When leaving the bathroom for the middle of the night pee, I never expected to run into my wife. Literally.
“Oof.” Luna’s puff of surprised breath presses against my bare chest, and I shiver at the intimacy of the heat. She shifts back, her movements controlled now despite the unplanned collision.
“Sorry,” I whisper, shifting out of the way to clear a path to the bathroom.
But Luna doesn’t step through the doorway, and in the soft glow of the nightlight illuminating the hallway, I realize that she’s dressed as if to go out. Boots, jeans, long-sleeved shirt.
All black.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Go back to bed, Charlie.” From Luna’s stern tone I know that’s exactly what I won’t be doing. If I’m remembering my bleary glance at the clock correctly, it’s just about 3 a.m. Not the time to be going out and doing anything, even in a lively city like New Orleans. Especially because we plan to leave first thing in the morning.
“Where are you going?” I shift my body to the side just as she tries to slide past me.
“I have an errand to run.”
“What errand happens at three in the morning?”
My sneaky wife huffs out a sigh. “An unsavory one. Now let me by. I’ll see you in a few hours. At breakfast.”
“Ah. No. Nope.” I place my fists on my hips, taking up even more room in the narrow space.
“Are you trying to stop me?” From the low, threatening octave her voice sits in, I realize I have no chance of holding her back. And Luna knows it.
“Three a.m. errands require backup.” Unless this is a booty call and she’s about to head over to someone’s house for a quick bang. Then my backup would be all kinds of awkward.
We agreed. Single for a year.
And Luna is nothing if not loyal.
It’s time that I display the same amount of loyalty to my new wife. If she’ll let me.
Luna keeps her voice a low growl. “No way.”
“Yes way.” I deliver the very mature retort with a confident grin. “Say hello to your new sidekick. Every superhero needs someone to carry their tool belt.”
Luna snorts. “I’m not a hero, and by definition a tool belt is wearable. Therefore, no need to have a second body to carry it.”
“Then I’ll keep an eye on your invisible jet for you.” I lean down, doing my best to give her some puppy dog eyes my mom always crumbles for. “Let me come. For my sake.”
Luna glares up at me, grinding her teeth. After a second, she offers a curt nod.
“Great.” I grin and step back toward my room. “I need to change.” And put in my contacts so I can see more than a few feet in front of me. “I’ll be two minutes.”
“Fine,” she mutters, moving toward the front door.
“Oh, and Luna?” When I have her attention, I affect my most innocent smile. “If you forget to wait for me, I’ll just wake up Dash and see if he can help me find you.”
My lovely wife flips me off. Somehow, from her the gesture seems like an exasperated form of affection.
I hope the threat of me getting her brother involved will be enough to keep Luna from leaving without me, but just in case, I hurry through getting dressed, pulling on black sweatpants and a black T-shirt. It’s not the type of outfit I’d normally wear out after dark. As a Black man over six-foot, people are always looking for more reasons to label me as dangerous, and dark clothing apparently fits the bill. Still, I get the sense that Luna is going for incognito. For her, I’ll deal with the risk.
Luna sits in her car, engine running. I slide into the passenger seat, and she waits for me to buckle in before slowly driving away from her brother’s house, only picking up speed when we’re out of hearing distance.
“You going to tell me what this errand is all about?” I ask after five minutes of silent driving.
Luna taps her thumb against the steering wheel, lips twisted. I don’t push. My wife is a push-back kind of woman. I wait.
“I don’t trust my uncle,” Luna says, long enough later that I figured she wasn’t going to answer.
“Your Uncle Mike? The one Leo works for?” The guy who runs an illegal chop shop. Color me surprised that he’s not the most genuine person in the world.
She nods. “He talks big about honor among thieves and always keeping his word. And I think he mostly sticks to that.”
“But?”
“But his business is everything to him. Business is good right now. But I don’t know how much I can count on his word if he’s suddenly hit. He might decide to close ranks. Go back to just family. He might threaten Leo and Dash to get them to come work for him again.”
Asshole. The situation seems inescapable. An ominous low tone that never fades away.
“That’s fucked up. Even after you pay him everything?”
Luna’s mouth tightens. “I can’t risk it.”
Unease whispers up my spine as we drive down a street with a lot of industrial buildings.
“What are we doing tonight?”
Luna pulls up to a curb next to an old, abandoned building and throws the car in park.
“You’re watching the car. I’m getting some insurance.”
LUNA
“Insurance?” Charlie stares at me. Into me. As if he can coax my entire plan out with enough prolonged eye contact.
He might be the only one who could.
“That’s what I said.” I turn off the car engine and the lights, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness outside my windshield. My nerves tingle with anticipation. This task calls for skills I haven’t used in a very long time.
As I set my hand on the handle, there’s a pressure on my shoulder. When I glance back at Charlie, I find his frown in the dark.
I wish I’d gotten out of the house without him noticing.
“Please explain to me what you’re about to do.” His voice goes deep with a raspy plea. “I’m kinda freaking out over here.”
An explanation requires precious minutes, but if I’m right, I have a good bit of time to pull this off.
And I can’t risk Charlie trying to follow me.
Like most successful marriages require, I err on the side of honesty.
“On the other side of this—” I gesture to the dark warehouse. “—is the building my uncle’s chop shop is in. One of them at least. He may have expanded in the last decade.”
If anything, the worried wrinkles around Charlie’s frown deepen. “Why are we here? What exactly are you going to do?”
“I’m going to sneak in, get pictures of the VIN numbers of his latest haul, look around for any other incriminating information I can find, then get the hell out before anyone realizes I paid a visit.”
Charlie gapes at me, and I try not to sigh in impatience.
“Look. It’s not a walk in the park, but I’ve got this.”
“Guards,” he croaks out. “There’s got to be guards.”
“No doubt,” I agree. “But they’ll be guarding the ground floor. The entrances. No one should be on the roof.”
“I don’t get it.”
Maybe I should’ve typed this all out in an agenda. Probably would have helped calm my panicked salesman down. “Here’s the deal. I’m going up that fire escape.” I point out the rusty set of stairs I spotted on my last drive-by of the area. “I’ll get to the top of this building, cross over to my uncle’s, go in the roof access, and work my way down from the top.”
Charlie stares out the windshield as if in a daze, but his mind must still be processing information because he’s asking the questions I worked through days ago when I came up with this plan.
“Roof doors lock. You can’t just walk in.”
“I know how to pick a lock. Unless he’s installed some high-tech fingerprint scanner, I won’t have a problem.” Needing to be done with this conversation, I grab Charlie’s wrist, capturing his eyes with mine. My sight has adjusted enough that I can make out his dilated pupils.
“This isn’t something I came up with an hour ago. I’ve thought this through. If there are any unexpected risks that come up, I’ll abort. But I need to do this, and I need to go now.” I tighten my hold. “Trust me, Charlie. Stay here, and trust that I know what I’m doing.”
He swallows hard. Then nods. “How long?”
“What?”
“How long will this take you? If you don’t come back when you say you will, I’m calling 9-1-1.”
His threat should annoy me, but instead there’s an odd warmth that suffuses my chest at the concern lingering in his gaze. “Give me two hours before you start to worry.” I plan to be done in one, but no need for him to get trigger-happy if I’m gone longer.
He nods and sits back in his seat. “Be careful. Come back to me.”
I’m out of the car before I can analyze the way Charlie said that last line. The quiet of the night presses against me, the air thick with humidity. I’d be more comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt, but I need to blend into the shadows as much as possible. I even have a ski mask tucked in my fanny pack.
Yes, I’m breaking into an illegal chop shop wearing a fanny pack. It’s convenient. Deal with it.
To get to the fire escape, I have to scramble on top of a dumpster and jump to catch the bottom rung. Luckily, chin-ups are a regular part of my workout routine, and I only struggle a little to pull myself up the ladder. Things get easier when I reach the first small landing, the ascent turning into stairs for the next five stories. The rusty metal squeaks under my weight. I step carefully to lessen the volume of my passage.
Maybe Charlie would have felt more at ease if he’d known I snuck out here the first night we got to town to scope things out. I know that this is a huge risk. That my discovery could put the entire deal with Uncle Mike at risk.
When I committed to doing this, I knew I had to do it right.
That’s how I know the jump between the buildings is six feet. A leap that may seem daunting but is completely doable.
I crouch on the ledge, scanning the opposite rooftop for movement. Just like I expected, the expanse is empty. Before taking this next step, I slip on my ski mask. With a great heave, I launch myself across the narrow gap, tucking my body to roll over the rough surface of the roof in a less-than-graceful landing. If I’d put too much focus on landing feet first, I would’ve shortened my range and put myself in danger of missing my mark.
I stay on the ground, listening closely for the pound of footsteps in case my jump alerted someone to my presence.
Five full breaths, and nothing.
Good.
Like I’d hoped, the lock on the roof door is a simple key one. From my fanny pack, I pull out a set of slim metal picks. I could probably get the thing open with a bobby pin, but that’s a last-ditch effort kind of tool. Going into a pick job, might as well bring the best equipment.
I get the door open in less than a minute. Not my fastest time, but I’m only racing against the two-hour mark.
My adrenaline creeps up as I enter the building. The stairwell is dark, giving me the sensation of being trapped. I’d rather have more space. Freedom to choose to run if the need calls for it.
Pushing the claustrophobic fear aside, I take quick yet quiet steps down the stairs. When I reach the second floor, I’m faced with a decision. Mike’s office or the garage first?
I have no idea what kind of information Mike keeps here. If any. Although I’m less likely to run into someone in the offices, I go down one more floor.
There are slim windows in the stairwell doors, and I peer through the one on the first floor. I don’t see anyone, and when I crack the door open with careful hands, I don’t hear anyone walking around either. However, I spy a blueish glow and hear muffled voices from below the doorway down on the opposite end of the hall. The doorway I walked through all those weeks ago when I came to ask about Leo.
Must be where the night guard is, and it sounds like he’s watching TV to pass these late—or early—hours.
If I’m lucky, the guy will be fully passed out in there.
Now it’s just a game of Russian roulette with these other doors. Based on where the garage opening is on the outside of the building, I know I need to check to my right. That leaves me with three options.
The first turns out to be a janitorial closet. The second is a small, not very clean bathroom.
Third door’s the charm.
Moving as delicately as I can, I turn the knob and find myself in an office with large glass windows that look out over a garage area dimly lit by an overhead lamp in the corner.
Crouching low, I enter the office and shut the door behind me. Don’t need the guard coming into the hall for a bathroom break and seeing anything out of order.
I crawl across the floor to the entrance of the garage, pressing myself to the wall just inside the open doorway. After listening for a full minute, I can confidently say there is no one in the large room unless they’re trying to be as stealthy as I am.
Remaining low, I enter the space. There are eight cars in all states of disassembly. From what I know, Mike’s guys work fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they break these down and have them gone by the end of the week.
Better to move hot product than hold on to it.
From my fanny pack, I pull out a small flashlight and my phone. After roughly fifteen minutes, I’ve found the VIN numbers on each car and snapped a picture. By the time I’m done, I’m sweaty and covered in dust from crawling under the low carriages.
Knowing Charlie’s anxiety must increase by the minute, I send the photos to him with a brief message.
Almost done Dont txt back
I scuttle like a crab across the garage and back to the office where I entered. Pressing my ear to the door, I don’t hear any footsteps, so I slip back out to the hallway. Just as I pass the door to the bathroom, I hear a toilet flush.
My body wants to freeze in panic. Bright fluorescent lights illuminate the hallway. Nowhere for me to hide. But I learned long ago how to ignore my panicked responses. With three long, almost-leaping steps, I reach the door to the stairwell, pull it open, slip inside, and let the thing swing almost all the way shut. I keep my hand braced on the cold metal, cushioning the door a centimeter away from the latch, avoiding even that small noise that could give away my presence. Through the slim opening, I listen to the bathroom door open—the guy didn’t bother to wash his hands, gross—and booted footsteps. The tread is slow, moving away from me.
Only when I hear the latch of a second door closing do I slowly guide the stairwell door shut.
On a long, low exhale, I ease away some of the tension.
But I’m not done yet.
Climbing to the second floor, I enter the office space. All the lights are off, the floor empty and eerily quiet. Not even the hum of AC.
On soft feet, I cross to my uncle’s office. He left the door locked. I crouch down and pull my picks out again, getting into the room easier than the roof entrance.
Unfortunately, the place seems to be empty. No stray papers lying around. No file labeled “Criminal Business Plan.”
In a cabinet, I find a combination safe. I try a few different number sequences on a wild hope, but nothing comes from it. If I used my impressive thigh muscles, I might be able to lift it, but no way could I jump across the gap between roofs. Besides, I don’t want my uncle to know anyone was here. Stealing his safe is an obvious tell. Wanting to do something with this, I snap a picture of the safe. Proof that it exists. Not much, but I’ll take anything at this point, not sure if the VIN numbers will be a genuine threat if I ever need to play this hand.
When I leave the office, I leave everything the way I found it, including the locked door.
As I retrace my steps, I move with as much caution as I did entering the building. Would be the perfect fuck-up to get through all this only to get caught at the last second. On the roof, I lock that door as well and make my way to the roof’s edge. Finally, I slip off my ski mask, the night air cool on my exposed skin.
I suck in a deep breath, experiencing a glow of triumph that’s quickly doused by the reminder of why I had to do this—and how like my father’s family I am at this moment.
Just another Lamont breaking the law.
But no time to wallow about that. Charlie’s waiting for me.
I jump.