by SLMN
“Okay,” Joe agreed, then turned to his bodyguard, “You wait here.”
“After you,” Othello handed his piece to Mac, then turned around so Joe could see he didn’t have another one concealed.
Joe reached down and pulled his ankle holster off, tossing the snub-nosed .380 to Venus with a wink.
“You would’ve never got your hands near it,” Venus told him.
Joe shrugged.
“We’ll never know.”
Othello patted him down, then offered Joe the chance to pat him down. “Like you said, I’d be dead already, right?” Joe repeated. O nodded.
Joe got in under the wheel while Othello joined on the passenger’s side.
They drove off. Nothing fancy. No burning rubber. Off for a nice afternoon drive. “Any particular destination?”
“Take the scenic route to understanding,” Othello quipped.
Joe chuckled.
“I must admit I’ve wanted to kill you for quite some time, but I can say that you make a decent first impression.”
“Likewise,” Othello returned. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I have to say.”
“Mildly curious.”
“Well, it’s not me that has something to say, really. Listen.” Othello lifted his phone up and hit play.
He heard Black Sam say, “…to get the rest of them?”
Another man said, “All of them.”
“That’s going to take some time,” Black Sam objected. “Joe Hamlet is a very powerful man. He won’t just talk about this type of shit on the phone.”
“Far be it from me to tell you your business, but you’re his right hand man, right? Make him talk.”
“I’m tellin’ you, it’s not that simple. Look, I can deliver Malik Muhammad, Tony Malone and Jerome Peters. That’s some serious hitters. Ain’t that enough?”
“We want Hamlet. The rest are fucking gnats, irritating but barely worth slapping down. It’s all about Hamlet.”
Othello killed the playback. He said, “He’s talking to the Feds.”
Joe’s expression said it all. His brow darkened with volcanic rage that could take the roof off the car if it exploded, but Joe maintained his composure and finally chuckled.
“Son of a bitch…”
“Among other things,” Othello added. “Like I promised, enlightenment. I guess now you know who was behind all of this.” By this, he meant the war.
Joe looked at Othello, studying his expression.
Up until that moment, he had taken him for a two-bit thug, the puppet for some real gangsta puppeteer pulling his strings. He’d read that wrong. Othello was pulling the strings. Black Sam just thought he was.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because he’s a problem for both of us.”
“I didn’t hear your name mentioned on the tape.”
“You didn’t hear the whole tape,” Othello said.
Joe nodded.
“Where is he?”
Othello smiled. “First the deal.”
“Deal?” Joe echoed.
“You give me Black Sam and you and your people get to live, that’s the deal.”
“I think me and my people have proven we can take care of ourselves. We’re looking for a little more.”
“Like?”
“Like, I give you Black Sam and you get me a seat on The Commission,” Othello proposed.
Joe chuckled, it was worse than mocking laughter. It was patronizing.
“A seat? Are you serious? After the shit you’ve pulled, you’ll be lucky to have still have an ass you try if to confront The Commission!”
“I know your Golden Rule, if I’m a member of The Commission, no other made member can touch me, right?”
“Yeah, but to get made, I can’t just give you a seat. It’s a vote, and the vote has to be unanimous,” Joe explained.
“So, if I give you Sam, do I have your vote?” Othello looked Joe in the eyes.
Joe pulled over.
“Let me tell you straight, you’ve killed men that I admired, respected, even loved. How do you suppose I forget about that?”
“I’ve lost men too, men that I loved. No one can bring them back, but this is the life we chose, you and I. Tomorrow…. that’s something you tell children and women to give them something to look forward to, but us, all we have is today,” Othello replied, like he was dropping some serious wisdom.
In Othello’s mind, thoughts of his father filled him like the bellows filled the flame with the power to grow, leap and devour.
Joe’s heart flinched when Othello mentioned losing loved ones. He could see the father he had killed in the son sitting before him. His demeanor softened and sighed.
“I agree. But you’re asking a lot.”
“I have a lot to offer.”
A beat.
“And out of curiosity, if I say no?” Joe asked.
“Then I let Black Sam hear his own tape. What do you reckon he’s going to do then? Can you say, witness protection? You’re the whale they’re after.”
Joe looked away for a moment, then responded with, “You have my vote if you pull it off. But it doesn’t matter, you’ll never get the other votes.”
“Let me worry about that. All I ask is that you guarantee my safety during the sit down,” Othello held out his hand.
Joe paused, looked at his hand, then in his eyes, then finally nodded and shook his enemy’s hand.
“Now… where’s Sam?” Joe’s eyes flashed with the color of hell.
Othello smiled. “Let’s go.”
Black Sam loved to play cards.
His favorite game was Georgia Skin.
Over the years, he’d won and taken many a man’s life savings by the turn of a single card.
It was an old gangsta’s game, a lesson that Benny was learning the hard way.
“Goddamn! Fuckin’ eight!” Benny spat, watching Sam rake in another four thousand dollars of his money with calm assurance.
Sam very methodically pulled the cash toward him like one of those fairground grabber hands reaching out to scoop it all up.
“I told you youngbuck, I was skinnin' wit’ the best of them when your Daddy was a pup,” he grinned.
“That’s aight old timer, just shuffle them shits up,” Benny replied, upping the ante to an even thousand to start the betting on the next hand.
“Big boy money, excellent, let’s—” Black Sam began, but stopped when he heard the front door bang open.
He didn’t push up from the table.
He didn’t reach for his piece.
He waited for shit to materialize.
He didn’t have long to wait.
Two seconds.
Othello entered, followed by Mac, Cash, Venus and Milk.
The old dawg smiled, ready to offer a welcome to his palace. Not even half a heartbeat later, he saw Joe walk in behind the others.
He closed the door.
“How you doin’, Sam?” Joe greeted, his voice calm. Underneath, a cauldron bubbled.
Black Sam’s eyes instinctively looked down, a twitch. A tell. His mind pictured the gun strapped to his ankle.
Joe inclined his head, “That’d be uniquely dumb, Sam,” Joe said. “Besides, it’s too late for all that.”
“Too late?” Black Sam echoed, a nervous smile spreading across his face. “You got me all wrong, Joe.”
Joe couldn’t stand the sound of his voice. He smacked him with such savagery blood flew from his mouth. His knuckle loosened a couple of teeth. Sam toppled to the floor.
He made a move, nothing to lose, grabbing for his ankle holster. But before he’d gotten his trouser leg up, he felt cold steel against his forehead.
“I wish the fuck you would,” Benny sneered.
Black Sam, defeated, relaxed his reach and leaned back on his elbows.
Joe pulled up a chair and sat inches from Sam’s fallen body.
“You never told me you knew Othello, Sam? All the times we talked, and
you never told me. When I found out, it damn near broke my heart to know the man trying to overthrow me was none other than my best fuckin’ friend. Scratch that, my fuckin’ BROTHER!” Joe remained ice calm, right up until the word brother broke his composure. He took a deep breath to center himself.
“J-J-Joe please, listen, just… hear me out,” Black Sam begged.
“What could you possibly say, Sam? What could possibly make this right?”
“Right? Nigga, right? What do you know about right?” Black Sam roared, tears of betrayal filling his eyes. Not the betrayal he had committed, the betrayal he felt he was the victim of. Nothing left, knowing he was going to die, he removed the mask. “You the last muhfucka in here who need to be talking about right. You forget the wrong you done? You think time has forgiven you? You think I have forgiven you? Do you?”
Joe glared at him.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“KENNY! That’s what I’m talking about, Joe. My dead son!” Black Sam shot back, with the force of years of grief, pain and rage.
Joe looked at him like he was crazy.
“Sam, what the fuckin’ fuck do I have to do with Kenny’s death?”
Black Sam shook his head, unable to stop the tears he’d been holding back for so long.
“Everything… Kenny’s death was no accident. He didn’t just drown in your pool and you know it… Or fuck maybe you don’t, or just don’t wanna admit to it… But the blood is on your hands; yours and Aphrodite’s.”
Joe grabbed him by his collar, yanking him forward, lips inches from eyes so his anger spat into them. “Don’t you ever speak my wife’s name like that. She didn’t have anything to do with Kenny’s death!”
Black Sam laughed bitterly.
“Fuck you, Joe. Fuck you. You married to the devil herself.”
Joe smacked fire from Black Sam.
He let his body fall back limp and dazed on the carpet.
Joe paced the floor, his mind balled like a piece of discarded paper, crinkling, and folded back, wrestling with Black Sam’s words. He had never suspected Aphrodite’s involvement in Kenny’s death. It had been a tragic accident. A fuckin’ horrible thing. But maybe he wasn’t the man he’d always thought he was and didn’t know the secrets of his own family?
He slammed his fist into the wall so hard he was sure he broke something in there.
The pain was nothing compared to the hurt inside.
Finally, he stopped. He knelt beside Black Sam. It was almost tender. Like friendship remembered, right until he opened his mouth. “If you felt like that, why didn’t you come to me like a man, Sam? We got history. Instead, you sneak and connive behind my back like some lil’ bitch? I thought you were better than that, man. I thought you were better.”
“Better? You wouldn’t expand The Commission. No seat at the table for Black Sam. You wouldn’t let me out of your shadow. I wanted my own seat, goddammit, not carry your nutsack my whole goddamn life. But you wouldn’t open the door, would you? It was all about Joe Hamlet. So I blew a fuckin’ door open wide enough for an army to walk through. So kill me, I been dead for years. I don’t give a fuck anymore, Joe. I’d rather be dead than a nutsack carryin’ ass nigga.”
Joe put a hand on his shoulder. Again, it could have been mistaken for friendship. “So it was never about your dead kid, eh, Sammy? Kenny was just your justification. Truth is what truth always is, greed. You’re hungry to be number one. You wanna be on top? Well, nigga, is that what you want? Okay, fine, a seat at the table, sure, you got it. You shoulda just talked to me, nigga,” Joe shrugged, then turned to Othello and added, “Bring him with us.”
Othello frowned in confusion as Joe rose from the crouch and walked out the door.
Othello didn’t understand until he saw Joe head for the stairs that led up to the roof.
He followed Joe as Benny and Cash held Black Sam between them, dragging him up to the seventeenth floor. The rest of the crew followed behind. They came out onto the roof in time to catch the setting sun. Below, the city buzzed with activity, people going home for the night, but for Black Sam, he was going home in another way…
Sam had known his fate from the first step on the concrete stairs.
“At least let me do it myself,” he requested.
Joe looked at his old friend, a man he would’ve walked into Hell for, died for and was now about to kill.
“Okay, Sammy, I’ll give you that.”
Joe nodded at the men pinning Black Sam’s arms. Following his lead, they released their hold on him. Black Sam straightened his clothes, determined to take his last breath with dignity.
He turned and looked at the setting sun.
“So this is how it ends, huh? I always thought it would be a bullet in the back of the head. So I guess I ought to be kinda grateful, Joe. I get to walk into the sunset.”
Joe held the tears in. “That you do, and if I read the stars right, I’m not far behind you… old friend.”
Black Sam nodded, then turned to Othello.
“You a sharp young cat, O. One of the sharpest I’ve ever seen. Too bad your blindness will always blur your sight.” Othello didn’t understand, but he wasn’t about to give Black Sam the satisfaction of knowing that.
Black Sam walked to the edge of the roof.
He looked down, then he looked up, directly into the sun, blinding himself with its searing glare, and then he did what he came to do…
He walked in to the sunset.
No screams. No last words. No fear.
They watched as he went down, arms spread to embrace death with the bravery of a soul at peace.
When he burst across the blacktop seventeen floors below, the only ones flinching were the living.
Joe looked at Othello.
“Three days from today. I’ll let you know the time and place. I’ve done my part, the rest is up to you.”
Joe turned and walked away.
“Joe, I can’t thank you enough for your support. Without you, I don’t think I would’ve been re-elected,” Mayor Jameson gushed, shaking Joe’s hand firmly with that practiced grip politicos did so well, hand over hand, power and supplication.
Joe smiled knowingly.
The Mayor, a real Cuomo of a man, was destined for the top. He was a smoother politician than Clinton and more crooked than Boss Tweed.
“I bet you say that to all your donors,” Joe laughed.
“Just the whales, Joe,” the Mayor winked, “and it doesn’t hurt when their wives are as beautiful or as supportive of my initiatives.”
“When it comes to Aphrodite, anything for the children,” Joe replied.
The Mayor had no clue just how much of a double-edged sentiment that was.
They shook hands and the Mayor moved on to work the crowd. The man was a master when it came to the schmooze. He pressed the flesh, offered the smiles, just the right chuckles. Joe sipped his drink and scanned the crowd, moving from face to face until he saw his wife, surrounded by sycophants. She was a bright star amid the wives and ambitious women that made up the elite of the city. He thought of Black Sam’s admonishment, that he’d married the devil, so maybe that bright star was more than a little apropos. These were the women who sat on boards, all politically powerful, rich women, and they bowed down to Aphrodite’s alpha femininity.
Joe watched his wife without her knowing.
To his eye, her emerald green dress had her outshining every woman in the place, her smile sparkling brighter than her jewelry.
You’re married to the devil herself!
Joe moved through the crowd, stopping occasionally when decorum and acquaintances bid him to, picking a flute of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray, and brought it to his wife.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Joe whispered in her ear.
“So my husband tells me,” she quipped.
“Trust me. In this, as all things, he has exquisite taste.”
“How much have you raised for
the Mayor’s Youth Initiative?”
“Four hundred thousand,” Aphrodite shrugged, “but the night is still young.”
Joe raised his glass. “To the children...”
Clink…
“I.. have some bad news,” he said, tone somber, voice pitched low. The words weren’t meant to carry.
“Oh?”
“It’s Sam. He’s dead.”
Aphrodite looked at him, shock behind her eyes. “Dead? How? I don’t understand.”
“Suicide. He jumped off the roof of his apartment building yesterday.”
“Jesus… Why would he do such a thing?”
“Who knows, the mind of a desperate man? Last time we spoke, he was really down. Like blacker than black. I’ve never seen him like that. He was all wrapped up in Kenny’s death,” Joe replied, watching her expression.
“One more tragedy,” Aphrodite sipped her champagne.
“What do you remember about that day, baby?”
“Some. It’s been so long. Some though, images, feelings… the kinda stuff you never forget.”
“Just try. For me.”
Aphrodite took a deep breath.
“I remember being in the kitchen. I heard the splash in the pool, but the kids were always jumping around out there. But, this was different. It wasn’t the kids messing around. I heard more splashing. It was… frantic. I looked out through the window. That’s when I saw him… flailing. Oh Joe, I wish I could turn back time to that day, do it all again, differently. React quicker. I would give anything to have the chance to save him… I ran out of there, by the time I reached him, it was too late.”
Joe snorted softly.
“Joe, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I just remember you telling me you were asleep when it happened. That was why you didn’t get there. Not in the kitchen. But hey, it was a long time ago, and the memory is a fickle thing. Dead is dead, right?” He smiled, but not with his eyes, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “It’s late, and I’ve got an important meeting in the morning. I should go.”
He walked away leaving Aphrodite watching him with a curious, but amused expression.
Mona fell into Othello’s arms as soon as he walked into the hotel suite.
Her face was molten with tears.