Criminal

different foods. I know asparagus makes mine smell. I tried cocaine once. I can’t remember what my pee smelled like, but zow-ee, did I not care one bit.”
    Amanda stood shocked at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at Evelyn, who seemed not to realize that she’d just admitted to using an illegal narcotic.
    “Oh, don’t pimp me out to Reggie. I looked the other way on that red light.” Evelyn flashed a smile. She turned the corner on the landing and she was gone.
    Amanda shook her head as she followed her up the stairs. Neither of them touched the handrails. Cockroaches skittered underfoot. Trash seemed glued to the treads. The walls felt as if they were closing in.
    Amanda forced herself to breathe through her mouth, just as she forced one foot after the other. This was crazy. Why hadn’t they called for backup? Half of the signal 49s in Atlanta were reported by women who’d been raped in stairwells. They were as ubiquitous to the housing projects as rats and squalor.
    As Evelyn rounded the next landing, she tugged at the back of her hair. Amanda guessed this was a nervous tic. She shared the anxiety. The higher up they climbed, the more her insides rattled. Fourteen cops killed in the last two years. Gunshots to the head. Sometimes to the stomach. One officer had lived for two days before finally succumbing. He’d been in so much pain you could hear his screams all the way downstairs in the Grady Hospital ER.
    Amanda’s heart clenched as she rounded the next landing. Her hands started shaking. Her knees wanted to give out. She felt seized by the desire to burst into tears.
    Surely one of the patrol units had heard Evelyn call in their location to dispatch. The men seldom waited for any female officer to request backup. They just arrived on scene, taking over the case, shooing the women away like they were silly children. Normally, Amanda felt slightly irked by this macho grandstanding, but today, she would’ve welcomed them with open arms.
    “This is crazy,” she mumbled, rounding the next landing. “Absolutely crazy.”
    “Just a little bit farther,” Evelyn happily called back.
    It wasn’t like they were undercover. Everyone knew there were two cops in the building. White cops. Female cops. The hum of televisions and whispered conversations buzzed around. The heat was as stifling as the shadows. Every closed door represented an opportunity for someone to jump out and hurt one or both of them.
    “Okay, what’ve we got?” Evelyn asked no one in particular. “Four hundred forty-three rapes reported last year.” Her voice clattered down the stairs like a bell. “One hundred thirteen were white women. What is that, a one-in-four chance of us being raped?” She looked back at Amanda. “Twenty-five percent?”
    Amanda shook her head. The woman might as well be speaking in tongues.
    Evelyn continued up the stairs. “Four times one hundred thirteen …” Her voice trailed off. “I was almost right. We have a twenty-six percent chance of being raped today. That’s not high at all. That’s a seventy-four percent chance of nothing happening.”
    The numbers, at least, made sense. Amanda felt an ounce of pressure lift off her chest. “That doesn’t seem so bad.”
    “No, it doesn’t. If I had a seventy-four percent chance of winning the Bug, I’d be down on Auburn right now betting my paycheck.”
    Amanda nodded. The Bug was a numbers game run out of Colored Town. “Where did you—”
    There was a commotion down the hallway. A door slammed. A child screamed. A man’s voice shouted for everyone to shut the hell up.
    The pressure came back like a boulder dropping from the sky.
    Evelyn had stopped on the stairs. She was looking directly down at Amanda. “Statistically, we’re fine. More than fine.” She waited for Amanda to nod before continuing the climb. Evelyn’s posture had lost its certainty. She was breathing heavily. Suddenly, Amanda realized that the other woman had taken the lead. If there was something bad waiting for them at the top of the stairs, Evelyn Mitchell would meet it first.
    Amanda asked, “Where did you get those numbers?” She’d never heard them before and frankly did not care. All she knew was that talking was the only thing keeping her from vomiting. “The reported rapes?”
    “Class project. I’m taking statistics at Tech.”
    “Tech,” Amanda repeated. “Isn’t that hard?”
    “It’s a great way to meet men.”
    Again, Amanda didn’t know if