“Sorry it took me so long, but I had to do something with my hair and get some make up.”
“I understand,” I said as I got in the car, but I didn’t. I have never understood why it takes women so long to shop. “Where you want me to drop you off?”
“In a hurry to get rid of me now, huh?”
“I’m not in a hurry to get rid of you,” I promised, but I was ready for her to go.
“I know you got some place you gotta be, so you can take me back to the club.”
“Cool,” I said and drove off in that direction.
On the way there my phone rang. I looked at the display; it was Kevon calling.
“Hello.”
“Black here over an hour waiting for you. How long ’fore you reach?”
“I’ll be there fifteen minutes.” I hung up the phone and looked at Rain. “I need to get to this meeting-”
“I’m in no hurry. I got no place to be. Go on and handle your business. I hear the food is good there and I’m hungry. You can’t fuck me all night and not feed me. What kinda bitch you think I am?” Rain said with a smile.
“The kind that ain’t thought nothin’ about food while she was up fuckin’ all night.”
“You’re right. But right now, you ain’t fuckin’ me, so I’m hungry. So unless you plannin’ on pullin’ this XLR over and goin’ up in me, you need to just go on to you’re meeting. You talk to Black and I’ll eat.”
I was kind of reluctant to take Rain with me on the off chance that Wanda might be there. I thought about telling Rain how to play it in case she was, but I decided to tackle that when it came up.
It was after four when we got to Cuisine. They weren’t open yet, but I told Rain I’d see if there was somebody there that could fix something for her. “You have a seat at the bar and try not to shoot anybody.”
“Very funny. You get them to feed me or it might be you I kill,” Rain said as I walked away from her.
Black was seated at a table near the bar and I made my way to him. On the way, I stopped Lexi, the manager, and asked her to take care of Rain. When I got to the table, Kevon got up and walked away.
“I was gonna ask where you been, but I see,” Black said when I sat down.
“Sorry. I left my phone in the car. What’s up?”
Black told me about Angelo and his visit to Cuisine the night before. I was surprised. Not by Angelo’s request. It was a smart move on his part. The right move at the right time. No, what surprised me was that Black was even considering it.
We kicked it back and forth for awhile, each of us running through hypothetical situations. At the end, we both agreed that each hypothetical always ended the same way: In jail or dead.
“I ain’t goin’ to jail, Nick. We already got enough problems with the DEA without this. Last thing we need right now is them crawling all over us again.”
“So what are you gonna tell Angelo?”
“I been thinking about that. How I can give Angee what he wants without actually doin’ shit.”
I laughed. “How you plan on doin’ that?”
“I’m gonna get him and Stark together and then I’m gonna tell him that I would offer advice and counsel to Stark as a personal favor to him. But for reasons that I know he understands, I can’t go any further than that.”
“You think that will satisfy him?”
“As long as I can get Stark to do business and as long as I can control him. But for that to work, you gotta be my guarantee. You gotta make sure that nothing we do touches that. We can’t have our hands dirty in none of that.”
“I’ll stay on top of it.”
“I haven’t said anything about this to Wanda. But she was there when Angelo came to Cuisine, so she knows something’s up. She wasn’t happy with the answer I gave her, so she’ll be coming at you. But she doesn’t need to know anything about this.”