Free The Mike Black Saga Book One by Roy Glenn Page B

gambling houses and the women, yes. But I’m gettin’ out of the dope game.”
    Nobody was really surprised by that. They’d all seen it coming. After Vickie died in my apartment smoking cocaine, I turned totally against drugs. I even stopped smokin’ weed. And I loved to smokin’ weed.
    “We’d be givin’ up a lot of money, Mike. I don’t think that’s good for business.” Bobby said.
    “Maybe. No. You’re right, Bobby, it’s not good for business. We’ll just have to find different ways of making money. But when I walk around here and I see what it’s done to the neighborhood.” I looked at Jamaica. “To people. I just can’t be involved in that anymore. Anybody who wants to is free to do whatever he wants once this is over. As long as you don’t do business around here.”
    I looked around the room.
    “Bobby, you with me? I can’t do this without you.”
    “You don’t even have to ask me, you know I am,” Bobby said.
    “Even though it’s not good for business?” I asked him.
    “Business will just have to suffer.”
    “Anybody else?” I asked.
    No one said a word.
    “All right then. My plan is based on the fact that for every action there is a reaction. If certain things happened, I can get people right where I need them to be. Now, there are enough people who hate André to go around. Cops won’t care, and as long as business doesn’t suffer, no one else will care either.”
    “Just as long as everybody continues to get paid, you’re right. Nobody will care.” Bobby added.
    “We have to kill Ricky. Him and André started out together. He’ll try to take over. Benny and Dupree were loyal to André, so they gotta die too. And that’s it. Now if André dies, Cazzie will try to move on us. So we have to kill him too. Killin’ Cazzie will be harder, but not impossible.”
    “Go on,” Bobby said.
    “All right now, everybody pay attention. Benny and Dupree are the key to it all. They make the rounds every night to collect the money from all the houses. On Friday nights there’s more than a quarter of a million dollars. They start at one o’clock, and by three thirty they’ll be coming out of the last house. That’s where we’ll hit them. Nick, you, and Freeze will be waiting for them. As soon as they get to the car, you and Freeze blast them. Nick, you cover while Freeze gets the money.”
    “Done,” Nick said.
    “Now, Benny and Dupree are dead and the money is gone, what’s gonna happen next?” I asked.
    “Somebody will call Ricky’s punk ass,” Freeze said.
    “Exactly. Someone in the house will call him to tell him about the robbery. Ricky will be at his after hours spot. Sitting in that office, just like he does every fuckin’ night. As soon as he gets the call about the robbery, he’ll call André and they’ll meet at André’s office. Bobby, when Ricky comes out of the office and starts to make his way through the crowd, you and Jamaica take him then.”
    “What about Cazzie ?” Nick asked.
    “He’s the wildcard in all of this. Problem is , there’s no way I can control his movements the way I did everybody else.”
    “Black,” Jamaica said. “Let me take care of Cazzie . I know how to take him.”
    I looked at Jamaica for a long time. I knew Jamaica was off the chain with that heroin. Him and Vickie were real close and when she died, he turned to the needle to ease his pain. “Okay, I’ll leave that all to you, Jamaica.”
    “What about your boy, André?” Freeze asked.
    “When he gets to his office, I’ll be there waitin’ for him. Now for this to work, everything has to run on schedule.” Black gave me, Bobby, and Jamaica a pager.
    “What’re these for?” Bobby asked. “I already got a pager.”
    “When you complete your assignment you page the next man. Three sevens if everything goes as planned. If anything goes wrong, you page the next man with all nines. When it’s over, we all meet here. Anyone get nines, we abort and meet back here.