The Mike Black Saga; Payback (12 page)

"We’re lookin’ for Sal
Terrico
," Bobby explained.

"Never heard of him," Red answered.

"Come on, Red," Bobby said. "Stop fuckin’ around. We’re lookin’ for Sal
Terrico
. Is he here?"

"Look, I know people, important people," Red said.

"It was those people who sent us here," Bobby explained as Mike walked down the hall. He heard voices and saw a light coming from a room at the end of the hall.

"Whoa," Red said. "Slow down. You can’t just come in here and start wandering around." Red walked up on Mike and reached for his shoulder, but before he could touch Mike, Bobby grabbed Red. He spun him around and grabbed Red’s throat. "What the fuck are you doin’?" Red said, clutching his throat.

"You’re not listening to me, Red," Bobby said. "And it hurts me." Bobby tightened his grip and Red gasped for air. "Now, let start again. We’re lookin’ for Sal
Terrico
."

While Bobby busied himself with Red, Mike reached the end of the hall. The room turned out to be the kitchen. A man who looked very impatient and a woman holding a spoon over a candlelit flame were seated at the table. In front of her lay a thin rubber hose and a metal box with syringes in it.

"What took you so long, Red? Marge here is ready to fly. Aren’t you, sweetie?" the man said and looked up to see that it was not Red, but Mike. "Hello," the man said.

"You should go," Mike said softly, and took his gun out of his pocket.

"What the—?"

"Now."

Both the man and the woman started to stand up. Mike looked at the woman. She was an attractive woman with long, blonde hair, very pretty eyes, and entirely too much makeup. "You stay. Finish what you were doin’."

"But that’s mine. I paid for it," the man said. Mike looked at him. "Okay, okay, I’m going."

The man rushed out of the kitchen and down the hall past Bobby, who was still holding Red by the throat. "Bye-bye, sweetie," Bobby said. Once he was out, Bobby pushed Red into the kitchen, just as the woman finished filling a syringe with the heroin she’d been cooking. Mike held out his hand and she passed it to him.

"Now you can go."

With a very relieved look on her face, the woman quickly gathered her things. "So, I’ll call you, Red."

As soon as the woman was gone, Bobby grabbed Red again. With one arm, Mike cleared everything from the table. Bobby threw Red down on the table and held him there. "We’re looking for Sal
Terrico
. Is he here?" Bobby yelled.

"Fuck you, nigger. You can’t just walk on in here and—" Red began to protest, but Mike punched him in the face.

"You don’t want me to have to go room to room looking for him. If I do, most of your customers will never come back here. They’ll find someplace else to shoot themselves to oblivion," Mike said as he stood over Red with the syringe in his hand.

"What you gonna do?" Red laughed. "Shoot me with my own shit?" Red pulled up his sleeve to reveal his track marks. "Go ahead! All I’ll be is high! And I still ain’t tellin’ you shit!"

"Hold his head, Bobby."

Bobby grabbed Red by the throat with one hand and held his forehead with the other. Mike held his gun to Red’s head and slowly moved the syringe toward Red’s eye. "Who said I was gonna put it in your arm?" Mike inched the syringe closer.

Red tried to move his head, but Bobby’s grip was too tight. The terror was apparent on Red’s face as the syringe came close to his eye.

"Okay!"

Mike stopped. "Where is he?"

"Okay, he was here. But he’s gone now."

"Was he alone?"

"No. He had some black chick with him."

Bobby looked at Mike. "What she look like?" he asked.

"She was tall for a chick, five-nine, maybe five-ten. Dark-skinned with long hair," Red gasped as Bobby tightened his grip on Red’s throat.

"Was she all right?"

"Yes!" Red spit out. "She was all over him,
beggin
’ him to hurry up and get it."

Mike looked at Bobby. Since he knew that Cassandra wasn’t a shooter, Mike assumed it wasn’t her. On top of that, it wouldn’t make any sense at all for Sal to be riding around with her.

He was breathing hard, his heart was pounding. He wanted to kill Red. Mike knew that he needed to pull up. Red may become useful if Sal came back. "Sal, he
come
here a lot?" he asked.

"Whenever he’s in town."

Mike moved his gun away from Red’s head and threw the syringe on the floor. Bobby grabbed Red and pulled him up from the table. "If he comes here again, you call me at this number."

Chapter Fourteen

Bobby followed Mike out of the house, leaving Red clutching his throat and breathing hard. As soon as they were in Bobby’s car, Mike called Freeze. "Where are you?"

"At the hospital."

"The hospital? What happened?"

"Everything’s cool."

"Then what you doin’ at the hospital?"

"I’ll let Nick explain that to you," Freeze said as he watched Nick push Monika’s wheelchair out of the hospital.

"Put him on."

"He can’t talk right now. He’s doin’ what he gotta
do.
"

"This about that girl that worked with him? What was her name?"

"Monika."

Mike held the phone and thought about what Freeze had told him about Nick’s two partners. He said that while they were investigating Chilly, Monika had been shot five times. Two shots in the chest, two to the head, one hit her above the left ear. She caught one in her eye, and they weren’t able to save the eye. The other one was in her hand. The next day, Nick found his other partner, Jett Bronson, dead with a trail of blood coming from his ear. "Tell him to call me," Mike said and hung up the phone.

As soon as he handed the phone back to Bobby the phone rang. Bobby looked at the number on the display, put the phone down, and started the car. "Where we goin’ now?"

"Let’s go check out Cityscape. It’s a tittie bar on Queens Boulevard."

Bobby put the car in drive and wiped the sweat from his brow. "What’s goin’ on at the hospital?"

"Nick’s taking care of some unfinished business. But fuck that for now. What I wanna know is what’s up with this woman."

"Her name is
Cat.
I met her at Cynt’s."

"What were you doin’ at Cynt’s?"

"You remember when Wanda was losing her mind about Freeze letting things run down at Cuisine and gettin’ sloppy with everything else?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"She asked me if I’d, you know, make the rounds, check up on him,
see
if shit was runnin’ right."

"Okay."

"Freeze introduced me to her and she danced for me. Damn, that bitch can dance, and she was cool. I wasn’t even tryin’ to fuck her. We would just hang
out,
talk shit, that’s it."

"Yeah, right. You knew you were gonna end up fuckin’ her when you started hangin’ out with her," Mike said.

Bobby smiled. "She’s a young girl, barely twenty-two, fine as hell; nice-sized titties, little bitty waist, with a toot-booty that can stop traffic. That body made her one of the most popular dancers at Cynt’s."

"Young girl blow your mind."

Bobby paused before saying, "Yeah."

"So,
you been
hangin’ out at Cynt’s with this woman?"

"Not anymore. Cynt fired her for being late or not showing up at all."

"Was she with you when she was late or not showing up at all?"

"Yeah."

Mike started laughing. "You got the girl fired from her job, Bobby?"

Bobby laughed.

"Fuckin’ up Cynt’s business over some pussy? You know better than that," Mike said, continuing to laugh as Bobby’s phone rang again. Bobby looked at the display, and once again he put the phone down without answering.

"That her?"

"Yeah," Bobby said louder than he needed to.

"She’s kind of a pest, ain’t she?"

Bobby shook his head. "Mike, you just don’t know."

"If she’s that much of a pest, why don’t you cut her loose?"

"I tried, but she won’t go."

"The fuck you mean, she won’t go?"

"She won’t leave me alone. She’ll call with some excuse to get me over there. Dumb shit, like she need a ride someplace or I got something of hers and she gotta have it right then."

"And you go?" Mike questioned.

"Yeah. I know
what’s
gonna happen when I get there, but I do it anyway."

Mike looked at Bobby like he was a fool. "You’re either a fool or you’re pussy whipped."

"Pussy whipped. She’ll always find a way to come out of her clothes or she’ll just answer the door naked and I gotta fuck her. One time, she called me and said that she needed me to come get her from Cynt’s ’cause she was locked out and needed to go to the Bowery to meet a friend of hers to get the keys," Bobby explained. "So I tell Pam that I gotta go make the rounds."

"Hold up," Mike interrupted. "What rounds? You ain’t made rounds in years."

"Come on, Mike. Who does Pam talk to? She don’t talk to Freeze, she thinks Wanda is overbearing, her and Shy are great friends, but only when they see each other." Bobby paused. "So I blamed it on you."

"What?"

"After that thing with Wanda and Freeze, I told her that you said I had to start making the rounds, you know, just to make sure things are goin’ right. So when she calls, I tell Pam it’s you reminding me that I need to make the rounds, ’cause you know I forget shit, especially shit I hate doin’."

"The old Bobby is back." Mike laughed. "You always were a lyin’-ass, pussy-gettin’ muthafucka. I’m surprised you lasted so long. But let me ask you this. Why couldn’t you just tell her you were goin’ to the club?"

"She could call the club or just show up there. You know how she likes to just show up there. See, if I’m making the rounds, all she’ll do is call my cell. I’d even call her from some of the houses."

"You were actually making the rounds and taking her with you."

"Yeah."

"How come I’m just hearin’ about this?"

Bobby just looked at him.

"How long has this been goin’ on?"

"Six, maybe seven months."

"
You
sportin
’
this bitch around with you for six months? Your ass was out of control." Mike laughed. "It’s not that I give a fuck if you get some pussy. I’m just surprised, that’s all. All these years you’ve been playing the happily married man with kids. You were the only faithful man I knew."

"Yeah, well, now you can be the only faithful man I know." Bobby laughed.