be large. Littered with beer bottles. And a neon z and p reflected in the front window.
“Not to mention the way it was destroyed.”
Exactly what she was thinking. “Too many coincidences to be entirely comfortable with,” she agreed pensively. And far too many threads in the investigation, none of which could be tied up nicely yet.
The area didn’t improve in the seven blocks or so to Juicy’s address. The curbs had cars lined up along them. Rather than searching for a spot, Nate reached beneath the seat for a portable LED dash light and put it on the dash, setting it to strobe, and double-parked. The group of youths on the stoop of the building in front of them stopped talking and stared as they got out of the vehicle.
“It’s the po-po.”
“Back to the cop shop, man, we ain’t doing nuthin’.”
“Yo, where’d you get your car door detailed? I want me some of that.” Raucous laughter accompanied the words.
“We’re looking for Javon Emmons,” Nate said evenly. “Juicy. He live here?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Juicy? You looking for Juicy?” One of the young men with his baseball cap twisted backward nudged his neighbor. “Juicy is that fine thing you got with ya. Can’t get juicier than that. Mm-mm.” He licked his lips suggestively.
“Unless you want your tongue ripped out and handed to you, you’ll answer the question,” Risa told him. “Or get out of the way so we can go in and look for ourselves.”
“Ooh-hoo, you got dissed!” A chorus of jeers bombarded the speaker. But they moved aside for Nate and Risa to move up the middle of the steps and push open the door to the apartment building.
Nate flipped the light switch inside the darkened hallway, to no avail.
“Two eighteen is upstairs,” he murmured, and they turned to the littered stairway to begin the climb.
“If Juicy is as high on the feeding chain as Randolph indicated, why’s he living in a place like this?” she muttered. A man was curled up on the first landing, snoring softly. Risa decided he must be sleeping off the effects of something. The noise inside the building should make sleep impossible. The cries of babies, shouts of children, and a shrill argument melded together for a near-deafening din.
“It’s his territory. He’ll live in the center to exact his control over it. No absentee businessmen in his line of work.”
Two eighteen was at the end of the hallway, to the left of the lone window. Nate knocked at the door. Once. Again, this time harder. “Javon Emmons,” he called.
Someone was moving inside the apartment. After several minutes the door swung open and a young woman stood there, one hand on her hip and the other clutching the edge of the door. After one quick glance, she dismissed Risa and focused all her attention on Nate. “Why you yelling at my door?”
“We’re looking for Juicy,” he replied, and tilted his head to look inside the apartment. “Tell him we’d like to talk to him.”
“Everyone looking for Juicy.” She sighed, skating one hand over her waist, which was left bare between her lowriding shorts and short top. “He ain’t here. You can look. That’s what the rest of them do.”
A quick scan of the rooms in the apartment ascertained that the woman was telling the truth. Nate handed her his card. “Give him this and ask him to come in to see me. I’d like to ask him a couple questions.”
“Mm-hmm. People all the time wanting to ask Juicy questions.” She ran the card through her long fire engine red nails and gave him a smile from lips slicked in the same color. “I’ll tell him you was here.”
Back outside Risa gave a silent sigh of relief to discover the car where they left it, looking untouched. The same guys sat out front and immediately started messing with them when they came outside.
“Hey, there was someone gonna steal your po-lice car and I run ’em off. I should get a reward.”
“Shut it, that was you, man.”
“You don’t have to leave with him, sugar. You want to set your fine self down and let me show you ’nother use for your handcuffs.”
Risa didn’t bother to point out that she wasn’t carrying cuffs and that the suggestion wasn’t especially original. The young men found it hilarious, though, as she and Nate picked their way down the narrow path allowed through the bodies.
When they were on the sidewalk again, she turned to face them. “Any of you know anything about