They met Blasé at an outdoor café. He was Isaiah’s former client. He’d been a child prodigy like Stevie Wonder, singing professionally since he was twelve years old. He had a historian’s knowledge of the rap and hip-hop world, knew everybody that was anybody and considered it his civic duty to dish.
“Back in the day, Black the Knife was a group,” Blasé said. “Like the Wu-Tang Clan without the Wu or the Tang. Charles was the headliner, if you can believe it. I suppose he could spit some but his beats were reruns and his rhymes were tired tired tired. Calvin was the hype man, getting the crowd up and coming in on the hook. Bug didn’t do anything but walk around on stage like a caveman yelling Yeeeah, Black the Knife in da houuuse. Poor Charles. Out there trying to flow with all the ladies looking at Calvin and throwing their thongs at him. Everybody knew who the real star was and I’m sure Charles knew it too.” Blasé paused to take a sip of his nonfat hazelnut caramel latte. “Oh this is nice,” he said. “Nothing like a six-dollar cup of coffee to wake you up in the morning. We always had Maxwell House at our house, came in that big blue can? My mama used to use them as flowerpots.”
Isaiah’s cappuccino tasted okay but the barista had made the foam too thin. “What happened to the group?” Isaiah said. “What happened to Black the Knife?”
“Calvin threatened to leave and go solo if he wasn’t the front man,” Blasé said. “Charles knew he wasn’t going anywhere by himself so he stepped aside and Cal took over. Must have been humiliating and Cal had no problem being in charge. He took Black the Knife as his personal name, wouldn’t perform any of Charles’s songs and when Bobby Grimes showed up with that first record deal he offered it to Calvin, not Charles and Bug. From then on they worked for Calvin’s LLC and lived in his crib like house niggas until Noelle threw them out.”
Dodson glanced at a buffed-out white man in a tank top strolling by, his tan as even as the brown Barbie doll his sister, Lavinia, used to play with.
“What’s the matter, baby?” Blasé said. “Having feelings you’ve never felt before?”
“Oh I’ve had the feelings before,” Dodson said, “but I was locked up in the joint.”
Blasé continued: “You’d think Charles and Bug would have left by now but I guess living the high life under Calvin’s thumb is better than going back to selling dope and eating pork and beans with crushed potato chips. Not me, baby. Nobody treats me like that. I would have strangled Cal with a microphone cord a long time ago.”
“Heard anything about Noelle?” Isaiah said.
“My ex, Byron? He told me she sold her engagement ring and she might need money. I sold mine. You give me a ring and it’s forever or never.”
“Who’s DStar?” Isaiah said.
“The dealer to the stars? Jimmy Bonifant. It’s like everybody is something to the stars these days. I’d stay away from him if I were you. People who mess with Jimmy end up dead in a ditch somewhere—I’m sorry, Isaiah, but I have to go. It was nice seeing you both. Call me if I can do anything else.” Blasé got up and slipped on a messenger bag that looked like it was made from poured honey. “And say hello to Anthony for me. That boy is cute cute cute. Bye now.”
Dodson waited until Blasé was gone. “Anthony?” he said.
The Moody brothers lived in a white stucco cracker box with white burglar bars and an old-fashioned TV antenna on the roof. It was late, Isaiah and Dodson were sitting in the Audi waiting for Bug. Charles was still in custody. Ordinarily, he could have paid his own bail and walked but the guns in the bonfire were a probation violation and he’d have to see a judge in the morning.
“Why didn’t they move back in with Cal, live in luxury?” Isaiah said. “They could have after the divorce.”
“Better to be a big fish in Inglewood than a sardine swimmin’ around in Cal’s ego,” Dodson said.
“Good point.”
Bug came out of the house and got in his Escalade. The engine roared to life, the trick exhaust burbling like it was underwater. He backed out of the driveway and drove off.
“He’s wearing Cal’s cologne,” Isaiah said. “That stuff is like tear gas.”
They went around to the back of the house and Isaiah bump-keyed the door open in thirty seconds.
“We could have done it faster with the battering ram,” Dodson said. “Whatever happened to that thing?”
“It’s still in the locker,” Isaiah said.
Isaiah thought Bug and Charles’s parents must have died or remarried and moved out. The living room was all dark wood and plush fabrics, family photos on every surface, and plastic covers on the lampshades. The brothers had made a couple of decorating changes. A sixty-five-inch 3-D HD TV hung over the fireplace and a stripper pole was planted in the middle of the room.