No More Tears In The End

“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.