Jones got on the line a second later. “Polite sucker, isn’t he?”
Payne ignored the question. “Where are you? I want to chat with this guy now.”
“We’re near the main road, about five minutes from the basketball courts where you dropped me off. How about you?”
“Not too far.” Payne paused to collect his thoughts. “Listen, get to the courts as quietly as possible. I don’t want our conversation to draw a crowd, and the courts should be deserted.”
“No problem. And I’ll give Levon a buzz on my way there.”
“No,” he growled. “I’ll call Levon. I want you to keep two hands on this guy at all times.”
Jones laughed at the indirect order. “Don’t worry, Jon. This boy ain’t going anywhere. I’ve got a gun shoved in his back. Plus, I’m using his hair as a leash.”
Payne chuckled at the image. “Well, don’t hurt him too much, you big bully. I want Bennie to be talkative, not comatose, when I meet him.”
After calling Greene, Payne ran to the basketball courts, hoping to survey the territory before his partners arrived. As he’d hoped, the courts were completely deserted. Plus they were far enough from the festivities to attract unwanted attention, which would come in handy if they had to pacify Bennie with force.
As for the area itself, it was divided into two contrasting regions. Three concrete basketball courts with tattered nets and bent rims sat off to the left, next to a jungle gym and an old swing set that had clearly seen better days. A sandbox sat dormant, decorated with a number of sandcastles that crumbled like many of the structures in the surrounding neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the second region was in impeccable shape. Finished in smooth black asphalt and recently painted with bright white lines, the full-length basketball court was tournament ready. It was surrounded on all sides by metal bleachers and a large barbed wire fence, designed to keep the ball in and vandals out. To get inside the compound, a person normally had to file past an armed park guard, but on this night, the only people who were armed were Payne and his friends.
“Yo, Jon!” called a voice in the night.
Payne turned from his perch on the metal bleachers and saw the massive form of Levon Greene jogging toward him. “Over here, Levon.”
Greene lumbered closer, a limp fairly obvious in his stride. “Where is he? I want to make sure you got the right guy.”
Payne shrugged as he watched Greene enter the main gate and approach the bleachers. “D.J. was the one who found him, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I hope he didn’t run into any problems.”
“None at all,” Jones bellowed from the shadows. Payne and Greene whipped their heads sideways, searching for the source of the sound. “I was just waiting to make a big entrance.”
Payne struggled to see him, but after a while, two dark faces emerged from the night.
“Gentlemen,” Jones announced, “let me introduce you to our new best friend and a future witness for the prosecution, Mr. Bennie Blount.”
CHAPTER 29
PAYNE had seen thousands of people in his life, folks from dozens of different lands and cultures, yet despite all of his experiences, he could not remember seeing a more unique character than Bennie Blount.
Standing 6’6” with an elaborate web of dreadlocks that added an additional three to five inches of puffiness to the top of his head, Blount looked like an exaggerated stick figure, created in the mind of a warped cartoonist. He lacked muscle mass of any kind; instead, he resembled a limbo pole turned vertically, topped off with a poorly crocheted black wig. Gold front teeth were the only remarkable thing about his face, and his dark eyes revealed absolutely nothing, like the lifeless props often found in a taxidermist’s shop.
“How’d you find him?” Payne asked as he watched them enter the court.
“It wasn’t very tough,” Jones joked. “Some kids were using him to break open a piñata.”
Payne smiled despite the seriousness of the situation. “And does our new friend know why you’ve brought him here?”
“Not yet.” Jones released Blount’s hair and pushed him forward. “I figured you’d want to provide him with all the details.”
Payne nodded as he walked toward the witness. “Do you know why you’re here?”
Blount raked the dreadlocks from his eyes with his E.T.- like fingers, then responded. “I gets the feeling it ain’t to play basketball.”
“You got that right,” Greene growled from the bleachers. “You’re lucky I’m resting my knee, or I’d come