"What does it look like? I threw him out the window."
"Just askin’."
CHAPTER FIVE
Mike Black sat in his office at Cuisine and waited for Bobby and Nick to get there. When he got the call from Cynt that Kenny and three of his men had been murdered in the street, he was shocked, then he got mad, and then he became reflective. Black thought about those he’d lost over the years; and two inparticular.
Losing his wife Cassandra was probably the hardest thing he ever had to deal with in his life. There were times when no matter what he did or how hard he tried, he could not stop thinking about her. Although the time he recently spent in the Bahamas with CeCe allowed him to have some closure about her death, Cassandra and the great love he felt for her was still never far from his thoughts.
But as hard as that was to deal with, at times like this, it was Freeze that he missed. As much as he hated to admit it, he had made a mistake putting Nick in charge. It wasn’t that things had gone all that wrong. It was more that Nick didn’t have the same feel for the job that Freeze brought to the work.
Nick never wanted the job, Black pushed it on him. For his part, Nick would have been perfectly content to takeover the high-stakes poker game that Jackie Washington now ran for him. Maybe that’s what he should have done, and made Jackie continue to work with Travis and Monika on the very-lucrative projects they brought to the table.
Recently, changes in the global economy forced Black to rethink their push to go completely legitimate. They had lost a lot of money on some of the investments that they made with Meka Brazil. Meka’s understanding of the business climate in this country led her to believe that the best opportunity for long-term investment existed offshore. "China, India and even Russia are where the growth markets are at this point," Meka told them at their last meeting.
Black liked Meka; thought she was smart. He hadn’t even mentioned his new Chinese-backed investment group to Meka, and she was already looking in that direction. Black didn’t blame her for the major losses they took. There was no way she could have anticipated the changes in the market. At least she hadn’t invested in credit default swaps or mortgage backed securities, which played a factor in bringing the markets down.
For the time being, Black had decided that he would have to put plans for business expansion to the side. Now was the time to focus his attention on the real money maker. From his point of view, the recession had improved rather than hurt his business. Hard times make people more likely to gamble and men more likely to buy more pussy tryin’ to escape from reality, he thought as Bobby and Nick came in.
"I guess you’ve heard?" Black asked.
"Any idea who did it?" Bobby asked.
"No," Black said. "I just heard about it."
"I got everybody out askin’ questions," Nick said. "But so far, nobody’s heard anything."
"Somebody knows something," Black said. "You need to find them and make them tell you what you want to know."
"I’m on it, Black." Nick assured Black.
"Ain’t that Detective Harmon over there in the corner?" Bobby noticed.
"Looks like him," Black said. "What’s he doin’ here?" he asked.
"He’s here to see me," Nick said. "The detective is doing some work for me."
"What kind of work?" Black asked.
Nick looked at Black. "You wanna hear about this?" He asked Black, knowing that he was trying to stay out of the day-to-day stuff.
"I do," Bobby said definitely.
Black nodded his head. He would tell both Nick and Bobby of his decision to step back in, later.
"Bo’s got something goin’-something big. And he forgot to tell me about it," Nick continued.
"What’s the deal?" Bobby asked.
"I don’t know. That’s what I got Harmon lookin’ in to."
"You sure you can trust Harmon?" Bobby asked.
"I’ve done business with him before," Nick told them. "Let’s see what he’s got. I’ll be right back.
Until a month ago, Jack Harmon was a decorated New York City homicide detective. He was under investigation for use of excessive force. The charges were dropped, but not before Jack ran up a huge legal bill. It was only by chance that he ran into Nick and told him about a surveillance job. "It pays five grand," Nick told Jack that day. Being broke, Jack couldn’t say no.
"What you got for me, Jack?" Nick asked as soon as he sat down with the detective.
"Your boy Bo is doing business with the Russian mob," Jack said.
Nick sat back in his chair. Bo having a deal with the Russian mob was the last thing he expected to hear. "Ex-KGB agents, veterans of the Afghan and Chechen wars; out-of-work but with skills that are useful to criminal organizations," Nick said and thought about how useful his military experience had been to him.
"Bo’s contact is a guy named Nikolai Mikhailov. He’s a member of the Izmaylovskaya Gang.
"Never heard of them," Nick said and signaled for a waitress.
"They’re considered one of the country’s most important and oldest Russian Mafia groups in Moscow," Jack said. "But they operate here in New York, in Tel Aviv, Paris, Toronto, and Miami."
"How strong are they?"
"My information says they’re estimated to consist of about anywhere from three to five hundred active member’s worldwide. It’s run on a quasi-military style and strict internal discipline."
"What are they into?" Nick asked.
"They’re involved extensively in murder-for-hire, extortion, and infiltration of legitimate businesses. A lot like you guys."
"When is the job goin’ down?"
"Tonight at ten."
Nick looked at Jack, took an envelope out of his pocket and put it on the table in front of him. Jack opened the envelope and peeked inside. "Thanks, Nick. This will help out a lot with my legal bills. Any time you need info like that, you give me a call," Jack said and got up.
"Anything else I can do for you, Jack, you let me know," Nick said and rejoined Black and Bobby. He wasted no time telling them who Bo was doing business with.
"Bo had made a deal to deliver high-end vehicles to the Russian mob," Nick said. "Ever heard of the Izmaylovskaya Gang?"
"I think I might know somebody connected to them," Black said.
"You mean that Russian you and Angelo drink with sometimes?" Bobby asked.
"That’s right. He’s ex-KGB turned showdown artist."
"He fits the profile," Nick said.
"This really doesn’t create a problem for us, does it?" Bobby asked.
"Not from where I’m sittin’. Doin’ business with the Russians is a good thing," Nick said. "Only problem is Bo thinkin’ he could get something like this done and think nobody would know about it."
"How’d you find out about it?" Bobby asked.
"Victor’s fuckin’ Sabrina," Nick said and laughed.
"That pillow talk will fuck up a nigga’s program every time," Bobby commented. And he was absolutely right.
"The only time she can get away from Bo is when he got something goin’. She tells Victor, he tells me."
"What you gonna do about Bo?" Black asked. He knew the minute he told Bo that Nick was in charge that this was coming.
"Don’t worry, Black, I can handle Bo. He can’t make a stray nickel with me knowing about it."
"That ain’t what I mean. There are some people whose respect you’ll never earn, Nick. You can’t have a mutha fucka like that in your house. Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with him before he comes after you."
"Mike’s right, Nick," Bobby added. "Just him tryin’ some shit like this, it gives other niggas the idea that they can do it too."
Black thought about Freeze. "You know what Freeze would do?"