The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

"Speak for you, speak for you. Okay. Tell me, what his tat look like?" Skinny little Ralph with a skinny little goatee was recovering some of his bravado. It was testing time again.

"Which one?" Jax responded. "The rose or the blade? And I understand he's got another one near his dick. But I never got close enough to see it."

Ralph nodded, unsmiling. "What yo' name?"

"Jackson. Alonzo Jackson. But I go by Jax." The tag had a righteous reputation attached to it. He wondered if Ralph had heard about him. But apparently not--no raised eyebrows. This pissed Jax off. "You want to check me out with DeLisle, go right ahead, man, only don't use my name over the phone, you know what I'm saying? Just tell him the Graffiti King came by to have a confab with you."

"Graffiti King," Ralph repeated, clearly wondering what that was about. Did it mean Jax spread motherfuckers' blood around like spray paint? "Okay. Maybe I check. Depending. So you out."

"I'm out."

"What was you in fo'?"

"AR and weapons." Then he added with a lowered voice, "They went after me for a twenty-five, twenty-five attempt. That got knocked down to assault." A shorthand reference to the Penal Code provision for murder, Section 125.25.

"An' now you a free man. That phat."

Jax thought this was funny--here's sad-ass Ralph nervous and all when Jax comes along with a cigarette and a s'up, man. But then starts relaxing when he finds out that he did hard time for armed robbery, illegal weapons possession and attempted murder, spraying blood like paint.

Harlem. Didn't you just fucking love it?

Inside, just before he'd been released, he'd tapped DeLisle Marshall for some help and the brother had told him to hook up with Ralph. Lisle had explained why the little skel was a good man to know. "That man hang out ever'where. Like he be ownin' the streets. Know ever'thing. Or can find it out."

Now, the blood-painting Graffiti King sucked hard on the cigarette and got right down to it. "Need you to set me up, man," Jax said in a soft voice.

"Yeah? Whatchu need?"

Which meant both whatchu need and what'm I going to make from it?

Fair enough.

A glance around. They were alone except for pigeons and two short, fine-looking Dominican girls striding past. Despite the cold they wore skimpy tops and tight shorts on their round, knock-me-down bodies. "Ay, papi," one called to Jax with a smile and kept going. The girls crossed the street and turned east into their turf. Fifth Avenue had been the dividing line between black and Spanish Harlem--el barrio--for years. Once you were east of Fifth, that was the Other Side. Could still be down, could still be phat, but it wasn't the same Harlem.

Jax watched them disappear. "Damn." He'd been in prison a long time.

"Word," Ralph said. He adjusted how he was leaning and crossed his arms like some Egyptian prince.

Jax waited a minute and bent down, whispered into the pharaoh's ear, "I need a piece."

"You fresh, man," Ralph said after a moment. "Yo' ass get caught with a piece, they violate you back in a minute. And you still gotta do a annual in Rikers fo' the gun. Why you wanta take a chance like that?"

Jax asked patiently, "Can you do it or not?"

The scrawny dude adjusted the angle of his lean and looked up at Jax. "I think we phat, man. But I ain't sure I know where to find anything fo' you. A piece, I'm saying."

"Then I ain't sure I know who to give this to." He pulled out a roll of benjamins, peeled off some twenties, held them out to Ralph. Being real careful, of course. One black man slipping another some money on the streets of Harlem could raise a cop's eyebrow, even if the guy was just tithing to a minister from the nearby Baptist Ascension Pentecostal Church.

But the only eyebrow going up was Ralph's as he pocketed the bills and looked at the rest of the roll. "You got yourself some tall paper there."

"Word. And you've got yourself some of it now. And a chance for more. Happy day." He put the wad away.

Ralph grunted. "What kinda piece?"

"Small. Something I can hide easy, you know what I'm saying?"

"Cost you five."

"Cost me two, I could do it."