No More Tears In The End

“Of course I can. I may not be as good as Jett, but I have skills too. Give me some time. I’ll call you when I have something.”

Chapter 10

I went back to my apartment and called Kevon. He said that they would pick me up in an hour. While I waited, I had a drink and thought about Freeze. I thought about how I was allowing my rage and guilt to consume me, and the effect it was having on every part of my life. I was drinking a lot more than I should and I knew that it was affecting my relationship with Wanda, if not our sex life.

I’ve been staying in my own apartment more than at the house with her. I was angry and irritable and though I try not to take that anger out on her, there are times when I know I do.

When Black got there, I jumped in the back seat of his Cadillac CTS. Black got in the back with me and we were on our way. “Did you take care of Mrs. Phillips?” Black wanted to know.

“I gave her the money and she said to thank you, but if you really wanted to do something for her, you’ll find the guys who did it.”

“Revenge.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you leave it?”

“I told her that I couldn’t promise her anything, but I’d see what I could do.”

“What do you think?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask around; see if anybody knows anything about it.”

“I agree. How much did they hit us for? ”

“Couple of hundred.”

“Oh,” he said. I thought Black was going to say that it wasn’t gonna be enough money for him to want to invest any time in. “But I don’t need people thinkin’ that since Freeze is dead that it’s cool to hit our spots, and we don’t do anything.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Black nodded. “Good.”

I guess “I’ll take care of it” was the right answer.

“While we’re on the subject, do you actually have a license for being a private investigator?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I was thinking about revivin’ our old security company.”

“Invulnerable. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.” When Black and Bobby went freelance and started doing jobs on their own, Wanda insisted that the first thing they should do was to start a business to run their money through. The name of their company was Invulnerable Security. Black chose a security company because it would give them a license to carry guns.

“Yeah, neither have I,” Black said. “But Wanda got me thinking about legitimate business opportunities.”

I laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Just trippin’ on how she got us all.”

“Yeah, well, when she’s right she’s right.” Black looked out the window for awhile, and I wondered if he was trippin’ on being legit. I knew I was. I was about to ask him when he turned to me. “Anyway-I was thinking about revivin’ Invulnerable and hirin’ some people and puttin’ them to work in our cash businesses. You know, make our people feel more secure workin’ there, maybe even provide a deterrent to little bullshit robberies like this. Get somebody to go around and get other businesses to take a guard at their spot. You know how we do it. If that works out, I was thinkin’ that we could expand into private investigations too.”

I laughed a little. “That’s a damn good idea.” Even though Black was thinkin’ legit he was still gangster. You know how we do it. That meant you send a guy in and tell him they need a security guard and here’s what it’s gonna cost you.

“You get with Wanda and tell her to find out what it’s gonna take and make that happen.”

“I’ll talk to her about it.”