'I'll need a bog.'
'There's a McDonald's at Thirty-fourth and Ninth.'
A few minutes later we pulled in. One by one they went to use the bathroom.
'You?'
I shook my head. Too scared.
We circled the island one more time, and by then, almost midnight, the men were bored.
'Fucking H.J., man.'
'This is the job. When you're for hire, this is the job.'
'You guys bribable?' I asked. 'You can take me to a cash machine, clean out my account, let me walk away with a little pocket money, go buy myself a drink.'
The man on my left laughed. 'You're all right.'
Then a cell phone in the car rang and the three men straightened up. The man on my left answered.
'Okay,' he said, lowering his voice, 'we'll be right there.'
We rolled into the West Twenties, not so far from where I lived. The limo eased along the curb and I was escorted up the steps of an old factory building. The men kept close to me now, urging me along, one tight hand under my arm. I thought about running, knew it would be futile. We approached an unmarked black metal door.
'This is where we get off,' one of the men said.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'The likes of us are not welcome in there.' He looked at me, eyes mirthful. 'Not that you will find us complaining, though.'
The door opened. Four black guys in good suits stepped out. I was passed to their firm control. The door shut quickly behind me. Inside I heard rap music pounding, and it became louder as I was hurried through a dark hallway constructed of painted plywood. We passed several young black girls giggling outside a door marked PRIVATE and I knew that the sight of a middle-aged white man there was shocking to them, anomalous, as impossible as a reindeer. Next the hallway became tinted with red lights, the smell of pot lingering. We passed a stairwell where two black men were casually beating a third. They turned in surprise when they saw us.
'Chill,' murmured one of my escorts.
'He's a cop?'
They pushed me along, up a set of stairs. At the landing we came upon a crowd of black teenagers watching a pit bull hanging three feet in the air from a thick, knotted rope. The dog had the rope in his jaws.
'Yo,' said one of my escorts. 'How long?'
'Nine minutes.'
The dog's eyeballs rolled around and he shook his head savagely, a froth at the edges of his teeth.
'What's the record?'
'Twenty-six.'
We climbed another flight of stairs, passing promotional fliers, pictures of rap artists, and framed album covers. A large black woman in gold lame and sunglasses passed. 'Hi baby,' she murmured. We came to a glass door with HANDJOB PRODUCTIONS stenciled on it.
'Inside, yo.'
Inside was a small office with a black glass window overlooking the club's dance floor. The men followed me, pulling the door shut behind them. To one side lay a panel of unused mixing equipment, turntables and tape decks, and to the other sat an enormously fat black man in a red silken robe and security headset. He had on gold sunglasses, the lenses coated with some sort of shimmery hologramic stuff. His chair was elevated so that he had a bird's-eye view of the dance floor. Next to him stood a two-hundred-gallon oil can with a slit in the lid. Around us, and up through the floor, came the heavy thud of the bass. Occasionally a scream of excitement. Below on the floor, hundreds of bodies moved in an undulant mass, spotlights strobing crazily across them as a rap group spun through its stylized, chain-swinging, crotch-grabbing moves.
'Yo, H.J., this is the dude.'
H.J. pointed at a chair for me to sit and waved away the other guys.
'We'll be right outside, bro.'
He didn't bother to look at me. Instead he watched the dance floor for a few minutes and talked into his headset. 'See what them niggas is doin' over by the red couch.' He leaned forward, watching. 'No, the dude in the green- yeah, him. He bitin' my style. Tell that nigga I'm in his mind. All right… be cool. Yo, Antwawn? Antwawn, I want that box up here right now. Bring it up.'
'Hey,' I said. 'You want to tell me why I'm here?'
'Don't talk when a man is doin' his business,' came the response. 'Antwawn, I want to see yo ass in like-' He turned around. 'What'd you call me? You call me 'Hey'?'
'I asked you why you had me here.'
A giant smile under the sunglasses. 'White man, you got an improper education. My name is H.J.'
'Pleased to meet you,' I said. 'Now tell me why I'm here.'
The door opened. A young man with dreadlocks and a tattoo of Daffy Duck on his arm carried in a lockbox. This, presumably, was Antwawn. He looked at me. 'Who that?'
H.J. ignored the question. 'Open it.'
Antwawn unlocked the box and tilted it toward H.J. Even from where I sat I could see it was full of cash. 'Okay?'
H.J. opened the box, removed a short stack of bills that he put in his pocket, then took a roll of masking tape and wrapped the box about five times. 'That's enough,' he told himself. He signed his name over the tape with a thick felt marker. 'Put it in the safe.'
Antwawn knelt under the console, opened a door, placed the box inside, closed the safe.
Down on the dance floor they were screaming. 'How many girls you got out there?' H.J. asked.
'Nineteen, plus Serena at the register.'
'You got LaQueen on tonight?'
'Yeah.' Antwawn smiled. 'You want her?'
'Tell her come up here, show me somethin'.'
As Antwawn left, another man in a velveteen shirt came in. He had a bad scar across one forearm. He looked at us. 'Who this white dude?'
'He just visiting. Let's see it.'
The man with the scar pulled out a small silver pistol.
'Good. He fight at all?'
'Not really, boss.'
H.J. dropped the gun into the slit in the oil can. He pulled a fistful of bills out of his red robe, gave it to the man. 'Here.' They tapped their fists together and the man with the scar left.
Now he turned to me. 'You work for that Jay Rainey?'
'No.'
'That's bullshit.'
I shrugged.
'My aunt say she talked with you today.'
'With Rainey, mostly. I just happened to be there.'
'What she want?'
'Money.'
'That's right. But she made one mistake.'
'What?'
'She got the number wrong.'
I said nothing.
'I said she got the number wrong, she got it too low.'
'I heard you.'
'You disrespectin' my people?' he asked, lights strobing behind his head.
'No.'
