The Mike Black Saga Book One (10 page)

“Shit!”

Freeze turned on Eastchester Road and kept going until he hit Laconia Ave. “I thought we lost them?”

“You did. These are different guys.”

“What do you
mean,
different guys?”

“That it’s not the same guys. It’s a different car. Blue Chevy, coming up on your right.” I began firing through the now opened back window. Trying to get them off us. But they kept coming. “Turn here! Try to lose them in the projects!”

Freeze turned on 229th street and drove thru
Edenwald
Projects. “Damn! These guys are good.” But he couldn’t shake them. We came out of the projects and back onto Laconia, up 219th and onto Bronxwood Ave.

“Who the
fuck are
they?” I asked.

“I don’t know. How the fuck should I know?”

“You just lose them.” A car pulled out in front of us and we crashed into a parked car. I grabbed the case and we got out blastin’. “This way!”

“I ain’t goin’ down there,
there’s dogs
down there!”

“Shoot them!
Lets
go!” I yelled as I started running down the alley.

“Look out!” Freeze yelled. I turned quickly, in time to see that two more guys were shooting at us. I caught one in the shoulder. “Ahhh! Shit!” If I hadn’t turned when Freeze yelled it would have hit me in the chest.

“You hit?”

“Yeah, in the shoulder! I’m all right, keep goin’!”

I could hear the dogs barking in front of us and the guys firing behind us. I started firing in both directions. The barking stopped and the dogs ran in the opposite direction. But the guys kept coming. Freeze ran toward the building and shot the lock off. We ran through the building and out the front door. A car came down the street. Freeze stood in the middle of the street with his gun drawn.

The car stopped in front of him.

“Get out!”

Both doors swung open and the people ran away from the car.

The guys came out the door and opened fire on us again. This time it was Freeze who got hit. He went down.

“Freeze!”

I ran toward him, shooting that semi-auto wildly in their direction.

They took cover.

I kept shootin’.

I pulled Freeze up and pushed him in the car, got in and drove away.

I looked over at Freeze. “Where you hit?”

“In the gut! Shit that hurts. They got me in the leg too.”

“Who the
fuck are
they?”

“How many times you gonna ask me that shit? I told you I don’t know.”

“They still on us?”

Freeze struggled to turn around; he was bleeding pretty
bad
. “I don’t see anybody.”

I drove around for awhile to make sure we’d really lost them,
who ever
they were, this time. Then drove as fast as I could to Perry’s house. Freeze had passed out at some point, so I had to carry him. He was in pretty bad shape. Perry said if it had been any longer he’d be dead. He took care of our wounds and I made him promise not to tell Black, but he found out anyway.

It was about that time that I met Camille. She had me, and I couldn’t leave her alone. I knew when I met her that she was with Bobby, but it didn’t seem to matter to me. It definitely didn’t matter to her.

I had never met any woman like Camille. She was fascinating to be around and to talk to. And her voice, the way she spoke with that Barbados accent, Shit! It simply blew me away. Her dark complexion, her flawless body, and those dark eyes. The way she’d look at me when we’d make love. For too long after that, when I’d close my eyes, I’d see those eyes looking up at me.

It began the first time I saw her. I was with Black in his office at The Late Night when she came in with Bobby. Camille walked right up to me. “Bobby, introduce me to this handsome specimen of a man.”

Bobby’s eyes narrowed when he looked at her. “That’s, Nick.”

That look was my first warning, but I ignored it and each warning that would follow. Camille stepped closer, put her left hand on my chest and looked up at me. “That’s no way to introduce somebody, Bobby. My name is Camille Augustus. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and what is your name?”

“Nick Simmons.” I answered, and quickly backed up off her. But she had me then and she knew it. Each time I saw her after that, Camille made that point clear.

When she’d call me I’d come.

What she wanted, I got for her.

What she said, I did, without so much as a kiss.

I was riding with Black the night Camille decided she would have me. She paged me at 2:45 in the morning and I quickly called her back.

“Come see me. I want to talk. We never have enough time to sit and have a chat.”

“Now?”

“Of course, now. Now is when I want you.” Camille hung up the phone and I turned to Black.

“Booty call,” he said.

“No, just a chat.”

“Yeah, right. Nobody calls at damn near three in the morning to just talk. Talk about fuckin’ maybe.”

I don’t know if he knew where he was dropping me off and at the time, I didn’t care. I knocked on her door, but there was no answer. Maybe I had taken too long and she had fallen asleep. I waited awhile and knocked again. She opened the door dressed in a red gown and robe, which left nothing to the imagination.

“Come in, Nick. I was beginning to think that you weren’t coming.”

We talked and laughed until the sun was
shinning
brightly the next morning. I admired her beauty, the way her dark skin over powered the red of her gown. Camille commanded my attention in more ways than one. Then she touched my hand and drew me to her. I ran my hand across her shoulder.

“Kiss me, Camille.”

She patted my hand and stood up.

“Stand up, Nick.” I complied. Camille looked up at me and undressed me without breaking eye contact. I stood naked before her and she ran one hand across my chest while the other glided effortlessly along my length. She gently grabbed the back of my neck and drew our lips together, but only for a second. Camille eased me back down on the couch and ran her tongue over her lips. Then Camille introduced my length to her moistened lips. Her eyes still locked in mine. She
slid
her lips across what seemed to be every inch of it. Then she smiled and opened her mouth. It was soft and wet; if she had teeth I never knew it. She moved her head up and down in a very slow almost methodical motion. My excitement only intensified as I watched her, watching me. It was like slow motion, prolonging each stroke.

It was about that time that I found out why André wanted me to kill Chicago. I didn’t find that out until a woman shot Chicago six years after I was gonna kill him. One of the old heads says to me, “Well I guess now Chicago will stop fuckin’ Andrés wife.”

André just tried to use me `
cause
he was too weak to handle his own business. I thought that he was weak for not handling his own business. After that, a lot of things happened to confirm it. Then one day he took me Bobby, Nick and Jamaica with him to a meeting on City Island with Frankie the Favorite.

André had us wait outside. Whatever happened in there happened, and Frankie’s boys came out shootin’. Now, Bobby has a sixth sense for things like that and he sees them coming. He shot the first two, and
me
, Nick, and Jamaica picked the rest of them off one by one as they came out the door. We go inside and there’s André, on his knees, gun to his head, begging for his life. So I shot Frankie.

A couple of days after that, Angee
comes
to my office at the Late Night. “Come ride with me, Mikey.”

I wasn’t worried.
Me
and Angee go too far back. And besides, if he was gonna kill me he wouldn’t have come alone. So while we’re ridin’ he starts talkin’ about the old days. As we pull up in front of Carmine’s, Angee turned to me. “I always liked you, Mikey. That’s why I saved your life.”

We go in to see Carmine and Angee talked to him for a second then he looked at me. “Tell Carmine what happened that day.”

After I told my story Carmine got up and walked over to me. He patted me on the shoulder. “
Why’s
you shot Frankie?”

“With all due respect, do you remember when you were a soldier? If you were in my place, what would you have done?”

Carmine didn’t say anything at first, then he thanked me for coming, and Angee showed me out.

When we get outside, Angee told me that André told a different story. He told Carmine that when I got inside he had taken the gun from Frankie. And that Frankie was on his knees and unarmed when I shot him.

The mutha fucka was tryin’ to save
his own
ass. But the way I saw it, he was trying to kill me. That’s when I decided to killed him and everybody else I thought might come after us.

So I waited. For more than a year after the thing with Frankie. I waited. Watched him. I planned it. I knew that there were enough people who hated André to go around. Cops wouldn’t care, and as long as business didn’t suffer no one else would either. When I was ready, I called a meeting at The Late Night.

“Now that we’re all here,” I said, as soon as Nick and Freeze came through the door. “I bet you all are wondering why I got you all over here.”

“The thought had occurred to me,” Bobby said, staring at me.

“I’m gonna kill André,” I declared.

There was complete silence in the room.

They all sat there looking at me and one another, until Bobby started laughing. Everybody did at first, until they noticed that I wasn’t laughing.

“You serious, Black?” Freeze asked.

“Deadly.”

“How you gonna do it?” Nick asked.

“What you gonna do? Just walk into his office and blast him?” Bobby inquired, but his eyes were still on Nick. By that time, Bobby had figured out that Nick was fuckin’ Camille behind his back. I should have done something about it then, but I was too
catch
up in my plan to kill André. Then Bobby slowly turned to me.

“No. I have a plan,” I said.

“You plannin’ on taking over after he’s dead, Black?” Nick asked.

“The gambling houses and the women, yes. But I’m gettin’ out of the dope game.”

Nobody was really surprised by that. They’d all seen it coming. After Vickie died in my apartment smoking cocaine, I turned totally against drugs. I even stopped smokin’ weed. And I loved to smokin’ weed.

“We’d be givin’ up a lot of money, Mike. I don’t think that’s good for business.” Bobby said.

“Maybe. No. You’re right, Bobby, it’s not good for business. We’ll just have to find different ways of making money. But when I walk around here and I see what it’s done to the neighborhood.” I looked at Jamaica. “To people. I just can’t be involved in that anymore. Anybody who wants to
is
free to do whatever he wants once this is over. As long as you don’t do business around here.”

I looked around the room.

“Bobby, you with me? I can’t do this without you.”