Hair of the Dog by Gordon Carroll (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

“Go home, Mason,” said the man I wanted to kill. “Go home. Last warning.” He turned and walked away, not looking back once. If he had I think I might have shot him, Secret Service agent or not. But he didn’t, so I took a few deep breaths and got into the car and drove back to the motel.

34

Ziggy paid the man behind the bullet-proof glass the hourly rate for the room and walked up the dingy stairs with the woman. She was young, twenty-three, still not bad looking, although the meth had already begun to take its toll, corroding the skin from the inside out, blistering the flesh of her cheeks and forehead and leaving small bloody scabs. Her dress stopped just past her bikini line, clutching her thin frame like bony fingers. Her skin was light, vanilla latte light. Her teeth were still very bright and even; unusual for a mether. The drug often ate away at tooth enamel, leaving blacked-ribbed spikes. But there was plenty of time for that. Her hair, jet black, straight and full of product and weave, reached to the top of the swell of her buttocks. It was one of her bestselling features. The girl said her name was Rockeeta, but Ziggy knew her real name was Janel Barker and that she lived on the south side. He also knew she had two daughters, four and three, and that her baby’s daddy was her pimp and that he would be somewhere close by. But most importantly, Ziggy knew that she was the niece of Nora James and that Nora James was the mother of little Keisha James who Jerome had killed, leading them all down this strange rabbit hole. Oh yes, Ziggy knew all of this, he surely did, because Mr. Diamond had told him so and Mr. Diamond was never wrong. His information was one hundred percent accurate one hundred percent of the time and that’s why he was still alive, even after all these years when oh so many others weren’t.

Ziggy and Rockeeta got to the room and she started to undress, but Ziggy stopped her with a shake of his head and a smile.

“No, no, sweet thing. Ziggy says he’s too old for all that kind of foolishness. Too old and already married to a very jealous lady who shows me her love with a needle and spoon.”

Rockeeta stopped and smoothed her short dress back down over her upper thighs. She canted her head toward him.

“No refunds, old man,” she said.

“Ziggy says he don’t want no refund, darling. No ma’am what Ziggy wants is some information.”

“What kind of information?” she asked, a wary slyness coming to her voice.

“What Ziggy wants to know is why someone would want to find a little girl named Keisha James?”

The girl’s face went pale, her eyes wide, but like the natural street animal she had been forced to become in order to survive, she recovered quickly.

“Don’t know nobody by that name,” said Rockeeta.

Ziggy pulled out his wallet and removed three of the ten one hundred dollar bills that Gil had given him to buy information. He tossed them on the bed.

“Ziggy says he think you do.”

Rockeeta looked at the money, her tongue unconsciously darting past her lips before slipping back inside.

“Why you want to know?”

“Ziggy say he trying to help her; that he is. You’re her blood, so you should want to help her too, seeing how she’s family.”

“How you know that, old man?”

“Ziggy say that ain’t important. What is important is that if Ziggy can know it, then somebody else can know it too. And that somebody might not like the fact that you know and do something real bad about it. Now if Ziggy find out what he needs to find out, then he can take care of that somebody permanent like and then you won’t have to worry ‘bout Mr. somebody ever again. That, and you get to keep the money.”

She licked her lips again.

“An old man like you gonna take care of some real bad men? Because that’s what they be.”

“Ziggy got some real bad men of his own working this. The baddest men you ever saw. That he do. Either way, ain’t nobody ever gonna know where the info come from. That, Ziggy will promise you, darling.”

“Well, she is family,” she said. “Throw another three bills on there and bump me a hit of H and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Ziggy says he’ll share his H with you now, but the rest of the bills will wait till he hears what you gots to say.”

“Rockeeta says she thinks she likes you, old man. You sure you don’t want nothin’ else?” She tugged up on her dress again in invitation.

“You tempting, darling, Ziggy say that’s the real true truth. And if Ziggy was ten years younger or if his lady was a little less demanding, then Ziggy would take you up on that, and Ziggy thank you kindly for the offer, but…no.” He pulled out his kit and unzipped it showing her the makings. “We gots a deal?”

Her tongue made that darting movement again; in and out.

“Deal.”

Rockeeta felt good. The old man had left and she’d gotten a free fix to boot. And better than that, she was pretty sure she’d hit the jackpot here. Word on the street was that there was big money for anyone trying to get info on a little girl named Keisha James. Her mother, Rockeeta’s aunt, had been killed a while back and Keisha stolen.

Everyone knew it had been a hit by the Bloods, but no one knew why. Well, most people didn’t know why. But some people did. Some of the freelancer ho’s on the street knew. Rockeeta knew. Of course there’d always been rumors, plenty of those going around. But Rockeeta knew for sure. Her sister told her herself. From her lips to God’s ears, as her dear dead mommy use to