by Glenn, Roy
The Mike Black Saga: Book One
by Roy Glenn
© Copyright Roy Glenn 2011
Kingstown Publishing
1038-5 Dunn Avenue
# 30
Jacksonville, FL 32218
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
Also by Roy Glenn
Beneath The Surface
The Cost of Vengeance
Killing Them Softly; An Erotic Tale of Murder
Commit To Violence
Three The Hard Way
The Mike Black Saga: Book One
The Mike Black Saga: Is It A Crime
The Mike Black Saga: MOB
Private Deceptions
The Mike Black Saga: Payback
The Mike Black Saga: Outlaw
The Mike Black Saga: No More Tears in the End
An Urban Drama
The Playa Chronicles
All About The Money
Going Down; An Erotic Tale of Murder by Roy Glenn
Out of Control by Roy Glenn
On Sale Now from Kingstown Publishing
Southern Comfort by La Jill Hunt
The Request by LaVonda Kennedy
Whatever It Takes by Angela Jones
Somebody’s Somebody by La Jill Hunt
Don’t Be A Dumb Bitch by Ayana Ellis
In Strict Confidence by Dwayne S. Joseph
Coming Soon from Kingstown Publishing
No Loose Ends by Roy Glenn
Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing by La Jill Hunt
Visit www.escapismentertainment.net
Chapter One
Mike Black
It was a beautiful Caribbean night. The moon was full and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I sat by the pool at my house in Nassau with my daughter Michelle asleep with her head on my lap. She’s a beautiful girl that looks just like her mother. I sat looking at her, and I wondered what her life gonna be like?
How would I protect her? How would I keep her safe from my world? How would her life be different from mine? For one thing, Michelle would grow up having her father in her life. I never knew my father growin’ up. I was born in St. Vincent. My mother, Emily Black met my father one night at a dancehall.
“Michael, back then, I was a different person,” Emily told me one night. “I was eighteen and I was so fast.”
“You? Fast? I have a hard time believing that,” I said.
“It’s true. Having you changed my life.” Emily smiled. “I was so drunk. That’s why I stopped drinking. I never saw him again after that night, never even tried.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked her.
“Pride. You were too young when you used to ask. Besides, it wasn’t your business. When you got older, you stopped asking. I didn’t think it mattered to you anymore. I didn’t know that man. Only thing I do remember about him is that he was kind of arrogant.”
I was four years old when my mother left St. Vincent and came to New York. We had no family or friends when we got there. We didn’t have much money either. We moved into a small, one-room flat in the South Bronx. After Emily completed nursing school, she got a job at Lebanon Hospital working the evening shift when I was six. With a new job, she was able to move us out of the South Bronx into the basement of a two family house, in a section of the Bronx with a large West Indian population.
I met my best friend, Bobby Ray when we were in the third grade together. He lived down the block and we’ve been best friends ever since. Bobby is more like a brother to me now. When we were in the fifth grade, Wanda Moore and her older brother moved on the block and that same summer, Perry Dukes parents bought the house next door and Vickie Payne moved down the block near Bobby. We were in junior high school when Jamaica moved to the block. His real name is Clyde Walker, but since he had just got off the boat from Jamaica, and he talked with an accent, we just started calling him Jamaica. Now our crew was almost set. The only one left was Nick.
Nick Simmons lost his parents when he was eleven. He never really knew what happened to them. One day they just didn’t come home. So his brother and sister went Mississippi to live with his father’s brother and his wife. But they didn’t want Nick. He told me that he heard his uncle talkin’ about it one night.
“They were just babies. We could raise them in the church. They will be all right. But not Nick, that boy is into too much trouble and I not havin’ it. Not in my house! He probably the reason they didn’t come home,” his uncle said. He didn’t know Nick was listening.
It was decided that Nick would go live with his grandmother. She lived on the block. And after I kicked his ass on his first day on the block, the crew was set and we ran the block. We protected everybody who lived there. It started when we were young. Emily would make us carry packages for the ladies on the block. When we got older, we would walk them places at night. We wouldn’t let anybody who didn’t live there hang out there.
One day when I was fifteen and some guys tried to sell drugs to some kids on the block. Me and Bobby chased them off the block. A drug dealer named André Harmon, who ran most of the illegal activity in the area, saw the whole thing. He calls me over to his car. “You done good chasin’ them fuckas off your block.”
“Really,” I said, excited that André was even talkin’ to me like that. At the time, I really looked up to André and believed everything he said. I was a wanna be gangster, and I wanted to be down with André.
“But you know it won’t last.”
“It won’t?”
André shook his head. “They’ll be back.” He told me to get in the car and ride with him. While we drove, André said, “Those are small fish. If you want to put a stop to it, you gotta cut off the head.” He told me that they work for a hustler that called himself Chicago. Then he handed me a gun. “You know how to use one of those,” he asked.
I shook my head quickly. I had fired a gun a few times, but I never shot anybody, much less kill somebody, but I wasn’t about to tell André that. If that’s what it took to be down with André, I was in. “It will never stop until you killed him.”
For a couple of weeks I followed Chicago around. Trying to see the best time to hit him. Chicago was a creature of habit; he would leave his house about the same time every day. So I got a friend of mine named Angelo Collette to drive for me. Mainly because Angelo was the only one I knew with a car “That’s where I’ll hit him. Right in front of his house, to send a message. You mess with me at my home, I’ll mess with you at yours.”
“You really gonna whack this guy, Mikey?” Angelo asked when I told him where they were goin’.
“Yeah, Angee. I’m really gonna whack this guy,” I said from the backseat.
Chicago came out of the house heading for his car. Angee started to roll. When they got up on him, I pulled my gun, ready to kill him. But I heard somebody yelled, ‘Daddy take me with you.’ I stopped and looked back, and I saw a little girl standing on the steps looking dead at me.
I couldn’t do it.
Those eyes went right through me. I just told Angee to drive. When I got back to André’s, I was there with Bobby and five women. After the women left I told André and Bobby what happened, and they both had a good laugh. Then he told me and Bobby to go a little bar up on Bronxwood later that night.
André gave us a picture of these two gu
ys, and told them what he wanted done. Since I had just got punked out on a job, André asked if me was sure I can handle it.
“Hell yeah, I can handle it,” I told André that day. I was pretty sure that none of their kids would be hangin’ out with them at the bar.
The rest of the day, neither me or Bobby did much talkin’, which was rare for Bobby. Truth was, we were both nervous, especially since I had just fucked around and couldn’t kill Chicago.
When we get to the spot, the guy at the door won’t let us in. He said that we looked too young to be in there, until Bobby told the man that André sent us. After that it was all good.
Once we got inside and sat down I asked Bobby, “What you tell him that for?”
“It got us in, right?” Bobby said. “And besides, André wants everybody to know it was him behind it.”
I couldn’t argue with his logic.
“Just relax. Have a drink and enjoy yourself,” Bobby said and stared at the lone naked dancer behind the bar. “You ain’t scared are you?”
“No! And don’t you start with me. I heard enough of that shit from Angelo.”
“Angelo.” Bobby shook his head. “Why you hangout with that guy anyway?” Bobby tolerates my friendship with Angee, but he never did like him, and wonders why I do.
“Angelo’s a good guy. Give him a chance. He’s gonna be a good guy to know,” I told Bobby and we waited.
It was two in the morning before the guys we were looking for got there. I tapped Bobby on the shoulder.
“You ready?” I asked and Bobby nodded.
We both put on gloves and stood up.
“Let’s do it,” Bobby said, and we walked toward them at the bar. Once we were standing behind them, it was like time was standing still.
I can’t speak for Bobby, and we never talked about it after it was done, but honestly, its one thing to talk shit about doin’ it, but pullin’ the trigger and blowin’ a hole in the back of somebody’s head is another. To that point, we had collected money and roughed up a few people, which was fun, but we were about to kill these muthafuckas.
We never even knew their names, much less who they were and what they had done for André to want them dead. But the time for thinkin’ was past; nothing to do then but pull and blast. I looked at Bobby, we pulled out our guns and we fired.
After that, me and Bobby worked for André. First, we were runners. Then we started collecting for André, but he liked us, so he started taking us around with him. Sometimes we felt like pets, two pit bulls. One day André took me and Bobby us to collect from a guy that owed him twenty-five grand. I was eighteen at the time. After we tied the guy up, and André started in on him.
“Where the fuck is my money?” André and Bobby started torturing the guy. Then his wife came home. André took her in the back and raped her.
Now Bobby’s idea of torture was while he slaps the guy around he tells him jokes. Some of them are funny, some aren’t. If you laugh, you get slapped. If you don’t laugh, you get hit. Hard. While all that was going on, I was sitting quietly watching The Soldier on TV. When André got finished with the wife and came out of the back room, he slapped the guy a couple of times.
“Where the fuckin’ money?”
But by now the man is too out of it from the beating he got from Bobby to talk. André looked at me. “‘Yo, Black, come here.”
But I didn’t even answer him.
“Yo, Black, I think this guy’s dead,” André said.
I looked at them, got up, and walked over to the guy.
“Look at me,” I said and shook the guy, but he didn’t move. So I said it again. “Look at me.” This time he opened his eyes and looked up me.
I took out my gun, held it to his forehead, and shot him. One shot in the head. Then I looked at André. “Now he is.”
André freaked out. “Damn! You just a vicious mutha fucka! A vicious black wearin’ mutha fucka, ain’t you?”
“Whatever, can we go now?”
After that the name stuck. I became known as Vicious Black.
Chapter Two
After that, Vicious Black’s reputation grew. It wasn’t long before Nick and Jamaica began working for André. He was a drug dealer. As far as he was concerned, gambling and prostitution was just a sideline. But I thought there was plenty of money to be made there. So since none of our crew were into the dope game, we found other ways to make money.
Nick started out runnin’ a crap game. He made a lot of money runnin’ that game. I remember there was this guy named Big Willie that used to always wanna fight everybody. He was always talking about killing niggas when he lost. So one night, I was there with Nick. Big Willie was there and he’s losing big money. Everybody was betting big money. There was a kid named Ricky Wells and he was on a roll. Big Willie lost again and started screaming about how much money he had lost and how the dice must be loaded. Then he turned to Nick. “You usin’ loaded dice.”
“Ain’t nobody usin’ no damn loaded dice,” Nick said while he counted his money. “You need to shut the fuck up and take his broke-ass home.” Nick picked up the dice and handed them back to Ricky and took his eyes off Big Willie. Before Nick knew it, he was on his back, and Big Willie was standing over him pointing a gun.
“Nobody talks to me like that!” Big Willie yelled and cocked the hammer.
When I saw what was happenin’ to run over to Nick and punched Big Willie in the face. I hit him so hard that it broke his jaw. Willie dropped the gun and grabbed his face. I pulled out a gun and held it to Willie’s head.
“You ain’t killin’ nobody tonight; especially him. Get the fuck outta here and don’t ever let me catch you ‘round here.”
Me and Bobby went freelance and did a few jobs on their own. It Wanda, who always had a head for business, that insisted that the first thing we should do was to start a business to run our money through. The name of our company was Invulnerable Security, specializing in private security and personal bodyguards. I chose a security company because it would afford them a license to carry guns. We began highjacking trucks in New Jersey, Northern Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Sometimes we would park the truck on the block and give the stuff away. We robbed a few warehouses early on. But I decided that all that time waiting to load the truck was time waiting to get caught. Hijacking trucks on the other hand was quick, clean, and extremely profitable.
Me and Angelo used to do a lot of work together those days. Angee had started to get around with a made man named Carmine xxx and was makin’ a name for himself. I was with Angee the day he made his bones. The guys name was Nickie Nemecek. Two shots: One to the chest; one to the dome to make sure he was dead.
We had planned to hijack a load of cigarettes from a truck at the Molly Pitcher service area on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was to be me, Angee and Joey Delfino. We used to call him Crazy Joe. On the way to the job, me and Angee stopped to rob a jewelry store to settle an argument.
“I ain’t scared of shit, Mikey. You fuckin’ know that shit,” Angelo boasted as we drove to New Jersey to meet Joey.
“All I’m sayin’ is I like to plan a job before I do it. That don’t make me scared; that makes me careful,” I told Angee.
“You won’t do it ‘cause you’re scared, Mikey. Scared ‘cause you don’t know what you’re walkin’ into. Me, I don’t give a fuck. I’m ready for whatever they got in there.”
“Fuck you, Angee. Fuck you and fuck that dumb shit you talkin’. We just passed a jewelry store ‘bout a block ago. If you such a bad mutha fucka, turn this car around and go rob the mutha fucka.”
“Never challenge me, Mikey. You know better that shit. You know I will turn this heap around and do that shit, but we gotta meet Crazy Joe.”
“What’s that I smell? Is it pussy I smell in here? ‘Cause it sounds to me like somebody’s scared.”
“I ain’t scared of shit, Mikey, and I ain’t no fuckin’ pussy,” Angelo said and made a U-turn. Angee double parked the car in front of the stor
e. “You comin’ with me, chicken shit?”
I put on my gloves. “Let’s go,” and got out of the car. The robbery went off without any problems, but we got stuck in traffic coming across the George Washington Bridge. When we got to the service area we found Joey’s car, but no Joey. Angee found out the next day that Joey was arrested. Since me and Angelo didn’t show up, Crazy Joe did the job alone. He was arrested by Newark Police at the tollbooth when he got off the turnpike.
Me and Angee did got into a lot of shit together. Talk about two mutha fuckas that used to get drunk. We used to go to Yankee Stadium, sit out in the bleachers and get drunk on draft beer. One night, Me and Angee are out drinkin’ in Long Island when Angee saw somebody that he knew. “Hey, Mikey.”
“What?”
“You see that guy over there?” Angelo slurred.
“Which one?”
Angelo pointed. “The white guy.”
I looked at Angee’s finger and followed it. “They’re all white guys, Angee.”
“The one wearin’ sunglasses at night.”
“Oh.”
“That fucka owes me money,” Angee said.
“So what you wanna do? You gonna kiss him or we gonna get your money?”
“What are you, Mikey? A fuckin’ fruit or somethin’? Hell no, I ain’t gonna kiss him. But the chick with him, now her I’d like to fuck.”
I looked closer. “Damn, Angee, that’s a fuckin’ man!”
“It is?”
“What are you, Angee? A fuckin’ fruit,” I laughed.
“No, I’m fuckin’ drunk!”
“Shit, so am I. But I ain’t talkin’ about fuckin’ no man. What are you? A fuckin’ fruit!” I laughed so hard that my head hurt.
“Come on, Mikey,” Angee said and stumbled in that direction. “Hey, hey. Hey you, fuck face. You with the glasses,” Angee said as we staggered up.
“What’s up Angelo?”
“Fuck that, fuck face. Where’s my fuckin’ money?” Angee demanded to know. He grabbed the guy by the collar and led him around behind the club. “Now, fuck face. Where’s my fuckin’ money?”
