No More Mr. Nice Guy

by Carl Weber

  After making it through security, I took an elevator up to the third floor, where a cute, curvy brunette receptionist and a beefy security guard watched me the moment I entered the office. He looked all business, while she looked like a potential bed partner, if that was what I was into at the moment. A quick glance around the room told me there were no security cameras, so it was safe to take off my sunglasses. I stepped up to the receptionist’s desk and flashed her a smile just as the security guard stood up.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  I gave her my rehearsed line. “I have a delivery for Mr. Wilcox.”

  “I’ll take it,” the security guard said, coming from around his desk.

  I took a step back. “I’m sorry, sir. This is Mr. Wilcox’s tuxedo for tonight’s Tea Party fundraiser. I have strict orders to place this in his hands.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I take stuff for him every day,” he scoffed at me.

  “I’m sorry, but my boss will have my head if I don’t personally place this in his hands. There was some kind of mix-up last time, and I’m supposed to assure it doesn’t happen again.” I tried to sound apologetic, hoping that my reason would resonate with him, one blue collar worker to another.

  When it became obvious that he didn’t give a shit what my reason was, I turned my attention to the receptionist. “You understand, don’t you?” I asked her, my eyes roaming subtly along her body so she knew I found her attractive. It worked.

  “Howard,” the receptionist said, “you know how Mr. Wilcox can be. Remember what happened last time with his dry cleaning.”

  The security guard’s face went pale as he picked up the phone and dialed an extension. “I understand that. Let me see what I can do.”

  I had to give props to Bridget. Hacking into Wilcox’s email and seeing that his dry cleaner had screwed up his tux the last time was brilliant—maybe as ingenious as me sending Willie over to the cleaner’s to pick up his tux as his personal valet.

  “Mr. Wilcox, I have a deliveryman here with your tuxedo. He says you need it for tonight?” He finished the call before turning to me. “Sure, sure Mr. Wilcox. No problem. I’ll send him right down.”

  “Sir, if you’ll just follow me.” He walked over to his desk, which was right in front of two very heavy doors. He picked up a metal detector. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to scan you for metal objects before you can come in.”

  “They already scanned me downstairs,” I said, keeping a friendly tone.

  “Sorry. Anyone who goes through those doors gets scanned,” he said with no warmth at all in his voice. This guy was anything but friendly.

  “Okay.” I shrugged. “I ain’t got nothing to hide. What the hell is this place, the CIA?”

  “No, this is a conservative think tank and super PAC,” he replied as he scanned me.

  “Whatever the hell that is,” I responded. That one got him to laugh finally. He turned and punched in a code, which opened the doors.

  “Straight ahead, last door on the right.”

  I walked down the corridor of what seemed like a nice office. When I got to the end, I was greeted by a secretary, who buzzed me into Wilcox’s office. I was surprised when the door opened directly into an office with views all over the city. Wow, this place was spectacular. A balding, middle-aged man involved in a phone conversation motioned for me to hang the tux in a closet near the door.

  “You guys get the stain out of the collar this time?” he asked, placing his hand over the receiver of the phone to speak to me.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, slyly checking out the surroundings. “I’m sure we did.”

  “’Cause I don’t want to have to come in there and cause hell again,” he barked before returning to the phone conversation. “You got that handled? Good. Talk later,” he said, hanging up the phone. I’d pieced the gun together before he hung up. He looked surprised when he noticed I was still in the room. I guess he was used to his servants just disappearing when he was through with them. “Fuck you waiting for, a tip?” he snapped at me.

  I stood silently, which seemed to confused him a little, but he tried to maintain his air of superiority.

  “Don’t bet on black. How’s that for a tip?” He threw his head back, laughing at his own joke, and that was just enough time to catch him off guard.

  “What the hell is this? Do you know who I am?” he said, still not understanding that the tables had just turned.

  “Actually, Mr Wilcox, I do. You’re the scumbag who’s behind over a hundred million dollars in drug money that’s secretly finding its way into the Tea Party.”

  His eyes grew wide with surprise that he’d been discovered, and then fear when I raised the gun.

  “My sister died of a drug overdose, so I hate drugs.”

  Thunk, thunk, thunk. Three bullets to the chest and he was on the floor, the life draining out of him.

  “I hate drug dealers even more.”

  I tucked the gun back inside my jumpsuit before heading out the door. On the walk back to the reception area, I pretended to be cooler than I felt. When the doors opened, my eyes went immediately to the armed security guard leaning against the reception desk.

  “Sir,” the receptionist called out as I passed. My heart started racing as I envisioned my freedom slipping away. Would my first solo assignment also be my last one? Bridget would be so disappointed in me.

  I turned around, a big smile on my face. “Yes?”

  “Everything go all right with Mr. Wilcox?” the security guard asked.

  “Yes. Better than I expected,” I commented as I stepped on the elevator with legs that felt weak from nerves. I slipped the sunglasses back on. Through the glass I could see that the van was less than one hundred yards away. Keep your head down and be cool, Niles, I told myself. All my energy was focused on getting off the elevator and out the door and into the van.

  “It’s done,” I told Bridget as I left the building and spoke into the burner cell included in my kit. I knew I’d have to trash this one before I reached Willie and the BMW. I pulled over onto a side street and spotted a large trash bin. I smashed the phone, wiped it clean, and threw it away.

  “My man!” Willie called out, the relief written all over his face when I parked next to him. “How did it go?”

  “It went just the way we planned,” I told him. He didn’t need to know that for a minute there, my self-confidence had taken a deep dive. Now that the job was done and I was safely out of there, I was feeling invincible again.

  Majestic

  47

  I was sitting in the car outside the barber shop where MJ had just gotten a haircut when my boy Pooh jumped in the car, shaking his head like he’d just heard some really fucked up shit. We were supposed to be headed to the city. There was a certain Puerto Rican honey I felt the urge to see—and by that, I mean fuck.

  “Yo, Majestic, let me tell you about your girl Keisha.”

  MJ leaned forward in the back seat. “I wanna see my mommy,” he said.

  I shot Pooh a look. “You’ll see mommy, later little man, we going to your Nana’s house now.”

  Everyone was silent during the ride to my mother’s house. I knew by the tone of Pooh’s voice that whatever he had to tell me was not good, so I was mad before he even said anything. Pooh wasn’t the type to make small talk, and MJ was in the back seat eating the lollipop they’d given him in the barber shop. When we got to my mom’s house, MJ jumped out of the car and ran straight to her. That boy sure loved his Nana.

  After kissing my moms and handing her a few bucks, I said good-bye to my son and got back in the truck with Pooh. We headed off into the city.

  “I’ma head over to Carmen’s,” I told Pooh. “I’m sure she got a friend.”

  Pooh gave me a serious look.

  “What? You got a problem with Carmen?”

  “Nah, not with Carmen.”

  “Then what?”

  “Like I was telling you when I got in the car, your baby
mama is foul.”

  If most dudes had talked about my son’s mother like that, I would have smacked the shit out of them, but Pooh was different. He wasn’t really the type to talk about much of anything if he didn’t have a point to make. “Why?”

  “I can tell you right now you ain’t gonna like this.” He stopped like he needed to figure out how to spoon-feed me the information.

  “Pooh, I ain’t got time for the bullshit. Just fuckin’ spill it.” My voice sounded gruff, but I didn’t like being treated like I needed to be protected. This was my world, and nobody better keep nothing from me.

  “You know I just started fucking Keisha’s friend Jasmine, right?”

  “Yeah, congratu-fuckin’-lations, you and about ten other dudes. That bitch is a ho. What’s the fucking point?”

  “The point is that she told me that Keisha’s been stepping out on you with some dude from Wyandanch ever since you got locked up.”

  My entire body tensed up. “What? What the fuck? I knew that bitch was acting mighty bold for some reason. Now that shit all makes sense.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She also told me that her and Keisha were at Sugar’s bar the night that Rodney got killed, and that dude got into an argument with Rodney.”

  I clenched the steering wheel to stop myself from putting my fist through the windshield. “Is that the nigga who killed my brother, Pooh?”

  “Nah, I can’t say that.” He shook his head. “I asked her, but she said no. You can never tell with these bitches, though. Once I started asking too many questions about Keisha, she shut down like she didn’t want to get her girl in trouble.”

  “Fuck. I need to deal with this right now.” I turned the car around.

  “Boss, maybe we should go into the city right now. You get to see Carmen, give yourself a little time to cool down.” Pooh was no doubt worried I would kill that bitch for withholding information about my brother, but I needed to see her face when I asked the questions. The one thing I demanded out of everyone I dealt with—employees, family, friends, and the women in my life—was loyalty, and if I found out my kid’s mom, of all people, lied about something this big, then nothing could save her.

  “Pooh, if you don’t shut the fuck up with that bullshit. . . . You supposed to be a killer and you sound like a little bitch.”

  Pooh was still playing fucking nursemaid when we pulled up. “Want me to go in with you?”

  “I got this,” I said as I jumped out of the ride and headed to the front door.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! I banged on the door.

  Keisha looked freaked out when she saw me. “Majestic, what are you doing here? I thought you was taking MJ to your mom’s.”

  Without a thought, I balled up my fist and hit her square in the mouth, sending her violently to the ground. “What the fuck I hear that you was with some nigga at that bar the night my brother was killed?”

  Bridget

  48

  “Good job. I’ll make arrangements for the funds to be transferred into your account.” I hung up my phone feeling satisfied and proud of my student. Once again Niles had done the impossible, taking out a man Jonathan’s team had been hunting for almost a year. I’d have to do something special for him when he and Willie returned from Venezuela.

  In the meantime I checked my hair and makeup to be sure they were still flawless before stepping out of the car. I’d always made it my business to look my best, especially when I knew I was going to be around another woman. Well, actually, Nancy wasn’t just another woman. She was the one person I could tell everything to without worrying about what she would think or how she would use it against me. One thing life had taught me was that you can’t trust just anybody with your secrets, unless they have multiple degrees, charge a grip to listen to you, and are bound by law to keep your business to themselves within reason. So sure, there were lines I skirted around in our conversations, but my time with Nancy was as honest as I allowed myself to be with anyone. Crazy thing is, I actually looked forward to it every two weeks.

  “Bridget, how are you?” Dr. Nancy Young, the psychiatrist I had been seeing for the past eight years, greeted me as she opened the door to her Manhattan brownstone office. Nancy had no need for a receptionist because she had a very small practice, dealing with only a few celebrities, mobsters, and assassins like me. In fact, she was so exclusive she didn’t even keep records on her clients or accept any type of insurance. She just did her job, which was to listen and help direct us through the bullshit we called our lives. “Nice to see you.”

  “Whatever. Let’s get this over with. I have some shopping to do.” I grumbled my usual greeting, but of course, she was used to my reluctance to admit how much I looked forward to our appointments.

  “Shopping. Someone is trying to compensate for a bad week?” She studied me as we took our seats across from each other.

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m stressed the fuck out.” I wondered why I didn’t just come straight out and tell her what was on my mind. I already knew that after all these years, she could read me better than anyone.

  “Is this about Niles? Is he still angry with you?” Good old Nancy, always getting right to the fucking point. But what else did I expect? The reason she could afford that Mercedes she had parked outside was because she was so damn good at her job.

  “Look, I know I told you that I had to lie to get him to take the job, but I really didn’t have any choice. If I didn’t, someone else would have. Besides, he’s good at it. Really good. And he’s made a ton of money. He should be thanking me,” I said frankly.

  Then she narrowed in on me. “And you believe that? You really believe he should be thanking you?”

  “Well, yeah.” I let out a sigh. “How often do you get an opportunity like this, to be trained by someone like me? I’m busting my ass for that man. Fuck! Why can’t he just put it in the past so we can move forward?”

  “Why should he? You’re the one who lied; not him.”

  I gave her a confused look. I was not even sure we were talking about the same thing. “I’m not talking about the lie I told. I’m talking about last week.”

  “Last week? I’m not following you. You haven’t told me anything about last week.”

  Jesus Christ, she was right. I was just rambling like a blooming idiot. I sighed, struggling to get the next part out.

  “Fine. I might as well tell you. You’ll just pick at me to death until I tell you the whole thing.”

  She sat back and silently waited in that oh-so-annoying therapist’s way.

  “We were on a job together last week, a very important job, and I kind of talked him into screwing me,” I explained without any emotion.

  “Talked him into it?” She looked like she wanted to laugh. “Bridget, you’re not the type of woman who talks men—or women, for that matter—into sleeping with you. He either begged you or you found some way to manipulate the situation.”

  God, I hated that she knew me so well. “Okay, maybe I used my powers of persuasion to get what I wanted, but it wasn’t like I raped him or anything.”

  Nancy’s expression didn’t shift in the slightest with this information. Hell, she’d heard a lot more scandalous stuff from me in the past. “Why’d you do that? You already know he has a problem with your manipulation.”

  I groaned, shrugging my shoulders. “It wound up being a way to save the job we were involved in. We landed at a sex club, and we had to make it look like we were into that scene. The only way to do that was to either have sex with others or with each other. I decided I wanted to fuck him.”

  “I see.” She nodded. “So how’d that work out for you?”

  I shot her that look you give your best girlfriend when you’re about to get real. “It was great. The sex was amazing. Shit. It was probably the best sex I’ve ever had, and since you know I’m not anybody’s virgin, that’s saying a whole lot.” I enjoyed a momentary flashback image of Niles pumping me hard and fast. “N
ot only did he have the equipment, but he knew exactly what to do with it,” I told Nancy, sounding like a groupie at a rock concert. “Shit, I can’t wait to fuck his ass again and see if it was a fluke.”

  “Sounds like you had a good time,” she said in her best neutral voice. “So why are you so stressed? Is he becoming obsessive like some of the others?” For a woman who didn’t write anything down, she sure as hell had a memory like an elephant.

  I shook my head, lowering it in embarrassment. “Not even close.”

  She sat up in her chair. I refused to make eye contact. “So how do you think he feels about this?”

  “He’s pissed, but he’s being professional, which is pissing me off even more.”

  She focused a little too closely on me. We’d just reached uncharted waters, Nancy and I. “Well, this is interesting. I never thought I’d see this day, but Bridget, I think you like him.”

  “Sure. What’s not to like? He’s smart, handsome, and incredibly good at his job. We have a lot in common.” A smile escaped. “Hell, when he lets go, he’s actually fun to be around.”

  “Do you hear the way you talk about him?” Nancy asked. “You don’t just like him; you really like him.”

  I waved my hand to dismiss her suggestion. “Don’t trip. He’s a nice guy to work with and a really good fuck, but that’s it,” I said, fighting to maintain my innocence.

  She smiled. “And that’s all? Nothing else?”

  “Well, yeah, that’s all. I already admitted that the sex was fucking awesome, but it was just sex. It’s not like we’re getting married or even moving in together,” I said glibly, hoping she’d let it die.

  She didn’t. “Oh, Bridget, you really don’t hear yourself. Why can’t you let yourself go and enjoy life?” She said it like it was the easiest thing in the world when, for me, it was harder than taking a human life.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, feeling the heaviness of that statement. “Why is it so godddamn hard for me? Maybe because every man who has ever wanted me doesn’t even really know me. It’s like that Marilyn Monroe quote: ‘They go to sleep with Marilyn and are disappointed when they wake up with Norma Jean.’ ”