'You all right,' he said, like he was talking to a baby in a crib. He walked toward it.
The dog showed its teeth, growled, and backed up until its hindquarters touched the wall. Lorenzo kept walking through the feces, step by careful step, flies buzzing around him, one hand out, the other holding the wooden pole with the wire noose on its end. He looked at the dog's eyes, desperate and afraid. He reached out and put the noose near the dog's head, and the dog lunged at him and backed up again.
'You all right. You all right.'
Lorenzo dropped the noose over the dog's head. The dog moved in his direction. Lorenzo put slight pressure on the pole to let the dog know that he could control it now at will. But the dog was not coming toward him with aggression. It had stopped barking. Its nub of a tail wiggled weakly on its rump.
Lorenzo felt his heart rate slow. He realized how very hot it was in the room, and that his shirt was damp with sweat.
'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get you some cool water.'
Using the pole and noose as a leash and collar, he walked the dog down the stairs. The dog went calmly with him.
'Everything all right?' said Barnett, standing behind the door, open just a crack.
'Fine. You write down that information I asked for?'
'Right here,' said Barnett, handing Lorenzo a slip of paper. Lorenzo read the name written on the paper, put it in his breast pocket, and walked out of the building into the bright sunlight.
A small crowd had gathered outside the building, mostly kids and some adults. He heard some positive things said by the adults. Some of the kids looked away at the sight of the sick, injured, dehydrated dog. Others laughed. The boy with the cell phone said, 'Man who own that dog on his way,' and 'He gonna fuck someone up too.' Lorenzo did not look at any of them. He went directly to the truck.
He got the dog up into the back of the Tahoe and released it from the choke pole. He poured a small amount of bottled water into a bowl and let the animal lap it up. He poured a little bit more and placed the bowl in a large cage. The dog went into the cage without being prodded. Lorenzo closed the cage door and then the rear hatch on the Tahoe. He heard a car come into the lot, bass thumping from its windows, and he heard some boys talking and laughing with excitement and a car door slam, but he did not look at the source of the sounds. He locked the hatch and went to the driver's side of his vehicle.
'Fuck you think you doin'?' said a voice. Lorenzo turned around and faced the man standing behind him.
The man was as tall as Lorenzo, and younger. He had good size. He wore a four-finger ring that spelled LEON. His shirt was a genuine football jersey that went for one hundred and seventy dollars. He had stepped out of a fifty-thousand-dollar car.
'I'm impounding this dog,' said Lorenzo, rubbing his finger on the spare key in his right hand.
'You mean you takin' her.'
'That's right,' said Lorenzo, keeping his gaze steady on the swinish eyes of the man. 'Are you the owner?'
'Yeah, I'm the owner. What the fuck you think?'
Lorenzo removed the piece of paper from his shirt, looked at it, and replaced it. 'Leon Skiles?'
'Why you need to know?'
'Just want to make sure I got it straight. It'll help me identify you when we prosecute.'
'Oh,' said Skiles, 'so now you gonna prosecute. Motherfucker, you ain't even police. Standin' there with that fake-ass uniform and shit.'
Some people in the crowd laughed.
'Look here,' said Skiles, stepping forward, getting close to Lorenzo's face. 'You ain't takin' a gotdamn thing from me.'
A boy cackled and another one whooped. Lorenzo did not step back or cut his eyes away. He could feel his blood pulsing through his veins.
'You think I'm gonna let you just drive on out of here with my personal property?'
Lorenzo did not answer.
'What,' said Skiles, 'you fixin' to stare me to death?'
Lorenzo made a loose fist and moved the key so that its tip came out between his middle and index fingers.
'Play the bitch, you want to,' said Skiles. 'I'm about to drop your bitch ass too.'
'Do it,' said Lorenzo, hearing something in his voice he had not heard in a long while. Knowing the code, knowing, as he said it, that Skiles could not back down.
Skiles put his weight on his back foot.
Now you gonna throw your right.
Skiles swung his fist. Lorenzo sidestepped it and came with an uppercut, bringing his shoulder and chest full into it. The blow landed squarely under Skiles's jaw; the key stabbed him there.
Skiles staggered and tried to keep his feet. Lorenzo rushed forward, pushed Skiles up against the Tahoe, and pinned his left forearm to Skiles's neck. Lorenzo put the tip of the key to Skiles's right eye. The sun winked off the metal.
'Smart-mouth boy like you came at me in the cut,' said Lorenzo, keeping his voice low. 'I stuck him in the eye with a little old file. Wasn't no bigger than this key I got in my hand.'
'I ain't… I ain't want no more trouble,' said Skiles, gasping as he spoke.
'You gonna relax now, right?'
Skiles nodded slightly under the pressure of Lorenzo's arm. 'I'm straight.'
'Straight,' said Lorenzo, chuckling quietly. He released Skiles and stepped back.
Skiles, blood trickling down his neck from where he'd been cut, looked away. There were only mumbles from the crowd. The air had gone out of it. The wrong man had won.
Lorenzo got into the Tahoe and drove away, his hands tight on the wheel. His headache was gone. In the rearview, he saw that his eyes were alive. He felt like getting high.
He punched the gas. First thing he had to do was drop this dog at the kennel. Get her situated and get her some care. Then, if he could, get to someplace he should be.
Rachel Lopez woke up in her car at a little past noon. Her shirt was soaked with sweat. The Honda stank of perspiration, alcohol, and nicotine. She rolled the window down and breathed clean air. Rachel drove to the nearest gas station. There, in a filthy bathroom, she washed herself as best she could. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, then looked at her watch. She still had time to get to the meeting on East Capitol. She needed it today.
CHAPTER 18
'I left my baby a little present this morning,' said Shirley, the small young woman with the
almond eyes and smooth chocolate skin. 'Put it right there on the doorstep of my grandmother's place, where my little girl stay.'
'What'd you get her?' said a dark-skinned woman sitting in Shirley's row.
'What you call a playwear set. Got it up there at the Hecht's company, thirty percent off. With the coupons, it was next to nothin'.'
'Hecht's havin' a sale this weekend,' said a man.
'They always be havin' a sale,' said another.
'The shirt part of the outfit had a drawing of these four young white dudes on it,' said Shirley. 'I don't know who they are, but the lady at the Hecht's told me the kids are into 'em.'
'The Wiggles,' said the dark-skinned woman helpfully.
'That's who it was,' said Shirley. 'So I was walkin' away from the house and I heard the door open, and I turned around? And there my little girl was, standing with my grandmother. And my little girl took that outfit out of the bag, looked at it, and smiled. "This for me?" she said to my grandmother. You could see she liked it, 'cause she was all happy. And my grandmother said to my little girl, "That's a present for you from your mother." My little girl looked at me, said, "That my mother right there?" It sunk my heart that she forgot me, but she wasn't no more than a baby when I left. My grandmother says, "Yes, sweetheart, that's your mother. Tell her thank you, child."'
Shirley cocked her head. 'She couldn't say it. She was scared, or too shy. But the look she gave me… That look is gonna keep me sober. I'm gonna carry that look with me for a long time.' Shirley wiped at her eyes. 'Thank you for letting me share.'