Hi Five

Isaiah Quintabe’s East Long Beach neighborhood hadn’t changed much over the years. It was the hood when he was growing up and it was the hood now. Gangs, street crime, poverty, drugs, and violence were constants, facts of life. Isaiah didn’t know the statistics but from his perspective, things were getting worse. Not a surprising viewpoint when your job was fighting human suffering and indifference.

As the area’s only unlicensed PI and unofficial ombudsman, there wasn’t much he hadn’t seen. Murders, robberies, burglaries, scams, bullying, kidnappings, addiction, rape, child abuse, loan sharking, questionable suicides; runaway children, husbands and wives. There were cases of great consequence and those of very little, but all were crucial to the victims, whatever the size of the injustice.

Someone had stolen Mrs. Marquez’s Pomeranian, Pepito, and was holding it for ransom. The kidnapper left a note on her porch. There was a phone number and a demand for five hundred dollars or your dog will be drownded in the ocen. She called the number while Isaiah listened in.

“Yeah?” the man said. “Who’s this?”

Isaiah immediately recognized the voice. It was Freemont Reese, a young hooligan who was so stupid and cowardly even the gangs rejected him.

“This is Mrs. Marquez,” she said. “You stole my dog?”

“I sho’ did,” Freemont said. “Did you read the part about the money?”

“How do I know you have him?” Mrs. Marquez said, Isaiah nodding his approval.

“Because it’s sitting right next to me watchin’ TV. You want me to put him on the phone?”

“I mean, what’s the dog’s name?”

“His name? I don’t know. He hasn’t told me yet.”

“It’s on his tag. You know, the one hanging on his collar?”

Freemont told her to meet him at McClarin Park and sit on the bench nearest the south entrance. “You better have the money,” he said. “Or you can go get yourself a cat right now.”

Mrs. Marquez went to the park and sat on the designated bench. She had twelve dollars in her purse. Isaiah stayed well back and watched. He spotted Freemont near the restrooms, peeking around a corner. He didn’t have the dog. Isaiah circled and got behind him.

“How are you, Freemont?” Isaiah said.

Freemont jumped. “Hey, man. Don’t be sneakin’ up on me like that! I might have shot your ass.”

“With what?” Isaiah said. “The gun you have in your sock? Where’s the dog?”

“What dog?” Freemont said, just realizing it was Isaiah.

“The one that belongs to the collar you have in your hand.”

“This? I found it.”

“Where’s the dog?”

“I don’t have to tell you nothin’, Isaiah, and you can’t make me.”

“No, I can’t, but I know who can.”

“Oh, yeah?” Freemont sneered. “And who is that?”

“Your mother,” Isaiah said.

Freemont’s face crumpled in on itself like a wadded-up napkin. “Hey, man,” he said, putting his palms out, his voice rising an octave. “She ain’t got nothin’ to do with this.” Freemont lived with his mother, Oleta, a bony, fearsome woman with no sense of humor and nails jutting out of her eyes.

“Do you remember that time I helped her out?” Isaiah said. “Her boss at the shoe store wouldn’t pay her overtime and I made him give it up? She was grateful. Really grateful.”

Freemont shook his head and looked to the heavens. Maybe someone up there would have his back.

“Bring me the dog,” Isaiah said. “And if there’s a scratch on him, I’ll lock you in a room with Mrs. Marquez and a baseball bat.”

Mrs. Marquez was thrilled to get Pepito back, and she brought Isaiah a soul-warming pot of calabacitas con puerco, a hearty stew of vegetables, spices and pork cooked in butter. Isaiah wished she had more dogs that were stolen.

He was happy to have helped her like he was happy to help anybody, but lately he’d been wondering if he had a higher calling. The traditional notions of success bored him. He had a nice place to live, food on the table, and a fast car to drive. Getting a nicer place, more food on the table and a faster car didn’t interest him at all. A lot of people seemed to enjoy power. Controlling the lives of others, telling them what to do, determining their fates—the idea made him cringe. He could barely control his own life, let alone determine his fate. Isaiah in charge of Isaiah was plenty. Maybe he should just shut up and get on with it.

He had a girlfriend now, Stella McDaniels. They’d been seeing each other for three months. She was a violinist, first chair, in the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. He’d met her on a case. On her way to rehearsal she’d stopped at Beaumont’s store to get a bottle of water. She was late and didn’t lock the car. When she returned, her violin was gone. A Giovanni & Giuseppe Dollenz violin made in Italy circa 1855. When she was in high school, her parents had used their life savings and cashed in their IRA to buy it for her. The instrument was insured for fifty thousand dollars, but over the years it had increased in value and the payout wouldn’t cover the cost of anything comparable. The symphony season was starting and she was frantic. She got a rental but it was like wearing someone else’s shoes, the same thing but unfamiliar, and when you’re playing music at her level, feel was everything.

Stella had come up the hard way, like Isaiah, like everyone in the neighborhood. Her family lived on the border between Long Beach and Compton, the hood if there ever was one. Isaiah asked her when she knew she was going to be a musician. “I’ve always known,” she said. “There was never a day I didn’t know.”

Her parents were working people and couldn’t afford music school or even music lessons. She used a relative’s battered, tinny-sounding instrument and practiced relentlessly. A friend of her mother’s owned a laundromat. At age nine, Stella was sorting lights and darks, stuffing wet clothes into the dryers and folding sheets by herself. She used the money to pay for music lessons, but she could only afford three. The teacher recognized almost immediately that Stella was exceptionally talented and lowered her rates to next to nothing. In high school, Stella worked two jobs after school and in the summer. She got a better teacher, played in junior orchestras and earned a music scholarship to the California School of the Arts. She entered competitions but was disappointed. There were other exceptionally talented violinists who were better than her. She would never command an audience of her own.

After graduation, she gave violin lessons to children, taught music at a small college, substituted in local orchestras, played in Vegas for Michael Bublé and finally, finally, got a spot in the Long Beach Symphony. It took her seven years to work herself up to first chair. A prestigious position. She was the principal soloist as well as leader of the section. The other musicians would take her directions on inflection, dynamics, bowing and numerous other things. Her first solo would be her proudest moment and the proudest moment for her family.

Where to start? Isaiah thought. East Long Beach had a legion of car thieves, but the violin had been stolen right outside of Beaumont’s and she’d been inside the store for only a minute, two at the most. Someone was Johnny-on-the-spot. A local walking by or someone on his way into the store. Beaumont’s was in gang territory. Locos Sureños 13.

Isaiah went to see the gang’s entrepreneurial leader, Manzo. They weren’t friends but they respected each other and sometimes traded favors.

They met at Café Michoacán, Manzo’s new coffee place. Manzo was thirty-five or so, dressed in nice chinos and a black shirt, inked-up, bulked-up arms coming out of the sleeves. He was the only gang leader Isaiah had ever heard of who invested the gang’s money. Manzo had told Isaiah he was going to open a Starbucks for Mexicans and here it was. Clean, modern, comfortable seating, display cases for Mexican pastries and beautifully embroidered story cloths on the walls. Mexican jazz was playing. Isaiah thought he recognized Juan José Calatayud but he could have been wrong. The place was nearly full. A mix of young and old staff. Not a Corona poster or a sombrero in sight. It could have been an actual Starbucks save for the solidly Latino faces.

“Cool place,” Isaiah said. “Congratulations.”

“Yeah, it came out better than I thought,” Manzo said, sipping his latte. “Another year, we’ll be profitable. I’m thinking about a franchise.” Manzo funded his enterprises with drug money so he had no loans to carry. “You think it’ll go?”

“I don’t see why not,” Isaiah replied.

Manzo’s stated mission was to get his gang off the street but so far, he hadn’t succeeded. The members who signed on for the investments didn’t quit banging or dealing. The dividend checks were another income stream that paid for the same shit gangstas always dropped their money on: weed, guns, electronics and cars.

Isaiah told Manzo about Stella.

“A violin can be worth that much?” Manzo said.

“I guess so. I don’t know much about it.”

“Who’s Stella?”

Isaiah shrugged. “Client.”

Manzo smiled. “Is she paying you?”

Isaiah smiled back. “Do I ask you about your personal life?”

“I’ll talk to the fellas about your violin,” Manzo said as he got up. “Coffee’s on the house.”

Manzo put the word out to the homies who put the word out on the street. The khan of the Locos wanted the violin and if you happened to have it in your possession, your best option was to return it or suffer a life-threatening injury. Two days later, it came back. There were a couple of new scratches on the fretting board and a dent on the scroll, but they were cosmetic.

“Alfredo had it,” Manzo said. “He gave it to his eight-year-old daughter as a birthday present.”

“Thanks,” Isaiah said. “I owe you one.”

“I know.”

It cost Isaiah a favor but it was worth the effort. Stella was nice to look at and a good listener, sifting through your words like she was panning for gold. She talked about music with intensity and passion, and Isaiah wished he still felt like that about his work. Stella was a few years older and had been through the relationship wars. She said she was done with being cool, buying cool things, hanging in cool places and, most of all, cool men.

“I’m not cool?” he said.

She smiled. “No, you’re not. And that’s what’s cool about you.”

Isaiah was driving over to Stella’s place thinking about how he envied her and wished he’d taken a path like hers instead of his own. To be brilliant at something the world recognized. He wondered what that could be. His brother, Marcus, had told him many times, he could be anything, do anything he wanted, and nothing could stop him but himself. Was that true? Could he really be anything he wanted? Maybe so, if he knew what that was.

He was nearing Stella’s place when he saw Grace. He did a double take and nearly rear-ended the car in front of him. He couldn’t believe it. Was it actually her? He hadn’t seen her in two years, since she’d left for New Mexico and taken his heart with her. She was going in the other direction, driving the same ’09 white GTI. The New Mexico sun had burnished her skin, the pale green eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, her hair tucked messily under a baseball cap. Isaiah had given her his dog, Ruffin, for protection, and there he was, head out the window, tongue flapping, happy as could be. Isaiah who? In an instant, Grace was past him. He tried to make a U-turn but was boxed in by the traffic. He yanked the car over into a red zone, got out and clambered onto the roof. He stood on his tiptoes and craned his neck, but the GTI was gone.

He was confounded. Why had she come back? How long had she been here? His heart was thudding like he was mid-marathon and losing. Was she back for good? The car still had its California plates. Why hadn’t she called him? Had she forgotten him? Or maybe she’d just arrived. Yeah, that made sense. She’d made the long drive and wanted to get herself together before they met.

Except her car was clean. No road dust, no bugs on the windshield, so she’d been here long enough to get her car washed, and he didn’t remember her ever wearing sunglasses or a cap even on sunny days. Maybe that was something she picked up in New Mexico. Sure, that was it. It was hot out there—but it was hot here too. Maybe she was hiding from someone and in disguise. Maybe she was hiding from him. He felt hollow and a little sick. The torch he’d been carrying all these months had smoldered but never gone out. He could feel it crackling into flames again. What to do? Track her down? It was tempting, but wait, he told himself. Calm down. She has her reasons. Be patient. She’ll call. She had to, didn’t she?