"So you don’t know what happened, do you?" Rain asked and picked up the phone. When she got no answer she dialed another number and got the same result. She turned back to Mixson. "I guess they’re all dead."
Blue looked at Rain. "So is he."
CHAPTER FOUR
Bobby Ray held up Rawls’ head and hit him again. He was tied to a chair and for the last hour, Bobby had been hitting him in his face, his chest, and his arms. No matter how much or how hard Bobby hit Rawls, he hadn’t said a word.
Mike Black sat quietly and watched Bobby work. Every once and awhile he would get up and ask Rawls the question. "Where is Ebony Washington, and where are the papers she was carrying?" When Rawls didn’t answer, Black would walk away and Bobby would go back to work.
Black sat down and took a deep breath. He thought about the reason he even knew or cared who Ebony Washington was. It was just after eleven o’clock when Black got a call from Martin Marshall. Martin was a United States Congressman who Black was in business with.
"Black, it’s Martin. I need your help."
"What is it now, Martin?" Black asked.
"One of my people was kidnapped earlier tonight, while she was carrying some very important papers."
"What does this have to do with me, Martin?"
There was silence on the phone before Martin finally said, "The truth is I got careless, Black."
"Get to the point, Martin."
"You remember our meeting with Chang and the Cubans?"
"What about it?" Black said and thought back to that meeting and how it led to him getting shot. He remembered Martin coming to him with a plan to invest in sugar-based ethanol in Cuba.
They met a few days later in the Bahamas with Silvestre de la Toribio representing the Cuban Foreign Trade Ministry, Soberon Nicodemo Placido representing the Cuban Sugar Industry, and Maximino Cristobal. He was representing a group with oil interests in Venezuela.
At that meeting the debate raged on about whether to invest in sugar-based ethanol or in oil production between Cristobal and Placido, until Chang had heard enough. "Would you gentlemen excuse us for a moment or two?"
Once Cristobal, Placido, and Toribio left the room, Chang turned to Martin. "What do you think my friend?"
"For my money, ethanol production is the only way to go. I didn’t come here to talk about oil."
"I must say that I agree. What do you say, Jiang?"
"Ethanol is the future, and we must look to the future."
"What about you, Mr. Black?" Martin asked and all eyes turned to him.
"Like the man said, when the oil is gone, it’s gone. You can always grow more sugar cane."
"Then we are in agreement," Chang said and stood up. He went to the door and asked the others to come in. Once they had reclaimed their seats, Chang told them of their decision. "At this time, gentlemen, we feel that it is in our long-term interest to make our investment in ethanol production."
Placido and Toribio shook hands and seemed to be very happy with the decision. But Cristobal, on the other hand, was not. He rose to his feet. "I think you gentlemen are making a big mistake." The next time Black saw Cristobal was the day he got shot.
"You remember that I was taking notes," Martin said. "Well, when I got back, Ebony, my assistant, the one they kidnapped, she got my notes and created a memo of that meeting and filed the memo in a folder called Cuban meeting."
"Damn, Martin, how could you let some shit like that happen?"
"I’m sorry, but now you see why you have to help me get those papers back. Your name is all over that memo. You know what will happen if it becomes public that a United States Congressmen and a gangster were meeting with officials of the Cuban government in violation of American-Foreign policy? You said it yourself, it’s illegal. Treason-type of illegal."
"You know who got her?" Black asked.
"I don’t know who they are, but I have an idea where they might be. When they called about the ransom, they stayed on the line too long, and I was able to trace the call." Martin gave Black the address where the call was made.
"Okay, Martin, I’ll get your memo back," Black said.
"And the woman too," Martin insisted.
"What’s more important; the memo that’ll send us to prison for treason, or the woman?"
"Both. Ebony is very important to me. I love her, Black."
"Wait a minute, Martin. These guys kidnapped your mistress? Do they even know what she was carrying and what it means to you?"
"It’s possible, but I doubt it," Martin said. "That means you need to get to them before they read it."
When they arrived at the address Martin gave them, Black and Bobby went to the door and Rawls was coming out. He was carrying a woman’s coat and one shoe. Both matched the description that Martin had given Black of what Ebony was wearing when they had dinner earlier that evening. They forced Rawls inside at gunpoint, tied him to a chair and searched the house. Ebony wasn’t there. That was over an hour ago, and they were no closer to finding her.
Bobby hit Rawls in the face and took a step back. He looked down at Rawls’ feet. "Those some nice kicks there. What kind are they?" Bobby asked.
"Stacy Adams," Rawls mumbled.
"Can I see them?" Bobby asked and knelt down to take the shoes off. He walked over to where Black was sitting. "These some bad-ass kicks, Mike. I gotta get me a pair of these." He turned back to Rawls. "What size are these?" But Rawls was too out of it to answer.
"I don’t think he’s paying you any attention, Bob," Black said and laughed.
"Hey asshole," Bobby yelled and threw a shoe at him. "I’m talkin’ to you." The shoe hit Rawls in the face, but he still didn’t answer.
"Told you." Black laughed. "He doesn’t respect you, Bob. He thinks that you’ll get tired of hitting him and you’ll go away, and he won’t have to tell you shit."
Bobby walked up to Rawls, picked up the shoe and hit him in the face with it.
"What are you-his mother now? Beatin’ him with a shoe," Black laughed, but Bobby didn’t seem amused. He was getting frustrated with Rawls. Bobby was doing some of his best work, and he hadn’t said a word.
"You think you a tough son of a bitch, don’t you?" But Rawls still didn’t answer. "Well, dickhead, we’ll see just how tough you are in a minute," Bobby said and walked away. "You wait right there."
"Where you goin’?" Black asked.
"Garage."
There was silence in the room for a minute or two before Black got up and dragged the chair he was sitting in closer to Rawls.
Rawls raised his head and looked at Black. He knew Black was right about him. Rawls was counting on Bobby getting tired. Rawls figured that after a while Black, who appeared not to think that he was going to talk, would pull Bobby off and go try to find Ebony without his help. But Rawls had no idea who he was dealing with, or what they were capable of doing to get what they wanted.
"You know it’s only gonna get worse from here, right?" Black said. "I mean, he’s gonna come back from that garage with some bazaar shit to beat your ass with. You know that, right? Now I’ve known Bobby for a long time, and I know he’s not gonna stop until you tell us what we wanna know. Save yourself a lot of pain and tell me where Ebony Washington is, and where are the papers she was carrying. ’Cause once he gets started, I may not be able to stop him."
Bobby came back in the room carrying a sledgehammer and an ax. "Too late for that shit now, Mike. He done fucked around and made a nigga mad."
"I tried to warn you," Black said and moved out of Bobby’s way.
"I don’t give a fuck if you don’t say another word. You gonna die slow, bloody and painful tonight." Bobby dropped the ax and swung the sledgehammer over his head and brought it down on Rawls’ kneecap.
Rawls screamed and Bobby hit him in the other knee- cap.