by Roy Glenn
Bobby looked at Black, waiting for him to say something about having a few bodies around. When he didn’t answer, Bobby said it again. “Ain’t no harm in having a few bodies around, right?”
“Huh?”
“I said, ain’t no harm in having a few bodies around until this blows over.”
“You’re right.”
“What zone you in?”
“Thinking about this nigga Mylo and wondering about Freeze.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but I know you got to be thinking the same thing I am. Is Freeze involved in this thing? I mean, where this nigga come from all of a sudden that Freeze got him running our game? And how come nobody bothered to tell me about him?”
“Freeze said that Jap met him in jail. Jap used him on a couple things, and he turned him on to Freeze.”
“That’s it?” Bobby asked, thinking that damn sure wasn’t good enough.
“All I can tell you is that Cassandra didn’t like him. That shoulda told me something. He was the one that told Freeze where Birdie and Albert were hiding out.”
“Anybody ask him how he knew where they were?”
“What?” Black asked.
“Did anybody ask him how he knew just where to find them?”
“I never thought about that.”
“I been telling you for years, I look at shit a little differently than other people. And why should you have thought about that? You were in jail while they were out chasing the wild goose. By the time you got out, they were dead, and you moved on to the real killers.”
“You’re right,” Black said thinking back to those days.
“But think about that shit now. This fuckin’ Commission, all them niggas used to work for Birdie. Knowing that he’s got some influence over them…” Bobby started.
“That’s how he knew where to find Birdie and Albert. He was down with them,” Black said.
“So we know he’s a snitch.”
“I hate fuckin’ snitches.”
“But Freeze depends on them,” Bobby pointed out. “He’s made his rep on knowing or being able to find out information. Information that you’ve relied on for years and you didn’t give a fuck where it came from.”
“What are you saying, Bob?”
“Mutha fuckas been snitching for Freeze for years, you can’t hold that against him now, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay, but do you think Freeze knew about Mylo fixing the fight or trying to kill me?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe it is just bad judgment for him to trust Mylo, but Freeze is too loyal to you for him to be a part of that.”
“I hope you're right. I don’t even wanna think about that,” Black said and looked out the window. The thought of Freeze betraying him was much more than he wanted to deal with right then. He didn’t want to believe it, but there was no way that he could ignore the possibility. Freeze was like a brother, a son even, to him. There is no way.
When they got back to the city, Black picked up Mystique and took her to the Marriott on 40th street, where Bobby had two men waiting. She stayed awake and watched over Black while he slept for a couple of hours, before him and Bobby headed to North Carolina to settle a debt.
Chapter Twenty-nine
After rotting for more time than he thought was possible in the Federal Prison Camp in Atlanta, the day had finally come for him to get out of there. Former DEA agent Kenneth DeFrancisco wasn’t getting out of jail altogether though. He still had thirteen more years on the fifteen-year sentence he was serving for his involvement with drug trafficking that, had it been successful, would’ve had Mike Black in there instead of him. Then, two days after he was taken into custody, the government, confiscated all of his assets. His sprawling home, the condo on the North Carolina coast, his prized cars, motorcycles, even the cash he had neatly stashed in offshore accounts. The most important thing he lost was his wife.
He thought back to the last time he spoke to his wife Jane.
“They’re putting me out!” she had cried that day.
She had barricaded herself in the bedroom while IRS agents went through everything they owned. They hadn’t paid taxes on millions of dollars.
“Where am I supposed to go? What about the kids? You need to fix this! You need to fix this, now!”
That last conversation with his wife woke him up every night and reminded him just how much he hated Mike Black.
Even that didn’t matter that morning. For DeFrancisco, 6:00 am couldn’t come fast enough. He was up and dressed before five that morning and sat patiently waiting for something that he had begun to think would never come. He was excited, because this particular morning, DeFrancisco was being transferred to another institution.
“And it’s about damn time that arrogant prick Marshall got off his ass and did something for me,” DeFrancisco said as he got up from his bed and began pacing back and forth in his cell.
Even though he was talking shit about it, he was at first surprised and then thankful the week before when the guard told him that he had a phone call.
“Somebody calling me?” he asked. He very rarely got any phone calls, and the entire time he’d been there, he had only one visitor. As he got up and waited for the cell door to open, DeFrancisco thought that it could only be his old friend and partner, Pete Vinnelli on the line for him. Vinnelli, dressed in biker gear and posing as DeFrancisco’s lawyer was his lone visitor. It couldn’t be anybody else, DeFrancisco thought as he was escorted off the cell block. When he got to the phone he was surprised when a female voice introduced herself after he said, “Hello.”
“Is this Kenneth DeFrancisco?” the perky sounding female asked.
“Yes, this is,” DeFrancisco responded curiously. He was sure that it was Vinnelli calling.
“My name is Danielle Summer. I am the personal assistant to Senator Martin Marshall. How are you today, Mr. DeFrancisco?”
“I’m fine,” DeFrancisco said excitedly. The words Martin Marshall were more than enough to cause that reaction. He had been reaching out to Marshall through Vinnelli and writing him letters since the day he got to that shit hole to do something for him. DeFrancisco felt like Marshall owed him that for not snitching on him about his involvement with Diego Estabon in the very case he was doing time for.
“Senator Marshall sends his regards and best wishes to you, and his sincere apology for not being able to speak with you personally. Senator Marshall wants you to know that he has received all of your of correspondence regarding a transfer to an institution in your home state due to the hardship it places on your minor children for visitation.”
“That’s refreshing to know,” DeFrancisco said, encouraged by the direction the conversation was going.
“The Senator wanted me to express that while he is understanding and very sympathetic to your situation,” Danielle Summer explained, “he strongly encourages you to continue to go through the established channels to secure a transfer. The Senator is confident that once your case is reviewed, that you will have no problem getting your request approved. However, once you have exhausted all other remedies at your disposal without success, please, by all means, do not hesitate to write the Senator again.”
“You are saying that he won’t help me? Is that what you called to say?” DeFrancisco asked angrily.
“Not at all, sir. What I said was, the Senator is confident that once your case is reviewed, that you will have no problem having your request approved. That sir; is what I said. Do you understand what I’m saying now?”
“Yeah, I understand,” said a dejected DeFrancisco.
“Then you have a good day, sir.” And with that, Danielle Summer ended the call.
On the way back to his cell, DeFrancisco felt like he had just had his insides kicked out. Not only wouldn’t Marshall help him, he had the nerve to have some bitch call and tell him that he wasn’t gonna do shit for him. His mood had lasted for a couple of days when he was once again escorted from his cell. This time he w
as taken to the administration area where he was informed that he was to be transferred to another Federal Prison Camp.
“That is the very best news you could have possibly given me,” DeFrancisco said. “Thank you, thank you very much.”
On the way back to his cell, DeFrancisco thought back to his conversation with Marshall’s assistant. The Senator is confident that once your case is reviewed, that you will have no problem having your request approved. Now the call made sense to him. That was Marshall’s way of telling him that he had gotten it done for him.
Now DeFrancisco took back almost every bad thing that he had ever said about Marshall. “Except for arrogant prick; because that son-of-a-bitch is one arrogant prick,” DeFrancisco said as he waited.
After DeFrancisco was processed, he was taken to Hartsfield-Jackson airport, which was located just outside Atlanta, and flown to Raleigh, where he would serve the remainder of his time at a minimum-security facility housing male offenders, located in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Once they got off of their flight, DeFrancisco and the officer made the seventy-two mile drive to the Federal Prison Camp located on Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, east of the city limits of Goldsboro. When they got off of I-40 East and onto US-70 East, the officer noticed a car coming up behind them, and it was closing in fast.
Thinking that the car was just another speeding motorist, the officer flipped on his lights to slow them down, but the car kept coming. Before he could react, the speeding car slammed into the back of his cruiser.
“What the fuck!” The officer said as he tried to regain control of his vehicle.
DeFrancisco bounced around in the back seat. “What the hell is going on?” he yelled.
“Some crazy son-of-a-bitch just ran into the back of us!” he yelled as the car slammed into them again. The officer sped up and tried to get away. As he began to pull away, he reached for his radio, but was startled when he heard a loud noise. “They shot out our tire. Hold on!” he shouted to DeFrancisco. The officer grabbed the radio, but it fell out of his hand when the car slammed into the back of the cruiser again. This time the car stayed on them and rode them off the road.
Before the officer could regain his composure, two armed men wearing masks were on either side of the car. One quickly opened the driver side door and dragged the officer out of the cruiser, while the other pulled out DeFrancisco. The shaken officer was led away from the car at gunpoint by one of the masked men and handcuffed to a nearby tree, while DeFrancisco was taken to their car by the other. “Who the hell are you?” DeFrancisco yelled as he struggled.
“I’m your executioner,” the masked man said and hit the former agent with the butt of his gun, knocking him out cold.
When DeFrancisco came to and looked around, he was in what appeared to be an abandoned house. Once he began to move he could hear voices. “He’s waking up, Mike.”
“It’s about time. I didn’t think I hit him that hard.”
As DeFrancisco’s eyes began to focus, he saw two black men coming toward him. One of the men immediately hit him in the face. “Who the fuck are you?” DeFrancisco yelled.
“You don’t know who I am? After all the shit you did to me, you don’t know who I am.”
“No, I don’t know who you niggas are or what you want, but I’m telling you…” DeFrancisco started, but his words were met with a fist in his face.
“It don’t even matter if you know who I am. I just wanna ask you one question.”
DeFrancisco spit blood from his mouth. “What?”
“Why did you kill my wife?”
DeFrancisco dropped his head, but quickly looked up at the man that stood before him. “Mike Black?”
“You see, he does know you, Mike,” Bobby said.
“I cannot help but be touched,” Black said and hit DeFrancisco again. “Why’d you do it?”
He hit DeFrancisco again. He spit blood again and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Bobby asked.
“He knows he’s gonna die today,” Black said and held his gun to DeFrancisco’s head.
“It’s a good day to die,” Bobby said.
Black got in DeFrancisco’s face. “Why’d you do it; why’d you have my wife killed?”
“I was married once,” DeFrancisco said and laughed a little. “Married to a good woman. Sure she was a little high strung, but she was a good woman.” DeFrancisco thought back to that last conversation he had with his wife. Hold on a minute, Kenny. I know how to fix this. Then DeFrancisco heard a noise, followed by more banging on the door. Then he heard a single shot. The IRS agents found Jane’s body lying across their California king sized bed.
“She took her own life one day; took her own life because I couldn’t be there for her. Since you want answers, you wanna know why I couldn’t be there for her?” DeFrancisco asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “It was because of you. because I was in jail where you should have been. It shoulda been you rotting in that shit hole, not me. You!” DeFrancisco shouted. “My wife is dead because of this shit, so your wife had to die too.”
Black hit DeFrancisco again. “That’s it? That’s why you killed my wife?” Black hit him again. “I never even heard of you; how the fuck you blame me for you being in jail? You should be blaming your partner, Diego Estabon, for coming up with such a stupid idea.”
“Easy to blame a dead man,” Bobby joked.
Black looked at Bobby, but he didn’t seem to be amused. He turned back to DeFrancisco. “You know I’ve dreamed about this day. Dreamed about how I was gonna kill you. I was gonna torture you, you know; just beat you and torture you for a day maybe, before I killed you.” Black took a step back. He thought about his life with and without Cassandra. Black closed his eyes and could see her lying on the kitchen floor. Her face, beaten, bruised, and bloody. And what about Michelle? Forced to grow up without her mother. “But now I’m thinking I should just kill you,” he said and raised his gun to DeFrancisco’s head.
“Fuck you!” DeFrancisco yelled.
“No. Fuck you,” Black said and fired two shots to his head.
The impact of the shots were enough to knock DeFrancisco out of his chair. Bobby walked over and picked up two gas cans and handed one to Black. He poured gas over DeFrancisco’s body, and then they poured gas around the abandoned house. Once the gas cans were empty, Black and Bobby walked out of the house. Black turned around and removed a book of matches from his pocket. He lit the book on fire and threw it into the house.
It didn’t take long for the house to burst into flames; engulfing everything around it, including the car that they had stolen to kidnap the former agent. Black and Bobby stood off in the distance and watched until the car’s gas tank caught fire and exploded.
“You ready?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Black said and got in Bobby’s car. “We got a fight to catch.”
Chapter Thirty
It was ten o'clock on Friday night and the crowd was gathering at Madison Square Garden for the Middle weight title fight between Champion Frank Sparrow and the number one contender, Irish Stevie Dudgeon.
Mike Black stretched out on the bed watching pre-fight coverage and waited for Mystique to get dressed. He had been dressed and ready to go for the last twenty minutes, but he didn’t mind watching Mystique wander around their suite. Watching her stand in front of the mirror meticulously applying her make-up, made Black think about Cassandra. It never took her long to get ready, even though it always looked like she’d spent hours on her appearance.
“I’ll be ready in a minute; I promise,” Mystique said and picked up the dress that was laid out on the bed next to Black. A Donna Karan wrap & tie black dress, made from imported Italian fabric with a plunging V-neck, and long sleeves that tied at the center front.
“I’m not rushing you.”
“It’s just that I wanna look nice for you.”
“You look delicious right now,” Black said and got off the bed.
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“You know what I mean. This is kind of our first date and…you know…I just want to look nice for you that’s all.”
Black started to say something about the whole first date thing, but then thought better of it.
Once Mystique had the dress on, she stood in front of him. “How do I look?”
“Like I should take it off of you, slowly,” Black said.
“I’m ready if you are, but you’ll miss your fight. You don’t know the meaning of a quickie.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know.” Mystique smiled. There was something she’d been wanting to ask him, and this was as good a time as any. “You mind if I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead, ask me what you wanna know.”
Mystique took a deep breath. “I know you said you didn’t want me dancing at Cynt's no more. I was just wondering what that meant for us?”
“What do you mean?” Black answered a question with a question, even though he hated when people did it to him. He knew what she wanted to know, but he wasn’t in any mood to talk about it.
“What I’m asking is, when you first asked me to stop dancing was it because of what you got going on, because you were scared something might happen to me,” Mystique took a step closer. “or was it because of us?”
Black looked at Mystique in that fitting black dress and that plunging neckline that showed off her abundant cleavage and thought about saying, Can’t we talk about this after the fight. This was a conversation that he didn’t feel like having. The same conversation he thought he was avoiding by not commenting on the whole first date thing.
Black paused for a minute and thought about how he was going to answer her. There is no nice way to say, It’s bad for my rep for you to be dancing there and I’m fuckin’ you. But was that all there was to it or was he really starting to feel something for her? He wasn’t sure.