by Roy Glenn
"I don’t think so," Bobby said. "What would Curl have to gain by robbing the club?"
"You mean other than money," Nick threw in.
"You’re kinda quiet about all this, Mike," Wanda said noticing that he hadn’t said a word since she and Nick came into the office. "What do you think?"
"I don’t know what to think about this, Wanda," Mike said and walked over to the bar. "But I will tell you this, the objective wasn’t money."
"What makes you say that?" Wanda asked.
"If the objective was money they woulda waited until the club closed, waited until somebody came out the back door and got all the money from the bars and the door. So if it is Curl behind this it would make perfect sense."
"I say again, what makes you say that?" Wanda asked.
"What is Curl trying to do? He is trying to expand his operation. How can he do that? He can only expand by killin’ us all and takin’ it or to get us to sit down with him and we give it to him. At every point the tactics have been correct, they just weren’t executed correctly. Which is why I don’t think that it’s Curl, or at least it’s not him callin’ the shots?"
"Then who?" Wanda asked as Freeze came thought the door.
"Where you been?" Mike asked.
"Yonkers PD."
"Why didn’t you call me?" Wanda asked.
"‘Cause I wasn’t in jail."
"Then what were you doin’ there," Bobby asked.
"Somebody tried to kill me, but they got Paulleen instead. She’s dead."
Meanwhile, another meeting was taking place at The Spot between D-Train and the four Impressions bandits. Melinda walked into the office. When she came into the office everybody stopped talking and looked at Melinda. She didn’t think anything of it; she was used to things like that happening when she came into a room. "Hi, Dee. How did it go?"
"Y’all excuse me for a minute," D-Train said to the bandits. They got up slowly and walked out of the office.
Once they were gone Melinda asked, "How did it go?"
"Baby it went just like you said it would," D-Train said and got up from his desk and put his arms around Melinda. "And this time everybody did shit according to the plan."
"That’s great, baby,’ Melinda said and kissed him on the cheek. "What about the couple that caused the diversion? Did the cops take them to jail?"
"Nope," he replied and kissed her. "They just took the gun from her and told them both to go home."
"How much did they get?"
"That was the only problem," D-Train said and broke their embrace and started to walk away.
"Oh, Lord, what happened?"
D-Train turned back quickly and backhanded Melinda to the floor. "TWO FUCKIN’ GRAND!" he screamed as he stood over her. "My people went through all that shit for two fuckin’ grand."
"That’s not possible," Melinda said and tried to crawl away from D-Train, but he kept coming.
"Oh, but yes it is possible, Miss master plan."
"I told you that the money wasn’t the point. The point was to get them to come to us!" Melinda yelled as she backed herself into a corner.
"Bitch, please. A nigga like Black spend that much on a suit. Them niggas ain’t gonna care about losin’ two fuckin’ grand." D-Train looked at Melinda as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Get up," he said and held out his hand. "Get up, I ain’t gonna hit you no more."
"You promise?"
"Yeah, I promise. Besides, I got another problem that I need to deal with." D-Train helped Melinda to her feet and practically dragged her into the stock room. Once they got in the stock room, there sat Clark Kent, surrounded by D-Train’s crew, gagged, beaten, and bloody, tied to a chair.
"What’s goin’ on here?" Melinda asked.
"This is what happens to a nigga that fucks up."
"What did he do?"
"This dumb bitch decided on his own that he was gonna whack Freeze. But he missed. Killed his woman instead."
"You killed Paulleen?"
"You know her?"
"Of course I know her. We were friends," Melinda said knowing how fucked up this was. Now there would be no talk. She knew that Freeze would come after them with everything he had. "What are you gonna do with him?"
D-Train took out his gun. "I wanted you to see what happens to niggas that fuck up." D-Train pointed his gun and pumped three shots into Clark Kent’s head. "Guess he ain’t Superman," D-Train said and his crew laughed. Then he grabbed Melinda by the throat. "You ain’t got no more times to fuck up. Understand?"
Melinda said nothing, but understood perfectly, and it became very clear to her exactly what she had to do now.
Chapter Twenty-six
It was mid afternoon when Nick arrived at the Post office to met Freddie. He still hadn’t heard from Kirk. Since he had to catch Freddie, Nick allowed Kirk to rush out of his apartment without giving up any information, and now he regretted it. Nick tried to call Kirk again, and again caught Kirk’s voicemail. He wanted to call Black and tell him, tell him what? That Kirk knew something, but I have no idea what? That I think it has something to do with the DEA? I don’t think so. Not after Black just asked me if I was a DEA agent. But he needed to run this by somebody and thought that since he wasn’t ready to tell Black that Wanda was the next best choice.
The night before, Wanda and Nick talked about his situation for about an hour at her office. After he explained his concerns about what Sally Fitz had told him, Wanda had to agree with him, but she had to ask a question before she said anything else. "Are you DEA, Nick?" Wanda asked with a smile
"No, Wanda, I am not DEA."
"Good for you, Nick. It would break my heart if you were," Wanda said in a somewhat flirtatious way, and then turned serious. "But I agree, you were right to move Monika. How is she doing anyway?"
"She’s doin’ fine, she just needs to rest. She should be back on her feet in a day or two," Nick told her.
"So do you think that telling Kirk about Shy was the best idea?"
Nick looked at Wanda.
"I’m just asking because I know that Mike will," Wanda said, but she did question the logic behind it.
Nick smiled. "You mean because he’s a cop?"
"Yes, Nick," Wanda said and laughed a little.
"That’s exactly why I told him. Look, Kirk hears things we never will. I think he does know something, so I took a chance."
"I hope it pays off, and at worst, doesn’t cause us any more problems than it already has. What’s bothering me is how Kirk would know or even care about a drug meeting in the Bahamas. Kirk is homicide," Wanda said and looked at the time. "Have you eaten yet?"
"I haven’t eaten a thing all day, so I’m starving."
"Well let’s go, I’ll buy you dinner," Wanda said and began to gather her things.
"Are you inviting me out on a date?"
"No, Nick, I said that I would buy you dinner. If this was a date you would be buying me dinner," Wanda said Nick followed her out of the office.
After dinner Nick and Wanda talked over drinks. They talked about business and how she thought Nick could fit in. They were having a good time reminiscing about old times and then Wanda noticed that it was getting late and she wanted to see P Harlem at Impressions. That’s when they found out about the robbery and about Paulleen’s murder.
Since the bandits only got away with a couple of grand, nobody was overly concerned about the robbery, although the fact that anyone would try it bothered Freeze. He saw it as another challenge to his running of their operation. The real concern was the attempted assassination.
Freeze was sure that D-Train was responsible and wanted blood, "I say we go over there now and kill ‘em all." But Mike was able to convince him to be sure that he was involved in it before they went to war. So, while Mike and Bobby continued to look for Shy, Freeze went off in search of the owner of a 73 Nova, and Nick went to meet Freddie.
When Nick arrived at the post office, Freddie was there waiting for him. He got out and began
walking toward him. "How’s it goin’, Freddie?"
"First of all let’s get one thing straight. You never saw me. So I never talked to you, not today or yesterday. We clear on that?"
"That bad?"
"Are we clear, Nick?"
"I never saw you, Freddie, so we never talked. Now, what you got?"
"Nothing. That’s what I got, nothing. All my inquiries were met by a polite brush off or the word classified."
"You have anything for me?"
"Some advice, and this came from Walter."
"How is Walter?"
"Still pissed at you about Beirut. He sends his regards, and said to forget you ever heard any of this."
"Can’t do that, Freddie, but thanks anyway for your help. See ya." I started to walk away.
"Back off this one, Nick, it’s political."
I stopped in my tracks and walked back to Freddie. "How do you know it’s political, Freddie? You know something, Freddie. Give it up."
Freddie stood quietly and looked at Nick. "All right, Nick. Paris did some work for some people we know in Virginia. The word is that some white paper that Paris came in contact with but he was murdered before he actually got his hands on them."
"Shit, I knew that."
"Sorry you came all this way for nothing," Freddie said, and got back in his car. "Hey, Nick. You ever read a column by Tavia Hawkins?"
"Tavia Hawkins? Who’s that?"
"She’s a reporter for the Post."
"What’s she got to do with this?"
"I didn’t say she did. Understand. See ya, Nick." Nick watched Freddie drive away before returning to his car. He drove to the nearest public library and logged on to the Internet.
Nick went to the Post’s on line edition site and ran an archive search on Tavia Hawkins. He got ten pages of hits from his search. Nick began reading some of the articles and it wasn’t long before he noticed a pattern. A lot of the articles she’d written lately were about Martin Marshall.
Chapter Twenty-seven
"What you wanna do now?" Bobby asked.
"Let’s ride down the concourse, see what’s happening down there," Mike replied. It was getting late in the evening and Mike and Bobby had been ridin’ all day. They had been to all of the people who usually had information to offer for a price and still nothing. Nobody knew anything about Shy’s kidnapping or knew where they could find Sal Terrico.
Mike had begun to wonder if maybe he’d left the island too soon or maybe he should have put some pressure on Hector in Miami. No, Shy was in New York somewhere and he would find her if he had to go house to house to do it. Somebody knew something; saw something. He would just have to find them and make them talk.
They had just come out of a bar when Bobby’s cell phone rang and he answered it. "This is Angelo. Let me talk to Mike." Bobby told Mike who it was and handed him the phone.
"What’s up, Angee?"
"Diego called, says he’s in town. Says he still wants to meet with you."
"You know what, Angee? This ain’t exactly the best time for this shit. I got much more important shit to deal with right now."
"I know this, Mike. But it’s a matter of respect. So talk to the guy, get it over with, and get back to what you gotta do," Angelo said.
"That’s the thing, Angee, I don’t have any fuckin’ respect for this guy. I never have. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a pussy."
"Look, Mike, so he’s not the man his father was in his day."
"Not even fuckin’ close, Angee. Gomez was the man. Diego is out of control and fuckin’ sloppy, and that makes him dangerous."
"And that’s exactly why you need to meet him, hear him out, and if you don’t like what he has to say, you can bitch slap his ass again if you wanna."
"What the fuck is he doin’ up here, anyway? I know he didn’t fly up here just to talk to me about Nick?"
"No, he’s got business up here. The way I get it, five million dollars worth of legitimate business; Well, kinda legit."
"Yeah, whatever. I still say fuck him!"
"Mike! Meet with the fuckin’ guy. Get the shit over with before he makes it out to be more than it fuckin’ is. Do this for me, okay, Mikey?"
"Okay. As a favor to you, but I don’t have time for this, put him off — -"
Bobby interrupted. "Ain’t that Manny Valdez over there?" Manny Valdez used to be one of Mike’s favorite snitches. Manny would snitch out his mama if there was money in it.
"Yeah, that’s him," Mike replied.
"He sees us," Bobby said. "Hey, Manny!"
Manny Valdez looked at Mike and Bobby and started running. "He’s runnin’."
"I’ll get back to you, Angee," Mike told him and hung up the phone.
"Why is he runnin’?" Bobby asked.
"I don’t know, but let’s find out," Mike said and took off running after Manny. Bobby went for his car and drove after them. Mike caught up with him just as Manny made it to his car. Before he could get his key in the ignition, Mike pulled him out of the car.
"Where you goin’, Manny?"
"Nowhere, Black," Manny said as Bobby pulled up and got out of the car.
"Why were you runnin’ then, Manny?"
"`Cause you said that you would kill me the next time you saw me."
"I did?" Mike questioned. "Why’d I. . never mind. I’m not goin’ to kill you, at least not yet, Manny. I just wanna ask you some questions. Tell me what I wanna know and I won’t kill you."
"What do you wanna know? I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just don’t kill me, Black, please." Manny pleaded for his life.
"You know a guy name Sal Terrico?"
"Yeah, I know Sal, what about him?" Manny asked.
"Where can I find him?" Mike demanded to know.
"What’s in it for me?" Manny asked, and with that Mike punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Manny fell to his knees.
While he was still on the ground Mike grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed Manny’s head between the car, and the car door. "I already told you what’s in it for you, Manny. Tell me what I wanna know and I won’t kill you." Mike hit his head with the door again.
"All right, all right, Black. When he’s in the city he likes to get high, buys his shit from a guy named Red. Runs a shooting gallery out in Queens."
Mike slammed the door against Manny’s head again. "I already know that, Manny. Now you tell me where I can find him!"
Bobby leaned over Manny. "Look, Manny, you better tell him something before you end up brain damaged."
"Cityscape!" Manny yelled. "He likes to hang out up there." Manny tried to block the door with his arms but Mike hit him with the door again and again.
"I know that, Manny. Tell me what I don’t know!"
"I know for a fact that he’ll be there at two in the morning. He likes to get high with some bitch that dances there. Her name is Jaylyn. She gets off at two! That’s all I know, Black, really. Please don’t hit me again."
Mike let go of Manny and let his beaten body drop to the ground. "If you see Sal before I do, Manny, I better hear from you," Mike said before walking toward Bobby’s car.
Once they were in the car and drove away, Mike turned to Bobby. "We probably just missed him last night."
"Yeah, but we’ll get him tonight. We’ll go down there and wait for him. We’ll get him tonight, Mike. I promise you that."
"I know, Bobby. I know."
Chapter Twenty-eight
"DEA agent, Roman Patterson is murdered in Black’s club by associates of Sal Terrico. South American associates. Does any of that relate to those papers? Are those papers about what we did in South America? Then there’s Kirk. How does he know what went on in the Bahamas?"
"I don’t know, Nick," Wanda said.
"Kirk knows, but all I get from him is voice mail."
"Maybe he’ll talk to me. Hold on Nick." Wanda put Nick on hold and tried to call Kirk.
When Wanda came back on the line quickly, Nic
k said, "Voice mail, huh?"
"Yeah."
"What now?"
"I know somebody that we can talk to," Wanda replied. "Meet me at my office in about an hour."
"Why? Who are we going to talk to?" But Wanda had already hung up.
Wanda flipped though her Rolodex until she came to the name she was looking for. She dialed the number. "Glynnis Presley, please."
If it involved politics or politicians, Glynnis was the person you wanted to talk to. She was a Senators aid who knew everybody, and more importantly, knew all the inside information about everybody, or she could find out. "Everybody talks to somebody that talks to me" Glynnis was famous for saying. During their long association Mike Black had been a heavy contributor to a few local political candidates. Any time that he needed to use that type of influence, it was a simple matter to call Glynnis, who called the appropriate Congressperson, who made the calls necessary for things to go the way he wanted them to without any problems. Before too long, "This is Glynnis."
"How you doing, Glynnis, this is Wanda."
"Tired and ready to go home. How about you?"
"I’m fine. I was calling to see if you had any plans for this evening?"
"Not a thing. What did you have in mind?"
"Dinner. I got some things that I wanted to run by you."
"Okay, you convinced me."
"Where do you want meet?" Wanda asked.
"I don’t know; what do you have a taste for?"
"I don’t know, Italian maybe, seafood is always good for me," Wanda said. "But let’s go some place that we haven’t been before, cause you know that I’ll go to McCormick amp; Schmick’s and order calamari like I always do. So what new and hot?"
"There’s a place called Alto on Madison and 53rd Street. They claim that they take Italian food to a new level."
"Have you eaten there?"
"Yes, a couple of weeks ago. It’s a nice place, very plush, tall-backed chairs, you’ll like it. And the Chef comes around and talks with the guests."
"What about Asian food?"
"I heard of this place called Koi, it’s on 40th and 6th Avenue. It’s in the Bryant Park Hotel. I hear that there’s a nice bar there called Cellar Bar."
