Chapter 4
Caesar went home after the situation with Gerald was handled. He wanted to let his father know personally that it had been taken care of. His driver dropped him off in front of the family town house in Manhattan, and he instantly noticed a car parked outside that he hadn’t seen before. Bounding up the steps that led to the front door, he burst inside the house, frightening the middle-aged housekeepers cleaning the foyer.
“Sorry. Where’s my dad?” he asked.
“In his study,” one of them answered.
“Thank you.”
He stepped around them and made his way up the staircase to the second level of the home. His father’s office was in the south wing of the house. There were no bedrooms in that wing of the house, just his office and a library, which was always quiet because nobody in their family read books. When company was over, they would almost always find themselves in the kitchen or at the bar.
Walking down the hallway, Caesar noticed that the office door was shut. He hesitated at first, wondering if maybe Cassius had female company. He didn’t want to interrupt, but when he got up to the door, he heard two male voices. Caesar cleared his throat before his knuckles rapped the thick wood.
“Who is it?” Cassius called.
“It’s me, Dad.”
“Come in!”
Caesar opened the door and saw his father sitting at his desk while a white man in a suit sat across from him. He wasn’t just any white man. He was the same detective who had arrested Caesar the night before. What was he doing in their home? Caesar found himself glaring at the man.
“Son, I think you know Detective Easley,” Cassius said, motioning toward the detective.
“I do, but I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasure,” Caesar told him.
He went to stand on his father’s side of the desk to face Easley. He crossed his arms and leaned on the wall behind him. Easley eyed him down, but Caesar didn’t look away or blink.
Easley smirked and turned back to Cassius. “Your son knows how to make an entrance, doesn’t he?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caesar asked.
“He means we were just talking about you.”
“Oh, yeah? What was said?”
“Just how it’s mighty ironic how every piece of evidence I had against you magically disappeared.” Easley directed his words at Caesar, but he stared at Cassius. “Must be some kind of pull you have there. I heard you were the one who came and got him out. No lawyer, just you. I’d say that’s quite intriguing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I simply went down and got out of jail my teenage son who was being falsely imprisoned.”
“Falsely?” Easley scoffed. “I busted him myself.”
“Doing what?”
“Selling drugs. I heard the whole deal go down.”
“So you confiscated them? The drugs I mean.”
“They weren’t on the scene,” Easley said through clenched teeth.
“Then he wasn’t selling drugs. Maybe they were just talking in slang. You know how these kids are nowadays. It’s a shame you don’t have the recordings. How sad is it that you people turn folks against their own for your personal agendas. Now you don’t have any evidence, and you turned my son’s friend against him.”
“Cut the bullshit. You and I both know Caesar and Gerald weren’t friends. Gerald worked for him. And I know you had something to do with the wire recordings going missing.”
“I think you need to take that up with someone at the precinct.”
“That’s the thing. I did. And they don’t seem to know anything either. Which means they either innocently got misplaced, which I know is a load of crap, or you have a mole in the office. Maybe even a few of them.”
Cassius’s face didn’t so much as twitch. Caesar could tell that the detective was trying to get a reaction out of his father, but he obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with. Cassius grabbed a bottle of brandy from the corner of his desk and poured himself a glass without offering Easley any.
“I would have to be some sort of criminal to even want to do something like that,” he said after taking a sip of the drink.
“What exactly are you, Cassius?”
“I’m a businessman. I’m sure you are privy to all the very legal business dealings I have in Manhattan, including the movie theater I just opened. Just because I have my hands in a lot of things doesn’t make me a criminal, Detective. Now did you have an actual reason for showing up here today, or did you just want to see the inside of my house?”
Detective Easley looked from Cassius to Caesar and then back to Cassius. A small chuckle escaped his lips, and he stood. After placing his fedora on his head, he tipped it to them.
“I guess I’ll just be going then. Oh, and Cassius, one more thing before I leave. You might want to teach your son whatever magic you know for keeping your nose clean. He’s your weak link. A man will do anything to keep his son safe, even show his hand.”
On that note, he turned his back on them. When he was out of the office, Cassius grabbed his desk phone and called the housekeeper’s phone downstairs.
“Our guest is coming down. Make sure he doesn’t make any detours on the way out,” he said into the receiver and hung up.
Caesar was biting the inside of his cheek, visually angry at Easley’s words. Cassius took one look at Caesar’s face and laughed. Caesar didn’t know what was so funny, and he didn’t join in. Cassius took another sip from his glass and motioned for Caesar to take the seat Easley had just vacated.
“Are you upset because of what that detective said?” he asked his son, setting the glass back on the desk.
“He called me your weak link,” Caesar grumbled, dropping down into the seat.
“He’s a Fed. That’s what he’s supposed to say. Anything to get under my skin. But you . . . Why are you so upset at the truth?”
“You think I’m your weak link?” Caesar was slightly shocked at his father’s revelation.
“Not think, know. As he said, you’re my son. I’ll do anything for you. Even die for you. I said that I’m not ready to lose my empire, but even still, if your life were on the line, I would give it all up. I told you that kind of compassion is reserved only for those who truly matter. And you are the one thing that truly matters to me. But because I know all of this, nobody can use it against me.”
“Why not?”
“Because their biggest mistake will always be underestimating you. And that will always put me at an advantage. Anyway, did you handle that today?”
Caesar was still replaying Cassius’s words in his head, trying to comprehend them correctly. He almost didn’t hear the sentence. He nodded his head in response. “Yeah. That’s what I was coming to tell you.”
“And his body?”
“Burned like a witch at the stake. By now he’s not anything but a pile of ashes. His car was smashed in the junkyard.”
“Good. One less problem to worry about.”
“Yeah, but I think the detective might be a new problem.”
“I think so too. But we can worry about that a different time. Right now we have other things to discuss.”
“What happened?” Caesar asked, recognizing the serious tone in his voice.
“One of our crews was found dead this morning in Queens. Word is they got into a spat with the Mexicans about territory. I’m taking this very personally.”
“Have you ever thought about just talking with whoever runs things over that way?”
“Caesar, listen to yourself. Did you not hear me when I just told you they killed my men? Your cousin Bobby was one of them. There is no way I’m letting that kind of behavior slide.”
“Then it’s going to be a never-ending cycle of bloodshed. I’ve never understood why the boroughs are so separated instead of working together.”
“It wouldn’t work. It would be too much of a power struggle. The Italians hate us, the Chinese look down on us, the Dominicans think that Harlem is its own separate borough, and the Mexicans keep killing us. Working together with them when so many wars have happened and so much blood has already been spilled would be disastrous.”
Caesar sighed. His father could be so wise at times, yet so stubborn at others. But he was right. Caesar couldn’t think of a clear course of action where everyone could coexist peacefully.
“But we will get to retaliating against them at a later time. That must be a calculated move, something to send a message. But until then, I need you to start getting ready for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?” Caesar asked.
“Tonight you meet my business partner, Nasir Lucas.”
The most foolish thing to have is expectations.