“How do you think he’ll take that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Angelo has done a lot for you over the years.”
“I know. How do I say no?”
“First off, what does he mean by stabilizing influence?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
Bobby laughed. “Wasn’t tryin’ to hear that shit, were you?”
“No.” I laughed too, but the shit wasn’t funny. “This couldn’t happen at a worse time.”
“I know. Why now, when he knows we’re tryin’ to go another way? Why drop that shit on you now?”
“I wish I knew for sure, Bob. What I do know is that Angelo has problems of his own.”
“With who?”
“FBI, DEA, I didn’t ask him and I didn’t wanna know. But he wants to do business with Stark.”
“But he doesn’t want that heat now.”
“That’s where we come in.”
“You gotta think that what he means by stabilizing influence is that you deal with Stark. Any problems come up, you deal with it. Any heat, you catch it.”
“Naturally, I could charge a fee for my services.”
“Naturally.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“You know,” Bobby said and took a sip of his drink. “My first thought is that we should go ahead and do it.”
“But-”
“But I’m only thinking about the money. With Angelo behind Stark, and with our muscle and organization, we should takeover the city. At that point it’s just business. Same business we used to be a part of.”
“But-” I said and Bobby cut me off again.
“But, with that comes the flipside. The cops and the fuckin’ DEA start looking at you.” Bobby paused. “You know when you first came to me and said you wanted to get out of the dope game, I wasn’t for it.”
“I remember.”
“But I went along. Now I truly believe that it was the best decision we ever made. We’re not in jail because nobody cares if a muthafucka loses his money gambling or borrows money or he gets some pussy. They think what we do is a harmless vice. And as long as we payoff the right people, nobody bothers us.”
“I agree. It’s what put us in a position to move this thing to the left.”
“I was startin’ to get into this legit thing; having meetings with Meka Brazil. That’s a bad bitch. By the why, if you’re not gonna fuck her I will,” Bobby promised.
“Go ahead; it’s a free country, Bob. Go for it, but I don’t think she likes you.”
“I don’t think she does, either. But that’s what makes it fun.”
“Whatever, Bob. So you agree with me, you don’t think we should do it?”