The Mike Black Saga Volume 2

by Roy Glenn

Freeze parked the truck in the parking lot, and they headed for the hotel. On the way, Freeze spotted Albert’s car. “Nick,” he said, and Nick stopped. Freeze pointed at the car. “At least we know we’re in the right place. There goes Albert’s car.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nick said. “Watch the car, I’ll be right back.” When Nick returned, he had his little bag of tricks with him. While Freeze looked on, Nick went to work on Albert’s car. When he was done, Nick returned his bag to the truck and they proceeded inside.

  “What you do?”

  “A little insurance. You think he’s still in the casino?” Nick asked.

  “If he’s any kind of player he is,” Freeze answered. After a quick stop at the nearest bar, they went into the casino. It wasn’t long before they spotted Albert. “I got him,” Nick said.

  “Where?”

  Nick discretely pointed in the direction of the poker table.

  “Right where Mylo said he would be.”

  Albert and his blonde companion had been at the poker table for most of the night. He was holding his own, won a few big pots, but for him it wasn’t the money, it was the game itself that fascinated Albert.

  Freeze started walking toward Albert, but Nick grabbed his arm. “What you gonna do? Put a gun to his head and drag him out?”

  “Something like that,” Freeze said bluntly.

  “Have another drink and relax. Watch some of these lovely and not so lovely ladies. You keep your eye on him. I’m gonna take a look around, do a little recon. See how many exits there are in this joint, if you see Birdie take him. But try to be discreet about it.”

  Freeze saluted the ex-soldier, “Cool. I’ll try but I ain’t making no promises.” and turned toward the bar to order another drink.

  Once the bartender refreshed their drinks, Nick proceeded to check out the casino. Once he had satisfied himself with the layout of the room, Nick returned to Freeze at the bar.

  “You see him?”

  “No. I see our boy is still at it,” Nick said.

  “I say we take him now. Worry about Birdie later.”

  “You might be right. Mylo’s girl didn’t say she saw Birdie. But let’s wait til he leaves the table. It’ll cause less of a commotion.”

  “Damn!” Freeze said.

  “What?”

  “I hate fuckin’ waiting. You might be used to all this waiting and reconnaissance shit from the Army, but not me. I ain’t like that.”

  “If you had waited before you killed them two mutha fucka’s, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Fuck you, Nick.”

  “Whatever,” Nick said and ordered another drink.

  At that moment, Birdie walked into the casino with a woman on each arm. Freeze nudged Nick. “What?”

  “There he is. Can we take them now?”

  “You take Birdie, I’ll get Albert.” Nick downed his drink and went after Albert, while Freeze made his way behind Birdie.

  When he was right behind him, Freeze put his gun in Birdie’s back. “Surprise mutha fucka.”

  Birdie cursed when he felt the gun in his back.

  “Get rid of the bitches,” Freeze instructed.

  “Ladies would you two excuse me for a minute. I gotta talk to my man here.”

  Although they didn’t seem happy about it, the ladies kissed Birdie on the cheek and walked away. “Good boy.”

  Albert looked up and saw Birdie, and then he noticed Freeze standing behind him. He looked around the room quickly and saw Nick coming at him. Albert quickly grabbed as many chips as he could carry and ran away from the table. Nick watched as Albert ran out of the casino and headed for his car. Nick didn’t chase him; he simply turned around and joined Freeze, who by this time had discreetly walked Birdie into the lobby.

  “Albert get away?”

  “He saw me coming and ran.”

  “Like a bitch,” Freeze said. “I told you we should have taken him when we had the chance.”

  “Don’t worry. I got him,” Nick said as they walked Birdie out to Freeze’s truck. They put Birdie in the front seat and Nick covered until Freeze was in the driver seat. Nick got his bag out the back. While Freeze held a gun to Birdie’s head, Nick put some double cuff plastic restraints around Birdie’s wrists and ankles. Then Nick used another longer piece to connect the two restraints. He made sure Birdie’s seat belt was securely fastened, before getting in the back seat behind him. “Let’s go.”

  “Look, Freeze. We can work this out. I ain’t have nothing to do with Black’s wife getting killed.”

  Nick laughed a little. “We know that.”

  “What?”

  “I said we know you didn’t have nothing to do with it,” Nick said fighting back the laughter.

  Birdie looked over at Freeze, who continued to drive in silence. “If y’all knew I ain’t have nothing to do with it, then why you kill Smiley and Lonnie?”

  “We didn’t know it at the time. Did we Freeze?”

  Freeze didn’t answer and continued driving out of the city.

  “I think you owe Birdie an apology,” Nick kidded Freeze.

  “Fuck you Nick.”

  “Well hold up then. If y’all know I didn’t have nothing to do with it, then what are we doing here?”

  “You tried to kill us,” Nick said matter-of-factly.

  “But that was only ’cause y’all killed my people. I had to do something.”

  “I understand that. But we’re still gonna kill you.”

  “Come on, man. We can work somethin out. I got money. How much you want? I’ll get it. It don’t matter how much; I’ll get it and then I’ll leave New York. Y’all will never see me again. Just please don’t kill me,” Birdie pleaded for his life.

  “Too late for that now. But what I wanna know is since you didn’t have nothing to do with it, why didn’t you come talk to us? Why you come hide out down here?”

  “For real, that was Albert’s idea. He thought if we waited a couple of days before we talked to you, it would improve our position on the street, and we could expand.”

  “Damn y’all some stupid mutha fucka’s,” Freeze said.

  “It was just business!” Birdie screamed.

  “It was bad for business!” Nick yelled. He reached in his bag and pulled out a plastic bag and some duct tape. “Trying to kill us was bad for business, you dumb mutha fucka!”

  Nick put the plastic bag over Birdie’s head and wrapped the duct tape around the edge so he couldn’t get any air. With his waist hooked up to his ankles, Birdie couldn’t get his hands to his face to try to get the bag off his head.

  “Die slow, mutha fucka,” Freeze said.

  Birdie twisted and turned in his seat as he struggled feverishly to breathe. It wasn’t long before Birdie’s movement slowed as the plastic bag got tighter around his head. Then his head dropped, and Birdie stopped moving.

  “I still think we should put two to his head,” Freeze said.

  “What you wanna do with the body?”

  “Dump it. I mean it ain’t like we can take him past the toll booth cops and back to the parlor.” Freeze drove across an overpass that covered a small river. He pulled over and he and Nick dragged Birdie’s body to the river and threw him in.

  Once they were back in the truck, Freeze turned to Nick.

  “What we gonna do about Albert?”

  “I almost forgot,” Nick said and reached in the back seat for his bag.

  Confident that he had gotten away clean, Albert sped down the Atlantic City expressway, on his way back to New York. He wondered how they found them.

  Mylo.

  That wasn’t important now. The fact was that they did; and by now Birdie was dead. Albert had no intention of suffering that same fate. He had some money stashed at a girlfriend’s house in Brooklyn. His plan was to make it there, get the money, head for JFK and get on the first plane out.

  Nick reached in his bag and pulled out a remote transmitter with a fifty-mile range. He raised the antenna and push
ed the button.

  Albert’s car blew up.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Freeze dropped Nick off at his car and he made his way to Impressions. Along the way, he thought about Wanda and their beautiful night of passion. He marveled at how she’d wanted him, just as much as he wanted her. Nick wondered what would become of them and if they really had a chance. Deep down he hoped they did.

  When Nick arrived at his destination, he considered calling her, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to appear pussy whipped, even if he was. Calling Wanda now would only serve to confirm what, for now, would remain his secret. Nick wanted her with every breath he took. When he walked toward the club, he felt a sense of relief, and he had no one other than Freeze to thank for that. After all, it was Freeze who had single handedly assured them all that Black wouldn’t do time for a crime he didn’t commit. That’s what Freeze getting rid of the gun meant.

  As he walked up to Impressions, a stranger yelled from the line, which had wrapped around the corner. “Nick, whassup?”

  Nick nodded and blew him off as just another person trying to use his connection to beat the line. He stepped inside Impressions and walked past the dance floor and made his way into the sanctuary of his office. He unlocked the door and turned on the lights.

  The minute the lights went on, Nick’s eyes widened at the sight of the nine millimeter pointed right toward his head.

  “Don’t reach for your gun, just lock the door and keep coming, quietly,” a voice ordered. “Keep your hands where I can see them while you’re at it.”

  Nick complied with his demands and kept walking forward. “You want me to put my hands up too?” Nick asked.

  “Just keep coming.”

  “X what the fuck are you doing here?” Nick asked calmly.

  The man with the gun was Xavier Ashanti and Nick knew X well. They were in the same special operations unit in the Army. He got discharged early because he was suddenly unable to pass the psychological test and said he wanted to kill his commanding officer. Since then, X has been working independently, doing the type of contract work that other people didn’t want to do. Another life that Nick had happily left behind. He wasn’t pleased to see Xavier, especially pointing a gun. If Xavier was pointing a gun at him, that meant he was there to kill him.

  “I came to see you, naturally,” Xavier answered. “Why else would I be sitting in your chair,” he shrugged, with the gun still pointed at Nick. “I mean, this is your chair right?”

  “X what the fuck are you doing here? I mean how did you even get in here? My office is locked, there’s a security guard standing in front of a locked door. But here you are, with your pistola pointed at me,” Nick said.

  “That’s the first thing we need to discuss, Nick.”

  “What’s that X?”

  “Your sloppy ass security. I mean Nick you been hanging around these gangsters long enough, upgrade the security here.”

  “How’d you get in here, X?”

  Xavier laughed a little. “A chick walks by with her skirt up her ass and the bum at the door is so busy watching her, he lets me walk right by him. If you wanna keep somebody out, get a better system.”

  Nick didn’t flinch, he didn’t panic, “We’re friends right?” he asked.

  Xavier didn’t answer.

  “I take that as a yes, so why are you still pointing a gun at me?”

  “Come on, Nick, you know what a cautious guy I am, nothing’s changed. I mean you guys are at war right?” Xavier laughed. “I mean do these people even know what war is? But anyway, I just wanted to make sure one of your soldiers, didn’t bust in behind you and shoot me,” Xavier said and put the gun down. “So, how’ve you been Nick?” he asked like he didn’t just have a nine pointed at Nick’s head. “Damn it’s good to see you, what’s it been five years?” Xavier continued.

  “Yeah, it’s been about that long, but what the fuck are you doing here?” Nick asked as he took a seat across from Xavier.

  “Mind if I make a drink. This is a nice little deal you got here,” Xavier said as he casually strolled over to the bar.

  “Make it two,” Nick said.

  “Even if security sucks, you gangsters sure know how to live,” Xavier teased. “You still drinking Johnny Black?”

  “Make it a double.”

  “I heard about Jett, I’m real sorry.” Xavier said about their old Army buddy. “I hate to see a good soldier go down. But I hear Monika is doing better,” he added as he poured liquor into two glasses. They were Nick’s partner’s; Jett died, and Monika barely survived when they when up against Chilly.

  Xavier walked back to the desk, gave Nick his, then tilted his to the air. “For old times?” he motioned toward Nick.

  “And fallen comrades,” Nick added.

  Nick and Xavier both drank their drinks in one swallow. “That’s good stuff, I should’ve brought the bottle.”

  Nick stood and went and got the bottle. He always like the way Johnny Black went down. He poured Xavier and himself another drink. This time there was no toast, just bottoms up.

  “But you want to know what the fuck I’m doing here, right, Nick?” Xavier looked at his watch, “And I need to tell you because I got a late flight to catch. You got a problem and a big one at that,” Xavier said casually.

  “I know,” Nick answered.

  “Your boss is in jail, and his wife’s dead.”

  “How do you know all of this X; you been keeping tabs on me?”

  “Well, yes and no Nick,” Xavier said and poured himself another drink. “Every once in a while your name comes up and I ask about you. It’s a small community we operate in.”

  Nick shook his head. “Oh, no, small community you operate in. I’m out.”

  “So you mean to tell me, you’d rather do this gangster shit, than what you used to do? I know you still get the itch. C’mon Nick, you know, taking a guy out from two hundred feet away with a heavy cross wind.”

  “All in the past. I don’t roll like that anymore. Like you said, us gangsters know how to live.”

  “Yeah, that’s a nice Caddy you pushing. What’s it; an XLR?”

  “That’s how I’m rolling these days, but enough about me, what’s up with you, and why don’t you start by telling me about my problem, and what it’s got to do with you?”

  “It has absolutely nothing to do with me, Nick, I swear. Anyway, I just ran into this information by chance. As much as I’d like to say I did some amazing intel, I was just in the right place at the right time. And that place was Singapore.”

  “How’s Lucy?” Nick asked.

  “As good as ever,” Xavier assured him. “But that’s a story for another time.” Xavier downed his drink. “I’m in this bar with these two guys, you might even know them. George Swanson and Kip Bartowski.”

  “Don’t ring a bell,” Nick said.

  “Bart’s a big sucker.”

  “And I’d know these guys how?” Nick asked.

  “Oh, if you knew them, you’d remember, contract killers.”

  Nick straightened up in his chair. “What do contract killers have to do with Shy’s murder?”

  “Oh, by the way, I’m sorry about that. I heard she was a very fine woman. If something like this had come my way, I would have passed and tipped you before she…”

  “I know, X.”

  “Anyway, I’m in this bar in Singapore and I’m drinking with these guys and they’re telling me about this last job they did. And they’re both drunk, loud and telling me about it, laughing all over each other. So when they get through, I asked who the woman was. He told me the name and said it was some gangster’s woman. I knew he was talking about your guy. Black, Mike Black, the guy you always talked about.”

  “Whao! Whoa, slow down X. You’re trying to tell me that two contract killers hit Shy? Why?”

  “I have no idea Nick. Didn’t get around to asking all that, didn’t think they’d tell me if I did. I might’ve died violently if I ask
ed that,” Xavier said.

  “How’d it happen?” Nick asked.

  “Two man operation. One guy picks up Black at the airport, lets his partner know when he’s leaving the airport, tells him how long he’s got. You want the whole story in detail? ’Cause you know I remember.”

  “Yeah, the whole story in detail, word for word if you can give it to me.”

  Xavier glanced down at his watch again, “How ‘bout I leave out the slurring and the laughing?”

  “Just tell me what happened, X.”

  “Apparently they’d been following your boy for a while, getting his pattern down. They’d had him under surveillance, eyes and ears, for more than a minute. They picked up on the trip you and him took to Mexico and that was their opportunity. So they set up one at the airport, one at the house.”

  “How’d he get in the house X? The alarms always on when Shy’s in the house by herself,” Nick said.

  “The alarm wasn’t on. They broke in while Black was there, hid in the basement until he got the call to move. Once he got the call, he went upstairs, since she was on the couch watching TV, she didn’t hear ‘em coming. The job was that he was supposed to beat her, so they handcuffed her to the chair, and they used some kind of drug on her to minimize the pain.”

  “How’d they give it to her?”

  “Just a little bit on a handkerchief, they didn’t give her a whole lot of it, just enough so she could take that beating without doing a whole lot of screaming and not pass out on them. And he beat her,” Xavier said easily. “He’d sit down take a break, watch TV, then he’d hit her some more. Once he figured he’d beat her enough, her face was pretty messed up from what he said. Took the cuffs off and led her to the kitchen. He told her that he’d let her go if she could make it out the back door. Said it was funny watching her stumble to the floor over and over while she tried to make it to the back door. Then he shot her in the back.”

  “When did she call the police then?” Nick asked, disgusted and a bit confused.

  “She didn’t,” Xavier said.

  “Remember my friend; they had eyes and ears on them. She liked to talk on the phone. They put together a tape recording of her voice. After he confirmed she was dead. He made it look like there’s been a fight in there, pulled the phone off the wall, cleans the living room, makes sure he doesn’t leave any traces. Now the alarm is on, so he waits. Waits until Black comes in and turns off the alarm, he slips out the basement door. His guy was waiting outside for him. So I ask him, why would you go to so much trouble, why not just walk in, shoot her and leave?”