by Roy Glenn
That’s how it began and it went on until Cat started monopolizing more of Bobby’s time and began calling Pam to boast about it. Another woman calling the house talkin’ shit to her about her husband was absolutely unacceptable to Pam, and she was forced to take steps to put an end to the affair. Ultimately, her solution caused Pam to have a nervous breakdown.
Bobby got help for her and checked her into a private clinic and then moved his children to a house close to the clinic so Pam could see their children everyday while she recovered. When Pam came home she was feeling like herself again, but she refused to have sex with Bobby.
“I thought that since she was feeling better, and since the two of you seemed to have moved past all that stuff, that you and her were-” Wanda said.
“I thought she would too, but she said she can’t. She said that she understands that I’m a man and I have needs,” Bobby laughed. “Just show her respect and keep it away from her and the kids.” Bobby picked up the menu.
“Well, if you don’t mind, put me on that list of people you keep it away from.”
Bobby turned to Nick. “Where’s Mike?”
“I thought he was coming with you?”
“Ain’t no tellin’ what time he’s gonna get here then,” Wanda added. “Why he has somebody driving for him that don’t know where anything is, is still a mystery to me.”
“We’re on 42-nd Street. How hard could this place be to find?” Nick asked.
“Kevon used to drive him around in the Bahamas and Mike trusts him. That’s good enough for me,” Bobby said.
“It oughta be, since it was your bright idea for him to have a driver,” Wanda said.
“Only question is, how long we gonna wait for him?” Nick asked. “I’m hungry.”
“You're always hungry,” Bobby said as their waiter arrived at the table.
“Are you ready to order?”
“We’re still waiting on one more person,” Wanda informed the waiter.
“Bring me a Remy Martin on the rocks,” Bobby ordered.
“I’ll have another Johnny Black,” Nick added. “I think we should go on and order.”
“Go ahead. I’ll order something for Mike,” Wanda said.
Bobby put down his menu. “What do you recommend?”
“I highly recommend the saffron-spiked lobster ravioli. The signature black truffle mac and cheese was served on season one of Bravo’s ‘Top Chef.’ It’s a tasty blend of black truffles; brandy and fontina slow-cooked with fresh thyme and oregano. The oversized scallops are doused in a buttery pool of vanilla bean cream. And our roasted salmon is served with a sweet sherry brandy glaze. All of those are excellent.”
The trio gave the waiter their orders and he left them. They talked about the business at hand while they waited for Black to get there. He arrived at the table just as the food was being served.
“Sorry I’m late. We had a run to make, and on the way here Kevon went the wrong way on the Major Deegan and then we got stuck in traffic on the Cross Bronx,” Black said and sat down. “Did you order me something?”
“I got you the smokey-rubbed filet mignon,” Wanda replied as the server placed a plate of veggie pasta in front of her. Nick had the Chilean sea bass, while Bobby opted for the hoisin amp; cider pork tenderloin.
“What's that you havin’?” Black asked Wanda.
“Veggie pasta.”
“You shoulda got me that, but this is cool.”
While they enjoyed their meal, Wanda went over the state of their business. First she went over the legitimate business, telling her partners how strong profits were and gave a very optimistic outlook for the future. However, when she went into the state of their gambling operations, the report was not as good.
“So what you’re sayin’ is money is down across the board?” Bobby asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Wanda said and took a sip of her drink.
“What are you really sayin’, Wanda?” Black asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Stop it, Wanda,” Bobby said. “You know exactly what he’s askin’ you. If you been in his ear, like you been in mine, all I can say is I feel sorry for you, Nick.”
Wanda looked around the table, and slowly the corners of her lips curled into a smile. “What?” her smile turned to laughter.
“Go ahead and say it, Wanda. You think we need to get out,” Black said without looking at her while he cut his filet. “I mean, that is why you got us all together to tell us the same shit you’ve been tellin’ all of us individually for months. Or did you just want to go out to dinner?”
“He’s right.” Nick turned to Wanda. “You have been beatin’ us all over the head with that club.”
“Traitor. I’ll deal with you later,” Wanda whispered to Nick. “Yes, I think we should consider it seriously. Or at least we all could discuss it.”
“Okay, counselor.” Black put down his fork and knife. “Since you already made the point that we’re making more money on the legit side of the house, go ahead and make your case.”
“For one thing, we used to need a bigger table to have these meetings.”
No one said a word.
No one had to.
Since she had everyone’s attention, Wanda continued to drive her point. She reached out and held Black’s hand. “It seems like we’re moving backwards instead of forward. I mean look at the two of you. Mike, you had left all this behind you. You and Cassandra made a life for yourselves in the Bahamas. You were out. Then you let her talk you into staying here. You lost your wife and Michelle lost her mother. Which one of you is gonna be next? I’ll be honest; I don’t want to go to anymore funerals for a long time. I don’t want to lose anymore friends. And the fact is we don’t have to live like that anymore.
“And Bobby, while Mike was gone, you were so busy being a faithful husband and a father to your children that I had to practically drag you out of the house.”
“True that,” Bobby had to admit.
“And look what happened when you did,” Wanda added.
“You had to go and throw that in.”
“Well, it’s the truth. And now Freeze is dead. Hasn’t this life cost us enough?”
Black looked at Wanda for awhile without speaking. She was right, as usual. Actually, he had been thinking the same thing lately. It was as if life had come full circle for him. He was back in New York, back running Cuisine. He was seeing a stripper or former stripper at this point, along with a few others. Everything was like it was before he met Cassandra.
He thought about Michelle.
“All right, now that you’ve killed my appetite, I have two questions,” Black said.
“What’s that?” Wanda asked.
“Since we are still making money on gambling and our other businesses, if you do get out, how do you plan on replacing that income?”
Now it was Wanda who was looking at Black without speaking. She hadn’t expected him to ask that, so she didn’t have an answer ready. “I haven’t given that any thought,” she was forced to admit.
“What’s the second question?” Nick asked.
“How do we get out? I mean what do we do, just walk away from it all? Do we make everybody buy us out?”
“I hadn’t thought of that either,” Wanda admitted quickly. Now her appetite was gone.
“When you have an answer to both of those questions, we’ll talk about this again.”
“Yes, sir,” said a defeated Wanda. She had taken her shot, but she wasn’t prepared. That wouldn’t happen again.
“Don’t get me wrong. Everything you said is true. I’ve been thinking about gettin’ out before Michelle loses her father too. Maybe it’s time.”
“What about Vinnelli?” Nick wanted to know.
“I gave Angelo my word that I’d let that go.”
“Angelo?” Bobby questioned. Now that Angelo thinks it’s a good idea he gives his word, he thought. Bobby had been saying all along that after what happe
ned with Masters and Mylo that Black should back off of Vinnelli.
“Well for once I agree with him,” Wanda said. “We dodged a bullet with Mylo and that other character, no point pushing our luck any further.”
Bobby got up from the table. “Well, if we’re finished here, I got to get back uptown.”
“You goin’ to the club?” Black asked.
“Not right away, but I’ll be there sometime tonight.”
“I’ll see you up there later. I wanna run something past you.”
“Cool,” Bobby said and left the restaurant.
After Bobby left, Black, Nick, and Wanda talked and had drinks. When Wanda excused herself to the ladies room, Black turned to Nick.
“There’s somethin’ I want you to do for me.”
“What’s that?”
“There was a robbery at Paradise Fish and Chicken. Two people were killed.”
“Employees?”
“No, customers. They were standing in line when the bandits hit. Shot them for no reason.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Black reached in his pocket and pulled out a fat envelope. “Take this to the family. The address is in the envelope. Her name was Zakiya Phillips; the money is for her grandmother. To help out with expenses.”
Nick took the envelope from Black. “It’ll give me a reason to get out of the house.”
“With Wanda’s pushin’ me to get involved in the legit side, I’ll be busy most of the day,” Black said and shook his head.
“You? Busy during the day?” They both laughed because Black was truly a night person.
“Picture that. But if that’s where we’re headed, she’s right. I need to be on top it; especially since that’s where the most money is being made. So tomorrow, you call Kevon after you get done with Mrs. Phillips. I want to talk to you about some other things.” Black told Nick as Wanda returned to the table. “About time. I was about to send a waitress in to check on you.”
“I didn’t think I had been gone that long. You must be ready to go?”
“Exactly,” Black said and called for the check.
Nick didn’t feel like driving back uptown, him and Wanda got a room at the Westin on 43rd Street. Once they had checked into the room and had gotten comfortable, Wanda had questions. “Did Mike ask you what you wanted to do?”
“I didn’t tell him that I was thinkin’ about runnin’ the game if that’s what you wanna know. But there is something he does what me to do.”
“What?”
“Did you know that there was a robbery at Paradise Fish and Chicken?” Nick asked, knowing that she did. Wanda stayed on top of everything. There were times when he wondered who her sources were. He would make it his business to find out.
“Yes. I heard that a couple of people were killed. What does he want you to do?”
“Take some money to one of the victim’s grandmother,” Nick replied and waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. Wanda just moved closer to him in bed and put her head on his chest. Maybe I don’t know her as well as I thought I did, Nick thought. When she began gliding her hand over his chest, Nick knew then that Wanda wasn’t interested in talking.
Chapter 6
Nick Simmons
The next morning Wanda left to go to her office, and I went back uptown and got ready to take the envelope to the victim’s family. I understood from my army days what was in front of me. Having to tell parents that their child was dead wasn’t an easy thing. This wasn’t the same thing, since she already knew that her granddaughter was dead, but I still wasn’t in the mood to deal with her grief. I had enough of my own.
When I got to Mrs. Phillips’s apartment, I knocked on the door and waited for her to answer. It took a while, but finally the door opened. “Mrs. Phillips?”
“Yes.” she smiled. “How can I help you, young man?”
“My name is Nick Simmons. Mike Black asked me to stop by and give this to you.” I tried to hand her the envelope and get away from there.
“Mr. Black said to expect you. Come in,” Mrs. Phillips said and stepped aside to allow me to enter the apartment.
Not wanting to be rude, not to mention having respect for my elders, I went inside. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Phillips was slow getting around, but she led me into the living room and offered me a seat. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I wouldn’t want you go to any trouble,” I said and tried to hand her the envelope again, but she wouldn’t take it.
“Nonsense. It’s no trouble at all. What would you like?”
“Whatever you have is fine.”
“I just made a pitcher of iced tea, or would you like something a little stronger?”
“It’s a little early in the day for me,” I lied. Lately, I’ve been waking up to Johnnie Black.
“I usually have a glass of brandy around this time of day. One drink in the morning and one before bed, it’s the secret to living a long life.”
Since I wasn’t about to argue with her wisdom, I accepted. “That’ll be fine. Can I help you?”
“No. You relax and be comfortable,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen.
When Mrs. Phillips returned with our drinks, she sat down in a chair by the window. “Come sit by me,” she said and pointed to the chair closer to her.
“I want you to know how sorry I am about your granddaughter,” I said as I came toward her.
“That’s her in that picture,” Mrs. Phillips said and pointed to a picture frame.
I picked up the frame. “She was very pretty.”
“And smart too. Wasn’t like so many of these young girls her age. Out there runnin’ these streets, doing God only knows what. She was a good girl. Going somewhere, had a future ahead of her.”
I saw a tear run down Mrs. Phillips face and I felt her pain.
“Do the police have any idea who shot her?”
Mrs. Phillips laughed. “Do they ever?”
“Not in this neighborhood,” I laughed too.
“Zakiya called me that morning, like she always did. I mentioned that she didn’t sound like herself. Zakiya was one of those bubbly kinds of people. Always smiling, always had something nice to say, but that day she just didn’t sound right. Didn’t sound like herself. She said that she was meeting somebody at that place and that she was a little nervous about it.”
“Did she say what she was nervous about?”
“No, and when I asked her about it she just said it was nothing and changed the subject.”
“What else did the police tell you?”
“They said it was drug related, but that’s a lie. They said that the boy she was with was a drug dealer. They said those kind of people don’t need a reason to kill; probably killed my baby for kicks or for some type of initiation.”
“But you don’t believe that, do you?”
“No. Zakiya would never be involved with drugs or drug dealers. I told you, she had her life planned out. Knew where she was going and was on the road to getting there.”
For the next hour, Mrs. Phillips and I sipped brandy and talked about Zakiya. Naturally, she mostly talked and I mostly listened. Mrs. Phillips raised her after shooting heroin consumed her mother’s life. Zakiya never knew her father.
Mrs. Phillips told me how Zakiya went out of her way to avoid drugs and not get in with the wrong crowd, so she could get an education. She was determined to be somebody, because she refused to turn out like her mother, a teenaged mother strung-out on drugs. Zakiya had a bachelor’s in sociology with a minor in psychology. She was about to attend law school in the fall. “Does that sound like the type of woman who was involved in drugs?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You damned right it doesn’t.”
The longer I sat there, the more Mrs. Phillips reminded me of my grandmother. She raised me after my parents disappeared. One day when I was eleven they just didn’t come home. No one really knew what happe
ned to them. My younger brother and sister went to live with my aunt and uncle in Mississippi.
They didn’t want me.
My uncle said they were just babies and they would raise them in the church. He said that I was into too much trouble and he was right. Those days I was into everything. After that, it was decided that I would go live with my grandmother, and I didn’t see my brother and sister again. After awhile, it didn’t matter as much. My grandmother was good to me. She showed me much love. She died five years later. But I had a new family by then.
About a year ago I went to Mississippi and tracked them down. My brother is a deacon in the church and my sister is married to the minister. I saw them, talked to them, but I didn’t tell them who I was. They had no idea that they even had an older brother. They were two- and three- years old when I last saw them. I guess my uncle never even told them about me. Look how I turned out as opposed to them. Their brother: the gangster, the killer.
“You tell Mr. Black that I appreciate him sending you over to give me that money. I can’t remember the last time I entertained a handsome young gentleman.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant to be one.” Mrs. Phillips smiled. “I’m not accustomed to taking money from people.”
I stood up and put the envelope down next to Zakiya’s picture. “I understand that, but please take it to cover funeral expenses and that type of thing.”
“You tell Mr. Black if he really wants to do something for me, he will catch the people who took my baby from me. You promise me that, Mr. Simmons.”
“Please, call me Nick.”
“Promise me that you will find out who did this and see that they get what's coming to them.”
“I can’t promise you that, but I promise to do what I can.”
“That’s all I can ask for, Nick.” Mrs. Phillips laughed. “It’s more than the police offered me. To them it was case closed.”
“Do you have a picture of Zakiya that I could borrow?”
She gave me a picture and told me where Zakiya lived. I left that apartment thinking that I probably wouldn’t be able to find the bandits, but I would do what I could. One more thing to get me out of the house, and my mind off Freeze.