Trip Wire_ A Cook County Mystery - Charlotte Carter [40]
He grunted.
“Sim. What is that short for? Simmons?”
“My mama named me Simpson.”
“Sim, you mind if I ask you a few personal questions?”
I got a few blinks out of him, but no answer. Still, I pressed on. “You do any drugs?”
“I look like a junkie to you?”
“I don’t mean that. I’m talking about grass, hash, coke.”
“Why you wanna know that?”
“I have my reasons. And don’t worry, I would never say anything to Woody.”
“I like to get high. Who don’t?”
“When you buy it, do you get it from somebody around here?”
“You wanna cop? You didn’t have to buy me no ribs for that.”
“I don’t need to—” I stopped myself. “Actually, yes. That’s what I want to do. Cop. Can you put me in touch?”
He had methodically eaten all the ribs before going after the french fries. Now he was taking care of those as he thought it over. “What if your uncle find out? Good-bye to my job.”
“He won’t. It’ll all be on me.”
“Okay.”
“Can I ask you something else? You’ve been in prison, haven’t you?”
He was using a Wet-Nap to clean his face. The little square of moistened tissue was lost in his big hand. “You say you was raised around here?”
“Yes.”
“Y’all are some nosey motherfuckers in this neighborhood.”
4
We picked our way around the mounds of filthy snow. “Your connection,” I said. “Is he just some kid who deals on the street?”
“I don’t buy from no kids.”
“All right, don’t get mad. So your connection is a little higher up on the chain. Does he work for a man named Henry Waddell?”
Now Sim looked at me with something other than that impassive stare.
I repeated it. “Does he?”
“Not much get sold on the South Side Waddell don’t have something to do with.”
“So that means yes. Your guy works for Waddell. Even if it’s indirectly.”
“Even if it’s what?”
“I’m saying your guy may not take orders directly from Henry Waddell. But Waddell will end up getting his cut.”
“Damn right he will. How you know about that anyway?”
“I’m not as dumb as I look, Sim.”
“Didn’t nobody say you was dumb.”
“Lame, then. I’m not as lame as I look. You think I’m some boogie college girl living up north and I don’t know shit about the haps around here. But I’ve actually met the famous Mr. Waddell.”
“Yeah, I believe that.”
“It’s true, I have.”
I wasn’t going to go into the story now, but I had made the acquaintance of the South Side drug lord earlier in the year. When my Aunt Ivy lay near death in the hospital, Waddell had shown up out of the blue. In a heartbeat, he and Woody were at each other’s throats. They clearly hated each other, and it was soon apparent that the enmity went back to a time long before I was born. I pestered the hell out of Woody until he leaked a few details about Waddell—his low morals and his high standing in the crime community. But he wouldn’t give up any of what I sensed was the juicy saga of their personal relationship. I just knew that Ivy figured into it somewhere. Love triangle? Secrets carried up to Chicago from someplace down south? I had no idea.
“I’ll tell you about Waddell some other time,” I said. “But for now, what’s your guy’s name?”
“Jones.”
“Now, that’s an unusual name. Really distinctive.”
Sim halted and put out his arm to stop me walking as well.
“Don’t you be talking like that to this dude,” he said.
“Like what?” I said.
“Like screamin’ on his name and shit. He ain’t gonna think that’s funny.”
I was suitably chastened. “Okay.”
Jones ran his operation out of the back of a barbershop. All four chairs were occupied. Three afros and a shaved head under way.
I waited up front, leafed through an ancient Life magazine, and let the four barbers check me out while Sim went on back to score. I didn’t just want him to buy grass for me; in fact, I didn’t want the grass at all. What I needed was Henry Waddell’s address.
As I waited for Sim, I couldn’t help pondering my sexual fate—again. When I wanted a man, he didn’t want me. But a guy I never gave a second thought to—he couldn’t get me off his mind. There were eight men in the shop. The younger ones had each given me a quick once-over and instantly