“I did walk,” Deronda said, “just, you know, like part of the way and then somebody else came and I-” Deronda slid off the hood and stamped her foot. “Dang, Isaiah!” she said. “Why you always gotta fuck with people? I came over here to be sociable, aight? What’s the damn difference how I got here?”
It made no difference at all but he couldn’t help seeing what he saw. Things different or things not right or out of place or in place when they shouldn’t be or not in sync with the words that came with them.
“Well?” Deronda said. “You gonna make me stand out here and get heatstroke or invite me in and pour me a cocktail? You never know, something good might happen.”
Deronda looked down at her ankle, turning it to one side like something was stuck to it, probably wondering where Isaiah’s eyes were. On her dark chocolate thigh gleaming in the California sunshine or her dark chocolate titties trying their best to escape over that tube top. Isaiah looked away, uncomfortable deciding for the both of them what would happen next. She wasn’t his type, not that he had one. Most of his love life was curiosity sex. A girl intrigued by the low-key brother who was so smart people said he was scary. That hadn’t happened in a while. He opened the screen.
“Well, come on then,” he said.
Isaiah sat in his easy chair rereading his emails. He was hoping he’d missed something. He needed a payday case but nothing here was coming close.
Hola Senor Quintabe
I am a frend of Benito. He tell me you are trusted. A man from my work is saying blackmail to me. He say if I dont give him money he will tell INS I no have green card. My son cannot stay for his school. Can you do something to help me?
Dear Mr. Quintabe.
Late at night while I am asleep in my bed, a man comes in and fondles my private areas. I know this for a fact because in the morning my nightgown is all bunched up and I have a funny feeling down there. Please don’t tell anyone as I have been ridiculed about my suspicions before. Can you come over Sunday after church?
Isaiah didn’t have a website, a Facebook page, or a Twitter account but people found him anyway. His priority was local cases where the police could not or would not get involved. He had more work than he could handle but many of his clients paid for his services with a sweet potato pie or cleaning his yard or one brand-new radial tire if they paid him at all. A client that could pay his per diem gave him enough income to support himself and helped him pay Flaco’s expenses.
“Dang,” Deronda said, looking into the fridge at the FIJI Water and cranberry juice. “You ain’ got nothing to drink?”
“Just what’s there,” Isaiah said from the living room.
There was nothing to snack on either. Deronda might have thrown something together if she knew a recipe for plain yogurt, some plums, a bag of trail mix with no M &M’s, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, bread with birdseed stuck to the outside, and Cage Free Eggs, whatever the fuck those were. There was a complicated machine on the counter. Stainless steel, big as a big microwave with handles and buttons and a double spigot over a grill like a soda machine. A tiny coffee cup and a little metal pitcher were set on the grill. “Is this your coffee machine?” she said.
“Espresso.”
“You need a bigger cup.”
Isaiah kept reading the emails and tried not to think about Deronda, ripe and juicy as one of those plums. Reluctantly, he kept his Diesels zipped up. Not an easy decision. If he’d had sex with her he’d come home one night to find her three-year-old son tearing up the place while she watched Idol and ate the last few pieces of Alejandro fried to a crispy golden brown. When he told her to keep her clothes on she wasn’t so much put out as she was surprised.
“You don’t know what you missing,” Deronda said, “I be doing some crazy shit.”
Dear Mr. Quintabe.
My daughter dint come home for two weeks. I think she is gone with a man named Olen Waters who is to old for her. She need to be took away from him before its too late. Could you get her plese? I can pay not much.
Dear Mr. Quintabe
Two months ago my beautiful son Jerome was shot to death in his own bed. The police said they don’t have enough evidence to make an arrest even though everybody knows his wife Claudia was the one that pulled the trigger. I want to hire you, Mr. Quintabe. I want you to bring that bitch to justice.
The living room was cool and dim, soft bands of sunlight and shadow coming through the burglar bars, the place so clean there weren’t even dust motes in the air. Isaiah didn’t look up as Deronda padded barefoot out of the open kitchen and across the polished cement floor. It had come out differently than he’d anticipated but he liked it. Amorphous shapes of gray and green like a satellite map of the rain forest. Deronda plunked down on the sofa across from him and put her feet on the coffee table. Strewn across the glass were car keys, a cell phone, a Harvard cap, and the collapsible baton.
Deronda spotted a black box under the table. “What’s that thing?” she said, like she suspected a booby trap.
“Subwoofer and get your feet off of my coffee table.”
“Who went to Harvard?”
“Nobody.”
“Can I watch TV?”
“Do you see a TV?”
“You ain’t got no PlayStation?”
“No, I don’t have a PlayStation.”
“You need some more furniture.”
Aside from the burgundy leather sofa and armchair, there was the chrome and glass coffee table, a lacquered wicker ottoman, a cherry wood end table, and an antique-looking, long-necked reading lamp. That was it unless you counted the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that took up an entire wall. There was a huge collection of LPs and CDs lined up neat as bar codes and an elaborate stereo; Coltrane’s sax braying from the speakers, angry and hoarse.
“Can I put another record on?” Deronda said, wincing like she was listening to the garbage disposal.
“No.”
Isaiah kept his head down and read another email. Deronda was going to ask him something. He’d sensed it as soon as he let her in, looking at him like a baby daddy wasn’t all she needed. Passing on the sex had taken away her opening and now he could hear her cheeks squeaking on the sofa as she squirmed around trying to pick a moment. Maybe if he ignored her long enough she’d give up.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“No.”
“Could you maybe like, you know, hook me up?”
“Hook you up with who?”
“Blasé. You all tight with him and everything.” She waited a moment before saying, “IQ.”
An article had appeared in The Scene magazine titled:
IQ
ISAIAH QUINTABE IS UNLICENSED AND UNDAGROUND.
The article recounted a number of neighborhood cases but the one that made the tabloids was the simplest to solve. It involved the R &B singer Blasé. During a party someone had stolen his camera, which contained a video of him bent over an ironing board getting pounded from behind by his live-in keyboard player. If the tape got out there’d be more than a scandal. Blasé promoted himself as a heterosexual sex symbol. The cover art on his last album, Can I Witness to Your Thickness, showed Blasé in a thong and priest’s collar leading a choir composed of three women in crazy blond wigs and shorty choir robes, their backsides bulging like babies were in there. Blasé received a note that said: My demands will soon follow. Obey them or your transgressions will be revealed and your career will be over.
“The language,” Isaiah said. “Your transgressions will be revealed. It’s biblical. Were any of your guests religious?”