ja makin’
with the
Sam
, so people started calling me Jamaican Sam.” He punctuated his story with a huge grin. “Pretty sweet, eh?”
As fascinating as the story was, Payne didn’t come to this part of town to learn Sam’s history. He had more important things to find out-things that could possibly save his girlfriend. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I was hoping you could give us some help.”
With his left hand, Sam brushed his braided orange locks from his eyes. “Like I said in the beginning, what can I do for you dudes?”
“Actually, you can help me with a tattoo. I recently saw an elaborate design on this guy on the bus. The moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to have it. I just knew it! Unfortunately, before I had a chance to ask him where he got it done, we arrived at his stop and he disappeared. Do you think you could tell me who drew it for him?”
Sam shook his head violently, trying to clear his head. “Hold up. Let me see if I understand your quandary. You spotted a slammin’ tat, and you expect me, even though I’ve never seen it, to picture it in my mind and tell you who did it? That’s some challenge, dude.”
“But can you do it?” Payne demanded.
It took thirty seconds for Sam to reply, but he finally shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see why not. But it’ll cost ya twenty bucks.” Payne handed him the money, and Sam quickly stuffed the bill into his multicolored boxers, which could be seen above the waistline of his shorts. “What did this Picasso look like?”
“It was in the shape of the letter
P
. The straight part of the
P
was a dagger, and-”
“Whoa!” Sam gasped, sounding like Keanu Reeves. “Was there, like, blood dripping from the dagger?”
Payne stared at the guy-he couldn’t have been older than twenty-two-and nodded. “So, you’re familiar with it?”
Sam walked over to his counter and flipped through a picture album of some of his most impressive designs. When he reached the page he was looking for, he handed the book to Payne. “The tat you’re looking for is one of mine. How cool is that? Kind of a small globe, eh?”
“Yeah,” Jones grunted, who suddenly didn’t like the precision of Terrell Murray’s off-the-cuff recommendation. “Way too small for my taste.”
Payne picked up on Jones’s tone and instinctively touched the gun that he’d concealed under the flap of his shirt. “What can you tell me about its design?”
Sam scratched his bright orange beard for a moment, pondering his position, then shook his head from side to side. “It just ain’t worth it, dude.” He reached into his boxer shorts and withdrew Payne’s twenty dollars. “You can take your money back. I’ve got nothing for ya.”
Payne looked at the money with disapproval. He wasn’t willing to touch something that had been stored in Sam’s underwear. Nor was he about to let him off the hook that easily. “A deal’s a deal. You accepted the cash, now it’s time to give me some info.”
“Sorry, dude, but I just can’t do that!” Sam laid the money on the counter and slowly backed away. “I made a previous deal with a group of brothers that requested my work for that particular job. I told them my lips were
el sealed-o
if anyone asked me about that tat.”
“How many people were in the group?” Jones asked.
Sam shrugged, then let out a weaselly little laugh. “Sorry, bro. I don’t remember getting any money from you, so I don’t owe you any info. You dig?”
Payne grinned at Sam and waited for the orange-haired freak to return his smile. When he did, Payne pulled his firearm into view and nestled it under the artist’s hairy chin. “First, you referred to a bunch of black men as ‘brothers,’ and then you referred to my friend as your ‘bro.’ Now you’re going to test my patience even further by refusing to answer a simple question? Sorry, bro, that’s not the way my friends and I operate.”
“Wait a second,” Sam gulped, as the color drained from his face. “Did you guys come in together? Oh, dude, I didn’t know that! If I had known that, I wouldn’t have been so shady!”
Payne nodded, but refused to lower his gun. “Tell us about this group, Sam, before my finger gets a twitch and I add some red to your obnoxious shirt.”
“Well, a bunch of brothers . . . uh, I mean, Africans came here a couple weeks ago-”
Jones quickly corrected him. “The appropriate term is African Americans.”
“No, dude, not in this case. These dudes were African.”
Payne raised an eyebrow. “Continue.”
“Anyways,” Sam stuttered, “they were looking for a Holotat. They told me the name of their gang and what they were looking for, then left the rest up to me. They gave me some cash and told me to have a tat design by the next day.” Sam pointed to the picture in the album. “This is what I came up with, dude. Honest!”
“What was the name of the gang?” Payne demanded.
“Dude, I can’t tell ya that. I just can’t.”
Payne pushed the barrel of his gun even harder against Sam’s throat, and as he did, he noticed Sam start to tremble with fear. “Sammy? I have a policy that prevents me from killing the mentally challenged, but since we’re in a hurry, I might be willing to make an exception.”
Sam took a trouble-filled breath, then answered. “I’ve got a problem, dude. When the group got their tats, they threatened to kill me if I told anyone about their posse. Now, here you are, and you’re threatening to kill me if I
don’t
tell you about their posse. Well, you don’t have to be Alex Trebek to see that I’m in jeopardy.”
“Jeez,” Payne said. “That jeopardy comment was pretty funny.”
“Did you like that?” Sam asked, hoping to lighten the mood. “I just made that up.”
“You did?” Payne grunted. “Well, unless you want it to be the last clever thing you say, I think you should start talking. What’s the name of the gang?”
Sam closed his eyes in thought. After thinking about all of the consequences, he figured it was better to possibly die later than to definitely die now. “The Plantation Posse.”
Payne lowered his weapon. “And what can you tell us about this Posse?”
“I don’t know,” Sam mumbled. “They were young, black, and very athletic-looking.”
“Wow,” Greene remarked. “You just described every team in the NBA. You gotta do better than that.”
“And some of the guys had thick African accents.”
“Come on!” he objected. “My NBA comment is still accurate.”
Sam glared at the ex-football star. After a moment, a flash of recognition crossed his face. “Whoa, dude, I know you. I know who you are!”
Greene cursed under his breath. He knew going into this partnership that there was a good chance that he was going to be recognized. Now it was just a matter of how he was going to handle it. “Who I am is not important, you box-of-crayons-looking motherfucker! What
is
important is my boy’s question. What did these guys look like?”
The rage in Greene’s voice was enough to silence Sam. There was no way he wanted to piss off the Buffalo Soldier. “Okay, dude, I’ll tell you anything you want to know, just don’t hurt me! I’ve got a low threshold for pain.”
Greene nodded. “I appreciate your honesty. In return, I promise not to test that threshold. But instead of talking to me, I want you to talk to my friends. Okay? And while you’re telling them everything that they need to know, I’m gonna go in the back and use your bathroom.” He turned toward Payne and Jones, looking for permission. “That is, if you guys can handle things alone for a couple of minutes.”