No More Tears in the End (11 page)

“For what?”

“’Cause I may know somebody who might be able to put us on to them.” Rain reached for the door handle and opened the door. “But if you’re too busy to handle your business. I’m gone.”

“Shut the door, Rain.”

She closed the door and I drove off.

Chapter 17

Who the fuck does this little girl think she tryin’ to play? Since I was the only other person in the car, I guess she thought she was playin’ me. Only question was, whether or not I was gonna let her think she was gettin’ away wit’ it. Truth was I needed her right now. I wanted to put this thing behind me and move on. “But this better turn out to be something.”

“I can’t promise shit at this point. I just dropped the muthafucka I thought it was. Only thing I can tell you is that this nigga Nacho, he be hearin’ shit. Maybe he heard something ’bout your thing.”

“Nacho Marquez?”

Rain’s expression changed. “Yeah. You know him?”

“No, just the name.” I’d heard Freeze mention him a few times. He told me that Nacho was a bookmaker and a gambler who made a reputation for himself for having information for sale. At least I knew that Rain hadn’t
beat
him on weak product. But there was something about the way her expression changed when she thought I might know Nacho that bothered me.

For the time being, I put that aside, but at the same time I understood fully that Rain had her own agenda working here, and I was a part of it. That meant I should be ready for whatever. “Where we find him?”

“You in a hurry?”

“Yeah. I told you, I got shit to do. I don’t have all night for this shit.” I stuck my finger in her face to be sure she got the point. “So if your boy Nacho can’t tell me shit. I’m done with you. If the muthafuckas that robbed my joint belong to you, and you wanna put your house in order, that’s cool. You call me when you put a bullet in their brains.”

“Look, nigga, I’ma say this one more time. Only muthafuckin’ thing I can tell you is that this nigga, Nacho, be hearin’ shit. Now if that ain’t good enough for you then pull this bitch over and let me out. I’m tryin’ to help your muthafuckin’ ass and you givin’ me this shit ’bout it.”

I stopped at the next red light. “You can get out now. I’ll find Nacho without you,” I told her calmly. Rain didn’t reach for the handle this time.

When the light changed I drove on. “So where we goin’? And yes, I’m in a hurry.”

“Co-op City. Section four.”

“Anything I need to know about you and Nacho?”

Rain shook her head.

We drove to Co-op City, which is located in the Baychester section of the Bronx, close to I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway. It’s the largest cooperative housing development in the world. If it were a municipality instead of part of Bronx, it would be the 10
^th
largest city in New York State.

We got to Nacho’s building and went in behind one of the residents. We took the steps to Nacho’s floor and knocked on his door. It took awhile before a male voice came back from the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Rain. Open the door, nigga!”

“Go away!”

“Oh—so it’s like that, huh?”

Rain started bangin’ and kickin’ the door until he opened it. When he did, Rain stuck her gun under his chin. “Go away, my fat ass,” she said and took his gun from his waist. “Now, where’s Nacho?”

The man pointed.

“Well move then.”

He started walking backwards slowly, and Rain kept the gun pressed to his chin. I followed her in. For a young girl, Rain could definitely handle herself. As we got closer I could see that there were three men seated in the living room.

“Who’s at the door?” one of them yelled.

Once we were in the room one of the men started to reach for his gun, but the other one stopped him. I assumed that he was Nacho. “What do you want, Rain?”

“What’s up, Nacho?” Rain said and pushed the doorman to the floor. He looked at me and started to get up. I shook my head and showed him my gun. He decided to keep his spot.

“Get off the floor, you look ridiculous,” Nacho said. He looked at me one more time to make sure it was all right before he got up. “Now, what do you want, Rain?”

Rain went and sat across from Nacho with her gun on her lap.
“I don’t want nothin’.
I maybe just came to holla at you, Nacho. You know, since we cool and shit.”

“Yeah, Rain, we cooler than a fan. Now what the fuck do you want?”

“See how you treat a sistah? That shit ain’t even necessary.” She looked at me. “Why can’t muthafuckas just get along?”

I don’t know what she was lookin’ at me for. I agreed with Nacho. I wanted her to get to the point too.

“Like I said, I don’t want nothin’, but this man here; he got a couple of questions he
need
to ask you.”

Nacho looked at me. “Who are you?”

“That ain’t important. Right now, all you need to know is that I’m the one askin’ the questions.” I said and slowly reached in my pocket. I pulled out a wad of bills and that got his attention.

“What you wanna know?”

“There was a robbery at Paradise Fish and Chicken a couple of days ago. You know anything about that?”

“I heard about that. Couple of people got shot.” Nacho looked at my roll again. “But as much as I hate to say it, I can’t say who did it.”

I put my money back in my pocket. “If you hear anything, you tell Rain. It’ll be worth your while.”

“If I hear anything about it I’ll let her know, for sure.”

Chapter 18

When I turned to leave, Rain stood in front of Nacho. “Say goodnight, muthafucka.” She pointed her gun and put two in Nacho’s head. “Rude muthafucka.”

Then she turned and shot at the one sitting on the couch near Nacho. But he moved a little too quickly for her. The other man in the room pulled his gun, hit the floor quickly, and fired at me. I hit the floor and returned fire, but he had clawed away. I looked for Rain; she was runnin’ down the hall chasin’ the doorman and the one she’d missed. “I got them,” she yelled and ran down the hallway.

I stayed low and made my way into the kitchen. I stood up to get a shot off, but he shot at me, and I ducked back in the kitchen. I held up my weapon and shot back blindly.

I could hear shots bein' fired. I yelled for Rain, but she didn't answer. I peeked around the corner and saw one running for the door. I hit him in back before he got out there. I stood over him and put two shots in his chest.

There was still shooting going on in the back. I kicked his gun away and started moving toward the hallway. I heard footsteps coming at me. It was the doorman, only now he had a gun. Rain came out of one of the rooms behind him. I aimed and fired at him, and he went down from one to the head. I kicked his gun out of the way as Rain walked slowly toward me.

“You all right?” I asked and Rain stopped right in front of me.

She was breathing hard.

So was I.

I could feel my heart pumping blood through my body and for the first time since Freeze died, I felt good. Felt alive.

“Yeah.” I could tell that Rain felt it too. I should see it, it was written all over her. She was practically glowing.

“Any more back there?”

“No. I got his ass.”

“We should go. Come on.”

Rain and I left the building the same way we came in, down the stairs, and out the front door with a group of residents. We took our time walking to my car; neither of us said a word until we were out of Co-op and on I-95.

Rain let out a deep breath; it was more like a moan. “Hmmm.” Like the experience was almost sexual to her. It wasn’t that good for me, but I did need to get some of the rage that I was feeling off of me.

I was starting to like Rain.

I didn’t trust her, but I was definitely starting to like her. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.

I was more interested in finding out why we just wiped out Nacho and his crew. “You wanna tell me what just happened.”

“Family business, Nick. Nacho was a snitch and had to be dealt with.”

“You need to come a little better than that, Rain.”

“You mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead. Just tell me why we—and I do mean we—why we just killed Nacho.”

Rain lit a cigarette and rolled down the window. “I had to take care of him for my father.”

“What does JR have to do with this?”

“A couple of days ago, my father told me that he was worried about Nacho.”

“Why?”

“He said that Nacho called and wanted to come by to talk ’bout the money he owed him. Only Nacho don’t owe Pops no dough.”

“What did JR think he really wanted?”

“He thought Nacho was tryin’ to set him up.” Rain took a deep drag from her cigarette. “You see, my father is a silent partner in a porno flick company with a guy named Paul Gaggiano. Well, a couple of weeks ago, Nacho
was
there to see one of the chicks in the movie. The cops raided the set and Nacho gets arrested along with everybody else.”

“Was your father there?”

“No. But Jeff Ritchie was. Jeff Ritchie is a freaky fuck. He goes there all the time to watch. He was arrested too. But Nacho was back on the street before Jeff Ritchie even got his one fuckin’ call. You know what I’m sayin’?”

“Nacho gave the cops something.”

“What he gave up was my father. That’s why I had to do this and not him. Jeff Ritchie is hot now.”

“Go on.”

“Pops began to suspect that Nacho had folded under pressure. Nacho’s a weak-ass bitch, you know the type, can’t do the time. So he told the cops that both my father and Jeff Ritchie were involved in gambling and were extorting money from him.”

“How do you know this?”

“Pops may be a step or two slower, but he still got his sources. They
was
tellin’ Pops that Nacho hadn’t signed anything official, but he had more than one meeting with the cops. Bottom line, the bitch needed to be dealt with.”

I didn’t know if I believed her or not, and I wasn’t sure if I really cared. If I really needed to know if she was lyin’ or not, I could check her story with Tamia Adams or even her father. “I’m sure that JR will be relieved that you took care of that for him.”

“He would, but he
don’t
know and I got no plans of tellin’ him. Both
him
and Jeff Ritchie are at the club with plenty of witnesses. They don’t need to know nothin’ ’bout this. All they need to know is that the bitch nigga is dead and he ain’t
no
threat no more. End of story.”

“That the way you want it?”

“That’s the way it’s gonna be. ’
Cause
I hope you ain’t plannin’ on tellin’ him nothin’ ’bout what happened in these streets tonight. This between you and me. Cool?”

“You askin’ me or tellin’ me?”

“Honestly, Nick, it’s both.”

“Don’t worry, Rain. Your secret is safe with me. You don’t need to tell anybody, and I mean anybody, that I was involved in any of this in any way. This between you and me. Cool?”

“Cool.”

“I don’t need any of this coming back on me and it lookin’ like Black had anything to do with this.”

We drove for awhile in silence. I needed Rain to think about how me backin’ her up on settlin’ her business, could drag Black and our whole organization into a place where none of us needed to be. We were supposedly moving toward getting out, not backin’ Rain in whatever plan she had to consolidate her position. Me ridin’ with her and backin’ her play makes it look like that was exactly what we were doin’.

I looked over at Rain; the way the street lights hit her face. I really hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that Rain was kinda cute. The fact that she was all gangsta wit’ it made her sexy.

“Look, Rain, I understand that you had to handle your business, but why involve me?”

“My dog got cracked a couple of days ago, and the way it’s lookin’, he’s goin’ down for a long time. I knew I couldn’t do this alone, so I needed a road dog to ride with me. Then you walked into my life and I knew that there wasn’t
nobody
better at this shit than you.”

“You coulda asked me.”

“Nigga, please. You woulda asked me if I had lost my mind and told me to go away little girl.”

“You’re right, little girl, I would have.”

“See.”

“You lied to me.”

“That’s not
exactly
true. I didn’t lie to you. I’m for real ’bout that. Yeah, I used you to get my shit done, but I did hear that Shake was in on the robbery, and Nacho. Since Shake say he didn’t have nothin’ to do wit’ it I thought he could really put you on to the right people; for a price of course.”

“Of course.”

“So we good?”

“Don’t ever lie to me again.”

“I don’t like that fact that you keep callin’ me a liar, but under the circumstances, I’ll let it pass for now. Let’s get a drink and talk about it.”