IQ(18)

“Not like I used to be if that’s what you mean. When Tupac said thug he meant a brutha that had nothing but still held his head up, didn’t take shit from nobody, and did what he had to do. Tupac was all about positivity and he cared about his people too. Rapped about poverty, injustice, getting beat down by the system. Suge Knight said Tupac is still alive and living on an island.”

Isaiah had some rap in his collection, even a couple of Tupac albums, but he’d stopped listening to that music a long time ago. All those word images about a life he’d never aspired to. Nowadays he listened to all kinds of music: Coltrane, Beethoven, Segovia, Yusef Lateef, Yo-Yo Ma. But no singers. Music without words let him fill his head with images of his own making or no images at all. He still had Marcus’s Motown records but he never played them. If he heard a song in a store or on somebody’s radio he walked away.

Dodson’s toothpick flicked a tiny speck onto the dashboard.

“Hey, don’t get stuff on my car,” Isaiah said.

Dodson looked for the speck, his face an inch from the dashboard. “Do you have a magnifying glass? Because I can’t—oh, there it is, I see it, I thought it was a flea.”

“Whatever, just don’t get stuff on my car.”

“Still a touchy li’l nigga, ain’t you? It’s like the apartment all over again.”

“Could you please tell me about the case before we get there?”

Victorious, Dodson smiled. “The client is Black the Knife,” he said, expecting Isaiah to be impressed.

“Who?” Isaiah said.

“Black the Knife, the rapper? Are you that behind the times? He was in that Nelly, Ludacris, Mystikal, Busta Rhymes generation. He got the houses, the cars, clothing line, his own brand of tequila, his own cologne. I got it on now. Why you making that face? I’m trying to give you the background.” Dodson knew Isaiah would do his impatient, condescending thing. Hard not to react but there was serious money on the line. “Black the Knife’s real name is Calvin Wright,” Dodson said. “Grew up in Inglewood over by Hollywood Park. Ran with the Damu Bloods before he got into the game. Anthony said somebody tried to cap him at his crib, almost got him too.”

“Who’s Anthony?”

“My second cousin, you never met him? A year ahead of us. Got a scholarship to college somewhere, worked for Bobby Grimes. I think that’s how he met Cal.”

Isaiah didn’t know who Bobby Grimes was but he wasn’t going to ask.

“Anthony said he couldn’t talk about it over the phone but it was urgent,” Dodson said. “Cal won’t leave the house and he’s supposed to be recording an album.”

“His crew can’t protect him?”

“That’s the part I don’t understand. His security is the Moody brothers, Bug and Charles. I don’t know ’em but I heard about ’em. They some bad muthaf*ckas. You had them along you could walk down the middle of Afghanistan Boulevard and not worry about a thing.”

“Why didn’t they go to the police?”

“Anthony said this was under wraps and he said it twice. Made me swear I wouldn’t tell nobody but you.”

“What about the fee?”

“This is where it gets good. You get your per diem plus a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus if we solve the case.”

“Fifty thousand? That can’t be right. It’s too much money.”

“You can thank me for that. I told Anthony we were starting another case and the client was giving up a serious stack of paper. Anthony said how much and I said twenty-five thousand. He said he’d match it and I said why would we cancel a case if all we get is the same money? He said thirty-five and I said fifty. Twenty-five for the work and twenty-five for the lost client. He asked Cal and Cal said okay.”

“That makes no sense,” Isaiah said. “For fifty grand they could hire one of those high-tech security firms. They’ve got databases, law enforcement connections, and investigators that are ex-FBI.”

“Cal and them is some real niggas,” Dodson said. “You know they ain’t hiring no ex-FBI and they got that mentality. You don’t pay big money, it ain’t worth big money.”

“You know I’m going to work the case myself.”

“Not gonna happen. I told Anthony we was partners, part of my sales presentation. And this is an opportunity to expand my network and form new business relationships and I’m not giving that up just ’cause you got an attitude problem.”

“I work alone so I can do things my own way and don’t have to worry about anybody but myself.”

“You work alone ’cause you don’t respect nobody but yourself and in this particular situation that’s too damn bad. And just out of curiosity, why are you so broke? You spend too much on the car?”

“I’m not broke and I built the car.”

“Nigga, please. Nobody can build a damn Audi, not even you. And while we’re on the subject of money, my cut is half. Don’t look at me like that. The money wouldn’t be on the table if it wasn’t for me and I don’t mind telling you it took my ceaseless energy, business acumen, and no small measure of people skills to make this deal happen and I expect to be compensated accordingly.”

“You know that’s not true,” Isaiah said. “Anthony read that article in The Scene, didn’t he? He remembered you and me were in the same class and called you.”