“Don’t worry about it. Here comes the guard,” Ike said. A large burly Black man was shuffling toward the truck with a clipboard in one hand and walkie-talkie in the other. Ike thought one of the worst things you could give a man was a clipboard. He’d been at the mercy of men with clipboards. They could keep you out of a gated community or put you on a bus to prison. Give a man a clipboard and watch his true nature come out. The guard knocked on Buddy Lee’s window. Buddy Lee cranked it down.
“Hello, sir, who are you here to see today?” the guard said. Buddy Lee gave him his best good-ol’-boy smile.
“Yes, sir, we are here to talk with Mr. Matthews. We are … here to pick up some furniture he’s donating to the DAV,” Buddy Lee said.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Buddy Lee Jenkins.” The guard checked his clipboard.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t see that name listed here,” the guard said.
“Call him and tell him we want to talk to him about Tangerine and we ain’t leaving until we do,” Ike said. The guard parted his lips, then thought better of it. Instead he spoke into his walkie. After some static tinged back and forth, the guard pointed to the third house on the right.
“Mr. Mathews says come on down,” the guard said.
Ike spied a silver BMW in the rearview mirror, driven by a woman with the most severe I-want-to-speak-with-the-manager haircut he’d ever seen. She zipped by them doing at least thirty miles per hour, like she had some dalmatians in the trunk that she needed to make into a coat.
“Thank you, hoss,” Buddy Lee said. As he drove past the guardhouse the burly man waved.
“I’m surprised that worked,” Buddy Lee said.
“Talking about Tangerine got his attention,” Ike said.
“Yeah, he bit on that like a big mouth bass,” Buddy Lee said. A cough racked his body and forced him to lean on the steering wheel with his hand over his mouth.
“Hey, you okay?” Ike asked.
Buddy Lee nodded as he coughed again. He leaned back and rooted around in his drink holder for a napkin. He wiped his hand, then his mouth.
Ike noticed a pinkish sputum on the napkin. He could lie all he wanted, but Ike knew Buddy Lee was far from okay.
“Gotta quit smoking,” Buddy Lee said.
“I ain’t notice you smoking,” Ike said.
“Shit, maybe I should start,” Buddy Lee said.
* * *
They drove down the sinuous road that wound through the community. Ike noticed each of the homes had a low boundary wall made out of brick or exposed river stone and bifurcated by a black wrought-iron gate. Each lawn was manicured within an inch of its life. Red maples were planted in the middle of the road at regular twenty-foot intervals. Buddy Lee turned down the driveway of the third house and stopped at the gate. Ike heard an insectile buzzer sound, and the black gates opened like butterfly wings. They went through the gates, and Ike felt a trickle of ice water slip down his back as the gates closed. The sound of the lock engaging gave him flashbacks.
Buddy Lee followed the exposed aggregate roadway until his truck was in the far right curve of the circular driveway. A chopped-and-dropped Mercedes-Benz SUV was parked at the bottom of a set of massive steps that led up to the front door of the mansion. Buddy Lee put the car in park and killed the engine.
Four walking appliances in black blazers came down the steps of the mansion with the flying buttresses, accompanied by a short dark-skinned brother with elaborately braided cornrows. He wore a bright-lime-green tracksuit and a gold Afro-pick pendant on a long chain. Ike thought the pendant weighed more than the man wearing it.
Buddy Lee and Ike climbed out of the truck and stood side by side in front of the quintet. Ike thought they looked like they had all been transported from the set of an unimaginative rap video.
“Pat ’em down,” the brother with the cornrows said.
Ike and Buddy Lee raised their arms. Getting frisked was an acceptable indignity if this got them closer to finding Tangerine. One of the behemoths patted them both down. He pulled Buddy Lee’s knife out of his pocket.
“That’s for apple coring,” Buddy Lee said. The man, who was obviously a part of Tariq’s security detail, held the knife up to his face.
“This thing’s a goddamn antique,” he said before pocketing it.
“That knife belonged to my grandfather. I’ll thank you to put it back in my hand,” Buddy Lee said.
“You’ll get it back before you leave,” the bodyguard said.