Out of Control (28 page)

“I miss you,” CeCe said when she answered the phone. “Even though I do feel better, I miss you being here with me.”

“I miss you, too.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I’ll be there tomorrow, the day after at the latest. I still got some things that I need to do here.”

“Is everything all right?”

“No, but they will be before I leave.”

“Since I know you’re not going to tell me, I won’t even ask.”

“How’s Michelle?”

“She’s fine. Like me, missing her daddy.”

“Where is she?”

“She went shopping with Bernadette. They should be back soon.”

“Tell her I love her and I’ll be home soon.”

“I will.”

“And I love you too, Cee.”

CeCe smiled “I love you so much. I can’t wait for you to get here,” she said.

“I’ll call you later,” Black said.

“I love you,” CeCe said again.

Next Black called Wanda. “Hello.”

“Hello, Wanda. Why don’t you meet me at Cuisine in a couple of hours?”

“I’ll be there,” Wanda said and Black ended the call. He made the same call to Jackie, Cynt, Doc, Sherman, and Howard Owens. Then he called Nick. “I need you to meet me a Cuisine in a couple of hours.”

“You got it.”

“And Nick.”

“Yes.”

“Bring Ms. Robinson with you when you come.”

“She so hyped about last night she wouldn’t miss it,” Nick said and ended the call.

Black got out of bed and headed for the shower. Once he was dressed he went down stairs and waited for Bobby to get up. An hour later, Bobby came out of his room and went down stairs. He found Black sitting in the living room.

“What’s up, Mike? How long you been up?” Bobby asked and sat down.

“Couple of hours. When you’re ready, I need you to take me to Cuisine.”

“What? Since you back in this country you can’t drive any more? You could have taken the car.”

“I know, but I called a meeting and you need to be there.”

“Okay, I’ll go get dressed.”

“Wait a minute Bob, there’s something I want to talk to you about first.”

“What’s up?”

“I need to know what your plans are?”

“You mean other than gettin’ dressed and going to this meeting?”

“Yeah, Bob, other than that. I mean, are you goin’ back to South Carolina?” Black asked.

“No, Mike, I don’t think so. That’s a lost cause.”

“Has Pam filed for divorce?”

“No. Hasn’t even mentioned it. You know all I get outta her is ‘fuck you, Bobby’.”

“If Pam hasn’t filed for divorce then it ain’t a lost cause.”

“Maybe.”

“So what you gonna do? You wanna come back to Nassau with me?”

“I am gonna go down there to see my new nephew or niece, but as far as me staying, I don’t think so. It’s a little too slow down there for me. I mean it would be different if Pam and the kids came with me, but that ain’t gonna happen,” Bobby said quietly and dropped his head. “Unless you need me to come with you and play chaperone for you and Ms. West?”

Black laughed. “No, Bob, I don’t need you to chaperone for us,” he said and thought that it would be easier that way.

“Okay, now. You sure about that?”

“I’m sure, Bob.”

“I give the two of you a week, two at the most before y’all fuckin’ daily,” Bobby said and laughed. “That is one woman who knows exactly how to seduce a man. And she got her eye on seducing you, Mike.”

“I’ll be all right. But you still haven’t answered my question. What you gonna do now?”

“After the baby is born, I’m gonna come back here.”

“Good, ’cause there’s something I want you to do for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to take over.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you, Bobby. I should have done this a long time ago, but you were tryin’ to step back. Tryin’ to play the role. Well now you ain’t tryin’ to play the role. After all this, other than me, you’re the only one who can.”

Bobby thought for a minute. “You know that I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but first tell me how you see this goin’? Is Nick out?”

“No. Nick still runs things, but he reports to you.”

“What about Wanda?”

“Wanda is out. She needs to deal with our legit businesses and nothing else. You need to make sure of that.”

“What about you? You out?”

“No. I just need to step back for a minute.”

“I can understand that.”

“It’s like Sonny told me last night. Retiring is the last thing on my mind. The shit is in my blood. It’s just that right now, I gotta be a father to my kids.”

“You know I understand that,” Bobby said and went off to get dressed so they could go. “And you need to make sure CeCe drops all that fuckin’ weight. She big as a house,” he said as he walked up the steps.

By the time they arrived at Cuisine, everybody had been there for over an hour. Wanda and Cynt were sitting at a table by themselves, while everybody else was at the bar, seemingly having a good time.

The room got quiet when Black and Bobby walked in. He didn’t say anything to anybody. He walked straight to where Wanda was sitting. “In the office Wanda.”

He leaned close to Bobby. “Ask Ms. Robinson to join us.”

Bobby laughed. “You got it,” he laughed again and went to get her.

When they got in the office, Wanda and Black sat down. Neither said anything until Bobby walked in with Rain. “Ms. Robinson, do you mind waiting outside for a minute.”

“Not at all,” Rain said and shut the door behind her.

Bobby sat down and Black looked at Wanda. “I don’t even know where to begin,” Black said. “You have any idea how mad I am at you Wanda?”

“Yes, Mike I think I do. I let you down.”

“No, Wanda, you did much worse than that. You got Grant and his whole set killed. You put Cynt in a spot where her judgement and position or both are in jeopardy. You got things to the point where I told Cynt last night that I would kill her.”

“She told me.”

“And that would be on you too, Wanda,” Bobby said.

“Then you lied to Doc and dragged him into this little scheme,” Black said. “What were you thinking?”

“I am sorry,” Wanda said.

“Come on Wanda,” Bobby said. “You got to do better than that. You gear up to go to war; what you think Nick was gonna do? What was your plan?”

“It was just meant to be a show of unity. I wanted him to see that Rain was the problem and he needed to control that murdering psychopath.”

“No, Wanda. From what I saw last night, Ms. Robinson ain’t the problem. She just ain’t no joke.” Black paused. “I understand, I really do understand why you have a problem with her, but you let it affect your judgment. You let it affect our business, Wanda. The business we spent all these years building. What you did put all that in jeopardy. If Bobby didn’t show up in Nassau and say that he had a feelin’ that we needed to come here, ain’t no tellin’ how far this nonsense would have gone.”

Wanda looked surprised to hear that it was Bobby and not Jackie that got Black to the city.

“No, Wanda, Jackie didn’t call me. You told her not to call me and she didn’t. See, everybody acted honorably in this shit, everybody except you.”

“I know, Mike and I’m sorry,” Wanda said. “It won’t happen again. I see the damage I did and more importantly, I see how I let you and Bobby and myself down. It won’t happen again.”

“You know, I was gonna bring Ms. Robinson in here and let you two settle your differences,” Black said.

“Girl fight,” Bobby said.

Black looked at Bobby. “But that ain’t gonna happen. So here’s how it’s gonna go. Bobby is the boss of this family now. Nick runs the day to day, he reports only to him and Rain keeps her spot.”

“What about me?”

“You’re out, Wanda. From this point forward you will focus all of your attention on our legitimate businesses. And if Bobby tells me that you stuck your hands in or even showed your face in any of our spots, I will exile you to Eastern Europe and you can keep Meka company. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear. And thank you for not bringing her in here to hear this,” Wanda said.

“We’re done here.” Wanda got up and started for the door. “And Wanda, I expect to hear from you at least once a week.”

“You will,” Wanda said and left the office.

When she closed the door, Rain was standing there. Wanda rolled her eyes at her and started down the hall. “Wait, Wanda.”

Wanda stopped and looked at Rain. “What?”

“I just wanna say that I’m sorry for the way things went down.”

“I am too,” Wanda said and walked away. On her way out of Cuisine, Wanda didn’t stop to talk, she just left the building, got her in car and told James to take her home.

Black opened the door and told Rain to go get Nick. When she returned with Nick, Black told them about his decision to put Bobby in charge.

“Am I out?”

“No, Nick, things stay just the way they are now,” Bobby said to him. “You still run the show and Rain is still your hammer. You just need to talk to me everyday.”

“I’m good with that,” Nick said.

Rain smiled. “Me too.”

Black got up and took a seat on the couch. Bobby went and sat down behind the desk. “Go get the rest of them, Rain.”

“Yes, sir.” Rain left the office and once everybody was in, Bobby told them how things were gonna be and after what they had been through, everybody was good with it. When everybody left, it was just Black and Bobby in the office.

“What you gonna do now, Bobby?”

“I didn’t have anything planned. Why?”

“Give me the keys,” Black said and stood up. Bobby threw him the keys. “Come ride with me.”

Bobby got up. “Where are we going?”

Black looked at his watch. “We’re goin’ to keep a promise I made,” he said and drove Bobby downtown and parked in front of a building.

“What we doin’ here?”

“This is where Carmen works,” Black said. “I promised you that you’d get to see her so here we are.”

“And you didn’t want to see her?”

“That’s not the point, Bobby.”

“Yeah, right.”

A half-hour later, Carmen Taylor walked out of the building with her cameraman. She was an investigative reporter and was on her way to cover a story.

“There she goes now,” Black said when he saw her.

“She looks good. Like she hadn’t aged a day in seventeen years,” Bobby said and opened the door. “You coming?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

Bobby walked up to Carmen, with Black close behind. “Hello, Carmen.”

Carmen turned around quickly at the sound of a familiar voice. When she saw it was Bobby, she threw her arms around his neck. “How are you Bobby?”

“I’m fine, Carmen. You look great.”

“So do you,” Carmen smiled and patted his stomach. “Put on a little weight, but you look good.”

“Hello, Carmen,” Black said and she turned to him.

“Hello, Mike. Five months. This your idea of soon?”

“Let me use your phone, Mike. I left mine in the office.”

Black reached in his pocket and handed Bobby the phone. It rang as soon as he handed it to Bobby. “Want me to answer it?” Bobby asked as he walked away from Black and Carmen.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Black said and looked at Carmen. She was standing with her hands on her hips.

“You didn’t answer my question. I haven’t seen or heard from you in five months. Last time I saw you, you stood right in front of this building and you said you would see me soon. So tell me, Mike, is this your idea of soon?”

Before he could answer, Bobby walked up. “Excuse me, Mike, but I think you need to take this call. Give me the keys. I’ll get the car.”

“Who is it?” Black asked and handed Bobby the car keys.

Bobby leaned close to him. “CeCe.”

Black took the phone. “Hello.”

“My water broke.”

“What? When?”

“About ten minutes ago,” CeCe answered.

“I thought we had another month.”

“Well, I guess our son has other ideas.”

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Me and Michelle are leaving for the hospital now.”

“You got somebody to drive you?”

“Bernadette is going to take us and your mother is here.”

“My mother? When did she get there?”

“This morning. She said when she woke up this morning something told her that she needed to be here,” CeCe said.

 
“That sounds like her. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t have that baby without me,” Black said and looked at Carmen.

“I don’t think it’s up to me,” CeCe said. “But I’ll try.”