CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Despite that cryptic phone call from JoJo, Ricki wasn’t at all surprised to see him still hanging out on his favorite street corner looking for customers.
Milo didn’t expect what he was seeing. “He’s a drug dealer?” he asked as he stopped their rental car at the curb.
“Unfortunately yes.”
Vince frowned. “I thought you said he was a friend of yours.”
“He is a friend of mine since childhood. And he’s a drug dealer too.”
George shook his head. “Craziness meets insanity,” he said as they all got out of the car.
The security guys in the car behind them got out too, looking around. When JoJo saw all those men coming his way, he almost bolted. But Ricki was with them. So he figured they weren’t cops.
“I thought you was in Milton,” he said to her.
“I was.”
“How did you get here so fast?”
“What do you know about Erica and Davey, JoJo?”
“I don’t know nothing.” He glanced at George and Milo, but particularly at Vince in his super-expensive looking suit.
“If you know nothing why did you call me and tell me you were sorry?” Ricki asked him.
“I was just drunk,” he said.
“JoJo, what do you know?”
JoJo hesitated. But that look of fright came into his eyes. “I turned it down.”
“Turned what down?” Vince asked him.
“The assignment.”
“What assignment?”
Another pause. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
“With what, JoJo?” Ricki asked him.
“They tried to hire me to kill Erica,” he said.
And when he said it, everybody looked at each other. But Ricki and Vince were staring at JoJo.
“You’ve got to tell me the truth,” Ricki said, “or they’ll blame Davey. Who tried to hire you, JoJo?”
JoJo opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Then he slumped over. And then they saw the blood. And that was when they realized he’d been shot.
Milo and the security guys pulled out their weapons and quickly shielded Vince and Ricki, as they began looking around. Vince tried to grab Ricki and pull her into the car, but Ricki needed answers.
“Who hired you, JoJo? Who?”
JoJo was dying, and she knew it, but she had to save her brother. “JoJo who?” she asked him again, tears in her eyes.
He was able to look at her. “Al,” he said as if it was his last breath, and then he slid on down to the ground.
He was dead.
“Who’s Al?” Ricki was asking him, but Vince knew it was all over. He grabbed her whether she wanted him to or not, and hurried her to the car.
Milo and George hopped in too and Milo took off, even as the security detail concluded that whomever fired that shot did so in one of those apartment buildings blocks away.
Which meant it was a professional hit.