Dusk. Wavering flames of light were coming through the ragged curtains. Isaiah lay on the bed with a bag of ice on his head. The bleeding had stopped. There was an ugly gash above his right ear, the pain throbbing like a hot electrode.
It was time to end it. Just end it.
He rested a day, put a new dressing on the gash, dropped a handful of Tylenol, and went to the locker. Dodson hadn’t touched the box of books, twenty-one thousand dollars of burglary money hidden in a carved-out copy of Manchild in the Promised Land. Isaiah called the landlord, gave him notice, and told him to keep the security deposit. Leaving would be painful. He’d fought hard to keep the apartment but he had to separate from Dodson before something really disastrous happened. Even if he somehow got Dodson out of there he’d be under siege and the war of wills would never end. He had to make a clean break. Besides, the apartment wasn’t home anymore and whatever was left of Marcus’s spirit had left in disgust. He wouldn’t have gone back there at all but he’d left Marcus’s ashes on the top shelf of the closet.
When he came into the apartment Deronda was on the balcony, her back against the railing, her arms folded across her chest, for once not talking or texting or bobbing her head to her earbuds and Crip-walking. She came in sniffling, her mascara smeared, cheeks wet with tears.
“What’s the matter with you?” Isaiah said.
“Dodson can’t do no jobs by himself,” Deronda said. “I knew it but I said it anyway. He’s going to get himself killed.”
“What job? Who’s going to kill him?”
It was the day after Dodson hit Isaiah with the gun outside the storage locker. Dodson and Deronda were on the foldout staring at the TV. They’d been there for a couple of hours, didn’t matter what was on.
“We need a way to get some money,” Deronda said.
“Like what?” Dodson said.
“I don’t know.”
“The fuck you say anything for?”
Deronda needed him relaxed and open-minded. She reached for his package. “Come here, baby,” she said. “Let me release your tension.” After they had sex and Dodson was almost asleep, Deronda made her move. “Where does Kinkee get his dope from?” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Junior,” Dodson said. “He got a cartel connection.”
“How much do he pay for like a kilo?”
“Fifteen, twenty thousand, around in there.”
“How many kilos do he get?”
“I don’t know. More than one.”
“Reup day he must be carrying some real money.”
Dodson dozed off for a moment and then his eyes popped open. “You better blank that outta your mind, girl. We could get shot just sitting here thinking about it.”
“I’m not saying we do anything.”
Dodson’s voice went falsetto: “Do anything like what?”
“Dang, baby, I’m just curious, that’s all.” She nuzzled his neck and walked her fingers over his groin. “I mean like, how’s it go down, reup day?”
“We run out of stones, Junior goes to Boyle Heights with a bag full of money and comes back with a bag full of cocaine.”
“He don’t worry about gettin’ robbed?”
Dodson told her Junior was no fool. If you wanted to rob him your first problem was the building he lived in. The Sea Crest over in Bluff Park where people drove hybrid cars and had names like Jason and Laura and Chin Ho. Not the kind of people who’d be eager to buzz your gangsta ass in and even if you managed to catch the door when the FedEx man came out you’d still have to get Junior to open his door and not shoot you with his pistol or his AK.
“Does Junior got security?” Deronda said.
Dodson shook his head like he was looking at tornado damage. “Booze Lewis, he said.”
Booze Lewis, known on the street as Peen, was sixteen years old when he was tried as an adult for attempted kidnapping, mayhem, and aggravated assault. When he went into Corcoran he weighed a hundred and sixty-one pounds. When he got out thirty-nine months later he was a hundred and ninety-five pounds of prison yard muscle and any fat you found on him was on his plate.
“Why do they call him Peen?” Deronda said.
“’Cause he killed Cole Campbell with a ball-peen hammer and he ain’t but the half of it.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Michael Stokely. If you on his hit list and still alive it’s because he’s busy shooting somebody else. Carries that sawed-off Mossberg. Aim that bitch up in the air and you’ll hit four or five niggas-and why we even talking about this? Ain’t no way to rip off Junior.”
“I think you downgradin’ yourself.”
“I have never in my whole life downgraded myself.”
“How many jobs you pulled off? A bunch, right? You got some experience, you got some knowledge. You a professional you ask me.”
Dodson nodded. That was true. “Yeah, but robbing a pet store ain’t nothing like trying to jack Junior.”
“I’m not saying they the same. I’m saying you could work it out in your mind, ask yourself how the shit could go down.”
“Ask myself how the-I am myself. Why would I ask somebody who don’t know?”
“You could know. I got faith you in, baby. You could pull this off, I know you could… if you asked yourself the right question.”
“What right question?”
“I’m gonna say something now, don’t get mad, aight?”
“Just say what you say, girl, damn.”
“What you need to ask yourself is… what would Isaiah do?”
Dodson told her shut the fuck up and sent her out for Thai food. Then he watched a rerun of Chopped. Then he smoked a joint. Then he went out on the balcony and walked back and forth for a while until he finally got down to it.
What would Isaiah do?
He’d check everything out, do his research, and Kinkee had done most of that already. On the last run to Boyle Heights, Booze was in the hospital and Kinkee took his place. He talked about it every chance he got like it was some kind of honor risking his life for free. Dodson and Sedrick had heard the story twice already but had to hear it again because Kinkee hadn’t doled out the new product yet.
“So like me and Stokely go to Junior’s crib, right?” Kinkee said. “And it’s like ten in the morning, people gone to work. That way ain’t no cars around, you could see what’s comin’ both ways, can’t nobody drive up on us-that’s sharp, ain’t it? So then like I get buzzed in and I’m thinkin’ Junior’s in the penthouse, you know how he be luxuriatin’ but check dis. His crib is on the first floor. Wanna know why?”
“So he can’t get trapped in the elevator,” Sedrick said.
“So he can’t get trapped in the-who’s telling this story, nigga? Shit. See what kind of rocks you get this time-where was I? Oh yeah, so I get buzzed in, right? And I goes to the apartment, knock on the door. Junior checks me in the peephole, comes out with a shopping bag full of paper and that gun he likes, what’s it called?”
“Sig Sauer forty-cal,” Sedrick said.
“Who gives a shit, Sedrick? Okay, so now we go back to the lobby and it’s like glass across the front and we could see Stokely waitin’ in his car. So if he like nods in a certain way the coast is clear. If he nods another way we sit tight. That’s thinkin’ in the forefront, you feel me? So then Junior gets in my car and Stokely follows us in his car with that damn Mossberg because-”
“The Locos like to drive up on you and shoot you at a stoplight,” Sedrick said. “Can I get some stones now?”
Dodson went to the Sea Crest, found a side door the janitor used, and bump-keyed his way in. He walked Kinkee’s route to Junior’s apartment. It was in the middle of the hall. No way to sneak up behind him. If you came through the fire exit at the far end he’d see you coming. Dodson made a list and drew a couple of diagrams. It felt good working something out in advance, visualizing what would happen. It was like controlling the future, having that airtight plan.