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too much shit goin’ down right now,” said Smokey, rising from his instinctive duck.
    â€œFashad find out you my girl, and he might have a heart attack. Probably think I’m trying to come for his money or something, like I’m ’bout to back-stab him.”
    â€œIs you?” asked Dream as she parked in front of Smokey’s apartment.
    Smokey contemplated testing her trust once again, but since he was leaving he didn’t want to leave her with a bitter taste in her mouth, lest she stop dreaming of him. Besides, he needed to be clear on the subject of money. At least for now. He looked her in the eye with all the insincere sincerity he could muster, “Naw, baby,” he said. “Come on now, baby, you know me betta than that.”
    â€œDo I?” she asked.
    He didn’t answer.
    â€œWhen is the time gonna be right? It’s been three weeks now, Smokey. Three, ” she emphasized.
    Smokey almost laughed when he realized she thought three weeks was a long time. He figured she’d probably never had a man put up with her longer than the fifteen minutes it took to come on her face. “We ain’t gotta tell nobody,” he said. “We don’t want niggas in our business no way.”
    â€œWhatever,” said Dream, her jaded black-girl aura in full effect, her blue hair bristling like a weapon. Then a sigh, a roll of the neck, and a tongue smack. “Ain’t this yo stop?” If it weren’t for the Mercedes, she could have been mistaken for someone who was at home on the seedy side of town.
    Smokey sensed she was becoming suspicious, so he enchanted her once more. “Hey,” he said, turning to her with a smile that would stand out in a Rembrandt toothpaste commercial. He playfully poked her in the shoulder, trying to lighten the mood.
    Dream sat silent, playing with her powder-blue fingernails and taking violent choppy breaths.
    â€œHey,” said Smokey in a slightly louder tone, as if he was threatening to leave her.
    She turned and looked at him the way Apples looked at Delroy. She was angry, but powerless.
    â€œYou know I love you, right?” he inquired.
    She swerved her beehive away from him, injected a fingernail into the center of it, scratched, then said: “Go on, Smokey. Do what you gotta do.”
    Smokey jumped out of the car.

SMOKEY
    S mokey walked into the diner wearing a wife-beater and the jeans the white boy gave him, his long hair discreetly tucked and folded under a Cincinnati Reds cap. Perusing the diner, he immediately noticed he was the only person of color. Initially he felt out of place but eventually came to take solace in the fact that no one there knew him.
    â€œBlue Yankees cap,” he whispered to himself as he walked through the place.
    â€œBlue Yankees cap,” he repeated.
    He found the man with the blue Yankees cap sitting in the back of the diner, looking down at a full plate of food, his right hand clinching a clean fork. The man tipped his hat toward Smokey, then quickly looked away. Smokey walked over, and took a seat.
    â€œWhat up, Bill?” said Smokey cordially.
    Bill looked at every person in the diner other than Smokey, then asked, “What you got?”
    â€œApples Morgan.”
    â€œWhat’s she into?” asked Bill, looking back down at his food as he spoke.
    â€œI don’t know. Fashad had me drop a car off at her house yesterday.”
    â€œWhat was in the car?”
    â€œI didn’t look.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œâ€™Cause I never look. That would be suspicious.”
    Bill grimaced in disapproval.
    â€œSo when y’all going to make an arrest?” asked Smokey.
    â€œSoon.”
    â€œHow soon?”
    Bill hunched his shoulders. “Whenever we feel like it.”
    Smokey would have punched anyone else, but with Bill he ignored the disrespect. He had no other choice. “Did y’all talk to Jeron on Twenty-fifth?” asked