Sly swallowed down a bite of the sandwich. “Maybe it’ll be better today.”
“Maybe,” Robin allowed. He didn’t feel confident.
“If only there’s a way to get everyone to give a dollar, not just folks buying shrimp,” Kaykay said, then closed up her container so she could use it again.
Robin got a faraway look in his eyes. He had an idea. It might even be a good idea.
“Know what, dudes?” he asked his buds. “Maybe there is.”
Four hours later, Robin, Kaykay, and Sly had Miz Paige surrounded in the Shrimp Shack.
“I just gave you kids a hundred dollars I made for the Center!” she declared. She loosened her apron. “Now you kids want to sell raffle tickets?”
“A hundred bucks ain’t gonna put no new roof on the Center,” Sly told her.
“We need more money,” Kaykay insisted. “Lots more.”
Robin looked right at his grandmother. “We stopped at the Center on the way home and talked to Sarge. There’s just two days left, and they’ve only raised about two thousand bucks. So we were thinking, we go out and sell raffle tickets for five dollars. Each ticket gives the buyer a chance to win a fifty dollar dinner here at the Shrimp Shack. Who wouldn’t take that chance?”
Miz Paige frowned. “ ’Bout a million folks I know.”
“Can we try it, Gramma?’ Robin asked.
“I’ll think about it,” was all Miz Paige would say. “Okay, you kids go on now. I need to talk to Robin.”
His friends took off. As soon as they were gone, his grandmother handed Robin a sealed yellow envelope. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He knew what this was about.
“Hard to talk about free dinners when I’m givin’ money away. You know where the Ninth Street Rangers hang out?” she asked.
Robin nodded.
“Take this to ’em. Tell ’em it’s from me,” she said softly. “Tell ’em there’ll be the same every week; just please leave my shop alone. You understand me, Robin Paige?”
Robin nodded again. “Yes, Gramma.”
“You understand why I’m doin’ this? You play with fire, you get yo’self burned. I don’t want us to get burned again. We been burned enough, don’chu think?”
Robin understood very well. But that yellow envelope he was holding and the reason he was holding it still made him mad as hell.
Chapter Six
Robin did know where the Rangers hung out. At both of ends of Ninth Street—at the intersection with Marcus Garvey Boulevard or the cross with Conyers Avenue—there were Rangers’ drug lookouts on duty 24/7. Their faces changed with their shifts, but they all had black bandanas in their back pockets.
Robin had seen them in action many times. These were the new dudes in the gang, and their job was to flag down people looking to buy drugs. If it was a quick deal, they’d do it themselves. If it was major, they’d call in a big guy from the gang by cell phone.
I don’t know why the cops don’t bust these guys, Robin wondered as he headed for the intersection of Ninth and Garvey. On their side of the street was a Laundromat, Mr. Burress’s liquor store, and the Shrimp Shack, plus a few squat apartment buildings. Across the street was the junk shop, a used CD place, and more apartment buildings. There were plenty of empty storefronts and plenty of empty apartments. No one wanted to live on Ninth if they could live someplace else. It was a bad block.
Maybe the cops know that if they bust those dudes, there’ll be new Rangers the next day. Or maybe there’s no more room in the jails. Or maybe the Rangers pay off the cops, like I’m about to pay them off. I don’t know.
There was a short, stocky Ranger lookout on the far corner. He wore black pants and a white undershirt.
“Yo.” Robin said, turning on his street voice as he approached him.
“Wassup, little man, you buyin’?” The guy barely moved his lips.
Robin shook his head no, angry that the lookout would be happy to sell drugs to a ninth-grader. “Nah, man. Jus’ lookin’ for a dude who stopped in the Shrimp Shack th’ other night to talk wit’ my ol’ lady.”
The lookout smiled, flashing four gold front teeth. “You from the Shrimp Shack? Word is you had a little trouble yesterday.”
Robin shrugged. “When I talk wit’ yo’ boy, it won’t happen no mo’. You know ’im?”
The guy looked at Robin closely. “What’s yo’ name?”
“Robin. Jus’ say Smarty Pants be here.”
The guy took out a cell—a nice one, Robin saw—and turned away to make a quick call.
A moment later, he turned back. “You wait. He be comin’.”
“What’s yo’ name?” Robin asked boldly. He knew if he was going to be making payoffs to the Rangers, he needed a little street cred.
“My name be for me to know and you not to find out. Go round the corner on Garvey. My boy be comin’. He’ll find you.”
The convo was over. Robin went around the corner to Garvey. It was close to sunset, and the streets were getting quiet again. It made him nervous to wait out there with an envelope full of money, but wait he did. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Then fifteen minutes.
Finally, a tricked-out black Mustang pulled over to the curb near him. The tinted window on the passenger side came down. Inside was the same Ranger who’d come to the Shrimp Shack the night before it got trashed. Robin could see he had a shaved head. There was another Ranger driving. That guy wore a sideways Chicago White Sox cap.
“Get in,” the leader told Robin.
“No way,” Robin said.
The Ranger smiled coldly. “I said get yo’ ass in the car, Smarty Pants. What is it they call you at school? Shrimp? Shrimp, I said, get in!”
Robin panicked. The guy had learned his nickname.
What else does he know about me? Who my friends are? Where they live? Who goes to our church? When my grandmother puts her money in the bank?
Robin got in the Mustang.
“You smart, Shrimp,” the Ranger grunted. He swung around to face Robin. Robin tried to memorize his face. There was a black mole under the guy’s right nostril. “You very smart. But you not be here to teach me bi-ol-ogy. You got somethin’ fo’ me?”
“Word,” Robin said.
He handed over the envelope. The guy barely glanced inside it before he started talking again. “Okay. Hundred a week, cash. Jus’ like this. You do the drop; you too skinny to be packin’, not like your grams!”
The driver cracked up. Robin gritted his teeth. Making fun of Miz Paige’s weight—that was low.
The gang guy wasn’t done. “Like I said, hundred a week, and yo’ grams can sell all the shrimps she want. Hell, my boys and me, we might try some fo’ ourselves!” The Ranger laughed; his driver joined in.
Robin hated them so much right then.
“Get yo’ sorry smarty-pants ass out the car, Shrimp. See yo’ sorry face next week,” the Ranger spat. “You know how to find me. And you betta be lookin’ fo’ me, Shrimp.”
Robin stepped out. The Mustang pulled away. Robin felt his knees actually bang together. That’s how upset he was. Then his upset turned to anger.
How dare those guys! How dare they!
He started back toward the Shrimp Shack. He’d just passed the Rangers lookout when he heard his named called from behind him.
“Yo! Yo, Shrimp! We want to talk to you!”
Crap. He knew that voice. Tyrone.
Robin turned around. It was Tyrone. With him was Dodo Moore. Dodo was even bigger than Tyrone. Dodo and Tyrone were all sweaty. They wore ICHS football jerseys; Robin realized they must have come right from practice.
What are they doing on Ninth Street?
Robin got the answer to that question soon enough.
“Hey, Tyrone. Hey, Dodo,” he muttered.
“Hey yo’self, Shrimp,” Tyrone said. “Whatchu think of my essay today? I’m a born-again schol-ar! Be a schol-ar, get a dollar!”
He cracked up at his own stupid joke. Dodo cracked up too.
>
“We ain’t got much time,” Tyrone went on. “So, Shrimp. That vocab thing for Simesso? The one due day after to’morra? Do one for us too.”
Here we go again, Robin moaned to himself. I don’t want to do their homework for them!
He got an idea. Maybe, just maybe, they would go for it.
“How ’bout if you guys and me, we work on it together?” he offered. “I’ll help you. Then it’d really be your homework. No harm in gettin’ help.”
“What a good idea!” Dodo exclaimed. “How ’bout if maybe we bust your lame-ass face?”
“You gots two choices, Shrimp.” Tyrone balled his big fists again. “Do one fo’ us, or do one fo’ us.”
Robin tried to think of some way out of this. There wasn’t one.
“Aight,” he finally said. “English be first period Wednesday. I’ll give it to you before.”
“He a smart shrimp,” Dodo told Tyrone. “But he still a shrimp.”
“Yup. If he don’ mess it up! If he mess it up? We make him shrimp cocktail an’ eat him fo’ lunch! Oh! One mo’ thing.”
Tyrone was carrying some school stuff. He handed Robin a stapled-together bunch of papers. Robin looked at it. On the front it read, TYRONE DAVIS, SCIENCE 9, TERM PAPER RUBRIC.
“You gonna do this paper for me,” Tyrone stated. “Eight pages. Due in November.”
“I’m not even in that class!” Robin protested.
“Ain’t my problem. See you, Shrimp!”
The guys took off, giving each other fist bumps and high fives.
Robin trudged home. He checked in at the Shrimp Shack, where his grandmother told him she’d close up by herself if he wanted to go up to his room and read. That’s what he did, but even though he had a great book—Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, about a good kid who got accused as an accessory in a murder—he couldn’t focus. He went to the window and sat with his nose against the grimy glass, watching night fall on Ninth Street. Night was when the block got dicey. His grandmother didn’t want him out after dark, and definitely not alone.
He sat and thought about Tyrone and Dodo. About giving the money to the Rangers. About how the Center was going down because there were too many good causes that needed help and not enough money to save them all. About—
Whoa.
Robin noticed something out on the street. Something strange.
Across the street was an apartment building right next to the junk shop. Below ground level was a place where everyone put their full garbage bags.
Robin saw someone down there, lit only by a streetlight, moving garbage bags around. He squinted, trying to get a better look.
Whoa. It’s the drug lookout from before. I’m sure it’s him. What the hell is he doing?
As Robin watched, the lookout moved a few more bags, then dropped to his knees. Robin’s eyes followed him like a laser. He saw the lookout lift something off the ground. Robin couldn’t see clearly, but it seemed like a flat paver stone.
The lookout put the paver stone to one side, took something out of his pocket, and whatever he took out he put down in the hole where the paver stone had been. Then he replaced the paver. Finally, he moved the garbage bags back where they’d been before. After a double-check to be sure he hadn’t been seen, the lookout trotted back toward Garvey.
What the hell?
If he hadn’t just paid off the Rangers, or if Tyrone and Dodo hadn’t hit on him to do their schoolwork, he never would have done what he was about to do.
Whatever that dude was doing? I’m gonna find out!
Chapter Seven
It was totally against his grandmother’s rules for Robin to go out alone after dark.
He did it anyway.
First, though, he prepared himself.
He put on black pants, a black shirt, and a black hoodie so that he might blend in with the night. He didn’t wear shoes, just socks, so there’d be no footfalls on the street. He locked the apartment door behind him and made sure the building door was locked when he went out into the night.
His heart pounded as he looked both ways. He was not supposed to be doing this. The dealers were at either end of Ninth Street. No traffic. No one on foot. He darted across the street, heading for the landing where he’d seen the lookout do his thing.
Is this the most dumb-ass thing I’ve ever done? If that dude comes back, I’m dead!
He stepped down below street level to the flat area with the garbage bags. It stunk of stale beer and vomit. Before he started moving garbage bags, he checked to see if he was being watched. He wasn’t. So he quietly started moving the bags, hoping to uncover the same loose stone the lookout had moved.
He breathed heavily. The bags were noisy. They stunk in his hands so much he almost barfed. He winced as he picked up one really heavy bag full of cans and bottles that rattled like a passing train. He was sure the lookouts would hear that.
Somehow, they didn’t.
Finally, he’d moved all the bags. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to figure out which paving stone was the loose one. He dropped to his knees and dug at the edges of one of the pavers. It didn’t budge.
Another. Another. And another, and another, and another.
It wasn’t until his fingers were raw and he was about to give up that one actually moved.
Omigod. This is it!
The paver under his fingers turned out to be a fake, made to look like the others. It didn’t weigh more than a tray of shrimp. Robin lifted it with ease.
No time to waste now. If the lookout came back, he wasn’t just dead. He was double-dead.
Heart racing, breath shallow, he reached into the hole the fake paver had covered. It was so dark that he couldn’t really see, so he rooted around blindly until—
Yes!
An envelope! A thick envelope!
What’s in it? Vials of crack? Smack? Money? All of the above?
He grabbed the envelope and shoved it in his waistband. Now he had to get out of there. Someone in the building could hear him. His grandmother could come home and find him missing. The lookout could come back. Both lookouts could come!
For a brief instant, Robin thought about tossing the envelope back in the hole, putting back the fake paver, tossing some garbage bags over the paver, and running home. That was the smart thing to do.
But no. He’d come this far. He hated the Rangers so much, and this envelope had to belong to them. So he replaced the fake paver and moved all the disgusting garbage bags back. His body was sweaty from effort and fear. His fingertips were bleeding. He knew he looked a mess. How would he ever explain himself if he was caught?
See it through, he told himself. See it through. Then get your ass home.
He did. Or at least he tried to.
His work done, he bounded up the steps to Ninth Street, thinking of what he’d do if the envelope was full of drugs. It would feel so damn good to flush those mothers down the toilet or open his window and scatter them to the wind. Maybe he’d make a little stack out of the glassine bags and burn them. How great would it be to watch thousands of dollars of gang drugs go up in flames instead of into people’s lungs and veins?
Man, that would feel good.
He crouched at the top of the steps and looked both ways. The lookouts were busy dealing with customers. Robin could see their bodies hard against cars that had pulled up, headlights turned off. If there ever was a perfect time for him to cross, this was it.
He ran. He nearly fell when his stocking foot landed in a pothole left over from winter, but he kept his balance and kept running.
Get home.
Get inside.
Get upstairs.
Get the hell out of these clothes.
Get into a shower.
A scabby cat spotted him as he neared the building door. Frightened, it screamed like it had just been stabbed.
Damn! Shut up, cat!
The cat kept screaming. It was exactly the kind of thing that would bring the attention that Ro
bin didn’t want.
Gotta get inside, Robin thought frantically as he reached the door of his building and fumbled for his key. Gotta get in before—
Too late.
“Hey! Stop!” a furious voice called from behind him. “Hey! Who you be, an’ whatchu think you doin’?”
Chapter Eight
Hey!” the angry voice repeated. “Turn yo’ ass around!”
In the split second before he turned around to face whoever had busted him, Robin thought about the best way to die.
Was it better to have your head blown off by a Glock? Robin figured that’s what would happen when the lookout realized Robin had stolen his stash.
Or was it better to be dragged off to Ninth Street Rangers’ headquarters and get beaten to a pulp, then tossed off an overpass onto the highway and get run over so many times people couldn’t tell if he’d been human or a lost dog?
Maybe they’d knife him. Beat him with tire irons. Or make him pull the trigger in a drive-by, then shoot him.
There were so many bad ways to die.
In the same split second he tried to think of a reason he had the envelope in his waistband, no shoes on his feet, and why he was sweaty and stinky.
There was no good reason.
I am so—
“I said, turn your ass around!” the voice boomed.
No choice. Robin turned around.
It wasn’t an angry Ranger lookout with a Glock pointed at him.
It was his own grandmother. She held a baseball bat in her right hand.
“Gramma?” Robin croaked.
“Robin Paige! Is that you in that black hoodie?” Miz Paige strode over to him. “Why you out here? Why you all sweaty? Why you have no shoes on? What is goin’ on?”
Robin felt sick, ashamed, and relieved all at once. He pulled down the black shirt so there was no way the envelope would show and tried to say something believable.
“Gramma, I … I …”
“Speak up, Robinson Paige! ’Fore I send you to yo’ room for the rest of yo’ life!”
Robinson's Hood Page 3