Private Deceptions (10 page)

I looked at Wanda. Her head was back and her eyes were closed. She had stopped taking notes awhile ago. "Wanda."

"I’m still awake." Wanda answered without opening her eyes. "Where did Rocky go in Soundview?"

"He stopped at a house on Buckner Blvd. I don’t know what he went there for, he was only inside for two minutes."

"Where’d he go then?"

"Back to his spot. I followed him there and talked to him."

"Did you find out anything?" Wanda yawned.

"You know, we can stop for awhile if you want to, Wanda. I can tell you’re exhausted."

"I’m all right, Nick, really. I just need a quick shower and a cup of coffee and I’ll be all right. So why don’t you make another pot of coffee while I take a shower."

"Okay, Wanda."

"And, Nick."

"Yes, Wanda."

"Please don’t leave."

"Yes, Wanda."

"All right now. I’m trusting you."

While Wanda showered, I made a fresh pot of coffee. While it was brewing I wandered around the house. It was fabulous. "I guess it ain’t just drug dealers who know how to live." It was just a house in the old neighborhood that Wanda had restored in grand style. Sometimes I used to wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t cut out. Not that I regret the choice I made. The way things were, I didn’t want to live like that, but I wonder. Would I be in jail or dead? Or would I be as fortunate as my friends and grow old and respectable in the game?

I was starting to feel a little tired myself, so I poured myself a cup of coffee. I went back into the living room and stared out the large picture window. Wanda returned to the living room and stood next to me. She looked at me and put her arms around me. Maybe I had that,
‘I need a hug’
look on my face. "What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Just thinkin’ about the way things turned out."

"What do you mean?"

"You, Wanda. All this. You’re a successful lawyer. You’re all so respectable now. Black and Bobby married. Shit, Bobby’s a father."

"He’s a good father too. You should talk to him."

I chose to ignore her comment.

"Freeze walkin’ around in a suit like a legitimate business man."

"That one wasn’t easy."

"I can imagine."

"Cuisine is a nice place. I thought Mike was crazy when he told me that he wanted Freeze to run the restaurant. But Freeze stepped up," Wanda continued.

"I don’t think he’s happy about it."

"Maybe. He may not be happy, but what he is, is fiercely loyal to Black."

"Unlike me, right?"

"You tell me, Nick? You’re the only one who can answer that question."

I walked away from the window and sat down. Wanda followed behind me and reclaimed her spot on the couch.

"Regrets?" Wanda asked.

"No. Not really. I mean, the way things were. Everyday was the same, more violence and more murder."

"The only difference is, your life didn’t change. You did your violence and murder for the government."

"Yeah, right."

"Well, it’s true. The Army recognized your skills. Enforcer, soldier, killer, assassin. Call it what you want to, Nick. But they programmed you with their objectives and put you right back to work. But you see, things changed here after André. We were out of the drug business and we started moving into more legitimate businesses."

"That’s the part I didn’t see coming. When Black said we were getting out of the drug business, I thought it would just be gambling and women and he’d just go right on high jacking trucks and robbin’ warehouses. ’Cause let’s face it, Black was a thief." I started laughing.

"Always was." Wanda joined me; laughing so hard she almost spilled her coffee.

"Damn the nigga could steal."

Although Black made most of his money on gambling, he was always on the lookout for something he could steal. His preference was high jacking trucks. He knew a woman who worked as a waitress at a truck stop. She would feed Black information. Using her feminine charms she would find out from truckers what they were going to be carrying, and what route they were going to take. This was the most important factor in his plan. With that information, Black would set it up so the truck would have to stop and then we’d have them. His favorite was a half-naked white woman in distress. You know, short shirt, titties hangin’ out all over the place. What man could resist a white woman in distress? Once the driver was out of the cab, either me, Jamaica or Bobby would come up on the driver from behind and take it him.

Once the driver was secure, Bobby would drive the truck away. Which didn’t go smoothly at first, but it got better as Bobby learned how to handle the big rigs. Now, once Bobby was gone in the truck, Black would always ask, "Is that your rig or the companies?" If it was the driver’s rig, Black would tell the driver where he could find it, if not, he would sell the truck for parts.

Even though he didn’t like doin’ it, Black would sometimes rob warehouses. But only if it presented a tempting enough prize, and it definitely had to be minimal risk involved. Black was never one to take risks that would put himself or his organization at risk. "Remember, no risk," Black would say before we went on any job. "Bail ain’t cheap." The reason that he didn’t like robbin’ warehouse was because; "Time waitin’ to load the truck was time waitin’ to get caught," he’d say. And gettin’ caught was never on his list of things to do.

Black had gotten some information that there was a warehouse that offered just such an opportunity. His first thought was to wait and see if his informant could give us a target to hit, but when that didn’t happen, Black decided that it was too much money involved to pass on, so it was on.

The information came to from a woman who worked as a routing supervisor at the warehouse. Black got his hooks into her because of her favorite pass time. Gambling. She owed Black five grand, so one Sunday afternoon, around dinnertime; Black and I paid her a visit.

After a very filling meal, Ayana was a great cook; she set it out for us. "Black, look, I know I owe you some money. And to be honest with you, I just ain’t got it." Which caused Black to put his gun on the table. Which wasn’t any big deal, ’cause Black would never shot a woman. If that became necessary he’d get me or Freeze to do it for him. "But I do have something that maybe worth something to you."

"And what might that be, Ayana?" Black asked.

"Yow know I work at a warehouse in Jersey. Well there’s a shipment full of electronic equipment comin’ in. You know, flat screen televisions, DVD’s boom-boxes and digital cameras, just come in from China. After the shipment passes though customs and all that shit, it’s taken to this warehouse and I schedule it to be shipped out to locations around the country. My position gives me the inside track on what’s in house, and what’s worth taking."

After making sure that he wasn’t playing in anybody else’s backyard, Black formed a plan. He got her to draw a map of the warehouse and to identify the good stuff from the junk by marking the target pallets with a piece of black tape. This saved us a lot of time. Black simply walked around and told me, ’cause I learned to drive the forklift, which one to pick up, while Bobby took over the security shack at the gate and Jamaica stood guard at the door.

By one o’clock the truck was half full and everything was going smoothly until the forklift died on me. Black and I looked around for another forklift. "You find one?" Black asked.

"No," I told him.

"Try to get this one working." I tried everything I knew, which wasn’t much, to get it running.

"We’re wasting time, Nick, get down from there. Jamaica, come here," Black said as he took one gun out of his pocket and took off his coat. "We’re gonna have to do this the hard way. I saw some hand jacks while I was looking for another forklift. We’ll each get one." Black looked at his watch, "It’s a little after one. I want to be out of here by three. We got about two hours to get as much as we can and get out of here."

We all got busy, we we’re done by two-thirty. Black and Bobby left in the truck while Jamaica and I followed in the car. We’d been driving for a half-hour maybe when we passed through a small town. Once we got a little ways out town Bobby began to slow down and came to a complete stop. "What wrong now?" Jamaica asked.

After a while Black came to the car, "What’s goin’ on, Black?" Jamaica asked.

"There’s a road block. We passed a bar a little while ago, there just out here harassing drunks. I don’t think they’ll bother us, but to be on the safe side, Nick, you wait ‘til I’m gone and make your way around through those trees just across from them. If Bobby opens his door, fire a couple of shots in the air over the truck. Then you get away from there in case they shot back. But I’m betting that these local will just take cover. That should give Bobby a chance to drive off."

"What if they come after you?" I asked.

"Then we’ll bail," Black said as he walked away.

Once Black was gone I got out and headed for the trees. I took up a position across from the road block and waited for Bobby to get there. The cop talked to Bobby for less than a minute before letting him drive on without incident. Jamaica and I weren’t that lucky. When it came our turn to go through the roadblock they made us get out. The cops searched us and looked in the car, but not closely enough to find the guns under the back seat. Then they made Jamaica take the breath test and walk a straight line, even though either of us had been drinking. After that twenty-minute ordeal, Jamaica took off and tried to catch up with Black and Bobby. What we found we’d never saw coming. About twenty miles up the road we saw Black and Bobby walking.

"What now?" Jamaica asked.

"Maybe the truck broke down," I replied as Jamaica slowed down.

"What happened to the truck?" Jamaica asked as they got in the car.

"We got jacked, that’s what the fuck happened," Bobby screamed. He told us that they had to stop because a car we blocking the road. Two men were standing in the middle of the road arguing. Once they stopped two more men, one on each side, opened the truck doors and ordered Black and Bobby out of the truck at gunpoint. They took their guns and jumped in the truck and drove off. The other two returned to their cars in the road and then they drove away, too. "They ran it like clock work, just like we would have." The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

Bobby cursed and complained the whole way back to New York. Black on the other hand, never said a word. But we knew, in his mind, he was goin’ over every minute of the robbery. And you knew he was pissed. He already had a buyer; they’d agreed on a price. Him and Bobby were supposed to meet with him in the morning and drop it off.

Once we got back to The Late Night, Black told me to drive him somewhere. I had a good idea where we were goin’, and sure as shit, I was right.

Black pounded on Ayana’s door and after a while she opened it. "Black?" a half sleep Ayana said. "What you doin’ here? Did something go wrong?"

Black didn’t say a word. He just kept walking toward her, and Ayana kept backin’ up, until she backed her way into the bedroom. Black closed the door behind him.

I propped up some pillows and made myself comfortable on the couch. Every once and a while I would hear Ayana yell, "I didn’t tell nobody! I swear, Black. I didn’t tell nobody!"

I awoke to what smelled like meatloaf cooking, "Good morning, Ayana," I said. "Where’s Black?"

"It’s afternoon and Black’s in the bedroom. If you want to take a shower or whatever, you can use the bathroom down the hall. Lunch should be ready in a soon," Ayana said.

I took a good look at her; she didn’t look like Black beat her down. Ayana was in her late thirties, early forties, maybe. But she was still an attractive woman. She was probably a very pretty women when she was younger.

I made my way to the bathroom and took a quick shower. When I got out, as promised, meatloaf, along with mashed potatoes, collard greens, fried okra and cornbread were on the table, but no sign of Ayana. Not wanting the food to get cold, I sat down to lunch. It wasn’t too long before Black and Ayana came out of the bedroom. She went in the kitchen and Black sat down and began eating. "Well?"

"I don’t think she crossed us," Black replied. "But we’ll talk about that later."

After we finished eating, I took Black home. On the way there, I asked my question again, "Well?"

"I been thinkin’ about this all night. I haven’t even been to sleep."

"Well?" I asked a third time.

"You heard what Bobby said. They ran it like clock work, just like we would have. The bandits were organized; other than ‘get out’; they never said a word. It happened so fast, I couldn’t really tell if they were black or white, but the one that took my guns sounded like he might be black, but I shouldn’t say for sure."

"You sure she didn’t tell anybody?"

"I just spent all night making sure she didn’t," Black said like I had asked a stupid question. "Now if she didn’t tell anybody, somebody had to figure it out. He’s the one we’re looking for." I drove a while longer; thinkin’ that Black had simply stated the obvious. But I should have known better.