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"Hell no. I don’t know how y’all drink that shit anyway."
"Like this!" they both said almost at the same time and drained their glasses. "I got some Johnnie Black for you, Nick."
"Thanks."
Monika handed me a glass. "So what are we gonna do?" she asked.
"For the time being I need to stay as far away from this as possible."
"You a suspect, Nick?" Jett asked.
"And I quote, ‘I’m not ruling you out’."
"That’s not good, Nick," Monika said.
"Jett, start diggin’ into Felix. Find out everything you can about him, bank records, property he owns, the whole nine."
"I’ll crawl up his ass with a microscope."
"That’s disgusting gray boy," Monika said.
"We got to start covering our tracks. But first we need to be sure that Vogel is the one that Estabon was talking about."
"How we gonna do that?"
"Monika, I want you to talk to Chilly, see if you can’t get him to confirm that Rodrigez and Vogel are the same person."
"Why me? What makes you think Chilly will tell me anything? Why can’t Jett go?"
"We can’t send Jett."
"That’s right, Monika, he won’t tell this gray boy nothing." Jett laughed. "But you, on the other hand, with all them lips, and tits and hips you got. Shit, he might confess to murdering 2Pac and Biggie Smalls."
"So what are you trying to say?"
"Just that he’s more likely to talk to you, because you’re a woman. Just tell him that you’re my associate," I said, and they both looked at me.
"Excuse me," Monika said.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Chilly gave me five thousand dollars to tell him where Jake was after I told his wife."
Monika poured herself another shot of gin and shook her head. "This shit gets weirder and weirder as we go along."
"Tell me about it."
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
Wednesday July 22: 7:21AM
With nothing else to do, I went by Freeze’s apartment and beat on the door. For fifteen minutes. It was early, but I knew he was there. He opened the door and put a gun in my face.
"Why all the tension and animosity? Show me love, nigga."
"Fuck you, Nick. What you doin’ here? You know what fuckin’ time it is?" he walked away from the door and then flopped down on the couch.
"Which question do you want me to answer first? What am I doin’ here, or what time is it?"