The Bank of Badness

by Jeff Gottesfeld

  Miz Paige made a weary face. She was sixty and had a lot of health problems. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and pain in her hip. Her doctor at the community clinic was always telling her to slow down. She always said that she’d rest when she was dead.

  “Feeling less than good,” she admitted. “Dizzy. Shaky. Woozy-like.”

  Robin breathed easier. This was a typical report from her.

  “Maybe we oughta close up early,” he suggested.

  “Robin Paige, I got a big party to cater on Sunday. It’s Missus Collins’s—from church—seventy-fifth birthday, and there’ll be a full house. That party will pay our rent this month,” she told him. “I’m working late this evening.”

  “Then let me help you cook,” Robin offered.

  “Tell you what, you can help me with cleanup,” Miz Paige told him as the song came to an end. “And maybe you and your friends can be here on Sunday. You know, to serve.” She made a face. “That is, if your pretty friend Kaykay will touch a shrimp.”

  “She’ll touch them,” Robin assured. “She just won’t eat them.”

  “Her loss. Anyway, ask them. You got homework tonight?” Miz Paige was always on Robin about school. She didn’t need to be. Robin knew if there was going to be a way out of the hood for him, it had to be academics.

  I got no game at sports. I can’t sing. I can’t do magic like Sly. I sure can’t act. And no one’s going to stop me on the street and say, “Yo, little bro! You need to be a model!”

  “I’ll go upstairs and start now,” Robin told her.

  Miz Paige reached into her white apron and took out a small envelope. “You do that. But there’s something you gotta do first.” She handed Robin the envelope. “It’s time for the weekly delivery.”

  Robin was confused. “Didn’t we already pay them this week? I brought them money on Monday!”

  Miz Paige nodded. “Yes indeed, you did. But one of their boys stopped in today. Made me give him some shrimp and said they were changing their pickup to Fridays. Said you should meet the same car in same place as Monday at a quarter past six.”

  “That’s wack!” Robin exclaimed. “Twice in a week?”

  Miz Paige pointed to the door. “This week, anyway. Go on, then. We don’t want to make them gangstas mad.”

  Robin took the envelope. He felt frustrated. He’d held out several hundred dollars from his heist so he could pay the Rangers with their own ill-gotten money. It would have been perfect. But unless he told his grandmother what he’d done that would be impossible. He couldn’t even slip a hundred bucks into her register.

  She counts her money five times a day. She’ll figure it out in no time.

  “Okay, Gramma,” he told her. “I’ve got this.”

  “Be safe.” His grandmother wagged a beefy finger at him.

  “Will do. Let me stop in the bathroom. Then I’m rolling.”

  “You a good boy, Robin Paige,” Miz Paige said to him. “You the best grandson anyone could have.”

  Robin grunted. He rummaged in his backpack before tucking it behind a counter and heading for the restroom. He figured if he was going to hand over his grandmother’s hard-earned money to the Rangers? The least he could do was give them a surprise too.

  Robin arrived with minutes to spare at the intersection of Garvey and Ninth. The white envelope with the money was in his left hoodie pocket.

  And my present for the Rangers is in the right one, he thought grimly.

  Traffic rolled by in both directions, but few people were on the sidewalk. There wasn’t much reason to be on this part of Garvey. The storefronts were all boarded up. No one wanted to run a shop on a corner known for shootouts.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  Just like on Monday, a tricked-out black Mustang with oversized rear tires pulled to a stop near him. He moved to the rear door, unbidden. There was fear in his gut, but also fury. He hated the Rangers so much. What they were doing to his grandmother. Her business. The hood. He even hated them for being willing to take a couple of ninth graders like Tyrone and Dodo into their gang. That was just wrong.

  It was the same two Ranger gangstas as last time. The driver wore a White Sox cap turned sideways. In the passenger seat was the leader—a huge dude with a shaved head and a mole under his nose.

  “Shrimp!” the boss greeted Robin. “How you been? How’s your grams? Whatchu got for me?”

  Robin knew that the only thing the guy really wanted was money.

  “I’m aight,” Robin muttered as he dug out the envelope and passed it forward. “We okay. Here’s whatchu lookin’ for.” He always tried to talk “street” with the Rangers.

  The guy counted the five twenties. Robin did some quick mental arithmetic. A hundred bucks a week times fifty-two weeks a year was five thousand two hundred dollars a year.

  Let’s say the Rangers are shaking down fifty businesses. That’s a quarter of a million dollars every year.

  “Good, Shrimp,” the leader said. “Hundred on the button. You know that’s our startin’ rate.”

  “Your what?” Robin asked.

  “Learn to listen, Shrimp!” the sidekick driver shouted. He had several gold teeth. “When my man talks, you listen!”

  “Chill,” the leader advised his buddy. “Shrimp not stupid. He jus’ don’t know. Yet.” He smiled dangerously at Robin. “Ain’t that right, Shrimp?”

  Robin’s face burned. Obviously, these guys were going to want more money in the future. How much more? Probably a hundred fifty, then two hundred, then maybe three hundred. Where would it ever end?

  “Thas right,” Robin murmured.

  “We’ll stop by soon, ’splain it all to your grams,” the boss said. “Now get your ass on home.”

  Robin nodded. “See you next Friday, I guess.”

  The two guys cracked up.

  “Fo’ sho’!” the driver agreed. “Thas fo’ sho’!”

  Robin opened the door and got out. But not before he sneaked one of the GPS tracking devices out of his pocket and into the crack at the base of the rear seat.

  He smiled as he watched the Mustang roar away.

  Wherever it was going? Now, he’d know.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After he checked in at the Shrimp Shack to tell Miz Paige he was fine and grab his backpack, Robin decided to stop upstairs before helping her.

  I still need to find a place to stash the spy gear I kept. I want to text Sly and Kaykay and see if they can help me at the party. And most of all, I want to see if I can track that Mustang!

  He opened the triple locks on the door and headed to his room. The place felt stuffy; there was no air conditioning. He lingered a brief moment at the wall of family photographs. There was one picture of his late parents, Randolph and Nicole Paige, taken on their honeymoon in Mexico. His dad had been skinny, his mother short and plump.

  Robin didn’t look at it for long. It made him too sad.

  His room was simple. There was a bed from the thrift store, a bookcase, a desk with an old computer that he shared with Miz Paige, and an uncomfortable wooden chair. On the walls were pictures he’d printed from the Internet of places he wanted to visit. Botswana. India. New York City. Mars.

  Not that I’ll ever go to Mars, he thought. And if the Rangers figure out I planted that GPS, I might not make it to next week.

  He texted Sly and Kaykay. They were good to help out at the party on Sunday. Then he tried to decide where to hide the spy gear. The problem was that Miz Paige was a neat freak who went on frequent cleaning rampages. He had to find a secret place. Where?

  His eyes lit on the bookcase. At the base was a strip of wood, maybe three inches high, between the bottom shelf and the ground. Maybe.

  He ran to the kitchen, found a hammer and a screwdriver under the sink, and used them to loosen the four nails that held the wood strip in place. Off it came. He slid the spy gear into the hollow gap, reattached the strip, and stood back to admire what he’d done. Yup. His grandmother would nev
er know.

  Then he booted up his computer and connected to the Internet. There was software that came with the GPS device. Robin loaded it. At first, nothing happened.

  Crap! It doesn’t work.

  Suddenly, an Ironwood city map filled his monitor. After that, a red dot started to blink on the map.

  “Oh yeah! That’s them! Woo-hoo!”

  He watched, rapt, as the red dot moved south on Flint Boulevard and then west on Decatur. This was amazing. He was picking up a signal sent from the GPS transmitter in the Mustang, up to a satellite, then back down to his computer. With a little luck and some careful tracking, he knew that red dot might even show him and his friends where the Rangers stashed more of their money.

  He shut off the computer and practically skipped down to the Shrimp Shack. He couldn’t tell Miz Paige why he felt so great, of course.

  “Hey, Gramma,” he said as he stepped into the Shrimp Shack. “I’m back and ready to wash—Omigod! Gramma! Gramma!”

  Miz Paige was sprawled on the Shrimp Shack floor, arms going one way, legs going the other. She lay in a pool of her own urine. She looked dead.

  Robin screamed.

  “Robin? Robin? Wake up. Your grandmother’s doctor is coming in.”

  Robin opened his bleary eyes. There was a Filipina nurse in green scrubs kneeling by the cushioned chair where he’d slept in the hospital room. He looked around. His grandmother was in the one bed, hooked up to a zillion machines and tubes. Her eyes were closed. A monitor beeped with each faint thump of her heart.

  It was Saturday morning. The horrible night came back to him. The discovery. His screaming. The 911 call. The ambulance and paramedics arriving; the crowd gathering on the street outside the Shrimp Shack like hungry rats around a dead cat. The paramedics who warned him that his grandmother might die.

  He’d been so frightened that he shook.

  “Good morning, good morning, Miz Paige!” A young African American lady doctor came bustling in. She wore blue scrubs and had a stethoscope slung around her neck. Her hair was in cornrows. “Miz Paige? Are you awake? Miz Paige? Good morning! Doctor Ashanti here to see you. Miz Paige?”

  Robin saw his grandmother crack open her eyes.

  Maybe that’s all the energy she has, Robin thought.

  It made Robin want to cry.

  Don’t cry. She doesn’t want to see you crying. Do. Not. Cry!

  Then Miz Paige spoke.

  “Good morning,” she croaked. “Did you figure out what’s wrong with me? And good morning, Robin Paige. Hate for you to see me this way.”

  At the sound of his name, Robin moved to his grandmother and took her hand. Her fingers felt warm. Too warm. He couldn’t help it. His eyes leaked a few tears, which he quickly brushed away.

  Dr. Ashanti nodded. “We have. You’ve got something called Lyme disease. It’s a bacterium. You get it from tick bites, mostly. Quite dangerous, especially when you have other medical issues.”

  “Ain’t no ticks in the city.” Miz Paige told her. Robin was shocked at how weak her voice was.

  “I know that,” said the doctor. “But you run a restaurant.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Maybe one came with some vegetables in a delivery truck,” the doctor speculated. “We did find a bite on your leg. We’re going to treat you with heavy-duty antibiotics.”

  “How long?” Miz Paige whispered.

  The doctor shrugged. “You’ll be released next week sometime. If you respond as we expect.”

  “Next week,” his grandmother protested. “Can’t do that. I got me a restaurant to run and a boy to take care of.”

  A male voice boomed from the doorway. “Miz Paige, you listen to the good doctor. You’re not running anywhere, and we’ll take care of your boy!”

  There at the door stood Reverend Tex Thomas, Mrs. Thomas, and Sly. Reverend Thomas wore a jacket and tie. His wife was in black pants and a simple red top. Sly had on denim shorts and a T-shirt featuring his favorite magician, Criss Angel.

  Robin didn’t know who’d called them, but he was so glad they were here. Sly and he shared a fist bump before Sly took a seat in one of the two chairs by the window.

  Dr. Ashanti nodded. “I don’t know your visitors, Miz Paige. But you listen to this man.”

  “He’s my pastor,” she explained.

  “Thank you, sir,” Dr. Ashanti told Reverend Thomas. “She’s still very sick. Lyme is no joke, especially with her medical profile. She’ll get several days of IV antibiotics at the minimum.”

  “But I’ve got the party for Missus Collins!” Miz Paige protested again. “I need the money bad!”

  Robin buried his face in his hands. He wanted to yell at his grandmother to just shut up and do what the doctor said.

  Robin didn’t have to yell. Sly’s dad did it for him.

  “Miz Paige, don’t you worry about that party!” Reverend Thomas thundered. “You take care of your health! Robin needs you. Ain’t that right, Robin?”

  His grandmother looked up at him.

  Robin nodded slowly. “I need you, Gramma.”

  Miz Paige slumped back on her pillows. “All right, all right. This must be God’s will for me.”

  Reverend Thomas laughed. “I don’t think this is God’s will. I think it’s bad bacteria. If you don’t do what the doctors say? You could be in big trouble. That won’t be God’s will, Miz Paige. That’ll be your will.”

  “You can you look after Robin while I’m here?” Miz Paige swung her eyes toward Mrs. Thomas.

  Mrs. Thomas smiled. “Of course, Miz Paige.” She motioned at Robin. “You’re coming home with us. I bet you didn’t sleep three hours last night!”

  Robin yawned. Everyone laughed, even his grandmother.

  In that moment, for the first time since he’d arrived at the hospital, Robin felt okay.

  Robin made a pit stop on the way to the Thomas’s house. While they waited in the car, he went to the apartment and picked up enough supplies to carry him into next week. Clothes. Bathroom stuff. School stuff. Shoes. Plus the spy gear that he’d hidden under the bookcase and the software for the GPS tracker. He wanted to load it onto Sly’s computer.

  As long as his parents leave us alone, he thought as he put everything into an old suitcase that his grandmother kept in the front hall closet. His momma checks on him every fifteen minutes.

  From the apartment they drove straight to Sly’s house by Randolph Park. Sly had twin beds; Robin took a nap on one of them. At least he planned for it to be a nap. Instead, he slept for almost six hours, till three in the afternoon. When he woke up, before he even showered, he called his grandmother. He was pumped when she said she was feeling a little better.

  After a long, hot scrub in a shower that worked way better than the one in the apartment, he changed into clean jeans and a T-shirt and went downstairs. The Thomases were waiting in the kitchen. Kaykay was there too. She wore short shorts and a tiny black tank top. She looked fly as she ran over to hug him. “I’m so glad your grandma’s okay!”

  The hug was almost worth Miz Paige in the hospital. Almost.

  Mrs. Thomas put out a ton of food—chicken, salads, and lemonade. Everyone ate. Then the three kids went up to Sly’s room. Aside from the twin beds, desk, computer, and chair, the room was a shrine to magic. There were posters from famous magic shows everywhere, and boxes of tricks covered every possible surface.

  Every time Robin came over, there was a moment where he felt a little bad. Sly had a whole family and a house a lot nicer than Robin’s cruddy apartment.

  Stop it, he told himself. You can’t bring back Mom and Dad, and things don’t mean anything. What matters is that Gramma was really sick and is getting better.

  Sly closed the door. “We don’t have much time before my mom will be coming through there. No knockage, either. She thinks kids plus computers plus privacy equals t-r-o-u-b-l-e.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Kaykay asked him. “Should we take a look at your search history?”r />
  Sly stared right at her. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Kaykay. My search history is boring.”

  “Dudes, stay focused,” Robin suggested. “Kaykay, you getting anywhere with Tyrone?”

  “Actually, yes. I made it my business to walk past the corner this morning,” she declared. “He and Dodo were out there again.”

  Robin’s heart beat harder at the thought of Kaykay talking to Tyrone. “What’d you say to him?”

  Kaykay raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t you listen?”

  She took out the recorder pen she’d kept from the spy store and twisted a few knobs. First, Robin and Sly heard traffic noise. Then they heard Kaykay’s voice. The quality wasn’t great, but it was definitely Kaykay.

  “So here’s what I wanna know,” Kaykay was saying. “I thought ’bout whatchu said ’bout gettin’ to know you better. I’m in’trested. But you gotta be cool wit’ me, Tyrone.”

  “I’m cool. I’m so cool, I’m like a fridge,” Tyrone told her.

  “What a lame line!” Sly exclaimed.

  Robin and Kaykay shushed him.

  “Listen!” Kaykay said.

  There was more traffic noise. Then they heard Kaykay’s voice again.

  “So I’m thinking, Tyrone, why don’t we take it slow and see where it goes?” Kaykay responded.

  “You mean it?” Tyrone asked. “You gonna hang with me and my boys, and leave them babies to themselves?”

  “Word up,” Kaykay told Tyrone. “They babies anyways.”

  She snapped off the recorder.

  “You’re amazing! You did great,” Robin told her.

  “Thank you. I’m gonna sit with him and his homeboys at free breakfast on Monday. I’m thinking the thing to do is come talk some trash to you and Sly.” Kaykay put the pen back in her bag. “It won’t be personal.”

  “Just be careful,” Robin cautioned. “Now, let’s see what’s happening with the Rangers’ car. Sly, if your mom comes to the door? Pull the plug.”

  Robin sat down at Sly’s computer—it was way nicer than his—and loaded the GPS software. It worked perfectly. First, the map of Ironwood came up on the monitor. Then, a red dot for the Mustang. There was even more. Now that the Mustang had been driving around for almost a day, there were red lines all over the city, showing where it had been and when.