“Let me feed you some good ting,” her eyes asked first, then her mouth said, “You seem hungry, but . . . more den dat, you seem thirsty.” She was right. I was mad thirsty. But I didn’t admit it . . . with words or gestures.
“Let me grab you a drink.” She brushed by me, pressing her body against mine, and then opened the door of the glass cold case in the too-tight kitchen. “I want to give you a Guinness or Heineken or a Red Stripe. More den dat I want to give you what you want. So ’ere.” She handed me a bottle of Poland Spring water. “I take you for da water type,” she said staring.
I twisted the top. As soon as I heard the seal crack open, I downed it. Standing facing me and way too close, she handed me another. I cracked that one open and . . .
“That’s how me and me man first met,” she said. “It was back ’ere in dis small space. I went for a drink and rubs against him. He grabbed me hips and picks me up pon dis tabletop. Him tears open me shirt and cut off me jeans with him knife ’cause dey was dat tight tight tight on me body. Him buss my sweet cherry good. Make my body throb all over. Den him say to I . . .
“ ‘Next time wear a dress so I could fuck you right.’ ” She smiled, remembering. “After dat me love he forever.”
My mind wasn’t on her. But then I also peeped that she was out of her denim booty shorts and wearing a colorful short dress that barely passed where her pussy was. I was grateful for the water. She had supplied me with the basic need. I also needed to eat. But I wasn’t gonna eat her or sit and share a meal with her. And I definitely wasn’t gonna fuck her. “It looks good but I’m not going to have any,” I told her, stepping out of the tiny kitchen area and searching for the back door.
“The back door is locked and it’s the other way, star,” she said, reminding me of a Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn girl named Bangs who called me “Superstar” every time she saw me.
“The door that doesn’t say exit is the exit. The door that says exit is not,” she said, smiling and seeming to enjoy her own riddle. “But now is the wrong time for leaving. And if ya make a move now without carrying the red laundry bag, the cops on da other side of the door ah grab you soon as you step out,” she said strangely, dramatically and seriously.
Thinking about what she was saying and why she was saying it had me still for some seconds. I didn’t give a fuck about the cops. I gotta mail the letter, though, uninterrupted, I thought to myself. If I left through the side or the back door, I pictured in my head, “I would still have to walk around to the front to drop the letter in the mailbox without allowing them to take me. But was what she was saying true?
“You on my block. In ‘my yard’ as we say. So, listen good. Hear me now. In one hour and twenty minutes at one a.m. you can leave out the back door carrying the red laundry bag and no one, no man, no beast ah touch ya,” she said, staring sternly. “Carry the red bag to da train, taxi, plane, or wherever. But once you clear three blocks from here in any direction you are good.”
She could tell I didn’t trust her. She seemed calm, like she expected me to automatically flow with her intimate dinner fantasy and her suspicious red-bag exit plan. She pulled one leg up back into her flamingo stance where she seemed most comfortable, causing her pussy dress to creep up even higher and shorter than before.
“You brought from da dollar store on da corner ’ere.” She pointed towards the corner where I had actually shopped an hour or so ago. “You buy some wrong-ting,” she said strangely. I knew I didn’t buy anything illegal from the dollar store. Everything I bought was out in the open and for sale.
“You buy box cutter.” She put up one finger like she was about to make a list. “You buy winter gloves and wool cap in a summer season.” She put up two more fingers. “You buy soap and socks . . .” She continued until all ten of her fingers were spread. Somehow she knew all of my purchases. Yet she was definitely not in the dollar store when I was. I pay attention. She probably saw into my plastic bag when I set it on the machine, I swiftly considered. She placed her hands on her hips and stared into me, trying to demonstrate her seriousness, then continued, “Store manager over dere is dee informah.”
“Dee informah,” I repeated.
“The informer,” she confirmed, turning off her accent. “Him tell da foot cop on da corner when people buy suspicious things. Gal gangs in our yard choose box cutter for a weapon. Any child, man, or woman buy box cutter is suspect.” Sensing my doubt, she explained, “Box cutter, dem is not illegal for dee informah to sell, or fer you to buy. But police ’ere see it as a red flag. And dee informah tell all.”
It didn’t sound like something she was making up. But it didn’t sound like a reason I needed to stay, either.
“Keys,” I said suddenly at the same time both the thought and the observation dropped into my head.
“Don’t have.” She clapped her hands together and wiggled her fingers, then spun her body to show me that her cobra was no longer there and no keys were jingling on her. But she had the cobra key chain on her panty shorts before, and the bathroom key in her back pocket, I confirmed to myself.
“Go get ’em,” I ordered.
“Me give ’em to da one who lock up the gate each night. Him open up again at one a.m., den safe,” she said, returning to her serious stare.
My eyes searched the tiny kitchen, then my gloved hands pulled open one of two drawers. One contained laundry bags, neatly folded as though pressed. The other contained brown bags, foil, plastic bags, napkins, and straws.
Her arms were folded in front of her now, and both of her bare feet were on the floor. The tension tightened her up, when she’d been all laid-back and loose before. I knew I was on to something. She had to have hidden the keys somewhere. I yanked open the narrow spice cabinet on the sidewall beside the stove. There were no spices, but a tiny five-inch television was embedded into the wall. On the screen was an image of the Laundromat showing where all of the machines were, where I had just been. A surveillance device, I thought to myself. That was the reason she could leave her place of business unattended. She could watch and see all of her Laundromat customers as she chilled back here like she was at home. I looked up.
Pulling out one of the two metal chairs, I placed it on top of the table. When I climbed up and stepped onto the table, she got excited. Then the excited expression on her face evaporated as she caught on that I wasn’t about to twist and bend her body in some mean-ass fucking position, but I had seen the lines on the ceiling in the shape of a square that seemed to lead to the second floor.
“You don’t wanna do dat,” she warned me.
She was wrong. I was already pushing on the square and climbing up. I lifted it only two inches at first, to see and listen if someone was up there. I figured she had a small bed for resting and a closet with a few changes of clothes. The keys were probably up there, where she had changed into her fuck-me dress. I wasn’t gonna ask her again for them, or even trust any of her responses. I know what she wants. If there were no keys, plan B: I would leave from the rooftop, or at least use it to see for certain what and who was moving outside in the area. From the rooftop I could see clearly and then leap to or jump down to another connected building, or use the fire escapes. If the mailbox was too hot, from the rooftop I could spot another mailbox, then switch up my route.
I pulled my body weight up into a dusty room with no lights. As soon as I was in, I stood still to listen and check it out. I could hear the redhead pull the chair down from the table and drag and push it back in its place. Good. She understood, then, that I wasn’t coming back.
No bed, no furniture, no clothing. I stepped lightly towards the room door. I heard a sound, looked down to be sure it wasn’t coming from something being crushed beneath my feet. I scraped my left and right sneaker lightly on the floor. It wasn’t me. It had to be somebody. Whoever it was had also purposely stopped moving so that they could not be heard. I stayed still. After a pause, I heard another sound. I leapt to the left side of the door, figuring the thump
of one leap was better than several footsteps. Slowly the door pushed open. There was only the long black barrel of a shotgun. With both hands and without exposing myself concealed in the corner, I grabbed it tightly and forced it forward, using the butt of the gun to bang whoever was holding it. Now it was my shotgun and the barrel was pointed at his head.
“Blood clot,” was all he said.
“Get up,” I ordered him. He stood slowly, raising his hands.
“Lead the way to the roof,” I told him. My thoughts were racing to organize my next move.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To get the fuck out this building. That’s it.”
He walked with a cocky sway, even though he had a shotgun aimed at the back of his head and both hands up in the surrender position. He couldn’t front. I could feel his fear.
“Put your hands down. I’m not the police,” I told him. He hesitated. Just as he began pulling his hands down very slowly, as if he believed I might bang a bullet into his back, I warned him, “You don’t want to die tonight,” so he wouldn’t make any sudden or dumb moves that forced my hand.
He dropped his hands all the way down to his sides. Within a few steps, he stopped walking and turned facing a door that did not look like an exit; it did not have an exit sign or any light coming from the narrow space below it. It was across from a door that did have an exit sign over it. Remembering the redhead’s words, I figured the door with the exit sign should not be trusted. I tightened up on him, pressing the black steel barrel against his scalp so he could make the decision that would protect his life and keep me from spilling any blood without real reason. Slowly he turned the knob on the unmarked door.
I pushed his head with the barrel and his back with my foot. He needed to be the first man seen by anyone secretly posted behind that door, where it was so quiet, it was either empty or . . .
“Easy . . . ,” my hostage said suddenly, as he broke his fall.
AK-47 on the left, nine-millimeter on the right, two men holding. There was light beneath the closed door that led to another room behind both of them. I could see feminine bare feet, about three sets, before the light coming from beneath the second door suddenly flicked off. Then I knew.
“I’m not the police,” I said. “I’m a customer who wants to walk out the building like I was never here.”
Nine-millimeter laughed.
“Shut your ras-clot mouth,” my hostage warned him solemnly. Sounded like my hostage was in charge of them and not the other way around. All eyes were shifting, sizing up the situation. None of us were ready to die over some bullshit.
All of us had to be thinking how messy this scene could end. Bodies everywhere, and for what?
“Lay your weapons down,” I said, nodding my head to the right corner. My hostage turned his head slightly, like he was turning to face me. His men didn’t budge. Waiting for orders, I figured.
“Ne-go-ti-a-tion,” my hostage said slowly, pushing out each piece of the word. I tightened up on him so he would stop moving to face me. He needed to negotiate with his men, not me.
“Respect! Him said him don’t want no ting. Him’s just a wanderer, a laundry customer who somehow get trapped in our building,” my hostage said sarcastically to his men.
“He saw us,” AK-47 said.
“We gon’ kill he,” the other one said and smirked.
“Kill him, he gon’ kill I, Verse’s bruddah,” he warned them. “More den dat, one shot an’ five-oh gwon rush our palace and we all gwon dead. Then dem get away with our product.” My hostage was reasoning for his survival.
“He blew our spot,” nine-millimeter said.
“We gwon let him walk. Uddahwise gwon turn graveyard ina ere,” he told them. “Put your guns down,” he ordered. They didn’t. He raised his voice. “Now!” They did.
“Dere’s only one way out alive for you,” he said to me, speaking out of the side of his mouth but still facing his own men. I was hearing him but watching his men and calculating whether there were more men in the back room, or just the women whose feet I saw before the lights blacked out. Are there other men anywhere else in the building? I thought to myself, but I had no way of knowing.
“In my pocket is de key to the door for your freedom,” he said with a serious tone, but I could tell he was a joker. I wasn’t joking.
“Pull it out,” I said. He did. “Tell your men to turn around and face the wall,” I said. He nodded. Both mad as a motherfucker, they turned.
“Walk,” I told my hostage.
“Slowly we turn . . . ,” he said to me. We spun a 180, slow like Tai Chi, with the steel still pressed on him the whole time.
“Take tree giant steps,” he said without laughter, but like me and him were playing a game. I wasn’t playing. Through my peripheral vision, I was watching his men while watching him.
“I gwon reach and open dis door,” he said, standing in front of the door across the hall with the exit sign. I pressed the steel against his back as he turned the key. The door opened to a darkened stairwell.
“Go down ’ere, ’n out the door at the bottom,” he said.
“Step six steps to the side,” I told him. He didn’t obey.
“My shotty ayah,” he said with a new confidence, requesting his gun back from me like it was some even trade.
“Nah. You can’t call it,” I said, reminding him who was in control. He wasn’t.
“Bretheren,” he said, as though he and I could somehow be brothers.
His two men made a dash for their weapons. I banged the hostage in the head, collapsing him, spun around, and shotty-whipped his boys before either of them could get a grip on the AK or the nine. Three men down, knocked out and bleeding without shots being fired.
I heard the voices of women reacting, gasping, whispering, chattering behind a closed door. They didn’t open it. I grabbed the other two guns. I was headed down, hoping the exit door was the exit to the streets and that it was open and not bolted.
On the lower level, the Red Flamingo stepped out of the dark corner, interrupting my stride. Still wearing her “fuck me” minidress, her cobra keys now around her neck like a heavy necklace. She dragged a red laundry bag and was holding a small brown shopping bag in her other hand. I pushed past her, shoving open the exit door. It wouldn’t open.
“Open the door,” I told her, losing patience.
“Take dis. Believe me. You want to live, ya hafta carry out the red laundry bag. When the beast see dis red bag, dem no touch ya.”
“And the other bag?” I asked.
“Your dinner.” She smiled.
“Open the door,” I told her again.
“Remember I,” she said roughly, like it was an order. “Simanique is da name my mum gave me.”
I put the weapons down, facing the opposite wall from where she stood. She was staring at the guns like she was somehow attracted to them. I looked in the red bag. There was folded laundry. It wasn’t mine. I was rifling through it, a couple of sheets and pillowcases, inserting my hand searching for anything else hidden that I might not see at first glance.
“Me luv you, ayah,” she said powerfully.
“Open the door,” I told her. “You don’t know me.”
“I know three tings,” she said, her hand resting on the door after setting the shopping bag down. “One.” She pulled down one finger. Obviously she liked to count and list.
“I saw you praying that way. Me never see a man do dat before. Two, you write some lucky one a long letter; me want that for I. Tree, you went up in the hole.” She pointed towards the ceiling. “And you come back out alive with all dem guns. No one wins over Redverse’s brothers. You did. So you win I.”
She turned the key in the lock. The heavy door creaked open. I pushed it with my gloved hands.
“The red bag,” she insisted again. “You gwon live so I could love you.” I took the red bag for one reason. If she was right, and if the police were outside her door, and if I could walk ou
t past them, I could make it to the mailbox, which was my only goal. After that, I didn’t give a fuck.
Outside it was still hot. Headed down the alley towards the front of the Laundromat, I could still hear the sounds of Brooklyn late-night street life. Looked left, looked right, without turning my head in either direction. New cop on the corner on foot, tall and slim. The one before him was short and slim. Cruiser still parked at the opposite corner. Now the mailbox was right in front of me. Walking out, calm ’n cool, I placed the red laundry bag on the ground beside the mailbox. I pulled the letter out of my pocket, pulled the handle, opening the mailbox, and dropped my letter inside.
Relieved, I checked inside the food bag before taking another step: two bottles of water, and food wrapped in foil. Walking and watching and being watched, I looked up. Man on the roof of the Laundromat. Dressed in all black, he blended in with the sky. But I could see the outline of his physique. I took him for one of “Verse’s” men.
When an empty city bus rolled in slowly, my mind moved swiftly. Picking up my pace, I darted down the next alley while the foot cop’s view of me was blocked by the bus. Squatted there, I took some seconds to get my mind right. I felt my hunger; I hadn’t eaten since early afternoon. A minute later, I heard the voice of my second wife in my mind.
“So fucking cool,” she would often say about me. “But sometimes,” she had said softly, right before we last parted, “you have to throw cool away for a little while and do what’s best to survive.”
I ate.
5. TETRIS
Their side-room investigation pit was still empty, except for me in cuffs seated in the chair and the decaying burger on the table. The police detectives probably went to reshuffle their deck and would come storming back in here with a different approach. It didn’t matter.