Free From Cape Town with Love by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Blair Underwood Page B

seventeen, Chela looked years older behind her dark eye makeup, her only girly concession. Her style was baggy jeans, sweatshirts, and Dodgers caps, but her height made her look like a runway model undercover. She was five-ten—a five-inch growth spurt in two years.
    Chela tried to close the door before I could get a good look at her room, but I saw the mountain of clothes. I wished I’d kept my own room, but I probably handed over my prized space because Chela had so little, and had lost so much. Yeah, I spoiled her. Guilty as charged.
    â€œI just got a weird email,” I said. “You gotten any messages from someone you don’t know? Won’t say who they are?”
    I hadn’t mentioned my previous message. With a few choice key strokes, my unknown ally had disentangled Chela from an internet chicken hawk.
    â€œWeird messages?” Chela shook her head blankly, listening to her phone.
    â€œWhere you going?” I said.
    â€œCheck the board.”
    After our spring adventure in São Paulo, Chela had to write her whereabouts on a schedule posted outside her door—the green marker scrawl said she was going to a M (movie) with B (her egghead/wrestler sometime boyfriend Bernard). In São Paulo one night, she’d ended up in a room party with a herd of Texas millionaires. I found her drinkingshots and regaling cowboys with dirty songs, a life-of-the-party version of Chela I had never seen up close.
    And yes, that’s tangentially related to why I can’t go back. And no, I won’t say more. But it did involve a variant of Texas hold ’em that gives new meaning to the term “No Limit.”
    â€œWhat movie you going to?” I said.
    â€œWow. This is really a whole new level of pain in my ass.”
    â€œI’m just curious.”
    â€œCurious like a prison guard.”
    Every shard of information was a battle with Chela, so protecting her was hard work. Soon after I rescued her from a madam I once worked for myself, two dirty-as-they-come LAPD officers abducted Chela in Palm Springs. To them, Chela was nothing more than a rich man’s property and plaything. Both of us nearly died that day. I still had bad dreams about it.
    â€œLet me holla at Bernard,” I said, trying to sound casual. When I held out my hand for the phone, Chela’s eyes said,
Negro, please.
    â€œB., Ten says hey,” she said to her phone. I heard an insectlike voice that might belong to the long-suffering kid who was struggling manfully to be Chela’s boyfriend. “Great—B. says hey, too, so we’re all happy. Okay, Officer?” Chela’s voice was smiling, but her glare told me to fuck off.
    I hated my father when I was Chela’s age, so I understood that glare. But Chela was too good a liar for me to trust her, and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know better.
    â€œJust think . . . ,” I said. “When you go to college, I’ll be off your back.”
    Chela gave me an exasperated shrug. “Yeah, right. See you at midnight,” she said, and breezed past me to the stairs. Midnight was her curfew, though neither of us used that word. A promise to adhere to one of my rules was as good as Chela saying,
Good night, Ten, I love you.
    I’d been so pleased with my plan to put Chela through college that I’d forgotten to bring her on board. Chela had ignored her chance to take the SATs as a junior, and I hadn’t noticed in time.
    â€œWe need to talk about college!” I called after her.
    â€œSays the guy who dropped out.”
    Then she was gone. The front door opened and closed nearly silentlywhile Chela made her hasty escape. There was a cop in our house, after all.
    Loud men’s laughter floated from the living room, a reminder of why I’d avoided going downstairs. Dad was free to entertain anyone he chose, but LAPD Lieutenant Rodrick Nelson was no friend of mine. I couldn’t remember the last time