“Yo, I need you to watch my back. Put on a suit and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
That was all Orlando had said when he knocked on my bedroom door forty-five minutes ago. Now we were in his Audi R8, pulling into the parking lot at the Kings Plaza Mall, and he still hadn’t given me any more information. He’d never asked me to watch his back before, so I didn’t want to rock the boat by asking too many questions. I was just glad to be there, and I figured I would wait to see what happened next.
He maneuvered the car to a remote spot, away from any other cars, and reached for the glove compartment.
“Why are we stopping here? Please tell me you didn’t bring me here just to go shopping with you, O.”
“Patience,” he replied. How the hell was I supposed to be patient, I wondered, when Kennedy was dead, Pop was nearly dead, and poor Sasha was being held captive by some crazy Muslim freak who was out to get our entire family? Shit, I had run out of patience a long time ago, and I was starting to lose faith that my family would ever do the things we should have done already—the things we would have already done if it was the old days. With Pop in the hospital, it was like everything had fallen apart and no one knew how to handle a damn thing.
“You strapped?” he asked as he took out his gun and made sure it was loaded.
I nodded. Not that I always carried a piece, but Orlando had said I was going to be watching his back, so I’d strapped on a holster when I got dressed, just in case.
We got out of the car and headed into the mall, and that’s when I started to worry. It didn’t make sense that we were packing heat in a mall this size, especially one with wall-to-wall people. “Stay close.”
“You expecting trouble?” I was looking over my shoulder constantly, feeling totally paranoid now.
“Nope, but I’m ready if it comes my way,” he replied, not stressed at all. He stopped in the food court to order some meat on a stick. “You hungry?”
“Yeah, order me some chicken and rice.”
We took our food to the other side of the court and took a seat. Orlando dug into his meal, but I was too busy scanning the room, still trying to figure out what the hell we were really doing there. That’s when a white man wearing a yarmulke and sporting a gray beard and Shirley Temple curls sat down across from us. Dude had to be at least eighty. He had two beefy bodyguard types sitting at a table next to us.
Orlando looked up from his plate and said, “Bernie. I got your message, so I’m here. What’s so important?”
“Before we get to business, first let me give you my most sincere wish for your father’s speedy recovery. He is doing better, I hope?”
“The same, but thank you for asking. We brought him home a few days ago in hopes that he might do better in familiar surroundings.”
Bernie nodded. “Well, I will pray for him. He has been a good friend over the years. Which brings me to you. Are you going to be a good friend, Orlando?”
“I hope so. This apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. I’m very much like my father.” Orlando turned to me for confirmation.
“Uh-huh. He is,” was all I could say. I was too busy trying to understand what the hell was going on at this point. Like I said, I wasn’t used to being included in this part of the family’s dealings, so I had no idea who this white dude was or why he seemed to know all our business.