The Lost Treasures of R&B. Nelson George

could tell you wanted to speak with Ced. I figured I could assist and then, you know, maybe you could do me a solid.”

      “You know anything about what he was talking about in there?”

      “I just got home. Was off the streets seven years, so I ain’t really current. But I could ask around if it means something to you. You a helper type. I see that. The world needs helpers. I need a helper right now.”

      “Okay, what’s your mission, Ride?”

      “You wanna come sit with me a minute? I’m seriously hungry. My treat.”

      “Okay, big man. Where you wanna go?”

      The two men ended up at the McDonald’s near the funeral home. D had a bottled water before him, while Ride displayed a prodigious appetite: two large fries, three Quarter Pounders, an extralarge Coke, and an apple turnover for dessert.

      “I need to find my woman. Her name’s Eve. It’s been seven years, but I love her like it was the night we met.”

      “What exactly did you do, Ride?”

      “I hit someone. A few times. They said it was assault. I’m back. But things done changed.”

      “Don’t you have any friends who know her and where she is now?”

      “I thought I had homeys but it turned out I didn’t,” Ride said.

      He had been the muscle for Tim Tim Mosley, a salty Jamaican with a connect in Miami and a taste for rocking Clarks Wallabees back when selling crack was wack (and extremely lucrative). Tim Tim was a character. If he wore brown Clarks the laces would be red, or if the pair were black the laces were blue. Ride met him one afternoon at a basketball tournament at the Tilden projects. Ride had once been a promising high school athlete, but too much McDonald’s and a bad left knee cost him a career.