“Anita,” Tudor said. “She’ll be wanting to know when you’re going to start, which I’m hoping is immediately.”
Isaiah didn’t like Tudor. He was arrogant, not asking for help, just assuming Isaiah would do his bidding, and not even polite about it. And he didn’t like the man’s pinkie ring or the metallic blue suit that fit him too good to be off the rack or the Rolex watch. A gold Yacht-Master, the same one Dodson had wanted. Nineteen thousand dollars and change. “I’m not doing this for free,” Isaiah said.
“I guess I misunderstood,” Tudor said. “I thought you did these kinds of things as a community service.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“But not with me, is that it?” Tudor said, flicking some imaginary lint off his lapel. “All right, young man, what do you intend to charge me for your services?”
“A thousand dollars,” Isaiah said, picking a number out of the air.
“A thousand—you must be joking,” Tudor said. “I’m not paying you a thousand dollars or anything like it. You think I just fell off the turnip truck? Who do you think you’re dealing with? I was hustling for my daily bread while you were still in—where’re you going?”
Tudor caught up with Isaiah in the parking lot. “My offer is two hundred dollars and that’s overly generous if you ask me.”
“No thank you.”
“No thank you? You’ve never made two hundred dollars for a day’s work in your entire life.”
“Yes I have.”
“I’m losing my patience, young man, but I’ll tell you what. For the sake of the girl’s safety I’m going to let you rob me today and today only. Three hundred dollars but only when Darcy is returned unharmed to her mother. Do we have a deal?”
“No, we don’t have a deal.”
“Let’s have a reality check here, shall we? You know as well as I do that fetching that girl is no big deal.”
“If you think it’s no big deal going into a Crip hood and taking a girl away from a drug dealer I’ll give you three hundred dollars and you can go get her yourself.”
“You’re a tough negotiator and I can appreciate that, but you’re about to negotiate yourself out of a very substantial paycheck.” Tudor looked at Anita, smiled, and said: “Everything’s okay, boo, we’re just coming to terms.” Anita popped her gum. “Now you listen to me, young man,” Tudor said, “you are making me look bad in front of my fiancée, something I can assure you I will not forget.”
“What happens when you remember?” Isaiah said, letting the threat pass.
“This is my last and final offer and I am not a man who bluffs. Five hundred dollars, take it or leave it.”
“I’ll leave it.”
“Well, you have just thrown five hundred dollars out the window and you only have yourself to blame. I won’t have my arm twisted, not even for Anita.”
“Tudor?” Anita said. “Don’t even say the word pussy ’til you get my daughter back.”
Tudor smiled like he’d farted in a crowded elevator. “Will you take a check?” he said. “I don’t have that kind of cash on me.”
Cruising slow through a Crip hood and looking for someone was drive-by behavior and likely to get you shot. Isaiah found three girls about Darcy’s age in the Baskin-Robbins eating double-scoop cones and talking loud.
“I’m looking for my sister, name is Darcy?” Isaiah said. “Mama died and I got to tell her.”
“Why don’t you call her?” one of the girls said.
“I don’t know how she gonna take it, you feel me? For all I know she might faint or something. I need to be there with her.” The girls told him a light-skinned girl named Darcy was living in a brown apartment building three blocks up on Prince.
The brown apartment building was L-shaped. All the doors were facing in, big white patches where the paint had chipped off the stucco. Laundry was draped over the second-story railing, an overflowing dumpster in the parking lot. Isaiah parked the Explorer facing the sun so you couldn’t see him through the glare of the windshield. Women sat outside their doors talking. Kids ran up and down stairs, old men played dominoes.
Isaiah was eating the last of the trail mix when Darcy emerged from an upstairs apartment. She was sixteen going on thirty-five, wearing a bathrobe over a slip and fuzzy slippers. She leaned against the railing and looked down at the parking lot like she was disappointed it was still there. Somebody called her. Her shoulders sagged. She looked skyward and shuffled back inside.
Isaiah saw himself going up the stairs and knocking on that door and Shake coming out in a do-rag and no shirt and asking him what the fuck he wanted and then explaining to him that he was taking Darcy home and Shake drawing a pistol and shooting him in the head. Clearly not his best option and after thinking a bit he came up with another.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“A girl, they’re holding her captive. She’s only sixteen. I think they’re messing with her.”