“You know if I knew any single men, I’d hook you up.”
“Single, fine men with good jobs, girl. Not single, bucktoothed, cross-eyed, broke-ass men.”
In spite of her weariness, Rachel laughed.
“Girl, you just don’t know,” Tanisha said. “It’s rough out there.”
Tanisha had never been married, but she wanted to be. She’d wasted five years of her life playing house with a man who believed marriage was only a piece of paper. A year ago, she’d finally gotten fed up with his refusal to commit to a permanent arrangement. She had moved out, bought her own town house and a show-quality Pomeranian she’d named Mr. Bixby, and jumped back into the dating pool.
“You’ll find someone,” Rachel said.
“Easy for you to say. You’re married.”
“The man for you might not look exactly like you think he will, Tee. You’ve got to look at a man’s character. Would you want a pretty boy with a good job—who beats you?”
“Hell, no. I wouldn’t let any man touch me. Shit.”
“You get my point. It’s all about character.”
“All I know is, you should thank God that you aren’t out there any more. Josh is a sweetie.”
Thinking of Joshua laid a leaden heaviness on her shoulders.
“I thank God every day,” Rachel said, and sighed.
Tanisha frowned. “Hey, you feeling okay? You look exhausted.”
She would never share anything about her dream—or what had produced it—with Tanisha. Although Tanisha was a good friend, Rachel had drawn a firm line between what she would share with friends such as Tanisha and what she would never share with anyone.
“Putting on the party was a lot of work,” Rachel said. “I’m still kinda tired.”
“When’s your first appointment? Maybe you can catch a catnap.”
“I’ve got an eight-thirty, so I may just do that.”
Swinging her purse from over her shoulder, Rachel went down the center aisle of the salon, automatically surveying the sixteen stylist stations as she walked, to ensure that each would be ready for business when their stylists arrived. For most of the day, every chair would be occupied with a mix of walk-ins and appointments. If women believed in one thing, it was keeping their hair done. It was no surprise that Madame C. J. Walker, the inventor of the hot comb, had become America’s first black woman millionaire.
In the back, behind a door marked STAFF ONLY, there was a supply closet, a staff lounge furnished with comfortable chairs, a sofa, a coffee table, and a TV, a restroom, and an enclosed office. The office contained a bank of filing cabinets and two desks, one for Rachel, the other for Tanisha.
She plopped into the swivel chair in front of her desk. The sofa in the lounge did look inviting…but she was afraid to go to sleep, for she might have another nightmare about him.
Besides, there was something else she needed to do first.
She unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk. Inside, there was a plastic bag from Walgreen’s Pharmacy, sitting atop a black metal case.
She took the bag inside the restroom.
It contained an early pregnancy test kit.
She spoke a prayer, and tore open the box.
5
On Monday morning, after spending the weekend at the hideout in central Illinois, Dexter finally returned to Chicago.
Before leaving, he thoroughly wiped down the house for fingerprints, and he vacuumed for hairs, too. It was highly unlikely that the law would trace him to the place, but taking such precautions was second nature. Once a cop, always a cop.
The story of the missing prison transport van, guards, and inmate had been circulating on the news since Saturday. The reports featured a penitentiary mug shot in which he wore his beard. Although the cops had not formally announced a manhunt, the machinery would be revving up, and within a few more days—sooner if they discovered the sunken vehicle and its gruesome cargo—the machine would be rolling at full steam across the entire region.
It didn’t concern him. When the subject of escape inevitably came up in bullshit conversations with fellow inmates—inmates jawed about what they’d do if they broke free like regular folk talked about what they’d do with lottery jackpot winnings—he’d always said that if he got away, he would go to Brazil. He had no more intentions to flee to Brazil than he did the moon, but the gossipy inmates would do the job of spreading disinformation and muddling the cops’ search.
It was a clear, crisp morning. The Chevy Caprice, though ten years old, was in good condition, outfitted with a new set of tires.
He slipped on a cheap pair of sunglasses that he found clipped to the sun visor, and started the engine.
He tuned to a radio station that played music from the seventies, when music was music—unlike the bullshit that dominated radio airwaves today. He motored down the highway to the tunes of Earth, Wind, and Fire, Sly and the Family Stone, The Ohio Players, Parliament-Funkadelic, and other classic sounds. He sang along loudly to just about every song, sometimes flubbing the lyrics but pushing on anyway.
At a gas station, he refilled the tank. He had to go inside to pay with cash. A potbellied, hayseed cop was at the food counter getting his daily fix of free coffee and donuts. He glanced at Dexter, but it was the bland, appraising look that cops tended to give everyone.
Shortly before noon, the downtown Chicago skyline came into view on the horizon. Warm tears unexpectedly pushed at his eyes.
Goddamn, it felt good to be going home.
A half-hour later, he took the exit for Ninety-fifth Street, the major east-west road on the South Side. It wasn’t a direct route to his destination, but he wanted to drive around for a little while, immerse himself again in the city that had been his home for thirty-four of his thirty-eight years.
In spite of the cold weather—it was in the mid-thirties and the infamous hawk was out in full force—people were hanging out on street corners. They were most of them young brothers, in their late teens or twenties, clad in parkas and skully caps, talking shit and looking hard at everyone driving or walking past. They reminded him of inmates milling in the yard: grown men who had nothing productive to do with their time. The jagged skyline of downtown was visible in the hazy distance, but the business that took place within those towers was as meaningless to these men as constellations in the night sky, light years’ distant.
At one time or another, he had probably rousted a few of those brothers, or someone they knew. Good times.
He hit Forty-seventh Street, which took him to Bronzeville, an area once known as the “Black Metropolis” because of all the black movers and shakers who’d once lived in the neighborhood. By the time he had been born, the only movers and shakers around were the thugs who controlled the high-rise slums. The inevitable wave of gentrification had eventually demolished the projects, though, and single family homes and condos had been erected in their place.
The home in which he had lived before his bid in the joint was a one-story, brick, with three bedrooms, built in 1905. It stood along a row of similarly old, elegant properties flanked by skeletal, ice-encrusted trees.
He slowly cruised past the house. It was in good condition, the front yard mantled with snow.
In his so-called divorce, the judge had allowed him to keep the place, since he’d lived there long before he had married the bitch and she displayed no interest in taking the house anyway. As if she were so eager to sever her ties with him. It compounded the insult of her betrayal.
The home had long been paid off,