The Family Business 3(61)

We finished our hot dogs then continued down the path, finally stopping at a park bench with a view of the lake. Elijah stood behind the bench, his arms crossed in front of him. Looking at him, you might think he was standing guard, or you might think he was meditating by the water.

I sat down and finished off what was left of my soda, watching a dozen pigeons congregate in front of the bench. They raced to the seeds being tossed by the old man who had already been occupying the bench prior to our arrival.

“So you like feeding birds, huh?” I turned and asked Bernie, aka the Jew.

He threw another handful of seeds. The birds scurried about, chasing their late morning meal. “I love feeding these birds. It’s one of the few comforts I have in life.”

I couldn’t imagine something like feeding nasty, useless birds being one of life’s comforts, but then again, who was I to talk? My best friends were rats. So, I just nodded and watched him throw more food to the pigeons.

After a while, Bernie said, “I hear LC Duncan is as good as dead.”

It was no surprise that this was why Bernie had asked me to meet him at the park. What else would he have wanted to discuss? It was becoming an obsession of his. I bet he even talked about the Duncans in his sleep.

“That’s what I’m hearing,” I replied. “I have to admit, though, it’s going to be hard to finish the job. They have that hospital guarded like a fortress.”

“Doesn’t matter. From what I hear his days are numbered. We’re still going to give you credit for that one,” Bernie said, not taking his eyes off his little friends. “As long as you make sure you take out Vegas Duncan. He was part of the contract.”

I didn’t need reminding. A bad memory wasn’t what was keeping us from handling Vegas.

“We’re working on him,” I said, thinking how funny it was that I had set out with my red light aimed at Junior Duncan’s head, yet every other Duncan seemed to be on death’s menu.

“Good,” Bernie said, finally turning away from the birds to look me in the eye. “Because he’s poking his nose around where he has no business.”

“He’s elusive,” I said by way of explanation for the delay. “We’ve taken out two warehouses and burned a couple million dollars’ worth of marijuana, hoping to smoke him out, but these Duncans . . . they keep staying in their fortress. We spot Vegas one minute, then the next minute he’s gone. The guy’s like a ninja.”

“I don’t care if he’s the President of the United States. You better figure it out and get him soon,” Bernie snapped. “He’s dangerous. He’s talking to people, aligning people against you. Against us.” By now Bernie was seething. He’d turned a deep shade of red. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, as if he’d been to anger management and was following his therapist’s instructions to control his temper. “I’m not having this conversation with you again, Xavier. Next time we meet face to face, you know who will be there—and we both know you don’t want that.” He threw one last handful of seeds and then shoved the bag into my hand before getting up and walking away.

Elijah sat down in the space Bernie had vacated, and we watched the pigeons finish off Bernie’s offerings before Elijah spoke.

“Why are you always taking mess from that guy?”

I turned and looked at Elijah. “Bernie Goldman is just a puppet. I’m not afraid of him. It’s the man he works for that scares the hell outta me. Trust me. We don’t want to have to go before him.” I shifted my gaze out to the lake.

“So what’s our next move?” Elijah asked.

The answer to that was simple: “We kill Vegas Duncan.”





Rio





42


“Yo, I need you to watch my back. Put on a suit and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

That was all Orlando had said when he knocked on my bedroom door forty-five minutes ago. Now we were in his Audi R8, pulling into the parking lot at the Kings Plaza Mall, and he still hadn’t given me any more information. He’d never asked me to watch his back before, so I didn’t want to rock the boat by asking too many questions. I was just glad to be there, and I figured I would wait to see what happened next.

He maneuvered the car to a remote spot, away from any other cars, and reached for the glove compartment.

“Why are we stopping here? Please tell me you didn’t bring me here just to go shopping with you, O.”

“Patience,” he replied. How the hell was I supposed to be patient, I wondered, when Kennedy was dead, Pop was nearly dead, and poor Sasha was being held captive by some crazy Muslim freak who was out to get our entire family? Shit, I had run out of patience a long time ago, and I was starting to lose faith that my family would ever do the things we should have done already—the things we would have already done if it was the old days. With Pop in the hospital, it was like everything had fallen apart and no one knew how to handle a damn thing.

“You strapped?” he asked as he took out his gun and made sure it was loaded.

I nodded. Not that I always carried a piece, but Orlando had said I was going to be watching his back, so I’d strapped on a holster when I got dressed, just in case.

We got out of the car and headed into the mall, and that’s when I started to worry. It didn’t make sense that we were packing heat in a mall this size, especially one with wall-to-wall people. “Stay close.”