“No, Bo told me to go to the club and stay gone until he called for me,” Sabrina said.
“What did you do?”
“I called Victor.”
“He just made it too easy for you, didn’t he, Sabrina?”
Sabrina smiled and laughed a little. “Yeah, Black, he really did.”
“I’ve been tellin’ men for years: don’t leave your homework undone, ’cause there is always some man that is more than willing to do it for you,” I said and Sabrina’s smile got bigger.
“Guess you didn’t have that little talk with Bo, huh? If you did, he didn’t listen.”
“Anybody else come by here lately?”
“Cruz Villanova.”
“He come alone?
“No, his boy, Jorge, was always with him.”
“Anything else you think I need to know about?”
“I think Bo had something to do with Kenny gettin’ killed.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I heard him talkin’ to Bull one night and I heard him say somethin’ like: ‘He wouldn’t be dead if he had got with me in the first place.’ I didn’t think nothin’ of it, but now, after all that’s gone on, I think he was talking about Kenny.”
I got up. “Bo was involved in a lot of things.”
When I was leaving the house, Sabrina walked me to the door and I made her come out to show Victor that I didn’t kill her.
“I told you that I wasn’t gonna kill her. You gotta learn to trust me,” I said to Victor as he drove off. “Now, get Bobby on the phone for me.”
“Bobby; it’s Victor. Black wants to talk to you. Hold on,” Victor said and handed the phone to me.
“You busy?”
“Not really,” Bobby said.
“Where you at?”
“I’m at Grant’s. Why?”
“Stay there. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I need to talk to you about something,” I said and ended the call. I handed Victor back his phone and relaxed.
“You find out what you wanted to know from Sabrina?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t think Bo and Hank was in it alone, do you?”
I glanced over at Victor. “Do you?”
“No, I don’t”
“I don’t either; but tell me why you don’t?”
Victor swallowed hard, like he was about to answer a test question. “Even if they killed you, Bobby, and Nick, Bo still wouldn’t have a clear path to the throne. He would have to contend with Sherman and Howard. And if Wanda ever figured out that him and Hank was behind it, she would come after him with everything she had. In either one of those scenarios, Bo would need all the muscle he could get. That’s where Bull Harris and Skip Skinner come in.”
“Good answer.” I was starting to like Victor. He was smart and he wasn’t afraid of shit, but like I said, he wasn’t ruthless like Freeze was. Still, if I kept him around, showed him a few things-who was I kiddin’. I knew I wasn’t gonna be around to train him to handle power like I’d done with Freeze. If I didn’t have to handle this little matter, I’d be in Nassau right now. Lately, the most important thing in the world is being Michelle’s father. Maybe that’s what almost dyin’ does for you; makes you understand and appreciate the things that are really important in your life. And that’s Michelle. She already lost her mother because of my shit; so what was I doing out here runnin’ the risk of her losing her father, too? I grew up without a father; so I understand what’s it’s gonna be like for her. Maybe that’s why I’ve gravitated toward CeCe. She was great with Michelle and Michelle was crazy about her.