It was and still is the only way for Cassandra to rest in peace.
The next morning me, Bobby and Wanda met with the real estate broker, and then she had a meeting scheduled at her office with Meka Brazil, the investment banker that we’ve been dealing with. The meeting was to discuss with us the financing ideas, equity and bond issues.
At the meeting Meka recommended a very aggressive strategy for taking over some smaller companies, merging with others to form a larger company, and selling the company’s stock to the public. At this point, we had no plans to tell her how we made our money, but she’s smart, so if she hadn’t figured it out for herself, at some point she will.
Then Meka started talking about us buying or investing in an insurance company that was looking to use derivatives to reduce risk in its investment portfolio. “I don’t mean to sound stupid, but what are derivatives?” I asked Meka. I could tell that both Wanda and Bobby were glad that I asked ’cause neither of them had a clue what she was talking about.
“Derivatives are financial instruments whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables,” Meka answered without appearing to be annoyed by my question. “The main types of derivatives are futures, forwards, options, and swaps.”
“In English, please.”
“Derivatives can be based on different types of assets such as commodities, stocks, bonds, interest rates, exchange rates, or indexes. The main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party. The diverse range of potential underlying assets and pay-off alternatives leads to a huge range of derivative contracts available to be traded in the market. Their performance can determine both the amount and the timing of the pay-off.”
“Thank you, for clearing that up for me,” I said even though I still had no clue what she was talking about.
After the meeting was over, instead of rushing off to her next appointment, Meka came and sat down next to me.
“Mind if I ask you a question?” Meka asked.
“Not at all.” I thought she was about to ask where the money came from, but I was wrong.
“Did you really understand my explanation of derivatives?”
“To be honest with you, no, I didn’t. You might as well be speaking Latin.”
“I didn’t think so. But if I’m going to continue working for you, I think it’s important that you understand what I’m doing on your behalf.”
“I agree.”
“That means that you have to understand what I’m talking about so you can make informed decisions about your company’s future. Not just going along with what Meka says because she sounds good saying it.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. The question is what are we going to do about that, Meka?”
“If you like, and your schedule permits, we could spend some time together and I could explain some of the basics of business investing.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea. Naturally, you can present a bill for your time,” I said, wanting to, as Wanda would say, at least give the appearance of professionalism.
Meka looked at her watch. “Look at the time. I have less than an hour to make it to a lunch meeting.” Meka got up and gathered her papers. “But any time you want to get together and talk finance, just give me a call,” she said and handed me another one of her cards.
“I’ll do that.”
Chapter 20
After Meka left, Wanda said she had a client coming and needed to prepare for it. Bobby, who had been talking to Wanda while I was talking to Meka, stood up to leave. “What you gonna do now, Mike?”
“Why; what you got up?”
“I was thinking about rollin’ by Cuisine for lunch and then going by Cynt’s.”
“You go ahead, Bob. I got something I need to do.”
“Does that something have anything to do with Meka Brazil?”
“No. Just some loose ends I need to tie up.”
I didn’t like keeping things from Bobby, but like Angelo, he thought leaving Vinnelli alone was the best thing for all of us. I didn’t need him knowing that killing Vinnelli was back on top of my list of things to do. So him ridin’ with me where I was going wasn’t about to happen.
My next stop was the apartment of Monika Wynn. She used to work with Nick while they were in the army and for awhile after they got out and were playing private detective. She helped Jackie uncover what Mylo and Masters were up to.
“You want me to go in with you, boss?” Kevon asked me when we arrived at her apartment.
“You relax, Kevon. I got this one.”
Kevon got out of the car and stood by the door while I went inside and rang the bell. It didn’t take Monika long to answer. “Well hello, Mr. Black. This really is a surprise.”
“Hello Monika. I need to talk to you about something,” I said and wondered if I was interrupting her or if maybe she was expecting somebody else. She was wearing a Knicks throwback jersey, and as far as I could tell nothing else. Nick said his old partner Jett Bronson used to call her lips, tits, and hips.
She was definitely all those things.
Monika had a patch over her right eye. While they were investigating Chilly and that whole synthetic crack nonsense, she got shot five times; two shots in the chest, and two to the head. One hit her above the left ear. She caught the other one in her eye. They weren’t able to save her eye. The other one was in her hand.
“Mind if I come in?”
“Sure.” Monika stepped aside and let me in. “This must be important if you’re here yourself.”
“It is. I want you to do something for me.”
“What you need, Black?”
“Information and discretion.”
“Two things I’m good at.” Monika came and sat down across from me. It gave me a chance to admire the way her nipples pressed against her throwback. “What’s up?”
“Pete Vinnelli. I need to know everything there is to know about him. Everything. I wanna know where he lives, who his friends are, where they live and what they do. Who and where he hangs out.”
“You still thinking about killing him?”
“That’s where that word discretion comes in.”
“I understand. But I’m way ahead of you,” Monika said and got up. I watched her walk.
“You are?”
When she sat back down she had her laptop and a disk with her. “When all this came down, Nick asked me to start diggin’ into Vinnelli. You know, looking for the best way to take him out.”
“Really.” I had to remember to thank Nick. It confirmed for me that I had made the right choice in putting him in charge of the house.
“I haven’t had much luck following the money. After DeFrancisco went to jail, he got careful and tried to clean up his shit. He left enough of a trail for me to follow, but so far, every time I think I’m on to something it hasn’t led anywhere.”
“Stay on that for me. I need to know where the money is and how much there is.”
“I put my observation about his patterns, both business and personal in this file. There’s pictures and a little bit of detail on his two girlfriends.” Monika handed me the pictures she had. “An Amanda White, divorced, mother of two, age: thirty-nine. And that one is Pamela Connote, she’s twenty-seven.”
“They kinda look alike.”
“To me, Pamela is just a younger version of Amanda. Both got blonde hair, blue eyes, big tits.”
“Man knows what he likes.” I couldn’t say shit since I was with Maria because she looked like Cassandra.
“Anyway, my report includes what I thought was the best way to kill him.” I looked on as Monika copied the file to a disk and handed it to me. “You look that over and let me know what else you need from me.”
“I need you to stay on finding that money,” I said and got up thinking about what I could do with a woman like her. She was a munitions expert, trained in weapons and commando tactics.