Snatched (2 page)

"Look, maybe I was wrong.
I thought it was you, man.
Maybe it was
someone who looked like you…"

"So, which is it?"
This from Rez.
"
Were you lying to me, Roach?"

He stood up, abruptly pushing his chair to the ground as he stepped toward the two men frozen in a death clinch.
Rez still had his
Bowie
knife in his hand, but didn't move to help Roach.
If anything, he was holding himself back from taking a slice himself.

"
Man, you'd better not
be stealing from me
.
It's one thing if new
blood here is sneaking, but you been with me from the beginning."

"Rez, I swear to you, it wasn't me.
And if it wasn'
t Dele, then I don't know who."

Dele thought now was the time to speak his peace, or he might never get a chance before either a knife or bullet settled the matter.

"Rez, just admit you can't be sure who stole that stash.
If y
ou're
going to
have blood on your hand
s
, you
wanna
make sure you kill
the right one.
Now I know it wasn't me
.
Roach
says
he didn't
do it
and
for all that he's a worthless piece of shit,
he could be telling the truth.
It could be any
one of us –
or
more likely
someone who happened on the stash.
With those odds, y
ou
wanna
think real hard about putting someone six feet under.
"

Rez raised his knife slowly, placed it at Dele's throat, just
a touch
at the artery.
One slit, and the wall and surrounding f
urniture would get a new coat of red
.

"Be cool, Rez.
You want the truth, you're not going to get it killing me."

Rez lowered his knife
.
Dele
lowered Roach's knife
.
The three men stood at an impasse.

"I tell you what new blood," Rez finally spoke.
"
You get me proof you didn't do this.
Which means you bring
me the body of the one who did.
I don't care who it is.
Just get me
the body along with
my $50,000 stash.
I'm giving you
'til
the end of the week.
That way, we'll be squared."

Roach rubbed his neck, his finger coming away with a spot of blood.
Dele's
knife had
nicked
into Roach
when Rez
had
pushed his
own
knife along Dele's throat.

The jukebox was bla
st
ing another song.
Three Dog Night
's "Mama Told Me Not to Come
.
"
Jed was
staring
at the television
as though the last fifteen minutes never happened.
Even if one of them had been l
a
ying dead, blood staining the floor, Jed would have looked away
.
Then later, after the crew had piled out, the owner would have put in an anonymous call
to
the cops to say a body had
m
ysteriously appeared on
the bar's
floor, no witnesses.

At least there was no body today.
Instead when the
crew
filed out, they left
a collection of
empty bottles on the table
s as well as numerous
cigarette butts, blunts and potato chip bags on the floor.
The small bar smelled of liquor, sweat and funk.

After the door slammed
shut on
a hot
Los Angeles
night, Jed finally turned off the television and went into the storage room.

"Fucking punks," he said
beneath
his breath as he
came back with a broom to sweep
away the garbage.

Nailah
Madsen
cut her eyes at the young bloods checking her
out
.
They had to be
no more than
fourteen or fifteen, and had the nerve to
be browsing
her like she was
some
shorty
from the
'hood
.
She transmitted her message with
a glare
a
s
though to say
:
"Who the hell you think you're looking at?"
T
he
young boys
noted
the
antagonism
and
one of them shouted
, "Bitch, you should be happy
somebody's
lookin'
at your old ass
!
"

Nailah
clicked her teeth
as she continued
past them.
A chorus of raucous laughter followed in her wake.
She knew she shouldn't let it get to her, but the comment stung.
She was thirty-
three
, hardly old
but far past the age when she should have to put up with this shit.

She crossed
Manchester Boulevard
, where the whiff
of
barbecue
piqued her nose.
Ru
b
y
's
BBQ
was a staple of the neighborhood, one that
Nailah
had
firmly placed
on her "no
go
od
" list
last month
.
Those
ribs were
simply "
no good
"
for her hips
or behind, but they were calling to her now, the spicy smell bringing to mind the memory of tearing into succulent meat basted in a sweet, piquant sauce that had no comparison.
She quickened her pace,
determined
to
get her suit from
the cleaners
before they closed.
As she passed Lavelle's Braids, the door opened and a newly coiffed customer stepped out with a little girl in tow.
The woman's hair was coiled-locked around a gorgeous, pixie face and
Nailah
self-consciously touched
a strand of her bangs, pushed it out of the way
.
She was due for a
touchup
soon, but she still looked decent enough to get through her interview tomorrow.

The thought of the interview fluttered the butterflies in her stomach even more.
She
couldn't help the nerves, even though she
had over ten years of financial investment
experience.
She was stepping back, taking a load off by
just
going for a financial consultant job
, a step down from
the direct investment banker
position
she had worked
her way
up
to
from a teller position
a decade
ago.
She had worked her ass off, pursuing two degrees
at night.
And her
reward
for all th
e
hard work
had been
her
entry into a
snake pit
where being a woman
marked you as prey while
being a black woman
made you such an
anomaly
they didn't
even
bother to swallow you
, just spat you out
.
Despite that
, she'd
out
performed
many of her male co-workers
, bringing in clients, maintaining portfolios
, and more importantly, generating revenue
.
Which only garner
ed
more resentment
.
Now she
just wanted a break, a breather.
She wanted to
know how it felt to
live
again
.
Know what it was like to get up
to go to a job she enjoyed
and come home
at a reasonable hour
.
For the
p
ast ten years her office had
become
home,
while
her
condo
was
s
ome
place
she
made pit stops for a
change
of
clothes.
Expensive clothes like the Chanel suit she was picking up
to wear to the interview
.
It was her power suit and h
opefully, her good luck suit
, as well
.

Just as s
he
neared the
cleaners at the
end of the block
, a
group
of roaring motorcycles rounded the bend.
The
thunderous
decibel levels were
earsplitting
.
She glanced around as a line of about ten to twelve bikes swung into the
parking lot of an abandoned building across the street.
The three-storied eyesore had been boarded up for a year, but signs outside announced a change of ownership and the coming of a suite of business offices.
But decay in any form attracted rats of all kinds.
She turned
her back
as she entered the cleaners.

Beatrice
,
or Bea as she preferred to be called, was handling a couple of customers, but she still acknowledged
Nailah
with a nod.
After a few minutes, the customers were out of the shop and
Nailah
walked up to the counter.

"How's it going?" Bea asked with a distracted smile as she placed two tickets into the register drawer the
n
closed it.
Two short red curls clung to
her
sweating forehead.
Her meaty bare arms also had sweat beads dotting them.
But then, the shop felt about
ten
degrees
warmer
than out
side
where the temperature hovered
near ninety.

Nailah
pulled her ticket from her purse. "
I'm h
anging in there.
Trying to keep cool, mostly."

Bea
took the ticket.
"Hold on,
got it right here
."
She
turned
the
caro
u
sel
of cleaning ready to
be
picked up, pulled out a
plastic-wrapped
jacket and skirt
combo in a warm sage
and handed
the cleaning
to
Nailah
.

"I
absolutely
love this suit, but I
guess
I
tell you that every
time you bring it in."

"
Yes you do, but I never get tired of hearing it
.
I'm hoping it'll bri
ng me some luck
with my
interview tomorrow."

"R
eally?
Well,
I'm sure you've got
that job
all wrapped up with a bow, but I'm crossing my fingers for you anyway."

As Nailah took out her money, a
throttle churned, rumbling through the
small
space
.

"
D
amn bikers
,
" Bea muttered
, taking
Nailah
's twenty
dollar
bill and
counting
out
change
from the register
.