Cole gave the intersection a once over and checked his six. A young black woman had set up two blocks over at a corner. Dressed baggy. Helped conceal product and whatever form of self-defense she might carry. Baggy or no, even from here, she looked cute. She must still be new at this.
“I just need you asking questions and you’re gonna keep me on,” Cole relayed to Little Reggie over his phone.
“How many questions?”
“What’s it matter how many?”
“You finna make me a snout?” Little Reggie was off to the side now, so he said, where the pews were all lined up, away from prying ears. He was, if he was smart. Cole couldn’t see, so he couldn’t tell.
“If I wanted to make you an informant, I could, but I’m not,” Cole lied. “Just questions, Reggie.”
Cole asked him if he was using an earpiece. Little Reggie said he was. It’d look less conspicuous that way. “Less” being the operative word. Cole had no delusions that this was Mission: Impossible levels of subterfuge. He was banking on the hope that the people inside were more focused on what they were winning as opposed to what they were saying.
“I’ll get the lilies, I guess.” Little Reggie was muttering to himself now, counting up what cash he had already won.
“For who?”
“Fuck you care?”
Cole didn’t care. He was trying to play nice.
“Let’s do this.”
Cole lazy-susaned the intersection again while Little Reggie returned to the tables. There were two young women on street corners now: one of them two blocks to his left and another three blocks to his right, prepping for the late night rush.
He heard Little Reggie set up shop at a poker table.
“Now, I want you to ask, in your own words, casual as can be, if people know anybody with a tattoo of a seven-kay. Act like you’re thinking of getting one.”
There was silence over the reception. Then:
“Hey man, you got a tattoo? …Nah, like a tattoo with a seven on it … Man, fuck you.”
“What happened?” asked Cole.
“Why would you say to me, ‘that’s a stupid idea for a tattoo?’ Why would you use those exact words? …And why would you now say to me, ‘why are you talking like that?’”
Cole grabbed at the bridge of his nose. “Don’t just repeat what he said. Use a little tact.”
A little later, Little Reggie was at a different table. At the intersection, Cole did a three-sixty. There were three women on street corners now. One of them was already selling pretty well. A big guy was with another. The big guy gave Cole a glance then snapped back down to his dealer.
“All right, new strategy. Ask if some guy in a suit got shot near here recently.”
Cole heard Little Reggie suck his teeth.
“A white guy in a suit,” Cole clarified.
A moment later: “Man, you hear about some stupid-ass white boy in a penguin suit getting his due? …Nah, few days ago … I don’t know his name—”
Cole interrupted. “You’re asking because … he owed you money.”
“White boy owed me money.”
“He’s a dishonest piece of shit.”
“White boy’s like every other white boy: cutty as fuck.”
“He takes what isn’t his.”
“Motherfucker’s dusty.”
“He fucking deserved it.”
“…I mean, ain’t no one deserves to die, but he could’ve used an ass-whoopin’.”
Nobody spilled anything on a white boy but there was a lot of talk about people picking off outsiders in the Tenderloin. Specifically, members of an Oakland-based gang were getting harassed called the 4FC (short for “Four Fingers Crew”). While the Tenderloin was notoriously neutral among crews, the 4FC had been swinging its leverage a little too much. They had a sweet spot in Oakland; a strong network of shady cops and good dealers gave them a hell of a pull with suppliers of drugs, guns, sex, you name it, anywhere in the Bay. They could sell the cheapest and they could sell the most often.
The other sellers didn’t like that.
Little Reggie kept talking.
Sounded like two crews in particular were hunting the 4FC out of the Tenderloin: the High Corner and the Limit Break Boys. The High Corner had been around for a generation now, based out of a single residential complex in the Western Addition. They weren’t known for making big moves, so hearing they’d gone Inglourious Basterds on the 4FC was surprising. The Limit Break Boys were a younger gang out of the Mission. Not one of them older than twenty-five. Most too young to drink. They must have been trying to make a point, or make an example, out of the 4FC. They were gonna get themselves killed.
“The thing you are saying to me,” Little Reggie began, awkward again, “is that Four Fingers had a VIP in the Tenderloin? Just shufflin’ around? What for?”
A VIP? Cole was listening. He heard murmuring.
“What he say?” asked Cole.
The murmurs murmured.
“Tell me!” demanded Cole. He did a three-sixty. There were four girls now.
“Nah, you don’t gotta tell me. I’m just playin’.” Little Reggie informed the dealer he was moving on.
“No, you’re not. You’re not just playing. You’re not moving on. Get back over there!” Cole was too loud.
“Some motherfuckers got to shut up,” Little Reggie muttered to Cole, but seemingly to no one.
Cole sucked his own teeth. A VIP?! Wandering the Tenderloin? That could be Chuck. The clouds had parted, the ray of light from Heaven poured down, and the truth had been unearthed. It was him! It had to be.
“We need more inspectors like you,” Chuck Hattaran had said at the Police Officers Association charity event. “You’ve got your eye on the ball. A relationship with the locals. That’s what’s important. We’re all connected.” Chuck paused, face screwed up like he was trying to remember Cole’s name. Cole didn’t care to meet him halfway. Finally, a light went on and his face relaxed into a smile. “Cole, right?”
Damn right, we were all connected. Here was a guy, an attorney, redlining legalese as a conduit between the boys in blue and the jokers in office, paving the way for criminals and cops alike to record the realities on the street, and meanwhile, he was moonlighting, probably, as a legal aid to Four Fingers and his Oakland cronies, probably keeping him out of trouble with tax evasion or property crimes or whatever red tape might trip up a crooked businessman. And now here was the same guy, Chuck Hattaran, in the streets of the Tenderloin, armed with a police body-cam, doing some kind of dirty work for the 4FC, probably, maybe on his way to catch the High Corner or the Limit Break Boys in the middle of their bounty hunt. And then he was offed.
Cole made a mental note to double check the address of the High Corner residential complex.
It could work.
It could fit.
It was snug, warm, tight, like Mia’s blanket.
These weren’t bad circumstances.
Chuck was a bad guy.
Probably.
“Go back, you idiot!” Cole gripped the cell phone like he was hanging on a rope off a cliffside. “I got ten patrol cars waiting to raid—”
“Fuck you, boy.”
“Reggie?”
“I can’t, boy.”
“Yes, you can!”
“I’m out of money!”
Cole’s phone went quiet for awhile after that. He thought about spotting Reggie some cash, handing it off behind the church maybe, when he heard a throat clear.
“I needed that money. I was just gettin’ hot, boy. I was finna buy lilies. Tamina loved lilies.”
No no po-po. No no po-po.
The clang, clang of the cuffs on the window. The memory of that damn night. Cole had finally opened the patrol car door, grabbed Reggie by the cuffs, ready to tell him to shut the fuck up, but he had realized Reggie was crying.
“Fucking Tamina, boy. Fucking my girl, boy.”
“What about her?”
Reggie wiped his nose against the arm of his white collar shirt. That shirt. That black tie. Those black pants. They all told the same tale:
“This morning. Her funeral, boy.”
Cole paced in circles at his corner of the intersection, back in the present, opposite the church. His tongue danced behind his teeth, trying to find the right first word to cheer Reggie up and get him back into action. He was so close.
“I just wanted the lilies, boy. Then she’d know. You know, I only kind of liked her before?” Cole didn’t know where Reggie was within the church at this point. He assumed back by the pews on the side. “But after she went, like that, that’s when I fell in love with her, boy.”
“Reggie.”
“One day, it’s gonna be me and her.”
“We need to get back to work.”
“I got no money. I got no lilies. I don’t got shit, boy.”
“Then I’ll give you some.”
“I don’t want to see you, boy.”
“Then pawn something! Use your head, kid. Jesus. Tamina ain’t comin’ back. You can pile the lilies dick-deep if you want, but that girl’s decomposing in a hole in the ground. That’s it! She’s gone! She’s out! She’s over! Forget it! Make yourself useful, kid.”
“Useful.”
“Help me find who killed Chuck.”
“Chuck.”
“Hattaran.”
“Chuck Hattaran.”
“Yes!”
“WHO KILLED CHUCK HATTARAN?!” Little Reggie yelled. Cole pulled the phone away from his year. “Who? Who did it? ’Fess up! ’Fess the fuck up!”
Before Cole could wrap his head around Little Reggie’s unique form of subtlety, or regret his bitter tongue, he felt a bump in his lower back.
It was a pistol.
Whoever was behind Cole pulled back the hammer.