Scavenger Hunt

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Big Wise could have told him it was going to happen. If only Solomon Black had listened.

  He moved out of the house. Left it paid for through the next month, but that was it. Ramona was on the lease with him – they’d cosigned when his lease renewal came up, and he figured that she could deal with it or take the hit to her credit. He sure as shit didn’t care about it one way or another.

  Let the cocksucker who knocked her up take care of that shit.

  Even if she didn’t pay, and the landlord tried to come after him, too. He would deal with that when it came. He even thought maybe – just maybe – Big Wise would show up on that day. Would maybe give the landlord a bit of a talkin’-to. Big Wise’s talkin’-tos generally ended up with the other party bruised, bleeding, and more than willing to listen to any requests that Big Wise might send their way.

  No. That ain’t me.

  But when he looked in the bathroom mirror of his new place – the first place, the crappy little pay-as-you-go place he had started in – he saw little of Solomon Black looking back at him. Big Wise was the man on the other side of the glass. Big Wise’s dark eyes, his need to commit violence.

  “Livin’ the dream,” said Solomon, and on the other side of the mirror, Big Wise mouthed the words as well, and smiled the white smile of a shark.

  Within three weeks of moving, Wise Words, LLC, was no longer booking gigs. A month after that, the manager dropped him via a curtly-worded email. No more offers for Solomon Black to speak. He tried to tell himself it was just a slump, but knew that was a lie. The reality was that Solomon Black had died. He was gone, and no one wanted to pay Big Wise to talk about the dangers of gang life, because the reality was that Big Wise liked the gang. He missed the gang.

  Big Wise wanted back in.

  11

  Wanting in was one thing, though. Feeling the past reach out for him was something else. And it terrified him.

  He was sitting in his apartment when the call came. A buzzzzz that continued on forever, which was good because anything shorter than forever wouldn’t have penetrated the haze he was operating in pretty much twenty-four/seven. He fished the phone out of his back pocket and stared at the screen. He expected it was Ramona. She kept calling, at first to ask forgiveness, then to plead with him to come back. “It’s over,” she said. “It was a one-time thing. I knew him forever, and you were gone and we –”

  Big Wise never got past that part of the call or the voicemail. He clicked disconnect and drank some more from the bottle of Colt 45 malt that had become his best friend in the past few weeks. He figured he’d do the same this time, or maybe ask her what the dude’s name was who so easily slid into his place –

  (Who showed up in my territory, poached on my turf!)

  – and then tell her he was going to beat the guy to pieces, and then maybe give her a black eye or two as well. Only…

  … it wasn’t her.

  The screen lit up, and there was no name to go with the number, but there didn’t have to be one. He knew that number, just like he knew his social security number and the amount of money he’d stolen all those years back. Numbers he would never forget.

  The number on the phone belonged to Two-Teeth.

  He didn’t want to take it. No way the dude was going to call in order to say, “Hey, how you doing?” and then welcome him back to the fold. No, this was something bad. Had to be. ‘Cause that’s all life had to give: bad and more bad, and the only way to get anything other than that badness was to reach out and take what you wanted.

  Only now, Two-Teeth was reaching out for him.

  Solomon Black wanted to hang up the phone. To run again. But that part of him was small, and getting smaller every day.

  “What?” he said into the phone

  “Who is this?” demanded the voice on the other end of the line.

  Solomon cocked his head. “Who is this?”

  “I asked you a question, asshole. You better –”

  Solomon looked at the phone. Realized that the number wasn’t in his incoming calls list, but his outgoing calls.

  How the hell could that possibly happen?

  He didn’t know.

  Another sound came. Buzzzzz…

  Again, his alcohol-sotted brain didn’t pick up on the sound. And that was fine, because even if it had it wouldn’t have made a difference, because in the next moment Solomon felt himself fold over like –

  (a little girl in a suitcase)

  – a lawn chair. He didn’t know why or how, but he knew in that last moment that he had lost control. Of his career, of his love life, and now of his own body.

  He closed his eyes, and went into the darkness.

  Then he opened them again, and found himself in a white room. A crazy dude in a cardboard mask of a happy face on the iPad bolted to the wall. A watch on his arm and a collar rigged with explosives around his neck.

  Then running.

  And the worst thing was that he was back home. Back to Skid Row and Five-Deuce territory.

  Was Two-Teeth still here? Did people still remember Big Wise? Was anyone looking for him?

  He didn’t know. He couldn’t even be sure if the person who answered the phone when he called that number belonged to Two-Teeth or just someone who’d inherited the number after Two-Teeth got done with it.

  The latter had to be the case. No way Two-Teeth was still around. That was something that Solomon Black had learned over the years: no one really got ahead in the gangs. Not long term. A few people ascended to the height of gang life, but they always ended up in prison or in the ground. Two-Teeth wasn’t any different, and at this point, the better part of a decade after Solomon had fled the hood, there was no way he was going to be anywhere but in a permanent bunk in a max-security prison somewhere or an even more permanent bunk six feet under.

  Still, it wasn’t good being here. Wasn’t right. His tats were easily visible, and no way they’d go unnoticed, even in the middle of the night. Sooner or later someone would see them, and would let the Five-Deuce in the area know that someone sporting their tag on his face was in play. They’d act – they’d have to. Either it was a pretender, in which case they’d deal most harshly with the offender, or it was an old member come home after prison, and who’d need to be given at least token respect on his return.

  No one had seen so far. But they’d been running a while. Something both Big Wise and Solomon Black had in common: they both hated running. He wasn’t good at it, and his body always seemed to find the least efficient way to put one leg in front of the other. He would have worried that the others would leave him behind, only Do-Good said they had to stay together. That worried him. Sooner or later, he figured that someone would fall behind – or get left behind. That was the way of things. That was the world he lived in: a world where women cheated, little girls got sold to a life in the sex trade, and where anyone who couldn’t keep up got left behind for the wolves to take down.

  At least he was the only one who knew this area well enough to get them where they had to go. 1514 Chambers Street. No one would ditch him if he was their only hope at getting to where they needed to be before Do-Good exploded them from the neck up.

  They got a fifteen-minute countdown. With barely a minute left, Solomon stopped in front of the house that Do-Good wanted them at.

  He couldn’t say a word when he saw it. He knew the area well. He knew this street well, because he’d come here often in the old days. This street had a special place in his heart. A special place in his history.

  But he’d never known the number of the house. Or, if he had, he’d forgotten it. Why bother with numbers when everyone you spoke to probably knew where it was?

  “What now?” said the skinny kid. Clint.

  Noelle shoved her hands in her pockets and shivered. She was cute enough, Solomon supposed, though she had a pretty typical white-girl-lack-of-ass, and he really didn’t know what he could have done with that thing, push came to shove.

  “What
could we possibly find here?” she said.

  Naked fear shone in her eyes. But Solomon knew that it was nothing compared to the terror in his own eyes.

  Not here. Not here. Not HERE.

  Something beeped. For a moment he thought it was the old days. When he’d started, some of the guys still used beepers, and coded messages would come in occasionally. The beepers disappeared in favor of phones, but Solomon still knew the sound. Beeeeep.

  Only this wasn’t a beeper. No coded message. It was the watch Do-Good had stuck on him. As when they left the white room, Do-Good’s voice came over the watches.

  “Do-Good says, GET READY FOR MORE! Your challenge: steal something inside the house and get out again. Must be worth two-hundred and fifty-thousand or more… and for an extra challenge, only Elena can handle the merchandise! You have five minutes, so scoot!”

  Solomon heard a few people gasp. He felt like gasping, too, though he knew his reasons were different than those of the others.

  “Two hundred and fifty grand?” murmured Clint.

  “There’s no way –” began Elena, the dumpy-looking chick who Solomon told himself Ramona’d probably look like in ten years, even though he knew that was a straight-up lie.

  “This whole place isn’t worth that much,” said Noelle. “How –”

  Then Solomon was talking. “Oh, no, please, no, this ain’t happening, it can’t be –”

  Chong walked up to the door and hammered a big, meaty fist on it. He waited a breath, then slammed his shoulder into the door. It didn’t give. Solomon knew it wouldn’t, and would have told Chong that if the big guy had let him.

  Or maybe not. The guy was a dick. Thought he knew better, thought he was tougher than everyone else. Solomon knew that wasn’t true – ‘specially not here. Chong might be tough. But he wasn’t street, and street was what you had to be when you walked this part of the world.

  Solomon watched him for a moment, then felt himself start moving up the stairs to the porch. Chong hit the door again, thud, and again the door didn’t budge.

  “Help me,” spat Chong.

  Solomon ignored him. He went to the edge of the porch. Reached up. Felt around.

  “This isn’t a good time for gardening,” said Chong, slamming into the door yet again.

  “Shut up, man,” Solomon muttered.

  “Get your ass over here and –”

  Chong shut up as Solomon pulled out the key from inside the planter he’d been feeling around in. Still there, just as it had been all those years ago. Still part of the place where he became Big Wise.

  He went to the door and pushed the key into the lock. Turned it. Chong’s mouth sagged open.

  “How did you know that would be in there?” asked Noelle.

  Solomon didn’t answer. Not until he was inside. Not until he saw the sofas, the porn mags, the drug paraphernalia, the tags. Until that moment, he could try to convince himself it wasn’t the place. Even finding the key didn’t convince him, because maybe the place was just a house now. Just a normal house with a normal owner who hadn’t bothered to change the locks – or the plants – since purchasing the house away from its last owners.

  But it was all there. All the signs, just like it had been all those years ago.

  “How did you know about this place?” asked Elena, echoing Noelle’s question.

  Solomon shrugged. “It’s where I got jumped in.”

  12

  “No kidding?” said Chong, eyeing Solomon as though he was a totally different person. “You were really Five-Deuce?”

  Solomon’s eyes narrowed. He gestured at his cheeks. “What the hell you think these were? Birthmarks?”

  Chong shrugged. “I guess I figured you got them to prove you weren’t lying.” He eyed Solomon, a strange, sideways glance that had something unknown in it. Something Solomon didn’t like. “What was your name again?”

  “You know my name, asshole.”

  “No, your gang name.”

  Solomon almost answered. Then his mouth clamped shut.

  What if this guy knows Big Wise? What if he’s looking for me?

  Stupid. Ridiculous and stupid. What would a dude like him want with Big Wise? Or any member of the 52s, for that matter?

  Solomon had no answers to any of those questions, so he did what he tended to do whenever faced with a question whose answer he didn’t know: he ignored it.

  He pointed at the far end of the room, where stairs led up to the second floor. “We should look up there.”

  Elena was staring at her watch. “Only four minutes.”

  Solomon didn’t answer. Just started up the stairs.

  “Where we going, bro?” asked Chong, close behind him.

  Again, Solomon didn’t answer. He just led the group down the hall. Past one room, then he turned to face a closed door midway down the hall. He tried the doorknob, knowing it would be locked but figuring it was worth a try just the same.

  It didn’t turn. Just rattled back and forth and stayed closed. Solomon made as if to smash in the door with his shoulder, then eyed Chong and nodded to the empty air beside him. “Help a guy out, bro?” he asked, putting the same sarcastic edge on the last word as Chong had done a few moments before.

  Chong laughed as though Solomon had just told a great joke, and took up position beside him. “One, two…,” he began.

  “… three!” shouted Solomon.

  Both men hit the door at once. The cheap wood splintered, surprisingly lightweight. Solomon tumbled forward, driven to the ground first by gravity and then by Chong’s weight as the big man pitched forward and drove Solomon down under him.

  Solomon grimaced and shoved Chong away. “Easy, dude,” said Chong.

  “You call me dude or bro one more time and I’ll –” Solomon cut himself off before completing the threat. He didn’t know what he would have said, but knew none of them had time for threats. Not now, and especially not here.

  He knew Two-Teeth couldn’t be around anymore. There was no way. But whoever was in charge, they wouldn’t react happily to a bunch of people sneaking in and ransacking the place.

  He stood, brushing splinters off his pants. “Anything valuable here is gonna be… in….”

  Solomon’s voice disappeared as he saw the bed. The rickety table set up beside it. And the money on the table.

  Piles of tens, twenties, and hundreds. And not just the penny-ante stuff that so often parked itself in this place before being distributed to the members of the gang or – more often – passed up the chain of command.

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” murmured Noelle, her white-trash accent still noticeable even in whispered awe. “Think that’s two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

  “Yeah,” said Clint. The black kid looked around like he expected something to jump out of the walls, while Elena crossed herself and whispered something under her breath.

  Chong recovered from his surprise first. He rushed to the bed. “Eyes on the prize, guys!” he shouted, and reached for a pile of the money, obviously planning on just grabbing as much of it as he could and pocketing it all.

  “Stop!” shouted Noelle. Surprisingly, Chong stopped moving, and looked back at the petite girl. “’Only Elena handles the merchandise,’ remember?” she said, pointing at her watch.

  Solomon glanced at his own watch. Two minutes.

  Elena did the same thing, frowning at the timer that counted down to death. Then she looked around. She spotted a backpack on the floor – probably the same thing the money had arrived here in – and began stuffing wads of bills into it.

  “That is more money than I ever saw in my life,” whispered Clint.

  “What does Mr. Do-Good want with it?” asked Elena, still shoveling handfuls of money into the bag. “He had to know it would be here.”

  Solomon only listened with half an ear. He looked around, glancing at the shattered door and the splintered frame. No hiding what had happened here. That meant that when the homies got
here, there’d be instant response. Whoever the O.G. was…

  He looked away from the doorframe. His gaze moved to the wall. There was a picture there. He hadn’t noticed it until now, preoccupied with getting into the room, then getting off the floor, then the money on the bed.

  Now, he had a moment to look at the image on the wall.

  Two-Teeth was standing there in the picture, tossing a pair of gang signs: one of them a crude “H” for the Hoover in 52 Hoover Crips, the other a sign that meant he was a cop killer. For an instant, Solomon hoped that the image was one kept in memory of a fallen brother. That Two-Teeth was dead and whatever O.G. was operating outta this place now had his picture up there as a gesture of respect.

  But the background was recent. The car he leaned on was a model from this year.

  Two-Teeth was alive. He was still here. And that meant that this money was his.

  “Oh, no,” Solomon breathed. He turned to Elena. “Hurry, lady. Hurry!”

  Elena paused from pushing bills off the table into the bag, obviously confused.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Clint.

  “What’s wrong?” repeated Noelle. “Everything about this is wrong!”

  Solomon wasn’t listening to her. He was too busy shouting, “We gotta move!”

  Chong shook his head. “Duh. I doubt your homies would just slap our wrists if they found us here.”

  Solomon felt his hands open and close frantically, like he wasn’t sure whether to make a fist or try and wave his hands fast enough to fly away. “No, we gotta hurry,” he said, disturbed to hear how close the words were to coming out as a moan. He pointed to the picture on the wall. “We don’t get out of here before that guy shows, we’re gonna pray Do-Good kills us first.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention –” began Chong.

  Solomon turned to him. His fists bunched – at last, and the anger that flowed through him was a relief compared to the terror that still threatened to overwhelm him – and he shouted, “I thought he woulda died or been busted by now.”