[center][b]Part 1

Sister of Mercy[/b][/center]

[b]Harlem
1:31 PM[/b]

It took Anton Morrison nearly a half hour to get through the tears and tell me his sob story. The long and short if it plays like this: Anton and his girl hooked up with some so-called dealers who had a coke connection. The plan was to buy two kilos of blow and then turn it around and sell it to local dealers marked up. He and his girl scrounged up whatever money they had between them for the cost of the two keys. On top of that Anton stole ten grand from the funeral home he works at to get to the sixty g's they needed for the blow. It was all going according to plan until a police busted in and started shooting. Anton hit the deck and got smacked in the back of the head. When he came to, the girl, blow, and cash were all gone. He wants me to track down all three for twenty percent of that sixty grand.

I agreed to take the job and sent Anton back to my crib to chill and lay low from the cops or whoever may be looking for him. He was watching TV and eating a pastrami sandwich when I headed out. The whole situation stunk like the dumpster behind a deli. Little miss hot to trot whispers sweet nothings into Anton's ear about dope deals and getting flush with cash, she makes all the connections and the deals, knows all the names and the people so when it goes bad he's left holding nothing but his dick. Anton may be too blinded by the girl to see the truth of the matter, but my clear eyes could see that brother was getting played like a fiddle. The only way to catch a hustler is to use another hustler.

"GIVE TO THA LAWD!"

That's why I'm here at the corner Lennox and 131st street, watching the good ole Sister Mercy do her thing. Sister Mercy has been working the corners for nearly twenty years now, dressed in her black nun habit and ringing that bell while she shouts about fire and brimstone and the only way to heaven is to give to the lawd. 

"'For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils' First Timothy 6:10, people. GIVE TO THA LAWD!"

You wouldn't think it by looking at her, but the sister is without a doubt the best street hustler of all the would be conmen and scammers operating out on the streets. It doesn't hurt that she has a dynamite racket. It takes real balls to impersonate a nun, and boy does she have balls alright. The truth is that sister is a brother, name of Jackson Coleman. Jackson was a former B&E man who hit the right racket to feed his drug addiction. I knew him back before I went to jail. We got back in touch after I came home and he helps me out on stuff for a price. A cross-dressing junkie nun who cons people with a bell and the bible. Where else but Harlem?

"Say, Sister Mercy," I said as I palmed two twenties and shook the good sister's hand. "What do you know good?"

"'Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times', Psalm 106:3," he said loud enough for the pedestrians passing by to hear before whispering. "Luke Cage, my man. What's up? GIVE TO THE LAWD, PEOPLE."

"Wondering if you had your ear to the ground on something, Sister. Looking for a group of hustlers working in Harlem. It'd be at least two guys and a girl. They took a civilian for nearly sixty grand on a Snow Job."

Sister Mercy let out a low and soft whistle before returning back to the work of yelling about damnation and monetary salvation. He thanked a passerby as they tossed a dollar into the bucket at his feet. After a few moments of thought, he finally shook his head.

"Been quiet the last few weeks around Harlem, far as any action is concerned. I did hear word getting around about counterfeiters. Raising notes and stuff like that. You ever heard of that old scam, the Blow?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Before your time, Cage. Hell, before my time. The idea is that you convince a sucker you can raise his money, turn his tens into hundreds. You get him to give you all of his money in tens, and then something happens... say, a Secret Service agent busts through the door, and starts shooting. Your instinct is to haul ass and you do. In the process you lose the money to this fake-ass agent with a plastic badge."

"You just described what happened to my client. Sister, I could kiss you."

"'But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart,' Matthew 5:28, brother. Repent and GIVE TO THA LAWD!"