The Mike Black Saga; Payback (24 page)

"
Papi
? Who the fuck is
Papi
?"

"Diego, Diego
Estabon
." Mike let Sal go. "When we got to Miami he said to bring her here. I dropped her where he told me."

"Where was that?" Mike asked.

"I dropped her at an apartment on 151
^th
street, they took her from there."

Freeze punched Sal in the face. Bobby grabbed him before he fell. "They? Who the fuck is they?" Freeze yelled.

"I don’t know who the guys were. I just dropped her and got away from there."

Freeze hit Sal again, while Bobby held him. "Take us there," Mike demanded.

On the way to Harlem, Bobby drove, Nick sat in the front seat with his gun pointed at Sal. Mike and Freeze in the back seat on either side of Sal. "You don’t have to worry Sal, I’m not gonna kill you, at least not yet," Mike said calmly. "I just need you to clear some things up for me."

"Sure, Black, whatever you need."

"Who set the meeting in my club?"

"Pat, Pat Matthews."

"Who is that? The one Julio shot?"

"Yeah," Sal answered nervously.

"Why’d Julio kill him?"

"Julio said he was DEA."

"Is that why Julio shot at him,
cause
he was DEA too," Mike asked pointing in Nick’s direction.

Sal glanced at Nick, he turned back to Mike. "He’s not the one Julio was shooting at, but yeah, he was with them. I mean, it was just him and your wife shooting at us."

"So Julio recognized another agent and that’s who he shot at?" Mike asked.

"Yeah. After they started shooting at us we grabbed her to get outta there. I swear to God, Black, that’s what happened."

When they arrived at 151
^st
street Sal told them that he took Shy to an apartment on the fourth floor. Bobby parked the car down the block from the building, while Freeze and Nick went to check things out. They went inside and took the back staircase to the fourth floor. Once Nick confirmed that there was nobody in the hallway, he called Mike.

Mike and Bobby led Sal into the building at gun point. They took the elevator up to the fourth floor where Nick and Freeze were waiting. Mike told Nick to watch Sal as he and Bobby approached the door. Mike kicked in the door and Bobby and Freeze rushed inside the apartment, but it was empty. While Bobby and Freeze searched the apartment, Mike called for Nick. "Bring Sal in," he told Nick and put a silencer on his gun.

"Black, take a look at this," Freeze said and led Mike in to one of the rooms. There was a bed in the room with ropes tied to the four posts.

"She was here," Mike said. "Bring him in here, Nick."

Nick pushed Sal in the room. "This is where I brought her, Black, I swear."

"Where did they take
her!
" Mike yelled and pointed his gun at Sal.

"I don’t know!"

Mike lowered his weapon, and looked at Sal. "As soon as she told you she was my wife, you should have let her out of the car and apologized for taking her," Mike said and raised his weapon. He shot Sal twice in the head.

Chapter Thirty-three

The next afternoon Mike asked everybody to meet him at Cuisine. Freeze arrived first. "What’s up, Black?" he asked and sat down at the table with Mike.

"What’s up?"

"Chillin’," Freeze said.

"What about that thing for Paulleen; what’s up with that?"

"I got that. I am gonna take care of it today," Freeze said.

"I don’t want you goin’ alone, so wait for me or take Bobby with you."

"If I can find him," Freeze commented.

"What’s up with him and this chick anyway?"

"Black, the shit is out of control. I know I should have told you about it sooner, but I gave Bobby my word. But that bitch is crazy! I’m sorry I introduced him to her. She’s a bad bitch, but I didn’t think Bobby was gonna lose his fuckin’ mind over her. It has gotten to the point that Pam knows about it."

"How you know that?"

"Cause Pam
be
callin’ me lookin’ for that nigga," Freeze said excitedly. "Pam be callin’ me talkin’ ‘bout, where’s Bobby? Is Bobby with you at the club? He said he was at Cynt’s, but I just talked to Cynt and she ain’t seen him. I’m gettin’ fuckin’ tired of that shit. You need to talk to him, but I don’t know if that shit will do any good, as far gone as that nigga is, Black."

"I’ll talk to him," Mike said as Bobby walked in. "You handle what you gotta handle, but watch your back, you know what I’m sayin’."

"You know what a careful guy I am," Freeze said and thought about Paulleen. If he had been more careful that day . . . maybe.

"How’s Nick’s partner? What’s her name again?"

"Monika. She’s doin’ a’ight for somebody who took five shots. She coulda walked out of the hospital, but they made her use the wheel chair."

"She with our friend in Mount Vernon?" That was Mike’s way of asking if Monika was with Perry. He was a part of the crew until Bobby paid for him to go to medical school. Now he ran a small practice in Mount Vernon with his wife.

"He’ll take good care of her."

"You talk to her?"

"A little," Freeze said.

"What you think of her?"

"She’s Wanda with guns."

"Who y’all talkin’ about?" Bobby asked.

"Nick’s partner, Monika," Freeze told him.

At that moment Wanda and Nick got there and sat down. "The big question is why the DEA settin’ up meetings in my club?"

"I’ll tell you what I think," Wanda said. "I think it was to make it look like you and more importantly, Shy, a known drug dealer with a warrant for conspiracy to distribute, was involved in the meeting."

"Exactly," Mike said. "Julio was shooting at another DEA agent. They had an operation up and running."

"That’s why the DEA never sent an investigator to the club," Wanda said.

"Because they were there. That agent wouldn’t be in there without backup," Mike said.

"But if that’s true Mike and there were other agents there when the shooting started, why wouldn’t they get involved?" Wanda asked. "Especially after their agent was killed."

"Because Sal
Terrico
and his friends weren’t the objective. If Black was the objective, an undercover operative gettin’ killed wasn’t a reason to blow the operation," Nick said. "If Black were there, maybe then they would have waited until the shooting stopped and arrested him."

"See, I knew you were smart enough to follow me," Mike said. "Wanda, I need to know for sure if the DEA is on us. And find out exactly why they’re on us."

"I’ll make some calls first thing in the morning."

"Nick, you stay on this thing with Marshall. See if you can find out the real deal with those damn papers. And if he is responsible for that reporter’s death, I wanna know about it."

"What about Kirk?" Nick asked.

"Stay away from Kirk, but I think Kirk is working the same thing from a different angle."

Bobby turned to Mike. "We need to think about where we wanna go from here. They’re coming at us from all sides now. D-Train tryin’ to take us one way, DEA might be at us and who knows what Diego’s sneaky-ass is up to. Maybe it’s time for us to get out."

Mike looked at Bobby. He was thinking the same thing. "Maybe it is," Mike said quietly.

"And if that’s what’s gotta happen, then that’s what’s gonna happen," Bobby said.

"Or we could kill them all," Mike said. "And then get out. But somehow, Bobby, I don’t think just killin’ Diego is gonna satisfy me."

Wanda rolled her eyes. "I’m just gonna throw this out there. I know we need to find Shy, but after that we don’t need to do this. We’re making almost as much money in our legitimate businesses as we do with everything else that we have going on." Wanda looked around the table. "Everyone at this table is a millionaire. I think Bobby is right, it’s time for us to get out."

"I just don’t like the idea of gettin’ pushed out like this," Bobby said.

"I’m not sayin that either of you are wrong, in fact, I agree with you. We don’t need to live like this, but we can’t just walk away. Not from this. Sure we can let D-Train have the houses and Diego can do whatever he’s up to. But we can’t just walk away from the DEA. If we do nothing they’ll still come."

"But if we’re not involved in anything what will they have?" Wanda asked.

"We’re not
involved
in anything now and here they are. No, Wanda, we got to get the DEA off us."

Chapter Thirty-four

Nick banged on the door to Freeze’s apartment for a good while before he opened the door. "Knew it was you, Nick," he said.

"I thought you were ‘sleep," Nick said and walked in the apartment.

"Nope. But I’m glad you’re here. Now you can ride with me."

"Where we goin’?"

"We gonna knock on a few doors, ask a few questions, maybe kill a muthafucka or two.

"What’s up?"

"Black wanted me to wait for him or Bobby before I go ride on the muthafucka that killed Paulleen, but he’s still looking for Shy and Bobby’s ass is nowhere to be found."

"Fuck that," Nick said. "This is the way it should be. Me and
you,
like old times. Ride or die, right," Nick said and held out his hand.

Freeze grabbed his hand hard and shook it. "Glad to have you back, Nick," he said as the two walked out to the car. Once they were on their way, Nick’s cell phone rang. "Hello," he answered.

"Hello, Nick, this is Wanda. How are you?"

"I’m fine, Wanda. What about you? Are you havin’ a good day?" Nick asked.

"So far so good. What are you doing?"

Nick glanced over at Freeze as he drove, nodding his head to the beat. "I’m ridin’ with Freeze."

"Oh," Wanda said. "Well, I’m not going to keep you. I have two things to tell you."

"What’s that?"

"I was able to confirm that there is an ongoing operation, but I wasn’t able to get a feel for the scope of it."

"Did you tell Black?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He said, that’s nice, Wanda, I’ll talk to you later."

Nick laughed a little. "Okay, what’s the second?"

"Our friend Martin Marshall is having a black tie affair at his house tomorrow night.
Glynnis
says she can get us invitations. You interested?"

"Of course," Nick said and then he thought about it. He started to ask if this was a date, but he looked at Freeze and decided against it. "See if you can get another invite."