“Understood.”
“Everything else all right?” Black asked.
“Yeah, everything else is fine.”
“I want you to go ahead and take care of that thing with Watson we discussed.”
“Wanda mentioned that you did. It’s already in motion.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Rain Robinson.”
“So that’s Rain Robinson. She looks like her daddy,” Black observed.
“Yeah, I noticed. I saw a picture of her mother and she definitely looks like her father.”
“Barbara Robinson.”
“You knew her?”
“No, just heard the stories.”
“What stories?”
“One of the great thug mysteries of all time: Who killed Barbara Robinson? You never heard this story?”
“No.”
“The story goes that Barbara used to fuck around with a low-rent pimp named Eddie Mars. Then JR comes along, falls hard for her, and sweeps her off her feet. They get married like a couple of months later. But the word was that Barbara was still in love with Eddie and was still fuckin’ him-fucked him on her wedding day. But anyway, Barbara gets pregnant. Now when the baby is born JR goes crazy ’cause the kid doesn’t look anything like him.”
“Miles looks like his mother.”
“Well, JR is convinced that the baby looks like Eddie, and he beats Barbara’s ass at the hospital and goes after Eddie.”
“Did he kill him?”
“No. They fired a few shots at each other and after that, Eddie just stayed out of JR’s way. Next thing you know, Barbara is pregnant again. So when your girl is born, JR is cool ’cause she looks just like him. Everything is cool for awhile, but JR starts hearin’ that Barbara is seeing Eddie behind his back again. Couple of day’s later, cops find Barbara and Eddie dead at a motel. Murder-suicide. She shot him twice: once in the dick and once in the chest. Then she shot herself. But the word was that JR followed them to that motel and killed them both.”
“It’s just like the man said; two-faced woman and a jealous man.”
“Cause of the trouble since the world began,” Black said finishing the line from the James Brown song then stood up. “I gotta get outta here.” He looked in Rain’s direction and sat back down. “Look, Nick, I know this is none of my business, and far be it for me to tell you who to lay the pipe to. Especially when I’m fuckin’ every woman with a fat-ass and big titties I run into. Just don’t hurt Wanda.” Black stood up again.
“I won’t.”
I introduced Black to Rain and walked with him as he left Cuisine. Since I was hungry, I went back inside and joined Rain for a meal. I would drop her off after I was full.
Chapter 30
I went in the kitchen and had the cook make me a porterhouse steak, medium, smothered in onions and mushrooms. While I ate, I talked to Rain, but mostly I thought about what I was gonna do to Charles Watson and how I would do it. When I finished eating, I thought about Freeze. I could use him for what I had planned.
“You’re kind of quiet,” Rain said. “What you thinkin’ about?”
“I gotta do something tonight. Something me and Freeze woulda handled.”
“You miss your road dog. I know how that feels.”
I looked at Rain. “Yeah, I guess you do. Your road dog’s in jail.” Maybe that was part of the attraction. We needed each other.