Дэвид Балдаччи - Daylight

“No, step right up. Which teeth you want to lose and which ones you want to keep? I’ll try to be accommodating.”

The other man split the ring ropes so Pine could duck under.

She stood to her full height and drew closer to the man she was about to combat. He looked a little surprised that she was taller than he was.

Pine took off her jacket, revealing the Glock in her belt holster.

“You want me to hold your piece for you, lady?” said one man in the crowd.

“That would be a no.” She looked at the man in the ring. “How much do you weigh?”

“One-sixty.”

“Wow, almost as much as me. I’m five pounds heavier, for the record.” Pine had on a short-sleeved shirt underneath, and her ropy, corded muscles were clearly visible. The man glanced over at his friend, who shrugged and looked a little nervous as he stepped out of the ring.

“Okay, what are the rules?” asked Pine.

“Shit, ain’t no rules in here,” the man laughed.

“Great.” In a blinding move, Pine slammed a foot into his gut, and when he doubled over, she laid her right leg against the side of his head with such stunning force that it knocked him right through the ropes, where he was caught by several of the onlookers below.

She walked over and looked down at him. “Okay, warm-up’s over. You want to start now? Or just answer my questions? Your call.”

They heard someone clapping and all turned to see Gerald walking back to the ring, alone. Gerald stopped next to the boxer Pine had laid out and knelt down. “Okay, Ty, remember what I keep telling you about disrespecting the women?”

Ty nodded dumbly. Gerald helped him to his feet and looked up at Pine.

“Peanut ain’t here.” He turned to the others. “Anybody here know where Peanut is?”

Pine looked over the crowd one by one until a young man around eighteen stepped forward.

“Seen him over at Duke’s,” said the man. “Before I come here.” Pine glanced at Gerald. “Duke’s?”

“When you leave here, go right, three blocks, then go left. It’s a... store.”

“What do they sell?” she asked.

“It depends,” said Gerald. “It just depends on what you want. But if I were you, I wouldn’t be buying.”

Duke’s was a storefront that looked abandoned, just like every other storefront around here. Pine peered through the glass doors, but it was too dark inside to make out anything. She rapped on the glass. Then she rapped again.

“What do you want?”

She looked up to see a man staring down at her from the second-floor window.

“I’d like to talk to Peanut. I heard he was here.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“A guy over at Calhoun’s.”

“And you are...?”

The man was in his forties with wiry dark hair and a stern, suspicious countenance. As he leaned out she could see he was wearing a compression-fit sleeveless athletic shirt showing arms and shoulders that were both heavily muscled and tatted.

“Just a friend. I met him over at the school.”

“Peanut don’t go to school.”

“But his friend Jerome did. I’m trying to find out what happened to him.”

“Then you a cop?”

“I have some pictures to show Peanut. He agreed to look at them.”

The man disappeared from the window.

A minute later the shop door opened and there stood Peanut.

“You got them pictures?” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked over his shoulder to see the man standing about ten feet farther back in the room.

Pine said quietly, “So what sort of business goes on here?”

“This and that.”

“Right. Is that guy in there Duke?”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know much. Works fine for me.”

They got into the car and Peanut was shown all the photos one by one. At the end he said, “He ain’t in there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Real sure. Ain’t nobody in there look like he did.”

Pine sat back, enormously frustrated. She looked at Blum. “We keep running into dead ends and I’m really getting sick of it.”

Peanut said, “See, what I can’t figure is, why Jerome do it at all. I mean, why he let a man do that to him? Give him a gun and set him up, ’cause that had to be what went down. And then he get shot on top of it. Why do shit when you know you gonna die? Why not say no and take your chances?”

“Maybe Jerome didn’t know he was going to die,” replied Blum.

Pine glanced at Peanut. “You said you haven’t been friends with Jerome for a long time?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Would you know about any close friends he might have?”

“Not really. Maybe somebody at school. Why?”

“Because in the alley that night he told me, ‘ We’re in deep shit.’ I’m just trying to think of someone they could have threatened to get Jerome to do what he did.”

“Shit, lady, only ones he might do that for is his family. Nobody closer than that to him. They all real tight.”

“You know, I think you might be right about that. Thanks, Peanut.”

He opened the door. “And, yeah, that’s Duke in there.”

“This and that?” said Pine.

Peanut smiled. “Little’a this and a little’a that.”

“Give me your cell phone number in case I can get some more pictures to show you. I won’t have to look you up in person.” He did so and then climbed out of the car.

After he went back into the shop Blum said, “Where are we going now?”

“Back to Blake’s house. I’ve got a hunch and I’m praying that it pays off, because if it doesn’t we have less than zero right now.”

“Did you find Peanut?” asked Cee-Cee Blake when she answered their knock.

“We did. Turns out he really couldn’t help us, but I was wondering if we could speak to your daughter.”

Blake looked confused. “To Jewel? Why?”

“We wanted to ask her a few questions about her brother.”

Blake shook her head. “She’s really upset. Can barely get her to eat anything. And she won’t come out of her room.”

“We will be very gentle, Cee-Cee. We have experience speaking with young people. And I really think it might help with finding out what happened to your son.”

“Well, okay. I guess you can try. You want me to go with you?”

“Just to introduce us. Then we’d like to speak with her alone.”

“No guarantee she’ll see you, though, and I ain’t gonna make her.”

They followed Blake up the stairs and down the short hall to a bedroom door. She knocked.

“Honey? It’s them two ladies from the FBI again. They want to ask you some questions about your brother.”

“No!” a voice screamed out. “Tell them to go away.”

Before Blake could answer Pine stepped forward and said, “Jewel, it’s really important.”

“I said no.”

“I’d like to know why your brother did what he did.”

“Go away.”

“Because I think he did it to protect you.”

Silence.

Blake looked astonished. “What the hell do you mean by that? Protecting Jewel? From what?”

They turned when they heard the door start to open. And then there was Jewel, tall and beautiful and well-developed for her age, with long dark hair swirling around her shoulders. She had on pajamas, with characters from Mulan on them. Her eyes were reddened and swollen.

“It’s okay, Momma, I’ll talk to the lady.”

“You sure, baby?”

Jewel nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Blake gave Pine a disapproving look. “Well, okay, but don’t take too long, honey, you need to rest.”

She slowly walked back down the stairs.

“Can we come in?” asked Pine.