I Might As Well Because I Have No Choice

CHAPTER FIVE

  We found a drug store, and while Jaquan watched my back pack on the street, I went in the store.

  "I’m hunting a man named Hobes Izumi," I said.

  "If there were more like him, I wouldn’t need anybody else for customers. He’s the strongest dying man I ever learned. But you’ve come too late. He went towards Utah, I think," said the druggist.

  "Just my luck," I said.

  The man came from behind the counter. "You might learn something from Jarez Claymount. He handles Hobe’s local business."

  "Last time I seen him he were hustling hoodlums. We hustled the same turf and hoodlums."

  "That must have been several years ago. Mr. Izumi has been shipping and trading in manufacturing parts. He’s done very well, I believe."

  We found the son of a bitch Jarez loafing in front of a saloon. And when I told him I was hunting Hobes Izumi, he got up carefully and looked me over, and then looked Jaquan over too.

  "Just what do you want with him? The Jarez was carrying a gun tucked in the back of his belt under his coat. A rough guess told me that Jarez Claymount was a pretty salty character and if Izumi was trading in manufacturing parts, they must have some fancy work for brands. Come to think of it, Hobes Izumi used to talk about he could hustle and move something with the best of them. So I began to understand some of the phases of his business.

  "As a matter of fact, I was hunting a road stake. Me and Jaquan here, we’re broke and headed for New Jersey. Hobes was an old friend of mine. In fact, we came to Chicago together."

  "What did you say your name was?" Jarez asked.

  "Mussolini. They call me Pacino."

  Well his face cleared right up. He had been looking mighty suspicious until then. "Oh sure, I’ve heard him speak of you," Jarez said.

  Jarez Claymount ran his hand down into his jean pockets and came up with an address and phone number. "You take this. You may find him there," he said.

  "This is where I’ll find him?"

  "Well, he moves around a good deal. Don’t you go asking for him. If you want to see him, look around New Jersey. You stay around a while and he’ll find you."

  When we walked away from there, Jaquan looked at the address and phone number with respect. "You got some good friends," he said.

  Me, I said to myself, it may be a trap because I was wondering why Jarez was so quick to hand a phone number and address and said he could be found there, maybe, but the way I remembered him he was mighty on the move. Of course that could have been because he was on the run much. Maybe he was doing better now.

  If he could afford having a man living around Pennsylvania like Jarez was, well, he was doing a lot better.

  But why ship from here? Why not from Jersey itself?