“Zoe Pound? That Haitian gang down in Miami? What you know about that, Miss Fabulous?” He is turned to me fully now. The lock on the door has clicked open.
“I know a lot about that. And they are everywhere. Miami, New York, Boston. Some other places I’ve never heard of. But not in Detroit.”
“Damn right not in Detroit. Them niggas would have a whole lot of competition.” He eases back in his seat and looks behind me toward the café.
“My friend Baron, he is a big, big shot in Zoe Pound. He helped me and my mother a lot. But he can’t do anything now that I’m on this side. But I need to help him, make some connections for him.”
“First it’s money, now it’s connections. Just spit it out, Fabulous.” He moves his hand closer to me, but I don’t move my leg.
“I know you sell drugs, Dray. I know some rich kids like to buy drugs at parties. It’s the same way in Haiti. I heard some girls at my school talking about a party in Grosse Pointe Park. Do you know about it?”
“Yeah. Go on.” His hand moves closer and now it’s brushing against my thigh.
“They want something called . . . I don’t remember the name. We call it something different in Haiti. But it’s drugs.”
He laughs, but doesn’t move his hand from off my thigh. “Yo, you sound real crazy. You know how hot the Park is right now? You can’t just roll up in here fresh off the boat, talking about ‘I know this party where you can sell drugs.’ That shit sounds crazy to me.”
I quickly glance over at the café. Kasim and his coworker must be finished cleaning by now. Time is slipping from me. So I reach over, take Dray’s face with its black eye patch and sharp lines, and kiss him. It’s a shallow but wet kiss, not like how I kiss Kasim, of course. He is frozen in his seat and I feel as if I’ve just inhaled his power.
I’m back in my spot when I say, “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what it’s like to scratch the walls around you and hope that there is gold on the other side because there is nothing else for you to dig through to make a decent living for yourself. The boys I know back home, they don’t just sit around and wait for charity to drop useless coins into their hands. They find a way to live, to breathe. So I know you, Dray. I know that you have the fire that Kasim doesn’t have. If you have what these girls want at this party, then sell it. If you make money, give me a portion. Twenty percent. I can use it to help my mother. And if you want, I can connect you with some of my Zoe Pound people. They don’t play small games. They are big-time. That’s it. It’s not complicated.”
Dray licks his lips as if to hold on to the taste of me for a moment longer. Then I follow his eyes to the front of the café. Kasim and his coworker have come out. While his back is turned to pull down the gate, I quickly get out of the car so that he doesn’t see that I’m in the passenger seat. Once I’m out, I exhale long and deep. My head feels light and heavy at the same time. I want to spit out the marijuana from my breath and the taste of Dray from my lips. But I swallow and let them fill my body as if I’ve just eaten his soul. Before Kasim turns to see me, I whisper to myself, “Shit you do for fam.”
But then I hear the window on the car coming down behind me. When I turn, Dray says, “Five percent.”
I almost agree, but I remember that I’m still in battle, still in character. “Fifteen,” I say.
Kasim comes over and gives me a hug. Then he leans into the passenger-side window to talk to Dray. “Give us a ride to my car. I parked in the garage around the corner,” he says.
He opens the backseat door to let me in. When he slides in next to me, he says, “Damn, Dray. You smoking up the car while I got my girl in here?”
“Fabulous and I got a deal. She’s cool with that. Ten, right?”
“Yes, I’m cool with that” is all I say.
“Ay yo, Ka? That’s wifey right there, son. You got my blessings,” Dray says as he pulls away from the curb. Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror. He winks at me and smiles.
“Thanks, bro,” Kasim says, and kisses me on the cheek.
When we get out of the car, Dray gives Kasim a package—a thick yellow envelope. In Kasim’s car, he tucks the envelope underneath the seat and asks, “What were you talking about with Dray that makes him call you my wifey and shit?”
“Oh, nothing,” I say.
My heart is lingering somewhere in the deepest part of Dray’s underworld, and from this point on, I will have to claw my way out.
After Kasim drops me off, I run up to the bathroom, turn on the shower so no one can hear me, and pull out my phone.
“I have something you can use,” I tell Detective Stevens.
“Oh, yeah? I’m listening.”
“When can I get another phone call with my mother?”
“Another call might be tricky, but I can help speed up her case. Now what do you have for me?”