Dre stood on the porch with his hands buried in the pockets of his hoodie, smiling like he already knew what I was going to do. I probably made him wait five seconds anyway. Not because I was reconsidering anything. At that point, the decision had already been made. I just didn’t want it to look that easy.
“One-fifty,” I said.
Dre held out his hand. “You gonna remind me every time?”
“Probably.”
He laughed. “Give me the damn keys.”
I dropped them into his palm.
Behind me, I could feel Crystal watching from somewhere inside the house. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to. I already knew what her face looked like.
Dre stepped off the porch and headed toward the Grand Prix.
“Yo.”
He turned around.
“My shit comes back tonight.”
“Your shit came back last time.”
“At almost one in the morning.”
“But it came back.”
“That ain’t the point.”
Dre grinned. “That’s exactly the point.”
He climbed into the Grand Prix, backed out of the driveway, and disappeared down the street.
When I closed the front door, Crystal was standing in the hallway.
“You know what he’s doing?”
“No.”
“You even ask?”
“Last time I asked, he asked me if I really wanted to know.”
“And that didn’t concern you?”
I walked past her toward the living room. “Not really.”
That was a lie.
It concerned me. I just liked the money more than I disliked the questions.
There’s a difference between not knowing something and choosing not to know it. I didn’t understand that then. I thought ignorance was protection. If Dre never told me what he was doing, then whatever he was doing had nothing to do with me.
That was how I justified it.
My car. His business.
Except there was no such thing as his business once I handed him my keys.
The Grand Prix came back shortly before midnight.
This time Dre called first.
“Come outside.”
I walked onto the porch wearing a T-shirt even though it was cold. The Pontiac was sitting at the curb with the engine running. Dre was behind the wheel, but he wasn’t alone.
The passenger door opened.
I recognized the gold teeth before I recognized the face.
It was the same short, stocky guy from the first night. Black hoodie again. Same way of carrying himself. He stepped out and looked toward the house.
Then toward me.
That same stare.
There was nothing openly threatening about him. He wasn’t mean-mugging me or trying to look tough. It was almost worse than that. He looked at people like he was collecting information.
He walked around the front of the Grand Prix.
Dre got out behind him.
“You remember my man?” Dre asked.
I looked at the guy.
“Not really.”
He smiled, and the gold in his mouth caught the porch light.
“Yeah, you do.”
I did.
Dre pointed toward him. “Stackhouse.”
Stackhouse reached out and shook my hand.
“People call me Little Rex.”
His grip was harder than it needed to be.
I nodded. “Jay.”
“I know.”
That bothered me.
I didn’t say anything, but it bothered me.
I had never told him my name.
Stackhouse let go of my hand and looked past me at the house.
“This yours?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded slowly.
“Nice.”
It wasn’t anything special, but the way he said it made me feel like he wasn’t complimenting it. He was evaluating it.
Crystal moved behind the curtains in the front window.
Stackhouse noticed.
His eyes went there for half a second before coming back to me.
“Your girl?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded again.
Dre reached into his pocket and handed me the money.
A hundred and fifty dollars.
Then the weed.
Just like we agreed.
Everything about the transaction should have felt wrong. Instead, holding that money made the whole thing feel legitimate. People rented cars every day. Hertz did it. Enterprise did it. I was just doing it without paperwork.
That was the kind of stupid logic that made perfect sense to me at the time.
Stackhouse looked at the money in my hand.
“You rent cars?”
“Just this one.”
He laughed.
“Nah. You rent your car.”
“Pretty much.”
“How much?”
I looked at Dre.
Dre smiled.
“See? Told you.”
“Told him what?”
“That you about your money.”
Stackhouse looked me over again.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
I liked hearing him say it.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe because Stackhouse didn’t look like somebody who gave compliments often. Maybe because Dre seemed to respect him. Whatever the reason, his approval meant something to me before I knew enough about him for it to mean anything at all.
That was the first night I learned his name.
It wouldn’t be until later that I learned what everybody else called him when he wasn’t around.
Little Rex.
And it would be later still before I understood where he stood in the organization.
Associate coordinator.
At the time, those words meant nothing to me. I didn’t know the structure. I didn’t know the ranks. I didn’t know who answered to who, who could tell somebody to move, who could tell somebody to stop, or what happened when somebody didn’t listen.
I didn’t even know enough to understand that Stackhouse wasn’t just another one of Dre’s friends.
I would.
Stackhouse walked down the sidewalk and disappeared around the corner.
I watched him go.
“Where’s he going?”
Dre shrugged. “He good.”
“Why ain’t you taking him?”
“Because I’m giving you your car back.”
I looked at the Grand Prix.
“Everything good?”
“Everything always good.”
I opened the driver’s door.
The first thing I noticed was the smell.
Cigarettes again.
“Y’all smoking in my shit?”
Dre laughed. “Man, clean your car.”
“I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
“Then I guess somebody smoked a cigarette.”
“No shit.”
I looked around the interior.
Nothing seemed different.
Nothing obvious, anyway.
Dre slapped the roof twice.
“I’m gonna need it again tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
He started walking backward.
“I’ll call you.”
“Dre.”
He kept walking.
“How long?”
He spread his arms.
“I said I’ll call you.”
Then he turned around and followed the same direction Stackhouse had gone.
I stood beside the car watching him disappear.
I should have been thinking about why two grown men needed a twenty-three-year-old’s Grand Prix badly enough to keep handing him hundreds of dollars.
Instead, I was counting the money.
One-fifty.
Three twenties. Four tens. Two fives. The rest in twenties.
I counted it twice.
Then I went inside.
Crystal was sitting on the couch.
“Who was that?”
“Who?”
“The guy with Dre.”
“Stackhouse.”
“That his real name?”
“I guess.”
She looked toward the window.
“He was here before.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“The other night. When Dre brought the car back.”
“You remember him?”
“Yes, Jay. I remember the strange man getting out of our car after midnight carrying a black bag.”
I sat down.
“Little Rex.”
“What?”
“That’s what they call him.”
She stared at me.
I could already tell she hated the name.
“Little Rex?”
“Yeah.”
“And that doesn’t sound ridiculous to you?”
I laughed. “A little.”
She didn’t.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means there are people coming to our house whose real names you don’t know, taking your car to places you don’t know, doing things you don’t know, and somehow you’re the only person who doesn’t think that’s a problem.”
I started counting the money again.
Crystal watched me.
“You think because they’re paying you, you’re in control.”
“I am in control. It’s my car.”
“Then tell Dre he can’t use it tomorrow.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Tell him no.”
“I could.”
“Then do it.”
“I don’t want to.”
Crystal shook her head.
“Exactly.”
She got up and walked out of the room.
I sat there alone with the money in my hand.
For a second, what she said bothered me.
Then I folded the bills and put them in my pocket.
The next afternoon, Dre called.
He didn’t ask for the Grand Prix.
He asked if I wanted to ride with him.
That was different.
“Where?”
“Come outside.”
“Where are we going?”
“Why you always gotta ask a hundred questions?”
“Because I’m getting in the car this time.”
Dre laughed.
“Just come outside.”
I looked toward the kitchen. Crystal wasn’t home yet.
I grabbed my coat and walked out.
A dark-colored sedan was parked at the curb.
Dre was in the passenger seat.
Stackhouse was driving.
Little Rex looked at me through the windshield.
Then he leaned across the center console and pushed open the back door.
“Get in.”
I hesitated.
Not long.
Maybe a second.
Maybe less.
But I remember that second.
Because getting into that car was different from handing Dre my keys.
When I rented out the Grand Prix, I could still pretend I wasn’t involved. I could stand in my driveway, take the money, watch my car disappear, and tell myself that whatever happened after the taillights vanished wasn’t my problem.
Getting into Stackhouse’s car was different.
That required me to go with them.
I climbed into the back seat.
Stackhouse looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“You ready?”
“For what?”
Dre turned around and smiled.
“There he go with them questions again.”
Stackhouse laughed and pulled away from the curb.
I looked back at my house through the rear window until it disappeared behind us.
At twenty-three years old, I thought I was going for a ride.
I didn’t know I had just stopped watching the story from my driveway.
I was in it now.