“He’s not getting any better,” Kate said. “I’m worried about him. His counselor called and said his teachers are concerned about him. He’s in class but he’s not there. Doesn’t do his homework. His grades have dropped.”
Maureen said, “Do you talk to him about it?”
“He doesn’t talk. He comes home and goes to his room. He doesn’t see his friends. Doesn’t do anything.”
“Isn’t he seeing someone?”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “A psychiatrist recommended by the school.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t need help, I’ve got all the neighborhood men.”
Maureen grinned. “What did the dirty-talker say?”
Kate took a sip of wine, trying to remember and then she did and started to laugh.
EIGHT
Amber told DeJuan about this dude was looking for someone to pop his wife. DeJuan said, “Why you telling me?”
Amber said, “ ’Cause he’s offering ten grand and I thought maybe you’d be interested.”
She was behind the bar, mixing a drink, looking fine in her black low-cut outfit. DeJuan said, “I strike you as somebody going to kill some motherfucker for money?”
Amber said, “Why you think I’m telling you?”
“That the way you see me, huh?” He picked up his drink, Courvoisier and Coke and finished it.
Amber said, “Want another one?”
He nodded. The music was so loud he could hardly hear her. Place was packed with scene-makers on a Thursday night. Two-deep at the bar. He was in one of the swivel bar chairs, watching an early-season Tigers game on the flat screen. Amber put a fresh drink in front of him. He said, “How you know this dude is looking for someone?”
“We used to go out,” Amber said. “Let me put it another way. He used to take me to his place in Bermuda. Fly down in the Gulfstream, Marty doing lines like the governor just pardoned him.”
DeJuan said, “You tell him about me?”
Amber said, “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“Where’s he at?”
“See that guy with the long silver hair?”
DeJuan saw him down the bar. Weird-looking, kind of freakish dude, bald on top with long hair hanging off the back of his head, mid-fifties, drinking what looked like vodka on the rocks-the right glass, with a slice of lemon. He was all over this young thing, blond in a tank top, seemed to be ignoring him.
Amber said, “Go talk to him if you’re interested.”
She moved down the bar to get a drink for someone. DeJuan looked up at the TV, saw Maggs hit a tater to left against the Twins, watched him run the bases and win the game, Ordonez making it look easy. DeJuan looked down the bar again, saw the dude with the hair finish his drink, get up and move through the crowd. DeJuan put his drink on the bar top and followed him outside, standing behind him on the street, waiting for the light to change. It was dark, the marquee of the Birmingham Theater casting light on the scene. And the people were out, little bitches in their skimpy, skin-tight outfits, the man checking them out, not missing a thing.
He crossed the street. It was easy to follow him with that hair-compensating for being bald on top, that silver pelt he had, saying, look motherfucker, I got all the hair I need. Check it out.
DeJuan followed him, trying to catch up. The man walking fast, almost running. He stopped in front of a restaurant, sign said 220, went down the stairs into a place called Edison’s, high-priced Birmingham nightclub look like somebody’s basement-pipes and shit exposed in the ceiling-like it was under construction. Place was dark and crowded and filled with smoke. DeJuan felt his eyes burn. He didn’t care for cigarettes. Never had one in his life, never would.
The man stopped at the bar, ordered a vodka, took his drink into the men’s. DeJuan followed him in, only two guys in there and watched him take out a coke vial, do a one on one.
He saw DeJuan looking at him and said, “You a cop?”
DeJuan said, “I look like a cop?”
“Want a bump?”
DeJuan said, “Amber say you’re looking for a contractor.”
Man said, “What’re you talking about?”
DeJuan said, “Looking for somebody to fulfill a contract is what I understand.”
He put the little black spoon up to his nose and snorted it up his left nostril, then his right.
“Got somebody around, you don’t want around no more.”
He pinched his nose and snorted hard and screwed the top back on the vial and put it in his shirt pocket. “Now’s not the time. Maybe we can meet somewhere, discuss a business arrangement.”
DeJuan liked that, the man talking about it in his serious business voice now. He wrote his phone number on a piece of paper, handed it to him. “My private line. Call when you’re ready to talk.”
DeJuan went through the door back into the smoky nightclub, Thornetta Davis doing “I Ain’t Superstitious,” belting out the lyrics as DeJuan passed in front her, checking out the country club dudes dancing with their ladies, if you could call it that, stiff moves and no rhythm like they dancing to some other song.
DeJuan was robbing a 7-Eleven the next morning when his cell phone rang. It was the dude with the hair.
He said, “Hey, this is Marty, can you meet me in the parking lot of Bed Bath amp; Beyond on Sixteen Mile in thirty minutes?”
At first, DeJuan had no idea who this dude Marty was, thinking it was a wrong number, but then he recognized his voice.
DeJuan said, “I’m kind of busy at the moment, can you give me an hour?” It was a shocker. DeJuan would’ve bet his diamond pinky ring he’d never hear from the dude again. He glanced down at the 7-Eleven manager lying on the floor in his green vest, hands and feet wrapped in duct tape-angry sawed-off little dude. Before DeJuan taped his mouth, manager Mr. Richard Ferguson said 7-Eleven would prosecute him to the full extent of the law and did he want to reconsider and turn himself in?
“Yeah,” DeJuan said, “Straight up, I want to turn myself in. You’re such a bad ass, I’m worried.” Did he want to turn his self in? The fuck was wrong with his head?
DeJuan had come in the back door. Walked up, there was a dude named Russ-Russ smoking out behind the store when DeJuan approached, placed the barrel of his SigSauer Nine against Russ’s cheek, said, “Break over, motherfucker, get back to work.”
He dropped his cigarette and DeJuan walked him through the stockroom into an office. There was a desk with a phone and a bank of TV monitors that showed different parts of the store. There was a guy behind the counter working the register.
DeJuan said, “Who’s that?”
Russ said, “The manager, Mr. Ferguson.”
“Tell Mr. Ferguson, get his ass in here, you got an emergency needs his immediate fucking attention.”
Russ grinned. “He’s not going to like this.”
After DeJuan secured Mr. Ferguson, he had Russ show him how to turn off the video cameras. Then he tied Russ up, put him in the stockroom.
He was cleaning out the register-look like about $1,700-when a customer come in, old lady, had something in her hand, coming toward him. He closed the register and turned toward the woman. “How you doing? Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
The woman held up a carton of cottage cheese and said, “I want my money back.” She pulled the top off and
