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“I want you to do something for me.”

“What you need?”

“Hit the streets. If we gotta go to the mattresses, I need to know where people stand.”

“I’m on it, Black,” Freeze said, and left The Late Night.

One thing I gotta say about The Kid, he’s a loyal soldier. I tell him to do something and it gets done, no questions asked. I could use a bunch more like him, and if we were going to war with Bodie, I was going to need them.

I was on my way to the office, when I saw somebody standing at the bar that I definitely wanted to see, so I began making my way over there to her. On the way to the bar, I saw Hector Villanueva. He was a drug dealer that brought product from André when he couldn’t find it any place else.

“What’s up, Black?” Hector said.

“What’s up?”

“You seen André? I was supposed to meet him here.”

“Haven’t seen him,” I said, knowing full well Andre’ never planned to meet him here because he doesn’t like Hector, and I kept going to the bar.

When I got there, she smiled and waved when she saw me. “Hi, Mike.”

“Hello.”

“Surprised to see me?”

“Yes, I am,” I said as Sammy brought me a shot of Rémy Martin. “Surprised that you’re here and I’m happy about it.”

“I did say that I wanted to see you again, so here I am.”

“Here you are.” Other than her being fine as hell and I wanted to fuck her again, the fact that she wouldn't tell me her name was what interested me. “But what I want to know is, since you’re here, do you plan on telling me your name?”

She laughed.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I said, and stepped a little closer to her. “But I gotta call you something.”

“I tell you what, you can call me whatever you want,” she said, and took a step closer to me.

“Whatever I want, huh?”

She looked up into my eyes. “So what do you want to call me?”

“Suppose I wanted to call you mine? Would you tell me your name then?”

“Do you want me to be yours?”

“I did say suppose, didn’t I?” I said, and I noticed that Bobby had come in with Nick and Jamaica.

“See there.”

“What?” I laughed. “Answer the question.”

She took a second or two before she answered. “If I were yours, and you were mine, yeah, I guess I would have to tell you what my name is. But that’s not the case here is it?”

I laughed.

“I think that you’re more of a mine tonight and we’ll see about tomorrow kind of guy. Am I right?”

“All I can say is be mine now and we’ll talk about tomorrow in the morning.”