“Are there any recordings from the night of the incident?” she asked him.
“No, unfortunately.”
“Are there any technical logs or digital signatures that you can provide?”
“Not that I can provide, sorry.”
“So, what can you tell us?” Tilly finally relented.
“All I have for you two is career advice. For cases like this, you just have to roll with what you’re given. I understand that you care about your job and that you have values and want to get out here and solve this, but the people who stick around aren’t the people who solve every piece of the case. The people who stick around are the ones who take the little they got and make something from it. So don’t look at me like I’m the reason you don’t have any perps. The play don’t care who makes it.”
Before Tilly could respond, a dull knock drifted through the room. The balding man rose immediately, gesturing at the door. Tilly shot up just as quickly, exiting without a word. The hallway was filled with people, but Tilly avoided their eyes, making a beeline to the parking lot.
Rick joined her soon after, oddly stoked.
“Why are you smiling? Did you finally get that asshole to open up?” Tilly asked him.
“Nah, Angela Bassett was in the hallway. You walked right past her. She’s working with some screenwriters on a script for a Stella reboot.”
Tilly chortled. At least the man had been honest about the conference room. That didn’t explain why the parking lot was still empty, but there were more pressing problems.
Silently, Tilly and Rick sauntered to her car, both of them opening the doors and lingering outside to let the hot air filter out. The tan leather would still be molten, but that couldn’t be fixed. After a spell, they slid in.
“Within certain limitations,” Rick said as they exited the base, “I think we’ll be all right.”
“You listen to too much Kendrick Lamar. We’re fucked.”
“No such thing as too much Kendrick. And yes, we are fucked, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The guy was kind of right. We won’t be able to solve this case, but we can build a case.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“Exactly. If there isn’t a trail to follow, you build a trail.”
“You sound like you’re giving a Ted Talk.”
“Not all of them are bad.”
Rick continued, but Tilly stopped listening, focusing on the road ahead. Somehow, she was supposed to solve a cybercrime without the help of the government agency affected and without access to the digital scene of the crime. Maybe the higher-ups really were trying to shut down the Atlanta office.
Suddenly exhausted, she realized she needed a shutdown herself. Or a restart. They never worked one case at a time. There had to be something with some loose ends.
“Hey,” she said softly, “where are we at on that Sims case?”
“Still waiting on him to do something stupid. Shouldn’t take too long, considering his MO, but we’re tied up until he moves.”
“Damn. How about the aquarium case? Haven’t heard about that in a while.”
“We closed it in June.”
“Councilman Lanza? That goes to trial soon.”
“Was supposed to start later this month, but the prosecutor offered a plea deal. She bought a cruise ticket for September. She’d have had to push it back if she’d presented all the evidence we gave her.”
“Shit.”
Tilly had missed the slight turn to continue onto Lee, back toward I-20 and rush hour. It could easily be corrected, but she hated U-turns. Defiantly, she remained on Whitehall, a slight sense of subversion rising in her as the car ducked under I-20.
“I don’t feel like working this case right now,” she confessed after a few minutes of silence. “Take me somewhere I haven’t been before.”
“You sure?”
Tilly knew he was warning her, but she’d do anything not to end up back at home, telling herself she was relaxing just because she was listening to Drake and reviewing case files in her pajamas.
“Yeah.”
“Bet!” he exclaimed. “Left on Forsyth,” he said seconds later. As soon as they’d turned, he pointed to a lot on the left.
Tilly pulled in, parking in the back next to a lemon-yellow Suburban with shimmering black trim. The other cars in the lot were just as customized, a Candyland for a Toretto or an O’Conner.
“Leave your phone,” Rick told her before they stepped out the car.
“Leave your gun,” she replied back, disarming herself.
So, this was the legendary Magic City, the strip club where rappers nationwide came to jettison their money. It didn’t look like much, Tilly thought. They approached a windowless rectangular building, a blocky citadel with the squat dimensions of a brick. When she’d moved to Atlanta, all her girlfriends in DC had joked she’d secretly been hired here. “People move to Atlanta for two reasons,” Nikki told her the night before she moved. “More money and more space.” Maybe she’d put in an application, Tilly thought, if that was how strip clubs even worked. She’d have to ask just for kicks, she decided as they neared the entrance. This place was always coming up in cases anyway. There had to be something going on.
“Don’t even think about it,” Rick warned when they reached the door. She tended to grimace when she was thinking about casework. “This is pleasure, not business.”
Tilly scowled, slinking into the empty line for security. Two dozy guards patted them down then waved them off. Tilly was surprised by their professionalism. They checked everywhere.
Inside, there was just enough light to discern various bodies, but only when they were in motion. She knew they were mostly men. That was guaranteed. Rick was saying something, but Tilly struggled to hear him over the sounds of some Rihanna song that her body knew but her mind didn’t recognize. Something about working. Was Rihanna stressed or liberated? The fact that Tilly even had to ask made her feel old.
“What?!” she eventually shouted at Rick.
“Are you hungry?” he shouted back, finally audible. Extending his arm, he guided her into a seat near an empty, unlit stage.
“Yeah, I am.”
“The chicken and waffles is pretty good,” he advised, settling down a seat away.
A lean server dressed in black lingerie appeared soon after, taking their orders. Tilly surprised herself when she ordered a cocktail. Rick ordered coffee. Instinctively, Tilly scanned the room as the woman walked away. An unfathomable pile of money was forming beneath a gyrating dancer on another stage, all provided by one man. Tilly wondered if the waitstaff had a tip out arrangement with the dancers. In such a clearly hierarchical environment, it had to be competitive. There were probably weekly fights. High turnover. Cliques. Alliances. Spies.
“You’re doing it again,” Rick warned her, wrinkling up his face in mockery. “We’re not always on the clock.”
The cocktail arrived quickly. Tilly hesitated to drink it. Was she really about to drink on a Wednesday afternoon, with a coworker, in a strip club? She’d been to a million happy hours, but this was something else.
Abruptly, the stage in front of her lit up. Vibrant hues of amethyst and sapphire snaked around the stage’s towering pole. Coolly, a woman appeared, as thick as a pillar, curves like an orbit. Her strut was spectacular, each step made to be remembered. She channeled rhythm like a conduit, her wide hips swaying slowly. She mounted the pole legs first, defying physics by sliding up before easing down. Before her feet touched the ground, cash began to swarm around her, gliding across her gleaming, quivering skin, the smoothest transaction. The woman had a supernatural relationship with the booming music, Tilly felt, her fleshy body dissolving into the flickering stage lights, every jiggle eerily deliberate, every dollar earned.
Tilly sipped her drink.
The July sun hammered into Kai’s back as she jumped rope in her driveway. She hated the purity of jumping rope. It could never be anything other than straight up work, no matter how much you tried to make it fun. Kai had tried everything, but nothing ever worked: headphones always fell out, speakers got drowned out by the slap of the rope against the concrete, and it was never scenic because it could only be done in one place. Jump roping was labor through and through, no breaks, no daydreaming, no thrills, just calories evaporating into the ether.
It worked, though. After thirty-five minutes, Kai felt the same level of exhaustion as after an hour of tennis. Satisfied, she stopped, tossing the nylon rope aside and plopping into the gasping crabgrass of her front yard.
June was gone forever, along with her interest in Theo. He’d spent an entire month hounding her about what they’d done and complaining about the heat. She could deal with the latter, but the former was unexpected. How could he have had such a drastic change of a heart about a plan he’d cooked up? They’d tagged schools and hospitals and houses and businesses and cars and headstones. He knew how collateral damage worked. This was graffiti, not a gluten-free bake sale. Maybe his hatred for Six Flags had blinded him, Kai considered. He hated that place so much that he’d once rear-ended someone on I-20 because he was too distracted throwing the theme park a double finger. Whatever the case, she didn’t care. They were over.
Good thing she’d decided to go to a school he hadn’t applied to, unlike Zed and Apollo, who were both going to Georgia Tech. They seemed good, though; they could stick it out. Her and Theo? Nah.
Sprawling out on the prickly grass, Kai exhaled, more defeated than fatigued. After two weeks of declined invitations, she’d finally gotten Sol to commit to tennis, but this morning, the day they were supposed to meet, the chick had still managed to cancel, citing a recent adjustment to her work schedule. Kai scoffed at the thought. Sol’s Waffle House could have been staffed by a team of actual waffles. It got so little business during the day that Sol and Kai had once rolled a joint at a table, smoked it, fell asleep, woke up, fell asleep again, woke up again, Febreezed the entire restaurant, and then waited around for another two hours before any customers came. That bitch wasn’t working.
Kai bolted up, trotting to her open garage. Her meager transit options stared back at her: bike, skateboard, worn Asics. Theo’s busted Civic briefly felt like an Escalade.
Kai chose the bike. A few hills later, she was frantically pedaling down State Route 314, receiving ambiguous honks and shouts as cars veered around her. Was she being hit on or being warned she’d get hit? Kai wasn’t sure, but these drivers were stressing her out. She couldn’t wait to get to Old National so she could ride on the sidewalk. Wow, was she actually looking forward to going to Old National? That was a first.
Seconds after she turned onto Flat Shoals Road, a rowdy Corolla nearly made contact with her back tire. “The street is not a bike lane, boo-boo!” the driver, a spectacled older black woman, informed her. Kai agreed, banking onto Castlegate Drive, a side street. She wasn’t about to battle over the road in the midday sun. Changing plans as she rolled down Castlegate, she decided to go to Sol’s house, near Godby Road. If Sol was there, she’d crash and talk to her one-on-one. If not, she’d go home, turn on the air conditioning, and try to hit the lottery with another tennis invitation. It wasn’t a solid plan, but when the sun was this relentless, liquid, gas, and plasma weren’t so bad.
Worn duplexes decayed in real time as Kai sped through Castlegate. She exited the neighborhood just as quickly as she’d come, drifting into a nameless residential strip with refreshingly empty streets. Fifteen minutes later, she was creaking across Sol’s front porch, sweat surging down her face. Sol better have something good to drink, even that awful-ass tea, Kai thought, extending her sweaty arms to ring the doorbell. No answer.
She rang it again.
Nothing.
Flustered, Kai turned and scowled at Sol’s re-stolen bike, which was parked in the front yard.
“I know you’re in there!” she shouted, thumping on the glass storm door with her open palm, its hot glass irritating her skin. The door leered back at her, unfazed.
She thumped harder. “Come on, girl! It’s hotter than a Baptist revival out here! Stop playing around!” she protested. “You can at least give me some tea!”
Exhausted, Kai leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the storm door. The trip back was going to be unpleasant at best. She had to stop leaving the house without cash.
“Bitch, do I look like a zoo animal?” Sol joked, opening her front door and unlatching the door. “Niggas think that just because they knock on glass, a bitch is supposed to do flips and wave.”
“Well, you were in a cage once,” Kai retorted, stepping into the house. Sol sneered, closing the door and heading to the kitchen. Kai remained in the living room, staring up in disbelief. Elaine, the name of Sol’s grandmother, was tagged all over the ceiling. The strokes were messy and unstylized, some real amateur shit.
“Do you really want tea, or were you just hitting me with the kryptonite?” Sol asked from the kitchen.
“I’ll take anything.”
“Tea it is.”
Kai watched as Sol poured the glass slowly, deliberately, a technician at work. Masterfully, she left room for ice then grabbed the glass and tenderly pressed the ice dispenser embedded in the fridge. The ice tumbled down without a single splash. She was good. She’d probably been pouring a lot of drinks lately, Kai realized.
Kai left the kitchen, diving into the couch, her neck parallel with the seat, her arms spread wide like she was hugging a bookshelf.
“What do you want?” Sol demanded, standing over Kai.
“I want a few things. First, I really want that tea.”
Sol obliged, handing over the glass. Kai shot up, taking the glass and promptly emptying it down her throat.
“Second, I need you to talk.”
“Talk about what?”
“About this,” Kai said, gesturing at torn drywall, ripped carpet, gutted wires jutting out of the wall, and, of course, that ceiling. “You opening a skate park?”
“No, but I’m getting rid of this dump.”
“Are you crazy? This house is great.”
“It’s all right. I can do better.”
“Better than a paid off house at eighteen? Just a month ago, you were talking about how cheap you’re living and about how the next round of improvements will be some HGTV shit. What happened?”
“I called my parents every day after Derrick came by, and they haven’t answered a single fucking time.”
“Not once?”
“Not twice either.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
“So how does that make you feel?”
“I’m not talking about this.”
“Your call. Well, let’s talk about how you keep blowing me off.”
“What’s there to talk about?”
“Solara, stop fucking around. I’m really trying to figure out what’s up with you. I haven’t seen you since you randomly punched out that white kid, you keep Instagramming pictures of you and Antonio, who I know you only hang out with to score booze, and you keep looking out the window like a damn worried dog. Girl, what is going on?”
° ° °
Sol stared at Kai, taciturn. In juvie, the counselors had always blabbered about the importance of “emotional transparency.” Sol could still remember the way Ms. Watts, the head counselor, would slowly and loudly pronounce the latter word. “Trans-PAAARENNNNCYYY,” she’d croon, as if she were teaching toddlers. The counselors had always seemed to neglect the fact that they were teaching in a jail, a place where all emotions were liable to be used against you. Sol didn’t fault them—of course the theories seemed true wh
en jail was your nine-to-five instead of your midnight-to-midnight—but she stopped listening after the first week.
This choice had served her well. Unlike her second cellmate, Patricia Frauland, a stocky blond white girl with a concrete jaw and eyes the size of beads, she’d never gotten extorted. Personal information was currency in juvie, and Sol had been so tight-lipped that she wasn’t even listed at the currency exchange. Patricia, on the other hand, was constantly filing for bankruptcy. Every week, she acquired a new best friend. And every other week, one of those friends acquired a brutal thrashing after leaking a choice secret or two. Sol laughed.
Kai stared at her. “Is there something I should know, or are you just not talking about yourself at all?”
Sol stood up and fanned herself with the bottom of her oversized T-shirt. “Walk with me,” she said. “It’s hot in here.”
Kai rose, trailing Sol into the kitchen, where they leaned against the counters on opposite sides of the room. Sol removed a glass from a cabinet and reached into the refrigerator, grabbing the tea pitcher. “You want some more?” she asked.
“Yeah, this is actually really fucking good.”
“I’ve been trying to tell everyone that it’s never been bad! I just made one bad batch one time, when everybody happened to be over. And y’all niggas just agreed that the shit had always been bad, ole anti-statistical asses.”
Kai cackled, doubling over yet holding her glass out to be replenished.
Sol emptied the pitcher then poured herself a glass of wine using a bottle she’d left on the counter. The bottle was depleted before her glass was even half full.
“Sorry to have been off the map,” she said. “It’s just been hard. No one in my family has helped with the transition from juvie to normal life. My uncle drove me here and used to come see me a few times a week, but that’s it. My family treats me like I’m a career criminal. Derrick came over last month and tried to sneak in the house. I don’t have the fucking slightest what he was up to. I scared him off, but he probably went back and told everybody else how I threatened him. And I know I shouldn’t care because fuck them, but I do. All year, I took care of this house because I thought if I showed them what I had done with it, and showed them what I’d done with myself by graduating on time, they would at least talk to me. But after Derrick was over here, it just seemed useless. When I told him I owned the house, he looked at me like I was just trash. So now I’ve trashed the house… Stupid, I know.”
In the Heat of the Light Page 7
