Isaiah came out of the store and started toward the Audi parked at the curb. He stopped to let a girl walk by. She was probably in middle school, a twig of a thing in her pipe-stem jeans, down vest, and Ugg boots, never mind the heat. You wore your best clothes until you wore them out. She was talking on her pink cell, laughing as she said: “I mean like seriously, right? Ramón isn’t even into her.”
Without a moment’s break in her conversation the girl smiled at Margaret and continued on her way. Isaiah chirped open the Audi just as a pickup truck crept by at walking speed. It was a white Silverado, ten years old, blue racing stripes on the side that were peeling off, a big dent in the quarter panel. The engine was stuttering. Fuel injectors, Isaiah thought. The man at the wheel was wearing a cap with a logo on it. He was missing a front tooth and his face was shiny with sunburn. He was staring at something. Isaiah should have guessed what was going on. Why was the man driving so slow and if he wasn’t looking at Isaiah or Deronda who was he looking at? But in the moment, Isaiah missed all that. He was distracted, thinking about how he needed a payday case and trying to fit Margaret into the backseat while Deronda talked at him wanting to know if he was getting some from the waitress at the Mandarin Palace and if mu shu meant dog in Chinese.
As Isaiah stood up from the car and Deronda got in he caught a whiff of something that made him freeze in place. He’d read somewhere that chloroform doesn’t have a smell but it does. A little like acetone with a trace of sweetness to it. The sound of the stuttering engine at full throttle drew his eyes to the right. The pickup was speeding away, turning the corner so sharply a rear wheel bumped over the curb, something round and reflective on the back bumper. The girl was gone but her pink cell was on the sidewalk.
“Oh no,” Isaiah said.
Thirty seconds later the Audi slid around that same corner, Michelins squealing and smoking, the tail end drifting. Isaiah straightened the car out and dropped the hammer, three hundred and forty horsepower WAHHing like a hive of mega-wasps, pinning Deronda to the seat, the ice-blue nails gripping the doorsill and digging into the dash. “The hell you doing, Isaiah?”
Boyd drove on autopilot, not really believing he’d pulled it off. Adrenaline was sluicing through his veins, the missing tooth whistling like an out-of-breath bird, his heart thumping so loud he didn’t notice the suspension bottoming out as the truck bounced through a big pothole. The girl was behind him in the extra cab, sprawled on the seat, unconscious, drool pooling on the upholstery. That chloroform really worked. She was too busy yakking on her phone to notice him coming up behind her. He clamped the sponge over her face with one hand, his other arm around her waist. She kicked and swung her little arms but her body went limp by the time he put her in the extra cab. Nobody saw him. Down the block there was a black guy with his head stuck in a car and a girl standing there talking but they didn’t notice him. Gleeful now, Boyd bounced up and down in the seat, banging his fists on the steering wheel and laughing. “I’ve got her,” he shouted. “Jesus Christ, I’ve GOT her!”
The Audi shot down the street, the neighborhood going by in a blur. Isaiah’s jaw was hard-set but he was otherwise expressionless. He knew the man had thought about this, coming to a sketchy neighborhood with his chloroform, looking for the right girl. He got her in the pickup fast too, had his moves figured out in advance, and you don’t do all that just to go somewhere random. The man had plans.
Deronda put her hands in front of her face. “Isaiah!”
Isaiah slammed on the brakes, the Audi screeching to a halt at a stop sign. The man could have gone left, right, or straight ahead.
“Could you please tell me what’s going on?” Deronda said.
Isaiah looked left. Houses on either side, a dozen driveways to duck into. Kids were playing hockey in the street. They wouldn’t have had time to move the nets, let the truck go by, and set them up again.
“I know you after somebody,” Deronda said. “I don’t know who or how you got onto it but—”
“Be quiet,” Isaiah said, so much weight in his voice she immediately shut up, and when he looked right she did too. More houses, more driveways. A group of men were hanging on the corner a block away. Isaiah could ask them if they’d seen the pickup but he’d have to drive down there to find out and the truck’s lead was getting longer by the second. Straight ahead the street continued on but curved away so you couldn’t see all the way to the end. Isaiah’s eyes snap-zoomed on a pothole, a bloom of muddy splash marks around it. He slammed the Audi into gear and took off down the narrow street, whipping by parked cars so close you could reach out and touch them.