Chapter Seventeen
Mike Black
When I arrived in baggage claim at JFK, the first person I saw was Bobby. When I noticed that Wanda was standing next to him, I got worried. If she was there, something was wrong, and whatever it was, it couldn’t wait.
“What’s up, Bob?” I said and shook his hand.
“How was the trip?” he asked.
“Good. Got to spend a lot of time with M. Jamaica took me around to all of his spots. Things are runnin’ smooth down there. Good trip.” I didn’t even want to look in Wanda’s direction, ’cause I really didn’t want to hear what she had to say, but I knew I had to. “Hello, Wanda.”
“I was wondering if you were going to acknowledge my presence,” Wanda said and put her hands on her hips.
“That’s because if you're here, something must be wrong and I’m in too good of a mood for you to drag it down.” Even though I told her that it would be a while before she saw me again, I’d been thinkin’ about goin’ by and fuckin’ Mystique before me and Bobby went to Hong Kong, and that was what had me in a good mood.
Funny how good pussy does that.
On the plane I thought about Jacara and how I ran off the island. That wasn’t cool. I could have gone by the Sheridan and said goodbye to her. But fuck it, what’s done is done. I wandered over to the carousel to wait for my bags.
“Oh, so I’m a drag now?” Wanda said and looked insulted.
Bobby and I looked at each other and started laughing. “Part of your job is to tell us shit we don’t want to hear,” Bobby said.
“It’s what you do,” I added and grabbed my bags.
Wanda’s angry looked slowly curled into a smile. “You two better be glad I love you,” Wanda said and turned away.
Wanda started walking away from me and I looked at her hips swinging out the door. “You gaining weight, Wanda?”
“Why, do I look fat?” she asked as she looked herself up and down.
“Not fat,” I said and tried to think of a delicate way to put it, but there wasn’t one. “Just fat in the ass.”
“Somebody must be hittin’ that ass right,” Bobby said and laughed.
Wanda spun around and looked at Bobby like he had just called her mama a two-dollar ho, rather than something she’d heard him say hundreds of times.
“What you talkin’ ’bout, Bobby?” she said and got in his face.
“Nothing, Wanda. You know I’m just fuckin’ with you. Everybody knows that you’re the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. Take some deep breaths,” Bobby said and walked around her.
At first, I didn’t think much of it, but as we got to the car, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe somebody was hittin’ that ass right and I had to think for a minute about how I felt about that. Wanda had been my other woman for a long time. Other woman that I wasn’t fuckin’, that is.
Me and Wanda had our time when we were kids, but we both agreed that we were better off as friends. Since then I’ve fucked more women than I could remember and I had been married, so why was I feeling jealous about somebody fuckin’ Wanda?
Because she’s always been my other woman, that’s why! And I don’t like sharing. I’ll just kill the mutha fucka, whoever he is, and that will put a stop to that madness. But that ass definitely was getting fat.
“So do you want to hear what I have to say or not, Mike?” Wanda said to bring me out of the fog I had just drifted into.
“No, Wanda.” Bobby opened the trunk and I put my bags in. “I already told you whatever you got to say can wait,” I said and meant it. “Did you talk to Freeze about it?” I asked, knowing that Wanda really doesn’t like taking her issues to Freeze. I think she misses carryin’ power.
“No, Mike. I haven’t talked to Freeze about it, because it’s about Shy.”
Okay, she had my attention. “What about her?”
“Oh, so now, because it’s about Shy, you wanna hear what I gotta say?”
“Just tell me Wanda,” I said and got in the back seat.
“Move over,” Wanda ordered and slid in the back seat next to me.
“Now I’m the fuckin’ chauffeur?” Bobby complained.
“Just drive, Bobby. You know this is important,” Wanda said in her stern voice, and that shut Bobby up for the moment.
“What about Cassandra?”
“I got a call late last night from Glynnis.”
“Presley?”
“Yes. She said that it was important that she talk to you.”
“She say what it was about?”
“Only that it was about Shy. Whatever it’s about, Glynnis sounded scared, Mike.”
“Get her on the phone,” I said and wondered what Glynnis could possibly know about Cassandra. I can’t even say for sure that Glynnis ever met her.
I watched as Wanda dug around in her big-ass purse for her cell. “Here,” Bobby said. “Use mine.” He tried to hand the phone to Wanda.
“Now what makes you think I know her number? I don’t know anybody’s number anymore.”
Once Wanda found her phone and got past Glynnis’ personal assistant, which I thought was odd for a Sunday morning, Glynnis finally came to the phone. “It’s Wanda, Glynnis. I have Mike with me. He wants to talk to you.”
Whatever Glynnis was sayin’, Wanda wasn’t ready to hear, and that doesn’t happen often. She was always on top of everything, always in control. It’s one of the things I admired most about her. I thought for a minute about how I enjoyed listening to Wanda order her staff around. I like strong women. Women like Cassandra and Wanda.
And if that’s true, why do I gravitate towards women like Mystique and Jacara?
“Okay, Glynnis. I understand completely,” Wanda said and began nodding her head as Glynnis talked. It was what Glynnis was best at; talking. That’s why I liked Glynnis. If it had anything to do with politics and power, she was all over it. She wasn’t a bad lookin’ woman, just not my type.
Wanda pressed end on her phone and looked at me. “Glynnis doesn’t want to talk on the phone. She said she wants to meet you in an hour at a place called Soul Fixin’s. It’s on 34th.”
“You heard the lady, driver,” I said to Bobby.
“Fuck you,” was his response, but he headed for the Midtown Tunnel and we were there waiting at the restaurant when Glynnis walked up. After she ordered a cup of coffee, she and I walked down 34th, with Bobby and Wanda following behind.
“I’m sorry to be going through all this with you, and I really don’t want to be involved. But I have to tell you this, I just don’t want anything to happen to me,” she said, and her hand shook a little as she sipped her coffee.
“Nothin’ gonna happen to you, Glynnis. I promise you that. I would never let anything happen to you. Just tell me what you gotta tell me. It will be all right.”
“I was at a party last night and I overheard a conversation between Martin Marshall and his man, Scotty. I heard Martin say, if Mike Black ever finds out I had any involvement in his wife’s murder, he’ll kill us all.”
Chapter Eighteen
