IQ(88)

“Shake. How to identify him.”

“Well, let me see. He’s got a tattoo on his forearm, I saw it when he was drinking my orange juice straight out of the box. It was a crown, like a king’s crown and some letters, CRR or CMM, something like that. And what else? Some numbers. Nineteen hundred?”

“The crown is for Prince Street,” Isaiah said, “and it’s seventeen hundred. That’s the block number. The letters are CHH. For Crip Headhunters.”

“I just remembered,” Tudor said. “There were some initials too. BK. Yes, I’m sure about that. BK. That should narrow it down some, don’t you think?”

“BK means Blood killer,” Isaiah said. “Crips and Bloods are enemies.”

“Good Lord, what’s this world coming to?” Tudor said. “I grew up the hard way myself but youngsters these days are another breed altogether. Blood killer. When I was a kid we didn’t have to kill somebody to settle a score. We did it one on one, man to man, fist to fist. Any fool can pull a trigger. And there was none of this beatdown nonsense. Most cowardly thing I ever heard of. Five or six guys beating up on one. Is that what passes for badass these days? That’s punk behavior if you ask me. You can’t take care of your business by yourself, you shouldn’t be on the street in the first place.”

They heard a horn honk. They could see Anita sitting in Tudor’s snow-white Range Rover tapping her snow-white nails on the windowsill. She held her head high like an Egyptian queen if Egyptian queens chewed gum, wore sunglasses with rhinestones on them, and styled their hair in elaborate blond curls.

“Anita,” Tudor said. “She’ll be wanting to know when you’re going to start, which I’m hoping is immediately.”

Isaiah didn’t like Tudor. He was arrogant, not asking for help, just assuming Isaiah would do his bidding, and not even polite about it. And he didn’t like the man’s pinkie ring or the metallic blue suit that fit him too good to be off the rack or the Rolex watch. A gold Yacht-Master, the same one Dodson had wanted. Nineteen thousand dollars and change. “I’m not doing this for free,” Isaiah said.

“I guess I misunderstood,” Tudor said. “I thought you did these kinds of things as a community service.”

“Sometimes I do.”

“But not with me, is that it?” Tudor said, flicking some imaginary lint off his lapel. “All right, young man, what do you intend to charge me for your services?”

“A thousand dollars,” Isaiah said, picking a number out of the air.

“A thousand—you must be joking,” Tudor said. “I’m not paying you a thousand dollars or anything like it. You think I just fell off the turnip truck? Who do you think you’re dealing with? I was hustling for my daily bread while you were still in—where’re you going?”

Tudor caught up with Isaiah in the parking lot. “My offer is two hundred dollars and that’s overly generous if you ask me.”

“No thank you.”

“No thank you? You’ve never made two hundred dollars for a day’s work in your entire life.”

“Yes I have.”

“I’m losing my patience, young man, but I’ll tell you what. For the sake of the girl’s safety I’m going to let you rob me today and today only. Three hundred dollars but only when Darcy is returned unharmed to her mother. Do we have a deal?”

“No, we don’t have a deal.”

“Let’s have a reality check here, shall we? You know as well as I do that fetching that girl is no big deal.”

“If you think it’s no big deal going into a Crip hood and taking a girl away from a drug dealer I’ll give you three hundred dollars and you can go get her yourself.”

“You’re a tough negotiator and I can appreciate that, but you’re about to negotiate yourself out of a very substantial paycheck.” Tudor looked at Anita, smiled, and said: “Everything’s okay, boo, we’re just coming to terms.” Anita popped her gum. “Now you listen to me, young man,” Tudor said, “you are making me look bad in front of my fiancée, something I can assure you I will not forget.”

“What happens when you remember?” Isaiah said, letting the threat pass.

“This is my last and final offer and I am not a man who bluffs. Five hundred dollars, take it or leave it.”

“I’ll leave it.”

“Well, you have just thrown five hundred dollars out the window and you only have yourself to blame. I won’t have my arm twisted, not even for Anita.”

“Tudor?” Anita said. “Don’t even say the word * ’til you get my daughter back.”

Tudor smiled like he’d farted in a crowded elevator. “Will you take a check?” he said. “I don’t have that kind of cash on me.”


Cruising slow through a Crip hood and looking for someone was drive-by behavior and likely to get you shot. Isaiah found three girls about Darcy’s age in the Baskin-Robbins eating double-scoop cones and talking loud.

“I’m looking for my sister, name is Darcy?” Isaiah said. “Mama died and I got to tell her.”

“Why don’t you call her?” one of the girls said.

“I don’t know how she gonna take it, you feel me? For all I know she might faint or something. I need to be there with her.” The girls told him a light-skinned girl named Darcy was living in a brown apartment building three blocks up on Prince.