Hells Kitchen

a long day.”
    They came to the north-south avenue. Ramirez looked up and down and they turned north. After a minute he said, “I don’t believe you. You too fucking much.”
    “What?”
    “Hanging out in fronta our kickback, man. Nobody does that. Not even the cops.”
    “You plant the geraniums yourself?”
    “Fuck you. You carrying?”
    “A gun?” Pellam asked. “No.”
    “Man, you are a crazy fuck. Coming to my kickback without a gun. That how people get blown away. What you mean, I lie to you?”
    “Tell me about your aunt, Hector. The one got burned out of the Four-fifty-eight building. She got a new place, I heard.”
    Ramirez grinned. “I tell you I look after my family.”
    “When did she move?”
    “I dunno.”
    “ Before the fire?”
    “Around then. I don’t know exactly.”
    “You forgot?”
    “Yeah, I fucking forgot. Man, I’m busy, why you don’t go have a fucking talk with Corcoran?
    “I already did.”
    Ramirez lifted an eyebrow, trying not to look too impressed.
    Pellam continued, “You also forgot to tell me that she was one of—how many was it?—eight hundred eyewitnesses who saw Joe the Thug kill that guy from Corcoran’s crew.”
    “Spear Driscoe and Bobby Frink.”
    “So are we all agreed that Corcoran didn’t burn down the building because of your aunt? That’s not a white man’s lie now, is it?”
    “Just go away, man. I’m busy.”
    “How well you get along with somebody named O’Neil?”
    “I don’t know nobody named O’Neil.”
    “No? He knows you.”
    Ramirez spat out, “What the fuck you talking to him for?” The young man had been playfully irritated a moment ago. Now he was mad.
    “Who said I was talking to him?” Pellam touched his ear. “I hear things too. I heard maybe he had some guns. Maybe he was selling some guns.”
    Ramirez stopped walking, gripped Pellam’s arm. “What you hear?”
    Pellam pulled his arm away. “That you rousted him last week. ’Cause he’s selling hardware to Corcoran.”
    Ramirez blinked. Then broke into a huge laugh. “Oh, man.”
    “True, or not true?
    “Both, man.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “True and not true.” He started walking again. “Look, I gonna explain this but you keep it to yourself. Otherwise I have to kill you.”
    “Tell me.”
    Ramirez said, “O’Neil, him and me, we do business. He supplies me. Get’s me good stuff. Glocks, MAC-10s, Steyrs.”
    “You beat up your own supplier in public?”
    “Fuck yes. Was his idea. He’s a mick and I’m a spic. You know how long he’d last, Jimmy finds out he was selling to me? Some of Corcoran’s boys, they were getting suspicious so we do some sparring out in public. O’Neil, he took a fall.” Ramirez looked at Pellam closely. He roared with laughter.
    “What’s the joke?”
    “I can see it in your face, man. You almost believe me.” The young man added, “I can prove it. Yeah, there was guns in the building. I paid for ’em and O’Neil left ’em there for me to pick up only I didn’t send nobody over there before the place burned. There was Glocks, Brownings and some pretty little Tauruses I had my heart set on, man. Twelve, thirteen of ’em. You talk to one of your reporter friends. See what the crime scene boys found there. If that’s right then you know I no burn down nothing.”
    Pellam pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket. “Three Glock, four Tauruses, and six Brownings.”
    “Man, you good.”
    They passed Forty-second Street, once the Tenderloin of New York and now about as dangerous—and interesting—as a suburban strip mall. Pellam asked, “Where’re we going?”
    “I’m doing a business deal. And I don’t want you around.”
    “Your crew’s in business?”
    “Not a crew, man. It’s a club.”
    “What kind of business?”
    Ramirez lifted the top of the box, revealing a pair of new basketball shoes.
    “I got a truckload of ’em.”
    “You buy ’em and then you sell ’em, that right?” Pellam asked skeptically.
    “Yeah, I buy things and sell ’em. That’s my business.”
    “What about the ‘buy’ part? You paid money and took delivery of a shipment of these? Invoice, bill of lading, all that?”
    “Yeah, I bought ’em,” Ramirez shot back. “Same way you fucking reporters pay people for your stories. You do that? You pay somebody to tell you things?”
    “No, but—”
    “‘No, but.’ Fuck. You take people’s lives, write about ’em, and don’t pay nobody for them.” He