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"Then why didn’t you?"
"I didn’t want to scare you off."
"I don’t scare easily, Mrs. Childers. But that does change things."
"You want more money." She frowned and looked away, then turned back with fury in her eyes. "Is that what this is all about? Money?"
"No, Mrs. Childers, it’s about you telling me what I need to know to do what you hired me to do."
"What do you want to know?"
"Well, let’s start out with what I know and you can fill in the blanks. Chilly was a forth-level dealer for André Hammond until him and Ricky Combs were assassinated ten years ago. Vicious Black declared a dead zone where he wouldn’t allow them to sell drugs." Mrs. Childers sat up straight in her chair. I had her attention now. Funny how the words Vicious Black have that affect in people. "Stop me if you want to add something."
"No, you’re doing just fine," she said while playing with the straw in her drink.
"When Jimmy Knowles, Charlie Rock, and Vincent Martin attempted to kill Black, that started a war between him and what remained of André’s and Cazzie Riley’s organizations. Well, Black was successful in eliminating his enemies and Chilly took over. He made peace with Black and agreed to respect the dead zone."
"How do you know all this?"
"I have my sources, Mrs. Childers. So with all that history out the way, let’s begin again. Why do you think that Chilly has something to do with your brothers disappearance?"
"Like I said, it’s just a feeling, that’s all." I could tell that I was making her uncomfortable, but she was cute when she squirmed, so I continued my line of questioning.
"That’s not good enough, Mrs. Childers, there must be something else. Something you’re not telling me. I’ve heard that if Chilly had something to do with this, I should be looking for a body."
"Don’t say that, please. Jake is not dead."
"How do you know that? You know how your husband works. Public execution is his style. So if he were involved, a simple kidnapping wouldn’t cut it. Now you tell me, what did Chilly want to see Jake about?"
"I don’t know!" she said louder than she needed to. I finished my drink and waved the bartender over to bring me another.
"And one for the lady?" the bartender asked.
"No, I’ve got to go," she said, standing up to gather her things.
"No, please don’t go. I didn’t mean to upset you, Mrs. Childers. I just need to know what you know. Please, have another drink with me. I promise I won’t push you."
She smiled at me.
It made my heart beat faster.
"Okay, but just one, then I really do have to go." Mrs. Childers reclaimed her seat and ordered. "Bring me another Hennessy Martini."
"With a twist," I said and smiled. And she smiled back. "So tell me about yourself. Your sister tells me y’all are from Philly. How’d you get to New York?"
"I wanted to get out of Philly." She let out a little giggle. "Had to really. Our parents were really tough on us. Never let us go anywhere, do anything. It was like being on lock down. One by one, they drove us all out of the house. When Jake graduated from high school, he just never came home that night. No one knew where he was or what happened to him, he was just gone. About six months later he came to my school to let me know that he was all right and that he was going to a small college in Pennsylvania. He told me where, and he made me promise that I wouldn’t tell our parents. Jake said they didn’t have a son anymore."
"Kinda cold."
"They deserved it. They’re dead to me now. Two years later, I left too. I hated to leave Chéz, but she was too young for me to try to take care of both of us. So I did what I had to, to get enough money to get up here."
"What did you have to do?"
"That doesn’t matter. I’m not proud of what happened. That was a long time ago. It’s in the past and that’s where it will stay."
"How’d you get hooked up with Chilly?"
"You really want to hear this, huh? — Okay. So I caught the first thing smokin’ and came here. When I got off the bus at Port Authority, Chilly was the first person I met. I was young, barely seventeen. I’d never been anywhere and he offered me the world. See my father was the type of guy who was always waitin’ on some big deal or another he was tryin’ to put together. But it never happened. He was always this close to movin’ us up out the projects and into a nice house in the suburbs. He hated livin’ in the projects. Said it wasn’t a safe place to rise the three of us. That’s why they were so hard on us. Especially me. He didn’t want me to get involved with the wrong kind of guys. Well look at me now daddy," she said and raised her glass. "Anyway, Chilly was different. If Chilly said he was gonna do something he got up and made it happen. I liked that. He was nice at first, then." Her eyes dropped into her drink. "That war started and changed everything. Power changed him. I was just his showpiece, his toy. Something to show off to his boyz. But that was all show. Then the beatings started."