“You ain’t got the juice to make that happen.”
“Oh, yeah. You been around, Lafonzo. Let’s get a reality check here. You know that a street bull’s got two jobs. His shift and court time. Court time is time and a half. You sit on your butt, you drink coffee, you tell lies, you hit on the chippies, nobody’s shooting at you, and it’s time and a half. Now, I just promised that guy I’d list him as a witness on my next two homicide trials. They’re usually three or four days each. Easy time, easy money. What do you got to offer him?”
Lafonzo had a friend who was a cop and he’d pocketed $100,000 in court time and he’d only made three arrests all year. Lafonzo had a vision of trying to ’splain everything to Lufer. Lafonzo made his mind up immediately and forever. “Okay, okay. What do you want to know?”
“We’ll start with the easy stuff. I got a picture of Lufer from his last arrest. Look at it, tell me if he’s changed any.”
He slid the picture across the table. Lafonzo didn’t pick it up. “Yeah, that’s him. He ain’t changed none.”
“Okay, so tell me about him. What’s he like?”
“He’s a crazy man. I mean, what you want to know? He’s in the Crew, 6th and O. You know what that means. I don’t got to tell you. Let’s just leave it at this, if there’s trouble, Lufer fixes it. Period. Understand?”
“We’re getting there. If I was to go lookin’ for him, where would I find him?”
“Dude moves around a lot. See, there’s plenty of other people, like to find him, too, you see what I’m saying. If he has a pad, it’s a secret to me.”
“What kind of car does he drive?”
“A ’Vette, a black one.”
“You know the year, the tags?”
“No, man. Why should I care?”
Bitterman knew he’d find no such car legally registered to Timmons.
“Okay, where does he hang out? I’m gonna put a man at 6th and O with his picture every day from now on. So where else will he show up?”
Lafonzo was running out of room for evasions; a full-blown lie was called for here. But present danger prevailed over the future.
“They’s a few bars he fancies. Nairobi Jones, Langtry’s, the Southeaster.”
“What else can you tell me? Any trademarks, things that he favors?”
“I don’t know. He always wears that long coat. You know, the ones that go down to your boots.”
“A duster?” Bitterman was finally interested.
“Yeah.”
“What color?”
“Dark. Dark red.”
“Like burgundy?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s it made of?”
“Leather. Musta cost plenty.”
“What about a bandana?”
“Yeah, that too. He wears it around his neck, not on his head.”
Glory to God. The red leather duster and the bandana could make him “Johnny-Jump-Out,” wanted in six daylight shootings. Bitterman put what he knew from the files together with Nellis’s information and began to understand his quarry a little better.
“He fancies himself quite a shootist, doesn’t he?” Bitterman began. “No back of the ear, hands tied, in a dark room for him. I admire that. Straight up in your face, shoot and shoot back. He must have quite a reputation in the ’hood. You don’t fuck with Lufer Timmons, do you?”
“What do you need me for? You seem to know everything.”
“That I do, Lafonzo. I know that Lufer steals a car when he’s gonna whack someone. He’s got a driver he trusts. He cruises the streets till he finds his target, then he jumps out, which is why we call him ‘Johnny-Jump-Out.’ No pussy bullshit drive-bys for our Johnny, no, he jumps out, calls the target by name, pulls his piece and does it right there, trading gunfire on the street, broad daylight, then back in the car and he’s gone. Cool customer, our Lufer, drawing down on a man telling him you’re gonna kill him and then doing it. Nice gun he uses, too, 44 Magnum. Holds on to it. Does he wear a holster, Lafonzo?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What for?”
“Because I want to know, Lafonzo.”
“It’s on his left hip, facing the other way.”
“A cross-draw, how elegant. And so cocky. Most guys just shoot and throw down. He doesn’t think he’s gonna get caught. I know he wears armor because one guy hit him right in the chest before Lufer put one between his eyes.”
“So how come you know so much, you ain’t got him yet?”
“All we had was an M.O. No pattern to his killings. Now, I know that there isn’t one. Lufer gets hot, you get shot. Now I’ve got a name, a description, and some places to look for him. He got a name for himself? All the great ones had nicknames. What about Lufer?”
“Fuck, man, he don’t need no nickname. You hear Lufer Timmons looking for you, that’s like hearing the Terminator wants you.”
Bitterman pocketed his photograph and smiled at Lafonzo. “I guess you’ll be wanting to spend some time indoors, right?”
Lafonzo sat up straight. “Don’t you be putting me out there, now. That motherfucker’ll kill me.”
“Relax. I’m not gonna screw around with you. I’ll make sure you’re papered and held, maybe get you a nice high bond you can’t post. How’s that sound?”
“Great. Fuckin’ great. Thanks.”
No other city in the world had as much of its population behind bars. Even the bad guys prefer to be in jail rather than on the streets. Bitterman was optimistic about nailing Timmons. A guy so caught up in building a reputation wouldn’t be able to wait for it to be bestowed upon him. He’d help it along with plenty of boasting. All they had to do was find the right pair of ears. Secondly, he liked his gun too much. Holding on to that was a mistake. If they found that, they’d match it to bullets in his six victims. Once he was off the streets, they’d go back and talk to the deaf, dumb, and blind who’d seen and heard everything and convince just one of them to talk. Once gone he would not be coming back.
Bitterman left the detention center to get an arrest warrant from a judge. If he got it soon, it’d make the 3 p.m. roll call for the next shift. By tomorrow morning, every active duty officer on the streets would be looking for Lufer Timmons. A Christmas present to the city.
Dantreya Watkins had been going about this all wrong. He’d approached the “gangstas” on the street looking for a piece and received the short course on urban economics: Desperation drives the price up, not down. Once his ignorance of makes and models was established, his “brothers” tried to sell him.25-caliber purse guns for four hundred bucks. Poverty only served to delay his fleecing. After three unsuccessful tries, he knew enough to ask for a .380 Walther. That seemed to be a respectable gun. He found a kindly gentleman who sold him such a gun and a full clip of ammo for three hundred bucks, which was all the money he could steal from his mother.
It wasn’t until later, in an abandoned warehouse when Dantreya squeezed off a practice round and saw the cartridge roll out of the end of the barrel, that he learned that the clip was full of .32-caliber ammo and completely useless. Dantreya was now armed with a three-hundred-dollar hammer.
Dantreya’s descent into the all-too-real world, far from the comics he read, rewrote, and illustrated in his room, was now complete. He was waiting nervously at the side of his friend TerrAnce’s house for TerrAnce to get his father’s gun for him. In exchange, Dantreya had offered TerrAnce his entire collection of X-Men comics, which they would go get as soon as TerrAnce lifted the gun from his father’s holster in the closet.