cut short, but not shaved. He wore half lens reading glasses, and a book was closed on his left forefinger.
“May I help you?” he asked without much feeling.
“I understand you wrote the bond for a man named Thomas Tuggle,” I answered. “I’m trying to get a lead on him and thought you might help.”
“You’re not a cop. I’ve never seen you before,” he said. “Unless you’re a Fed. But I’d say you’re a lawyer.”
“Neither one. I’m a private investigator,” I said as I handed him my card.
He took it, stuck it in his book as a bookmark without looking at it, and placed the book on the counter.
“Are you the owner?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m the owner,” he replied.
“I’m John McAlister,” I said, and stuck out my hand.
He looked at my hand for a second, then took it softly in a big dry hand.
“Henry Jackson is my name,” he said. “So you’re looking for Thomas. Well, me too.”
“So you did write his bond?” I asked.
“Yeah, I wrote it and I regret it. He missed his court date last week and I’m looking at nine thousand dollars if he’s not back soon,” he replied.
“I thought it was twenty thousand for the bond, which would leave you eighteen grand since he paid you two,” I said.
“I reinsure half my risk, but I still don’t want to pay nine. What’s your interest in Tuggle?” he asked.
“Missing person case,” I said. “The family hired me.”
“You’re bullshitting me, right? If Thomas even has a family, they’re not the type to hire a PI to look for him.”
“His mother is his family. She said you would know who she is.”
“Oh, God, yes, I remember her now. I bailed her out on an assault. But don’t tell me she hired you to find Thomas.”
“Well, a friend of the family got me involved,” I said.
“A white friend, huh? Noblesse oblige and all that,” he said.
“Maybe. I’m working for the money.”
“Yeah, me too. If I don’t find him I lose a lot of it. What have you found so far?”
“You’re my first stop. I’ve got a picture and an address, and that’s it.”
“You don’t have shit. You working contingency or hourly?” he asked.
“Hourly,” I said.
He laughed. “You don’t have shit and you don’t give a shit, right?”
“Well, I’ve got my reputation to think of.”
“I’ve never heard of you,” he said.
“I try to keep a low profile, you know,” I said.
“Must be real low,” he said. “Well, it’s early, not much going on. I might as well tell you what I can about Tuggle. Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.”
He apparently shared Lucy Tuggle’s assessment of my abilities.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to a chair covered in aqua blue vinyl. He went behind the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee from an old-fashioned electric percolator with a glass bulb on top. “You want some?” he asked.
“No thanks. Too late in the day for me,” I replied.
“Man, I’m just getting started. I open at two in the afternoon and close at two in the morning. I wish the police would just arrest folks between nine and five.”
“Must be tough on your social life. Now what can you tell me about Tuggle?”
He knelt and opened the bottom drawer of one of the filing cabinets, pulled out a file folder and sat down at one of the desks.
“Thomas Jefferson Tuggle,” he read from the file. “He must be the last black man in America to be named after a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Born November fifteenth, nineteen seventy-seven, arrested four times, served four months of an eleven month, twenty-nine day sentence at the penal farm for receiving stolen property. Always showed up for hearings in the past. Rated a very good risk.”
“Maybe he was scared of a crack rap,” I said. “That would carry a lot bigger jolt than receiving stolen property.”
“They would have never made a crack dealer rap stick on Thomas. He knew that,” he replied.
“Do you think he was dealing crack?” I asked.
“Thomas dealing crack? Man, you weren’t lying when you said you didn’t know much about him. Thomas doesn’t deal crack, he’s the Designer.”
“He’s the what?” I asked.
“The Designer, man. Like designer clothes and shoes,” he said.
“He has a line of designer clothes?”
“No, no, Thomas sells them. Hilfiger, Polo clothes, Nike shoes, all sorts of sports stuff.”
“I assume he’s not a licensed distributor,” I said.
“No, he’s a thief. Or at least he gets other people to steal it for him. Kids go into department stores and grab a whole stack of jeans and run out to a car waiting for them. Or somebody breaks into a truck or a train car, or even a warehouse, and gets the stuff. You know what they say, man. Memphis is America’s distribution center. Anyway, the thieves bring it to Thomas because he gives them a fair price.”
“How does he sell it?” I asked.
“On the black market, no pun intended. He’s got a van that he drives into the neighborhoods. He pulls up at a store or playground after dark and sets up shop. Word goes out real quick that the Designer is on the scene. He sells at a forty percent discount off retail and still makes a killing.”
“Free enterprise at work, huh? So what do you think has happened to him?” I asked.
“It beats the hell out of me,” he said, shaking his head.
“My first guesses are out of town or dead,” I said. “What do you think about those options?”
“If it weren’t Thomas, I’d say you were right,” he responded. “But Thomas has got a thriving business and this crack rap was bullshit. I don’t think he’d leave town. A real crack dealer might. I’ve had four skip out on me during the last twelve months. I don’t write them anymore.”
“What about the dead choice?”
“It’s
