“I’m serious as a heart attack, little man. You saw something that can help us with the murder of Tori Glover and Marion Cardinal. Simple as that. You talk, and we walk right back out of here.”

Booker glared up at Sampson as if he were staring down the sun. “I didn’t see shit. Like Luki say, I been here for days. I never lose to these sorry chumps.“

I held up my hand, palm out, inches from his squashed moonpie face.

“I’m on a stopwatch here, Booker, so please don’t interrupt my flow. I promise you, two minutes and we’re out of here. Now here’s what’s in it for you. One, we go away, and you gentlemen finish your game. Two, detectives Powell and Sampson will owe you one. Three, a hundred dollars now for your time and trouble.

“The clock is ticking,” I said. “Tick, tick, tick. Easy money.”

He finally nodded and held out his hand. “I seen those two girls get picked up. Around two, three in the mornin’ on E Street. I didn’t see no driver, nobody’s face or nothin’. Too dark, man. But he was driving a cab. Look like purple and blue gypsy. Somethin’ like that. Girls get into the back of the cab, drive off.”

“Is that it?” I asked him. “I don’t want to have to come back here later. Break up your game again.”

Booker considered what I’d said, then spoke again. “Cabdriver a white man. Seen his arm stickin’ out the side window. Ain’t no white boys drivin’ the night shift in Shaw, least none I seen.”

I nodded, waited a bit, then smiled at the other players. “Gentlemen, as you were. Play ball.”

Thump, thump, thump.

Swish.

Booker could really play ball.

Chapter 35

THE NEW PIECES OF INFORMATION gave us something to run with. We’d done an incredible amount of thankless street work, and something had finally paid off. We had the color of the gypsy cab that had picked up the girls around the time of the murders. The fact that the driver was white was the best lead we had so far.