Page 51 of Omar

"I went dark because I was busy running a business. Your brother put money into this car wash, I appreciate that, but that don't mean I'm on a leash. I got overhead, employees, equipment to maintain. The money's coming. It just ain't coming on your schedule."

I closed the office door behind me. The click of the latch was the only sound in the room. Dwayne's arms uncrossed slightly.

"You driving a BMW, Dwayne."

"That's a lease. Business expense."

"It's a fifty-thousand-dollar car you're driving while you owe my brother twelve hundred a month for three months running." I pulled out the chair across from his desk and sat down. "Devon pulled your financials. The car wash is clearing eight grand a month in revenue. Your overhead is about four. That leaves you four thousand in operating profit, more than enough to cover what you owe. So the question ain't whether you can pay. It's why you ain't been paying."

"I told you. Things are tight."

"Things ain't tight, Dwayne. You're lying to me."

His face tightened. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

The office door opened behind me. One of Dwayne's employees came in without knocking, a young guy in coveralls with soap suds on his arms, mid-twenties, built like he spent his mornings in the gym instead of the car wash bay. He looked at me, then at Dwayne.

"Everything good in here, boss?"

Dwayne glanced at the kid, then back at me. Something passed across his face. Calculation. He was wondering whether having his employee in the room gave him leverage.

"Everything's fine, J'Quell," Dwayne replied. "We're just having a business conversation."

"Don't look like a business conversation." The kid took a step into the office. His eyes were on me. "You need me to stay?"

I turned in my chair and looked at the kid. He was young enough to think his gym shoulders meant something in this room. Young enough to not know what happened to people who stepped into conversations between the Baptiste family and their business partners.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"J'Quell."

"J'Quell, you work the wash bays?"

"Yeah."

"Then go work the wash bays." I held his eyes. "Right now."

Something in my voice or my face or the way I was sitting reached J'Quell in a place his gym shoulders couldn't protect. He looked at Dwayne one more time. Dwayne gave him a small nod and the kid backed out of the office. The door closed.

I turned back to Dwayne. The defiance was cracking at the edges.

"Your employee just walked into a conversation between you and the Baptiste family. That tells me your people don't know who funds this operation. That tells me you been keeping our arrangement private, which is smart, but it also tells me you've been treating our money like it's yours." I leaned forward. "So let me ask you again. Where has the money been going?"

Dwayne held for another ten seconds. His arms were back across his chest but the posture was different now. Defensive instead of defiant.

"I got into something," he said finally. "A side deal. Somebody came to me with an opportunity and I put some of the profits into it. It didn't pan out."

"What kind of opportunity?"

"A real estate thing. A building in Flatbush. The guy said we'd flip it in six months and triple the investment."

"Who's the guy?"

Dwayne shook his head. "Just a broker. Nobody connected. He wasn't Baptiste, wasn't Supreme's people, wasn't anyone. Just some dude with a pitch."

"And you put our money into his pitch."