“I know Wanda has her own ideas about this. She wants you take over the finance company. I know that ain’t you. So have you thought about what you might want to do?”
“I was thinkin’ about the game.”
Black laughed. “Don’t think Jackie can handle it, do you? I know Bobby and Wanda don’t.”
“How do you think she’s doin’?”
“She got her boy Travis up there with her now.”
“Which means?”
“Which means I’m not sayin’ no to you. Not yet anyway. Give her a chance. Which means you check on the game every night.”
“Just the game or do you want me to check on everything?”
Black looked out the window and didn’t say anything at first. Then he looked at me. “Freeze checked on everything.”
“He definitely stayed on top of shit.”
“Somebody needs to step up and do it. Everybody knows you. Everybody respects you. It should be you.”
“Whatever you need, Black. You know that.”
“Me and Bobby been talkin’ about this and I was gonna talk to you ’bout it.”
“About what?”
“I need you to run things.”
I looked at Black and didn’t say anything. I was only talking about running game. I didn’t know if I was ready or if I even wanted to run the whole show. But how could I say no to him. “Like I said, Black, whatever you need.”
“We can start makin’ this happen tonight. You ride with me tonight. We’ll roll by our key people, the earners; you know what I mean. Let everybody know you run the house now.”
Just like that.
The first person we saw was Howard Owens. He was a bookie who did a little loan sharking. Howard had been with Black from the days when Black first separated from Andre. He was a good earner.
“What’s up, Black?” he said and turned to me. “What’s up, Nick?” He looked in Kevon’s direction and nodded. “How you gentlemen doin’ on this beautiful New York day?”
“I’m good, Howard. What’s up with you?” Black asked.
“Let me holla at you for a minute, Black,” Howard said and started to walk away. Black motioned for me to follow them.
When Howard noticed that I was walking with them, he stopped. “It’s okay. Say what you gotta say.”
He went on to explain that he had loaned a guy named Charles Watson fifty thousand dollars to expand his construction business and now the guy was ducking him for the last two months. After he gave us all the information he knew, Black turned to me.
“What you think, Nick?”
“I’ll put a couple people on it,” I said and looked Howard in the eye.
“From now on, if you have any problems you see Nick. Understand?”
Howard nodded his head and we walked away. And that was that until we got back in the car.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen with Mr. Watson. We’re gonna checkout his business and see if it’s something we’re interested in. If it is, you’re gonna tell him to forget about the money and then make him see how it’s to his advantage to give us-” Black thought for a second. “I’m not gonna be greedy, say ten percent of his company.”