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"I’m sorry. How’d it happen?"
"You know Frankie always wanted to be down with Black, but you know Black wasn’t havin’ it. He tried to get all of us to stay in school. Make something of ourselves; you know what I’m sayin’? Black was the one who got me this job. But anyway, Frankie was on his way to bein’ a thug nigga. Used to hang outside y’alls old spot; what was it called?"
"The Late Night. I remember. We wouldn’t let him inside, so Frankie used to hang outside with the rest of the wanna-bees."
"Yeah, that was Frank. Well that night I saw him take a gun from between the mattresses. I asked him what the gun was for? He said that Jimmy Knowles and Charlie Rock sent some people to kill Black outside his house. But Black killed them. Later that day Black caught them at some restaurant on White Plains Road and Black killed both of them. Frankie said that was gonna start a war and Black would need him. He said that he was going to prove himself to Black. That he had to be ready when his chance came. That night Frankie stepped up.
"Black told me that he had just sent Freeze to get the car, and him and Bobby were waitin’ outside. He didn’t see the car coming, but Frankie did. He yelled, ‘GET DOWN, BLACK!’ Everybody dropped except Frankie. He pulled the gat and started bustin’. He got hit with three shot’s. By that time Freeze rolled up with the car and Black and Bobby went after them. They caught up with them on bumpy ass Barnes Ave. Black said they lost control of the car and ran into a parked car. After they got out the car and started runnin’; Black and Bobby went after them. Freeze drove up ahead and cut them off, and killed the driver when he tried to run. Black and Bobby followed the other one into a building. The guy ran up the steps to the roof, bustin’ shots all the way. So when he gets to the roof he’s out of bullets. He starts backin’ up beggin’ Black and Bobby not to kill him, until he gets edge. He tried to run again and almost falls off the roof, but Bobby grabs him."
Black said, "Who sent you?"
"Vincent sent me! Please don’t let me go!" The guy yells.
"Who?"
"Vincent, Vincent Martin! Don’t tell him I told you; he’ll kill me." Black said he was cryin’ and shit.
Black said, "He ain’t gonna kill you, ’cause he’s a dead man. Stop cryin’ like a bitch and die with some honor. Drop him, Bobby."
"When they got back to the club they told Black that the ambulance came and they did what they could but Frankie was dead."
"I’m sorry," I said again. I didn’t know if I was apologizing because his brother was dead or because I ran out on the war to fight someone else’s. It didn’t matter, it was probably both and I felt guilty for not being there.
"Don’t sweat it, Nick." Reggie said, as if he were absolving me of both crimes. "It was a long time ago."
"Thanks, Reggie." It did make it a little easier. Everyone had moved past those years. Everyone but me. "Reggie, you know the girl that got killed in this building?"
"Yeah, Pamela was cool people."
"Did you know her?"
"Enough to know she was cool. I’ve been delivering her mail for seven years. We’d talk sometimes, you know."
"You know her roommate?"
"I seen her. She only been staying there for a few months."
I looked around to make sure the cop was gone and pulled the picture out of my shirt. "That her?"
"That’s her. What’s your interest in this, Nick?"
"I’m a private investigator. Somehow Pamela’s death is tied up in a missing person’s case I’m workin’ on."
"Oh, yeah. I heard that you started doin’ that after you got out the army."
"If I could find out a little more about Pamela, it might lead me to my guy. You wouldn’t know if Felicia Hardy filed a change of address card?"
"Cops asked me that already. I told them no."
"I knew it was a shot in the dark."
"I said I told the cops that. And she didn’t fill one out. But what I didn’t tell them was that a couple of days after that, Felicia met me outside the post office."
"What did she want?"
"She said that she was leaving town and didn’t want to leave a forwarding address, but she was waiting on some important mail. She gave me a hundred dollars and an address if I’d send it to her and forget about it."
"Where’d she go?"