Urban Renewal (8 page)

THE SLENDER
man looked at his manicured nails, fingered the thin platinum chain under his royal-purple silk shirt. He’d been a good listener. And had become a good practitioner. The old man had been right: If a girl’s fine enough to work the pole in a classy club, no reason to put her on the street, take all those risks. Dancing, she’s going to make some
real
money. And bring it home to her man.

But no
man
spends all day playing with his Xbox. He doesn’t act like a boy. He’s got real game. Working on something big. Can’t talk about it to his woman—he’s got to protect her, and the less she knows, the better … for her.

He knows where she is at night. But she doesn’t know where he is. Or what he’s doing. Or when he’s coming back.

But she knows this: when he
does
, there better be some cash on the table.

Trolling for new stuff is hard. Lot of competition out there. But when you got the goods, that stuff comes to you.

A man who understands The Life understands that it will always be there, but not always in the same form. “Evolution” is what the old man called it, and that sounded right.

So he knew Taylor would come back, sooner or later. After all, everything she owned, from her clothes to her jewelry to that stupid cat she was always fussing over, it was all back at his apartment.
His
apartment. His name was the
only
name on the lease. That way, she couldn’t lock him out … and a bitch
will
do that, you don’t plan ahead. Call the police, they’d never find a mark on her. And the cops couldn’t even tell him to spend the night someplace else—they’re not allowed to do evictions. They tell anyone to sleep someplace else, it’d be
her
.

As far as Taylor knew, her man was always on the edge of danger. The money for the car and the clothes and the bling—he’d
had
all that before they’d ever gotten together. It all came from working a robbery of some Colombians, down in Miami.
After
they dumped their powder, the way a real pro does—his crew wanted the cash, not the product.

The Colombians were still looking for him. That’s why his next score had to be big enough to last them the rest of their lives. The rest of their lives
together
. No more dancing for her. He didn’t like the idea of men looking at her that way. Not at
his
woman. But every time he hinted that he wanted her to quit, Taylor always managed to talk him out of it.

Naturally, his own crew was close by—you never pull a job in the same state twice. “You don’t
want
to meet them,” he’d told her. Promised they’d get this all sorted out pretty soon. Might be some blood spilled, but none of it was going to get on him.

In the meantime, she brought in the money while he worked the edges. Once he took care of the planning—that was his role; guns were for fools—the
big
job, that
last
job was going to go down. Taylor earned good, but she couldn’t hope to make major bucks if she never left the stage. And he sure wasn’t going to
make
her do anything she didn’t want to do.

Yes, he had to slap her around every so often, but only when she got too pushy. “You hear the word ‘When?’—don’t matter if the next word out her mouth is ‘Daddy,’ you do what you got to do. But you never leave a mark.” The old man had taught him both meanings of that last sentence, and Lawrence never forgot either one.

I’m the one holding all the cards
, the player silently gloated, as he pulled
his
Lexus into the garage behind the building where
his
apartment was located.

All he had to do was wait. The same way he’d waited for Chi-Town Terror to visit his mother years ago.

“
A MAN
with style can’t have all that ‘MF’ stuff come out his mouth,” the old man had told him. “You don’t need to sound like a preacher, but you got to have manners. Class. Always be professional. Don’t show your cards on your face.

“Lawrence? That’s the kind of name a boy gets from his mama. You got that voodoo blood in you, shows everywhere. So you either a swamp nigger or a Creole prince. Which sounds better to you, huh? Try this one on for size: Jean-Baptiste. Nice, am I right? Okay, Jean-Baptiste LaRue. That’s gonna be you. ‘LaRue’—you know what it means in Creole? ‘The Street.’ Get it?

“Now, you practice saying that name, saying it the way I just said it. I know where you can get the right ID, match you all the way. But ID’s like a custom suit—it’s got to
fit
to be right. That name, it’s special. You don’t say it like you spell it, so you got to know both. Cop looks at your ID, asks you your name, it got to come out like you been saying it all your life.”

True Blue had passed on, but not before Jean-Baptiste had learned it all. Now he was as smooth as ice, and patient as a glacier.

BUT WHEN
he walked into an apartment that had been stripped to the bare walls, he could barely suppress the urge to go out, get a gun, and teach that bitch …

Teach her what, fool?
True Blue’s voice echoed, as if the old man were right there with him, both looking at the empty space.
Take a half-dozen men to pull off something like this. You think that bitch got friends that good? Nah. This was something that got paid for. Time for you to float, boy
.

Fighting for calm, he pulled the mate to Taylor’s phone from the pocket of his russet suede jacket and hit her speeddialed number. Number One, as he never failed to remind her.

“You know what to do. And when to do it.” Taylor’s sultry voice, followed by the beep signaling voice-mail was coming next.

Phone’s in my name
, he thought.
So she can’t cancel the account. When the next bill comes, I’ll know who she set this up with
.

Breathing deeply, as if preparing to dive off a cliff, Jean-Baptiste walked through the spacious apartment. Every room had been emptied.

Not my clothes!
He fought off panic. But when he saw that his own walk-in closet was as empty as the rest of the place, he had to summon all his inner strength not to throw Taylor’s phone through a window.

“
HE SAID
if J.B. showed up here, I could go home.”

“Oh, honey,” Arabella said, “you have to learn to really listen when a man talks. Especially
that
man.”

“But I
was
!”

“Stop being a baby,” the little blonde said. “Sure, you can go back to where you lived. Not ‘home.’ It’s not going to be that, ever again. And he said ‘sooner or later,’ didn’t he? That spells out ‘not tonight’ any way you look at it.”

“But if I don’t go back, he’ll do something.…”

“If you don’t go back, whatever that trash does, he’ll have to do it to
himself
, honey. They even took your cat.”

“Huh?”

Arabella expertly piloted her little Mercedes out of the safe zone and into the streets. “This is yours.” She smiled, handing the brunette a folded piece of paper.

“What is it?”

“It’s a rental agreement. For this huge storage unit—the address is on top. You paid three months in advance. Fifteen hundred, cash. The numbers on the bottom, they’re for the combination lock.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars?!”

“The unit’s big enough to live in, girl. Had to be, to hold everything in that apartment of yours.”

“It’s been emptied out?”

“Are you really this thick? Yes, it’s been emptied out. Right down to the walls. Check your phone, you’ll see.”

“But if—”

“If we’re going to be roommates, you’re going to have to learn to do what makes sense, honey. And what makes sense right this minute is for you to check your phone.”

Taylor fumbled in her brand-name bag, pulled her latest-model phone from its slot, and saw she had a text waiting.

“Oh my God!”

“Will you stop all the damn drama? What did he do, threaten you or something?”

“Yes! And he knows where to find me. I mean, if I go back to that club …”

“Oh, you
are
going back to that club, girl. Who do you think cleaned out your apartment?”

“But …”

“It’s gonna be
your
butt if you don’t, baby. You stay with me until … until we can find ourselves a nice little three-bedroom. I know a perfect spot. In Uptown. Second floor. We’re going to be college girls, far as the owner knows. Old Polish guy, minds his own business. Last place that punk would ever expect to find you.”

“But the club? I mean, he’ll come after me. I know he will. And he’s with this whole gang. Professionals.”

“Sure, he is. And the Double-X, the people that work there, they’re all amateurs, huh?”

“I … I guess not.”

“Give me your phone.”

“My phone?”

“Am I speaking a foreign language? That so-called man of yours, he has your phone on the same plan as his, right?”

“Yes. But—”

“I better not hear ‘but’ come out of your mouth again, girl. You make
any
calls on that phone, he’s going to know soon as the bill comes. Why do you think I’m driving in circles? He’s probably got his own chip in that phone, too.”

“Oh.”

“ ‘Oh’? Oh,
what
? You just escape from a convent? Soon as you get new ID—”

“I
have
ID. ‘Taylor’ is just a name I made up.”

“Really!”

“You don’t have to sound so sarcastic.”

“And you don’t have to
act
so damn dumb. Who made up that ‘Taylor’ name you use? Yeah, I thought so. All right, like I
started
to say, you take your phone and throw it in the river when we go over the bridge. Then you take your
new
ID and use it to get yourself a
new
phone. What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t know where I could get new ID.”

“I am
so
shocked to hear that! Look, honey, I told you that place was covered, didn’t I? You’ll have to pay for the ID, and they’ll front it, same as for the storage unit. But you’re not going to get cheated, and the
only
payment the man takes is cash, so don’t waste your time trying to offer him anything else.”

“The man with the tattoo on the back of his hand?”

“Bingo. I guess his name wouldn’t mean anything to you. I bet you never even
heard
of Red 71.”

The brunette just shook her head.