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  Rolando and Sonny were impressed, paid them the rest of the fee and added a tip. “You some bad little bitches,” Rolando said. “You like them two female cops on TV. You remember that show?”

  “Starsky and Hutch,” Sonny said.

  “Naw, that ain’t it,” Rolando said.

  Word spread. Sal and Annie got work and a reputation for pulling off impossible jobs. In the movies, professional contractors are in demand and highly paid, one more figment of a screenwriter’s imagination. Starsky and Hutch worked sporadically and made a sporadic living. It was not glamorous, fun or dignified. They traveled around and killed people.

  The room at the Crest Motel smelled like mold and roach powder. Annie had a voracious appetite and ordered a pizza.

  “What are we going to do?” she said.

  “We can’t set up at Isaiah’s house,” Sal answered.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’ll be two white chicks in black clothes sitting in a car in the middle of the hood, that’s why. We don’t exactly blend in.”

  “Could we call a truce, please?” Annie said. “So what, then? He could be anywhere.”

  Sal thought a moment. “We need help.”

  “From who?”

  “We have to call the client.”

  Chapter Nine

  Whore of the Vampires

  When I was a kid, my auntie Georgina got sick,” TK said. “She was old and deaf and had to be spoon-fed most of the time. So one day I goes over there to babysit. Nobody else was around ’cept my uncle, who was almost as messed up as Georgina. So I goes into the bedroom and she’s a-settin’ in her wheelchair and I see she’s tilted to the right. Well, I don’t want her to fall on the floor, so I went over and pushes her straight. Two minutes later, she’s tilting to the left and I have to do it all over again. This went on the whole damn afternoon. Right, left, right, left, right, left. Well, I’m about to push her out of the chair myself but then my uncle comes in. He gets real close to her and says, ‘How you doin’, Georgina? This young man treatin’ you all right?’ And she said, ‘Oh, he’s treatin’ me just fine, but he won’t let me fart.’”

  Grace laughed and laughed. “I love you, TK. I really do.”

  The moment she arrived, TK had held out his arms. “How you doin’, baby?” he said. She rushed into the embrace, put her head on his chest and cried into his oily coveralls. “Oh, now, now. Stop all that nonsense. I ain’t nobody to cry over.”

  He told his joke and they strolled around the wrecking yard, Ruffin back on his home ground, sniffing and peeing and sniffing and peeing and chasing ground squirrels. She remembered sleeping in the loft that Isaiah had fixed up for her and running from Walczak’s crew and hiding in the Passat and shooting at them with Mr. Brown.

  “How’s your life going?” TK asked.

  “It was rough for a while but I’m better now,” she said. “Mom is safe and the Walczak thing is behind me.”

  “Somethin’ like that would’ve broke most people’s back,” TK said. “I don’t know how you came out of it in one piece.” Grace wondered that too. TK lit a Pall Mall, squinting as he exhaled. “How’s Isaiah doing?” he asked.

  “Great. Except for the case he’s working on.”

  “Y’all are together now?”

  “Yeah, we’re together.”

  TK chuckled. “Two shy folks who don’t like people and do most of their talkin’ to that dog? That’s a match made somewhere but it sho’ wasn’t heaven.” They walked in silence a bit, her arm through his. Something was wrong, she thought. TK was brooding and tense, wanting to say something. She waited, letting him get there on his own. They were all the way back to the warehouse when he said, “Grace, I got something I want to talk about.”

  “Are you okay?” Grace said. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” He lowered his voice. “It’s about a woman. I, uh—I have feelins for her.” TK’s first wife had died, and his second wife left him. Grace thought he’d lost interest in women. He was elderly, white haired, made mostly of sinew and gristle, but damn appealing if you liked honesty, the inner strength of heavy machinery and jokes ranging from hilarious to god-awful. “Other folks might not understand it, but this woman is—” He stopped, unable to describe her.

  “She must be something special,” Grace said.

  “She is that.” TK smiled and shook his head like he was admiring a tornado or a tidal wave. “See, I don’t go for no ordinary women. I ain’t got nothin’ against ’em but I need some vitality, somebody with some get-up-and-go. Somebody who makes me want to get up and go with her.” Another surprise. Grace thought he’d want a woman as laid back as he was. TK sighed. “Problem is, the woman don’t know I’m alive. I might as well be a lampshade or a tin can for all she cares.”

  “Have you introduced yourself?”

  “I started going to church ’cause that’s the only place I’d see her, but I ain’t said nothing to her.”

  “Does she know your name?” Grace asked.

  TK looked down at the ground. “No, I haven’t talked to her yet,” and Grace realized he was intimidated. “What’s so hard about talking to her?” she continued. “You’ve done a million things that were scarier than that.”

  “I haven’t courted a woman in fifteen years,” he said. “I’m nervous as a goddamn teenager.” He took off his STP cap and wiped his brow. “But I suppose the main reason is her. She’s not friendly, for one thing. No, I’d say she’s one step short of a snappin’ turtle—and opinionated too, one of them people that’s right all the time, which makes you wrong all the time, and if she’s got a sense of humor, nobody knows about it.”

  Grace didn’t think she sounded nice at all and wondered if TK had left out some things. “Well, maybe start by introducing yourself,” she said. “You know, saying hi.”

  He shook his head woefully. “It’s not that easy. I need your help, Grace.”

  She was getting a bad feeling about this. Like he was asking her to go swimming in quicksand. “I’m not sure I can,” she said. “Like you said, I’m shy, I don’t like people, and I’m most comfortable when with the dog.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I got nobody else to ask.”

  “Right.”

  “Look, all I want you to do is size her up,” TK said. “Get a feel for her, see what you think. There’s a church picnic at the park and I was hoping you’d go with me.”

  “Sure, if you want. What’s the woman’s name, by the way?”

  “Gloria Simmons. She’s Dodson’s mother-in-law.”

  They heard tires crunching gravel and Mos Def’s “Close Edge.” She smiled. A bright red convertible drove into the yard, Deronda bobbing her head, waving her arm in the air like she just don’t care and dancing in her seat.

  “Whassup, baby sista!” she shouted. She got out of the car and they hugged. “Watch my nails. Them sparkly things cost money.” Deronda was jangling with bling, hair up and elaborate, her smile as big as the grill on a Cadillac Eldorado.

  She’s so beautiful, Grace thought. “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “TK gave me a call. Damn, I’m glad to see your pale ass. Whassup, TK? How you doin’?”

  “I’m old and slow but I’m doin’ all right.”

  “Have you seen Isaiah yet?” Deronda asked.

  “Yeah,” Grace said. “We’re sort of together.” She wondered why it was so hard to say.

  “Dang, girl,” Deronda said. “All the men who would rise up on you and that’s who you pick? He’s a good person and all that but as a boyfriend? You could hook up with a workaholic hedge fund manager and have more fun.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but he’s the one.”

  “He’s the one? Oh, my muthafuckin’ God. You done lost your mind.”

  “That seems to be the consensus.”

  Deronda thought a moment. “What are y’all doin’ tonight?”

  “Me? Nothing really.”

&nbs
p; “Aight, then,” Deronda said, delighted. “It’s a girl’s night out, baby sista!” She looked at Grace and paused, her smile fading.

  “What’s the matter?” Grace said.

  “Girl, we need to do something about your appearance.”

  Deronda took Grace to get a manicure and pedicure. She’d never had either. It seemed more complicated than repairing the Hubble telescope. Cutting, filing, soaking, prepping the cuticles, first coat, second coat and other stuff she didn’t bother watching. The same for her toes too. Who had time to do this? She wondered. Deronda had the manicurist apply what she called design features, which took even more time. When the job was finally done, Grace’s nails were a quarter-inch long and looked like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning had decorated ten little Christmas trees. She didn’t understand how she was supposed to eat, drive, open a door. Live. She wondered if her toes were supposed to be visible from space.

  “Don’t you think this is a lot?” Grace said.

  “No,” Deronda replied. “I’d say that’s just enough.”

  Grace had always resented how much crap women went through to look presentable, a word her father had used when she was a kid. But she dutifully explored Cherokee’s closet and found a simple black cocktail dress that hadn’t been worn since 1994. Grace examined herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. “That’s not bad, don’t you think?”

  Deronda looked at her like she’d just arrived from Upper Rubber Boot in patched coveralls and a straw hat. “That’s the saddest dress I’ve ever seen,” she said. They took the dress over to Deronda’s apartment. She raised the hemline three inches and borrowed some stilettos that made Grace wobble like a newborn giraffe. Then she slicked back Grace’s hair with something that made it look wet, and did a gothy thing with her makeup. Stark black eyebrows and long fake eyelashes, black eye shadow and bright red lipstick.

  “You white girls like this look,” Deronda announced.

  “We do?”

  “Makes you look all dramatic.”

  “I’m not a dramatic person.”

  “I know,” Deronda said. “But try.”

  Bling next. Big hoop earrings, a neck chain with a dollar-sign medallion, clinking hoop bracelets and a belt with a heart-shaped buckle as big as an actual heart. They stood in front of the mirror together.

  Deronda smiled, pleased with her work. “What do you think?”

  Grace stared at herself, incredulous. “I look like a vampire who decided to be a whore.”

  Grace had never been in a real nightclub before. “Jesus,” she said. It was overwhelming, the swarm of dancing bodies, the ear-shattering music and the dense, booze-mixed-with-sweat-mixed-with-pheromones smell.

  “Whoo-yeah, baby, we gonna party tonight!” Deronda said. “I got to find my people—oh wait, I don’t believe it. There’s Junior!”

  “Junior?” Grace said.

  “You don’t remember him? You robbed his house.”

  “I didn’t see what he looked like. I was in the dryer.”

  “Let’s go say hello,” Deronda said.

  “Didn’t you do something painful to his dick?” Grace asked.

  “Balls, honey,” Deronda replied. “I twisted ’em so hard they almost came off in my hand.”

  “Now there’s a nice thought.”

  As they approached Junior, Deronda said, “Don’t he look like a pug? Every time I see him, I want to open a box a Milk-Bones.”

  Junior was lounging on a flouncy pink sofa, his arm around a hoochie girl with thighs like sleeping walruses.

  “Hello, Junior. Remember me?” Deronda said.

  “Yes, I remember you,” he said indignantly. “You impaired my sperm facilities for an entire generation. I believe you owe me your condolences.”

  “Do you really think talking like that makes you seem smart?”

  “A good vocabulary signifies perceptivity,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Deronda replied, “but you sound like a can of alphabet soup blew up in your head.”

  “Who’re you supposed to be?” the hoochie girl said to Grace.

  “A friend,” Grace said.

  “A friend of Deronda’s? Shee-it, girl, you need to meet some new people.”

  “And you need to shut up before I tear the weave outta your head,” Deronda said.

  Junior flicked his hand. “Be gone, you felonious bitch, before I grab you by your giblets and ensconce your ass on outta here.”

  “Uh-huh. And I’ll see you at the pound, you little dog-face monkey.”

  Deronda and Grace plunged back into the crowd, circling the dance floor. Deronda smiled, big and broad. “I got me a new man.”

  “Really?” Grace said. “That’s great.”

  “He’s a good one too. I thought they were extinct like dinosaurs or dodo birds.”

  As they approached a table, Grace said, “Is that him? He’s gorgeous.”

  “Ain’t he though,” Deronda said. He stood up. “Grace, this my boyfriend, Robert,” Deronda announced proudly. “Robert, this is Grace.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Robert said. He had warm eyes and a charming smile. “Please sit down. May I get you something to drink?” Grace glanced at Deronda. Oh, my God, is he for real? Deronda’s sister, Kalina, was there, along with her friend Nona, plus Nona’s boyfriend, Jermaine, and another fine brother who called himself Whip. Everybody laughed and drank, shouting over the music, the back-and-forth nonsensical and fun.

  As uncomfortable as she was in her Whore of the Vampires outfit, Grace was glad she came. It was great to see Deronda so happy. Cuddling with Robert, feeding him the cherry from her drink, whispering things that made him smile and shake his head. Whip, who looked really young, was all over her; flirting, teasing and joking, buying her drinks and stroking the back of her hand.

  “She got a boyfriend, you know,” Deronda said.

  “It’s okay,” Grace said. “I’m kinda liking it.”

  Whip smiled condescendingly. “Can you dance?”

  “Let’s go find out,” Grace said, taking off her shoes. She danced. No posing or moves, nothing planned or premeditated, nothing to please the crowd. Over the years, she’d developed her own boogie; a blend of the jazz lessons her mother made her take, Axl Rose’s snake dance, the hula dancers she’d seen when her dad was based in Hawaii and the headbanging she’d picked up in her punk days. The sistas weren’t appreciative but the bruthas were diggin’ it. Go on, baby, move that thang. Look at the bootie on the white girl! She must be high on somethin’. That bitch gonna have a heart attack.

  Grace heard none of it. She was gone from the world, dancing amid glittering bursts of color, coils of mist, shooting stars and a beckoning horizon, and as the room spun around and around her, she thought, Oh, Isaiah. It’s all because of you.

  Isaiah was waiting around for Gia to call him. She was trying to pin down Marlene and the pressure was getting to him. Christiana’s imminent arrest, the futility of solving an unsolvable case, Stella in danger and not being with Grace. Here he’d waited all this time for her and—no, don’t go there, Isaiah. Keep your eye on the ball.

  Gia called, upset. “Something happened. The police called Christiana but Bertrand answered. They wanted him to come down to the police station. They said they had a few more questions. I told him to talk to the lawyers first but he went anyway. He said he wanted to clear the whole thing up.”

  “Shhhhit!” Isaiah said. He couldn’t keep running around like this. Instead of trying to catch Marlene, he’d follow whichever alter appeared and stay on that one until he or she switched out with the two alters whom he hadn’t interviewed. Marlene and Jasper.

  Bertrand was in an interrogation room, waiting, strolling around the tiny space with his hands behind his back, looking at the walls like every one of them had a view. He tapped on the two-way window. “Excuse me. Hello?” He tapped again. “Could I get some peanuts or something? And a root beer. An ice-cold root beer would be great.” No answer.
“I know you’re in there, you know. I watch CSI all the time.”

  The two detectives came in. Bertrand had forgotten their names but they were both round and bald. He thought of them as Humpty and Dumpty. They were looking at him funny.

  “Is there something wrong?” he asked.

  “You’re dressed…different,” Humpty said.

  Bertrand looked down at his clothes. He was wearing what he always wore: Dockers, a short-sleeve checked shirt, a leather belt and sneakers he bought at the drugstore.

  “Why don’t you have a seat, Miss Byrne,” Humpty said.

  “It’s mister.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Mister Byrne,” Bertrand insisted.

  The detectives glanced at each other. “Okay, Mister Byrne,” Humpty said.

  They sat across from each other. Dumpty leaned against the wall with his arms folded. They made Bertrand sign a paper waiving his right to an attorney.

  “Okay,” Humpty said. “We can start now.”

  “Did you hear me about the peanuts?” Bertrand said.

  “We don’t have any.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be mad about it.”

  “I’m not mad,” Humpty said.

  “Yes, you are. I can see it in your face.”

  Humpty’s voice rose. “I’m telling you, we don’t—”

  Dumpty cleared his throat and Humpty took a breath. “We just want to clear up a few things,” he said. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us what happened.”

  “Right,” Bertrand said, happy to get going. “I was sitting on the floor next to Tyler’s body and it was very unpleasant, I can tell you. Well, I got up, looked through the curtain and the first thing I saw was the ninny woman going toward the back entrance.”

  “‘Ninny woman’?” Dumpty said.

  “Wait a second,” Humpty said. “That’s not the beginning. The whole thing started with you and Tyler in the showroom, didn’t it?”

  “Not for me,” Bertrand replied.