Marjolie has been telling the truth. It’s cheap work. Too thin, blurry photo, not even an attempt at the holograph. In comparison, the fake license Angelique dropped the other day is a masterpiece. Fifty bucks for this? I see Angelique’s point.
“So Angelique and Livia accuse DommyJ of ripping off his friends,” I prod. “In front of everyone.”
“Angel’s trying to get back at him for what he did to me. The other girl, Livia, I don’t know what her deal is. But this stuff, DommyJ, the crowd he hangs with . . . It’s no joke. Angelique shouldn’t have been talking to him like that. Especially in front of others. Dommy gets real serious real fast. He shoves them back. Tells them to shut the fuck up or they’d be sorry.”
“He threatens them?” Lotham, clarifying.
“I guess.”
“And then?”
Marjolie shrugs. “The director guy came out. Mr. Lagudu. Break’s over, everyone back inside. Angel was still shaking, really upset. I knew she’d done it only for me, but I told her to knock it off. She was going to get herself in trouble. And I . . . I was embarrassed. Maybe I hoped DommyJ might still change his mind, take me back. But after that little display . . .” Marjolie exhaled roughly. “Angel and me had some words. Big fight, really. Angel . . . She couldn’t see it. Sometimes she was too smart, too capable. She didn’t understand what it meant to be just a regular girl like me. She didn’t understand that sometimes, her being her, just made me feel bad.”
Marjolie swallows, falls silent. “Things weren’t the same between us after that. She kept sitting with the Livia girl. Sometimes I swore they were whispering about me. I wanted to apologize, make things right. I hurt, too, you know. I’d loved this guy, then he’d gone and done . . . I don’t know. Summer camp really sucked. When it ended and school started again, things settled. Livia was gone and it was the Angel, Kyra, and Marjolie show again. I figured more time would pass, we’d grow close again. Like we used to be. Except then one day, Angel was just gone. And we never got our second chance.”
“Did you see her with Livia Samdi again? After the summer program?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“What about DommyJ?” Lotham presses. “Any more altercations between those two?”
“Not between Angel and him.”
“But between . . . ?”
Marjolie took a deep breath. “The last week of the summer program. I’m just leaving, when I see DommyJ at the street corner. So I slow down. Cuz . . . Cuz I’m stupid, that’s why. Then I see Livia, in her red baseball cap. She’s standing right in front of him, but she’s not the one yelling this time. He’s clearly pissed off, ranting away, and she’s like cowering, trying to just weather the storm. Then he grabs her arm. I’m startled. I’ve never seen him get physical with a girl before.
“Suddenly, she gets this look. She plants her feet and stares right at him. She says loudly, ‘You know who my brother is, don’t you?’
“He says he’s doesn’t give a flying fuck about J.J. Which makes her shake her head. ‘Not J.J.,’ she says. ‘My other brother.’”
“Her other brother?” Lotham asks sharply.
“Exactly. She glances across the street. That’s when I see him. Some super-tall dude in a blue tracksuit and gold chains. He didn’t look all that scary to me. But Dommy now, his reaction . . . DommyJ drops Livia’s arm, and backpedals so fast I thought he was gonna trip over his own damn feet.”
“He saw this guy across the street, and he ran away?” Me this time, because I’m suddenly remembering my first visit to the school, the guy I spotted watching me. And possibly spied standing outside the Samdi residence, before bullets started to fly.
“DommyJ looked like he was gonna shit his pants. I’ve never seen him look that scared.”
Lotham stares at Marjolie. “What did Livia do?”
“That’s the thing. Second Dom let her go, she scampered off. But not toward the dude. In the total opposite direction. I saw her face, right before she took off down the sidewalk. I swear, she looked just as scared as Dommy. I mean, if this guy is her brother, why is she so freakin’ anxious to get away from him?”
CHAPTER 27
Three p.m., we pull away from the curb and head once more into Mattapan. I’m going to be late for work, but with a little bit of traffic luck, hopefully not too late. I’m agitated. The thought of spending the next eight hours serving drinks and wiping down tables when I have so many questions regarding Angelique and Livia right now. When I feel we’re so close to learning the truth right now.
Alcoholics are notoriously obsessive. Particularly involving something as stimulating as right now.
“What do you make of Marjolie’s fake ID?” I ask Lotham, my fingertips thrumming restlessly on my knee.
“Definitely cheap. Surprised it got them into any kind of nightclub. Then again, some places, slip a little cash into the bouncer’s hand, and the deal is done. They just want plausible deniability if things go sideways.”
“Angelique’s ID is definitely better quality than the one Marjolie had.”
“Significant step up.”
I purse my lips, angling myself in the passenger seat to better face him. “Isn’t that kind of interesting? That she complains to this DommyJ about the quality of his work—”
“About the way he treated her friend.”
“And a year later, Angelique herself is running around with a superior fake.”
Lotham nods thoughtfully. We’ve come to a red light. He glances over at me, his face hard to read. “You think Angelique made that license? Or helped someone make it?”
“I think if Marjolie’s story is true, Livia Samdi knows a lot about fake IDs, while also having the skills to do better. Fifty dollars a pop . . . I mean, if DommyJ can unload hundreds of dollars’ worth of shitty IDs during a summer rec program, imagine how much Livia could make off quality merchandise?”
“Of all the counterfeiting we’ve discussed, a fake ID is the most feasible DIY project. With the right software, and a specialized printer, I could see two teenage girls pulling it off.” Lotham frowns. “Unfortunately.”
“Maybe the money in Angelique’s lamp came from their own business enterprise? Livia probably enjoyed the design challenge, while Angelique had personal incentive to run DommyJ out of business.”
“Why the counterfeit hundreds?” Lotham countered, making a hard right into a stalled stream of city traffic.
“Maybe someone paid them with fakes. Maybe they didn’t know they even had counterfeit bills.”