'PR, that’s you ain’t it. Purple Rain,' Nick said and shook his head.
'What you know about that?'
'I told you, I know everything,' Nick told her. 'Maybe you ain’t as smart as you think you are, Purple Rain.'
'Maybe I ain’t. That’s why I need you to help me get outta this.'
'Yeah,' Nick said.
There was one other thing. Rain’s reluctance to tell him who she was buying from led him to believe that it was Stark. If that was the case, Stark would have to be dealt with. But for now, that would have to wait. As much as he hated to admit it, Rain was right. He had to help her and do it before Black found out what he was doing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was late and detectives Kirkland and Richards had gotten a call about a triple murder. They had worked together on drug-related homicides for the last five years and Kirk was just starting to get comfortable enough with him to let him drive. Taking the lead in their investigations was another matter.
When they got the call, Richards was on the phone with his wife. She called to complain about their young sons. Complaining about how much of a handful they were becoming, and with him working so many crazy hours, it felt like she was raising them alone. He was glad to rush her off the phone.
'So what was it this time, Pat?' Kirk asked.
'Matt took apart the toaster.'
Kirk laughed. 'Why’d he do that?'
'Same reason he takes apart everything, to see how it works,' Richards said as he drove.
'Makes sense.'
'Yeah; right up to the part where it comes to putting stuff back together. The parts never seem to all get back in there and they never work right after that. Drives Helen crazy.'
Kirk laughed but didn’t comment. He’d learned years ago to stay out of his partner’s marriages. Especially since his track record with wives wasn’t stellar.
'How come you never had kids?' Richards asked.
'I’ve been married three times, but I never stay with one long enough to have any.'
'Three wives. I gotta say, if this one doesn’t work out, I’m not doing it again.'
'I seem to remember sayin’ that too. One thing I learned, you’re married to the badge and after a while, your wife becomes a mistress you sneak and see when the badge allows it. I even tried marrying another cop this last time.'
'How’d that work?'
'Lasted eight months. It was worse ’cause she was married to the badge too. Shit, we rarely saw each other and when we did, it was just to have sex.'
'Sounds like the perfect marriage to me,' Richards laughed.
'Not really, you still have the arguments. Now that we’re divorced, we still have the same sex and we don’t have to argue,' Kirk said as they arrived at the scene of the murder.
When they walked in the apartment they were met by Detective Gene Sanchez from the narcotics division. 'There they are,' Sanchez said and walked them into the room where the bodies were found.
'What you got for us tonight?' Richards asked.
'Three black males murdered execution style. The lab guys saved the bodies for you.'
Kirk crouched down next to one of the bodies. His hands were tied behind his back. Richards looked over the other bodies; each had been shot point blank in the back of the head.
'From the looks of it, they were on their knees when they were shot,' Sanchez informed them.
'What do you think, Pat?' Kirk asked.
Richards nodded his head. 'No sign of forced entry, so the shooters were let in. Judging by the bullet holes in this wall, somebody shot at them. Shooter fired back with superior firepower, I might add.'
'You got anything on those guys?' Kirk asked and pointed to where the bodies were found.
'They weren’t on our radar,' Sanchez said.
'Anybody canvas the building?' Kirk asked.
'Uniforms.'
'And?'
'Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything. Nobody would even say that there was an operation going on here,' Sanchez said.
'Typical,' Richards commented.
'Nobody wants to be a snitch,' Kirk said.
'There’s been a couple more murders in the last couple of weeks that have the same MO. No forced entry, vic’s were tied up, on their knees and shot in the head,' Sanchez told the other detectives.
'Who’s the big player in the game these days?' Kirk asked.
'That would be Bruce Stark.'
'Stark,' Kirk said and snapped his fingers a few times. 'That name rings a bell.'
'The Commission,' Richards reminded him. Kirk chuckled a little and thought back to the day he and Richards explained the commission and its purpose to Mike Black.
'Do you know a Steven Blake or a Kevin Murdock?' Richards asked that night and handed Black their pictures.
He looked at the pictures and handed them back to Richards. 'No, I don’t know either of them. Should I?'
'Their street names are Cash Money and K Murder. You ever hear of them?'
'No.'
'What about a guy named Stark or Billy Banner, goes by BB?' Richards continued.
'Never heard of any of them. They sound like cartoon characters to me,' Black told the detective.
'Well, they’ve heard of you. In fact they’re so worried that you’re gonna kill them they formed a little group.'
'What kind of group?'
'They call themselves The Commission.'
'What are they, a rap group or something?'
Kirk remembered how both him and Black had gotten a good laugh at that comment. 'No, they’re low-rent drug dealers that used to work for Birdie,' Richards said.
'Now him I’ve heard of. Heard they found his body in some river in Jersey,' Black taunted that day. 'But you answered your own question. If these guys are low-rent drug dealers, I wouldn’t know them or anything about them. Maybe you should talk to Freeze. He keeps up with that kind of shit. It’s like a hobby to him. But since you drove all the way out here to ask me about them, it must be something that you can only ask me.'
'That would be correct,' Richards said.
Then Black took a step closer to Richards and got in his face, and Kirk thought he was going to have to separate them. 'You don’t like me, do you, Detective Richards?' Black asked Richards. 'To you, I’m just another arrogant crook who doesn’t deserve the respect Kirk shows me.'
'That would be correct,' Richards stated plainly.
'That’s why I respect you, Detective Richards, ’cause you don’t like me and you have no problem lettin’ me know that you don’t like me. You’re not like a lot of other cops who smile in my face or try to act tough. You do your job, and I respect you for that.'
'Right,' Richards said.
'Whatever I can do to help you, Detective Richards?'
'Somebody killed Cash Money in his apartment and K Murder was killed this weekend in a drive-by.'
'I don’t know anything about that. I just came back from the Bahamas today. Like I said, Freeze keeps up
