positioning it perfectly back in place.

“Yo, don’t you hear me? This bitch is sleeping with the motherfucker who tried to kill me. And that’s only the half of it. Gena found my money, so she’s got it, all of it, and I can’t figure out how to get it back. I can’t even figure out where she’s got it at.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know Jerrell shot you. And obviously she has your money because it was made available to her to get,” Amelia said as she gathered her journals off the floor and began stacking them back neatly on the coffee table.

“She might not know who he is, but trust me, he knows who she is and if he thinks for one minute that she’s got my money, he’ll kill her for it. I know him; I know how he thinks. Every nigga I know and trusted would bring me harm if they could get their hands on that kind of money. I never let anyone know about the money I had saved. No one knew.”

“Quadir, it’s just money.”

“You always say that, Amelia, just because you come from a well-to-do family, but twenty million ain’t nothing to sneeze at.”

“Twenty million? You got twenty million?”

“Do I? Well, I did. Now Gena has twenty million, or better yet, my archenemy Jerrell Jackson has twenty million.”

“Oh, Quadir, twenty million?”

“Well, technically, a little over seventeen million, Amelia. And she’s spending it, like water running out of a faucet.”

“Well, what are you going to do? Quadir, twenty million is a lot of money.”

“Amelia, please, you’re making my head hurt,” said Quadir, scratching his head trying to figure out his next move.

“What makes you think that if you can’t figure out where the money is, Jerrell will? I’m sure Gena’s not that gullible. I’m sure she’s smart enough to hide the money in a safe place.”

“Amelia, Jerrell is the grimiest dirtbag I know. If he thinks Gena has something, he’ll torture her to death in order to take it. This shit is crazy. It’s getting more and more complicated as time goes by. Now, I have to babysit this nigga.”

“Listen, I have money. I can make you a loan; I can help you get a new start out here, if that’s what you want. I mean I don’t have twenty million dollars and I know that’s a lot of money, but Quadir, it’s not worth your life. It’s not worth prison. You know what I’m saying?” asked Amelia, hoping he was smarter than she thought.