No More Tears in the End (16 page)

But I didn’t.

I’ve been goin’ to Angee with my problems for years, and he never, not once, has asked anything in return—until now. As Kevon drove, I thought about what my refusing Angee might cost me.

On the way to Marshall’s fundraiser with Wanda I didn’t have much to say. She asked me what Angee wanted, but I gave her the same answer I gave Kevon. When she pushed it, I told her that Angee wanted to talk about Crazy Joe and to my surprise, she left it alone.

Crazy Joe Delfino used to do jobs with Angelo back in the day.
Me, him
and Angelo were supposed to hijack a load of cigarettes. But
me
and Angee got there late, so Crazy Joe did the job alone. He was arrested by Newark police at the tollbooth when he got off the turnpike.

Joe found out later that we were late because on the way to the job, we stopped to rob a jewelry store to settle an argument.

The robbery went off without any problems, but we got stuck in traffic coming across the George Washington Bridge. When we got there we found Crazy Joe’s car, but no Joe. Angelo found out the next day that Joe was arrested. Since then he’s been talkin’ ’bout killin’ me. He says it was my fault that he got arrested. It ain’t my fault that he went and did the shit by himself. He should have waited for us. That shit didn’t make
no
fuckin’ sense. But they don’t call him Crazy Joe for nothing.

We arrived at the fundraiser in time to catch the speeches. Marshall spoke last. Martin Marshall was a state senator who I’d done business with a few times. But he was such a greedy fuck that I had to cut him loose years ago. Since we had no business ties, when Glynnis told me he was involved in Cassandra’s murder, I wanted to kill him. But I knew that he would be more useful alive. Without Martin’s help, DeFrancisco might still be alive.

Now he was running for congress, and if you can believe the polls, he’s probably gonna win. It was good business for me to re-establish our association.

After his speech, Martin made his way around the room, shaking hands and nodding his head as people told him their problems or asked him for favors. When Martin first saw me I could tell that he was surprised to see me standing there, maybe a little scared. But he very quickly separated himself from the people he was talking to and made his way to me.

“Good evening, Mr. Black,” Martin said and shook my hand. “I am more than surprised to see you here.” he turned to Wanda. “How are you, Wanda?” She was no stranger to these events. “How did you ever get this guy out to a stuffy event like this?”

“All it took was the mention of your name,” Wanda said ’cause it was true. Martin’s involvement with DeFrancisco made him my best source of information about Pete Vinnelli. That and the fact that if he is elected, having Martin tucked away in my pocket just made sense.

“Is that a fact?” Martin said and leaned close to me. “There’s a place we can talk upstairs,” he said and walked off.

“I’ll be back,” I said to Wanda and followed Martin to the elevator. Neither of us spoke in the elevator or in the hallway as Martin led me to a room. Once inside, Martin took a small device out of his pocket and set it the desk.

“What’s that?”

“Everybody’s listening these days. This puts out just enough of a signal to make whatever they do pick up too distorted to be admissible in court.

“I could get one of those.”

“Yes. Now tell me what I can do for you? Actually, I’m not all that surprised to see you. I heard you were making a move to the other side of the street.”

“You heard that, huh?”

“If that’s true, we could be very valuable to one another.”

“Yes, we could. But I don’t know that I could trust you, Martin.”

“Yes. That unfortunate business about your wife.”

If I had my gun it would be at the base of his skull right now. Martin always was an arrogant fuck, but he wasn’t stupid. “I thought we’d settled that between us.”

“That was just a down payment.”

“Tell me how we call it even.”

“Pete Vinnelli. I want him. And you’re gonna give him to me.”

I looked at Martin and wondered why he was smiling. “He’s yours.”

“What are you smiling about?” I demanded to know. Damn he’s annoying.

“I’ve been expecting you.”

“Really?” Now I’m predicable.

“The last time we talked; you remember, you and Bobby forced your way into my house and held guns on me?"

“I remember, Martin.”

“I wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t see any way that you could possibly connect me with DeFrancisco and Estaban. I underestimated you. It’s a mistake I will never make again. But there you were, with every reason in the world to kill me, but you wanted DeFrancisco, and I gave him to you. To make a long story short, I knew you’d be back one day and you would want Vinnelli.”

“You’re right. But I’m not the only one that wants him, am I? Vinnelli can link you to DeFrancisco. You want him—no, that’s not strong enough. You need Vinnelli dealt with.”

“Something you want for something I need. That makes us partners.”

“I think that’s taking it a little far.”

“Then we’ll call it two mutually interested parties.”

“However you want to look at it, the problem is how do you kill a DEA agent without attracting attention.”

Martin looked at me. “I’ll just say some people have been very lucky in that regard and leave it at that.”

“Some people have all the luck.” From that, I knew he knew that I was responsible for the recent deaths of agents Masters and Harris.

Martin moved a little closer to me and spoke a little lower. “Here’s what I can give you. For some time now you’ve had a very talented hacker digging around in Vinnelli finances, but there is one piece that continues to elude them.”

“How do you know that, Martin?”

“Believe me, Mr. Black; I know a great deal about a great many things. Like I said, I’ve been expecting you, so I know what I need to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Eileen McManus.”

“Who is that?”

“She is everything you need, Mr. Black,” Martin said. “That should make us even,” he said and extended his hand. I accepted his hand. “When you’re finished with this matter we’ll talk again about what we can do for each other in the future.”

As I rode the elevator down with Martin, one thing hit me. This wasn’t the same Martin Marshall I’d dealt with years ago. I realized then that I was about to start playing in whole new world. In that world, Martin Marshall was already a player. I would have to be very careful in my dealings with him.

The fact that he was expecting me and knew exactly what I wanted didn’t bother me. He needs Vinnelli out of the way, but he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with an election coming, so he serves him up to me. That’s fine. I was willing to be used if it got me Vinnelli. But what does bother me is what happens after that.

I’ve been expecting you.

That meant Martin had plans for me.

Chapter 26

Nick Simmons

I looked back at Miles and Lakeda and then followed Rain to the gambling room. She entered the combination to the door and we went down a long flight of stairs. “He’s with me,” she told the two men standing by the door. One got up to open it for her.

“You are so sweet.” Rain touched his face as she passed. I followed her into a large room with four tables in each corner of the room; one for poker and one for blackjack. There was one table where a lively crap game was goin’ on, and people held their breath for each turn of the roulette wheel. There in the middle of it all was Jeff Ritchie sitting in what I’m sure used to be JR’s spot.

If JR was involved in this and I had to kill him, Jeff Ritchie would have to die first. I looked around the room and tried to get a feel for what kind of muscle he had. My eyes met his and he glared at me. I could tell that he didn’t like me hangin’ around there. I’m sure he knows what I represent. I nodded my head to acknowledge him and smiled.
“Yeah, mutha fucka, I’m gonna kill you and take over this spot,”
I said to myself and waved to him as Rain slid in next to me and handed me another drink.

“What you think?”

“Impressive.”

“Wait here and I’ll see if I can’t get you a seat at the table,” Rain said and left me alone.

I wandered around the room looking over Jeff Ritchie’s men, wondering if one of them was Nice N. Slow or if it was Miles. He is married and the only computer in the building is in his office, so it does make him the logical choice. There was the possibility that somebody else, Jeff Ritchie maybe, could have a key to Miles’ office.

I stood and watched as Rain went straight to Jeff Ritchie to get me in the game. I knew from that that Rain carried no weight down here.

I walked around and stood by the poker table and thought back to Miles’ expression when I showed them Zakiya’s picture. He glanced at the picture quickly like he was trying not to look at it.

What was more interesting was when I looked back and saw the expression on Lakeda’s face. The way she was looking at Miles made me believe that he was Nice N. Slow and she knew, or at least suspected, he was cheating on her. I needed to get a picture of Miles and show it to Tasheka and Shameka at Paradise. And even if it is Miles, that didn’t mean that he killed her.

“We can buy in on the next hand,” Rain said, suddenly appearing next to me.

“We? You play?”

“I hold my own.”

After we played a few hands of poker we left the gambling room and went back upstairs. “Well, what you think?”

“Like I said, I’m impressed. Looks like y’all run a smooth little operation here.”

“But it’s nothin’ compared to y’all’s, right?”

“I don’t know. What else you got?”

“What you mean?”

“I mean is this all you got?”

“No, we got a few other spots that do pretty
good
for us.”

“But nothing
like
this, right? This is y’all’s big spot.”

Rain put her hands on her hips. “So what you sayin’? That this ain’t shit?”

“I ain’t sayin’ shit. You the one tryin’ to make the comparison.”

“Come on, nigga. Let me show you how we roll,” Rain said and grabbed me by the hand.

Thank you
, I thought as we fought our way through the crowded club. I was starting to think she wasn’t gonna take the bait.

Rain led me to her car and we drove off. She took me to around to four of their spots and bragged about having five more. “But they too far and I don’t feel like ridin’ out there,” Rain told me and took me back to JR’s. I really was impressed with what I saw.

The reception Rain got at the spots we went to was different than it was at JR’s. Everywhere we went, it was obvious that she was the queen and everybody bowed down to her. More importantly, every place we went was makin’ money.

When we got back to JR’s, Rain led me back to the offices. “This is Pops’ office.”

“Where’s yours?”

“I don’t have one. Don’t need one.”

JR wasn’t there that night, but she had a key to his office. We went in the office and Rain picked up the remote for the flat screen. “Pops is rarely here at night these days, so when he’s not here this is my spot.” She dropped the remote and headed for the bar. “Johnnie Black, right?”

“Right,” I said and looked at the flat screen. Porn star Lola Lane appeared on the screen, ridin’ some guy’s dick, talkin’ ’bout,
‘Yeah, Lola likes that. Fuck Lola’s pussy.’

I looked at Rain, she looked at me. “Ooops,” she said and pushed a button on the bar and the image on the screen changed. Now the screen displayed images from around the club. “Sorry about that.”

I sat down on whatever seat was closest to me without commenting on Lola or Rain’s apology. I looked around the office and my eyes stopped on a picture of a much younger JR and a very pretty woman.

Rain handed me my drink and sat down. “Is that your mother in that picture,” I said and pointed to it.

“Yup, that’s my mom, Barbara Robinson.”

“She’s very pretty,” I said and thought that Miles looked a lot like her.

“She was beautiful. She died when I was a baby, so I never really knew her.”

“For some reason I thought you were older than Miles.”

“Most people think that. But he’s older by eleven months.”

“You and
him
must be close.”

“We used to be.”

“What changed that?”

“Why you wanna know?”

I laughed. “Why you gettin’ defensive?”

“I’m not. We just ain’t close like we used to be.”

“That got anything to do with your sister-in-law?”

“You ask a lot of fuckin’ questions,” Rain said and finished her drink.

“I just noticed that you two didn’t really speak to each other.”

Rain got up and headed toward the bar. “I don’t like the bitch. Never have. I haven’t spoken to her since I was in the seventh grade. There. You happy now?”