Enjoy your soul food, he thought to the tourists as the bus pulled away from the curb.
Continuing up the street for a few blocks, Jax finally found Ralph, who was--sure enough--leaning against a boarded-up building.
"Dog," Jax said.
"S'up?"
Jax kept on walking.
"Where we goin'?" Ralph asked, speeding up to keep pace beside the large man.
"Nice day for a walk."
"It cold out."
"Walking'll warm you up."
They kept going for a time, Jax ignoring whatever the fuck Ralph was whining about. He stopped at Papaya King and bought four dogs and two fruit drinks, without asking Ralph if he was hungry. Or a vegetarian or puked when he drank mango juice. He paid and walked out onto the street again, handing the skinny man his lunch. "Don't eat it here. Come on." Jax looked up and down the street. Nobody was following. He started off again, moving fast. Ralph followed. "We walkin' 'cause you don' trust me?"
"Yeah."
"So why you ain't trust me all of a sudden?"
" 'Cause you had time to dime me out since I saw you last. What exactly is the mystery here?"
"Nice day fo' a walk," was Ralph's answer. He snuck a bite of hot dog.
They continued for a half block to a street that seemed deserted and the pair turned south. Jax stopped. Ralph did too and leaned against a wrought-iron fence in front of a brownstone. Jax ate his hot dogs and sipped the mango juice. Ralph wolfed down his own lunch.
Eating, drinking, just two workers on their meal break from a construction job or window washing. Nothing suspicious about this.
"That place, shit, they make good dogs," Ralph said.
Jax finished the food, wiped his hands on his jacket and patted down Ralph's T-shirt and jeans. No wires. "Let's get to it. What'd you find?"
"The Settle girl, okay? She goin' to Langston Hughes. You know it? The high school."
"Sure, I know it. She there now?"
"I don't know. You ask where, not when. Only I hear something else from my boys in the hood."
The hood . . .
"They be saying somebody got her back. Stayin' on her steady."
"Who?" Jax asked. "Cops?" Wondering why he even bothered. Of course it'd be them.
"Seem to be."
Jax finished his fruit juice. "And the other thing?"
Ralph frowned.
"That I asked for."
"Oh." The pharaoh looked around. Then pulled a paper bag from his pocket and slipped it into Jax's hand. He could feel the gun was an automatic and that it
was small. Good. Like he asked. Loose bullets clicked in the bottom of the sack.