"Yo, officer. What up, man?" he'd said when I spun him and pushed his face into the brick of the side wall of Mako's Bar and Grill.
"Spread 'em out, Hector," I said, rapping the inside of his knees with my baton and then going through his sweatshirt pockets and finding the cash. I stepped back and he snuck a look over his shoulder.
"Hey, it's the walkin' man," he said, smiling with his voice.
"Business a little light tonight, Hector?" I said, holding up the roll. "Or you change your hours of collections?"
He shook his head slowly and I knew there was a grin on the other side of it.
"No, sir, officer. You got me all wrong, walkin' man."
"You know I'm not wrong, Hector. I've been watching your game for weeks. And I told your salesmen, especially your man Sam down at the Palace, not on my shift," I said, poking the baton in his kidney for emphasis. "And not on my beat."
Now I knew the grin was gone. I saw the kid's scalp inch forward, pulled down by his frown. He didn't like me knowing the name of one of his main dealers who I'd caught passing rock in small plastic bags he tucked under the hollowed-out bottoms of beer schooners. The buyers were giving him huge tips and then always cupping the glasses with their opposite hand as they slid the drink off the bar, and then slipping that hand into their pockets. They thought it was stealthy. I picked up on it in ten minutes. It took less time to get Sam to flip on Hector.
"Hey, man. Chill," he said, trying to recover. "Why'n't you just stay in your damn car where it's nice and warm like the others, man?"
I didn't say anything, just took a step back, confusing him. He snuck another look but had to twist around to find me. His eyes were holding that I-don't-give-a-shit look and they were aimed at my hand where his roll was still in my palm.
"You can keep that, walkin' man."
I lifted my arm like I was shooting a free throw and bounced the wad off his head, and the bills separated and spilled down around his feet.
"No, Hector," I answered, using his own words. "You got me all wrong, man."
I'd left him alone for four days and now he was leading me to the stash house Mamma Blue had told me about. Four doors down from Mamma's Down South Country Kitchen, Hector checked the traffic and skipped across the street and disappeared into the alley between two boarded-up storefronts. I waited a couple of minutes in case he was smart enough to check for a tail and then continued down to Mamma Blue's.
A woman with a lot of hard years behind her eyes and a magical way with smothered pork chops and pan-fried chicken, Carline Dennis had opened her little restaurant years before the revival of South Street and had refused to move east to join the new current of money. She had built a clientele that cut across all racial and socio- economic lines because her place was friendly and courteous to everyone who walked across the threshold and her food was unmatched anywhere north of Savannah. The cars on the street in front included a BMW, two Mercedes, a sprung-bumper Cadillac and a sagging Corolla. I had been slipping in and out of her place since I was assigned to the district and twice had spotted the mayor inside having lunch.
When I stepped in tonight I was greeted by Big Earl, a man with mahogany-colored skin and hooded eyes who went about 320 pounds or more. It was Earl's job to deter any riffraff from entering or panhandlers from hitting on the patrons at the curb. He stuck out a ham-sized fist and we touched knuckles.
"What's up, boss?" he said in a burbling baritone.
"Mamma in back?" I said. "I need to use the phone."
Big Earl tilted his head straight back but the pupils in his yellowed eyes never moved, just rolled with the movement like buoy markers in water. With that permission I walked back through the full tables of diners, trying to be as unobtrusive as I could.
The kitchen was filled with the sound of crackling grease and the odor of seasoned steam. There was a high-rhythm dance going on between cooks and prep workers and busboys and dishwashers and in the middle of it all was Mamma Blue, sipping at a wooden ladle and looking like hurry-up was not a characteristic she ever wished to possess. The woman was as thin as a broomstick and her back was similarly straight. When I excused myself from the path of a waitress with a saucer of gumbo balanced on her palm, Mamma turned at the sound of my voice in her kitchen and gave me a full measure with her dark eyes.
"You ain't back here for no donation to the policeman's ball, baby," she said.
"No, Mamma. I need to use your phone, ma'am."
Her hair was steel gray and her pinched and leathery skin was so black it gave off a bluish hue just below the surface.
"You know where it at, Mr. Max," she said and turned back to the large pot of bubbling gravy she was doctoring.
As I slid past I touched her small crumpled ear with my cheek and whispered thank you and she smiled, but just as quickly a shadow of concern came across her face.
"You ain't doin' nothin' gone cause problems for my people in here now, Mr. Max?"
It was Mamma who had tipped me to the comings and goings of known crack dealers and runners from the building across the street. She had surmised that the suppliers had picked the location because of the block's eclectic mix of rich and poor diners. A fancy car here drew no second look, or a young man sporting a new Nike warm-up.
"Right under they nose," she'd said. "Lord, your own police commissioner eat here twice a week."
I had asked her why Big Earl hadn't told me. The man surely would have picked up on the action.
"Earl don't care 'bout nothin' cept me an his own self. What them boys doin' over there ain't his concern," she said.
Then why did she care? I thought.
Mamma seemed to recognize the question in my face and had said: "Earl is a man. He ain't never gave birth to no daughters who smoked they life away and they children's lives to ash with that crack. It's us women who carry that burden, Mr. Max. If you can stop it. Stop it."
That next day I'd started tracking Hector the Collector and tonight the trail was ending.
"I wouldn't put your people in harm's way, Mamma. I'll be here," I said and went to the phone and called the narcotics squad. I'd been feeding them my surveillance for a week. Now I told them one of the main players was in the building. The sergeant on the other end asked a few questions, had a quick conversation with someone while cupping the mouthpiece of his phone, and told me they'd move on it with an entry team within the hour. I winked at Mamma Blue as I left her kitchen and she narrowed her dark eyes and turned back to her simmering pot.
I told Earl to stay inside for a while and the giant man either chuckled or belched and said: "Wasn't plannin' nothin' but."
I went out on the sidewalk and took up a spot in the shadows just east of the restaurant where I could watch Hector's stash house. The night was warm with the smell of alley trash mixed with exhaust fumes. If I smoked I would have lit a cigarette. I hated stakeouts. After twenty minutes my portable radio hummed with static and I stepped further back and answered.
"Just passed your squad, Freeman. You on foot again?" It was my narcotics friends.
"Affirmative."
"Switching to tack four," he said. I switched the channel on the radio to a less congested frequency where half the district wouldn't be listening in.
"We're calling in some patrol backup for a perimeter and we'll be going in through the back. You'll have some help when we go, Freeman. But you've got the front for now."
"I'm ten-thirteen."
A young couple came out of Mamma's and got in their car. When they pulled out, I saw their headlights slide over a dark figure across the street who was moving down the east side alley, the word police stenciled onto his back in bold yellow letters. I walked back down to Mamma's entrance where Earl was standing, watching his customers drive away.