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As Jamal focused on it, his eyes grew wide and he wrinkled his forehead. He quickly tried to mask his reaction by taking off his glasses, then running his hand over his face and rubbing his eyes.
“So you do know him?” McCrory asked, making it more a statement.
Jamal’s body slumped as he shook his head.
“What?” McCrory said.
Jamal shook his head again, and, apparently thinking he was being clever, looked at McCrory and said, “Who is he? What’d he do?”
Payne grunted.
“At least he’s consistent with his lying,” he said.
McCrory had come to the same conclusion.
“You’re lying, Jamal. Who is this guy? How do you know him?”
Jamal looked at his shoes for a long moment.
“C’mon, Jamal. Talk to me. You’re looking at some serious time already with a gun charge on top of possession with intent to distribute . . . or worse.”
After a moment, Jamal sighed.
“He’s one I’ve seen at Needle Park, too,” Jamal said. “I don’t know him. But a guy I did know there said stay away from him. Said he’s a really bad dude. Angry at everything, you know?”
Jamal’s tired voice trailed off, and he began to rub his face again.
“What’s the guy’s name who told you that?”
Jamal shrugged.
“Harvey? Javier, maybe? Heard he OD’d. He didn’t say this guy’s name, just called him la gente loca . . .”
“‘Crazy people’?” Payne said, making the translation from Spanish. “I’ll be damned!”
He reached to pull out his cellular telephone, then felt it vibrate. When he checked its screen, there was a text from Kerry Rapier: “The mystery of Where’s Waldo solved! At least the where part . . .”
“Jesus!” Payne blurted, then looked at Kennedy and said, “If you’ll excuse me. I should be right back but might not. Nasuti and Lucke own the LOVE and Franklin parks murders. Let them and me know what else that bastard says about that doer, and also when you’ve got Pookie coming in for that heart-to-heart talk.”
“Will do, Sarge,” Kennedy said, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “We’ve already texted Pookie. Just waiting to hear back.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Oh, you can count on it that he’ll be in touch. The bastard thinks he’s due a payday for ratting out this knucklehead to us.”
[ TWO ]
As Payne stepped outside the viewing room, using his shoulder to push the door closed, he finished what he had started to do when Kerry Rapier’s text interrupted him: alert Nasuti and Lucke about what Jamal had said. Then he tapped the key on the screen to call back Rapier.
“Thought that’d get your attention, Marshal,” Rapier said, by way of answering the call. “We found the car, and just waiting on a positive ID on the victim, too.”
“Where?”
“Off Torresdale, some blocks up from Harding Middle School. The VeeDub initially was reported to nine-one-one as having been carjacked.”
“You’ve lost me. Waldo’s buddy said it was taken from them at gunpoint, before Waldo got whacked.”
“Right. But then a couple hours later an anonymous adult male called in to nine-one-one and said that a Puerto Rican with a gun had just carjacked a silver VeeDub Jetta with Jersey plates on Torresdale. A couple of marked units responded, and as they searched the area, there suddenly was a black plume rising over by the commuter train tracks.
