Righteous

by Joe Ide

  Dodson had been thinking about the Black the Knife case and how he’d been relegated to sidekick. He’d felt dumb and useless, Isaiah figuring everything out and telling him what to do. Dodson hated being led. When he was a teenager, he’d been in a gang, submitting himself to groupthink, but that was for survival. Those times were long gone, and he’d be damned before he’d let Isaiah dominate the action again. This time he’d contribute, be part of the investigation. He was smart. He could figure shit out too.

  Janine’s phone buzzed. “He texted me!” she said. There was a selfie of Benny smiling uneasily at the camera. The message said: Don’t worry babe. Got it under control. I love you.

  “Look at him,” Janine said, “he’s scared out of his mind. He won’t call because he knows I’ll talk him into not doing it.”

  Isaiah went still, staring at the selfie. Dodson stared at it too, like he was straining to see what Isaiah saw.

  “What?” Dodson said, annoyed.

  “Behind him,” Isaiah said. Over Benny’s shoulder, you could see a BIG CASH machine; three reels showing different kinds of fruit, coin slot on the lower left, spin button on the right, aluminum payout tray at the bottom. “They don’t use those anymore, do they?”

  “You’re right,” Janine said. “That’s an old-school slot. I haven’t seen one of those in a long—oh my God, he’s at the Lucky Streak! How did you see that?”

  “It’s my job,” Isaiah said. He took a last sip of espresso and shot a look at Dodson. “Let’s go.”

  Ken picked up Tommy at the airport and they drove back to the house. Tommy had all the style and flash of the Chinese prime minister. Dark gray suit, red tie, rimless glasses on an almost-featureless face, and an old-guard haircut, Brylcreemed and parted on the side. If you had to tell a police sketch artist what he looked like all you could say was an Asian guy wearing a suit. Only those who knew him would notice the faint ruthless smile and the eyes like a dozing crocodile’s, open just enough to see who was stepping into the water.

  They’d been driving for fifteen minutes and Tommy had only commented on the weather in San Francisco. This was what he did, keeping you in suspense, showing you who was boss, as if you didn’t know already. Like when they spotted his suitcase on the carousel he didn’t move, expecting Ken to get it, and when they got to the car he stood there until Ken opened the door for him. It was bad form to ask him anything so Ken just drove.

  When they got to the Red Rock house Tommy walked straight through the great room to the sliding glass door and went outside, Ken right behind him. Tommy never spoke where there was the slightest possibility he’d be recorded.

  “What’s going on, Tommy?” Ken said.

  Tommy stood near the pool, hands clasped behind his back, reflected light wobbling on the suit, the rimless glasses like silver dollars. He got a cigarette out of his platinum cigarette case and lit it with his platinum lighter. He didn’t like gold, too flashy, too low-class, he’d said. He took his time, tucking the lighter away, taking a couple of long drags while he stared at the water like it was a crystal ball; Ken waiting, his punishment for asking a question.

  “This is a very serious matter,” Tommy said. He spoke with a Cantonese accent, the syllables going up and down. Dis is a waydee seriose madda. “On Friday, at two thirty-two in the morning, someone downloaded our business records,” he said.

  “No, that’s impossible,” Ken said. “I never download anything, that’s an ironclad rule. All the records stay in the cloud.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Zhi checks the event log every day.”

  “You keep tabs on me?”

  Tommy looked at him, surprised he’d asked. “I keep tabs on everyone that works for me. It was not a hack, Ken. The person responsible used the password.”

  “No, that can’t be. The password only exists in my head and yours.”

  A balloon full of ice water burst in Ken’s gut. Janine. He’d forgotten he’d told her about the contact list back when she was a kid. Why did he do such a stupid thing?

  “The only two people in the house are you and your daughter,” Tommy said.

  “There’s no way she could know the password, Tommy. I didn’t tell her, why would I?” Ken hoped that didn’t sound like a lie. Tommy could smell bullshit if it was a hundred years old and buried under the Mirage.

  “There are no other suspects,” Tommy said, “unless you count the housekeeper.” Tommy had referred her. An elderly Guatemalan woman who barely spoke English. She called Ken meester and Janine she-lady. “Goo morneen, meester,” she’d say. “Is she-lady okay?”

  “Isn’t Janine a gambling addict?” Tommy said. He turned his back and walked alongside the pool, forcing Ken to talk louder.

  “I wouldn’t call her an addict,” Ken said.

  “Well, she has borrowed a lot of money from me for a recreational gambler.”

  “She’s borrowed from you?”

  “Yes. You didn’t know?” Tommy said, as if this was a sign of bad parenting.

  “Tommy, she wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Tommy said.

  Tommy was barely audible, Ken had to walk after him. “I have no idea,” he said. “She could be anywhere. I don’t even know where she lives.”

  “She lives at the Siesta Vegas Motel,” Tommy said. “Zhi found her.” Zhi was Tommy’s internet whiz. If you were mute, illiterate, and living in the Gobi desert, Zhi could find out what rock you were sleeping under and what kinds of scorpions you ate. “My men went to the club where she was working tonight,” Tommy said. “Her friends said she left with two black men. Do you know who they are?”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve only met the boyfriend.” Ken wanted to warn Janine, tell her to get out of town. Even if she turned over the records and hadn’t copied them she still would have seen them. She was as good as dead, and if he had the slightest objection, so was he. “Look, how about I call her and straighten this out?”

  “No, I don’t want her to be on guard,” Tommy said.

  “Be on guard? Tommy, this is ridiculous.”

  “It’s far from ridiculous. Would you like to calculate the prison term for operating the largest human trafficking ring on the West Coast?”

  “What are you going to do?” Ken said.

  “Find her, talk to her,” Tommy said. “We’ve already located the boyfriend.”

  “You have? How?”

  “14K has hundreds of friends all over Vegas. Not just Chinese—Vietnamese, Filipino, white. Some we do business with, the rest know who we are and want to be on our good side. We spread the boyfriend’s picture around and a blackjack dealer called us. Benny is gambling at a casino in Henderson.”

  Ken wondered why he wasn’t told about these friends and what else he didn’t know. Tommy turned around, his blank face like a mask of a blank face, the crocodile eyes watching you pull on your swimming trunks.

  “Has she contacted you?” Tommy said.

  “No, we hardly speak.”

  “If you have the slightest idea, tell me now. You don’t want the Red Poles to find her.”

  The Red Poles were Tommy’s enforcers, recruited from Hong Kong’s rooftop slums. Thousands of people who couldn’t afford two grand a month for an apartment the size of a one-car garage lived on the roofs of old buildings; six or seven families crammed into a shack made from corrugated tin and scrap lumber; one toilet, no ventilation, sleeping on newspapers, infested with rats and white ants, sweltering in the tropical heat, drenched during the rainy season. Survive there and you’re a hard remorseless motherfucker. Chosen from there and you’re loyal as a robot.

  “Help us and things will go easier,” Tommy said.

  “No they won’t,” Ken said.

  Tommy took a moment. “No,” he said, “they won’t.”

  “I’m calling her,” Ken said, reaching for his phone. He felt something cold and hard pressed against
his neck. He could smell the cordite. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Tung, Tommy’s personal bodyguard. He should have known the old bastard would do something like this, pretend he was alone until Ken showed his hand.

  “Tung,” Tommy said. “Lock Ken in a room somewhere, please. If he makes the slightest bit of trouble gag him and tie him head to toe.”

  Leo and Balthazar were driving back to the crib, tired after a long day of chasing down deadbeats. Leo thought he’d call Renee and Misty Love, have a little party. Renee was the only hooker in Vegas who would have sex with Balthazar. She didn’t seem to mind, saying all she had to do was close her eyes and pretend she was lying under Kevin Durant. It was a pain in the ass, but you had to go through their manager, Charlie O. He was an old-school pimp; canary-yellow Borsalino, matching Superfly double-breasted overcoat worn rain or shine, white alligator loafers, and enough bling to make everybody at Bad Boy Records happy. Once, Leo had asked Charlie what the O in his name stood for.

  “The O stands for Oh my God, you must be crazy,” Charlie said.

  “What kind of name is that?” Leo said.

  “Ask my bitches,” Charlie said, puffing on a cigarillo. “That’s what every one of ’em said the first time they saw my dick.”

  Leo was about to ring him up when Nate called and told him Benny was gambling at the Lucky Streak.

  “You hear that, Zar?” Leo said. “That little turd says he’s broke and what’s he doing?”

  “Gambling,” Zar said. “Isn’t that what Nate said?”

  “That was a rhetorical question, it didn’t really need an answer.”

  “Oh.”

  “I believe Benny needs a second trip to the landfill. What do you think?”

  “Sure,” Zar said.

  Crowds of seniors had come in on buses and were roving around the Lucky Streak Casino with their sun visors, fanny packs, and free six-packs of Pepsi, looking for their lucky machines. That’s not it, Edith, it’s over there. Chandeliers made of spangly rectangles bounced light off the slot machines; the smoky air-conditioned atmosphere congested with sounds. Alarm bells ringing, screams of I won I won, clattering roulette wheels, coins clanging in the payout trays, a stickman shouting A natural winner, a natural winner, the crowd cheering and woo-hooing.

  Benny didn’t notice any of it. He was so nervous he’d chosen the wrong video poker machine, an eight-five instead of a nine-six. A nine-six paid nine coins for a full house and six for a flush. An eight-five paid eight and five. Play six hundred hands an hour, slow for Benny, and you’d lose sixty-six dollars of potential winnings. That shit added up.

  “Jesus I’m stupid,” he said. He cashed out, the voucher for seven dollars and fifty cents, all he had left from twenty he’d borrowed from Nate. He stared at the piece of paper like it was a breakup note from Janine. Today was Friday, vig day, and he hoped she was at Seven Sevens and not on her way to the landfill. He felt like an asshole. He couldn’t protect her, and he couldn’t pay the vig. Leo was right. Janine could do better, way better, but Benny loved her and he’d fight for her and do whatever it took to keep her. He might be a loser, but he wasn’t a wimp.

  He went over what he’d done so far. He’d gone to Kinko’s and used one of their computers to set up an email account. Then he sent Janine’s dad a ransom note, demanding a hundred thousand dollars for the return of the records. Her dad could afford it, and there was no sense getting greedy. By the time Benny got the money, the added vig would bring Leo’s tab up to ten or eleven grand. Pay him off and the rest for him and Janine. He hadn’t gotten an answer to his email yet and hoped the demand note wasn’t stuck in a spam folder. He had the exchange all worked out. He’d tell them to drive somewhere on I-15 and throw the money out of a moving car. Then he’d swoop in on his Yamaha, grab it and take off into the desert. Nobody could catch him on his bike.

  Still, he was scared. Janine had told him about the Red Poles and how they were smart and brutal and had no conscience. The sanctity of life might as well be a vegan restaurant. He knew the danger was real but leaving town wasn’t even a consideration. They’d talked about it a couple of times, Janine wanting to get away from Leo, start over somewhere else, change their luck. Go to LA maybe. Lots of Indian casinos. Pechanga, San Miguel, Harrah’s Rincon; play cards at the Bicycle or Hollywood Park. It wasn’t Vegas, but it wouldn’t be so bad, and maybe they could rein it in a little, save some money, settle down. Have a kid. Benny said sure, sure, he’d think about it, but he only said that to please her. Vegas was his world—or more like his natural environment. If he left he’d be like one of those killer whales at SeaWorld that goes berserk because it’s not in the ocean.

  Shit, man, he was known here. Dealers, pit bosses, bartenders, busboys, waitresses, working girls, cabdrivers, parking valets, housekeepers, security guards. The whole understructure of the city knew him by name. Nobody cared that he was small-time, that he was a loser. He was like one of those Mafia guys who knows there’s a contract out on him but can’t leave his neighborhood. The smiles, hellos, jokes, claps on the back, free coupons for drinks, comped rooms so he could get Janine out of that fucking motel—those things were like body parts or blood cells. Without them holding him together he was nothing, and that was what he feared most. Being nothing.

  Benny hated Leo for making him afraid. He couldn’t wait to throw the money in his face and tell him to fuck off. Seeing that in his head bolstered his courage, and he imagined himself showing up at the motel room in a limo and taking Janine to dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s, where an eight-ounce filet cost a hundred and eighty bucks, and then casino-hopping without worrying about money. Yeah, he’d show her he wasn’t such a loser after all.

  The video poker machines were grouped on a raised area, three steps above the casino floor. Benny was about to leave when he saw four young Chinese men in black suits, sunglasses, and skinny black ties. They looked like the bad guys in The Matrix. No, it couldn’t be, he said to himself. You’re being paranoid. The men were weaving their way through the rows of machines and tables, rubbernecking, searching. Benny could feel their intensity; like snakes slithering through the underbrush, their tongues flicking, tracking a helpless mouse. No, these guys weren’t looking for their lucky machines, they were hunting. People said Benny was slow on the uptake, and maybe that was happening now. Benny stepped behind a row of slots, got low and made his way toward the exit. As he came around a corner, he saw a fifth guy at the end of the aisle. They looked at each other. Benny turned and broke for the exit.

  The Audi entered the Lucky Streak parking lot and Isaiah drove around, looking for a parking space.

  “That’s Benny’s bike!” Janine said, pointing at the bright blue Yamaha parked next to a light pole. “He always does that so it won’t get hit by a car.” A black BMW 750i with chrome turbine rims was parked in a striped no parking zone. “The Red Poles,” she said. “We’re screwed.”

  Isaiah parked the Audi in the next row over. He gave Janine his Harvard cap, Dodson gave her his hoodie, and they jogged to the casino entrance. They were about to go in when Benny came sprinting out, blowing right past them, not even noticing Janine.

  “Step back, and look the other way,” Isaiah said. “Now.” Janine did as she was told as five Chinese guys stampeded by.

  “They’re gonna kill him!” she said. Isaiah gave her his car keys. “Get in the car, and stay there,” he said.

  By the time Isaiah and Dodson caught up with the Red Poles, they were gathered near the Yamaha, beating Benny to the ground. He lay there, groaning, cheek smushed into the asphalt. One of them, as skinny as a number two pencil, seemed to be the leader. He was angry and punched one of his colleagues. “You hit him too hard,” he said. “Tommy want him awake.”

  Isaiah and Dodson slowed as they approached, the five guys turning to face them. Not another fight, Isaiah thought. He couldn’t take it.

  “Who are you?” Skinny said. He looked like an anorexic limo driver. His peg-leg pa
nts made his pointy shoes look like kayaks.

  “Hey, how you doing?” Isaiah said, trying to keep his tone light. “Benny’s a friend of ours.”

  “This not your business. You go away now.”

  Another guy with ears big as satellite dishes reached under his jacket. “No gun,” Skinny said. “They got video here.” He turned back to Isaiah. “Look, my fren,” he said. “You go way now or we fuck you up bad.”

  The guy with the big ears got in Dodson’s face. “You too,” he said.

  “Damn, man,” Dodson said. “They ever do a remake of Dumbo I believe you got the part.”

  “Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Isaiah said, holding his palms out. “We just want to take Benny home.”

  “That’s all, huh?” Skinny said. “Fuck you, okay? You go way now.”

  Janine drove up in the Audi and saw Benny on the ground. “Benny! Are you all right?”

  “Stay in the car,” Isaiah said.

  “What did you do to him?” she said.

  “You coming too,” Skinny said.

  “Fuck off, dickhead,” she said. “Are you one of Tommy’s flunkies?”

  “She called 911,” Isaiah said, not knowing if that had occurred to her. Skinny had a moment’s pause until he saw Janine fumbling for her phone. He smiled.

  “Oh yeah?” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  Skinny threw a big right hook. Isaiah was waiting for it. He stepped toward him, into his chest, the punch going around him, in the same instant ramming the heel of his hand into Skinny’s upper lip, snapping his head back. Skinny spun away screaming and bleeding from the mouth.

  Dodson was bouncing around, shadowboxing. “Come on, Dumbo,” he said. “Get some of this.” Dumbo rushed him. Dodson rat-tat-tatted him with two lefts, a right, and another left. The guy stopped, touching the blood pouring out of his nose, not believing he’d been hit four times in two seconds. “What’s up, son?” Dodson said. “You want some more?”

  The other three Red Poles rushed in to join the fight, one going for Dodson, the other two for Isaiah. Isaiah backed up, no attacks from behind. A guy with a pockmarked face and big hands walked toward him, casual, confident; the other two staying back, grinning, waiting for the show to start. This guy’s got skills.