It wasn’t Raymond who met us at the designated spot. He’d sold me out. Sent L’il Roy, or someone just as scary, to make sure I was no threat to him or his family.
We were in the right place, a deserted part of the Chicago railway system on the South Side. There were tracks crisscrossing around us, and several train cars stood empty. The faded Air Jordan billboard – many years old, I don’t even think they make that particular shoe anymore – that Raymond had given me as a marker was a few feet away.
I also knew we were where we were supposed to be because the thug walking toward us showed no surprise at our presence. He even put his hands into his sweatshirt front pocket, probably wrapping his hands around a gun handle.
He wore a ratty hoodie sweatshirt – not nearly enough warmth for mid-winter Chicago – jeans that hung down his hips, and black boots, untied, with the tongue hanging forward. He was a kid, probably not much older than Raymond, but this kid was used to the streets, not campus life.
“I’m so sorry I got you into this,” I whispered to Jack.
He snorted. “A little late for that now. Besides, I didn’t give you much choice.” He directed his next comment to the hood nearing us. “Raymond.”
“No,” I whispered, “That’s just it, that’s not – ”
“Who the hell are you?” Raymond’s voice came out of the man’s body.
I stared. Hard. It took a while for me to make it out, but it was indeed Raymond. Gone were his trademark braids. Instead his hair stood straight up, a good six or seven inches high, in a combination Don King/Ben Wallace unshaped pile of frizz.
But it wasn’t just the hair that had thrown me. His face wasn’t even the same shape. When he got a few feet away he stopped, still eyeing Jack, and I was able to put it together. He’d lost weight – a lot of weight – in the short time since I’d last seen him. But on top of the shrunken effect, there were odd-shaped bumps, which I now realized were the aftereffects of somebody beating the shit out of him. His beautiful mocha skin was a rainbow of ugly yellows and purples. There were two scabbed slices running down his cheeks.
“Jesus, Raymond, what the hell happened to you?”
He turned his gaze from Jack to me, and I almost took a step back. He’d looked at me – at JoJo – with hatred before, and I would have expected that, but this look was something more. Mixed with hatred was defeat.
A look I’d never seen from a competitor like Raymond Joseph.
He only shrugged. Tough guy. But I knew better. This was a kid who, yes, had grown up in this neighborhood, but had spent his nights playing basketball, not standing on street corners.
“L’il Roy did this to you?” Another shrug. “But I thought he was your friend?”
“Price of admission,” he said.
I’m no innocent, I’d taken a good beating – though Paulie had tried hard not to mar my face – but I didn’t understand this kind of violence. In my world, you can’t pay up, you get hurt. Simple. Fair, in it’s own way.
“Why did you need to be admitted?”
He looked at Jack again, then back to me. “It’s okay, you can talk in front of Jack,” I said then regretted it. What if part of this “admission” process involved murder, or something else that wouldn’t fit with Jack’s sense of justice. Raymond should know that Jack was a cop, but I was afraid he’d turn around and I’d never see him again.
As if sensing my indecision, Jack said, “I’ll wait in the car.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He stepped to Raymond. “Mind if I pat you down? I can’t leave her alone with you otherwise.”
“Jack, there’s no – ”
“Whatever,” Raymond said, holding out his hands, spreading his legs. He took the stance way too naturally, and my heart ached that this might be Raymond’s future.
Jack patted him down quickly. Raymond didn’t seem to notice the practiced efficiency that Jack possessed. Or if he did, he didn’t say anything. He would have to think I wasn’t stupid enough to bring a cop with me, as much as I had to lose in all of this.
He’d be wrong about my stupid factor.
“Give a wave if you need me,” Jack said to me, then left us. I heard the car door close behind me. We’d parked about thirty yards away from where Raymond and I now stood.
He motioned with his chin to the car behind me. “That your bodyguard?”
A flash of Jack guarding my body – several times – last night whisked through me. “Something like that.”
“You that high up you need a bodyguard? Shit, JoJo, what exactly am I dealing with?”
“No, it’s not like that. Jack is a friend. He’s just with me for this trip, in case I needed backup.”
“To take me out?”
I looked squarely at him. “No. I’m not here to do that. And I think you know that or you never would have agreed to meet me.”
“Maybe I just wanted to get the whole thing over with.”
“No. You’re not a quitter, Raymond.”
He looked down at his feet, but didn’t comment. I decided to get back to where we’d left off when Jack went to the car. “Why did you need to be admitted to L’il Roy’s gang?” Nothing. “Why hold out now? I’m in this as deep as you are – deeper really. It’s in our best interest to work together.”
“Your best interest,” he said. “My best interest would be to tell them all about you.”
“Why haven’t you?”
He looked away, down the train tracks, took a deep breath, then turned back to me. “Who says I haven’t?”
“You haven’t,” I bluffed. It paid off. I knew from the flicker of his eyes away and then back to me, that I was right. Oldest tell in the books. Raymond would not make a great poker player. “I know that as surely as you know I didn’t come here to get rid of you.”
Vince’s words rang through my ears, but I pushed them away. There were many ways I could clean up this mess without having to hurt Raymond. Hell, another week with L’il Roy’s crowd and it might be taken care of for me.
But I knew I didn’t want that. Not really. “Come on, Raymond, cards on the table. Why did you leave your mom’s and go to L’il Roy’s?”
“Things got crazy at my momma’s house. Reporters, neighbors, it was a zoo. I figured it’d be better if I left.”
“So why not take her with you and go somewhere else? Why did you go alone to L’il Roy’s? Why did you take the price of admission if this was all until the reporters stopped coming around?”
“It wasn’t. Not really. I had to plan for the future.”
“And L’il Roy’s your future?”
“If things go bad with the Bubba Kinney thing and I get sent away, it’s better on the inside to be connected. Plus, L’il Roy said if I joined up and then got sent up, he’d take care of my mom and DeeDee.”
“You believe that?”
He shrugged. “I want to believe it. And, look, my life is over anyway, even if they don’t press any charges.”
“How do you figure?”
“Ain’t nobody going to touch me to play. Or coach.”
“But you could go back to school and get your degree. You had to be close to it.”
He nodded. “I woulda made it in four years. Heavy load spring term, but I would have graduated.”
“That’s great. You can still do that. What was your major?”
“Physical rehabilitation. I figured when I was done playing, if I didn’t coach, I could get on with a college or maybe even the pros as a trainer.” He stooped, picked up a rock and hurled it at one of the empty train cars. The hollow noise the stone made sent a shiver down me. “I just wanted to be involved in the game, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“There’s no way any team would let me even tape a player’s ankles with point-shaving accusations. Even if they don’t stick.”
He was right. He was finished with basketball, in any form.
“So, if I came out of this without jail time, and no way to be near the game…” He threw another rock. “I figured I better cement myself with the powers that be in my back yard.”
“Okay. I get it. In a way, it’s a good plan, Raymond, but it’s not necessary. We can figure something else out.”
“We?” He raised his eyebrows, then narrowed his eyes. “There’s no we in this.”
“We. I’m here to help find a way so you don’t end up like L’il Roy?”
His hand twitched mid-throw, the rock going off in a helter-skelter direction. He turned to me. “No. You don’t belong here. You don’t need to be involved anymore.”
“Why? I can see you not wanting me involved because of further charges, but I’m the one who dragged you into all of this.”
“True. And it sucks. But…DeeDee’s clean.”
“Yeah.”
“And, what you did that last time. In that parking lot?”
“You mean putting my phone in your pocket?”
He nodded. “You know how I found it? When I found it?”
“No, how?”
“I went home and threw that jacket somewhere. It’s not one I usually wear. And then, just two days later, I called you. And I heard a ringing coming from my jacket, thrown over a chair in my apartment. I didn’t get it for a minute. And then I did.”
What could I say? Nothing, so I kept my mouth shut.
“I was so royally pissed at you. At myself…”
“That’s usually how it works,” I said, knowing that feeling well. Or at least I used to.
Day Twelve.
“Yeah.”
“You forgot one part in there, Raymond.”
“What?”
“Your mother calling and saying DeeDee was ready to come home. And how she was afraid about what that could mean.”
He hung his head. “She told you about that?”
I put my hand on his shoulder. I hadn’t touched him much – if at all – as JoJo, but somehow he was able to accept Anna’s comfort. “Yeah, she told me. It wasn’t a very smart thing you did, Raymond, going to Bubba Kinney.”
He snorted. “Ya think?”
I squeezed his shoulder. “But you did it for the right reasons. And believe me, compulsive gamblers – people with a real problem – do lots more stupid stuff all the time.”
“You trying to make me feel better by ranking my stupidity?”
I chuckled. “Raymond, I could tell you stories of stupid things gamblers do that you wouldn’t believe…that’s why it’s called gambling.”
He looked at me again, not touching me, but neither pulling away from my hand on his shoulder. “We have to figure out how to deal with this Bubba Kinney guy,” I said.
“That may have already been done for you,” Jack said behind me.
I whirled around to find he was about three steps away, which he closed quickly. The car door was open, which is why I hadn’t heard him. He was holding out my phone to me. “Jimmy for you.”
I took the phone from him and took a couple of steps away from Jack, who was now standing next to Raymond. “Jimmy? What’s up?”
“It’s your lucky day, Anna,” Jimmy said. I could hear the tell-tale sounds of a casino behind him. I looked at my watch, which I’d kept on Vegas time.
“Are you at breakfast?”
“Yeah, well I was. I just left Ben and Gus.”
I relaxed a little. Things were normal in Vegas, anyway. “What’s happened?”
“The cops in Dubuque are throwing in the towel. The feds have packed up and gone back to D.C.”
“What? Why?”
“Three different people came forward and totally blew this Bubba Kinney’s story all ta hell.”
I looked at Raymond, who was watching me. “But, Bubba’s story is right.”
“Not according to these three guys.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know everything. My guy in Dubuque is just now getting all the details. But it looks like these three – I don’t know, witnesses, I guess – all came forward and said that Bubba Kinney was pissed ‘cuz he’d lost a lot of money on the Hogs recently and so he was going to make the players pay. He was starting with the Joseph kid.”
“But…but…”
I could almost hear Jimmy’s shrug, his hefty shoulders raising and lowering. “Yeah, I know, but I guess all three stories mesh.”
Vince. It had to be. Vince, not able to help me in Chicago, and knowing that I ultimately wouldn’t be able to hurt Raymond, had arranged for this. I don’t know how he did it, but I was deeply grateful.
I hadn’t called for a hit on Bubba. I hadn’t needed to because this was so much better. If Bubba Kinney had turned up dead, there’d be even more suspicion on Raymond. By making him out to be some crackpot disgruntled gambler, Raymond would look like the victim.
My God, might he even be able to play basketball again?
“Anna, I got to go,” Jimmy said to me. “But I’ll call when I know any more, but it looks like your boy will be in the clear.”
“Thanks so much,” I said to Jimmy, my voice cracking, which caused Raymond and Jack both to take a step toward me, Jack even outstretching a hand to me.
I hung up the phone and explained the situation to Jack and Raymond. They both looked at me with disbelief. Raymond’s mixed with hesitant relief, Jack’s with suspicion.
“Well, that was awfully neat and tidy,” Jack said, causing Raymond to look at him then follow Jack’s accusing glance to me.
“Did you do this?” Raymond asked. There was almost…respect in his voice.
“No. It didn’t even occur to me,” I admitted. I wished I’d been the mastermind for this, but it had come from somebody much more used to this sort of thing.
“But it’s because of her that it looks like you’re off the hook,” Jack said. No respect in his voice.
“Really?” Raymond turned back to me.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. Jack raised a brow at me. “Probably,” I said.
“Well, whether you did it or had someone do it, or whatever,” Raymond cleared his throat before he went on, “thank you.”
I couldn’t very well say you’re welcome, so I was grateful when Jack said, “Let’s get out of here.”
“I need to see my mom.”
“We’ll take you,” I said. I hadn’t forgotten my promise to Halia to help out her and DeeDee. “Do you have a car or anything we need to get?” I asked.
“No, I came on foot.”
“Come on, then,” Jack said, and we headed to the car.
When we were out of the railway area and headed toward Raymond’s home, he said, “JoJo, really, I want to say – ”
I put a hand up, turned my body in the passenger seat so I could face him in the back. “JoJo’s dead. Gone. She doesn’t exist anymore.”
Raymond looked at me for only a second before he got it. He nodded once.
I put my hand over the seat and held it out to him. “Anna Dawson, nice to meet you.”