Don't Lose Her by Jonathon King Page B

that he understood exactly what I was asking him to do.
    â€œY’all need a CI. Right?” he said, instantly switching up the lingua franca. “Somebody who know everybody in the ’hood and got an ear for the street scut.”
    â€œRight,” I said—no use hiding my intentions.
    He stared out over the empty half-court for a minute, spinning the ball in his huge hands, letting it slide over his skin. With each revolution, there was a hissing sound.
    â€œAre you providing incentive, Mr. Freeman?” he finally said, cutting his eyes at me.
    â€œI am. I’ve got two grand in my pocket and more if the information pans out. Unmarked cash. You pass out the first taste, and then I’ll personally deliver the follow-up if your source has more.”
    Again, CQ spun the ball.
    â€œThat ain’t the way the cops do it.”
    â€œI’m not the cops.”
    The ball stopped. CQ looked me directly in the eye, the way he’d been taught by his mother, the way that meant he understood what was being asked of him and that he was promising to do what he said he would.
    â€œFor Mr. Manchester and his wife, yes,” he said.
    He reached out a hand. I reached into my pocket first and then gave him a handshake containing a disposable cell phone and a packet of a hundred twenties.
    â€œYou make the call to me and then ditch the phone, CQ. No blowback on you. We’re not putting you in jeopardy.”
    He looked past me, staring first at the ground and then raising his eyes past me in the direction of the porch where his mother still sat.
    â€œYeah, you are, Mr. Freeman. But it’s cool. I know the game, and I’m better at playing it than you are.”
    I thanked the young man, knowing he was correct, but justifying my actions as I walked off the court.
    â€œYo, Coach. Yo, check it out, Coach,” yelled another player who fired a twenty-five-foot air ball that again elicited hoots from the others.
    As I moved past CQ’s front porch, I cut my eyes to Mrs. Quarles, who was still in her chair, watching me with a relaxed but suspicious look on her aged and mottled face. She returned my nod, but not with full approval.
    The Gran Fury was untouched under her protective eye, and I climbed in and keyed the ignition, rumbling the 420 V-8 to life, the noise helping me keep at bay the ethical argument that I knew was going to haunt my thoughts. But I had other stops to make, including one to a lawyer Billy would be loath to contact on his own, even though it was an obvious connection to the Escalante empire.
    When I’d pulled away from CQ’s neighborhood under the baleful look of his mother, I knew I was running without rules. And in the world of both the good and the bad guys, someone running without rules can be dangerous.

Chapter 10
    I need something to drink. My baby needs something to drink.” Whine, whine, whine, Rae thought, looking over at the hooded woman on the bed. Christ—these rich bitches, always whining. She just stared at the figure, arms still bound behind her, propped up at an angle against the wall now, letting her bloated stomach take the softness of the mattress.
    â€œThe baby needs hydration. You must know that, sir. You must know that a child needs water. Please.”
    Rae remembered the time one of her mother’s boyfriends put up a sign in their trailer home above the kitchen sink in a place you could see from just about any spot in the front half of the trailer, which in reality wasn’t but one room with a stupid bar counter separating the kitchen area from the so-called living room.
    The placard was shaped like a traffic sign with a red circle and a red stripe lashed across the words NO WHINING —like it was the law or something in their home. And he hadn’t been staying there more than two weeks, James or Jimmy or some damn out-of-work long-haul trucker dude. He was another of her mother’s beaus, as she called them.