Dodson walked away three steps, spun around, and came back with the revolver pointed at Isaiah’s head. “You think you can do me like that? Starve me out, make me beg? You fuckin’ with the wrong nigga.”
Isaiah glanced up and nodded at a security camera bracketed to a light pole. “They’re all over the place,” he said. “The one at the front gate takes your picture.” He turned his back and went toward the Explorer. “Let me know what you want to do.”
Dodson’s gun hand was shaking. He wanted to cap this condescending disrespectful muthafucka more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He took a hop-step, swung the gun like he was throwing a fastball, and brought the barrel down on Isaiah’s head. Isaiah crumpled forward, fell into the Explorer, and slid to the ground. He curled up, groaning, holding his head, blood coming through his fingers. Dodson stood over him. “You think you out of this? You think you can walk away from me and take my manhood with you? I shoot myself ’fore I let that happen. You in, nigga, and you ain’t out ’til I say you out.”
Dusk. Wavering flames of light were coming through the ragged curtains. Isaiah lay on the bed with a bag of ice on his head. The bleeding had stopped. There was an ugly gash above his right ear, the pain throbbing like a hot electrode.
It was time to end it. Just end it.
He rested a day, put a new dressing on the gash, dropped a handful of Tylenol, and went to the locker. Dodson hadn’t touched the box of books, twenty-one thousand dollars of burglary money hidden in a carved-out copy of Manchild in the Promised Land. Isaiah called the landlord, gave him notice, and told him to keep the security deposit. Leaving would be painful. He’d fought hard to keep the apartment but he had to separate from Dodson before something really disastrous happened. Even if he somehow got Dodson out of there he’d be under siege and the war of wills would never end. He had to make a clean break. Besides, the apartment wasn’t home anymore and whatever was left of Marcus’s spirit had left in disgust. He wouldn’t have gone back there at all but he’d left Marcus’s ashes on the top shelf of the closet.
When he came into the apartment Deronda was on the balcony, her back against the railing, her arms folded across her chest, for once not talking or texting or bobbing her head to her earbuds and Crip-walking. She came in sniffling, her mascara smeared, cheeks wet with tears.
“What’s the matter with you?” Isaiah said.
“Dodson can’t do no jobs by himself,” Deronda said. “I knew it but I said it anyway. He’s going to get himself killed.”
“What job? Who’s going to kill him?”
It was the day after Dodson hit Isaiah with the gun outside the storage locker. Dodson and Deronda were on the foldout staring at the TV. They’d been there for a couple of hours, didn’t matter what was on.
“We need a way to get some money,” Deronda said.
“Like what?” Dodson said.
“I don’t know.”
“The fuck you say anything for?”
Deronda needed him relaxed and open-minded. She reached for his package. “Come here, baby,” she said. “Let me release your tension.” After they had sex and Dodson was almost asleep, Deronda made her move. “Where does Kinkee get his dope from?” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Junior,” Dodson said. “He got a cartel connection.”
“How much do he pay for like a kilo?”
“Fifteen, twenty thousand, around in there.”
“How many kilos do he get?”
“I don’t know. More than one.”
“Reup day he must be carrying some real money.”
Dodson dozed off for a moment and then his eyes popped open. “You better blank that outta your mind, girl. We could get shot just sitting here thinking about it.”
“I’m not saying we do anything.”
Dodson’s voice went falsetto: “Do anything like what?”
“Dang, baby, I’m just curious, that’s all.” She nuzzled his neck and walked her fingers over his groin. “I mean like, how’s it go down, reup day?”
“We run out of stones, Junior goes to Boyle Heights with a bag full of money and comes back with a bag full of cocaine.”
“He don’t worry about gettin’ robbed?”
Dodson told her Junior was no fool. If you wanted to rob him your first problem was the building he lived in. The Sea Crest over in Bluff Park where people drove hybrid cars and had names like Jason and Laura and Chin Ho. Not the kind of people who’d be eager to buzz your gangsta ass in and even if you managed to catch the door when the FedEx man came out you’d still have to get Junior to open his door and not shoot you with his pistol or his AK.
“Does Junior got security?” Deronda said.
Dodson shook his head like he was looking at tornado damage. “Booze Lewis, he said.”