“Look, Nick, if these are my people. I’m the one who needs to make this right. Not you, me. So here’s how it’s gonna go. Me and you gonna roll by they spot, and I’m gonna handle my family’s business. And I’ma tell you why. See, I ain’t no stranger to you and how you handle your business.”
“Really?”
“Really. Niggas is still talkin’ ’bout some of the shit you and that nigga Freeze used to do: Burnin’ bitch-niggas with acid and shit; throwin’ muthafuckas off rooftops and shit. Y’all was the type a niggas that would shoot first and never get to the ask questions part. See, if you do that, all it’s gonna do is make muthafuckas wanna bust back for they homies. Then y’all gonna come at us and that ain’t how this shit need to go. Am I right?”
I didn’t answer her ’cause she was right. The way I was feelin’, I wouldn’t be askin’ how and why. I might just walk up on whoever it was and put a bullet in their brain and we’d be at war over some bullshit when Black, not to mention Wanda, are making plans to move us away from all this.
“Okay.” I stood up. “We’ll do it your way.”
“I knew you’d see the logic in my point,” Rain said and started for the door.
We got in my car, she told me where to go and I headed in that direction. I started to call some people to handle this shit for me, you know, since I was boss now. But I wanted to do this myself. I needed to let out some of this rage I was feelin’ over Freeze being dead and it being my fault. And besides, I was the one who promised Mrs. Phillips that I would see that whoever killed Zakiya would get what’s coming to them.
On the way, Rain told me about the stories she had heard about me and I told her which ones were true. “I gotta admit that I always wanted to meet you. I met Freeze a couple of times. That was one scary nigga, may he rest in peace; and relentless. Once he was on to something you might as well lay down ’cause you was good as dead.”
The more she talked about me and Freeze and the way we used to roll, the madder I got. I tried to calm myself down by changing the subject. “So with JR being sick, and you keepin’ shit from him, who runs things? Jeff Ritchie?”
“No. Jeff Ritchie is a bullet. You load him in a gun and pull the trigger. Jeff Ritchie ain’t got the mind for shit like that.”
“The question still stands.”
“I run shit.”
“You?”
“Yeah, me. Somethin’ wrong with that?”
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-two. And in case you didn’t hear me the first time, I’ll ask you again: Is somethin’ wrong with that?”
“No. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, as long as you can handle it.”
“And you don’t think I do?”
“I don’t know you. And even if I did, I still wouldn’t give a fuck. How y’all run your business don’t matter to me.”
“Okay, Nick. Chill out. I wasn’t tryin’ to make you mad or nothing. I got mad respect for you. And if what I hear in the wind is true-then you ain’t the one to be fuckin’ wit’,” Rain said.
I took a breath. “So, why don’t you tell me how you run your thing?”
“Well, Pops still pretty much runs the gambling and shit. And I run everything else.”
“What is everything else?”
“Little of this, little of that. I usually got something goin’. Sell a little dope, you know.”
“I thought JR wasn’t involved in the dope game?”
“He ain’t, and he don’t know that I am. And I hope that you ain’t
plannin’ on tellin’ him. Like I said, shit like that will just send his blood pressure through the roof, and I ain’t havin’ that.”
“You don’t have worry about me bein’ a snitch. But I seem to remember JR havin’ a son. What’s up with him?”
“My brother Miles. He’s playin’ the family man role. You know, he married, a got a couple of kids. He runs the club and keeps the books. He ain’t got no heart for this other shit.”
“Okay, Rain, why don’t you tell me who we’re goin’ to see?”