Abbey parked the big rented Buick in front of a dilapidated frame house. Paint peeled from its aging surface, bedsheets hung in the windows, and trash was strewn over the weed-infested front lawn.
“This is the place?” Nate said with a frown, as he looked through his passenger-side window.
“It’s the address I have, sir.”
Nate stepped out of the car, wearing a brown suit and black tie. Abbey exited, wearing a skirt suit that closely matched the color of Nate’s outfit.
She reached into the backseat, grabbed her briefcase, carried it around the car, and stood beside Nate on the sidewalk.
“Well,” Nate said.
A boy wearing a long white T-shirt and a black do-rag whisked between Nate and Abbey on a bike much too small for him.
Nate continued. “Time to do what we came here for.”
They walked up the path toward the house, climbed the creaking, rotten wood stairs, and stood on the big front porch. Nate looked for a doorbell but only found two exposed wires snaking out from a small hole.
He knocked on the door, looked at Abbey, then stood, waiting. Yells of children and a barking dog could be heard in the far-off distance.
A moment later, the locks on the front door clicked undone. The door opened, and behind it stood a woman wearing a large pink T-shirt, boxer shorts, and fluffy Tasmanian Devil slippers. She ran a hand over her wild hair and said, “You Mr. Kenny?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nate said. “I’m Mr. Kenny, and this is Ms. Kurt. We phoned you from Chicago to—”
“Yeah, yeah,” the woman said, smiling, showing the gaps from a couple of missing teeth. She pushed the screen door open. “Come in. Come on in.”
Half an hour later, Nate and Abbey sat on a soiled living room sofa, drinking Kool-Aid out of plastic cups. The woman who answered the door was Salesha, the mother. Her daughter, Salonica, had been introduced not long after Nate and Abbey entered.
Salonica was painfully thin. She greeted them wearing skintight blue jeans and a halter top that exposed so much of her midriff that the bottom of her bra could almost be seen. She extended a hand to Nate, every finger adorned with a gaudy silver ring. “Nice to meet you.” Nate took her hand and shook.
She had brought her two twin girls out to meet the visitors. Salonica stood between them, a hand on each of their shoulders. “This is Lena, and this is Lois.”
Their hair was parted down the middle of their scalps, pigtails hanging from either side of their heads. They were both pregnant.
“They doin’ real good in school,” Salonica said. “Because I tell ’em, you don’t keep them grades up, I’m gonna get rid of them babies you carrying faster than you can say free clinic.”
Nate smiled uncomfortably and took a sip of his Kool-Aid.
After the girls left, Nate got down to business. He told the women that he knew the man who had dated Selena.
“Yeah, we know him. Lewis Waters, right?” the mother said.
“That’s right,” Nate said. “He’s raising your granddaughter, correct?”
“Yeah. So what?”
Nate turned to his investigator. “Abbey,” he said.
Abbey opened her briefcase, pulled out two plane tickets, and handed them to Nate. He then set them on the coffee table before Salesha and Salonica.
“I want you to fly to Chicago and tell Lewis Waters you want custody of your grandchild.”
Salesha turned to her daughter, and they both started to laugh.
“Mr. Kenny,” Salesha said, “do you see the house you walked into? I ain’t holding all the money I have for home repairs because I got it in stocks and bonds. There ain’t no money. That’s why this place look the way it looks. I already got two grandchildren I can’t half feed, and they about to have two more children of they own. What do we need with another mouth around here always begging for food?”
“He’s not going to give the child to you, Ms. Wells. I can assure you of that. But I want you to ask him all the same. I want you to pressure him, tell him that you believe your daughter died because of him. I want you to tell him that you’ll take him to court, fight for the child if you must. He won’t want to do that, trust me. The little girl is not only very important to him, but instrumental in maintaining the situation he’s in.”
“So what happens when he keep on telling us no?” Salonica said.
“You’ll tell him that you can make a deal. You tell him if he gives you thirty thousand dollars, you’ll leave.”
“Thirty thousand dollars!” The mother practically screamed. “We getting thirty grand! How he gonna get that?”
“Don’t you worry about it. He’ll find a way, I’m sure. And yes, once he gives you the money, then it’s yours to keep.”
Both women stood from their chairs, hugged each other, and bounced around the living room, screaming.
“But it’s up to you,” Nate said, raising his voice over the celebrating women. “You hound him so much that he feels he has no choice but to give you what you want.”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Salesha said, out of breath, her heavy breasts heaving under her T-shirt. “Once we roll into Chi-town, all hell gonna break loose.”