A girl with frizzy red hair and a purple vest greeted them as they came in the door. “Hi,” she said. “Welcome to Pet City. How can I help you today?” Pet City was a chain store, big and well stocked, smelling of cat litter, kibble, wood shavings, alfalfa, and medicine. Aquarium pumps were buzzing and birds were tweeting. Other young people in purple vests were helping customers with gluten-free dog biscuits and smart toys for their hamster.
Isaiah told the redheaded girl they wanted to look around. They took a tour, Dodson not believing what people bought for their pets. “Keep your dog’s breath fresh?” he said. “You can smell your dog’s breath you standing too close—rat food? Is that what that says? Somebody needs to tell these people you don’t need no special food for a goddamn rat—oh Lord have mercy, that can’t be right. Monkey diapers? Monkey diapers? You got a monkey wearing diapers you went to the wrong delivery room.”
They went to the dog treat aisle. Isaiah took a clear plastic envelope off a display peg. In the envelope were three seven-inch leathery sticks that looked like Slim Jims but more irregular and dried out. “They call them bully sticks,” Isaiah said. “They’re dog chews. They make them from bull penis.”
“Lupita told me there’s people that eat the balls,” Dodson said. “Now I know what they do with the dick part.”
“Look. The package weighs two point six ounces and check the price.”
“Twenty-one ninety-five? Shit. I wouldn’t pay twenty-one ninety-five for something for myself to chew.”
“There’s what, twenty-five packs there? That’s five hundred dollars and you could put them in a paper bag.”
In the health aisle, feline epilepsy test strips were forty-six ninety-five. Four tablets of dog dewormer, fifty-five ninety-five. The flea medicines were in a glass case that a clerk had to open with a key. A six-month supply of Frontline came in a flimsy cardboard box no bigger than a paperback book and weighed three ounces. Seventy-two ninety-five. A wireless fence was almost three hundred dollars. There was nothing to it. A plastic transmitter, a collar, and some sensors.
“How’s that supposed to be a fence?” Dodson said.
“If the dog tries to go outside the yard the transmitter zaps him through that collar,” Isaiah said.
“I know some niggas should have that collar on,” Dodson said. He was getting the concept. Isaiah was targeting pricey items that were small and easy to carry. And Pet City had security but nothing like Radio Shack or Zales Jewelry. Who robbed a pet store?
They drove around to the alley side. Isaiah took a casual stroll past the back of the building and came back to the car. “There’s a floodlight and a bullet cam over the door,” he said. “The knob lock is ordinary but the dead bolt is going to be tough and there might be a sliding bolt on the inside.”
On the way home they stopped at a Foster Freeze and ate soft ice cream. “We have to think this through,” Isaiah said. “Be methodical. Make a plan.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ against plans,” Dodson said.
“No mistakes, nothing stupid that’ll get us busted.”
“I hope you not calling me stupid.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re into that gangsta thing. Walk up and stick a gun in somebody’s face.”
“The gangsta thing ain’t a technique, it’s an attitude. You either make something your bitch or you gonna be the bitch.”
“Okay, but no guns. We clear?”
“Yes, nigga, we clear. Will you get on with it?”
They went home and talked some more, Isaiah figuring out detail after detail, making lists in a notebook. Dodson was impatient. Isaiah did all the figuring out and talked over any of his suggestions. They went shopping. Rite Aid, Big 5, the Goodwill store.
“What we gonna do with all this stuff?” Dodson said.
“Eliminate mistakes,” Isaiah said.
“Whatever the fuck that means. And what about the door? We gonna pick the lock or use a bump key?”
“The knob lock is easy but the dead bolt is an ASSA High Security model. Can’t be picked or bumped and you can’t drill it out unless you’ve got an industrial drill press.”
“How come you know so much about locks?”
“My brother. He knew everything.”
“So what do we do?”
“I was watching the news last night. Cops raided a crack house in Compton.”
“Yeah, so what else is new?”
“I think they’re onto something.”
They went to an army surplus store. Isaiah told the bald guy sitting behind a case full of knives what he wanted. The guy took them to the back and found it leaning against the wall behind a rack of petrified field jackets.