by Glenn, Roy
When Jamaica told Black about Mister Henry’s request, Black told him to go ahead and give him whatever he needs. “In fact, make sure he has enough money to expand.”
Jamaica smiled. He knew exactly what Black had in mind. “How big a place you want?”
“I’m thinkin’ it needs to be big enough to add a band and a dance floor,” Black recommended.
“It shall be done.”
Two months after the roof was repaired and the expansion was complete, Jamaica told Mister Henry at gunpoint that he had a new partner. “You can stay on if you want to run the place. It wouldn’t be the same if Mister Henry wasn’t here. Right fellows,” Jamaica laughed with his men. They had their guns drawn too. “But if you wanted to stay at home and retire, I would send one of me brethren each week with a fat check for you. The choice is yours.”
“Choose wisely, ya know,” one of Jamaica’s men leaned in to recommend.
Mister Henry let go a nervous laugh. “I was thinkin’ ‘bout retiring anyway. I’m getting too old for this type of stuff, ya know.”
“A wise decision.” Black was there the next day and The Grill was under new management.
Black had owned a club since he twenty years old when him and Bobby opened The Late Night. Years later, he opened Cuisine and Bobby opened Impressions. When he moved to Freeport, he and Cassandra opened and ran Black’s Paradise until they moved back to New York. He had wanted to open a club since the day he arrived on the island, but he hadn’t had the time to pursue it. His days were taken up with doing business with Meka and nights were filled with his family.
They lived in a house called The Yellow Rose. “Modern grandeur amid the tropical splendors of Lyford Cay,” their real estate agent, Mr. Lightbourn began the day he showed them the house.
“This is beautiful,” CeCe said as she walked around the elaborately furnished house with her eyes wide open.
“You like it?” Black asked.
“Yes,” CeCe said as they followed Mr. Lightbourn around the house.
“And it’s no wonder that you do my dear. This impressive modern masterpiece was designed by a noted Bahamian architect and offers luxury and comfort in a tropical setting. It has 10,426 square feet of living space on more than a half acre of land. An awe-inspiring great room embraces dining and television areas and a two-story living space. It is uniquely positioned with 152 feet on the canal and a wide-open view. The main house consists of four bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, plus a one-bedroom one-bathroom apartment on the grounds. It truly presents a treasure trove of the finest marble from Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Custom interior doors and door frames of Cypress wood; Crystal dining room sconces and a chandelier custom made in Austria. Etched-glass panels, marble treads, and stainless steel balustrades transform the grand staircase into an elegant work of modern sculpture. The enclosed grounds sequester a 25-meter lap pool with cabana and sauna. A private dock extends into the water and can accommodate up to a 120-foot yacht in the deep water canal.” Mr. Lightbourn turned to Black. “Well, Mr. Black, what do you think?”
“Are you thinking about buying this?” CeCe asked.
“I am if you like it.”
“Me?”
“If you don’t like it, we can look at some other places,” Black said and put his arm around her.
“I love it.”
“I do too,” Black said and turned to Mr. Lightbourn. “So what are you asking for this?”
“The asking price is ten million, nine hundred thousand dollars.”
“Nine, cash.”
“I think we can make that happen,” Mr. Lightbourn said with a big smile on his face.
“This house is so beautiful. I can’t wait to come back.” CeCe kissed Black. “This means a lot, you know; it makes me feel like you really do want me to be a part of your life and that makes me happy.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re happy.”
CeCe laughed. “You show me a woman who doesn’t smile when her man drops nine million in cash on a house for her, and I’ll show you a fool.”
Now in her third trimester, CeCe was having the usual issues with her pregnancy. The first few months were rough for her. She had a severe form of morning sickness know as Hyperemesis gravidarum. CeCe suffered with excessive nausea and vomiting, which was preventing the adequate intake of food and fluids. Her doctor in New York recommended a friend from medical school that was practicing in Nassau. He told her that the leveling off of the hormone hCG was the reason her nausea was letting up.
It was in her fourth month that CeCe first began to feel the baby move. She was plagued by constant heartburn. “Try some papaya to relieve the symptoms. Make sure you get plenty of fiber in your diet to forestall the constipation that troubles some mothers. You are almost certainly finding it necessary to move into larger, looser clothing.” Her Doctor advised.
“That happened some time ago,” CeCe told the doctor on her first visit.
“The average weight gain at this point is five to ten pounds.”
CeCe cut her eyes at Black. “I’ve gained more weight than that.” She was very sensitive about the amount of weight she’d gained, which was closer to fifteen or twenty pounds.
The doctor saw the way she was looking. “However, you are an individual, not an average, so if you have been eating good food in appropriate amounts you have gained just the right amount for you.”
CeCe complained that her skin was extra dry and itchy, especially where it is stretching. He told her to use a moisturizer to soothe it and to remember to drink plenty of water. She was still suffering from dizzy spells because her blood sugar levels were affected by the pregnancy. He suggested that she may benefit from eating smaller meals more frequently.
“Your breasts have each gained six or seven ounces in weight.”
“I noticed,” CeCe said.
“So have I,” Black added.
“The areola, or dark area around the nipple may actually be getting larger. This effect of pregnancy can last up to a year after the birth of the baby.”
Black smiled.
“If you have noticed a reduction in your sex drive, you may find that it returns now and sex is particularly enjoyable.”
“That hasn’t happened,” Black said.
It had been months since they had sex and he hadn’t been with anybody else. CeCe gave him the look.
The doctor continued. “Is sleeping on your belly becoming uncomfortable?”
“Yes it is, so I’ve been sleeping on my back.”
“Sleeping on your back may cause your growing uterus to compress major blood vessels, so learn to sleep comfortably on your sides, using extra pillows to help support your arms, legs and belly.”
“I can do that.”
In her third trimester, heartburn was still a problem for her. On one of her visits to the doctor he noted a rise in her blood pressure. “That is called PID or Pregnancy Induced Hypertension.”
Where CeCe had been feeling pretty energetic throughout her second trimester, she was now beginning to slow down. “Pay attention to your body’s signals and rest when you need to. Exercise is still an important activity for you, even though it gets harder as you get larger and heavier. Try swimming, stretching and walking, these are all excellent options for you.”
“Why am I waddling?”
“This is because the ligaments in your pelvis have softened, allowing your hips to spread in preparation for birth.”
She told the doctor that the increased weight of her breasts was uncomfortable for her when she slept. He suggested that she try wearing a soft but supportive bra to bed. Something Black didn’t like, but had no choice but to accept. “We ain’t havin’ sex anyway,” he mumbled the first night she wore it to bed. Throughout the entire time her biggest complaints were that it was hot and she was fat, her ankles were swollen and that made her miserable. She passed that misery on to Black.
When Black wasn’t busy with CeCe and Michelle, he was with Meka, who had been doing very well day
trading for them. Day trading is the practice of buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day so that all positions are usually closed before the market closes for the trading day. Some of the more commonly day-traded financial instruments are stocks, stock options, currencies, and a host of futures contracts such as equity index futures, interest rate futures, and commodity futures.
“Day trading used to be an activity exclusive to financial firms and professional investors and speculators,” Meka explained to Black when she recommended they get in to it. “Most day traders are bank or investment firm employees working as specialists in equity investment and fund management.”
“Which is what you used to do.”
“Exactly. But now with the advent of electronic trading and margin trading, there is no reason that with my skills and your backing, we can’t make this very profitable.” That day, they became partners. Meka used a number of day trading strategies and began producing right away. “Scalping is an intra-day technique that usually has the bid holding a position for a few minutes. Shaving is a method which allows the trader to jump ahead by a tenth of a cent, and a full round trip.”
“What does that mean?”
Meka giggled. “A buy and a sell order. That is often completed in under one second. So instead of bidding $10.20 per share, the scalper will jump the bid at $10.201, thus becoming the best bid and therefore the first in line to be able to purchase the stock. When the best "Offer" is $10.21, the shaver will again jump first in line and sell a tenth of a cent cheaper at $10.209 for a profit of 0.008 of a dollar. The profits add up when using 10,000 share lots each time and the combined earnings from rebates for creating liquidity.”
“I could see when that could turn into real money when the buys are big enough.”
“A day trader is actively searching for potential trading setups.”
“In English, Meka.”
“That is, any stock or other financial instruments that, in the judgment of the day trader, is in a tension state, ready to accelerate in price in either direction, that when traded well has a potential for a substantial profit. The number of trades you can make per day is almost unlimited, as are the profits and the losses.”
Since the price of financial instruments can vary greatly within the same trading day, some day traders focus on very short-term trading within the trading day, in which a trade may last just a few minutes. Buying and selling many times in a trading day, receiving trading fee discounts from the broker for their trading volume. Some days Meka would focus only on price momentum, other days on technical patterns. She was careful to exit positions before the market closed to avoid unmanageable risks—negative price gaps which is the difference between the previous day’s close and the next day’s open bull price.
“This is just like gambling.”
“Now you’re catching on. Because of the high profits and losses that day trading makes possible, these traders are sometimes portrayed as bandits or gamblers by other investors.”
“Gambling is something I know a little something about.”
“But I have to tell you that because of the nature of financial leverage and the rapid returns that are possible, day trading can be either extremely profitable or extremely unprofitable.”
“I understand.”
“High-risk profile traders can generate either huge percentage returns or huge percentage losses. We could manage to earn millions per year solely by day trading.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Deidra Walker had come up hard. She worked all of her life to get where she was, and now she saw it all falling apart before her eyes. No matter what she had to do, Deidra was not about to let that happen. From the minute she heard that a gangster from New York had settled on the island, she knew that nothing good would come of it. Then she stood by and watched as month by month her income diminished.
“We worked too damn hard to build this to just walk away with nothing,” she told Harry, but he was a proud man and her words fell on deaf ears. She had come to Nassau ten years ago with Harry from Miami and she pushed him to create the business that they now stood to lose.
Deidra’s life changed when her mother moved a man in the house with her and her younger sister Alison. She was a tall, pretty and well-developed twelve-year-old at the time. He began molesting her two-months later. He was rough with her and would beat her with his belt if she didn’t do exactly what he said. The lashes were always on her back and her butt, so no one ever saw the bruises. Deidra was scared to death of him. “If you even think about tellin’ anybody I’ll kill all three of you bitches.”
After two years of molesting her, he seemed to tire of Deidra and began looking at Alison. He began playing with her, buying her little things, just as he had done with Deidra two years earlier. Once, when the three of them were alone he tried to send Deidra to the store. She remembered that two years ago he had given her mother money and sent her to the store, “And take Alison with you,” he said the first time that he molested her.
Deidra saw the way he was looking at Alison. “Why don’t you go outside and play, Alison,” Deidra said and all but pushed her out the door. When the door was closed Deidra locked it and walked silently into the bedroom, took off her clothes and laid down on the bed. For the next year, Deidra was his willing sex slave. It only ended when her mother put him out, not because she found out what he had doing to Deidra; she put him out because he hadn’t worked in three years. One year later, her mother moved another man in the house over Deidra’s strong objections.
Deidra ran away.
For the first two weeks she lived at the house of a girlfriend until her father found out and made Deidra go home. A week later she ran away again. This time Deidra lived at the mall. It was cool, because a lot of her friends were there and she ate whatever they would buy her or she would eat out of the garbage when she simply had no choice. That ended the night a security guard caught her sleeping in the bathroom. The police were called and they took her home. Deidra slept at the house that night and left the next day.
After that, she slept in the park and survived by stealing clothes and selling them on the street. One night it rained, Deidra was cold, wet and hungry. She turned her first trick that night. From then on she worked the trade. She didn’t like what she was doing, but at least she could have a roof over her head at night and she could eat every day.
When she was twenty-one, Deidra met Harry Walker. He had come to Miami from Nassau to visit his cousins. They met one night while they were cruising the stroll looking for some action. Harry fell in love the minute Deidra walked up to the car and stuck her head in the window. After that, Harry became Deidra’s only customer. He had money to spend on her because Harry and his cousins were stickup artists. Then they stepped up to bank robbery and Harry spent just about all his money on Deidra. But when the FBI caught his cousins, Harry figured that it was just a matter of time before they caught up to him too. Harry decided to take the rest of his money and go back to Nassau. He begged Deidra to go with him.
Deidra wasn’t wild about the idea of going to Nassau with Harry, but she decided she would go and when the money was gone, she would be gone too. That was ten years ago and the money hadn’t run out yet. That was mostly because of Deidra’s eye for opportunity and her pushing Harry to keep her in the lifestyle he had given her. They say that behind every great man there is a woman telling him what to do. That was Deidra Walker, but she was smart enough to make sure that Harry believed that he was boss.
Over the years and under Deidra’s guidance, Harry ran a few gambling spots on the island, while Deidra focused her attention on prostitution. The first sign that things were changing was when her girls started bringing in less money. She was at one of their spots with Harry the first night Jamaica came to visit.
“Who are those guys,” Deidra asked Harry that night.
“Never seen them before,” Harry told her.
“I got a bad feeling about them.”
“You always worry too much.”
“That’s how we got where we are,” Deidra said and watched Jamaica. Nothing happened that night and things were quiet for weeks after that, but it wouldn’t last.
Jamaica knew from years of experience that this would go easier if he made an example of somebody. That somebody was Donald Kitchner, a thief, gambler, and pimp that nobody liked. Kitch was well known around the island, and had a reputation for the ruthless way he treated the women who worked for him. When he would lose money shooting craps or playing poker at his spot, Kitch would cheat and was quick to pull his gun if anybody objected. Jamaica took over his spot first. When Kitch objected, Jamaica shot him twice in the head and set his body on the side of the road like a scarecrow.
It didn’t take long before word got around and most of the other operators rolled over quietly when Jamaica came calling. He was fair with them and let them keep their game going, as long as they paid him twenty-five percent off the top.
At first it was a good thing for Deidra and Harry. With Kitch dead, all of his women came to work for Deidra. When they started bringing in less money, a direct result of Jada West taking away the better paying customers, Deidra demanded a bigger cut from her women. But soon that wasn’t enough.
“If you don’t take their offer, Harry, they’ll kill us both,” Deidra said.
“They’ll try,” Harry said defiantly.
“No, Harry, they will kill us, just like they did Kitch.”
