Read Online Details at Ten by Ardella Garland - Free Book Online Page A

my head:
Five-oh roll up, I roll out
. So I hung up the phone. I didn’t want to gamble on just any cop. If they made a mistake, Butter might end up dead. Time was ticking away.
    A memory flashed through my mind, a memory from long ago. Once, when I had been walking home with my best friend in high school, a man had jumped out from behind a garbage can and grabbed her. I had simply frozen. If a car hadn’t scared him off, there’s no telling what might have happened.
    Fear had made me helpless and angry. From that day on, I promised myself that I’d never back away from trouble, that I’d always fight it. That’s the kind of situation I was finding myself in now.
    It was dangerous but I had to go by myself and hope Doug would make it there in time to help me. I started to get dressed, grabbing first my jeans, then a T-shirt. I slipped on one shoe and hopped around looking for the other. I found my pager and clipped it onto my belt.
    I have a two-bedroom apartment in South Shore, overlooking Lake Michigan and the South Shore Country Club where there are a lot of activities for African Americans. Golfing. Tennis. Plays. Concerts. Poetry readings. Things like that. Usually I glance out of the window and the ornate building will look like a huge boat floating on the lake’s waters. When I ran out of my bedroom and through my living room after the call, I could barely make out the outline of the building, let alone the subtle movement of the waves. It was lead black outside and not a star sparkling.
    I started playing over the pictures of Butter in my head. The school photos, the home video, and her voice saying, “I have a dream today …”
    Kidnapped.
    The idea grew in my mind like a tornado building at yard’s edge, splintering fences and trees that were supposed to protect my innermost property from harm. I had spent most of the night tossing and turning because I was worrying about Butter, a little girl alone among strangers who meant her no good. For hours, several questions had whirled around inside of my head.
    Where was Butter? Were they treating her well? Was she crying? Where was she sleeping tonight? How fast could we find her and get her back home?
    I took the elevator eight floors down and walked out the front door. The pyramid-shaped wall clock in the lobby said 4:15 A . M .I cleared the revolving door and went to my designated parking spot at the rear of the building. I got in my car—a BMW picked because I want a Black Man Working in my life at all times. I cranked the engine and peeled out.
    While driving, I decided that getting money from the cash station was a bad idea, remembering the stories that I’d done on folks who’d gotten killed at night withdrawing money from cash machines. So instead I drove to a twenty-four-hour currency exchange on Stony Island.
    This particular currency exchange was frequently used by South Siders. It was bordered on all sides by big, well-traveled streets and located smack-dab on a well-lit corner. This was the safest currency exchange I could find at this time of the morning. I gave my Visa Gold card to the cashier in the cage after filling out a form for a cash advance of $1,000. My nerves were getting more and more edgy as I thought about the task that lay ahead of me.
    “How would you like it?” the cashier asked, opening a drawer full of crisp new bills.
    An idea suddenly blossomed. “I’d like hundred-dollar bills, please.”
    I took the money and stuck it in my purse. Now all I needed was the paper bag. There was a gas station a couple of blocks down. It was a handy excuse to feed my sweet tooth. The cashier put my Snickers bar and my can of Diet Dr Pepper in a paper bag. I ran back over to my car and threw the candy bar on the seat, snapped the top on the pop, sipped some, and stuffed the money in the brown bag.
    I had to go. And I had to follow the instructions I was given to the letter. A mistake could cost Butter her life. Now who could live with