The Importance of Being Dangerous

by David Dante Troutt

  Darrius moved them along again. His brow furrowed a bit as he considered it. “I really don’t know. There’d be some negotiation involved at home. How much do you want for it?”

  “Nothing. I don’t want anything. I would just want you to take care of it, cover your own utilities, be careful about who you rent to, get a fair price, and send most of the rent money to a friend of mine in the Bronx.”

  “Normally I wouldn’t ask, but can I get some of the drugs you’re taking?”

  “I’m not on drugs. It’s not really about me. It’s about my daughter and my aunt. They may force me to do it, but I don’t mind. I just need a little help. Can you swing it?”

  Darrius pulled her arm closer as they strolled and pointed out a few particular flowers he’d never seen before. Their steps matched nicely. “Life is complicated, isn’t it, darling? Never black and white.” She clutched him in silence and breathed up the air. He was thinking. “Okay, Sidarra. I’m sure we can work something out. I’ll help you. Don’t count me among your troubles. You were so good at getting the sad off your face.”

  “Thank you, Darrius. I’ll let you know soon if it’s gonna happen. If it does, it will probably happen quickly.”

  IN FACT, IT WAS VERY FAST. When both the local police and the Feds team up over something, it goes down quickly. The death of the Candy Man only slowed it a little. Not when the FBI hackers came back to Jeff Geiger with more names, a possibly defunct shell corporation with what appeared to be large gains from an international betting consortium, and preliminary evidence of tax evasion. They had really wanted Manny. Geiger could have cared less since he didn’t prosecute drug dealers anymore, but the Manhattan D.A. still wanted him locked up for a long time. Raul’s death killed that. A day into his trial, Manny accepted a plea to illegal weapons possession, reckless endangerment, and drug distribution. His lawyer negotiated two years in state prison in return for the tips that helped nail Raul. With the news of an assassin’s violent death in a Harlem shoot-out all over the tabloids for days, his attorney convinced the authorities that what was done was really now done, injured cop or no injured cop. Griff’s line was similar for Tyrell. The D.A. almost liked Tyrell, who testified with rare conviction for a snitch. His every word made sense and his story never wavered. Manny might have done much harder time without Tyrell’s story implicating Raul for him. So when Tyrell walked out of Rikers a free man, he had no one to thank but Griff. Even Griff’s casual enemies in the Manhattan D.A.’s office thanked him for prepping his client so well. Until Jeff Geiger recognized Griff’s name on a deleted shareholder file.

  Realizing who Griff was set Geiger’s mind on fire. You rarely forget a humbling and Geiger recalled the humbling he suffered over the stroller thief years ago. Hearing colleagues talk about Griff like an untouchable civil rights leader pissed him off. Geiger slept in his downtown Brooklyn office two nights straight trying to re-create a blueprint of credit card fraud, cash purchases of dummy stock, and an offshore shell corporation’s bets on Internet mayhem scenarios. It was a tangled web they’d woven. The computer traces were not all going to hold up in court, he worried. Some might be excluded because the warrant had been issued after the fact. But there were surveillance photographs of Yakoob and Griff. Despite a masking technique, Yakoob had executed two traceable Solutions, Inc. trades on behalf of an oddly named holding company from his personal computer, and he, Griff, and another person were listed as the company’s sole shareholders. Since the trades followed the IPO, the dollar amounts skyrocketed, and there were no corresponding capital gains tax filings by either man when the earnings were converted to cash. Where the cash was now was untraceable. It had simply vanished. That it existed once was a certainty, one that kept Geiger up at night—because it all seemed to start with his own $5,000.

  Then another coincidence was uncovered. The police hackers performed a routine check of recent bank-related identity thefts based on amounts under $20,000. Because it wasn’t a regular bank, Fidelity Investments didn’t come up right away. But Fidelity’s internal investigation turned up customer addresses—not even names—and one in particular that Geiger somehow found familiar. It was the same one police had gone to first in East Harlem, belonging to the guy they called “the African.” The police techs were stuck trying to figure out where monies that left several Fidelity accounts wound up. Some seemed to have moved into and out of an account manager’s account, but a lot had disappeared.

  Yet seventy-two hours after he made the Fidelity connection, Geiger thought he had at least enough to arrest Griff and more than enough to get the Yakoob character. The only complete mystery remaining was the identity of the third shareholder of one of the shell corporations. He’d finally figured out the name that went with the initials “D.G.” But who the hell was “Desiree Galore”?

  “CAN YOU GET AWAY AGAIN?” Griff asked her over the phone.

  Reluctant to talk, afraid to see him again, Sidarra let her heart speak for her. “Okay.”

  “Meet me at the Studio Museum by the last exhibit.”

  If Griff wanted to travel, Sidarra thought, then the pressure must have been all in her head. He was being cautiously romantic, not running away. Sidarra would have to check her Aunt Chickie’s availability, but Aunt Chickie didn’t mind babysitting another weekend as long as there was plenty of food in the house.

  Sidarra packed underwear and a sundress in a small bag along with some toiletries and wore a bikini under her clothes. Raquel started to ask her the usual responsible questions about where she had to go in such a hurry.

  “You too will be in love one day, darling,” was all Sidarra told her.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  And Sidarra was off, knowing she had probably forgotten something. She walked briskly to 125th Street, stopping in a couple of stores to make sure no one was following her. When she got to the museum, it was preparing to close. The uniformed guard inside started to give her the business until another woman in a suit relieved him and let Sidarra in without a word. Sidarra walked the blond shiny wood floors. Hard work and unspeakable passion filled the walls, the canvases crying quietly in their imagery, the halogens above them threatening to quit. The hard heels of one last couple could be heard randomly pacing one room, their voices speaking German, punctuated by “oohs.” In the back corner, by a watercooler, was Griff with his back turned. He carried a leather bag shaped like an old-fashioned doctor’s house-call kit.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He wheeled around as if he were surprised and kissed her gently. “Hey.” They looked at each other, their eyes searching for something new in the midst of something wonderfully familiar. “Let’s go to Belize,” he said.

  She had a feeling that was his plan, but had to register a mild protest. “C’mon, baby. Isn’t it past—”

  Griff whipped out a thick envelope with airline tickets in them. “It’s crazy, I know, but it’s not stupid. You’ve probably survived the investigation at the Board of Ed or they wouldn’t have promoted you. The only crime you’re guilty of is having bad friends. If the police came to question you, for now they’d leave your family alone if you weren’t home. I wouldn’t ask you to do stupid. But crazy is kind of routine for lovers.”

  “You’re my lover?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he said. “I’m just the man who loves you.”

  He led them through a side door to a patio. The patio sat between the backs of several buildings like a courtyard. Through a gate, they met a narrow alley which they took to the sidewalk on 124th Street. Griff had a town car waiting for them there.

  The James Bond logistics brought Griff’s mention of questioning cops to mind again. As the car started across 125th Street, Sidarra remembered the important something she’d left behind. “Wait!” she said. “I have to go back. I have to get something at my house.”

  “They could be watching your house,” he whispered.

  She looked scared at him. “Then I really have to get back t
here for something.”

  The driver followed her instructions while Griff crept low in the seat. When they reached the brownstone, Sidarra jumped out and Griff remained half hidden in the rear. She ran up the stairs, pulled out her key, and disappeared behind the door. While she was inside, a car pulled up behind the town car. It was an old car, a Chrysler, and a man sat behind the wheel. Griff waited and slumped lower, watching the Chrysler in the rearview mirror. Inside, Sidarra ran to her bedroom to retrieve Michael’s engagement ring and hid it in her clothing. If cops came to search her house, she didn’t trust them to leave a diamond behind. She made her way down the stairs of the empty upper apartment as fast as she could. Griff tried to decide what to do when she came back out. He saw her appear in the vestibule and open the front door to leave. Once she was visible at the top of the stoop, the driver’s side door of the Chrysler opened. Griff looked hard at the man. There was no question. He was heading for Sidarra. Griff told the driver to wait and got out.

  “Sidarra, honey,” said the man.

  Griff rushed up behind him as though he were about to snap the man’s neck.

  “Michael,” she said in a frozen panic. “What are you doing here?”

  Her fluttering eyes and the unnatural panic on her face made Michael turn around. Just as he did, Griff passed him and joined Sidarra on the bottom step. He looked up at the two of them as Griff brought his arm down around Sidarra’s back.

  “I was,” Michael stammered, “I was wondering…” Michael interrupted himself to take a long look at Sidarra, then at Griff, who would not flinch or smile, and his shoulders dropped.

  “Michael, please,” Sidarra started.

  He was past that. “Nah, Sid, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d check in on the Rock, that’s all.” He wouldn’t look at Griff again. “She okay?”

  “She’s fine, Michael.”

  “Great,” he said, resuming a stoic look of full dignity and turning away. “Then I’m off. Give her my love, Sidarra.” He started back toward his car. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Let’s go,” Griff said as they watched Michael climb gingerly back into the Chrysler and pull away.

  Sidarra followed Michael’s trail with her eyes in the hope he would at least look back. He did not.

  Griff’s planning was typically deliberate, even at what must have been the last minute. He overpaid the driver out of the huge billfold of cash in large denominations he was carrying, and he made sure they did not sit together on the flight. Sidarra had a window at least. From there, she watched her country shrink and the countryside of another turn green and mountainous again. The scenery was a little different; the flight was direct this time. Still, it looked like the recurrence of a beautiful dream, one Sidarra started to worry she might never see again.

  It had not been so long since their last clandestine visit there, but to Sidarra it still seemed strange that so little had changed about Belize. The weather had not moved. She even thought she recognized the cabdriver as the one they’d met before. And the palm trees still kept up their contorted hope of reaching the shore first. But she and Griff didn’t stay in the same villa by the beach. This time Griff had arranged for them to stay in a brand-new high-rise condo British investors had completed months before. The suite was simple but well appointed, fully furnished with a galley kitchen, a bedroom, small living room, and den. Off the main room was a long balcony that overlooked the water and, by then, a long dark sky. The first thing Griff did after they undressed and bared themselves to the humidity was to order up a bottle of Cuban rum. While Sidarra munched on a snack of good seafood, he promptly got drunk. She sat up on the bed looking out at the moonless night while he curled his worried body up against hers and went to sleep.

  Griff slept hard for most of the next morning. She watched him twitch and jerk occasionally as if he were having nightmares, and she finally put on a robe and went outside on the balcony to watch the waves scatter against the shore. Clouds seemed painted on the horizon a thousand miles away like file tabs God had placed above the ocean to lift when He pleased and set the tides in motion. She had fallen back to sleep and only woke when a breeze rattled her teacup. Inside the suite, Griff was snoring gently. Sidarra decided to take a shower.

  Perhaps the best thing about the suite was that shower. It was a circular glass enclosure in a triangular room furnished in bamboo and rattan fixtures. On the far side of the circle, the shower opened to a sunlit doorway, the doorway to a long tub, and the tub appeared to extend directly to the sea. Sidarra gently scrubbed her skin under the water and daydreamed to the vista. She had no idea how much time had passed when she felt a strong hand cup her hip. Griff had stood long enough absorbing the sight of her silhouette and now stepped into the water behind her. Realizing it was he, Sidarra closed her eyes and moaned happily. Their groggy hands awakened the skin all over their bodies, sudsing and cleansing until they were locked in full writhing embrace. They clawed and pulled and stretched against the sunlight.

  Sidarra let his lips go for a minute to say, “I do love you, Griff.” She roamed his eyes with her own. “I’m not sure I ever said that before. But I love you, statue man.”

  Griff’s face took her in. A smile began to grow. “Don’t you remember from high school, you’re not supposed to say I love you during shower sex?”

  Having attended a very different high school, Sidarra grinned, reached for the faucet handles, and turned off the water. “I love you,” she repeated. “You’re a good man.”

  He chuckled into her neck. “I was on my way there once, but thanks.”

  “The way is not closed, baby,” she whispered. And they finished against the wet glass wall.

  30

  THEY HAD BREAKFAST brought up from a restaurant nearby and sat together on the balcony’s two sun chairs in white terry cloth. They sat like married people, naked under robes that kept falling open, rubbing toes against each other in playful foot combat. But they ate like a first date, nibbling the edges of things and finishing nothing.

  “I let some things slip past me, Griff. I know that,” she said. He just listened. “It’s hard to believe how needy I was, how scared I must have been. Maybe I should be more terrified now.” The waves receded like old applause. “When Koob gave me that first credit card, I don’t know, I felt liberated. I felt strong. I wanted to run through places and buy myself.”

  “Buy yourself what?”

  “No, just buy myself. I was trying to buy the person I hoped to become.”

  Their feet tangled momentarily, then he stroked her calf with his big toe. You could hear children playing in a swimming pool twelve stories below.

  “You’re not gonna believe me, Sid, but I used to be a sucker for this country.”

  “Belize?”

  “No, ours. That’s part of why I went to law school. I really believed the hype. I was proud to say how much I loved America. I remember there were radical classmates of mine who used to assume I was a Republican. Me. I wanted to know all the first principles cold and be able to recite the Constitution as I defended it. Boy, what a wacko I was.” He stared at the sea. “Or became.”

  Neither said a word. She scooted her lounge chair right up close to him so that there was no longer any distance between them and she could see the exact same view of the horizon he did. “Griff, what happened really? Why did people have to die so we could join the stock market?”

  Griff turned his long neck up at the sky and almost laughed. Then he rested it back against the chair, grabbed her hand in both of his, and looked out. “I’ve been wondering a little of that myself, sugar. Basically,” he said, turning on his side to face her, “we took advantage of opportunities that nobody expected would come to us. We got carried away with the Whiteboy talk. Once the Raul shit went down with that dealer he shot, he was eager to prove himself. When Koob was getting him ready to get into the chancellor’s house, Raul would say shit about what he could do; he’d brag about what he could get away
with. Koob always told him not to be so ambitious. One night Koob and I waited for you and talked about it. We talked about ‘what if.’ What if Raul goes into that house and gets trapped. We figured he’s gonna shoot his way out. As long as no one could trace him to us, we might have a dead schools chancellor on our hands. Was there any profit in that? Hell yeah, it turned out, if you could stomach that online mayhem casino. Koob thought you might even be down with it, but I didn’t. It didn’t seem like something to bother you with at the time, because it didn’t seem like something that was gonna happen. When it did, well, we took advantage of situations, Sidarra. I don’t know what else to say.”

  She pulled back from him in her seat as if her stomach had turned. Disbelief grew on her forehead, and his words were starting to make her angry. A huge rush of anger swelled inside her like a rough tide. When Sidarra turned to him, she felt the urge to ball up her fist and punch him in the face. “‘We,’ ‘we,’ ‘we,’” she repeated, shaking her head.

  “What do you mean ‘we,’ Sidarra?”

  She turned directly into his eyes with a sharp coldness. “Et tu, Griff?” she asked.

  His face twisted up in confusion. “What?” he almost whimpered. Somewhere in the back of his mind he recalled the reference, something from college, but he wasn’t sure. “What?” he repeated. Then it came back to him. Shakespeare. Julius Caesar.

  “Et tu, nigga?” she repeated, cocked her elbow back, and slapped Griff hard across his cheek.

  “Sidarra, I didn’t betray you.”

  “No? Then who the fuck is ‘we’? The Eagleton thing was bad enough, but we had to keep on going? Koob gets pissed off and wants to rob a fucking bank even after he knows a public official’s been assassinated—”