“Pretty close, how? Explain it to me.”
“Eat, and I will.” I ended up telling her about Memphis, which I had not been intending to do. “I met up with him when I first moved down here and he showed me how things worked. He was the one who hooked me up with the old crew, all guys he knew from the neighborhood.” They let me in, the giant from up north. “The two of us kind of worked our way up together.”
“Who did you work for?”
I took a bite of my steak. That, I wasn’t going to tell her.
“Ok, so what happened with you and your friend? I think…” She stopped. “Don’t get mad, ok?”
“I’m not going to get mad at you for saying what you think. Remember?”
She nodded, like she was remembering that, or maybe reassuring herself. “You haven’t told me too much, but if there was a big sweep of arrests and this guy Memphis didn’t get picked up, and then he happened to come out of it with…” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “He came out of it with a ton of money from your safety deposit box, right? Well, I would guess that he was the one who turned everyone in. He snitched.”
“That’s what I think, yeah.”
“So how is he able to walk around the streets? Why hasn’t anyone else stepped in and, you know?”
Killed him, is what she meant. “He managed to get himself in pretty well with some people who protected him. Maybe no one really connected the dots, or he had a good story to explain why he wasn’t touched by anything, I don’t know. But with most of us in jail, he didn’t have to worry.” Except about Janko, who was still around, and who had almost gone with me to Adrian. Janko would probably still be unhappy to find out that his associate Memphis had a part in that.
“But now, you’re out,” Isobel mentioned.
“I am. Remember how you didn’t run from me?”
“I couldn’t,” she said, looking at her plate. She had stopped eating from it. “I had Rella, and my mom. I hid some, but I couldn’t just leave.”
“Memphis can’t, either. He felt safe because time passed, and he felt safe because he has friends protecting him. But he’s not safe enough.”
Isobel looked up at me with huge, scared eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing that’s going to come back to you.”
“To me?” she asked incredulously. “You think I’m worried about myself?”
She was worried about me. She really was.
“Why are you smiling at me like that?” she asked.
“Because you care about me.”
“Well, I—I wouldn’t want—I don’t think—if you—”
“Go on and eat your dinner,” I said, and I was still smiling.
After a moment of staring at me, she smiled back a little, shook her head, and started to eat. I got her dessert, too, and she ate that, and looked so happy and satisfied that I almost laughed, but that would have hurt her feelings.
We walked out to the car, me watching as carefully as I ever had, but the streets were clear tonight. I drove slowly, not wanting to drop her off, not wanting the night to end.
“We could go back to your apartment,” Isobel said suddenly, breaking the silence.
She didn’t mean it like it sounded. I knew it, but I felt myself stir, anyway. I thought about her in my apartment and in my bed. I thought about how I would touch her. I imagined the feel of her soft skin under my hands, her breasts in my palms, her eyes wide with desire instead of fear or worry.
Then I thought about how her current boyfriend had already touched her, the bruises that I couldn’t see under her dress, the ones she’d tried to cover up with makeup on her face. No, that wasn’t what she needed from me, not right now. But we’d get there.
“We could go back to my place,” I agreed. “You want to trade in for a new book?”
“I read that one you gave me, the one about the stars. I read the whole thing.” She looked out the window. “Sure, I could take another book if you wanted to loan me one. I’ll give them back.”
“I know,” I said. “I trust you.”
I happened to be looking over at her and saw the shiver run through her body.
“Cold?” I flipped on the heater. She was so little, so slight. I shrugged out of my coat at the next red light and put it over her.
“Thank you.” She pulled the coat around herself tightly. “We should go to your apartment,” she repeated.
“Sure.” I checked the mirror again for a car I’d been keeping an eye on, and made a sharp turn to the right. It did, also. Not as fast, but still there.
“What?” Isobel asked. She turned to look out of the back window.
“Nothing.” I turned again and this time the other car continued straight. “What do you want to read about now?”
She relaxed on the drive, talking to me about books, and then telling me more about her day and the woman she liked so much, Ameyo. She talked a lot about their house, with bookcases like mine and some kind of jar or something for spoons. She said that at least twice but I had no idea why you’d have enough spoons to need a special container for them.
But one thing she kept saying stuck out to me: “It’s a real home,” she repeated, like that meant something special.
I nodded, much clearer in my own mind about what I needed to do next.
Chapter 10
Rory
“I’m not threatening you, Mikayla.”
She nodded, but tears continued to pour down her cheeks, and I frowned. I wasn’t going to do anything to her and I didn’t want her to get so upset. But the frown made her cry harder and she started shaking a little.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I promised, and she nodded like, yeah, sounds good. But she still didn’t believe me, because she was gripping the arms of her chair, digging her nails in, her knuckles white. “I only want to know where he is. I think that you know, and you need to tell me. Now.”
“Memphis hasn’t been around here in weeks,” she said, very quickly. Too quickly. I watched her throat move up and down as she swallowed convulsively.
“No? Are you sure about that?”
She nodded again, very emphatic. “No, I haven’t seen him.”
I gave her a minute to sit and think about that lie she had just told me. Then I said casually, “I know he was here yesterday,” and I watched her chest start to jerk with hysterical breaths. I had missed him by a day. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d probably sat his ass where mine was on the couch. After I’d found out about this woman, I’d been paying a few snitches to keep me apprised of when Memphis stopped by her place. But I hadn’t seen the text come in from one of them the night before, telling me that he’d been with her for a few hours. I’d had a prime chance at him, but I’d missed him.
Because Isobel had been over, that was why. I hadn’t bothered to look at my phone because I’d been so busy watching her examine my books, then I’d been picking up her small feet off the couch cushion and rubbing them with my hands because they were cold. I’d been talking to her about nothing, listening to the sound of her voice, figuring out what she really meant with her words.
“Memphis,” Mikayla started, and when I stared at her she hiccupped a sob. “Memphis doesn’t come around here anymore.” Her eyes kept sliding over toward the bedroom door, and if I hadn’t been watching her house all morning, I might have thought he was in there right now.
Someone was, though. I heard a soft noise from inside the room. I looked at the door and then at Mikayla.
She shook her head and I stood and walked very quietly toward the door, and I pulled out the gun I carried, the one Leopold had insisted on. I put my hand on the wood and pushed slightly.
“No!” Mikayla screamed. “There’s no one in there!”
I glanced at her and kept pushing because I heard movement. And then—
“Mama?” a little voice called.
Mikayla sobbed, “Don’t hurt him!” and held out her arms, and a little boy went flying into them
. I only got a glimpse of him as he went by, but I saw Memphis all over his face. It was his son.
Now they were both crying and she twisted her body over the little guy to protect him. Jesus fuck, what if I… “That’s his kid?” I asked her. “You’re lying to me when you’ve got your kid in the house?” Anger rushed up in me at the danger she was putting them both in, and for a worthless punk-ass like Memphis who probably had several more women scattered around Detroit. For him, she was risking her life and her kid’s. Because if I had been the guy she thought I was, it would have already been over for both of them. I clenched my fists, thinking about the waste of it all.
Mikayla was watching me as she cried and she must have seen the anger cross my face. At that point, she seemed to decide that her son was more important than whatever Memphis was to her, because she started to talk. Yes, she’d seen him the day before. “But I don’t know where he is now. Maybe…” She swallowed more and thought for another second, but then she spilled some important information. He had another woman on the East Side, she told me, one I didn’t know about, and she gave me the address. Maybe he was over there with her, she said, with that whore.
I asked her how Memphis felt about me looking for him and she shook her head.
“He knew you got out and he got scared,” she said. “Janko told him. Janko said he saw you.” Yeah, Janko had seen me, and his fists had met up with my face. Mikayla went on about Memphis and Janko for a while, telling me that they were basically partners now, which I knew wasn’t true, because I’d been listening and learning since I’d gotten out. Memphis was a liar, like always.
She relaxed as she talked, loosening her grip on her son and leaning back against the couch. She was thinking that we had some kind of rapport, or that since she’d given me what I wanted, some information, I wouldn’t do anything to her now. That was a mistake.
“He didn’t want to tell me that he was afraid but I could see it,” Mikayla said. “One night, he started talking about you. You guys were friends, he told me, but not anymore. Memphis said you’d be looking for him because you owe Janko money and you would try to get it any way you could. He told me to look out for the biggest guy I’d ever seen because you would want money and if you couldn’t get it, you would kill all of us. He said you might kill us, just because.” Now she was remembering who I was. She sat up from the couch and held the little boy tighter.
“No. I’m not going to do anything to you or your kid. But Memphis…” I shook my head. “He stole from me. He should have left Detroit,” I said. “It was a mistake to stay here when he knew I’d be looking for him. I’m going to find him pretty soon.”
“Where else was he going to go?” she asked, and pressed her cheek against the little boy’s head. She closed her swollen eyes, puffy with all the crying she’d done since I let myself in her door and she’d found me in her living room.
I got up and she shrank back, scared again. “You can tell Memphis that I stopped by,” I said.
“What are you going to do to him?” she asked me, but I was already walking out the door. I had another appointment today.
“No, not that. She likes yellow, anyway,” Rella said, an hour after I left Mikayla’s house. This tiny old lady had told me what store to drive to, told me where to park, told me to hold out my arm so she could grip it, told me that I needed a shave. I had run my hand over my chin and she was right about that. “Izzie won’t like it,” she went on to inform me, and frowned at what I held in my hand.
“That’s not yellow? Yeah, it is.” I held up the blanket and we both squinted at it. It was yellow enough for me. “It looks warm. She gets so cold.”
No, that wasn’t a good present, Rella was sure. “It’s almost summertime,” she scolded. “She doesn’t need a warm blanket. No woman wants a blanket for her birthday, Rory Morin! Now, something pretty…” she said, and steered me over to the jewelry counter.
I walked her out to my car after I made my purchase, going very, very slowly, with Rella’s fingers clasping my forearm again. “That’s just right for Izzie,” she told me, nodding in satisfaction at my purchase. This woman was no Mikayla—she wasn’t scared of me at all. Of course, I hadn’t let myself into her apartment, and I was willing to bet money that Isobel hadn’t told her where I’d spent the last few years.
“You’re sure Isobel will like this pendant thing? She has that nice chain to wear it on.” Isobel’s necklace formerly carried my safety deposit key, bumping over her heart for all those years.
“She will absolutely like it. I know Izzie better than anyone.” Rella leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. “I gave her that silver chain. It had been a Christmas present from my husband, because Barry always likes to give me a little something shiny, too.”
“Yeah?”
“For my last birthday, he gave me this ring. It has both our birthstones in it.” She opened her eyes as she held out her hand but she wasn’t wearing any jewelry. “Where is it? Where’s my ring?”
“I don’t know.” Like an idiot, I looked around the car for it. “Did you take it off?”
She stared at me, confused, and then she ran the index finger of her other hand over her bare knuckle. “Oh, that’s right,” she said slowly. “It doesn’t fit so well over my knuckle anymore. Izzie had me put it in my jewelry box to save for special occasions.”
“That’s a good idea.” I glanced over at her as I drove back to their apartment building, but she seemed to doze off. I helped Rella up to stairs and to her door and I looked toward the elevator as she slowly found her key and put it in the lock.
“The elevator’s out again, and she’s not here anyway,” Rella mentioned.
“What?”
“I would assume that those sad eyes mean you’re thinking about Izzie,” she told me.
Sad eyes? “Where is she? She should be done with work.”
Rella seemed more awake, more cogent, after the nap she’d taken in my front seat. “She’s with that Kash again,” she huffed angrily, and tried to turn the key.
Isobel was with Kash. I looked down and saw Rella watching me closely and I put my hand over hers to help her get into the apartment.
“What do you think about that?” she prompted as we both opened the door.
“I think that’s a mistake.” I kept my voice even, all the anger out of it.
She nodded vigorously. “I told her, if you’re going to see him, do it in a public place, but he invited her over to his apartment because he’s not going outside right now. He finally told her this morning why he hasn’t been in touch. Did you know, someone put him in the hospital last week? He said that he was in an accident with that flashy car.”
“Is that right?”
Rella eyed me sternly from where she sat in one of her tiny, uncomfortable chairs. “Do you know anything about that, Rory?”
“I didn’t lay a hand on him or his car,” I told her, and that was the God’s honest truth, because I was keeping my hands as clean as I could. I knew, however, that he hadn’t been in a car accident. It had all been very purposeful, and he deserved everything he got, and I wished I had been able to give it to him myself.
“Well, he finally talked to Izzie, saying he was sorry, saying he hadn’t meant it. The same old, same old.” Rella sighed.
“She shouldn’t be over there,” I said flatly. “I don’t want her with him.”
“You and I are in agreement on that,” she said, nodding. “But she’ll be back soon enough. She promised to only stay for fifteen minutes and she said she’d be home so I could cook dinner for her. I’m making the meatloaf that she likes. You’re welcome to stay, yourself.”
“I have to go but I’ll come by later.” I wrote out my number and put it by the phone plugged into her wall. “If she needs me, she should call me. If you need me, you can call, too.”
She smiled at me. “Can’t you stay for a bit? There are a few things I’d like to talk about.”
I looked at the time on
the big clock in between the barred windows. I was going to be late for Leopold and timeliness was the one thing that mattered to him. Not taking care of his wife, not being a good father, not standing up like a man, no—it was timeliness. “Let’s have tea again soon,” I suggested. I had liked it the last time.
“Tomorrow. It’s a date,” she told me, and I helped her back up so she could lock the door behind me, and stood in the hallway and listened to them all click before I left.
Leopold was in a real twit when he got into the SUV where Ronnie and I waited in front of his house. He was muttering like he was pissed off about something but for once he wasn’t yapping about it. I raised my eyebrows at the driver but Ronnie just shook his head back, like he didn’t know. We had gone almost all the way to the warehouse they owned before Leopold busted out with, “The fucking bitch!”
Ronnie looked straight ahead and I didn’t answer.
“You want to know what she did?” Leopold didn’t wait for either of us to chime in with a yes or no. “She went to Jourdan’s apartment.”
Jourdan was his girlfriend, so I assumed that he meant that his wife Deanna had stopped by to check on the love nest. “Huh,” I commented.
“She pounded on the door and said she had a gun!”
“Did she?” Ronnie asked, interested now.
“I don’t know! Probably, I can’t find mine.”
Perfect, it was great to lose a gun.
“Jourdan calls me,” Leopold continued, his voice rising, “crying that Deanna was going to shoot her. What was I supposed to do about it?”
There were many things, but Leopold wasn’t one for action.
“Then Deanna left there and went straight to my father!” he ranted. “She told him that if I keep seeing Jourdan, she’s going to take the kids and leave.”
“She went and told your father that and not you?” I had to put in. Did he not see how weak he was? Even his wife talked to his father instead of him. I almost laughed.
“And my father tells her that it’s over between me and Jourdan!” Leopold finished, slapping his thighs with his hands. “Just like that!”
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