“So what keeps them here? You?”
He put his hand on one of the ropes. “Lived here my whole life. Fought in the ring a lot in my day. Was pretty good. Marine Corps champion for my weight class. Served my time in Nam. Got a lungful of Agent Orange, which derailed any athletic career I might have been contemplating. I’m seventy-one years old and feel like I’m a hundred. You have days like that?”
“I think we all do, even without breathing in Agent Orange.”
“Anyway, I started this gym in 1977. Been running it ever since. Try to teach the young folks around here the art of pugilism. But really, I’m just trying to give them a safe space to go to. Learn some discipline. Learn about working hard, setting goals, getting together in groups without pursuing any illegal activity, if you get my point.”
“All good things. So, Peanut?”
“He’s usually around here this time of day. Let me go check.”
Gerald walked off and the situation changed immediately. She could sense the heightened tension, the more focused gazes of the men who had once more clustered around her.
The men in the ring stopped what they were doing and leaned over the ropes. One took out his mouthpiece and snarled, “What you doing here?”
“Just asking about someone.”
“You ain’t got the right to ask ’bout nobody,” barked the other man, spitting out his mouth guard. “You can’t come in here and ask nothing.”
“And why is that?”
“She’s a cop,” said one of the men in the crowd. “Saw her flash her badge.”
The first fighter said, “Then you ain’t welcome here. You just good for shooting us in the back.”
Pine sized him up. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you can kick my ass, I’ll leave. If I kick your ass, I stay and get my questions answered. Deal?”
The two fighters looked at each other and belly-laughed. The crowd of men behind her closed ranks and did likewise.
“You gonna get in this ring with me?” he said with an incredulous look that eased to a grin.
“Unless you want to come out here.”
“No, step right up. Which teeth you want to lose and which ones you want to keep? I’ll try to be accommodating.”
The other man split the ring ropes so Pine could duck under.
She stood to her full height and drew closer to the man she was about to combat. He looked a little surprised that she was taller than he was.
Pine took off her jacket, revealing the Glock in her belt holster.
“You want me to hold your piece for you, lady?” said one man in the crowd.
“That would be a no.” She looked at the man in the ring. “How much do you weigh?”
“One-sixty.”
“Wow, almost as much as me. I’m five pounds heavier, for the record.” Pine had on a short-sleeved shirt underneath, and her ropy, corded muscles were clearly visible. The man glanced over at his friend, who shrugged and looked a little nervous as he stepped out of the ring.
“Okay, what are the rules?” asked Pine.
“Shit, ain’t no rules in here,” the man laughed.
“Great.” In a blinding move, Pine slammed a foot into his gut, and when he doubled over, she laid her right leg against the side of his head with such stunning force that it knocked him right through the ropes, where he was caught by several of the onlookers below.
She walked over and looked down at him. “Okay, warm-up’s over. You want to start now? Or just answer my questions? Your call.”
They heard someone clapping and all turned to see Gerald walking back to the ring, alone. Gerald stopped next to the boxer Pine had laid out and knelt down. “Okay, Ty, remember what I keep telling you about disrespecting the women?”
Ty nodded dumbly. Gerald helped him to his feet and looked up at Pine.
“Peanut ain’t here.” He turned to the others. “Anybody here know where Peanut is?”
Pine looked over the crowd one by one until a young man around eighteen stepped forward.
“Seen him over at Duke’s,” said the man. “Before I come here.”
Pine glanced at Gerald. “Duke’s?”
“When you leave here, go right, three blocks, then go left. It’s a…store.”
“What do they sell?” she asked.
“It depends,” said Gerald. “It just depends on what you want. But if I were you, I wouldn’t be buying.”
Chapter 46
DUKE’S WAS A STOREFRONT that looked abandoned, just like every other storefront around here. Pine peered through the glass doors, but it was too dark inside to make out anything. She rapped on the glass. Then she rapped again.
“What do you want?”
She looked up to see a man staring down at her from the second-floor window.
“I’d like to talk to Peanut. I heard he was here.”
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“A guy over at Calhoun’s.”
“And you are…?”
The man was in his forties with wiry dark hair and a stern, suspicious countenance. As he leaned out she could see he was wearing a compression-fit sleeveless athletic shirt showing arms and shoulders that were both heavily muscled and tatted.
“Just a friend. I met him over at the school.”
“Peanut don’t go to school.”
“But his friend Jerome did. I’m trying to find out what happened to him.”
“Then you a cop?”
“I have some pictures to show Peanut. He agreed to look at them.”
The man disappeared from the window.
A minute later the shop door opened and there stood Peanut.
“You got them pictures?” he said.
“Yeah.” She looked over his shoulder to see the man standing about ten feet farther back in the room.
Pine said quietly, “So what sort of business goes on here?”
“This and that.”
“Right. Is that guy in there Duke?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know much. Works fine for me.”
They got into the car and Peanut was shown all the photos one by one. At the end he said, “He ain’t in there.”
“You’re sure?”
“Real sure. Ain’t nobody in there look like he did.”
Pine sat back, enormously frustrated. She looked at Blum. “We keep running into dead ends and I’m really getting sick of it.”
Peanut said, “See, what I can’t figure is, why Jerome do it at all. I mean, why he let a man do that to him? Give him a gun and set him up, ’cause that had to be what went down. And then he get shot on top of it. Why do shit when you know you gonna die? Why not say no and take your chances?”
“Maybe Jerome didn’t know he was going to die,” replied Blum.
Pine glanced at Peanut. “You said you haven’t been friends with Jerome for a long time?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Would you know about any close friends he might have?”
“Not really. Maybe somebody at school. Why?”
“Because in the alley that night he told me, ‘We’re in deep shit.’ I’m just trying to think of someone they could have threatened to get Jerome to do what he did.”