“Jesus,” I said.
“What I tell you ’bout usin’ the Lord’s name in vain, August?”
For my transgression, Brutus popped me in the face, backed me against the ropes, jack-hammered my stomach three times before finishing me with a tight-quarters right cross.
“You know, one of these days I’m gonna lay you out, old man,” I said, spitting my mouth guard out and yanking my hands out of my gloves.
“Like I ain’t heard that foolishness before,” Brutus laughed. “You know, yo daddy actually did lay me out once. Worst beating I ever took.”
“What was his secret?”
“Patience, persistence and sheer force of will,” Brutus said. “See the same thing in you, young blood. Only somethin’ different with you.”
“Like what?”
“There were lines yo daddy wouldn’t cross.” Brutus tossed me a bottle of water. “That’s why he never got promoted. Why he was never able to collar Duke Ducane. You? I got a feeling them lines is off on some far, faint horizon. And that do concern me a touch.”
“Concerns me a touch, too, old man,” I said after a swig of water. “But mostly, I sleep like a baby.”
Thirty
“She’s back!” Tomás shouted. “My woman is back!”
Later that afternoon, Tomás and I drank cold Negra Modelo in front of his TV. We had been watching the Tigers get their asses handed to them by the Yankees even though we had acquired some new kid from Puerto Rico with a pitching arm capable of turning air into plasma.
During a local news break there was a live report from City Hall.
Elena stood at a microphone in front of a rare daytime Detroit City Council meeting making an impassioned speech about why Detroit should declare itself a “Sanctuary City.” Behind her were about forty mostly Mexican-Americans waving little American flags and holding signs that read “I’m a Dreamer,” “Sanctuary NOW!” and “Hands off Mexicantown!”
“We are business owners and day laborers, mothers, fathers and students,” Elena said. “And we are doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, astronomers and astronauts. We pay our taxes and pledge allegiance. Now we want—we demand!—America pledge its allegiance to us. Mr. Mayor, City Council, will you pledge your allegiance to us? Will you declare—right here, right now!—Detroit as a Sanctuary City?”
Unfortunately, the mayor, as the reporter later informed us, was unable to attend the council meeting; he was on a five-day trip to Shanghai soliciting Chinese companies to do business in Detroit. Next stop on his knee-pad tour? Bangalore, India.
“Why’s Irish importing brown when he won’t commit to the browns he’s already got?” Tomás wondered aloud.
The deputy mayor, a scholarly black woman in her fifties named Dr. Francine “Frankie May” Keyes, acknowledged that Elena’s plea was important. She assured the crowd that the mayor—a “good Christian man”—would gladly give Elena an audience upon his return.
Tomás snorted. “Swear to God; the death of Christianity is coming at the hands of white Christian men.”
After the news, Tomás and I lost interest in watching the Tigers lose. We took fresh beers into the sweltering eighty-seven-degree heat, where he watered Elena’s bountiful vegetable garden.
“I’m heading over to The Nappy Patch tonight,” I said.
“Fucking hell, Octavio,” Tomás said, making sure the tomatillos got a good soaking. “Isn’t that Buddy Lane’s joint?”
“Yep.”
“And your reason? I mean other than the opportunity to watch the living dead dancing, and the possibility of catching an airborne STD?”
“I think he knows a major roundabout for trafficking women,” I said. “He’s the intermediary who got the message to Duke that somebody wanted to buy his trafficking routes and safe houses. I think he may know where one of the major safe-house hubs is.”
“You still doing this for Izzy?”
“No,” I said. The humidity made my shirt stick to me like gauze to blood. “Izzy’s gone. Can’t do anything about that. But there’s plenty of young women in Mexicantown running the risk of getting swept up, undocumented and citizens. And this place is my home.”
Tomás smiled at me. “That’s the first time since you been back I’ve heard you call this place home. How’d that feel, cabrón?”
“Strange,” I said after a swig of beer.
I watched Tomás water Elena’s garden for another ten minutes.
Then I told him I’d pick him up at nine.
Needless to say, Buddy Lane was none too pleased to see me.
When Tomás and I arrived at his grotesque lower east side strip club, no one looked like they were having much fun: The women dancing looked exhausted and the men looked bored. An elderly black man sat at the bar nursing a beer and reading a Walter Mosely paperback.
I told Tomás to grab a table and watch for trouble.
“Yeah, sure,” Tomás said, nodding to the elderly black man reading at the bar. “He looks pretty sketchy. I’ll keep a bead on him.”
In the bar’s back office, the mid-sixties Buddy Lane was dressed to impress. He wore black slacks with a satin stripe down the side seam, a white tuxedo jacket with black silk pocket square, a crisply starched white shirt and black satin bow tie. I’m sure in Buddy’s mind The Nappy Patch was his Rick’s Café in Casablanca.
Standing to my right was Buddy’s muscle.
“You come into my business thinkin’ you some bad-ass private dick mothafucka?” Buddy yelled. His breath smelled like too many cigarettes and strong breath mints shoved in the crack of an ass. “You ain’t nothing, Snow! You ain’t even po-po no mo! You need to be gettin’ yo half-ofay ass up outta here right damn now!”
“Suppose I decide to stay,” I said. “Maybe enjoy one of your signature champagne cocktails and buffalo wings. You still be passing off rat hind legs as buffalo wings, are you?”
“Mothafucka—” Buddy made a move for his weapon of choice, a snub-nose .38 tucked beneath the left arm of his white tuxedo jacket.
As a former Marine and ex-cop, I was trained to effectively multitask even if there was a single mission with a single expected outcome. Because honestly: When has Plan A ever actually worked?
Even God is a Plan B kind of Guy.
Old Testament.
New Testament.
I punched Buddy Lane in the throat while simultaneously bringing my Glock out and holding it four inches away from his muscle’s nose.
Buddy dropped to the floor in front of his desk, clutching his throat.
I deprived him of his .38, then to his muscle I said, “Don’t I know you from some place? I’m usually pretty good with faces, but my gun’s kinda blocking yours so I can’t tell.”
“Year and a half ago,” the muscle said. “Bank lobby downtown. Security. You and my boss got into a mixed martial arts showdown. You was ready to come at me. That’s when I quit.”
“Right!” I said. I briefly looked around. “This the best you could do?”
“Everybody talkin’ ’bout Detroit bein’ a come-back miracle,” the muscle said. “Got new construction everywhere and how many black folk you see on them construction jobs?” He sighed heavily. “Guess I’m quit on this job now.”
Buddy was gasping for air and struggling to his feet.
I brought the back of a left fist to his head and he went down and out.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Kinsey Latrice.”
“Mind if I call you Special K?”
“Like the cereal?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Sounded more bad ass in my head. How ’bout just K?”
“You the one with the gun,” K said. “Call me whatever you want.”
“You’re in good shape, K,” I said. “How much you bench?”
“Two-eighty,” he sai
d. “Three. Dead lift ’bout four.”
“Steroids?”
“Heck, no,” K said. “Juicing’s for punks. I used to bench guys for juicing.”
Turns out K was once a strength coach for a small black college football team out of Georgia. College went bust and so did his job. Came back to Detroit to live with his seventy-two-year-old mother.
“If I lower my gun are we gonna have a problem, K?” I said.
“Naw,” he said. “Sick of this place anyway. Women ain’t supposed to be showin’ theyselves like this and brothas ain’t supposed to be actin’ a fool up in these places.”
I stowed my Glock away. Then I borrowed a pen and paper from unconscious Buddy Lane’s messy desk. After writing, I handed the paper to K. He looked at it and his eyes widened.
“You know him?” he said. “Brutus Jefferies? Fo real?”
“Old family friend,” I said. “He’s looking for a strength trainer.”
I looked down at Buddy Lane. He was moaning, struggling to rejoin the conscious world.
K looked down at his former boss, too. “I don’t have to use no gun or nothin’ to pay you back for this job thing, do I?”
“No,” I said. “In fact—” I took a couple bills from my wallet and shoved them into his massive hand. “Get yourself cleaned up. Haircut. New sweat suit and cross-trainer kicks—nothing ghetto fabulous. And bring donuts. Assorted. No nuts. He won’t eat ’em. But he loves the smell of donuts. I’ll give him a head’s up and, if you play your cards right, you’ll be taking your mom out for a nice dinner after your interview.”
“Why you doin’ this, man? You don’t know me from Adam.”
“‘And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday.’”
“Isaiah 58:10,” K said.
He gave me his Nappy Patch business card.
“I ain’t never handed a-one of these stupid cards out,” K said. “Guess Buddy thought they made us look professional. Number at the bottom’s my cell. You need anything that don’t involve a ruckus, gimme a call.”
“Stay strong, K,” I said.
“Only way I know,” he said before forever departing The Nappy Patch.
After a couple minutes of rifling through Buddy Lane’s cramped office, I knelt, tied his hands behind his back with his alligator skin belt and slapped him awake.
“Time to wakey-wakey,” I said. I had my Glock out and gave him a close look at it. “I need information, Buddy. And you’re going to give it to me.”
He spat in my face.
“You a two-bit Uncle Tom niggah just like yo dead old man,” he said.
I wiped the spittle from my face.
Then I brought the butt of my Glock’s grip down on the bridge of Buddy’s nose. A crunch and sudden river of blood streaming down his cheeks. Buddy went under for a minute.
One of the strippers sashayed into the room. She froze and stared down at Buddy and me.
“Well, I been wantin’ to do that for the past four months,” she said.
“Would you mind getting a shot of tequila and a glass of water, ma’am?” I said.
“Who the fuck you be?” the stripper said.
“I’m Mr. Lane’s leasing agent,” I said. “Alexander Dumas. Mr. Lane is three months behind on his Cadillac Escalade payments.”
“He ain’t got no damn Escalade.”
“Not anymore he doesn’t.”
The stripper got a shot of tequila and a glass of water. Before she left, she said, “When dumbass Buddy wake the fuck up, tell him Monesha done throwed up on stage and I ain’t cleaning that shit up.” Then she left, closing the door behind her.
I slapped Buddy awake. “You’re going to tell me where the hub for the trafficked girls is and who runs it.”
“Or fuckin’ what, ya dumbass spic-niggah?”
I grabbed the shot of tequila and poured it on the broken and bleeding nose. He grimaced from the sting of alcohol.
“That’s it?” he laughed. “That’s all you got, niggah?”
“Funny you should ask,” I said.
From his desk I grabbed a cigarette lighter shaped like a hand grenade, shoved his jacket kerchief in his mouth and lit the tequila on fire.
After a few seconds, I doused his burning nose, cheeks and shirt collar with the glass of water. Considering his muffled screams I think he got the message that I wasn’t fucking around.
“I could do this all night,” I said. “But I’m guessing you don’t want me to do this all night. A name, Buddy. A location. Or next, it’s a weenie roast. Oh, and Monesha done throwed up on stage.”
A couple minutes later, I emerged from Buddy’s office and headed for the door of the strip club.
Tomás joined me.
“Get what you came for?”
“I did.”
“And Buddy?”
“He’s fine,” I said. “A little hot under the collar, though.”
Thirty-one
“Here,” Lucy said. “Taste this.”
The next day I found Lucy Three Rivers in Carmela and Sylvia’s kitchen. She held out a tablespoon of her chili for me.
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I can smell it.”
“You can really be a real dick sometimes.”
“I know. You wanted to see me? Where are the girls?”
“Riding the QLine,” Lucy said, tossing the spoon and chili it held into the sink. “They thought it’d be nice before stopping at the DIA’s café for lunch. They asked me if I wanted to go but I said I’d rather shove red-hot knitting needles in my eyes. Okay, I didn’t say that, but riding the QLine all day? Then eating an overpriced sandwich surrounded by paintings of a vengeful white man’s God? No, thanks.”
“Still,” I said, “you wanted to make the girls dinner. That’s progress. I mean, it smells like a cow fart apocalypse in here, but you’re coming along.”
“A little encouragement might be nice,” she said. “I don’t need two of you man-babies biting my head off.”
“Two?”
“Jimmy,” Lucy said. “I think his girlfriend dumped him. Why are guys such twisted emotional wreckage?”
Lucy opened her laptop on the small kitchen table. “So anyway, I found the place your friend Buddy Lane told you about. 8384 Toblin Circle, Birmingham, Michigan.”
She brought up a street-level picture of the house, an expansive two-story Tudor in a five-house cul-de-sac. Courtesy of Google Earth, we could see the street and most of the house. A local upscale real estate firm provided us with three-year-old 360-degree views of the exterior and video of the interior of the massive house, plus drone video of the house and neighborhood.
“Sold five years ago to a Lincoln and Marybeth Hamilton from Springfield, Ohio, then again two years later to a William Maebourne of Colorado Springs. He leases it out to a Genoa Enno, LLC, as a rental for Genoa big wigs from Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam.”
“Who’s Maebourne?”
“Far as I can make out, he’s an accountant,” Lucy said. “Does mostly Air Force family taxes and financial planning. Owns a couple rental properties. This is the biggest one. He seems pretty active with his other properties, but not so much with this one.”
“It’s possible he doesn’t know he owns it,” I said. “What kind of business is Genoa?”
“A made-up one,” Lucy said. “Website says they supply high-tech autonomous navigation systems for cars, trucks, cargo freighters. Their financials look real, but feel front loaded. Even the warts and blemishes on their quarterly reports look manufactured. For shits and giggles, I did a scan of the faces of the guys on their Frankfurt executive page and ran the photos through my own facial recognition software, which is rea
lly awesome. Guess what?” Lucy hit two keys and up popped the smiling, silver-haired CEO of Genoa Enno, LLC, Hans Ruger Gremel. She backed out from the close-up of Gremel. His photo shared a page with seven other portraits of smiling, silver-haired white men. Some were dressed like airline pilots. Still others were dressed like chefs, fishermen and doctors. “Mr. Gremel is a no-name model from a stock photo company out of Paramus, New Jersey. They went bust six years ago. Then I had an idea.”
“Am I gonna like this?”
“Probably not,” Lucy said, grinning. “Okay, so I hacked a NOAA satellite—”
“Jesus, Lucy!”
“—’cause those puppies got everything—high-resolution cameras, infrared, ultraviolet spectrum, real-time layered scanning. They scan over a million square miles of the earth’s surface every freakin’ day, dude! So anyway, I hacked the one that covers the Great Lakes—BR-128NTG, or ‘Benji,’ —and had it do a focused infrared, thermal and layered scan of the cul-de-sac in general and 8384 Toblin Circle specifically . . .”
She pointed to a photo of Toblin Circle and the five houses in the cul-de-sac. Four of the houses had spots of light, streaks and flares of white, red and yellow. Thermal and infrared imaging. The fifth house—8384—was a nearly complete black rectangle.
“Holy shit,” I heard myself say.
“I’m guessing as close as you can get to military-grade radio wave insulation and infrared shielding.” Lucy looked up at me. “It’s a Faraday cage.”
“NOAA can’t trace this back to you?” I said.
Lucy laughed. “You mean us, buffalo soldier. And heck no! The propeller-heads at NOAA’ll probably think they got a tenth of a second of space noise or interference from the bazillion satellites junking it up out there.”
Even though I was a bit shaky with Lucy hijacking a multi-million-dollar US government weather satellite, I was also proud of her.
As a reward, I took her to the Honeycomb Market. We bought ingredients to make proper chili: fresh jalapenos, red and black beans, pinto beans, ground chorizo beef, uncured bacon, Mexican-spiced flank steak, tomatoes, Honeycomb’s own blend of chili powder spices, brown sugar and a six of Negra Modelo beer.
Lives Laid Away Page 16
