Roy Glenn - No More Tears In The End

“I was about to take Nick downstairs, but I wanted to introduce y’all before I went down there. You know how you like to run outta here. I’m surprised you’re still here,” Rain said and turned to leave. “Oh, by the way,” she turned to me. “Show them the picture, Nick.”

“Y’all ever see this girl up in here?” Rain asked as I handed Miles the picture. He looked at the picture and handed it back to me.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I didn’t think you would. Just thought I’d ask,” Rain said and headed for the door.

I looked at Miles and then at Lakeda.

“You comin’?” Rain said.

“Nice meeting you both.”

Mike Black

My dinner meeting with Meka Brazil turned into dinner with Meka and Wanda. When Meka mentioned that she was meeting me for dinner, Wanda invited herself to join us; which turned out to be a good thing ’cause she told me that State Senator Martin Marshall was having a fundraiser that night, and Mr. Marshall was somebody I needed to have a conversation with.

Wanda’s presence at dinner with Meka did put an entirely different spin on the night. Especially when Meka looked at her watch and announced she was late for that evening’s conference call. She immediately slapped her Bluetooth on her ear, started punching numbers on her Blackberry, apologized and ran out of there.

Wanda turned to me. “That’s gonna be you one day.”

“No. It’s not. I can’t ever imagine a time when I’ll become as attached to that thing as she is. I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t like bein’ that accessible.”

“You’re already accessible. You’re on Kevon’s phone more than he is,” Wanda said.

“That’s because you, Meka, and now Bobby call me all the time to talk about what we just talked about at the meeting.”

“Which reminds me, how did your meeting go with P Harlem?”

“How does any meetin’ with P go? P talked, we listened.”

Paul ‘P Harlem’ Roberts is one of the two major rapper clients that Wanda represents. The other is The One. His real name is Earl, real nice guy. Get that nigga a bag of weed and some pussy and he’s a happy man. But not P. Don’t get me wrong, he’s all for pussy and weed. P is words, P is conscience, P is anger. That’s what his music is all about. But he’s real about it, so he says what he thinks. Sometimes it gets him in trouble.

There was an incident at strip club in Atlanta, P was there with his whole set and they’re droppin’ paper like its water. Some young gangster comes in, sees P, and gets the DJ to put him on the mike. When he gets done, he comes over to P and says, “What you think?”

P says, “Somebody got to explain to me why they even let you near the mike with that weak shit,” and turns his back on the little gangster.

Shots were fired and the little gangster ends up dead. P was arrested but the case was thrown out. There were no witnesses. People could definitely say that P was there that night, but nobody saw him with a gun. “But that ain’t his problem this time.”

“What is it now?”

“He won some award, so at the show P gets up and says he’d like to thank his record company, ‘But I can’t ’cause they robbed me blind. These bitches want me to sing and dance, but they want me to do it for free. ’ Now they won’t re-sign him.”

“I know all about it. But that’s not why they don’t want to sign him,” Wanda said.

“Why not?”

“There’s only so much of a market for what Paul does. They told him if he started callin’ women bitches and hoes that he’d sell more records.”

“What about them robbin’ him blind? Isn’t that, like, our job to see that they don’t rob him blind?”

“All legitimate expenses incurred by Paul. The contract allowed them to subtract tour expenses from his royalties.”

“I understand now. But don’t you usually send somebody on tour with them to keep shit like this from happening?”

“I did. I sent Webster Houston.”

“What happened?”

“He said he was seduced by the dark side of the force,” Wanda said and shook her head.

“P turned him out?”

“Something about how orgies and room service go together.” Wanda looked disgusted. “So what did he want?”

“He just wanted to vent.” Actually he wanted me to kill some A amp;R guy at the record company for disrespecting him. I told him that I wouldn’t kill him, but he should expect an apology.

But Wanda didn’t need to know about all that.

I’ve been making a real effort to keep her away from that side of things. I’ve been thinking that it’s not a good idea for her to be the managing partner of our legitimate businesses and be advising a criminal organization. Better she stick to business.

What surprised me is how Bobby has gotten into the whole legit thing. Bobby always has looked at things a little differently from the rest of us. So he asks Meka a lot of questions-makes her explain shit. I don’t think she likes Bobby. But he gets me to see things in ways that I hadn’t considered.

“How’d you leave it with him?” Wanda asked.

“I told him that I’d think about starting a record company.”

Wanda looked at me without speaking while she considered the possibilities. “That could work for us.”

“See what it’s gonna take to make that happen and get back to me,” I told Wanda. Then I looked up and saw something that I never thought I’d see.

There in the foyer stood Angelo Collette and two of his men. Angelo was giving my manager Lexi a hard time, and pointing at me. She’s probably tellin’ him that she don’t care who he says he knows, he’s not getting in without a reservation.

I looked at Kevon, he was looking at me. I nodded my head; Kevon went to take care of it. That’s another reason why I chose him to be my bodyguard, Kevon never misses anything. He’s always aware of his environment and he’s always looking around so he sees everything.

“Isn’t that Angelo at the door?” Wanda said when she noticed the commotion.

“Yeah.” I watched as Kevon settled Lexi down and then let Angelo pass. He escorted Angelo’s men to the bar.

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get Angee to come here for years. He wants something. Something major or he wouldn’t be here.” Probably some Crazy Joe shit. Out of respect, I stood up to greet him. Wanda did too.

“Mikey, Wanda,” Angelo said and shook my hand. “How’s everybody doing tonight?” Angelo hugged Wanda and kissed her on the cheek.

“I’m fine, Angelo.”

“How long has it been since I saw you, Wanda?” Angelo asked and took a seat.

“Been at least eight years.”

“Well, you’re as beautiful as I remember.”

I sat down without speaking and listened while Wanda and Angee made small talk like two old friends that hadn’t seen each other in years. While they talked, I couldn’t help but wonder what would make Angee come up here. It’s rare when he leaves his little area in Yonkers.

“Wanda, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to talk to this guy.”

Wanda stood up, so did Angelo. “I didn’t think you came here just to tell me how pretty I was. It was good seeing you.”

“Great seeing you, too.”

“We should talk more when you have some time,” Wanda said and looked at me. She wanted to explore, as she called it, legitimate business opportunities with Angee, but she knows I’m against it. Angee has his own problems with the law. This is not the time to be in business with him. But Wanda can be hard-headed sometimes. She turned to me. “I’ll be in the office, Mike.”

Wanda said goodnight to Angee and headed for the office. As soon as she walked off, Angelo leaned toward me and whispered. “Can we talk in here?”