Fish N Grits

A few days later, there was a torrid thunderstorm....The rain was pouring....I sat in Mabel Jenkins's Soul Food Joint, eating a plate of Hominy Grits with Butter and Fried Fish...I had a tumbler of coffee next to me...I was quietly reading the paper. Peeping Tom and Lockpick Johnson walked in and sat down at the table with me...dripping wet....

"I'll just have a large coffee honey, to go." said Peeping Tom.

"Them damn grits look like they the truth. I'll take an order of Fish and Grits and a coffee to go mam." said Lockpick Johnson to the waitress.

"We got him my friend.." said Peeping Tom.

"Oh Yeah?" I asked as I continued eating."

"It took some time....He has three big beefy bodyguards who escort him everywhere and a third one that always stays behind....but we waited and we watched patiently and he left for about an hour..That was more than enough time for Lockpick to beat the security system and get me intohis house...It's wired for sound and video now.....And get this....We wired the upstairs of this strip club that he hangs out in and holds meetings in and we wired this broad's house that he visits... I gotta device that can hit the tower of his wireless provider so that any conversation he has on his cell phone, any text message he sends....We can read it or hear it...We got Jamaica Jim locked in my friend..." said Peeping Tom.

"Wow, that's great news...I'm gonna bump both of you guys a little extra for that..you guys did better than I expected." I laughed. They got their food and Lockpick Johnson patted me on the back...

"I knew Sailor Mike....He was a good guy...I had my money on him in that fight....He won me a pile Kev...I hope you get whoever done this." he said as the two of them left. An odd pair they were...An Italian ex CIA operative and a Black ex-convict who could break into almost anything and beat any security system....They were a great pair of guys to have working for you.

Sean Jackson, my co-worker and friend came in next and sat down next to me...I felt like a kingpin holding court or something over Fish and Grits...

"Hey Kev....I followed your guy, Jamaica Jim...He met with some Fat guy from Atlantic City....They had words over something as these survielience photos I took shows.....It looked like the Fat guy was running things...." he said.

"Good Work Sean....but this gives me nothing on the killers....All I know is that I'm for sure..Jamaica Jim fixed the fight and he ordered the killing....I know that he didn't do it himself.." I said.

"That guy...I seen him before." said Mabel Jenkins...who walked by my table and peered down at the photos of Jamaica Jim.

"Who? This guy or the fat guy?" I asked.

"The thin dark skinned guy with the pony tail...."88" and I rented a little bungalow in Atlantic City about two weeks ago and he lived next door to us....While we was there, two young guys came to visit him...The walls were paper thin...88 and I could hear they whole conversation." she said.

"No kidding?" I said looking at Sean...

"Yeah...He was hollering at the young boys because some fight , some prizefight didn't go down the way he thought it oughta go.. We heard one of the young boys say that whoever won the fight gave some money back or something and the guy with the ponytail said that he didn't care ,that he had lost more money and that he had people in AC and New York mad at him...He said that he wanted a message sent." said Mabel.

"Wow......Thanks Mabel.....You just cleared up a lot for me." I said.

"88 told me the other day ,when we read about Sailor Mike gettin shot that he wondered if the conversation we overheard might have had anything to do with this?" she said.

"Well, who knows for sure Mabel? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't?" I said.

After she was out of hearing range ,I whispered to Sean....

"This backs up what Vonetta told me and Sepia a few nights ago....Jamaica Jim fixed that fight alright, but for somebody else.....He lost a pile of dough not only for himself, but for others and he had Sailor Mike killed to show them he was cleaning up..making up for it." I said.

"Yeah Kev, but right now all we got is hearsay....nothing we can prove and we still don't have our shooters....Mabel just confirmed what we already know." said Sean.

"Yeah man, you right...We just gotta sit on him..Hope that he'll say something that we can use."I said.

Sean Jackson left and I finished my food and paid my tab...I was just getting ready to walk out the door when another very dangerous man walked in...It was Roscoe....Fathead Newton's lieutenant and enforcer...The last time I had seen him...He had saved my life...He had killed a gangster named Fiddler, who was trying to kill me and my friend, Kool Kat.

"Hey Kev...I gotta talk to ya..Sit down...I won't be long." he said.

I walked over to the very same table where I'd had my breakfast and sat back down.

"What's good here?" he asked.

"I just had the Fried Fish and Hominy Grits." I said.

"Good...Hey mommy..I'll have Fried Fish n Grits and a tumbler of hot coffee." he said.

"So what's up Roscoe? I never got to thank you for Fiddler.." I said.

"Think nothin of it.....Listen...I know you're tryin to find out who killed Sailor Mike...and I'm here to help you....If Fathead knew I was here talkin to you ,he'd put a contract on me....but I liked Sailor Mike, he was good people.....I'd do these two knuckleheads myself...but Fathead doesn't want to cross Jamaica Jim up in South Philly...He's a lightweight, but he works for somebody heavy duty....Anyway...the two dudes who killed Sailor Mike are Lance "Egghead" Parker and Fahim Raheem....Here is their addresses....Inside their house, you'll find the .45 Fahim Raheem used to kill Sailor Mike with, with his finger prints on it...Because the sucker is too stupid to have thrown that gun off...He likes to use it..He used it in a liquor store hold up last month in Southwest Philly in which an old store owner was killed. You find them...you'll find the gun..you'll find the loot from the robbery and you'll find Sailor Mike's killers.....That's all I can tell ya. " said Roscoe.

"How do you know all of this Roscoe?" I asked.

"It's my business to know, I keep my ears to the street..I hear things." he replied.

"Thanks a lot man....hey listen, I got some photos....Check em out...tell me if you know the playas in these." I said as I showed him the photos Sean had took.

His eyes got as wide as saucers....

"Damn man, you are good.....That's Jamaica Jim....He made the dirt happen.." said Roscoe.

"Who's the fat guy in the white linen suit?" I asked.

"Wow...That's the heavy duty guy I told ya about...That's Frank "Big Daddy " White of Atlantic City....He's into everything but the neon lights...He been trying to get a stronghold in Philly for years....Jamaica Jim is his point man in Philly." said Roscoe.

"Wow, usually it's the other way around." I laughed.

"What can I say? It's the damn economy man." said Roscoe just as the waitress was delivering his order. I got up ,patted his shoulder.

"I'll put this to good use and no one will ever know we had this conversation." I said.

"You're the man Kev...Go get the bad guys." he laughed....

I know..I know...He was just as much a bad guy as the guys I was after, but the difference was.....Well, really there was no difference....

That afternoon, I stood across the street from a West Philly rowhouse as Police from Robbery-Homicide ,acting on an anonymous "crimestoppers" tip and photos...arrested 25 year old Fahim Raheem , the shooter and 25 year old Lance "Egghead" Parker...the gunman who had robbed Sailor Mike and led him to his death... Fahim was charged with two murders and "Egghead" was
charged only with complicity in Sailor Mike's murder. He got bail set, Fahim did not.

I had got Sailor Mike's killers....It had been a good day.....but somehow I knew....This mess was far from over. It wasn't enough to have the two shooters locked up...I had to have Jamaica Jim and his boss, Frank "Big Daddy" White locked up too or it wasn't any good. To that end and theirs..I was still pledged.

(To Be Continued....)