Sepia and our baby sat in Mabel Jenkins's Soul Food Joint at the table with Anita Jenkins, Victoria Weatherford and Corabeth Hamilton...Mabel's foxy sisters and partners in her buisiness..
Mabel and her sisters were the first cousins of my wife, Sepia...Sepia had only discovered this since she had moved to Philadelphia and married me...Since Clerow was married to Corabeth...He was kind of sorta related to me by marriage...
They marveled at our newborn baby...While we all downed Mabel's special Honey Ice Tea...
"Kevin,Sepia...Your baby is sooo cute" said Anita...
"That's your cousin, you know...She gets all of her good looks from you girls...Sepia, you,Corrie, Vickie and Mabel.." I said...
"Awww, you got a sweet talker here Sepia."said Victoria...Who had just had a baby herself..
"He knows how to say what he needs to get what he wants."laughed my wife Sepia..
"Which is how baby girl got here." joked Anita...
We all busted out laughing.
Clerow,Kool Kat,Owen Todd and I had been up all night talking to people at Josies and the Mermaid club...
We were talking about Charles "Sonny" Boston as well as the death of our good friend, Danny Felton...
Most of them had already been visited by Lt. Sissy Van Buren and Detective Jimmy Barlow...and as I suspected...They had told them little to nothing...They only told us a little bit more than what they told the police..
One was that Sonny Boston was attempting to run a protection racket and take over most of the area businesses....He had set his sights on Chris and Chess's business empire at first but had been pursuaded to back off...Which left independent businesses vulnerable...
Chris and Chess owned a lot of apartment complexes and condos...In addition they owned a shopping center that leased space to businesses and supplied jobs to most of this community....They had now had enough money to open yet a second shopping center just a few blocks away..and there was talk that they had bought the old Delapidated Royal Theatre and were planning to gut it and turn it into a multiplex movie theatre...
Donald Smooth, their main man had enough muscle to make sure that someone like Sonny Boston didn't move on them...but People like Gus at Josie's, Sam Mother ,who owned a diner and Mabel and her sisters as well as Joe Neptune ,who owned the Mermaid club couldn't say the same...Who protected them??
Mabel's cooking was legendary...as legendary as her good looks...She parlayed that cooking into a popular restaraunt and then into a catering business and two more restaraunts....One in Chris and Chess's Shopping center and another smaller bistro in the same building that housed my business, Morris Communications and Morris Investigations.. The building my businesses were housed in was owned by Chris and Chess and they were my business partners...So I had a stake in this too..
I had to step up my investigation...
II-
I looked around and I noticed Mabel was talking to a big tough goonin an ill fitted suit.. I recognized him...He was called "Big Boy"...He was about six foot three, slightly muscular....His real name was Rollo Perry...An ex-con...A three time loser who hired himself out to whoever was in power at the time...I was curious as to what Mabel would be doing talking to him, so I mosied up to the counter...
"This is a nice looking joint you got here Mabel...I imagine you do good business.."he said.
"Big Boy, since when have you been interested in business? Can you even spell it?" said Mabel..
"Aww, you got jokes Mabel right? "he laughed....
"Yeah, just like you had jokes ,trying to ask me out last year." she said..
He no longer found the banter funny...
"Okay..well this aint no joke...The man I work for ...He's lookin to be your partner...
He's lookin for a 50-50 split of your profits...your total profits of all three of your joints..and he's giving you a week to decide....Think about the late Danny Felton...He didn't decide and you see what happened to him?" he said.
"You're trying to muscle me Big Boy?" said Mabel...
"Think about that husband of yours...Havin all of his fingers broken....It would be pretty hard to play the piano and make a livin for him wouldn't it?" he snarled...
I had heard enough...
"Big Boy or Big Dummy or whatever your name is...Get out of here.."I said.
He turned and looked at me...
"You need to mind your business Kevin..." he said.
"She's my wife's cousin and one of her businesses happens to be in the same building as my business, so this is my business..."I said.
"You know...You got a pretty wife..A gorgeous wife and didn't yall two just have a baby??...It would be a shame if-uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.."he didn't get another word out...I punched him so hard in his jaw that a tooth flew out...blood spilled out of his mouth like a river and then I put two more hard punches to his big gut...
"Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.." he moaned and swung blindly at me...
I countered with two lefts and two rights to his midsection and another right and a left to his fat face...
He stumbled and attempted to swing at me again...I ducked and ripped his mid-section with well placed lefts and rights and then a left right combonation sent him flying out the door and into the street....
He was bloody and groggy...a crowd started to gather....He went to to go into his suit jacket and he heard the click of a gun...He looked up and saw a .44 magnum, and the scowling face of Walter "Kool Kat" Jones..
"Take your hands out of your pockets before I break both of em..." said Kool Kat, who jerked Big Boy up with one hand...
Big Boy was frightened to death...It was one thing getting the snot beat out of him by me..It was another facing one of the most feared enforcers on the street..
I walked up to him...
"Tell your punk boss that I want to see him...Sooner rather than later...I'll be at Josie's tomorrow night..."I said.
Mabel came out with a cold towel and gave it to him...
"You need to put that on your jaw and your eye...That looks pretty bad and for the record..I do very good business..Tell your boss my answer is no."she said.."Just like it was for your weak attempt to ask me out.."she said and walked off..
"You okay Kev?" asked Kool Kat...
"Never been better Big Man...Chris and Chess were right...It's Sonny Boston...He's trying to move on all of the businesses around here...The independents...He's behind Danny Felton's death.."I said.
"And you need proof right?" he snarled.
"I know you and Chris Thompson would deal with him a different way Big Man..but my way is better...besides...Big Boy is small potatoes...I want the guy that makes the dirt happen...Charles "Sonny" Boston." I said.
Kool Kat put his side arm away...
"Okay...I'm with you Kev..You know I ride or die with you...You can meet with Boston tonight in Josies..but I'm gone be there...With the boys."he said.
I smiled and nodded to my friend..
"I couldn't convince you to lay back?" I said smiling..
"Nah. you could not."he said.
I smiled and shook my head.
He looked at Big Boy and scowled...
"Get to steppin punk."
Didn't have to tell Big Boy twice...He got in his car and pulled off...
I laughed...Sepia ,Mabel,Anita,Victoria and Corabeth came outside...
"Can't take you nowhere lover."she said...I smiled and kissed my baby daughter and then Sepia...
"Come on inside Walter...I got some short ribs for ya."said Mabel Jenkins Moore..
Kool Kat smiled...
"Aint gotta tell me twice baby" he said and followed Mabel inside.
III-
Josies was crowded and jumping as usual...I sat and talked to Gus at the bar...
"I knew you'd be in here eventually kid...I heard you beat the stew out of Big Boy....He had that comin.."said Gus...
"Has Sonny Boston been in here?" I asked.
"Nah...but Big Boy and some goons came in here a few nights ago tryin to muscle me...Eddie and Albert gave em the bums rush..."laughed Gus...
"He won't be here tonight!" I mused...
"Naw he won't...but listen...There is a guy you should be talkin to..A guy who can give you an in to Sonny Boston....His name is Eddie Hawkins...They call him "The Hawk."He and Boston used to be partners and then they had some kind of falling out...
Hawkins hates him...He won't talk to the cops, but he can give you an in..like I said." said Gus.
"This Eddie Hawkins got an address, a phone number?" I asked.
"Yeah...I'll write it down for ya kid....Few people know where he lays his head...So keep this under your lid."said Gus..
"But of course."I said.
"And watch your back kid."said Gus..
"You as well."I said.
"I aint scared of him...I keep my .45 on me and Eddie and Albert have shotguns...If Sonny or his goons show up, you won't need to ask anything about em."said Gus..
I laughed...and lifted my glass to him...He was as tough as they come..
I looked around... Chris and Chess sat at the end of the bar.....Kool Kat and Owen Todd sat at another end...Donald Smooth stood in a corner and Clerow and a few other guys sat in different areas...
They were all armed....Sonny Boston was no fool...No way he was going to meet with me here...I didn't expect him to come tonight and he didn't disappoint..He never showed..
We all left at midnight...Donald Smooth dispatched a couple of his guys over at Mabel Jenkins soul food joint just in case... and Kool Kat drove me to my door and called Sepia to let her know I was on my way home...
IV-
I left Sepia that morning after a wonderful night together..It was good we had these kinds of nights..One never knew what the next morning would bring, especially a morning like this one was going to turn out to be.
"There's no need for that...I'm a friend!" he said.
"A friend? Do I know you?" I said.
"No you don't...but I know you...You want to get information on Sonny Boston's operation right?"he said.
"Yeah..."I said.
He passed me a piece of paper...It had the same contact information that Gus had given me the night before..
"I was in Mabel Jenkins's Soul Food Joint the other day...I saw you beat the stuffings out of his enforcer,Big Boy...I knew that you're the one guy who has a chance of taking Boston down...I told Eddie Hawk about you...He told me to get in contact with you.." he said.
"He did huh?" I said, kind of skeptical...
"My name is John Smith."he said smiling...
"John Smith eh?" I said.
"Look, I know you don't know me or Hawk for that matter...but we have an enemy in common...Charles "Sonny" Boston...in a show of good faith..I'll pass some information on to you...You want to know who killed Danny Felton right? It was this guy...His name is Derrick "Boom" Jordan...He's ex-military...explosives and munitions is his thing....Big Boy hired him to do Danny Felton after Felton refused to be his business partner..."
"This is just a photo...what can I do with this?" I asked...
"Nothing, but here is his address...and here is a storage bin rented out by him...you'll find munitions there...all his....and this is his bank account number...you'll see payments made from Boston's account to his...the day before the murder and after the murder...This address is where he lays his head." he said and passed me the information...
I gave him the side eye...
"Do with it what you want...but if the info I gave you proves to be good...Then meet with the Hawk and he'll give you even more." he said.
"Okay John Smith...Thank you...I'll check it out..."I said.
He ate his orange....He smiled at me..
"I'll be looking forward to meeting with you Kevin." He said and smiled and walked off..
V-
Later on that afternoon, I ventured over to C.I.D. Headquarters where Lt. Sissy Van Buren greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek...
"Kevin...I'm not going to ask you how or where you got that information you gave us or what you had to do to get it."she said.
"Hell of a damn tip....We found the storage bin , full of bomb making equipment with his fingerprints and DNA all over it and we saw the payments wired to his account..Me and about seven uniforms took him down. We found the murder weapon at his house and Hazel and her team got a ballistics match...He was a shocked as he could be.."said Detective Jimmy Barlow.
"We have charged him with the murder of Danny Felton...Only thing...That bank account is from the Caymen Islands and it's not in Sonny Boston's name,It's a phony name...We can't get Boston, but at least we solved a murder..."said Sissy hugging me again..
I smiled...
"Really Sis, It was nothing.."I said.
"Ohhhh you are so modest."she said hugging me again...
"Thanks again Kevin."said Jimmy...
It was nothing...John Smith's act of good faith had turned out to be on the money...
I had to go visit this guy Hawk tomorrow, I thought.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
6 comments:
I love it when Kev and Kool Kat take down the bad guys...Loved this episode.
Kevin is back on his game..This was vintage Kevin...
What? No cameos today? -Lol! Just as well..This is a Kevin story...Great installment..Lots of action..
Good story...Vintage Kevin.
With most of the Murder Police on vacation...Sissy will need all the help she can get taking these guys down...Good Old Kevin..Just like in the old days...He's there to give her a good tip..
Excellent Hard Boiled writing..Loved it!
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