Authors: Clever Black
“Mister Maruyama, I think you’re getting ahead yourself,”
Hayate, a fifty year-old short and stout grey-haired man said as he
went and stood before JunJie's desk.
“I am? Well, let’s slow down to you guys’ pace.
What is it you have to say?” JunJie said as he casually took a
seat and extended his hand, allowing Hayate to sit as he rested his
arms on the desk top.
Hayate walked around the chair slowly and eased down into the seat.
He sat upright and said, “We’ve come to tell you
personally, before we leave for our flight back to Japan, that we’ve
decided to go with an investor back home in Tokyo.”
Tokyo?” JunJie questioned as he slowly rose from his seated
position. His demeanor had changed from that of jubilation to
seething anger in mere seconds. “How many more of us are you
going to let gain a foothold over here? It’s enough going
around for us all to make money! The ones that are here already,
dammit!” JunJie wasn’t speaking of other Asians or
anybody else for that matter; to the contrary, he was speaking on the
drug business. The Onishi brothers were just as much into drug
smuggling as was JunJie, the only difference was that the Onishi
brothers pushed heroin whereas JunJie pushed cocaine.
Isao, the younger of the Onishi brothers at age forty-seven, sat in
another chair before JunJie. “The deal from back home is too
good to resist, Mister Maruyama,” he remarked calmly. “We’ve
looked at the numbers coming from your guy in Venezuela. They’re
excellent. But we don’t think we can sustain moving thirty
kilograms of cocaine a month. We have no legitimate market for
cocaine outside of Seattle, which is your market, but we have a huge
market with opium. Our network stretches from here to Philadelphia,
but it is only an
opium
market for us.”
“But we’ve already had blue prints drawn up for the new
warehouse down at the port,” Phillip said in frustration as he
went and stood beside his father. “We were all set to go
because you two had us under the impression that the deal was as sure
as done. Everything that transpired from our meeting two months ago
was supposed to be mere formality because you two said you needed
time to set up the buyers.”
“My godfather and Phil is right,” Grover followed as he
went and stood on the other side of JunJie and slid his hands into
his silk suit jacket. “We’ve offered you in on our
network at eighteen thousand per kilogram and are giving you
unlimited access to our warehouses and trucking. That was the deal
and you agreed to it in exchange for allowing us to use those ships
you own. We had a deal in place. Honor it. Because now isn’t
the time to catch cold feet.”
“We can reimburse you the fifty thousand dollars for the blue
prints, JunJie,” Hayate bargained. “But as far as
shipping we can’t help you there.” he then stressed.
“We think it is best we all stay in our respective places so as
not to step on one another’s toes.” Isao added as Grover
and Phil looked over towards JunJie.
Hayate and Isao had grown hot under collar the moment they’d
stop speaking because the look on the faces of JunJie, Phillip and
Grover was neither pleasant nor inviting. Rage lay just beneath
surface and the Onishi brothers knew it; the best thing for them to
do, they both surmised, was to get up and excuse themselves. Before
the men rose completely, however, Phillip walked from behind the desk
and pinned Hayate’s face to the top of it; Grover quickly
grabbed Isao and forced him to sit once more.
“Stay a while longer,” Grover said in a forceful tone.
JunJie, as his son held Hayate's face to the desk top, got up close
to the struggling man and said in a low angry tone, “You double
cross me for some people back home who have no interest in coming
here to do business with us? You think that will stop me from getting
what I want from you two? I need those boats you own.”
“JunJie,” Hayate called out. “This is not how
business is done!”
“In this world these things are sometimes necessary,”
JunJie said calmly as he went and sat back behind his desk. “You
can renege on the cocaine deal if you like, but you
will
give
me access to those ships, and you
will
give me complete control of those docks or you will have no business
to tend to.”
“When hell freezes over you son-of-a-bitch! You kill us you
lose everything, JunJie!” Hayate said as he struggled to free
himself.
“Wrong,” JunJie remarked as he leaned back and crossed
his legs. “If I were kill you two I would have everything to
gain, but let’s not take things to such an extreme.” he
said as he nodded towards Grover and Phil, who released their grip on
Hayate and Isao and calmly stepped back.
“We come here in peace and this is how you treat us? We are all
men of
honor
! But this is
not
honor
! This is
savagery!” Hayate said as he straightened his suit.
“You’re right. My apologies.” JunJie said as he
stood up to shake the brothers' hands. “We are men of honor.
Although I wish you two would not be so hypocritical and honor the
deal we’ve already made, Hayate,” JunJie chuckled.
“Nothing is guaranteed until contracts are signed.”
“We do not sign contracts. We shake on matters. And you two
shook my hand with smiles across your faces. You can save face,
though, because I have what is called a counter-offer.”
“A counter-offer? What do you propose, JunJie” Hayate
asked.
“I wasn’t expecting word from you two for another five
months. Let's take a breather, gentlemen. If we can't make a deal in
a few months we will part ways.”
“We have made up our minds, Mister Maruyama,” Isao
replied.
“Just think about it. I'll give you four months to think about
it,” JunJie suggested as he eyed the brothers seriously. “Just
think about it,” he reiterated as he extended his hands towards
the doors. “Grover will see you two men out.”
“What’s your plan, dad?” Phillip asked as he closed
the door behind Grover.
“I’ll give this some time to let this incident blow over
with those two. They won’t go to the police because I have just
as much on them as they have on me. All of their muscle is in Tokyo
anyways. They’re powerless here in America except for the
heroin gangs they distribute to back east who could care less about
them.”
“How will you handle the situation? It’s obvious things
aren’t going to turn in our favor in four months because
they've made up their minds already, dad.”
“I’ll talk to them again and try and stall them, son. If
they’re not in agreement by March of next year we will just
have to use another tactic,” JunJie said as he eased up from
his chair. “Come now, we’ve been rude to Asa Spade and we
should rejoin the party. We’ll deal with the Onishi brothers
soon enough.”
*******
Carmella had just landed in Denver, Colorado fresh off a commercial
flight from Houston, Texas. She’d been at her mansion down in
Texas for a couple of weeks to oversee another shipment of cocaine
and was now returning to Denver for the first time since she’d
left the hospital there in the city. She had Pepper with her the
whole time and she was actually growing quite fond of the ten
year-old.
It was snowing in Colorado and that was the reason Carmella’s
flight was four hours late. She and Pepper, who was dressed neatly in
a pink silk skirt and a white cashmere trench coat and pink
knee-length leather boots, walked through the crowded concourse,
Carmella searching for one person in particular.
“Over here, Carmella,” a voice called out near the
baggage claim.
Carmella turned around and eyed one of the most important people in
her life—twenty-six year-old Desiree Abbadando.
Desiree was a five foot seven voluptuous woman with cropped black
hair and slender, sexy lips. She had one of the widest, most gorgeous
smiles ever. Curves in all the right places and big, dark, round eyes
is what had drawn Carmella to Desiree, who ran the night club
Carmella owned there in Denver. She soon put Desiree on to help her
move weight. Desiree was Carmella’s personal informant, amongst
several other things. She knew all the happenings in and around
Denver and always kept Carmella abreast of what was going on in the
streets of this western city.
A warm embrace brought the two together for the first time in nearly
two years. The last time Desiree had seen Carmella, she was so doped
up on morphine she didn’t recognize her face, but she was still
beautiful back then, but not as pleasing on the eye as she was on
this Thanksgiving evening in her pink fur coat, matching hat and pink
square-framed clear glasses.
“Carmella, I’ve missed you so much, baby.” Desiree
said as he stared her friend up and down in appreciation.
“I can’t tell, Desiree. You haven’t been to see me
the whole time I lay here in the hospital.” Carmella responded
before turning towards the luggage carousel.
“I did go to see you,” Desiree responded softly as she
ran her hands across the sleeve of Carmella's mink coat. “You
don’t remember? I came often, but I didn’t like seeing
you like that. DeAngelo gave you my cards?”
“He did,” Carmella replied as she grabbed her and
Pepper's luggage. “You being there at the end would have meant
a lot to me. And a card is not you.”
“But those are my thoughts,” Desiree said as she grabbed
Carmella's suitcase. “I’ll make it up to you, okay? You
and your?”
“This here is my niece Peppi Vargas. We call her Pepper. Pepper
say hello.”
“Hola.”
“Hola back! She’s adorable, Carmella. In her little
business attire,” Desiree said as she smiled down at Pepper.
“Damenga and Alphonso didn’t have kids! Whose child have
you stolen?” she whispered into Carmella's ear.
“Bitch, just go with it,” Carmella said as she and
Desiree laughed to themselves.
“Whatever. I got a surprise for you.” Desiree remarked as
the group made their way to the main entrance.
“Did you look after my brothers’ home?”
“Paid the taxes and kept the lawn cut and the inside dusted.
It’s all set to go.”
“Good. I may be here for a while. I really like this town,”
Carmella said as she and Pepper followed Desiree towards the out the
main entrance doors where the trio hopped into an awaiting stretched
Hummer limousine and headed over to Cherry Creek, a wealthy suburb on
the southeast side of Denver.
Pepper was taking it all in. Ever since she’d left Valle
Hermoso with Toodie and Phoebe, she’d been laying eyes on the
finest of everything, save for the few trap houses she’d
visited and the rundown apartment the Perez sisters often hung out in
over to what she’d learned was a neighborhood called Fox Park.
The three females exited the limousine and Carmella grabbed Pepper’s
hand and walked with her through the blowing snow up a long winding
flight of stairs to the front door of a home that to Pepper, looked
like one of the huge churches back in Mexico. “This is where
we’ll live for a while, okay, Pepper?”
“This is really nice.”
“Thank you, love. Come on in and make yourself at home.”
Carmella said as she held the door open for Pepper.
Once inside Pepper was amazed. It was as if she were standing on a
stage atop snow white stone. There were four large white posts inside
the home up ahead and and the ceiling sat high up. The home smelled
brand new, and all the furniture around was covered in white sheets.
Pepper walked down the stairs and entered the living room and stared
at the large fish tank in the center of the room that was filled with
numerous colorful fish. She then walked over to the furniture in the
room and stared at the sheets, wondering what sort of pretty
furniture lay underneath.
“Take them all off,” Carmella said as she locked the
door. “We have to get this place up and running completely.”
Desiree, meanwhile, had disappeared into the 6,700 square foot one
story, six bedroom ranch-style brick home. She went into the kitchen,
hoping the aroma wasn't going to give her surprise away. She put on
an apron and pulled a warm turkey from the oven and sat it on the
table inside the dining room, one of two places that had been
specially prepared for Carmella’s arrival besides the master
bedroom. She’d just sat the baked bird on the table when Pepper
and Carmella walked into the room.
“Surprise,” Desiree said, smiling and extended her hands.
“I fixed us dinner. Well, I started. I still have to make some
corn bread dressing and warm up some string beans and bake the cake,
but we can have wine and catch up while I do it.”
“This is awesome, Desi,” Carmella replied lowly. “This
will be the first Thanksgiving I’ve had since ninety-eight. I
wish my Ma-Ma could’ve come.”
“Did you call her?”
“I did. She’s fine. She's visiting Milan, Italy. Says she
needs a new wardrobe.”
“Your mother is a diva,” Desiree laughed. “Check
her out.”
“She knows how to enjoy life,” Carmella said as she tied
on an apron.
The whole day was spent inside the plush mansion eating, drinking,
watching football and talking. After a few blunts and several shots
of tequila, Carmella went to her music collection and pulled out Los
Angeles Negros’s CD and put on the song
Tu y Tu Mirar
.
Pepper, who’d been loving every minute of her stay with the two
women, got up and began to dance to the bluesy-guitar Spanish tune
ballerina-style. She also knew the lyrics to the song and sung them
in Spanish as she danced.
Carmella and Desiree were floored. “She’s great!”
Desiree yelled over the music. “Go Pep! Go Pep! Go Pep!”
she and Carmella sang as they sat side by side and watched the show
unfold.
The day ended with all three females listening to numerous Spanish
tunes and dancing, Carmella and Desiree getting fuller by the hour.
After another round of turkey and a bath, Pepper was taken to one of
the bedrooms and tucked in by Carmella. She turned the TV on and
turned the lamp light off and was about to walk out the room when
Pepper asked, “Can I be like you when I grow up. Carmella?”