Jasmine smiled. “Hi, we’re here to see Black Jus.”
The waitress nodded and turned around and screamed out something in Spanish to another sexy Spanish lady at the cash register.
“You can have a seat. He should be right out.”
Jasmine and Gosling thanked her, and they took a seat inside the tight restaurant.
After about five minutes, a muscular brown-skinned dude standing six foot five and looking like he could play on the defensive line for the New York Giants emerged from the back of the restaurant. Jasmine thought the guy was black, so she was surprised when she heard him speak to the waitress in Spanish. The waitress looked annoyed, and she responded in Spanish with an attitude. She pointed out Jasmine and Gosling, who looked in the direction of the tall dude, and he motioned for them to follow him.
When they made it to the back of the restaurant, he introduced himself as Poppy an
d shook Jasmine’s hand.
“Hi, I’m Jasmine.”
Gosling held out his hand for a pound. “Jimmy,” Gosling replied. Gosling was a second generation Jamaican who didn’t have the slightest bit of a Jamaican accent, yet he’d decided to go with the street name Jamaican Jimmy.
“Watch your step. This floor is slippery,” Poppy said as he led them through the kitchen and down a narrow set of metal stairs that led to a basement.
As soon as Jimmy opened the door to the basement, the sound of loud hip-hop could be heard bouncing off the walls, and a strong smell of weed smacked them in the face.
When they made it to the basement, Black Justice was sitting at a metal rectangular desk in front of a huge cage made out of chicken wire with two large pit bulls inside. Both of the dogs had the hugest heads that Jamaican Jimmy had ever seen on a pit bull before. He was certain that somebody had been injecting the dogs with steroids.
Black Justice was eating a plate of Spanish rice and chicken. He nodded to Jasmine and Jamaican Jimmy and motioned for them to have a seat at the two chairs positioned in front of his desk. Poppy stood off to the side.
Jasmine had her recorder on, but with the sound of the music blasting, there was no way it would pick up any conversation. Jimmy didn’t tell Jasmine, but he also had a recording device strapped to his ankle inside the brand-new construction-style Timberlands he was wearing.
Black Justice motioned for Poppy to lower the volume on the music, and Poppy turned the music off completely.
“I said turn the shit down, I didn’t say turn it off,” Black Justice hollered. “That was my shit right there.”
Poppy turned the music back up, but not as loud as before. Agent Gosling was glad that Poppy had turned the music down because he was certain his recorder could pick up everything being said.
Black Justice took a pull on the blunt he was smoking and began nodding his head to the music. He then stood up and took another pull before passing it to Poppy.
“Black Justice,” he said to Jimmy and extended his hand for a pound.
“Jimmy,” Agent Gosling replied as he clasped Black Justice’s hand.
“What’s good, Jasmine?”
Jasmine smiled. “Nothing. You see we here and we ain’t front on you.”
Black Justice nodded, and then he sat down and ate some more off his food.
Poppy passed the blunt back to Black Justice, who held it out for Jimmy, but Jimmy held up one of his hands and waved off the weed. Jasmine wanted to cringe, but she held it together. Then she reached over and took the weed from Black Justice and took some pulls on it.
Black Justice asked Jimmy, “You don’t smoke?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“He’s Jamaican and he don’t smoke weed,” Jasmine said, trying to ease some of the tension that had suddenly filled the room. “Can you believe that shit?”
“Jamaican Jimmy, I like that,” Black Justice said. Then he asked Jimmy if he knew an Italian dude name Joey from North Carolina. “The Italians call him Joey Six-Pack.”
“Yeah, I’m cool with him,” Jimmy replied.
Joey Six-Pack was an FBI informant the Raleigh, North Carolina field office had briefed Jimmy on.