Scavenger Hunt

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Two-Teeth pushed open the passenger door and nodded at Solomon. Solomon got in.

  “It went good,” said Two-Teeth. Solomon nodded. “The phone and gun?”

  “Got rid of them like you said.”

  “How?”

  “Laid out the phone on the street until I saw a few cars run over it, then broke down the gun and tossed each part in a different Dumpster.”

  Two-Teeth stared. “You know how to break down a gun?”

  “YouTube, man.”

  Two-Teeth smiled his flashing smile. He nodded. “Wise, man. Big wise. Just like the first Solomon in the Bible, man.”

  Solomon gaped. Two-Teeth smiled, a gross parody of innocence, then held one hand over his heart, another high up as to heaven, and said, “What, yo momma never make you go to church?”

  “Nah. Not ever.”

  “Too bad. Not for me no more, but some of those dudes was righteous. Solomon was the smartest dude in the world, richer than God, and had hundreds of bitches.” He smiled and pulled a rolled joint from a small cubby under the Sony digital multimedia receiver set into the center of his dash. He lit it up, toked, then offered the blunt to Solomon.

  Solomon took it. Breathed in deep. He coughed, and Two-Teeth laughed. “First time?”

  “No way, brah.”

  Two-Teeth laughed again. “Well, you get better at it, little man.”

  He put the car into drive, then pulled away from the curb. Solomon kept at the joint, getting a little better with each pull. A pleasant buzz filled the empty spaces of his brain, which was almost enough to mask the anxiety of what he thought was coming next.

  Two-Teeth pulled into a residential neighborhood that sat near the edge of 52 territory. The place was close to an area zoned for industrial buildings, the kiss of death for many neighborhoods, but even without, that Solomon knew this was a neighborhood without hope. Houses didn’t so much line the street as lean awkwardly beside it. Roofs that had been built straight now lurched to the side or drooped in the middle. Lawns were scrub brush and dirt and a weird collection of lawn ornaments that Solomon guessed were meant to brighten the place up but instead just made it all seem like a scene from a horror movie.

  Two-Teeth stopped at one of the nicer houses on the block. No grass here, either, but the walls and roof looked sturdy, as did the bars over the still-intact windows. It had a porch, too, with a few planters hanging from the eaves.

  Two-Teeth pulled up in front of the house, got out, and motioned for Solomon to follow him. Solomon followed the man to the porch, expecting to be led inside. Instead, Two-Teeth swerved right, going to one of the planters. Nothing but dead plants sat in the planters, Solomon realized, and that thought for some reason made the buzz he’d been enjoying withdraw. Made the fear come alive, and come out to nip at him with sharp teeth.

  Two-Teeth rammed his fingers into the dirt in one off the planters, pulling something from inside. He shook it off, then showed it to Solomon. It was a key, and when Two-Teeth pushed it into the lock on the front door, Solomon felt the fear grow to something close to terror.

  He had done what Two-Teeth had asked. Everything he had asked. And now the man was showing him the way into what was obviously a safe-house, a crib meant to be away from prying eyes. That meant that Solomon was going to come out of this a full member of the Five-Deuce, or a corpse.

  Two-Teeth tossed open the door. It was dark inside. He went in. Solomon followed.

  He’d been expecting it to happen, but it came much sooner and much harder than he could have imagined. He had barely set foot into the front room of the crib when something angular slammed into the side of his head. Pain exploded along Solomon’s temple. He slid to the side, woozy and suddenly nauseated, but didn’t fall completely. He righted himself.

  Another fist hit him on the other side of the head. Solomon did go down this time. He felt heat on the side of his head and knew the strike had split his skin wide open.

  Gonna have a scar.

  He was on hands and knees now, and gritted his teeth against the pain and dizziness as he tried to right himself; to stand. One hand left the floor, and he tensed to push himself upright. Not standing yet, but the first step.

  The next strike came. A kick to the gut. Solomon vomited, immediately and violently. The kick rolled him to the side at the same time, so puke got all over him and he had an insane moment where he realized that some of it musta got on his new shirt and his mom would be pissed at that. Then the next kick came. And the next. The next.

  He didn’t know how long it went on. Only seconds. Forever. Both at the same time. But each time he felt a kick or punch, he just let it happen. He rolled with it, and tried to get up.

  Finally, a pause came. Spitting blood, sure that a few ribs were broken or cracked, Solomon levered himself up again. He couldn’t help but flinch when a hand dropped into his red-veiled sight. But it wasn’t a fist. It was an outstretched hand. Solomon took it, unsure. Two-Teeth’s strong hand levered him up, pulled him to a standing position.

  “Tough,” said one of the others in the room. Solomon knew there were others, but could never remember how many, or their faces. He just saw Two-Teeth. Saw the gold grin.

  “Big tough,” said another voice.

  “Nah,” said Two-Teeth. “Big Wise.”

  Beaten and bloody, dazed and more than a little confused by pain and violence, Solomon grinned. Because he wasn’t Solomon anymore. He was Big Wise. He’d been given a final initiation test, then been jumped-in. He was a 52.

  5

  It was easy. For a while.

  Big Wise wasn’t a full homie, let alone an O.G. – and he knew that he was years away from that title. But he knew he would get it. He’d be an Original Gangster, and maybe he’d even run the area that Two-Teeth controlled.

  But for now he was just a little brother. Just the newest member of a gang that was sprawling ever wider, whose hands and fists were reaching ever farther. A foot soldier.

  Still, Big Wise had been brought into it all by Two-Teeth. Not just SFD or one of the lower-ranking dudes, but Two-Goddam-Teeth. That lent him some immediate cred, and his rep shot even higher as he did job after job.

  None of them bothered him. That surprised him a little. He figured that killin’ that 59 asshole would have kept him up a night or two, at least, but he slept soundly. He figured that knifing the dudes in the crackhouse down on 7th Street would have made him at least a little sick, ‘specially since one of them twisted during the stabbing and instead of just getting shanked in the gut he straight-out opened himself up and his guts tumbled out in purple coils. But the only thing Big Wise felt was anger that his Converse All Star high-tops went from immaculate white to a greasy red.

  None of it bothered him.

  Until one night, when something did.

  6

  The Five-Deuce were expanding, and that was exciting. That meant room for growth – not just for the gang, but for Big Wise. He just had to play the game, play smart, and keep himself moving up.

  Big Wise really was a pretty smart kid. And he was growing into a smart young man. At seventeen, he had a good rep, hadn’t pissed off any of the serious players, and most of all knew he could be counted on to get the job done, no matter what.

  At first it was just dope. Extortion. Throwing a beat-down on any rival gangs who tried to come into the Five-Deuce’s expanding turf. But as the gang grew, Big Wise heard a word from Two-Teeth he had never heard before. Big Wise’s sponsor was on the phone, and though he had made it a practice not to listen in on things that didn’t concern him, he did catch one word: “Diversification.”

  Big Wise looked it up on his cell, and recognized immediately that the word represented the growth of the Five-Deuce. It wasn’t just beatdowns and drive-bys and drugs anymore. The gang had its fingers in extortion, prostitution, and other ventures that Big Wise could only guess at.

  Two-Teeth, apparently, was heading up a “diversification” effort of his own, because Big Wise
was moved off the duties he’d been seeing to. Now he delivered strange packages. Some was stuffed with money, he could tell. Some was sent in packages, others in brown-wrapped packages that were cool to the touch.

  A lot of the deliveries was to cops. That was nothing new: the five-oh had to be in for their cut. Everyone had a cut, that was the baseline rule of Gang Economics 101. The cops varied: some were uniforms, some were detective-types. A few times he delivered to dudes who wore tailored suits but still had the eyes of any and all pigs: beady, needy, and greedy.

  Most of the time the money Big Wise delivered fell into the hands of a dickhead named Patrick “Pat” Pattinson, which was about the whitest name Big Wise ever heard, and which fitted the cop perfect, ‘cause the dude was white. White teeth, white skin, white hair. One of the brothers who knew Pattinson said he was an albino. Big Wise didn’t think so, ‘cause he thought albinos had red eyes, and Pattinson’s were the bluest he ever saw.

  Albino or no, Pattinson was a weird-lookin’ dude. And he was a dude that no one liked to screw with. Wasn’t just the way he looked, though that was enough of a mind-bender to make most folk think twice before messing with him. No, it was also the fact that Pattinson gave off a legit crazy vibe. Standing with him was like standing next to a furnace with a leak in the gas pipe. Too much heat, too much ragged flame.

  Anyone warming themselves there ran the risk of getting caught in the inevitable blast that had to come.

  But this was the man Big Wise had come here to meet tonight. He handed the cop a roll of bills, then the cop handed him an address. That wasn’t normal, and the cop said, “Tell your master I’m not his errand boy or his message service.”

  Big Wise took the paper. There was an address on it, and below that the words “PICK UP” in dark, blocky letters. It wasn’t unusual for instructions to come this way, especially not from Two-Teeth. He still wasn’t O.G., but he was getting there, and part of his business model was distance. He stayed away from direct action, and as often as not when something needed doing the homies assigned found out via anonymous Facebook message or texts from some burner phone.

  Big Wise turned away. Pattinson called out, “Hey!” Big Wise turned back. “Tell Two-Tits that it’s gonna be fifteen next week.”

  Big Wise felt his blood turn to a strange mixture of cold and hot. It felt like ice inside him, yet at the same time he felt that if he’d been cut in that moment, nothing but red steam would have come out. Part of that was the diss to Two-Teeth, part of it was the sudden raise in the cost of a blind eye turned to Five-Deuce’s business dealings, and part of it was just the fact that this shithead was acting like a street king, even though he was less than trash. Not even a joker, a jester in the court of legit players like Two-Teeth and – it had to be said – like Big Wise himself.

  He took a step in Pattinson’s direction. The cop didn’t blanch, and didn’t back down, not even when Big Wise muttered, “The hell you playin’ at?”

  Pattinson smiled, and Big Wise thought for a moment how much like Two-Teeth’s own grin that smile was. “Things are different now. You know that. You can feel it. Five-Deuce are expanding. That means more work, and more work for us honest cops to not notice it.”

  Big Wise thought about killing the fool, even though the thought was rejected as fast as it came. It wasn’t his job to knock off fools like this – not without being ordered to. Pattinson was a pain in the ass, but he was Two-Teeth’s pain in the ass, and Big Wise wasn’t going to stick himself between them. Not until he was asked.

  Then it would be a pleasure.

  Big Wise nodded and turned away, leaving Pattinson whistling something Disney-sounding as Big Wise left him behind.

  He went to the street on the card, only to find that the address was for a number that did not exist. The pick up was set for number 1542, but the buildings here jumped from 1540 to 1554, with nothing but an alley between. That wasn’t too surprising, and Big Wise had experienced this before as well. Two-Teeth was careful. Had to be when you was diversifying.

  Big Wise went into the alley. He looked around. For a long moment he saw nothing, then at last he spotted a blue bandana. Five-Deuce colors, wadded up in the end of a drainage pipe that jutted five inches from the side of building number 1540. Big Wise yanked the bandana out of the pipe, which had a rough, sharp edge to it and nearly slashed his hand open as he jerked the cloth clear.

  When the bandana was out, he put his hand into the drainpipe. The thing was oversized – probably part of why it was chosen to hide the drop – so Big Wise reached in without much trouble. Up to his elbow before he found what was hidden away in there. Then he pulled it out: a manila envelope with the telltale rectangles of stacked, bound bills.

  On the envelope, in the same block letters as on the first piece of paper Pattinson had given him, was written another address: the real destination, and no doubt the place that Big Wise would drop off the money he’d just pulled from the pipe.

  Big Wise knew the general area, but wasn’t too up on the details. It was on the edge of 52 territory, part of a big chunk of the hood they’d grabbed from the 59s during the last round of turf battles. Not the kind of place he’d ever had reason to be before. But now it was property of the Five-Deuce, so it was home.

  Home or not, he was surprised at what the address turned out to be: a big, industrial/government-looking building. Larger than any other place on the block, and it even had a ring of grass around it that marked it as a place with some extra flow.

  Still… Big Wise double-checked the address.

  Right place.

  The hell am I picking up?

  He went through the big wrought-iron gate that surrounded the place, expecting to hear a shout, to hear someone scream at him to leave and that they had already called the cops, who would be there in less than a minute, strapped and ready to blow away a brother.

  No one appeared.

  No one spoke.

  Big Wise grabbed the handle of the front door. He expected to find it locked. Again, he was surprised. The door opened, pulling roughly away from the jamb with the squeal of poorly-maintained hinges.

  Big Wise walked in. No one said nothing. Not even the white dude waiting at the end of the hall just inside the building. They stared at each other for a few long seconds. Big Wise could feel the other guy taking his measure, and almost laughed. A flabby, soft dude in a ratty suit could never understand the measure of a real man like Big Wise.

  “Who are you?” the man finally asked. His voice was nasally, higher than Big Wise expected. The kind of voice that made a brother want to punch the hell out of its owner.

  Big Wise bit back that feeling. Still, it was through gritted teeth that he said, “Two-Teeth sent me.”

  The white dude frowned. He looked like he was around forty, which made him straight-up ancient to Big Wise’s seventeen years. Balding prematurely, his mousy brown hair frosted with uneven patches of gray here and there. It made the dude look not just old, but used. Washed up.

  “Two-Teeth was supposed to come himself, I thought,” said the dude.

  Big Wise didn’t say anything back. He just stared at old whitey, and waited for the inevitable. It happened quick, only a second or two going by before the other guy nodded and sighed the kind of sigh that said he was doing the universe in general – and Big Wise in particular – a huge favor by continuing to live among them.

  “Fine. Where’s the money?”

  Big Wise handed over the bag. The white dude pulled out the bills, and it was all Big Wise could do to mask his surprise. Wasn’t tens or twenties inside. It was hundreds – at least a hundred Gs worth.

  Whitey flipped through one of the wrapped bundle of bills, flipping their edges with one pale thumb like he was the world’s fastest money-counter. Then he grinned sourly and said, “Come on.”

  He took Big Wise deeper into the place. Through a series of corridors, then up the stairs, then through a final door. Big Wise followed the white guy inside, then
stopped moving when he saw the rows and rows of bodies that lay silently in worn beds strewn throughout the room.

  He didn’t know what he was picking up. That happened sometimes. But a painful knot started forming in his gut, which had never happened before.

  Five-Deuce is growing. Changing. Diversifying.

  The word had been one of promise. Of growth and money and women and dope and anything else Big Wise could wish for.

  Now the word felt like poison. Like a world that was about to disappear from his grasp just when he was on the verge of owning it all.

  Whitey kept on, threading his way between beds, passing by them all as if they had no import to him. He realized after a moment that Big Wise wasn’t following. Turning, he gave another one of those patronizingly patient sighs. “Don’t worry. They all got something with their food tonight. You could piss on their faces and they wouldn’t move. The girl’s over here. Name’s –”

  “No names, dude.” Big Wise said the words fast and loud, biting them off like they hurt. They did. Suddenly he felt like Solomon Black again, a little boy wondering what was happening beyond the curtain. Wondering if the sounds he heard were pleasure or pain. “I don’t need that shit in my head.”

  He thought about leaving. But the old white dude’s face creased in a look of patronizing pity. Like he was looking at a retarded dog or something. That look firmed up Solomon’s –

  (Big Wise I’m BIG WISE)

  – backbone. He walked forward. Saw what the old guy was pointing at. Who he was pointing at.

  Diversification.

  First a little bit of robbery. A bit of mugging. Then dope. Then guns. Then… what?

  The answer was obvious, and was now literally staring him in the face. The 52s had graduated from things to people. He had heard of this – not in the Five-Deuce, but in other gangs. Grabbing folk off the street, selling them into bondage of one sort or another. Girls mostly, who would be sent to men who would get them hooked on drugs – not weed, neither, no, the hard stuff, crack and heroin and worse – until the girls would beg to do anything, whatever it took to get their next fix.