Cross Country (Alex Cross 14)

“Ghedi Ahmed,” said the white devil. “You know who he is?”

The Tiger nodded. “I know who he used to be.”

“Make an example of him.”

“And his family.”

“Of course,” said the white devil. “His family too.”

Chapter 8

I PUT IN a call for help to my friend Avie Glazer, who headed up the Gang Intervention Project in the Third District. I told Avie why it was important to me.

“ ’Course I’ll help. You know me, Alex. I’m more tapped into La Mara R, Vatos Locos, Northwest gangs. But you can come over here and ask around Seventeenth and R if you want. See if anybody’s tuned in.”

“Any way you could meet us?” I asked him. “I’ll owe you one. Buy you a beer.”

“Which makes it how many total? Favors and beers?”

That was his way of saying yes, though. Bree and I met Avie at a shitty little pool hall called Forty-Four. The owner told us that was how old he was when he opened the place. Avie already knew the story but listened politely anyway.

“Seemed like as good a name as any,” the owner said. His what-ev attitude struck me as that of a long-term stoner. For sure, he wasn’t making his nut on billiards and sodas. His name was Jaime Ramirez, and Avie Glazer had advised me to give him room and a little respect.

“You know anything about the murders in Georgetown last night?” I asked Ramirez after we’d chitchatted some. “Multiple perps?”

“That was some awful shit,” he said, leaning on the bottom half of a Dutch door, a brown cigarette held between stubby fingers and tilted at the same angle as his body.

He chinned up at the television in the corner. “Channel Four’s all I get in here, Detective.”

“How about any new games opening up?” Bree asked. “Players we might not have heard about? Somebody who would wipe a family out?”

“Hard to keep up,” Ramirez said and shrugged. That’s when Glazer gave him a look. “But yeah, matter of fact, there has been some talk.”

His dark eyes flicked almost involuntarily past me and Bree. “Africans,” he said to Avie.

“African American?” I asked. “Or—”

“African African.” He turned back to Avie. “Yo, Toto, I’m gonna get something for this? Or this a freebie?”

Avie Glazer looked at me first and then at Ramirez. “Let’s say I owe you one.”

“What kind of African?” I asked.

He shrugged and blew out air. “How’m I supposed to know that? Black-guys-from-Africa kind of African.”

“English speaking?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “But I never spoke to them. Sounds like they’re into a little bit of everything. You know, four-H club? Hits, ho’s, heroin, and heists. This ain’t your graffiti-and-skip-party kind of gang.”

He opened a glass-fronted cooler and took out a can of Coke. “Anyone thirsty? Two dollars.”

“I’ll take one,” Glazer said. He cupped a couple of bills into Ramirez’s hand, and they didn’t look like singles.

Then Glazer turned to me. “And I will collect from you too. Count on it.”

“Africans,” Ramirez repeated as we headed toward the door, “from Africa.”

Chapter 9