“Well, that does it,” Bobby said. “Our illustrious investigator has gone berserk.”
A liquor bottle exploded. Sparks, broken glass, and a cloud of ashes erupting out of the flames, Bobby and the fellas scattering like a flock of scared pigeons. Bobby lay facedown on the patio with his hands over his head. He wished he could stay like this, his cheek on the warm bricks, inhaling the comforting childhood smells of cut grass and chlorine. His nightmare seemed to have no end, every day worse than the last, his hope fading like the sunsets he could see from his office window. “Kill me now,” he said. “Put me out of my misery.”
More bottles blew up. Isaiah and Dodson were behind a palm tree. “How’d you know them bottles was gonna blow up?” Dodson said.
“The alcohol in the bottles was turning cloudy,” Isaiah said. “It was vaporizing and the pressure had nowhere to go.”
“I figured you knew something,” Dodson said as another bottle exploded. “Look at Bobby all down on the ground. Looks like the Taliban’s shooting at his ass. And speaking of Bobby, why’d you go at him so hard? You lost your temper again, didn’t you?”
“I don’t care about Bobby,” Isaiah said. “I care about my client.”
“Well, you better get out your water wings. Your client is drowning again.”
Despite his earlier experience, Cal had jumped in the pool and was thrashing around, swallowing water. “Help,” he gurgled. “Somebody help Calvin.” He went under, one hand waving like he was hailing a cab.
Charles and Bug were behind the gas barbecue, too disgusted to laugh. “How’d that fool ever get to be a star?” Charles said.
Anthony was sitting out in the open with his back against the house. He looked like a man who’d lost his dignity and was too tired to go get it. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll drown,” he said.
Isaiah looked from Anthony to Bobby to Bug and Charles. One of them was keeping Skip in the loop. One of them was the inside man.
The explosions stopped. Cal yelled at Anthony to help him get out of the pool. “Oh there’s gonna be some housecleanin’ around here, y’all can believe that,” Cal said, trying to look like a Rap God in a sopping-wet robe, a lens missing from his sunglasses.
Sirens were coming.
“That’s my cue,” Bobby said, heading for the house. “You people figure out what you’re going to tell the police because Calvin does not go to jail. Do you understand? Calvin does not go to jail.”
“Why would Calvin go to jail?” Cal said.
“Reckless endangerment, public nuisance, fire regulations,” Anthony said, “and I don’t know if those guns are registered.”
The sirens were getting louder.
“Well, somebody’s gonna take the charge,” Cal said. “Can’t be you, Anthony, I need somebody to be my flunky.”
Bug and Charles looked like the guilty rapists in a lineup, the victim staring right at them.
“I guess that leaves you two niggas,” Cal said, looking from one to the other. “Who’s it gonna be? Eenie or meenie? Meenie or eenie?”
“Shit, Cal, you know that ain’t right,” Charles said.
“It’s right if I say it’s right and I say it’s you.”
“Muthafuck!” Charles said, walking in a circle and rubbing the back of his head. “Come on, Cal, don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like what, Charles? Don’t be like what? The shot caller? Well, I can’t help that ’cause I am the shot caller and I’m calling on you to take the charge and stop whining like a bitch.”
“This is bullshit,” Bug said. “You should take your own charge.”
“I’ll take my own charge when you write your own check. How ’bout that, Bug? When you write your own check.”
Charles told the cops he drank too much and lost his mind. Isaiah watched him give everything in his pockets to Bug before they cuffed him and took him away, Bug’s eyes shooting tracer rounds into Cal’s back as he slogged into the house. “One day, muthafucka,” Bug said. “One day.”
Bobby sat in the backseat glaring at Hegan like it was his fault the day had gone to shit. Hegan was probably wondering why Bobby smelled like smoke and wasn’t yelling into his cell at his lawyer or one of his acts or Eva, his Amazonian girlfriend who wore high heels when she shopped at Whole Foods.
“Did something happen back there?” Hegan said.
“Yes, something happened back there,” Bobby said. “I almost got killed, no thanks to you.”
“You okay?”