Roy Glenn - No More Tears In The End

Mike Black

“Bullshit, Mikey. You tellin’ me that you whacked two DEA agents and you ain’t worried?” Angelo Collette asked me after his seventh single malt scotch.

“Right.”

“Get the fuck outta here. You’re drunk.”

“Right.” Actually I was fucked up, so I said it. “I’m fucked up, but I ain’t worried.” And I wasn’t.

Not really.

Near as I could tell the cops weren’t up on me. And if my luck held up, and it hasn’t been worth a shit lately, they wouldn’t.

Luck?

Fact was my luck with the DEA has been all bad. My wife Cassandra was brutally murdered; arranged by DEA agents, which is something else I don’t understand. I’ve been out of the drug game for years.

My attitude about a lotta things changed after a very good friend, Vickie Payne, died smoking cocaine in my apartment.

My cocaine.

I've never done cocaine in my life, but back in the day I would always keep some around ’cause some women would freak for it. That night, Andre gave me some pure; just chipped it off the block, bagged it and handed it to me. When I got home the next morning, instead of puttin’ a cut on it, I threw the bag on the coffee table and crashed on the couch.

I had been asleep a couple of hours I guess, when Vickie came in. We talked for a minute then I passed out again. When I woke up I decided to get in the bed, but the door to my room was locked. I knocked on the door, but Vickie didn’t answer. After a while I kicked the door in. I found her lying on the floor naked, with the pipe still in her hand. To me, cocaine is death and heroin is slow death. So I took steps to get out. Maybe it was time to get all the way out.

As Wanda has become very fond of tellin’ me, we make just as much money from our legitimate businesses as we do from our other operations. Gambling, number running, loan sharking, and prostitution.

I’ve got no interest in the dope game at all. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a fuck how a muthafucka makes his money.

That’s his business.

And as long as his business doesn’t cut into mine, it’s none of my business. It’s all about business to me.

But this shit with the DEA ain’t about business, its personal. If you believe Bobby’s version of it, it began years ago when I bitch slapped Diego Estabon. Back then, Diego was with just Gomez Estabon’s fresh off the boat, punk-ass kid, who was trying to make a name for himself in his daddy’s drug business.

It was years later that Diego came up with some wild-ass scheme to implicate me in the game. Part of his plan involved kidnapping my wife Cassandra, and he died for it. I thought it would end there, but it didn’t. That led to one of his partners, a DEA agent name Kenneth DeFrancisco, goin’ to jail, and he blamed me for being there.

Me?

Why me?

Why not blame your dumb-ass partner for coming up with the dumb-ass plan?

Drunk or sober, I still haven’t figured that out. But because he blamed me, DeFrancisco ordered Cassandra’s murder. I killed him and everybody else that was involved in it. The only one left was another DEA agent named Pete Vinnelli, and I would get to him in due time. But these other two I never saw coming.

“Look, Angee, all I know is that these two fucks were plannin’ to kill me. What the fuck was I supposed to do?” How the fuck was I supposed to know that they were DEA?

If I hadn’t asked Jackie Washington, a very pretty robber-turned-gambler, who I’ve recently taken more of an interest in for more reasons than just business, to keep an eye on Mylo, I’d be dead now. Mylo used to run a high-stakes poker game for Freeze, but there was something about him that I didn’t trust.

Not only did Jackie keep an eye on him; she set up surveillance on his ass. Had bugs in his office, had GPS trackin’ on his ride and was tappin’ his phone. That’s one more reason why I don’t like using those fuckin’ things.

Phones I mean.

Jackie followed Mylo to a meeting with a man that I found out later was a DEA agent named Masters. She recorded the conversation and had pictures of the two of them at a meeting where they planned to kill me.

“So I killed them.”

But the question still stood. How the fuck was I supposed to know that they were DEA?

The answer was simple.

I should have taken my time. After I got the information from Jackie, I should have checked them out. Found out why those fucks wanted me dead.

But I didn’t.

As soon as I saw Masters sitting with Mylo at the fight I saw blood. I went after Masters, while Nick and Freeze took care of Mylo. That didn’t work out so well either. Mylo shot Freeze and he died in Nick’s arms.

I caught up with Masters at Meyers Garage on 34 thStreet. Once the parking attendant was out of the car, Masters jumped in and he rolled slowly toward the street. I stepped up to the car and fired three times. The first shot broke the glass. The next two hit Masters in the head.

“I ain’t sayin’ that you was wrong, Mikey,” Angelo said. “If it was me, and I’m glad it ain’t.”

“Thanks.” I interjected.

“No problem. If it was me, and they were comin’ at me like they was comin’ at you, I’da whacked them too. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

“I’m glad you see it my way,” I said and downed my seventh glass of Remy. No way I was lettin’ Angee out drink me. “All I’m sayin’ is that they’re dead, and I’m here gettin’ drunk with you.”

I’d known Angelo Collette since we were in high school. We were both on the same path, but traveling in different directions. He became a soldier for Vincenzo Adalberto. Now he’s got his own crew. I went to work for Andre Hammond. Back then, Andre controlled most of the illegal activity uptown and I was his enforcer.

When I was fifteen, me and my best friend Bobby Ray started out sellin’ weed and doing a little number runnin’. But Andre was a drug dealer. As far as he was concerned, gambling and prostitution were just sidelines. That all changed when Andre was murdered. I took over his gambling operations and got out of the drug business.

“All I’m sayin’ is that whackin’ DEA agents is bad business. But you gotta handle shit the way you handle shit. You killed them.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a killer.”

“I fuckin’ know that. I was there when you made your bones, Mikey,” Angelo said.

“No you weren’t. You were there for number two. I was there when you made your bones, Angee. Nickie Nemecek. Two shots: One to the chest; one to the dome.”

“Make sure he’s gone,” Angelo said and raised his glass. “And I was too there when you made your bones.”

“No, Angee, I couldn’t do it ’cause of the kid. Remember?”

Angelo took another swallow and I guess he thought about it. “You know what? You’re right. His little girl came out the house and you backed off.”

“I knew you’d remember.”

“You did the right thing. I couldn’ta shot him in front of his kid either.”

“What did you say?”

“What, are you drunk? I said you fuckin’ did the right thing; Shootin’ him in front of his kid wouldn’ta been right.”

I got up and punched Angee in the face. He fell off his chair and hit the floor hard.

“What the fuck, Mikey!”

I helped him get up, sat down, and poured us both another drink.

“What the fuck you hit me for?” Angelo asked and shot his drink.

“You woulda done the same shit?” I shot mine and poured us another.

“Yeah. Whackin’ the guy in front of his family ain’t right.”

“Now it ain’t right. Now it ain’t fuckin’ right! Is that what you’re sayin’, Angee? The shit ain’t fuckin’ right! After all these fuckin’ years later, and now you say it ain’t right.”