Chapter Forty-six
Mike was tired when Bobby dropped him off at his house. He got in bed with Shy, but he didn’t sleep long. A few hours later Mike was up and reaching for the phone. He paused a moment and looked at Shy. Maybe he shouldn’t do this. Maybe he should wake Shy up, get her dressed, head straight for the airport, and take her back to their quiet life on the island. Mike knew that if he didn’t take care of this now, then it would only come up over and over and he would have to deal with it sooner or later.
He started to get up and leave the room so Shy could sleep, but since it was about her anyway she might as well wake up. Mike ran his finger through Shy’s hair. 'Baby,' Mike said and touched her face. 'Wake up.'
'Morning, baby. Is everything all right?'
'I gotta make a call.' Mike dialed a number.
'Okay, and you woke me up because?'
'You’ll see,' Mike said as the phone rang.
'This is Kirk.'
'Good morning, Kirk, this Mike Black.'
'Morning, Black. I knew sooner or later you’d be calling.'
'I’d like to talk to you, detective. Is there someplace I could meet you?'
'Castle Hill diner, say in an hour? You can buy me lunch,' Kirk said.
'See you there.'
A little over an hour later, Mike and Shy walked hand in hand into the Castle Hill diner. Kirk was already there when they got there. He rose to his feet when he saw them coming toward him.
'How’s it goin’, Kirk,' Mike said and extended his hand.
'Doin’ good,' Kirk replied and shook Mike’s hand.
'Kirk, this is my wife Cassandra.'
Shy held out her hand. 'Please call me Shy.'
'Mrs. Black, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I was told that you were the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. I see now that I was not deceived,' Kirk said graciously. 'Please, have a seat.'
Once they were seated the waitress brought out Kirk’s food. 'I hope you don’t mind, I went ahead and ordered.'
'Not at all detective,' Mike said. 'Go ahead and enjoy your meal.'
'So, Black, what did you want to see me about?'
'I wanted to talk to you about the DEA investigating me for drug trafficking. Kirk, you know I don’t do that kind of business.'
'I know. She does, or at least she used to.'
Shy fought off the urge to defend herself and remained quiet. She would have her chance later.
'You don’t have to worry about the DEA, at least for now, Black.'
Mike glanced at Shy. 'Why is that detective?'
'The operation’s been terminated,' Kirk said as he ate. 'After I talked to Simmons, and his story didn’t jive with the official version the DEA was puttin’ out, I did some checkin’ on my own.'
'What was the official version?' Mike asked.
'That the lovely Mrs. Black here was involved in a meeting with known drug dealers.'
'I was?' Shy said, no longer able to hold her tongue. 'Was that before or after they kidnapped me?'
Mike touched her hand. 'Go on, detective.'
'We checked with the Bahamian police and they confirmed Simmons story.'
'We? Who is we?'
'The New York City Police Department.'
'Why is the NYPD helping me?'
Kirk put down his folk. 'Understand this Black. We weren’t helping you. The DEA came to us to help them get you. Their shit was incorrect. Excuse my French, Mrs. Black. Black, you’re a lot of things, you’re a gambler, you’re a pimp, you’re a thief, and a killer, but the one thing that you aren’t is a drug dealer. Everybody knows that. So we started looking at agent DeFrancisco and his finances. Nice house in Annapolis, Maryland. More house than he could afford on his salary. He also had a beach front house in Nags Head, North Carolina and a boat. Thirty footer.'
'Sounds like somebody’s on the take.'
'You think?'
Mike and Shy laughed. 'We took what we found to the DEA and they found that the intelligence DeFrancisco used to get authorization for the operation was fake. Now were trying to find out what’s Martin Marshall’s got to do with any of this.'
'Marshall? What does he have to do with this?' Mike asked.
'When DeFrancisco came to us for help, Marshall came with him.'
'It’s funny that you should mention Senator Marshall,' Mike said.
'Why’s that, Black?'
'How would you like to not only link Marshall to DeFrancisco, but tag him for murder?'
'I’m listening.'
Shy reached in her purse and put a cd on the table in front of Kirk.
'What’s that?'
'It’s a recording of the Senator discussing his involvement in a murder of a woman with the killer.' Shy told him.
'Where did you get that,' Kirk asked.
'Does it matter?'
'No it doesn’t cause nothing on that disk would be admissible in court.'
'But you would know all the right questions to ask cause you already know the answers,' Shy said. 'You interested?'
'I’m interested.' Kirk reached for the disk.
Shy put her hand on it. 'In exchange for,' she paused. 'In exchange for your assistance in getting those false charge against me dropped.'
Kirk took his hand off the disk, and ate another piece of his steak. The detective sat back in the booth and put down his knife and fork. He looked at Shy and thought about her offer and then to Black who had remained silent. Kirk reached in his pocket and took out his cell phone. He dialed a number. 'Detective Sanchez.'
'Gene, this is Kirk. Listen, you speak to the ADA about dropping the charges against Cassandra Sims yet?'
'Not yet, Kirk, why?'
'Go ahead and call her. We got bigger fish fry.'
'Done,' Sanchez said. 'Who’s the fish?'
'I’ll tell you when I see you,' Kirk promised and hung up his phone.
'Just like that?' Shy asked, letting go of the disk. 'One word from you and the charges are dropped?'
'Did I mention what a good job your lawyer, Wanda Moore was doing?' Kirk got up and threw a couple of dollars on the table for a tip. 'Yeah, just the other day detective Sanchez said that he was going to have to drop the charges against you. He was gettin’ a lot of pressure from the ADA, who was gettin’ pressure from your lawyer. He was gonna drop the charges against you anyway.' Kirk held up the disk. 'But thanks for this, I never liked Marshall anyway.'
Mike and Shy watched Kirk walk out. 'I’m free, baby,' she said and kissed him. 'Now I can stay in New York.'
'We can go anywhere you want,' Mike said and got up from the table. 'Just one more thing left to do,' he said and paid the check.?
