'They feedin' me stuff to set you up, that means they know I with you. They know I was askin' about them, and that means they'll be comin' for me. They'll kill me just like they killed James Edward.'
There didn't seem to be a whole lot to say to that.
He shook his head. 'I can't believe the goddamned bitch lied to me. I got all that stuff from a woman I diddle. She run around with some of those niggers in the Eight-Deuce. She get rock from some of those niggers.'
I said, 'We need to talk to her, Cool T.'
Cool T looked at Joe. 'Who this guy?'
'This is Joe Pike. He's with me.'
Cool T nodded. 'Then he gonna die, too.'
Pike's mouth twitched.
I said, 'Akeem wants to kill a woman named Jennifer Sheridan. I've got to find out what Akeem knows and doesn't know, and if he has a line on the woman. Do you see?'
'Okay.'
'Maybe the girl who set us up, maybe she knows.'
Cool T put his hands together and pressed them against his mouth like he was praying. He looked tall and gaunt, and the sort of loose-jointed energy that he'd had only a few minutes ago seemed gone, as if he had pulled himself inward and, in the pulling, had made himself hard and fierce. He let his hands drop to his sides. 'She a sister named Alma Reeves.'
'You know where to find her?'
'I know.' He turned back to the hand truck and wrestled it from under the stack of boxes and rolled it to the side of the aisle and left it neatly against the wall. 'I take you over there.'
'What about your job?'
'Fuck the job. This for James Edward.'
Alma Reeves lived in a small stucco bungalow with a nice flagstone walk and a single car in the drive and a little picket fence that needed painting. We cruised the block once so that we could check out the house and the street. I said, 'Does she live alone?'
Cool T was sitting behind me, next to Ray Depente. 'She live with her mama and sister. The sister got a pretty good job with State Farm, so she won't be around, but the mama be there. She old.'
'Okay.'
Across the street and two houses down, three teenaged guys in cut-off baggies and gold chains and backwards baseball caps sat on a low brick wall, laughing about something. Pike said, 'What about the three guys on the wall?'
'The one in the middle Eight-Deuce. The other two are wannabes.'
Pike didn't like it. 'No good. They see us go in, It'll be bad for the family.'
Cool T said, 'Fuck'm.'
Pike looked at him.
Cool T said, 'These niggers used to me. I here all the time.'
Ray said, 'Don't use that word again.'
Cool T gave hands. 'What?'
Ray put hard eyes on him. 'I'm looking where you're looking, and I don't see any. I'm looking in this car, and I don't see any in here, either.'
The hard eyes got heavy and Cool T looked away.
Ray said, 'I just want to get that straight.'
Cool T nodded.
I cleared my throat. 'Oh, boys.'
They both looked at me. Pike looked at me, too.
'Sorry. That didn't come out right.'
Pike shook his head and turned away. You can't take me anywhere. I said, 'If Joe and I go in through the front, it won't take a rocket scientist for those guys to figure out who we are. We can let Cool T out here like we're dropping him off, then we'll park on the next street over and come in through the backyard.' I looked at Cool T. 'Will she let you in?'
'I get in.'
Pike stopped at the drive and Cool T got out, and then Pike kept going. One of the guys on the low wall pointed at Cool T and Cool T pointed back, and then we turned the corner. Pike turned right, then right again, and we counted houses until we were in front of a tiny saltbox that would butt against the back of Alma Reeves's place. Joe said, 'Here,' and pulled to the curb.
Ray said, 'Let me get out first and go up to the house. Folks inside see a couple of white men sneaking up the drive, they'll call the police for sure.'
