“Shit, man, he’s gonna see us,” Dodson whispered.
“Maybe not,” Isaiah whispered back. “Just stay still.”
“You took a week to plan this? The fuck was you doing?”
“You rushed me into this. We shouldn’t even be here!”
The beam was heading their way, moving across displays of helmets and bicycle clothes. Please don’t see me please don’t see me please fucking God don’t see me.
“Shit, man, I got a fuckin’ record,” Dodson said. “They could try me as an adult, send me to Corcoran.” The beam moved closer, spotlighting a family of eyeless mannequins pedaling along in matching spandex. Light spilled over onto the row of bicycles, handlebars, and fenders gleaming. “I ain’t goin’ to the joint,” Dodson said. “No muthafuckin’ way.” He squirmed and reached under his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Isaiah said. “Stay still.”
Dodson had a gun.
“Are you crazy?” Isaiah said. Dodson clicked the gun’s safety off with his thumb. “Don’t, Dodson, for fuck sake, don’t!” Miraculously, the beam went up to the loft, more bicycle stuff up there. “Put the gun away!”
“Fuck you, Isaiah.”
“Put it away or I’m giving up.”
“Bullshit.”
“I swear to God I’ll do it.”
“Then I’ll shoot you too.”
The beam hovered like a vulture, the two of them lying there like they’d been shot in the back, the sides of their heads pressed to the linoleum, glistening puddles of drool under their mouths.
“You can’t do this, Dodson. You can’t shoot a cop.” In the next instant, the beam was on them so bright it was hot. You could count the dust particles in the air and the beads of sweat on Dodson’s face. He’d moved his hands in closer to his head. One held the gun, the other was flat on the floor so he could push himself off. The beam held.
“He sees us!” Dodson started to get up-
“No, Dodson, no!”
The beam vanished. There was a moment of disbelief but the cop had turned and was walking back to his patrol car. Isaiah blew out a long breath and went limp. Dodson was on his knees, head down, hands on his thighs. “Man, that was some shit right there,” he said. “How’d he miss us?”
“The reflection off the bicycles,” Isaiah said. “And the beam was too high. We were just on the bottom edge of it.”
The cop had paused to say something into his radio. Isaiah’s stomach fell into his Nikes. “He’s going around the back. The car.”
They took off, sprinting across the showroom, bursting out of the rear exit, and jumping into the Explorer. Isaiah started the engine-and stopped with his mouth open.
“What?” Dodson said.
“The cop car was facing the same way we are,” Isaiah said. “He’ll come into the alley right in front of us!” He slammed the shifter into reverse and stomped on the gas. The tires chirped, the car jerking backward, accelerating, the gearbox winding up like a jet engine at takeoff. Isaiah was half turned around, stretching his neck to see into the darkness, one hand on the steering wheel. The cop is coming.
“Step on it!” Dodson said.
“I am!” Isaiah said.
The Explorer veered offline. Isaiah cranked the wheel but overcorrected, the back end swinging to the side and banging into a dumpster. The cop is coming.
“Straighten out!” Dodson said.
“Shut up!” Isaiah said. He cranked the wheel the other way, overcorrecting again and shearing the side mirror off on a telephone pole. He spun the wheel back and forth, trying to center the car, but the back end was wagging wildly, banging into walls, the glove box popping open, stuff crashing around in the back. The cop is coming.
“Straighten out! Straighten out!”
The car skidded completely sideways and lurched backward before Isaiah could shift out of reverse.
“The fuck you doing, Isaiah?” Dodson shouted.
Isaiah stomped on the brakes but it was too late. The car rammed into something solid, their heads thrown forward and back into the headrests. They sat there stunned. Isaiah turned the ignition off. The car was in a parking area, the alley in front of it now, the rear bumper smashed into the loading dock of a produce market. There was a building on either side. If the cop hadn’t seen them already he couldn’t see them now. Headlight beams crossed in front of them. The cop was in the alley.
“Did he see us?” Dodson said.
“I don’t think so,” Isaiah said, “but he might have heard the crash.”
The beams got brighter. Would the cop stop at the bicycle shop or keep coming and find two seventeen-year-old boys in fishing clothes and ski masks hiding in a dead man’s car? They waited, the windows fogging up. The beams stopped. Isaiah’s chin dropped to his chest, sweat dripping into his lap. “That was close,” he said.
Dodson was staring blankly, his mouth hanging open like the firing squad had emptied their rifles at him and missed. “Could we get the fuck outta here, please?”
On the trip back to Long Beach, Isaiah was as still as a person can be and still drive a car. Dodson pulled his S &W.38 Special from under his fishing shirt. It was a revolver, lighter than a Glock, the barrel two inches long. The fellas preferred semiautos but Dodson liked pulling the hammer back and hearing it click. Just the sound of it scared the shit out of people. He flipped open the gun’s cylinder, pushed the ejector rod, the bullets falling into his palm. “Safety first,” he said. He put the bullets in his pocket and tucked the gun away. “Whatever you got to say, say it.”
“You were really going to shoot me? Shoot a cop?”
“Maybe, but I know I wasn’t going to jail.”
“I told you no guns.”
“I know what you told me, nigga, but I don’t give a shit. I took enough orders from my old man and I ain’t taking no more from you or anybody else.”
“They’re not orders, they’re just-you’re messing everything up, you know that, don’t you?”
“You the one messing shit up. I’m telling you, Isaiah, y’all better get your boot up off my neck or some shit gonna happen.”
“Like what?” Isaiah said, angry now. Dodson threatening him with a gun. Threatening to take his life away the way life had taken Marcus. “What are you gonna do? What? Tell me. Because whatever it is, stop trying to intimidate me and do it.”
“Don’t push me. We get into it I’ll fuck you up.”
“And wreck the whole thing? End it? You won’t, I know you won’t. You need this too much.”
“Yeah, but you need it worse than me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I figure it like this. I need the money. You just need it.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN You Can Make Anything Run
July 2013
Skip parked the Speedy Appliance Repair van and put on his Kenmore cap. The kids playing football in the street were too busy arguing about the out-of-bounds line to notice him getting out of the van with a duffel bag full of tools and walking across the street to Q Fuck’s house. He rang the bell even though he knew nobody was home. He took his time, ambling down the driveway toward the garage and backyard. Since when do repairmen hurry? Music was coming from the neighbor’s house. A good thing. He checked the kitchen door but the locks were indestructible.
Skip found a narrow path on the other side of the house overgrown with bougainvillea. He used the thorny bushes for cover and set up at a window. He put on latex gloves, opened the duffel bag, and got out the Halligan, a titanium pry bar the fire department used for forcible entries. He wedged the adze end between the wall of the house and the frame of the burglar bars and with a padded sledgehammer drove it all the way in. He stopped a few times to listen but the music was still playing and the kids were arguing about something else. Skip yanked, pried, and wrenched the Halligan until he’d leveraged the frame away from the wall, the anchor bolts, chicken wire, and chunks of stucco coming out with it. He broke the window and climbed in.