It only took a few more shots to the gut before Greasy went on and handed Freeze twenty large, and promised to have the rest in three days. “Three days, big boy, no more,” Freeze threatened and we left.
After that night, Freeze and I got tight, as close as brothers. He saved my life and I saved his. When I was accused of murder and needed somebody to ride with me to settle things, Freeze was right there. Ride or die, just like it always had been, even though he hadn’t seen me in ten years. Now he was gone and it was my fault; my fault because I was careless.
Chapter 4
I looked over at Wanda. She had curled into the fetal position and had drifted off to sleep. I guess she woke up when I got out of bed and walked to the window.
“You all right?” Wanda asked and sat up in the bed.
“I’m good,” I said without looking back at her.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Wanda got out of the bed, wrapped the sheet around her body, and joined me at the window. She put her arms around my waist and I put my arm around her.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining, really I’m not. But you weren’t there a while ago.”
“I’m sorry.” And I was. “I’ll do better next time.” And I will.
“It’s not that it wasn’t good. Lord knows it was. It just would have been better if you were in it with me.”
“I thought I was all up in it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know.”
“You gotta let it go, baby.”
“I know.”
“You want me to call around, find somebody for you to talk to about it?”
“What do you mean, like a shrink?”
“Yes.”
“No. I ain’t crazy. And I don’t need no fuckin’ shrink,” I said louder than I needed to and felt bad after I said it.
Wanda let me go and walked away. She went in the bathroom and slammed the door. Even though I didn’t really want to, I went in after her. She had turned on the water and was about to take a shower.
“Look, Wanda, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I know you’re just trying to help.”
Wanda turned around quickly. “Then let me help you, Nick, please. Talk to me. Don’t shut me out like this. Let me in. Tell me what you’re feeling. I know you’re mad, I know you’re hurting. It might make you feel better if you let it out instead of keeping all that rage bottled up inside you.”
“I just need something to do; something to occupy my time and my mind.”
Freeze dying changed a lot of things. Black was back, set up at Cuisine, the supper club he opened years ago, and he’s running things from there. He had been staying out in Rockland County with Bobby. He moved out there after his wife, Pam, had a nervous breakdown. Now he was back running Impressions, the dance club that I had been running. That left me with nothing to do.
Black told me that I could do anything I wanted to in either side of the business. Naturally Wanda, who didn’t like me working at the club, wanted me to think about doing something on the legit side of the house, but I ain’t really feeling any of that shit. She’s been talking up me taking over the finance company. All of it seemed like major boring shit.
“Have you given any more thought to what you might want to do?”
“I been thinkin’ about some things?”
“Like what?”
“Well,” I replied and paused. “I been thinkin’ seriously about talkin’ to Black about me taking over the game.”
“The game?”
“Yeah, the game,” I said and walked out of the bathroom, ’cause I knew what was coming next, and I really wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
The game I was referring to was a high stakes poker game that Black and Bobby used to run back in the day. After Black got married and moved to the islands with Shy, a few people ran it until Freeze put Mylo in charge of it. Since I killed Mylo, the game was now being run by Jackie Washington, but she’s in over her head.
As expected, Wanda turned off the water and came out after me. Like I said, Wanda wants me to do something on the legit side. She had a real problem with me running the club. Two problems actually. One was it kept me out all night and with her working during the day we didn’t see much of each other. Her solution to that was to hangout at the club all night with me, which brings me to the other reason. Wanda was extremely jealous, very possessive, and just a bit insecure. Me taking over the game would just mean more of the same for her.
“Why?” Wanda asked. “Why the game?”
“That game is important to Black, and you and I both know that Jackie can’t handle it.”
Knowing I was right about Jackie, Wanda sucked her teeth and sat down next to me on the bed. “I don’t know what he was thinking when he put her in charge of that game. Too much money passes through that game for her to be there and can’t handle it.”
“That’s why I think it would be a good spot for me.”
“Yeah, I know. And you’re right. But we talked about this, Nick, and I thought we decided that you were going to look at doing something on the legitimate side of the house? I was under the impression that you were leaning toward taking over the finance company or running the real estate office.”
“I know we talked about it, but I know how I am and I would be bored to death doing a desk job.”
“I would make all that better for you as soon as you got home from work.”
I put my arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. “I know you would, but I gotta do what’s right for me.”
“What about us?”
I wanted to say something like what about us?
“What about doing what’s right for us, Nick?”
“You’re right, Wanda, but I gotta be right with myself or there is no us.” I guess that wasn’t the right answer ’cause Wanda got up and hit the shower.
Oh, well.
It is what it is.
Chapter 5
Nick and Wanda arrived at Crave on 42nd, a restaurant located, as the name suggests, on 42nd Street, between 11th and 12th Avenue, waiting for Black and Bobby to arrive. While they waited, the pair munched on Prince Edward mussels in white wine and garlic sauce, and tried not to talk about the two things that Nick didn’t want to talk about: The death of Freeze and what he was going to do now.
That’s what Wanda wanted to talk about. But their meeting with Black and Bobby was about what to do now that Freeze was dead, and she was sure that the discussion would inevitably lead to a discussion about Nick’s future, so Wanda decided to hold her tongue.
When Bobby announced that he was coming back to run Impressions, nobody was happier to hear that than Wanda. Relieved was more the word for how she felt about it. Now maybe I can get a good night’s sleep, Wanda thought when she heard the news. While Nick was running the club, Wanda would be there every night. Most nights she would be there until the club closed. Then she would get a couple of hours of sleep and go to work.
The fact was Wanda was a jealous woman. The sight or even the idea of a woman, any woman, getting too close to Nick seemed to drive her mad. She had always prided herself on not being one of “those” women who were so insecure that they couldn’t stand for their man to be out of their sight, but there she was, one of “those” women, and it bothered her. It just didn’t bother her enough to keep her home at nights when he was working. She fell asleep many a night on the couch in Nick’s office.
Wanda thought back to one night at the club when they talked about it. She remembered Nick shaking his head and saying, “The point is that you don’t trust me.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she lied as she got up from the couch. She walked over to the window in the office that overlooked the dance floor and pointed. “It’s those half-naked bitches down there that I don’t trust.”