AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, aren’t you the fuckin’ gentleman.” Jay danced out of my reach as he spoke. “Nobody is that familiar with girls they’re ‘walkin’ home.”
I ignored him and waited for Paul to get to the point. He wanted something. That much was clear.
“Sly Ricky wants you to drive to Newark tomorrow night.”
I scowled. “With what car? I told you, I’m not driving. Repair only.”
“You have access,” Paul countered. “I saw you take a Chevelle out on Tuesday.”
“That was to test the engine,” I said. “I don’t fuckin’ drive.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t gonna be around tomorrow,” Jay put in after he stood up and took several steps out of my reach.
“The girl told you,” Paul agreed. “She told the whole neighborhood.”
“And nothing’s going to happen,” I snapped. “You didn’t hear anything.”
“I heard something,” Jay said, still out of reach. “I heard plenty.”
“Mike.”
Paul’s eyes had gone hard. The jokes were over. It was time to get down to business.
“I gave you time,” he said. “What, a few weeks? But it’s time you did what’s right. Sly Ricky already asked for your help with a job. He ain’t gonna ask again.”
“Or what?” I sneered. “You gonna pull another knife on me, Paulie? You want me to tell you what I’d do if you tried that shit on me again?”
The smaller man shuddered slightly, as if he knew good and well what I was capable of. He’d caught me by surprise once. It wasn’t going to happen again. Hand to hand, I could take them. I had at least fifty pounds on Paulie, probably twenty on his buddy.
To my surprise, Paul relaxed, as if he had realized he wasn’t getting anywhere with me this way.
“I tell you what,” Paul said. “Show up tomorrow, and we don’t tell old man Zola that you’re tryna get with his granddaughter. And my sister don’t need to know nothing either.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, then glanced to my left, where his friend huffed at my shoulders.
“I’ll show up,” I said. “But only to tell Ricky to his face that I’m out, whether he likes it or not.”
I walked away without looking back. It was one of the biggest flexes you could make in this neighborhood. Turning your back on a man in the dark meant you weren’t afraid.
And I sure as shit wasn’t afraid of Paul Reyes or that weasel he called a friend.
Unfortunately, that was my biggest mistake.
Five seconds later, I was shoved against the wall, the combined body weight of Paul and Jay enough to keep me there while Paul pulled up his shirt to reveal that he was carrying a lot more than a knife this time.
“On second thought,” he said. “Ricky wanted to see you tonight. And the way I’m feeling, I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm when you finally get what’s coming to you.”
EIGHTEEN
NEVER SKIP OUT ON A MOBSTER
Michael
Twenty minutes later, I was hustled out of the back of Paul Reyes’s Yukon and up the stairs of a nondescript brick building in Morrisania. It was the kind of place where the numbers were always ripped off no matter how many times the city replaced them. No one wanted the police or EMTs or anyone poking around here. Addresses were for traceable suckers.
But I’d always recognize the heart of the operation that ruined me.
“I got it,” I snapped when Paul nearly tripped me while shoving me through a door on the third floor. “I can walk, you fuckin’ parasite.”
