The Importance of Being Dangerous

by David Dante Troutt

  Raul exhaled in a mad cloud and began coughing loudly. “No,” he blurted.

  “How ’bout a corporation? You know what a corporation is?”

  Raul shook his head and looked at the joint. “Nah.”

  “Think you could tell the difference between a desktop and a laptop?”

  Raul casually wheeled around in his seat and gestured toward Yakoob’s desk of computers. His eyes opened as wide as they could. “You know, basically,” he said, and held another large toke in his chest.

  Damn, Koob said to himself, shaking his head a little. “You ever been in jail before, nigga?”

  “Hell yeah, nigga.”

  “What for, nigga?”

  “Nigga, it’s done, a’ight?”

  So Yakoob had to school him right then and there, sometimes about things he was still learning himself. While Dr. Dre rapped mad rhymes in the background, Koob pulled out a subway map and showed him where certain offices were. He got on the computer to show Raul the names of companies located in those midtown offices and what their names would look like when he got in there. He explained about corporations, global conglomerates, geopolitical monopolies, and revolving credit—anything he could think of to convey the seriousness of the situation. Raul was duly impressed. He was not quick, but he liked learning his creditors’ terms.

  After a few hours they took a break and chilled to more music. Raul piped up almost sweetly. “Yo, Sidarra’s fine.”

  Yakoob heard him getting too comfortable and tried to squash it by speaking to him in Spanish. “Don’t worry about that. Don’t try to get close to that. Just handle your business. Forget Sidarra. Forget Griff.”

  “He’s trouble,” Raul answered flatly in Spanish, but it wasn’t clear what he meant—good trouble like respectably dangerous or bad trouble like a potential victim.

  Yakoob looked hard at Raul. This might be tougher than he expected. He spoke in English again. “No, homeboy. Griff is the reason you’re not in fucking prison today. You owe that brother the most.” Koob reached for a pack of cigarettes and lit one up in silence. “The trouble is the company I was telling you about before. The trouble is the head of the New York City school system, Jack Eagleton—that motherfucker is the only trouble you need to concern yourself about. That’s the guy trying to make sure every little blood in school today comes out dumber than me and twice as dumb as you, dig?”

  Raul nodded slowly, fooled by the math. He stared at the carpet, thought briefly, and pulled a Nestlé Crunch bar from another pocket. “So let me just smoke him,” Raul said in Spanish.

  “This ain’t Scarface, yo!” Koob nearly screamed in English. “This shit is high-tech!”

  Raul looked up at him almost plaintively, confused and unconvinced. “So what the fuck y’all want me to do then, Koob? Shit, I want to be down too.”

  Koob smiled. “We want you to study on what I’ve been tellin’ you and shit. We want you to get up in the company offices, act like a stupid motherfuckin’ janitor who can’t speak English, whatever you gotta do, however you got to play it, and steal me a laptop out of a vice president’s office and then get it back in there the next day.”

  “What if what you need isn’t on his laptop? What if it’s on another laptop?” Raul asked to Yakoob’s utter surprise.

  “Don’t overthink it, my brother. Don’t be all Mission Impossible and shit.” Yakoob then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. “Here’s the name and the address of the company. Solutions, Inc. Here’s the guy’s name. Brett Goldman. Can you do that for me?” Raul paused and nodded again; his tight lips barely cracked a smile. “Solid. ’Cause that’s what we need. For you to be the epoxy on this thing.”

  “What the fuck is epoxy?”

  “Glue, nigga. We need you to be like glue, ’cause glue rolls slow before it gets hard.”

  IF SAKS FIFTH AVENUE EVER GOES OUT OF BUSINESS, it will be because women have given up the dream of happiness. It was a place that in all Sidarra’s years in New York City she revered too much to enter. She used to slow down in front of its window displays. She might even get an idea for something she would seek in a cheaper version someplace else. But she understood it as a place for the happiness of others she would never be. Which was okay. As long as the dream remained open for business, flaunting its high-brow perfection between St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center, Saks would exist as the standard below which every other store labored, as the way happiness ought to look when all doubt is removed, and as a place she just might enter confidently one day. That day had come.

  Sidarra’s thirty-nine years resembled confidence as she walked through the doors in her newest spring dress, but she wasn’t feeling it. Inside the bustling lobby, all the beauty and jewelry counters looked cut from the same gem. They sparkled with pinch-me clarity. The suave shoppers in motion buzzed like it was Grand Central Station. She could smell good taste in the perfumed air. Everywhere she looked, it was a great place to be a white woman with a gold card.

  Sidarra’s alias probably was white, but not all the privileges extended to Sidarra, who started feeling very black in a hurry. The kind of jewelry on view in the cases was entrancing. It was nice to spend time with the genuine version of the handbags she saw copied by the street vendors in Harlem. She couldn’t wait for the makeup counter. But none of that prevented Sidarra from the distinct impression that she was being ignored. You try to look past being looked past. You try not to believe it or get hard-faced. Then it keeps happening. The cologne sampler ladies seem to catch some other woman’s eye just before they see you. The idle salesclerk keeps remembering something she forgot to do when you approach. It’s just a feeling confirmed by the accumulation of small moments. You’re invisible—until someone bumps into you without speaking.

  “Hey, colored girl,” a male voice whispered gently.

  “What?” she said out loud. And before she could turn around, she thought: Who would call me a colored girl?

  A colored man. “How are you doing today, sweetie? Stop looking like such a colored girl and come over here.”

  Sidarra was relieved to see a short, dark, round-faced man in his late forties waving to her from behind a beauty counter. His salty hair was cropped very close to his head, his skin and grooming unblemished, but his glasses and white coat reminded her a little of a scientist or her oldest brother Alex. He waved more impatiently at her.

  “C’mere, c’mere.” She walked over to him, and he took her in with a friendly gaze. “What is this?” he proclaimed. “You’re here for a makeover, right?”

  She grinned and looked down for a second. “I know we’re old friends and all, but are you trying to flatter me?” she asked.

  “Not really. I like you. What’s your name?”

  “Sidarra.”

  “Sidarra, that’s a name you should live up to. You know you have a juicy smile?”

  “Thank you.”

  “My name is Darrius Laughter,” he said, looking down at her hands.

  Sidarra immediately giggled. His face didn’t move. “For real? That’s your name? Laughter?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t always. It used to be Slaughter, but a long time ago my family came together and made a decision about what we planned to be. We planned to be about laughter, not slaughter. You know you’ve been searching for me a long time, right?”

  “All day, if you’re the one selling my moisturizer.”

  “Moisturizer? First of all, it’s at least exfoliators for you. Second of all, sit down. We’re going to fix this once and for all. This damsel-in-distress number you’re working doesn’t really suit you. Look at your skin. You have exquisite bones. I know I’ve got a queen at home, but, sister, you could put him to shame if you wanted to. Please want to.”

  Sidarra sat on the stool with her hands clasped, about to say something when a tall red-haired European woman interrupted. “Darrius, I need you to show me where we’ve put the Celestier cleanser.”

  Dar
rius swung his hips around instantly. “I’m not over here talking to myself, Ruina. This gorgeous creature happens to be my customer.” He turned back around to Sidarra. “I’m sure you can find it yourself.” Darrius waited about five seconds for Ruina to go back to where she’d come from. “These bitches in here will try your last nerve, I’m telling you. They think every line starts with blue eyes. Whatever. Over here they wait.”

  Sidarra relaxed into the seat. “I’m open to suggestions. I’d like to see what you got.”

  “Oh, we got. I’m gonna swab a little of this product—it’s a cleanser—over your face first, okay? Then we’ll look at some ideas I have. It’ll be fun.”

  It was. He came around the counter so he could stand in front of her. Darrius’s touch was professional and gentle. She realized she was being adored by experienced hands and closed her eyes. When he was finished, he pointed to several bottles he had set out on the counter and started to explain what each one could do for her. Then he looked into her face suddenly and stopped what he was doing.

  “My God.”

  “What?”

  “It’s so obvious I almost missed it. Let me pull your hair back.” He reached up, and she didn’t object. “Wait a minute.” He took quick little steps around the counter and came right back with a hairbrush he’d retrieved from a drawer. “Just let me do this.” Nobody in Saks Fifth Avenue’s lobby was getting their hair done but the colored girl. Everyone else was invisible. “I thought so,” he said, studying his work. “And I was right as usual.”

  “What?” she said, peering past him into the lighted mirror on the counter.

  “Sidarra. Do me and the world a favor. Try never to wear your hair in your face again. Look at you. This is a stunning discovery. And you haven’t even spent a dime. Leave now and you’d still be up a million bucks.”

  “Thank you,” she blushed, trying to see in the mirror what Darrius was so sure about. “Let’s make it two million, okay?”

  “Let’s.” And they did, all afternoon. Hours passed as she and Darrius talked and laughed and made her beautiful. The counter was crowded with lipsticks and glosses, skin products for mornings and bedtime care, blush, eyeliners, and mascaras in combinations she’d never thought to try. She felt the giddiness of luck at a craps table. Every time she threw the dice, Darrius came back with something that made her look even better. He told her about his family in Virginia. They critiqued certain actresses. She told him about Raquel. They ignored the circling snobs.

  When it was over and time for her to go home, Sidarra asked, “So what am I gonna do now?”

  “Well, you’re going to go on being this vision I call ‘you.’ You’re going to come back with your little girl at least once a month. Here’s my card. Home number’s on the back in case you’re not lying about coming to one of my parties. And today you’re going to buy the lipstick and the exfoliator.”

  She was confused. “But what about all the other stuff, Darrius?”

  “Well”—he looked around—“that stuff’s expensive.”

  Sidarra watched him ring up the two items on the register. Sixty-two dollars and seventeen cents. Then he reached under the counter for a bag, placed the two items in it, and proceeded to pour in about five or six samples each of everything else on the counter—even the things she said she didn’t want. He smiled as the bag filled up with a year’s supply of the best beauty products she’d ever seen.

  “You never know,” he smirked.

  Sidarra paid cash. Darrius kissed her on both cheeks. She would be back soon.

  “You’re a good man,” was all she could say at the end.

  Darrius looked kindly into her face. “Listen, sweetheart, just because you’re stopping traffic doesn’t mean the light’s green, okay? Be careful out there. And, Sidarra.”

  “Yes?”

  “By the next time I see you, get the sad out of your eyes.”

  “I’ll try.”

  IT WAS NEVER GOOD TO SEE MR. SIMMS, her landlord, but when she got home there he was on the stoop. It had been more than a year since he cornered her over late rent, and things had changed. Still, after being broke so long, she could do without any encounters. He stopped her before she could utter a greeting.

  “Sidarra, I’m sorry to tell you, but your neighbor’s gone on.”

  She tried to read his expressionless face. “What? What are you talking about, Mr. Simms? Who left?”

  “Mrs. Thomas. You couldn’t smell it out in the hall? She died a few days ago.”

  “Oh Lord, no! C’mon, Lord. You’re kidding.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. Sidarra started past him, as if she had to see for herself. “You don’t want to go in there. It’s not pretty. They already took her out anyway. It’s just some folks from her church cleaning up and boxing stuff. Place is a right fucking mess. That’s what happens when you get that old. Cockroaches running the joint. I don’t believe she could see them.”

  Sidarra put her Saks bags down and sat on the stoop. “She was my friend,” she mumbled into her knees as a big tear welled up in one eye. “She used to take care of my daughter. This is gonna be hard for Raquel when she gets home.”

  Mr. Simms was not one to commiserate. He had something else on his mind. “I should tell you something else, though the time’s probably not right.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m getting out of this business pretty soon. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and with all this new money coming into Harlem…I mean, look up and down the block. Well, maybe not this one, but the next one,” he pointed. “That one over there. All over. You see those huge Dumpsters parked on the street? That’s money. That’s someone who just bought one of these old buildings and they’re gutting it. It’s a whole new day in Harlem. I couldn’t buy in here today.”

  “You’re selling the building?”

  “That’s what I decided. You might as well know now. Gives you a head start on finding someplace else, unless you want to fight it. I hear you’ll lose, but if you get a decent lawyer who can drag things out a bit, the new owner might give you something to get you out faster. With the rent laws as they are, all I can do is ask you nicely.”

  The day had quickly become too interesting for her. For every up there seemed two downs.

  “What do you want for it?”

  “I don’t know yet. There’ll be an appraisal or two. I’ll let you know if you like.”

  She suddenly felt exhausted. She wanted to get her kid and her cat and curl up in bed. “Please do that. Please don’t make any moves without letting us know.”

  His eyes brightened strangely. “You thinking about buying this place?”

  Sidarra regained her wits. “No, probably not me, but my boyfriend might.”

  “I always knew you’d be all right, Sidarra,” he said, tipped his hat, and walked back down the stoop. “I’ll let you know.”

  12

  JACK EAGLETON, THE FIFTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD CHANCELLOR of the New York City public schools, also happened to live in a brownstone. However, his was located in tony Brooklyn Heights. It was the official residence of the officeholder, paid for long ago by the citizens. If it had ever gone on the market, it would have fetched at least five or six times what Mr. Simms’s beat-up old Harlem building was worth. The precise reasons for the discrepancy can never be known for certain, but the truth had something to do with the leafy quiet of Eagleton’s block, the affluence of his neighbors, and the complete lack of property crimes in Brooklyn Heights. The four-story single-family brownstone also happened to face the lovely pedestrian promenade, which meant it enjoyed wide-open views of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge from half the rooms in the house.

  Raul knew all of that—the differences between Harlem and Brooklyn Heights, the absence of people from the promenade after dark, and Jack Eagleton’s exact address. Raul was in possession of other relevant facts and accessories. In contrast to the impulsive roughneck he was be
fore his visit to Philadelphia, the pinstriped Raul was steadily trying to change. He was determined to be the Cicero Club’s epoxy. His .45 long gone, he’d traded up to a Glock pistol. Unlike Blane, Raul took his debts seriously.

  Eagleton, on the other hand, was an established man of few debts. His three-quarter-million-dollar-a-year salary as a public servant was merely round-town cash. He had liabilities which were more than offset on a balance sheet by his assets. He had a fulltime maid, a couple of house workers who came in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a cook for three hours every evening, a dog walker for his bichon frise twice a day, and, during weekdays, a valet for the town car the city provided. He paid only for his wife’s personal expenses. Having spent many years roving between educational administration, as a former university president, and private sector consulting companies, as an executive and director, Eagleton had assets too numerous to name. By the end of the 1997 school year, Eagleton already owned 7 percent of the stock of the multibillion-dollar Solutions, Inc. Come June 6, the company’s IPO would easily multiply the value of his shares by a very fat factor. Cash simply landed on Eagleton, as it had on his father and grandfather before him, like rain to a drain with nowhere else to flow.

  Once the IPO occurred, a storm of cash would land on the Cicero Investment Club too. Raul cleaned Brett Goldman’s laptop out of his office. Sidarra reached him by phone before he even knew it was lost. During the telephone conversation that occurred at the end of a long day, Goldman thought he recognized the company name she gave him and set in motion the Solutions stock sale to them. Raul got the laptop back on the man’s desk and Griff just as easily secured the flow of paperwork. They were in.

  But you don’t get to be a good lawyer without wondering “what if” a lot, and Griff began to wonder what if this Goldman wasn’t always so dumb. What if somebody figured out that one of the angels in the angel round had the wrong color wings? What would they do if an investigation of their shell corporation’s IPO gains somehow led to any one of them? Griff decided they would need protection. The best protection would be personal information about the misdeeds of the gods. With the threat of embarrassing disclosures of secret transactions there would never be an investigation. They needed to get inside Eagleton’s home and borrow a little documentation of his personal deals. So they needed more from Raul.