Blonde Faith Read Online Free PDF Page A

card. Then he looked at me and grinned.
    “Is that all, Captain?”
    “No. No, it’s not.”
    “What else do you want? You know I got a job too.”
    The bumblebee was in the same position. I found myself hoping that the creature would come to life and startle the soldiers. I only needed a moment to get to my gun, which was nestled at the belt line at the back of my pants. I was feeling the need for an equalizer.
    “General King is in charge of some very sensitive operations, both in this country and abroad. He reports to the White House. More than once I’ve answered his phone and the president was on the other end of the line.”
    “What that got to do with a niggah like me or Christmas Black for that matter?”
    “We need to find Black,” Miles said with a reluctantly straight face. “We must find him.”
    “I’m not standin’ in your way, brother.”
    “How did you locate this apartment?”
    “Tooms had been here,” I said.
    “Then why didn’t she come here herself?”
    “She told me she had only been to his place once, at night. The only thing she remembered was that there was a building across the street with a giant tire on the roof. The minute she said that, I knew the address.”
    “So why not just tell her that?” Miles asked.
    “You see, man,” I replied airily, “you a niggah like me, but you been in the army too long. They buy your clothes, your food, give you a bed, a car, and a gun. You think you all bad ’cause you in the biggest gang in the world, so you don’t understand when a man be runnin’ aftah a dollar.
    “If I had just said to Ginny that I knew where the address was, she’d’a parted with twenty dollars, not three hundred. You got to milk a client just like you would a cow. Ain’t no PX with bottles’a cream out here, just us workin’ niggahs is all.”
    If I tied it any tighter someone might have strangled on that lie. My only problem was keeping the smug satisfaction off my face so that Clarence wouldn’t know how good I thought I was.
    “Stand down,” Miles said to his men.
    The MPs relaxed and took a step back.
    “What have you found here, Mr. Rawlins?”
    “A cleaner house than I could imagine and one busted picture frame.”
    “What was in that?”
    “Nuthin’.”
    I couldn’t have looked into a woman’s eyes as deeply as Miles stared into mine — not without passion growing out of it.
    “We need to find Christmas Black,” he said with a smirk.
    “You said that.”
    For a minute there the four men in that room might have been manikins we were so still.
    “Are you committed to this woman?”
    “I ain’t give her no ring or nuthin’.”
    “Will you take on the job of finding Christmas Black for the United States government?” he asked.
    Life doesn’t travel in a straight line like we think it does. I was positive that these men were the reason Christmas had left his adopted daughter with me. My intention was to lead them on in hopes of finding out what had happened to my friend. But my mind took that information and imagined me coming home over a year ago and telling Bonnie about my adventure. She had been the first person I could share my thoughts with.
    The pain that came with the reverie almost sank me. I couldn’t speak because I knew the sob in my chest would come out with whatever words I spoke.
    “Mr. Rawlins,” Miles prodded.
    I held on to my silence ten seconds more and then said, “You got anything against Miss Tooms gettin’ a line on him?”
    “Do you care?”
    “I like it when people tell their friends that I did the job they paid me for, yeah.”
    “No problem,” the black captain said. “Matter of fact, I’d like to meet this Ginny Tooms.”
    “How come?”
    “Maybe she knows something about what Black’s been doing.”
    “Stickin’ his black dick in her white underage sister is what,” I said, and Miles actually laughed.
    “I’ll give you seventy-five dollars,” he said, “as a retainer.”
    “You’ll give