Buying Information
Inside the park, Champ approached a group of people sitting on a bench. I kept walking on the path to the left. At best, I looked like a reporter, if not a cop. Champ came over and told me he would have to give them some money. He pulled out the $60 I'd given him. I thought he wanted to pay off the dealer that Chaos had supposedly beat that morning, and told him that I didn't think it was a good idea. Champ said that wasn't the case.
“Nobody gives up anything on the street for nothing,” he said. “Listen, they say that Chaos and your daughter are sleeping in the band shell near the bridge. Do you know where that is?”
Offhand, I didn't. He suggested that I walk back to the group with him. He took aside a wiry young man with closely cropped hair, handed him $20, and introduced me as someone who was looking for Chaos because I wanted to buy some crack. Sizing me up through squinting eyes, the guy asked how much I wanted and why I wanted to buy it from Chaos. I told him I didn't want any crack; I was a father looking for his 17-year-old daughter, who was with Chaos.
“That your daughter?” he said, with a slight Spanish accent. “She's a beautiful girl. Shit. I wished someone was looking for me.”
He said that Chaos and Carrick and another guy were in the old band shell in the park by the Williamsburg Bridge and told me how to get there. After I thanked him, he asked me if I was sure I didn't want some of his crack.
“Chaos isn't a good source, man. Not for crack. Dope, yes. Not crack.”
I shook my head.