Page 66 of Gifts

I use his street name first because after talking to his parole officer, he doesn’t go by Raymond often. “Ritchie.”

If a drug dealer could look annoyed, this would be an example of it. “My fuckin’ cousin. He really fuckin’ dropped my name?”

I don’t answer, but raise a brow.

“He’s an errand boy at best. I don’t trust him with money because I don’t trust that he wouldn’t try to step out and work for someone else.” He shakes his head. “Doin’ business with family. Fuckin’ pain up the ass is what he is.”

I can see how that could be, but get back to what I want to know. “You know the car or not?”

The woman at his side is oblivious to what’s going on around her. She drops a hand to his crotch and starts going to town on his neck like a cow on a salt lick.

Dooley looks between the three of us and I can tell he knows, but instead of giving it up, he shrugs. “I’ll check around, but only because your buddy here offered me a future favor and he seems like the kind of guy I might need at my back someday.”

“Just remember, there were exclusions,” Jarvis intercedes.

Fucking great. Jarvis is offering favors to drug dealers. Who knows what kind of outstanding markers he’s got around the globe.

“Your man knows how to get hold of me,” Jarvis reminds him.

Dooley gives us a chin lift and we head for the door, not knowing anything more than we did when we got here.

When we get out of the smoke and grease laden building, I turn to Jarvis. “You planning on mowing his yard as a favor?”

Jarvis keeps his eyes forward as we move down the street. “I’m never in the country anyway—good luck to him cashing in on that favor. The more I looked into him, he’s a big man in the District—bigger than we thought. He dabbles in a lot of shit and knows what’s going down in the metro. Not a bad contact to have in case I need one in the future.”

Just when I was about to agree—especially if he can get me a name of who owns that damn car—my eyes lock onto a group standing diagonally across the intersection. Right in the middle is the man who’s disappeared for days—Raymond Wallace.

I pick up my pace and Jarvis looks over when I say, “It’s Dooley’s MIA pain-in-the-ass cousin.”

I have a feeling if anyone knows who drives that dark blue sedan, it’s him.

After glancing up and down the street, I head for my target with Jarvis right beside me. We make it half-way across the street when Raymond and his group catch wind of us, and the second he lays eyes on me, panic transforms his dumb-ass face. In that moment, he bolts.

I pick my tempo up to a flat-out run and we round the corner where he disappeared. The streetlights become fewer and farther between off the main drag, but it’s easy to spot him as he crosses the next street and turns again.

I hear footfalls behind us and Jarvis growls, “I’ll take care of them.”

I never take my eyes off my target, even when I hear grunts, groans, and bodies colliding behind me in the distance.

Raymond might be as tall as me, but he’s scrawny, and I catch up to him easily. When he jumps on a chain-link fence, fierce barks and howls break through the night. Raymond changes his mind and falls to the ground, landing on his back.

When I approach, he pulls his hoodie up from his waist and goes for a pistol tucked into his jeans. I kick his hand, dislodging the gun at the same time, and it skids across the sidewalk.

Raymond reaches up to fight me off with one hand while grasping for the gun with the other.

“Did you not learn your lesson last time?” I growl, putting a knee to his chest and grabbing his stray weapon at the same time. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Why the fuck’re you all over my ass?” His voice is husky from running and my weight on his chest.

“You’re a hard man to find the second time around. I need more info.”

Three dogs behind the fence are barking up a shit-storm, bringing us all kinds of unwanted attention.

“I don’t know anything about anything,” he sputters.

“Who else do you work for besides Dooley?”

“I paint houses sometimes. Told you I have a legit job.”

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