Hells Kitchen

mocked, “Oh, man, who’d do something terrible like that?”
    A block later they segued around a Korean vegetable stand. Pellam said, “I need a favor.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Somebody broke into my apartment last night. Can you find out who did it?”
    “Why you ask me, you think I do that too?”
    “If I thought you did it I wouldn’t be asking you.”
    Ramirez considered. “I don’t got real good contacts in the Village, you know.”
    “How’d you know I lived in the Village?”
    “I said I got no real good contacts. I no say I don’t have any.”
    “Ask around.”
    “Okay.
    “Gracias.”
    “Nada.”
    They’d walked far north on Ninth Avenue, almost out of the Kitchen. Pellam leaned against a lamppost on the corner while Ramirez disappeared into a tiny bodega. When he came out he was carrying a thick envelope, which he slipped into the pocket of his tight jeans.
    There was sudden motion from the alley nearby.
    “Shit.” Ramirez spun around, reaching into his jacket.
    Pellam dropped into a crouch and stepped toward a parked car for cover.
    “Who the fuck’re you?” Ramirez said.
    Pellam squinted into the gloomy opening of the alley. The intruder was Ismail.
    “Yo, cuz,” the boy said, glancing uncertainly at the Latino. The boy stepped forward uncertainly.
    Ramirez glanced at him like he was a roach. “Man, you come up on people like that . . . I thinking I oughta cap you ass.”
    Ismail’s cautious eyes swept the sidewalk.
    To Pellam he said, “You know him?”
    “Yeah. He’s a friend of mine.”
    A faint grin seemed to cross the boy’s face.
    “A friend of yours?” Ramirez spat out. “Why you want a little moyeto like that for a friend?”
    “He’s okay.”
    “He okay?” Ramirez muttered. “He come sneaking up on me again, he gonna be one dead okay friend of yours.”
    “Hey, Ismail, how come you’re not at the Outreach Center?”
    “Dunno. Just hanging.”
    “Hear anything about your mother and sister?”
    He shook his head, eyes slipping from Ramirez’s scowl to Pellam’s face. And for a moment Ismail seemed just like any other child. Shy, uneasy, torn between fear and yearning. It hurt Pellam to see this vulnerability. The street defiance was somehow easier to take. He thought about Carol Wyandotte’s assessment. She was wrong. It was’t too late for him. There had to be some hope.
    Pellam crouched down. “Do me a favor. Go on back to the Outreach Center. Get some sleep. You eat anything?”
    He shrugged.
    “Did you?” Pellam persisted.
    “I ’jacked some beer,” he said proudly. “Me and a homie, we drank that.”
    But Pellam couldn’t smell any liquor on the boy’s breath. Childish bravado.
    Pellam gave him five dollars. “Go to McDonald’s.”
    “Yeah! Hey, you come by and see me, Pellam? I show you some good shit. We play basketball, I know all the moves!”
    “Yeah, I’ll come by.”
    The boy turned to leave.
    Ramirez called out brusquely, “Hey, punk. . . .”
    Ismail stopped, looked back cautiously.
    “You got big feet?”
    The round, dark face stared up at him.
    “I ask you a question. You got big feet.”
    “Dunno.” He looked down at his tattered sneakers.
    “Here.” Ramirez tossed the box of basketball shoes toward the boy. He caught it awkwardly. Looked inside.
    His eyes went wide. “Shit. Be Jordan Air Pumps. Shit.”
    “They no fit now, not too good,” Ramirez said, “but maybe, you don’t sneak up on people, you live long enough to grow inta them. Now you do what he tell you.” Nodding at Pellam. “Get the fuck outa here.”
    When he was gone Ramirez said to Pellam, “Let’s go celebrate my deal.” He tapped the pocket where the fat, white envelope rested. “You drink tequila?”
    “Mescal I drink. Sauza I drink. Margaritas ’re disgusting.”
    Ramirez exhaled a derisive laugh, as he always seemed to do when somebody stated the obvious, and started off down the street, impatiently gesturing Pellam after him. Plans for the evening had apparently been made.
    *   *   *
    They split the worm.
    Ramirez hacked the poor thing apart with an honest-to-God West Side Story switchblade as they sat in a smokey little Cuban-Chinese restaurant near Columbus Circle.
    Pellam told him about location scouting in Mexico, where he’d spent hours with the off-duty gaffers and grips and stunt people, bragging about their psychedelic experiences ingesting fat white mescal worms. “I never felt anything though.”
    “No, man,”