City of Saints & Thieves(3)

You’d never guess the two Goondas were related. Bug Eye is older, maybe twenty-five. He’s muscled and broad, with a serious face and eyes that can see straight into your dirty, lying soul. People say he looks like Jay Z. Ketchup, on the other hand, is scrawny and seems way younger than his eighteen years. He has a narrow face and a laugh like a hyena. People say he looks like a starving weasel.

At their feet are two duffel bags full of gear: laptops, dark hoodies, wires, tape, potato crisps, and energy drinks. All the essentials.

I step up to look over their shoulders.

“We’ll roll up here,” Bug Eye says. He taps the blueprint and fixes me with his trademark unnerving stare. I nod and he turns back to the paper. “Then what, Ketchup?”

“Man, we been over this a hundred times. We drop Tiny Girl and cruise the block, try and park here.” He stabs the paper with his finger.

“And what’ll we do while we wait?”

Ketchup snickers and makes a dirty hand gesture. He looks at me to see if I blush. I don’t.

Bug Eye smacks him on the back of the head. “Weh, grow up,” he says, not looking up from the plans.

Ketchup rubs the back of his head and sulks, but doesn’t protest. Even he knows better than to fight Bug Eye.

“Okay, Boyboy’s gonna be with me in the van, doing his computer thing,” Bug Eye goes on.

Boyboy keeps his arms crossed tightly over his chest, maintaining a respectful distance. He doesn’t say anything. He isn’t a Goonda.

“And you’re lookout,” Bug Eye tells his brother.

“So what’s your smart ass going to be doing?” Ketchup retorts.

“Being in charge of you,” he says smoothly. “Reporting back to Mr. Omoko. And that just leaves Tiny Girl. You know where you’re going?”

All three are looking at me now.

I lift my chin. “Yeah.”

Bug Eye jerks his head at the blueprints. It’s a question, so I step forward. I reach between Ketchup’s and Bug Eye’s shoulders and plant my finger on the street outside the mansion. I push it past the electrified perimeter fence, through eighteen-inch-thick walls, past laser scanners, down silent carpeted hallways, and between little notes: guards, camera, dogs. It stops deep in the building’s heart.

“There.”





THREE


Rule 3: Thieves don’t have friends.

Every thief has a mother, and maybe even a little sister if she’s lucky, but you can’t help any of that. You can have people like Boyboy’s mom, who I say hi to every day on my way home. That’s just keeping tabs on the neighborhood. She sells tea on the corner and tells me if cops are around, and I make sure the Goondas go easy on her boy. You can have acquaintances. But friends, people you care about, and who care about you . . .

Well, you’re only going to get them into trouble.

? ? ?

Before you even ask, Boyboy is not my friend.

He’s my business partner. Big difference. He’s from Congo too, so I don’t have to explain certain things to him that I’d rather not talk about, like where my family is, or why I don’t really sleep, or why men in uniforms make me twitch. Sometimes he comes over to my roof and we share a smoke and watch the sun disappear into the smog that caresses the city. That’s it. Boyboy has his party boys, and I have Kiki. You probably think that’s sad or something, but I’m not sad.

Besides, I don’t have a lot of time for making friends. I have things to do.

? ? ?

We use a florist’s van to get there. Ketchup is driving, and Bug Eye keeps yelling at him to slow down and watch the road. It’s two in the morning and cops are just as likely to shake us down for cash as care that we’re running red lights, but still, better that no one remembers seeing a van full of kids dressed in black and obviously not florists. The closer we get, the more ready I am to be out and working. Ketchup’s constant prattle makes me nervous. He laughs his hyena laugh and says gross stuff about the twilight girls on the street corners we pass.

In the back, Boyboy and I are quiet, getting ready. I attach my earpiece and make sure the Bluetooth is connecting to my phone.

“Let’s see how the camera is feeding,” Boyboy says.

I look at him, aiming the micro-camera embedded in the earpiece. His face pops up on his laptop screen. “Good.” He watches himself pat his hair into place as he asks, “Mic check? Say something.”

I whisper, “Boyboy got no fashion sense,” and the little earpiece relays my words to my phone, and then to Boyboy’s computer, where I hear myself echo.

He flips me off seamlessly, between the adjustments he’s making to his equipment. “Can you hear me okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You’re clear.”

“You have to keep your phone close to the earpiece. When you had it in your pocket on that last job, the connection was bad. Where are you putting it?”

I tuck my phone into my sports bra and wave my hands—ta-da.

“Cute.”

“Secure.”

“Put this one in your pocket,” he says, and hands me a tiny USB adapter. “It’s the key to the treasure box and I don’t want it getting lost in your cleavage.”

“Ha.” My chest is barely larger than my eleven-year-old sister’s. But I do as he asks.