The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor) - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,83

that scene back there. Just hiding in plain sight.

And the cops don’t have any idea that there’s a fugitive living just fifty yards away.

But then, how could they? So damned many punks in this city, there’s no way to keep track of them all.

Michael suddenly moved quickly, rolling down his window again. He stuck out his head, the hat hitting the top of the car’s frame and falling to the floorboard.

“Lookit me, LeRoi!” Michael shouted, pumping his right fist. “I be riding, muthafucka!”

LeRoi Cheatham was momentarily caught completely off guard. He did not immediately know how to react to the sight of his twelve-year-old nephew hanging out of a FedEx delivery vehicle and yelling his name at the top of his lungs. Especially with who the hell knew how many cops only a block or so away.

But the two other teenage punks standing with LeRoi were more quickwitted. In a flash, they hauled ass across Hancock Street and disappeared into a wall of huge, thick bushes that had grown wild on the deserted lot.

Curtis saw LeRoi watching his buddies run away. Then LeRoi looked back at the van, then back to the bushes. As LeRoi started to cross Hancock to follow his buddies, Curtis held up the big square envelope to the windshield and tried to mime that it was intended for him.

It didn’t work. LeRoi kept walking.

“Michael,” Curtis said as he turned the minivan onto Hancock and drove up on the cracked sidewalk, “tell your uncle he’s got a package.”

Michael yelled, “You gots a package, LeRoi!”

LeRoi slowed and warily looked over his shoulder.

Curtis motioned again with the envelope, stopping the minivan at the alleyway and putting it in park. He rolled down his window and with a raised voice said, “This is my last try to find you. You don’t sign for it, the check gets sent back today!”

At the mention of money, the expression on LeRoi’s face changed.

As LeRoi Cheatham started back toward the alley, Curtis felt for his Glock under his shirt, then opened the driver’s door. He walked around to Michael’s door and opened it.

“What up?” Michael said.

Curtis took a ten-dollar bill from his wad of cash and showed it to Michael as he watched LeRoi coming closer.

“You know what a lookout is?” Curtis asked.

“For cops?” Michael said. He nodded. “Yeah. LeRoi pay me to say if I see one.”

“Right,” Curtis said, folding the ten-spot and handing it to the kid. “Go stand around the corner and let me know if any cop comes this way. I will come tell you when we’re finished here.”

Michael nodded once, took the money, and ran back to Jefferson Street.

Will Curtis turned in time to see LeRoi Cheatham come around the front of the minivan.

“What this shit about a check?” LeRoi said, looking at him hard.

Those are some seriously bloodshot eyes, Curtis thought.

Wonder what he’s on?

“You’re LeRoi Cheatham, right?”

“Damn right.” He nodded his head once.

So that’s where Michael got that nod from.

“Need to see some government ID. . . .”

“Shit, man,” he said, staring at Curtis with a look of disgust. Then he turned and spat behind him into the alley. He turned back and, as he began digging in the front pocket of his pants, said, “Just gimme my damn check.”

Curtis remembered what he had thought when Shauna Mays realized there was no money in the envelope. This time, as Curtis pulled the Glock from his waistband and aimed it at LeRoi’s chest, he said it.

“Sure. Here’s your reality check.”

Then he squeezed the trigger. Twice.

LeRoi fell backward into the alleyway.

Not thirty seconds after that, Michael Floyd came running back and called out, “Cop!”

After putting the warm pistol back under his shirt, Curtis walked to intercept him. He tore open the envelope and pulled out LeRoi’s Wanted sheet.

Michael looked around.

“Who got shot?” he asked. “Where LeRoi?”

“In the alley,” Curtis said. “But don’t go in there.”

Curtis put the Wanted sheet on the van window, then took his FedEx ballpoint pen and wrote “Lex Talionis, Third & Arch, Old City, $10,000 reward” on the back. He handed the sheet to Michael.

“Give this to your mother. And do what the cops say. Cops are good. They will get you back home. Okay?”

Michael Floyd, looking confused, took the sheet and stared at the mug shot of his Uncle LeRoi. After a moment, he pointed to the Last Known Address.

“My house,” he said.

“Right, Michael. That’s from when LeRoi lived there. That sheet says he did very bad things. And when you’re bad, you have to