There were nearly fifty in total, most of them late at night. Customers, Nola thought, remembering the stash of drugs in Zion’s closet.
Starting at the top, she entered the first phone number into Mint’s Black House account.
Contact not found.
Next number.
Contact not found.
It was the same, over and over.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Until . . .
Something.
Onscreen, a new pop-up box appeared, with a little red triangle that had an exclamation point inside.
Restricted Access for XXX-XXX-XXXX
Subject Flagged for Confidential Purposes
Contact DOJ’s Special Identities Unit
Special Identities Unit. She’d seen it before. Whoever owned that phone number, she was supposed to stay away.
But that was always Nola’s problem. She was never any good at doing what she was supposed to.
On the iPad, she opened a browser. It was the best part of finding a phone number—from there, it’s not hard to get an address.
68
Grafton, New Jersey
“Who you looking for?” a female voice challenged.
Zig turned, spotting a ninety-year-old African American woman with cannula tubes at her nose. They ran down off the edge of the bus bench she was sitting on, to a portable oxygen tank that was bedazzled with pink rhinestones. On her face, to block the fading sun, were oversized Jackie O sunglasses that made Zig think he was in the presence of royalty.
“Just trying to find a bite to eat,” Zig told her.
Lady Rhinestone looked at him skeptically. It got even worse as she eyed Roddy’s police uniform. Across the street was a food hall built into an old bus station, an artisanal ice cream shop, and a make-your-own-pottery place called Every Clay Is a New Clay. Each of them had a water dish for dogs out front. It was the same in cities from Seattle, to Washington, D.C., to right here in Jersey; the arrival of whites in minority communities led to gentrification and dog dishes for everyone. Of course, if you went down the wrong block, some of the neighborhood was still rough around the edges.
“Lemme guess, you’re looking for Elijah,” Lady Rhinestone said.
“How’d you know that?” Zig asked.
“You look the same as the other guy.”
Zig raised an eyebrow. Other guy? “Ma’am, was there someone else looking for Elijah?”
Up the block, two twentysomethings on electric scooters were riding in circles. Lady Rhinestone took a huff of her cannula tube. “Last night. Handsome fellow. Looked like that young man who played Black Panther and Thurgood Marshall. He had a part in his hair, which, let’s admit, is a crime for an Afro, but he made it work.”
Zig and Roddy exchanged a glance. Colonel O. J. Whatley. He was here last night, though he never mentioned it when Zig was in his office.
“So you work here?” Zig asked, spotting the apron she was wearing, embroidered with Every Clay Is a New Clay.
“Sweetie, that’s my shop. I’m the owner,” she said coldly, lowering her chin just enough to give him the stink eye above the rim of her sunglasses.
“Yeah . . . no . . . that’s what I meant.”
“Forgive him. He’s white,” Roddy said. It made the woman laugh. “If I could ask one last question,” he added. “The address we have—Elijah gave us his home address, but I think we might have it wrong.”