“What was that?” Isaiah said.
“Damn, the car’s stuck in second,” Marcus said. He pulled the car over to the shoulder and messed with the clutch and gearshift. “I’ve got to get underneath.”
“Underneath the car?” Isaiah said.
“There’s no room to work down there,” Marcus said. He thought a moment, then drove the car over a drainage ditch and stopped, the wheels straddling the ditch. “Okay, let’s take a look,” he said. He got his toolbox out of the trunk, put a flashlight in his mouth, and slid into the drainage ditch and under the car.
Isaiah waited in the cold, stamping his feet, and wondering what was taking so long. He could hear Marcus squirming around, grunting, the tools clanking. “Everything okay?” he said.
Marcus crawled out from under the car, filthy with grease and mud. “It’s the pin that holds the shifter to the fork in the transaxle,” he said. “It’s broken.”
“Can we get another pin?” Isaiah said, looking around at the dark.
Marcus rummaged around in the trunk and found a road flare. He cut off the wire stand with a wire cutter and slid under the car again. More tool noises and grunting.
“What are you doing?” Isaiah said.
“Replacing the pin,” Marcus said, “but I’ve got to bend the wire to fit.”
Isaiah waited another year.
“Got it,” Marcus said.
Isaiah smiled like he’d known it all along.
As they drove over the ditch and back onto the road, Marcus said: “Let that be a lesson to you. You can make anything run.”
And the car did run until the improvised pin broke, the yoke bent, and the trans froze up completely. Isaiah worried about his theory for the same reason. Had he made it run? Had he cobbled parts together that would freeze up and leave him stranded? And then there was the case-breaker. That dragonfly flitting around his cortex faster than a synapse. If he ever caught a glimpse of the thing would it help him or put him back to square zero? He was afraid he already knew.
Noelle had only just ended the call with Blasé when the number she was waiting for popped up on the caller ID. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she said, “what’s happening? Damn, he just won’t cooperate, will he? As if I didn’t have enough pressure already. Yes, I know it’s hard but we talked about this. We talked about this and you said you’d-okay, that’s better. Now you stay with it, don’t let me down now. It’s going to happen, I promise you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN When We Ride on Our Enemies
March 2006
Isaiah was in the storage locker brooding about what happened in the bicycle shop and trying to write item descriptions. What if Dodson had shot the cop or got shot himself? Isaiah thought. They’d be in jail right now. He considered walking away from everything but Dodson was right. He couldn’t, and even if he did, Dodson would still be in the apartment and there was no way to get him out.
Earlier in the day they’d had another argument. Dodson needed money and wanted to lower the prices on the paint sprayers from thirty percent to fifty percent off but Isaiah held firm. People were paying the prices. Why take less just because Dodson couldn’t handle his money? They’d almost come to blows.
Isaiah stopped writing. Tonight they were doing another job. He knew he should cancel, let things cool off, but Dodson might think he was intimidated. No. The job was on. Fuck Dodson.
Eleven-thirty. The Explorer pulled up and parked behind La Cucina Felice, a kitchen store in Torrance. Isaiah and Dodson hadn’t spoken the whole way over, the tension like a stranger in the car. They got out the equipment and set up at the rear entrance as if the other wasn’t there.
The door was reinforced. There was no exterior lock and there was a security bar on the inside. Battering the door took some time and the alarm went off before they got in, this one like a giant sparrow on steroids chirping in your ear.
“Stick to the clock,” Isaiah said as they entered the storeroom. “We’ll have to take less stuff.” Dodson didn’t answer and went his own way.
At the six-minute mark, Isaiah was loading Wüsthof knife sets into the car. He glanced back, thinking Dodson was right behind him, but he wasn’t. Go after him and he’d think it was condescending and start something. Isaiah got into the car, his eyes on the rearview mirror. He felt his watch ticking. Seven minutes… eight minutes. Where was Dodson? Isaiah felt the tingle of new sweat on his scalp. He jogged back inside and into the storeroom, dancing along the front of the room, looking in the aisles. No Dodson. His hamper was against the wall like he’d walked away. Or been led away. Isaiah’s heart was revving to the red line. He checked the restrooms and the office, calling Dodson, Dodson, the giant sparrow screeching like a snake was in the nest. Where did he go? Why would he leave?
Dodson was in the showroom carrying a shopping basket and looking at a display of copper cookware. He wondered what a roasting pan could do to make it worth three hundred and thirty-nine dollars. For that money it should come with HoneyBaked Ham and somebody to baste it.
Isaiah ran up to him with his palms up. He had to shout over the giant sparrow. “WHERE WERE YOU? LET’S GO!” Dodson walked past him and stopped at a table of ceramic jars, kitchen utensils sticking out of them. “DODSON, WE’RE AT NINE MINUTES. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?” Dodson selected a stainless steel whisk and shook it like a maraca. He didn’t seem to know Isaiah was there. “CAN’T YOU HEAR ME? WE HAVE TO GO!” Dodson put the whisk in his basket and continued shopping, Isaiah backing up in front of him. “DODSON, ARE YOU CRAZY? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? LET’S GO!” Dodson stopped at a revolving stand of gizmos and gadgets. He took a tomato stemmer off its peg and began reading the blurb. “TEN MINUTES, DODSON, TEN MINUTES! WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?” Dodson looked up as if he’d heard something far away and wondered what it was. Isaiah grabbed his arm. “DODSON, WE HAVE TO GO! CAN’T YOU HEAR ME? WE HAVE TO GO! DODSON, PLEASE! WE HAVE TO GO NOW!” The ski mask hid Dodson’s face but his eyes were lazy and merciless. Isaiah couldn’t yell anymore. “I don’t know what you want,” he said. “I don’t know what you want.” Dodson sighed like he was letting Deronda hold the remote. Then he dropped the tomato stemmer into his basket and strolled away, a hitch in his stride.
Dodson had a key card to the front gate at the storage place and a key to the padlock on the locker door. He borrowed Deronda’s brother’s Tacoma, backed it up to the locker, and took out three loads of merchandise he thought would move fast while Deronda sat on a box of books poking at her phone.
“This shit is for you too,” Dodson said. “Get your ass up and help me.”
“I just got my nails done,” Deronda said. “Can I do something with my elbows?”
Dodson had rechecked the prices on the paint sprayers. Isaiah had raised them and on everything else too. “Fuck your nails,” Dodson said. “Help me with these tools.”
They held a garage sale. Nona volunteered her backyard in exchange for two pairs of shoes. Word spread there were bargains to be had and the yard got busier than Walmart on Black Friday. Didn’t matter what the deal was as long as it was cash. The tools went fast, people knowing they were valuable even if they couldn’t use them. They were sold out of everything by suppertime.
Dodson lay on the foldout smoking a joint, cash scattered around him like leaves off a dead tree. Deronda was dancing to Tupac, holding a bottle of Dom by the neck that fizzled when she twerked. When we ride on our enemies I bet you motherfuckers die. When we ride on our enemies bet all you motherfuckers die. She eased up some, afraid her skintight jeans might bust a seam even though they were new.