The Mike Black Saga Book One (11 page)

“You don’t even have to ask me, you know I am,” Bobby said.

“Even though it’s not good for business?” I asked him.

“Business will just have to suffer.”

“Anybody else?” I asked.

No one said a word.

“All right then. My plan is based on the fact that for every action there is a reaction. If certain things happened, I can get people right where I need them to be. Now, there are enough people who hate André to go around. Cops won’t care, and as long as business doesn’t suffer, no one else will care either.”

“Just as long as everybody continues to get paid, you’re right. Nobody will care.” Bobby added.

“We have to kill Ricky.
Him
and André started out together. He’ll try to take over. Benny and Dupree were loyal to André, so they gotta die too. And that’s it. Now if André dies,
Cazzie
will try to move on us. So we have to kill him too. Killin’
Cazzie
will be harder, but not impossible.”

“Go on,” Bobby said.

“All right now, everybody pay attention. Benny and Dupree
are
the key to it all. They make the rounds every night to collect the money from all the houses. On Friday nights there’s more than a quarter of a million dollars. They start at one o’clock, and by three thirty they’ll be coming out of the last house. That’s where we’ll hit them. Nick, you, and Freeze will be waiting for them. As soon as they get to the car, you and Freeze blast them. Nick, you cover while Freeze gets the money.”

“Done,” Nick said.

“Now, Benny and Dupree are dead and the money is gone, what’s gonna happen next?” I asked.

“Somebody will call Ricky’s punk ass,” Freeze said.

“Exactly. Someone in the house will call him to tell him about the robbery. Ricky will be at his
after hours
spot. Sitting in that office, just like he does every fuckin’ night. As soon as he gets the call about the robbery, he’ll call André and they’ll meet at André’s office. Bobby, when Ricky comes out of the office and starts to make his way through the crowd, you and Jamaica take him then.”

“What about
Cazzie
?” Nick asked.

“He’s the wildcard in all of this. Problem is
,
there’s no way I can control his movements the way I did everybody else.”

“Black,” Jamaica said. “Let me take care of
Cazzie
. I know how to take him.”

I looked at Jamaica for a long time. I knew Jamaica was off the chain with that heroin.
Him
and Vickie were real close and when she died, he turned to the needle to ease his pain. “Okay, I’ll leave that all to you, Jamaica.”

“What about your boy, André?” Freeze asked.

“When he gets to his office, I’ll be there waitin’ for him. Now for this to work, everything has to run on schedule.” Black gave me, Bobby, and Jamaica a pager.

“What’re these for?” Bobby asked. “I already got a pager.”

“When you complete your assignment you page the next man. Three sevens if everything goes as planned. If anything goes wrong, you page the next man with all nines. When it’s over, we all meet here. Anyone get nines, we abort and meet back here. Any questions?”

It all worked out just like he planned it. Except for Jamaica disappearing, it all went off clean and easy. When he didn’t show up afterwards at The Late Night nobody really gave it much thought. We all just figured he was off somewhere getting high. Like I said, we all knew Jamaica was off the chain with the heroin since Vickie died. He and Vickie were real close. Used to get high and hang out all the time. But, shit, hangin’ out was all Vickie ever wanted to do anyway.

Freeze and Nick hid behind their car and waited. Just when they got to the car, Freeze and Nick
raised
up and blasted them. They never even got off a shot. After they were dead, Nick covered while Freeze got the money.

When Ricky got the call, he came out of the office and started to make his way through the crowd, Bobby was waiting for him. Bobby walked up behind him, covered his mouth, stuck a knife in his back and turned it. Then Bobby walked away. People told me that Ricky must have fallen into a chair and nobody noticed he was dead until the spot closed at eight the next morning.

Police found
Cazzie
dead in the hallway the next morning. As far as I knew everything was cool. When André he got to his office I was waitin’ for him. André rushes into his office, and there I am, sitting on his couch.

“Black, what are you doin’ here?” André said, rushing into the office.

“Waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me? I’m glad you’re here. We got robbed tonight.”

“I know.”

André looked puzzled. “Damn word travels fast. How did you hear—
nevermind
.
Ricky will be here in a minute, and we’ll figure out what happened.”

“Ricky ain’t comin’.”

“What?”

“Ricky is dead. And so are you,” I said, drawing my gun and pointing it at André. “You’ve been dead for more than a year.”

“Stop fuckin’ around, Black.” André looked at me, shocked that I would turn on him. “You’re serious.” I stood up, took André’s gun and pushed him against the wall.

“Open the safe.”

“What’s with you man?”
André
asked as he slammed into the wall.

“Open the fuckin’ safe.”

André opened the wall safe.

I threw him a bag. “Put the money in there.”

While André filled the bag with the money from the wall safe, I turned over André’s desk. Kicked the carpet out of the way revealing another safe.

“You gonna tell me what this is about?”

“This ain’t
no
fuckin’ movie! Open the fuckin’ safe and put the money in the bag.” André got down on his knees, opened the safe, filled the bag and handed the bag to me. André started to get up.

“What now, Black? You gonna kill me?”

I kicked André in the chest, and he fell back to the floor. I aimed my weapon at his head. “Stay down. Get on your knees.” André got on his knees. “You remember the last time I saw you on your knees like that?”

André paused and thought for a moment. “
You talkin’
about that thing with Frankie?”

I smiled. “No, it couldn’t have been. You told Carmine you took the gun from Frankie. Come on, take the gun from me, the way you did Frankie,” I said, placing the barrel of his gun on André’s forehead. André held up his hands.

“Wait a minute, Black. Carmine was gonna kill me. What else could I
say,
I had to tell him—”

“Your weak ass had to throw me to the wolf. Is that what you were gonna say?” I took out his other gun. “I’m gonna give you a chance to stay alive. You take this gun from me, and I won’t kill you.”

“Please, Black, you know I can’t take
no
gun from you, or anybody else. Please, Black
don’t
kill me. You can keep the money.” André pleaded for life, but I just smiled. I pointed both guns at André. “I’ll leave the country.”

“I don’t think so,” I said and I emptied the clip in André’s head. Picked up the bag with the money and left through the window.

I was in my office at the late Night with Bobby and Wanda when Nick walked in. before I knew it Bobby had his hand around his throat and his gun in Nick’s mouth.

“I know what you doin’ mutha fucka. I’ll kill you!” Bobby screamed.

“Bobby put the gun down,” Black yelled.

Bobby’s hand tightened around Nick’s throat. “I’ll kill you!” Bobby screamed.

I took out my gun and put it to Bobby’s head. “Bobby
please
,” I said quietly. “Take the gun out of his mouth and put it down.”

Bobby let go of Nick’s throat and I moved my gun away from Bobby’s head. Then he slowly eased the gun out of Nick’s mouth. Nick reached for his throat and took a step away from Bobby.

Bobby just stared at him. I had never seen Bobby like that before. “Don’t think this is over.”

Nick started to walk away, trying to catch his breath.

“I’m
kill
you!” Bobby shouted. “And that bitch!”

Nick left my office and walked across the dance floor on my way out the club. Wanda ran after him. “Nick wait.” she said.

Just then, Freeze came in the club carrying a big envelope. “Yo, Nick, you’re gonna wanna to see this,” he said. But Nick just kept walking.

“What’s goin’ on?” Freeze asked and handed me the envelope he was carrying.

I looked at Bobby. It was like he was in a trance.

“Bobby just tried to kill Nick over Camille,” Wanda said and she looked at Bobby with pure disgust.

“Then y’all definitely gonna wanna see that.”

The envelope had a notebook in it. I sat quietly and began to read. It was a journal. A very detailed account of all contact Camille had with any of us. All about our operation. Where our gambling houses were, and who ran them. Everything. From the first time she met Freeze at the Knicks game and fucked him afterwards. She wrote at length and in great detail about me. How it troubled her that she never could get me to talk to her, much less tell her anything important. She wrote, “Black would say just enough to get me out me dress.”

Camille wrote about her and Bobby. About how she was so turned on when she met Nick. She wrote everything, every conversation she’d heard, everything she saw. Everything Nick ever told her. She even described her desire to seduce Wanda.

When I finished with it, I handed it to Bobby, who by that point had calmed down. “Where did Freeze find this?”

“I searched her apartment.”

“What was you doin’ there?” Bobby demanded to know.

“Black sent me,” Freeze said.

After we read the journal, I made Freeze take Bobby home. Then
me
and Wanda went to see Camille. I offered her twenty thousand dollars to go back to Barbados. She refused. I asked her to explain herself. She said it was just to protect
herself
. And that she had another copy of that book and she would use it when she needed to, and for more than twenty thousand dollars.

Camille laughed at me and what happened next shocked the shit outta me. Wanda reached for the gun in my waist. She stepped up to Camille, who was too busy laughing to see Wanda coming. Wanda put the gun to her head at pulled the trigger.

I snatched the gun outta Wanda’s hand. “Somebody had to do it and I knew you wouldn’t.” she was right, I don’t like killin’ women. “She was poison, and she was eating her way through our entire organization. There’s enough evidence in that journal she was keeping to put all of us in jail for long time.”

Nobody saw or heard from Nick after that night. About a week later, I found out that he had joined the Army. It couldn’t have happened at a worst time.

After André died I took over. He had a meeting with Vincent Martin, Jimmy Knowles and Charlie Rock. I told them that I was getting out of the drug business.
Which was cool, until I said that I wouldn’t let anyone sell in my neighborhood.
Back then the hood was wide open. So I pissed off a lot of people, `
cause
they were makin’ crazy money.