I yank my hand again, and the guy pulls back.
“Let go!”
“Look…” he says, reaching into the front pocket of his jeans and pulling out a wad of money.
Before I can tell him I have twice the amount of that sad bankroll in my purse at home, his eyes widen and his hand suddenly relaxes. The money falls from his grasp, fluttering to the concrete floor like leaves blowing in the wind.
I snatch my hand out of his weak hold, stumbling back until the dim lights catch the reflection of a shiny blade pushed against his throat.
Smitty’s red eyes peek from over his shoulder.
“Sm…Smitty?” I stutter.
He pushes the blade into the guy’s skin until it puckers around it. People see what’s happening, but nobody stops moving. They trample over the hundred-dollar bills and walk around instead of between us.
“Boy, you must be crazy!” Smitty yells over the music, looking down at him. “The fuck you doing?”
“The fuck isyoudoing, unc?”
“You know who that is?”
“Yeah—a hoe.”
Smitty pushes the sharp blade closer into his skin until specks of red dribble out. It’s just a little knick, but it makes the guy stand up straighter.
“You must wanna get in that pit with Pup,” Smitty says.
The boy’s red eyes stretch. “I ain’t say no shit like that!”
Smitty laughs, pulling the blade from his throat and pointing it at me. “You said that the second you touched his lady.”
“His lady?”
“That’s what the fuck I said. You seem to understand English pretty damn well.”
I wring my hands.
It’s the second time somebody’s blabbered out that I belong to Rich in this disgusting place, but they don’t mean it how Rich does. In a garage full of drunk men, I’m just his property.
“C’mon, let me take you over to Lucky so he can put you down on the ledger.” Smitty wraps his hand around the guy’s arm, but he yanks it back.
“Man, get off me. I ain’t gettin in no pit. I ain’t one of them crazy, brain-dead motherfuckas.”
“Youmustbe some type of crazy. They ain’t lace you up at the door? Touching anything around here that ain’t yours is grounds for getting yo’ ass put in that pit. C’mon. Let’s go see Lucky.”
Smitty grabs his other arm and tries to tug it behind his back, but he breaks free and scrambles off toward the back door, holding his bloody neck.
Smitty snickers, shaking his head. “One of these days they gon’ learn that this is the big boys’ playground.”
He stoops down and scoops the hundred-dollar bills from the ground. After he tugs the last hundred from underneath a man’s sneaker, he pushes up.
I hold my breath, waiting for a barrage of questions to come out of his mouth. Instead, he flicks his thumb against his tongue and counts out the money. Afterward, he looks up at me.
“You eat before you came up in here?” he asks.
Did I eat?
I nod with a frown.
