Harris broke the silence. “That kid Trevor, the one Paris brought to the meeting, took two to the chest.”
No wonder they were all so upset with me. This was a beehive falling on our heads if I’d ever seen one. I shifted my eyes to Paris with one question in my mind: Did she do it? We all knew she carried a gun. No, no, I decided quickly, she obviously didn’t do it. Harris was good, but it would have taken him a lot longer to get her out of there if she had a murder charge.
“Sorry, sis,” I said. “He seemed like a nice guy.”
“Like you fucking care.” She flipped me the bird.
“Paris, not the time,” my brother Rio shouted, and she fell back in line.
“Don’t worry about it, O. I’ve got this under control. You’ve got much bigger fish to fry,” Harris said.
“Huh? What bigger fish to fry?” I turned to my father. “Pop, what’s going on?”
“I got a call from Lee last night. His people have pulled our distribution arrangement....” My father’s words faded, as if he was trying to keep his voice from cracking. He couldn’t mask the hurt and anger in his eyes, though. I hadn’t seen that look since he caught Rio in bed with another guy. My father had worked so hard to get us to this point. For it all to be taken away with just a phone call didn’t seem right.
“They can’t do that, can they? We spend millions with them every year,” I said.
“Seems to me that they already have,” Harris replied, and the old man nodded his agreement.
“But why? Thing are going so well. We haven’t reneged on any payments or caused them any trouble.”
“I don’t know why, Orlando, but I suspect we’re being blackballed.”
“So what are we going to do? We’ve got less than two months’ inventory.”
LC stood up again. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to find a new distributor, which is why I’m sending you to Detroit to see if you can negotiate a deal with the folks up in Dearborn and Flint. If we’re lucky, maybe Richard Coleman and the cooperative won’t hold it against us that we’ve ignored them over the past fifteen years.”
I was surprised the old man didn’t want to go himself, but maybe he hadn’t lost faith in me after all. I decided to throw Harris a bone, since he was going to be my right-hand man—whether I wanted him or not. “Why don’t I take Harris with me? I’m going to need someone to watch my back, and he’s good at picking up intel.”
The old man glanced over at Harris, then shook his head as he turned to Rio. “No, take Rio with you. He keeps talking about how valuable he is to us, so let’s see what he can do.”
I don’t think anyone in the room was more surprised than Rio—except maybe Harris, who looked like he’d just lost his best friend.
My father asked, “So, Rio, think you can handle this?”
“Uh, yeah, I can handle it,” Rio replied, rather shaky.
“LC, this is kind of important. Don’t you think this deserves a more experienced hand?” Harris asked. He sounded a little desperate, and I was sure it was obvious to everyone in the room that he felt slighted. “I’d be glad to—”
The old man turned to Harris, cutting him off mid-sentence. “No, I think he can handle it. Besides, after Trevor’s funeral, I’m gonna need you and Junior to go talk to some of our Korean friends. They’ve wanted to do business with us in the past. I’m not too keen on their product, but right now beggars can’t be choosers. You okay with that?”
“I’m fine with it, LC. Perfectly fine.” Harris glanced over at me with that stupid smirk of his. It looked like he was making a competition out of this. Stupid thing was that if he was able to make a deal with the Koreans and I came back from Detroit with my dick in my hand, I was going to look mighty stupid.
“What about me, Daddy?” Paris squealed with excitement. “Where you gonna send me?”