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.