“For being two niggas in a ’72 Cutlass driving around at three in the morning. This other time they got into an electronics store over in Carson. They was heisting TVs but forgot to measure the car. Fools was trying to stuff a sixty-inch plasma into the backseat of that Cutlass when the cops showed up. Both of ’em had records, did their bids up in Vacaville. Soon as they got out they went right back at it. Hit a drugstore looking for oxy and some people across the street saw ’em and called the police. They went straight back to Vacaville, didn’t even have to change the sheets. Duane got his throat cut in the chow line. Dakor’s gonna be in there ’til he’s on Social Security.”
Dodson took the bacon out of the pan and let it drain on a paper towel. “Ain’t easy being a bandit these days,” he said. “All them cameras everywhere. They put your ass on TV now. Got the whole city looking for you. Roamin wore a Halloween mask but got recognized by his hair. Must be the last brutha on the block with a Jheri curl. Prescott wore a ski mask with just his eyes showing but they ID’d him by his ink. Nigga had his ex-wife’s name running up and down his neck. She’s the one who turned him in. Prescott’s in Vacaville too, in there making jailhouse chili and playing tonk with Dakor.”
“Don’t you know any successful thieves?” Isaiah said.
“They’re all successful ’til they get busted,” Dodson said. He put the BLTs on plates and gave one to Isaiah. “Eat up,” he said. Dodson’s version of the BLT was double-smoked bacon on toasted rye with some kind of spicy lettuce, thick heirloom tomato slices, and Best Foods mayo with herbs in it. Isaiah took a bite. It was the first thing he’d actually tasted in a long time and he couldn’t believe how good it was. He had to stop and look at it.
“But you know what gets niggas busted more than anything else?” Dodson said. “They partners. Shit. You got a brutha looking at a ten-year charge he’ll roll over on your ass before he gets to the police station—where’re you going?”
Isaiah went out on the balcony with his BLT and his laptop and stayed out there for a long time. When he came back in Dodson was playing GTA. “Damn, this game got some lame-ass dialogue. They couldn’t get a real Mexican to play Chico?”
“Let’s go for a ride,” Isaiah said.
They took Marcus’s five-year-old Explorer. Marcus didn’t care about cars and usually drove a clunker. He’d buy something on the cheap, run it into the ground, and buy something else. He bought the Explorer so Isaiah wouldn’t be embarrassed when he got his license.
“The cops get thousands of burglar alarm calls a year,” Isaiah said, “and over ninety percent of them turn out to be false.”
“Ninety percent?” Dodson said.
“That’s why they came up with this rule. Your business gets two false alarms but on the third one you have to pay a fine and if there are more false alarms the fines go up. That’s why the alarm companies try to verify if it’s really a burglary and not somebody working late.”
“How do they verify a burglary if there’s nobody there but the burglars?”
“When the alarm goes off the system sends a distress signal to the alarm company. The alarm company calls the owner and there’s a conversation. Name, are you the responsible party for the property at such and such an address. Were you aware your alarm has gone off, is there anyone on the premises with your permission and whatever else. Okay, so once the alarm is verified, the alarm company calls the police burglary line and there’s another conversation with that dispatcher. Which company is this, what is your registration number, has the alarm been verified, what are the points of activation, and then the call goes out to the cop on the street and he’s still got to get to the location. All that takes time.”
“What if the call ain’t verified?”
“Unverified calls are most of the calls and they’re low-priority. The cops will respond if they’re in the area and have nothing better to do. Like give out a traffic ticket, break up a bar fight—”
“Eat a donut, bust a nigga upside the head.”
“One way or the other, we have time to do the job.”
“How much time?”
“I saw burglar alarm response times that were all over the map. Seven minutes, ten minutes, twelve minutes, forty-five minutes. No way to tell. But the fastest response times are for 911 calls, emergencies. No verifying, no conversations, and these are for things like armed robberies, shootings, hit-and-runs. Average response times nationwide are in the six-minute range. I think to be on the safe side we stick to that.”
“Six minutes? What can we steal in six minutes that’s worth anything? Unless you’re talking about jewelry stores. Shit. If it ain’t smash-and-grab it’ll take you more than six minutes just to get in the damn place.”
They were somewhere in El Segundo. Isaiah pulled the car over and parked. “Over there, across the street,” he said. “That’s the place.”
“What place?” Dodson said. “Ain’t nothin’ over there but a pet store.”