Booze Lewis, known on the street as Peen, was sixteen years old when he was tried as an adult for attempted kidnapping, mayhem, and aggravated assault. When he went into Corcoran he weighed a hundred and sixty-one pounds. When he got out thirty-nine months later he was a hundred and ninety-five pounds of prison yard muscle and any fat you found on him was on his plate.
“Why do they call him Peen?” Deronda said.
“’Cause he killed Cole Campbell with a ball-peen hammer and he ain’t but the half of it.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Michael Stokely. If you on his hit list and still alive it’s because he’s busy shooting somebody else. Carries that sawed-off Mossberg. Aim that bitch up in the air and you’ll hit four or five niggas—and why we even talking about this? Ain’t no way to rip off Junior.”
“I think you downgradin’ yourself.”
“I have never in my whole life downgraded myself.”
“How many jobs you pulled off? A bunch, right? You got some experience, you got some knowledge. You a professional you ask me.”
Dodson nodded. That was true. “Yeah, but robbing a pet store ain’t nothing like trying to jack Junior.”
“I’m not saying they the same. I’m saying you could work it out in your mind, ask yourself how the shit could go down.”
“Ask myself how the—I am myself. Why would I ask somebody who don’t know?”
“You could know. I got faith you in, baby. You could pull this off, I know you could… if you asked yourself the right question.”
“What right question?”
“I’m gonna say something now, don’t get mad, aight?”
“Just say what you say, girl, damn.”
“What you need to ask yourself is… what would Isaiah do?”
Dodson told her shut the fuck up and sent her out for Thai food. Then he watched a rerun of Chopped. Then he smoked a joint. Then he went out on the balcony and walked back and forth for a while until he finally got down to it.
What would Isaiah do?
He’d check everything out, do his research, and Kinkee had done most of that already. On the last run to Boyle Heights, Booze was in the hospital and Kinkee took his place. He talked about it every chance he got like it was some kind of honor risking his life for free. Dodson and Sedrick had heard the story twice already but had to hear it again because Kinkee hadn’t doled out the new product yet.
“So like me and Stokely go to Junior’s crib, right?” Kinkee said. “And it’s like ten in the morning, people gone to work. That way ain’t no cars around, you could see what’s comin’ both ways, can’t nobody drive up on us—that’s sharp, ain’t it? So then like I get buzzed in and I’m thinkin’ Junior’s in the penthouse, you know how he be luxuriatin’ but check dis. His crib is on the first floor. Wanna know why?”
“So he can’t get trapped in the elevator,” Sedrick said.
“So he can’t get trapped in the—who’s telling this story, nigga? Shit. See what kind of rocks you get this time—where was I? Oh yeah, so I get buzzed in, right? And I goes to the apartment, knock on the door. Junior checks me in the peephole, comes out with a shopping bag full of paper and that gun he likes, what’s it called?”
“Sig Sauer forty-cal,” Sedrick said.
“Who gives a shit, Sedrick? Okay, so now we go back to the lobby and it’s like glass across the front and we could see Stokely waitin’ in his car. So if he like nods in a certain way the coast is clear. If he nods another way we sit tight. That’s thinkin’ in the forefront, you feel me? So then Junior gets in my car and Stokely follows us in his car with that damn Mossberg because—”
“The Locos like to drive up on you and shoot you at a stoplight,” Sedrick said. “Can I get some stones now?”
Dodson went to the Sea Crest, found a side door the janitor used, and bump-keyed his way in. He walked Kinkee’s route to Junior’s apartment. It was in the middle of the hall. No way to sneak up behind him. If you came through the fire exit at the far end he’d see you coming. Dodson made a list and drew a couple of diagrams. It felt good working something out in advance, visualizing what would happen. It was like controlling the future, having that airtight plan.
Next day he went back to work at the House, which had moved to another fucked-up apartment on Seminole. He told the fellas he went to see his people in Oakland. With his last money he bought some product and served it up to the fiends just like before. For some reason he thought things would be different but they were exactly the same. The fucked-up atmosphere, the fellas talking shit and doing nothing, the dope fiends killing themselves one rock at a time. He served it up for a week and a day until everybody was down to two-dollar chips and the crackheads were buying from the Locos.
It was Sedrick that asked Kinkee, “When’s the reup happening?”
“That’s some classified shit, nigga,” Kinkee said. “Above your lowly-ass pay grade, you feel me? I’ll let you know when I let you know.”