BUSTED
A Bruce West Novel
By
Ron Sharrow
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Ron Sharrow. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express permission of the copyright owner. For further information, you may write or e-mail:
Ronald M. Sharrow
111 Desert Holly Dr.
Palm Desert, CA 92211
E-mail: ronsharrow@aol.com
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. To the author’s regret, the descriptions of sexual activity are all pure flights of fantasy.
Published by Ron Sharrrow at Smashwords
~•~•~
OTHER BOOKS BY RON SHARROW
The Sword of Justice ~ A Lawyer’s Revenge
Conspiracy
Mistaken Identity
~•~•~
For Skylar
~•~•~
PROLOGUE
A true painter, smart and busy, always carries a sharp pencil with him.
Maler Klecksel, 1884
~•~•~
1
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 11th
It was an unusually warm day in April. Rodney Diggs was decked out in his hip-hop, gangsta gear … baggy pants with the crotch down between his knees and worn so low that the crack of his ass would have been exposed if he weren’t wearing a XXXL t-shirt that hung down almost to his knees. The outfit was topped off by a baseball cap a size or two too large turned sideways and covering his ears. He was signifyin’ on the corner with a gang of his homeboys all similarly dressed when they spotted a beat-up green Plymouth Valiant turning the corner. The fenders of the car were rusted out. The grill and the hood were smashed in and the vinyl roof was bubbled, ripped and flapping in the wind. Three of the four hubcaps were missing and one of the tires was a white-wall. There was a piece of red plastic taped over the broken tail-light on the passenger’s side of the car. Both the front and back doors on the right side of the car were seriously dented.
“Cops!” yelled one of the gang.
Rodney and the rest of his homies took off running in all directions. Two plainclothes detectives bailed out of the car and took off after them. Detective-Sergeant Glenn Farclass caught Rodney as he attempted to scale a Cyclone fence at the end of the dead-end alley into which he had run. The police officer reached up, grabbed him by the ankle, pulled him off the fence and slammed him to the ground. His decision to run was a mistake … his decision to run into a dead-end alley from which there was no chance of escape was just plain stupidity.
The reality was that if he hadn’t run at all, nothing would have happened to him because the police would have had no probable cause to apprehend or search him, but when the cops saw the gang disperse and take off, they knew those gangbangers were up to no good. Running from the police may not be that bad an idea and not necessarily against the law, unless you’re Black and hanging around suspiciously on a corner in the ghetto with a group of gangbangers dressed like Rodney. The time, place and circumstances raise the suspicion that you have committed a crime, were in the process of committing a crime or were planning to commit one. Recognizing the piece-of-shit vehicle as a plain-wrap cop car and taking off like Leroy on a crotch-rocket eliminated any uncertainty in Farclass’s mind that these bad-boys were up to no good and gave him instant probable cause for an on the spot search. After all, he reasoned, why would you run if you have noting to hide and are not involved in some illegal activity?
When Rodney realized he was about to be apprehended, he compounded his stupidity by attempting to toss a dime bag of crack cocaine behind a trashcan so that he wouldn’t get caught with it in his possession.
“You just bought yourself a rap for possession,” Farclass screamed at him.
“Possession a what?” Rodney demanded belligerently.
“Possession of this!” Farclass responded as he waived a glassine bag containing amber crystals of what appeared to be crack cocaine. “This little eight-ball you just tossed behind the trashcan … that’s what!”
“Dunno nuffin ‘bout dat,” denied Rodney.
“Right … whadya think … I’m stupid like you, asshole? I saw you toss it.”
“Whad y’all hasslin’me fo’, man? Ain’ you got nuffin’ better ta do? Why ‘n ya go ‘n catch you some murderers or somethin’?”
“If you weren’t doing anything wrong, why’d ya run when you saw me come around the corner?”
“‘Cause I din’ feel like been hassled by no cops is why.”
“How’d you know we were cops?”
“How’d I know? Sheeyt! Wouldn’ nobody but cops drive ‘roun in a piece a shit like y’alls be drivin’,” Rodney snorted derisively.
“Okay wise-guy, you’re under arrest … hands behind your back,” commanded Farclass. He handcuffed Rodney, patted him down and led him back down the alley to the waiting Plymouth Valiant which had been confiscated in a drug bust and was now officially an unmarked police car. He called for a paddy wagon to haul Rodney to the Eastern District Police station to be booked for possession of the drugs and just for the hell of it, resisting arrest.
Detective Farclass met the wagon at the station and placed Rodney in a holding cell until he could be processed and booked. As he was escorting Rodney into the cell, he said, “You want to talk to me … tell me anything?”
“Like what?” asked Rodney defiantly.
“Like where you’re getting the drugs,” Farclass replied.
“I don’ gotta to talk to you … I gots ma’ rights, man.”
“You’re right … you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law … you’re entitled to an attorney…,” he read him his Miranda rights and then asked, “So now we got all of your rights out of the way, you want to tell me where you got the drugs?”
“Wha’ drugs?” Rodney persisted.
“The drugs I saw you toss behind the garbage can in the alley … those drugs!” barked Sergeant Farclass.
“Dunno whatchu talkin’ ‘bout.”
“Okay, have it your way. If you decide you don’t want to spend the next five years in jail, let the desk sergeant know before they book you. He’ll be able to reach me and maybe if you want to cooperate we can let you go,” Farclass said as he turned to leave.
“Hold on … whatchu mean lemme go?”
“Tell me where you get the drugs … who’s selling them … make a buy for me. I’ll let you go without charging you with possession.”
“How come you bein’ so nice ta me?” Rodney asked sarcastically.
“Because I think you’re a real nice fella … I have these warm, fuzzy feelings about you and I just feel like doing you a favor. Now, you want to help me out or not?”
“Whad I gotta do?”
“Tell me the name of the guy who sells you the drugs. Show me where he hangs out.”
“Whatchu mean make a buy?”
“I’ll give you the money. You go in and buy the drugs and bring them back to me … you walk away … that’s it.”
“I only be knowin’ the guy as Red Nose.”
“Red Nose…why Red Nose?”
“Dunno … dat jus’ be what ever’body calls ‘um.”
“Where does he do his deals?”
“Over near Preston Street…ain’ zackly sure de numma a da house.”
“Can you take me there?”
“Uh-huh,” Rodney muttered without enthusiasm.
“So when you want to buy some drugs, do you have to call him first or just go to his house … how’s it work?”
“I got dis numma I calls. Den he tell me when ta come.”
“Okay, you gonna help me out with this?”
“Yeah,” he replied with resignation.
“Do you usually call him from a payphone … or your house?”
“Ma cell,” Rodney replied.
“Don’t go anywhere … I’ll be right back,” Farclass told him.
“Oh, like where I spoza go? Case you din’ notice, my ass be locked up in dis fuckin’ cage.”
Farclass went out to the sergeant’s desk. “Hey Serge, you got Diggs’ shit here someplace?”
“Yeah,” he said lifting up the large manila envelope that held the contents of Diggs’ pockets.
“I need his cell phone … he’s gonna cooperate. I might let ‘em go.”
The sergeant handed the envelope to Farclass. He went back to the holding cell, handed the envelope to Rodney and said, “Let’s make the call.”
Rodney tore the envelope open, fished out his belongings and turned on his cell phone.
With great reluctance, he speed dialed a number. After three rings, the call was answered, “Lo.”
“Dis be Nose?” Rodney asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Y’all holdin’?”
“Whatchu wan, man?” asked Red Nose.
“8 ball,” Rodney answered.
“Half-hour,” Red Nose instructed.
“Cool!” Rodney replied and hung up. “I spoza be dere in a half-hour,” he reported to Farclass while he fished the rest of his stuff out of the manila envelope. “Where ma 256 at?” Rodney asked. One street code for cocaine is the numbers 2-5-6. On a telephone keypad the numbers 2, 5 and 6 correspond to the letters B-L-O.
“What 256 … you mean the blo you said wasn’t yours?”
“Yeah, the shit you say was mine. If you lettin’ me go, den you don’ need it no mo’”
“You said it wasn’t yours … now you telling me it was?”
“Hmmm,” was the best argument Rodney could come up with.
~ ~ ~
Farclass released Rodney from the cell and walked him out of the police station to his Plymouth Valiant. The door locks on the vehicle had been rigged so that the rear doors could only be opened from the outside after releasing the locks with a button on the driver’s door. Farclass locked Rodney into the back seat. He and his partner, Chris Eagle, a full-blooded Piscataway Indian, followed Rodney’s directions to the place where he bought his drugs. Rodney directed them east on Preston Street and then told them to make a right onto North Caroline Street.
The streets of the East Baltimore neighborhood they were cruising are lined with narrow, two and three-story row houses that have somehow, against all odds, survived the eighty or more years of abuse they have suffered since they were built. The houses in the 1300 block of North Caroline Street are only about twelve or thirteen feet wide and perhaps thirty-five feet deep. Because the street is graded on a hill that rises to an elevation of nearly eight feet to the north, one must climb several steps to a stoop to gain entry through the front doors of most of the houses.
“We’re just going to drive by at a normal speed … you point out the house as we go by,” Farclass explained to Rodney.
“Right dere … second house on a lef’,” he said as they passed number 1302.
They circled around the block and found a parking spot near the corner on East Preston Street where they could observe the front door of 1302 North Caroline Street.
“After you make the buy, you come back toward the car. Just walk past the passenger side, flip the bag into the open window and keep right on walking. Don’t stop … just keep walking,” Eagle explained to Rodney.
Farclass reached over the seat and handed Rodney ten dollars. Eagle opened the rear door and let Rodney out of the car. They watched as he rounded the corner and climbed the five white-marble steps up to the front stoop of the row house. Within seconds after Rodney rang the bell, the door was opened and he was ushered into the house by a black male whose attire was obviously designed by Rodney’s fashion consultant. He appeared to be about twenty years old. In less than three minutes, Rodney left the house, came down the steps from the stoop and sauntered back to the waiting car. As instructed, he walked past the car and without changing his pace, flipped the packet of drugs through the open passenger’s-side window to Chris Eagle and kept right on walking.
Farclass and Eagle remained parked three parking meters from the corner of North Caroline and East Preston Streets in their beat-up Plymouth Valiant between a red pickup truck and a white, U-Haul, two-ton box truck. They stayed for nearly two hours watching the comings and goings at 1302 North Caroline Street. During that period of time, nine different black males between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five had gone into the house. None stayed more than a couple of minutes. The undercover narcs recognized six of the nine young men as users they had previously busted for possession of a variety of dangerous controlled substances.
Armed with the incontrovertible evidence that drugs were being sold at 1302 North Caroline Street, Detectives Farclass and Eagle went to the Eastern District Municipal Court, presented a sworn affidavit to the Court Commissioner and obtained a search warrant for the house. They planned a raid for the next day.
~•~•~
2
THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 12th
She awakened suddenly, alarmed at finding herself in an unfamiliar place. “Where am I?” she groaned groggily.
“Who are you?” I asked,
“I’m Brenda…Brenda Layne,” she replied. “Who are you?”
“Bruce West,” I answered. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
I moved my eyes around the room and responded with a degree of uncertainty, “Looks a lot like my bedroom.”
“How did I get here?”
“If you didn’t drive, I hope somebody delivered you, ‘cause I sure as hell wasn’t in any condition to drive.”
“Jesus Christ! ... I’m naked. Where are my clothes?”
“Can’t be too far…probably on the floor in a heap near mine somewhere around here.”
“Did we fuck?” she asked.
“I’m not sure…we obviously intended to…we’re both lying here naked. What the hell … let’s do it just in case we didn’t get to it last night,” I suggested.
She rolled over toward me and reached between my legs. This should give you some idea of my extraordinary powers of persuasion. It helps to explain why I am so successful trying my clients’ cases … my extraordinary powers of persuasion. I’m a lawyer. Just about everybody hates lawyers. My own mother tells people she meets that her son is a doctor and I am an only child. She claims it’s embarrassing to tell people I’m a lawyer…she wants people to like me.
Being a lawyer is not all bad. One of the good things is that just about every day of my professional life is different from every other day. I wake up in the morning and all of the things that occur after I brush my teeth and go to the office will be a surprise.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a hell of lot of difference between my professional and my private lives. One of the few differences is that in my private life the surprises often occur before I’ve even had a chance to brush my teeth. Brenda was a perfect example. I wake up and find some strange woman in my bed…no recollection of the night before. I didn’t know who she was or how she got there.
As it turned out, Brenda wasn’t bad looking at all. She was a natural blonde with a great pair of tits and a nice ass. I had done a whole lot worse in the past … more than once! Actually, she was worthy of future consideration.
We tried to piece together the events of the night before. We agreed that we had met at the Bear’s Den and remembered drinking Stoli Crystal gimlets on the rocks in snifters with twists of lime. Neither of us could remember how many and the scariest thing is that we still hadn’t figured out how we got back to my apartment. We couldn’t sort that out until we went down to the underground garage in my apartment building to see whose car was parked there. Since I hang out at the Bear’s Den only on Wednesday nights, we concluded it had to be Thursday and both of us had to get out of bed and go to work.
Let me try to put all of this into some kind of perspective. You already know I’m a lawyer. I have been single now for about seven years, the institution of marriage having failed to measure-up to my expectations. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic, but they evolved from my observation of the extraordinary relationship between my parents. They are completely devoted to each other and created a happy and peaceful home. Home should be a haven where one can escape from the daily pressures of life. I was totally unprepared for the realities of matrimony. My ex and I had created a home that was a place from which one sought to escape. So, for me, marriage was a Promethean nightmare.
1I haven’t given up on the idea of marriage, but I also haven’t made any effort to develop a serious relationship. Perhaps I have unconsciously avoided women of any real quality, or at the very least, I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places. I guess one day I’ll meet a younger version of my mother with whom I can share my life. I know she’s out there somewhere, but there was a better-than-even chance that Brenda wasn’t her.
~ ~ ~
The wrong places where I search for love include a number of local watering holes where the women are only a secondary benefit of the business I pick up from among the habitués of these fine establishments. The Bear’s Den is one of those places.
1One enters this iniquitous sink hole by descending four or five steps from the sidewalk to a door several feet below the level of the street. Once inside, it is necessary to descend yet more steps from the landing inside of the door to the basement floor.
1On week-nights there is usually a mélange of humanity stirring on the floor below to the beat of music blasting from a jukebox in the corner. People are four deep at the bar and the place is literally bulging at the seams. Interestingly, not one person in the joint lives anywhere near the Den. Therein lays its attraction … it’s safe! It would be highly unlikely to accidentally bump into an acquaintance from one’s real life.
The Bear's Den patrons are mostly married, but not to each other and live in Pikesville, an exclusive, upscale, upper-middle class, white-collar, professional enclave on the other side of town. I hang out at the Den on Wednesday nights and am known by most of the denizens who seek me out to extricate them from the quagmire of their various legal problems.
So you see, that’s how Brenda and I reached the inescapable conclusion that if we met at the Den, it had to be Thursday morning when we discovered each other in my bed.
1There are other places where I also hang out for the same essential purposes. On Monday nights there’s Louie’s, a trendy tavern in historic Fells Point, one of Baltimore’s neighborhoods that pre-dates the American Revolution. It is home to the oldest surviving residence in Baltimore built in 1765. The early Fells Point shipyard built the first frigate of the Continental Navy in 1775 and the U.S.S. Constellation in 1797. That ship sits proudly today as a museum in the Inner Harbor of downtown Baltimore.
I can usually be found on the Thirteenth Floor of The Belvedere Hotel in the Mount Vernon neighborhood on Tuesday nights. On Thursday nights, everybody who is anybody hangs out at the Pimlico Hotel Lounge in Pikesville of all places. It’s odd that nobody from the other side of town hangs out there. It makes one wonder where the cheaters from those neighborhoods go to avoid being seen by the people they know. Each place has its own brand of characters with their own brand of troubles. And I’m always right there in the thick of things to come to their rescue or take home one of the ancillary benefits.
~ ~ ~
1Because of the places I haunt and the kinds of people I meet in them, my practice is rather generalized and I specialize in whatever kind of case happens to come into the office next. So I handle more than my share of divorces and custody battles which are my least favorite type cases. In those cases, good results are measured by the degree of unhappiness the parties are with the outcome. My clients never think the result was as good as they thought it should be and the opposing parties always think they got screwed. That is the measure of a good result. A happy party in a domestic case means someone did a lousy job.
I also generate a lot of personal injury cases…auto accidents, worker’s compensation, malpractice and products liability cases. These, for the most part, require the least amount of lawyer time and produce the highest per hour-rate of fees. The personal injury cases are the ones that pay the bills and buy the toys.
But my favorites are the criminal cases. First of all, in theory at least, I’ve been paid up-front, so my income is not dependent on the outcome of the case as in personal injury cases where the fees are a percentage of the recovery and contingent upon the outcome.
1More important though, and the real reason these are my favorite cases, is that criminal trials stimulate my creativity and mental acuity. They afford an opportunity to climb into the heads of witnesses, dance with their minds and keep them off balance and to challenge and alter their recollection of events. It’s rewarding to toy with the minds of jurors and influence their thought processes. It is challenging to create doubt where there is none, to twist the jurors’ perceptions of reality and mold the facts into the truth as I want it to be seen. It requires me to think on my feet and be a skilled extemporaneous speaker. Criminal cases give me the opportunity to exercise my uncanny power of persuasion … they are fun!
The dens of iniquity are not the only source of my business, however. I pride myself in doing a workmanlike job for my clients. I take my responsibilities to my clients seriously and demand perfection from myself. My clients, for the most part, appreciate the good job that I do for them and not only return to me for representation when they have future problems, but refer their friends, family and neighbors to me for help with their legal difficulties.
Anyway, back to the present dilemma … Brenda. I woke up with this not-too-bad looking stranger in my bed with whom I had just had sex. Despite the fact that this was not the first time that had ever happened, it was still an awkward situation from which I needed to extricate myself. The first thing I needed to do was find a graceful way of getting out of bed. “Let’s jump in the shower,” I suggested, thinking that would at least be the first step in the right direction.
~•~•~
3
THURSDAY A.M., APRIL 12th
We jumped into the shower together to save time. Ordinarily, no time would be saved by such a joint venture, but we were both still whacked-out from the Stoli Crystal gimlets on the rocks in snifters with twists of lime and the unplanned early morning activities.
After sorting our clothes from the pile on the floor in the hallway, I brewed two fresh cups of coffee using the instant hot and two teaspoons of Taster’s Choice decaffeinated instant coffee.
Fortunately my cousin is a dentist who keeps me amply supplied with sample toothbrushes which are invaluable on such occasions. While Brenda brushed her teeth and put on fresh makeup, I selected one of my navy-blue Canali suits, a white, narrow-collared shirt and a yellow and blue tie with a matching pocket scarf which I stuffed into the breast pocket of my jacket. One of the other good things about being a lawyer is that I can wear nice suits knowing that I won’t get them soiled at work. I can wear expensive shoes and not worry about getting them all scuffed up. There is also a better than ninety-percent chance that I won’t have to lift anything too heavy or get dirt under my fingernails.
I live on the twenty-first floor of The Mount Vernon Towers, a luxury apartment building in a two-bedroom and den, two and a half-bath condominium. It was lavishly appointed in traditional style furnishings by Alexander Baker, Baltimore’s premier interior-designer.
1Although the condominium is conveniently located to the Inner Harbor of downtown Baltimore and very near the building in which my office is located, I choose each day to cruise to the office in my fire engine-red, 500 SL Mercedes Benz convertible, the whereabouts of which at that particular moment, was unknown.
Other than speculating as to how we had gotten to my apartment the night before, neither of us could find much to discuss over coffee. Brenda started toward the sink with our empty coffee mugs. “Just leave them,” I suggested. The cleaning lady will be here later. She’ll take care of those.”
This would be a good test to see if the cleaning lady actually cleaned anything. I’ve never met her … she comes in after I leave for the office and leaves before I get home. Usually the only evidence that she’s been there is that the money I leave for her on the dresser in my bedroom is gone on the days she’s scheduled to clean. It is remarkable how she is able to retrieve the money from the bedroom without leaving any footprints in the carpet and without disturbing any of the dust. Occasionally, she removes all of the food from the refrigerator, I suppose because it has gone bad or she takes it home to eat before it goes bad. There is no point in complaining. First I’ve never met her so who would I complain to? Second, she’s very reliable…she or her appointed representative shows up every week to collect the money. Why make trouble? It is so difficult to find reliable domestic help.
Anxiously we descended on the elevator to the subterranean garage to see whose car was parked in my reserved space. She looked at me questioning the bewildered expression on my face occasioned by the absence of a vehicle in my parking space. I walked around the enclosed elevator shaft to the attendant’s booth and asked George, the garage attendant, if he had seen my car.
“I just came on about a half-hour ago, but your space was empty when I got here. I was wonderin’ where you went so early,” he said. “Or if you didn’t come home last night,” he added as an afterthought.
Apparently we had the good sense to take a cab from the Bear’s Den to my apartment or else someone we knew refused to permit us to drive and gave us a lift. In either case at that moment, we were both without transportation.
We climbed one flight of stairs from the garage to the lobby of the building. I slipped Hiram, the doorman, a couple of bucks to go out front to St. Paul Street and see if he could hail a cab for us. It was rush-hour, but the street in front of the building is one of the main arteries into downtown and the odds were good that he’d have no trouble finding an available cab.
It took him just a few minutes to find a vacant green and white Arrow Cab driven by a Russian brain surgeon who had just immigrated to the United States … actually he informed me he was from the Ukraine. I instructed him to take us to the intersection of Greenmount Avenue and 28th Street where the Bear’s Den was located. We both knew that our cars would be somewhere nearby … that is if they hadn’t yet been stolen. When I told the cabdriver our destination, he looked at us as if we were planning to rob him. Well, I told you the Den was located in a run-down part of town. During the ride, we learned about how wonderful life had been in Kiev and how successful and happy our brain surgeon-turned cabdriver had been living there.
Just as I was about to ask him why he left his happy, successful brain surgeon-life in Kiev and came to America to become a cab driver, I spotted my fire engine-red 500 SL Mercedes. It was just down the street from the Den on Greenmount Avenue. “We’ll get out here, doctor,” I said.
“Nice car,” Brenda commented as she got in. I drove around the immediate neighborhood looking for her car and found it on the second spin around the block parked between two large green dumpsters in an alley behind a Chinese carry-out restaurant. She gave me a quick peck on the lips and jumped out of the car.
I waited to make sure that her car started and that she was safely on her way. As she pulled off, I realized that I had never even gotten her phone number. I also discovered when she opened the car door the God-awful smell that emanates from the back of a Chinese carry-out at nine o’clock in the morning. I’ll probably never eat Chinese food again as long as I live.
We were both late for work which in my case didn’t matter, because I was always late for work, especially on Thursdays. The rush-hour traffic was beginning to thin out and it only took me about fifteen minutes to reach the twenty-story office-tower where the office of C. Bruce West, Esquire is located. Every man’s lawyer and friend, C. Bruce West…that’s me!
As it turned out, I wasn’t nearly as late as usual…for a Thursday, I arrived at the office earlier than normal.
1The elevator doors slid open and I stepped into the reception area of the office suite which occupies the entire floor. I share the suite with three other lawyers. We have a beautiful conference room, a well-equipped law library, a combination file and storage room, four spacious and elegantly furnished private offices and the reception area which is large enough to comfortably accommodate our secretaries, all of the necessary office equipment and a nicely-appointed waiting area for the clients.
Kelly, who has been my secretary almost since I first went into private practice, greeted me with a big smile as I got off the elevator. She is captain of the watch, the protector of the fortress, confidant, straight man, office manager, receptionist, bookkeeper, paralegal, messenger, chauffeur, confessor and whatever else may be demanded of her from time to time.
“I thought today was Thursday,” she said with a puzzled expression on her face. “What are you doing here so early?”
“It’s much too complicated to explain,” I replied. “Did you brew any of that fresh-ground vanilla mocha crap we have every morning?”
“I thought you liked that coffee.”
I sighed, “It’s okay, but I’m spoiled…I guess I’m just used to the rich, full-bodied flavor of the Taster’s Choice instant decaf that my mother and I always brew.”
“Speaking of your mother, she’s already called this morning. Should I get her for you?”
“I think maybe I better have the coffee first.”
~ ~ ~
Kelly came into my office and deposited a mug of steaming freshly brewed coffee on my desk. “I’ll get your mother for you,” she said as she departed.
The intercom rang. It was Kelly to tell me my mother was on line one. Being an only child in a Jewish family makes for a very stressful life. Even after you’re emancipated, you have to account for your lifestyle and suffer from an endless amount of guilt…it’s a cultural thing. There is a certainty that just about everything I do will be wrong, at least in my mother’s eyes. I am extremely fond of my mother and father, but I cause them no end of grief. I don’t even have to go out of my way to do it. It just seems that I am never quite able to live up to their expectations. Maybe it would be easier if I had brothers and sisters who could share the guilt…it would relieve some of the pressure.
Ask any Jewish mother what she would wish for if a genie suddenly appeared in a puff of smoke from the spout of the magic sterling-silver teapot she was polishing on Friday morning in preparation for the Sabbath. “I have been in a prisoner in this teapot for a thousand years…to thank you for freeing me, I will grant you three wishes.”
First she would wish for her son to be a doctor. Second, she would wish for him to marry a nice Jewish girl. Third, she would wish for a minimum of two healthy grandchildren…a boy who would grow up to be a doctor like his father and a girl who would grow up to be a nice Jewish girl who marries a Jewish doctor.
I’m a lawyer…not a doctor. Not only am I not married, but I run around with gentile girls. I have no children. This is already three strikes, but in this ball game, you have to stay at bat until you grant all three wishes. I can never overcome the fact that I’m a lawyer; this at least she can excuse. It’s tough though to admit that your only son is brain-damaged…brain damage being the only acceptable explanation for having a son who is not a doctor.
Being married is of the utmost importance because it is, at least in her eyes, an essential first step toward grandchildren. The importance of marrying a Jewish woman is that in the orthodox religion, children are not recognized as being Jewish if their mother is not Jewish. My parents are not religious, but my mother doesn’t let that stand in the way of her determination that I date Jewish women. My mother has not gotten over the fact that Sarah Goldsmith with whom she has tried so hard to fix me up, married Sol Greenstein. “You wouldn’t even give her a chance!” she berates at every opportunity. At least Sarah’s mother was fulfilled…Sol is a doctor!
I have also denied her the happiness of having grandchildren to brag about. This is even worse than if I killed somebody. Lest I forget, I grew a beard not long ago and she thinks I look like “a hippie bum.”
I picked up the call. “Hi, Mom…is anything alright?”
“Did you shave off the beard yet?” she asked.
“I’m fine…how are you?” I responded ignoring her question.
“So have you met anybody?”
“Yes, actually I met a lovely girl this morning.”
“What’s her name?” she asked probing to see if she is Jewish.
“Brenda,” I replied.
“Brenda…hmmm…what’s her last name?”
“Goldberg,” I lied.
“Oh, she’s Jewish,” she responded happily.
“I don’t think so…she’s related to Whoopie.”
“You love to aggravate me, don’t you?” she accused.
“Her last name is Layne,” I gave in.
“How does she spell her last name?”
“L-A-Y-N-E,” I spelled it for her.
“I don’t think Jewish people spell their last name that way,” she said disappointedly. “Where did you meet her?”
“She was picking up clothes from the floor in my bedroom,” I answered.
“What are you telling me … she’s your maid?”
“It’s much too complicated,” I replied. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
“It’s Thursday!” she announced.
“I would not have known that…thanks!”
“Don’t we go out to dinner on Thursday nights?” she asked as if this were a tradition that had slipped my mind.
“We went out to dinner a couple of times on Thursday night, so am I to presume that chiseled in stone on the tablets it says Thou shalt have dinner with thy parents every Thursday night?” I asked, feigning sarcasm.
“You’re such a big shot…you don’t want to have dinner with us anymore?” she asked accusingly.
“Of course I do, but not every Thursday night…it just so happens tonight would be perfect.” I said.
“Okay then,” she said. “We’ll see you at seven-thirty…Pimlico Hotel.”
“Who’s paying?” I kidded.
“It will be our pleasure!” she replied grateful for this one moment of pleasure from her only child.
I busied myself the rest of the morning returning phone calls and dictating letters on a stack of files that required my attention. I called my friend Ray Wheaton to meet me at twelve-thirty for lunch at the Owl Bar. He’s an orthopedic surgeon with whom I play golf frequently and whose office treats many of my clients who were injured in automobile accidents…and maybe some who weren’t injured.
On the way out, I dropped the stack of files on Kelly’s desk. “Cell phone’s on if you need me,” I told her as I pushed the button for the elevator.
~•~•~
4
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 12th
Both the kitchen and the front doors exploded inward simultaneously, splintering the door frames and breaking the locks. Six men attired in black cargo pants, the cuffs tucked into their black combat boots, wearing black body armor and helmets with black visors covering their faces, armed with nine-millimeter Glock automatic pistols, guns drawn, crashed through the broken doors, each assuming a shooting stance crouched in a circle with their backs to each other. “POLICE” was stenciled in white on the back of their bullet-proof vests. They held their guns extended in both hands aiming out into the rooms and moving them back and forth as if searching for a target.
Four middle aged ladies were seated around a table in the dining room. Two decks of Bicycle Canasta cards were strewn over the table and scattered on the floor where they were involuntarily thrown from the fright of the six men breaking into the house. The women were screaming out in fear for their lives.
“Oh, Laud Jesus!” exclaimed one of the women.
“Police!” Glenn Farclass shouted above the screams. “Everybody put your hands in the air where we can see them…nobody move. He waved his badge with one hand while he pointed his gun with the other. “Okay, everybody this is a raid … just stay calm. We have a search warrant for this house. My men are going to conduct a search and you ladies are going to remain seated where you are. Slowly drop your hands on the table and keep them there where I can see them.”
“Yeah, you got a warrant to bust down the fuckin’ doors? Why din’ you just knock stead a breaking down ma muthafuckin’ doors? Who gonna fix up dis mess ‘n who da hell gonna pay fo’ all dis damage?”
“Who are you lady?”
“Who am I? … I da owner dis here house you jus’ busted all up … da’s who I am,” she spat back angrily.
“What’s your name?”
“Geraldine … Geraldine Carter. Lemme see dis warrant you talkin’ ‘bout.”
Glen Farclass removed a folded document from a pocket in his vest and tossed it onto the table in front of her. He turned to the other five men and said, “Okay, boys, spread out and let’s get this over with.”
“What dis all ‘bout anyway?” Geraldine demanded.
“We’s jus’ sittin’ here playin’ canasta…dat be ‘gainst da law or sumpin’?” asked one of the other ladies.
“It’s all right there in the warrant,” Farclass stated. “And if you keep runnin’ off at the mouth I’m going handcuff the bunch of you…put you in the wagon and take you to jail. Now just sit there and be quiet!” he demanded.
Considering that she weighed over three-hundred pounds and was about five-eight, handcuffing Geraldine and getting her into a paddy wagon would be a formidable task if she decided she didn’t want to go voluntarily.
Within ten minutes, the five policemen who were searching the house had completely ransacked the place. Every drawer from every piece of furniture had been pulled out and the contents dumped on the floor. Each of the beds in the three small bedrooms on the second floor had been stripped and the mattresses pulled off and thrown off to the side. The clothes in each closet had systematically been pulled out, searched and then thrown into a pile on the floor. The contents of the medicine cabinet in the tiny bathroom had been swept off of the glass shelves and scattered over the floor. Every container of any description had been opened and the contents unceremoniously spilled onto the floor. The rugs had been lifted and thrown into a heap in each room.
Not long after the search began, Chris Eagle returned to the dining room holding two small glassine bags, each containing about an eighth of an ounce of an amber colored, crystalline substance that almost looked like rock candy. He nodded to Farclass…a little signal they had worked out between them indicating that he tested the substance and confirmed that it was crack cocaine.
“Where did you find this?” Farclass asked Eagle.
“Front bedroom…under the bed,” he responded.
“Anything else up there?”
“Just some big dust balls under the bed near the stash,” he snickered.
“How about money?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, Ms. Carter, who else lives in this house with you?”
“Ma son and sometime ma nephew stays here.”
“What’s your son’s name?”
“Rudolph.”
Farclass chuckled when he heard the name…he understood why her son’s street-name was Red Nose.
“Wha’s so funny ‘bout his name?” asked Geraldine angrily.
“Oh, nothing,” replied Farclass … “Rudolph Carter?”
“Uh-uh…Rudolph Beekins.”
“How come his last name is different from yours?”
“He use his daddy las’ name.”
“How old is Rudolph?” asked Farclass.
“Twuny.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’ got no leash on ‘em…I dunno where he at.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“He were here las’ night, but he done lef out and I dunno where he goes.”
“When do you think he’ll be back?”
“He don’ tell me nuffin’…I got no idear.”
“How about your nephew … what’s his name?”
“Louis.”
“Louis what?”
“Louis Mullins”
“How do you spell his last name?”
“I ain’ zackly sure…maybe M-u-l-l-i-n-s er M-u-l-l-e-n-s wit a ‘e’” she spelled it for him.
“How’s he related to you?
“He be ma sista’s boy.”
“What’s her name … your sister?”
“Ladashia Carter…same as me.”
“How do you spell that?” asked Eagle.
“La - ia,”
“LA - IA?” he questioned.
“Yeah…de dash don’t be silent.”
Eagle just shook his head and continued without missing a beat, “How old is your nephew?”
“I guesses ‘bout twuny-one er two,” she replied.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Uh-uh…cain’ keep tracka ma own kid; how’ze I gonna know where ma nephew be at?”
“Which one of the bedrooms is your son’s?” he asked.
“In da back,” she said.
“Whose bedroom is in the front?”
“Mines.”
“Well I got bad new for you, Ms. Carter. We found two bags of crack-cocaine under your bed.”
“Watchu talkin’ bout? I dunno nuffin ‘bout no cocaine!”
“We found two dime baggies of crack under your bed,” he told her holding up the glassine bag to show her.”
“I ain’ neva seen dat shit befo’...dunno what it is and I dunno how it coul’ be unda ma bed ‘less you put it dere!”
“I am placing you under arrest for possession of cocaine…you have the right to remain silent…anything you say may be used against you in a court of law…you have the right to be speak to an attorney and to have an attorney present during any questioning…if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”
“What you ‘restin’ me fo’? Ya know fuckin’-a-well dat shit ain’ mines.”
“Turn around and place your hands behind your back.”
“Wha’ you gonna do ta me?”
“I have to handcuff you. It’s police procedure.”
“Where you takin’ me at?”
“To the Eastern District Police Station to be booked and charged.”
“I cain’ leave dis house. You done broke down all the doors. You threw all ma shit all over da place. By da tahm I gets back here, won’ be nuffin lef’!”
“Honey, don’ you worry none ‘bout yo house. I stay here and watch it fo’ ya,” said her girlfriend, Maybeline. “And I got a good lawya fo’ ya too.”
“You know I cain’ ‘ford no lawya, Maybeline.”
“Don’ worry none ‘bout it … I gonna git ya da bes’,” Maybeline assured her.
“Laud have mercy,” declared Shantelle.
Mary Dawson crossed herself and muttered, “He’p me Laud Jeesus!”
~•~•~
5
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 12th
Rudolph came home within an hour of the time the police left his mother’s house. When he climbed the steps to the porch and saw the splintered front door hanging off its hinges, his first thought was that the house had been broken into and burglarized. Thoughts about his mother’s safety never entered his mind. His immediate concern was that somebody had robbed him of his stash, but then he remembered that he had sold most of it yesterday and that he had only two dime bags left which he had hidden under his mother’s bed where nobody would ever look. He knew his mother would never find it because of all the dust balls he saw when he slipped his remaining inventory under her bed.
He wasn’t worried about his money, because he always kept that in his pockets. He entered the living room and saw Maybeline Hicks sitting in his mother’s threadbare, purple-velveteen, over-stuffed club chair. She was watching an episode of Days of Our Lives on the 52 inch flat-screen Sony television he had gotten his mother for Christmas last year.
“Where ma muva at?’ he asked Maybeline.
“She been busted, is where she’s at,” Maybeline replied sarcastically.
“Whatchu mean busted … fo’ what?” Rudolph asked, puzzled by what Maybeline told him.
“The cops done busted in here … broke down all the dohs and busted the whole place up … lookin’ fo’ drugs. Dey hauled her outta here in han’cuffs is what dey done.”
“Wha’ fo’?” Rudolph asked dumbfounded.
“Fo’ possessin’ drugs … y’all’s drugs … dat’s wha’ fo’!” she exclaimed scornfully.
“Sheeyt! Dey get my stash?” he asked.
“Dat’s wha’ y’all care ‘bout? Y’all is one selfish muthafucker! Whatchu gonna do ‘bout yo mama bein’ in jail?”
“Wha’ I spoza do ‘bout it?” he asked angrily.
“It’s y’all’s fault she be locked up … it’s y’all’s fault dey come in here and busted up everthang in da firs’ place,” she retorted with disdain.
“So, like I sayed, wha’ I’m spoza do ‘bout it?”
“I’ll tell ya what you’ze gonna do ‘bout it … y’all’s gonna pay for a good lawyer ta getter outa dis mess … dat’s wha’ ya’s gonna do!” Maybeline decreed emphatically.
“Man, ha much ya think dat gonna cos’?”
“I dunno, but whadeva it be … da’s ha much y’all’s gonna pay.”
“Sheeyt! I dunno no lawyas”
“I does ‘n he be da bes’…he ain’ cheap neeva! I knows y’all carries a wad a cash in yo’ pocket…ha much ya got rat now?” she demanded.
“I dunno… maybe ‘bout three,” he guessed.
“Three what?” Maybeline snapped impatiently.
“Gran’,” he replied.
“Three-thousan? Y’all can jes’ fork it over rat now, ‘cause we’s gettin’ yo mama a lawya!” she declared wiggling the fingers of her outstretched hand toward her in a beckoning motion. “Le’s have it!” she demanded.
Rudolph unhappily and with great hesitation leaned to one side and reached deep into his black, baggy gangbanger pants pocket and withdrew a bundle of hundred dollar bills folded neatly into packets of five hundred dollars each. He counted six packets and reluctantly handed them to Maybeline. He started to put the few remaining packets back into his pocket.
“Uh-uh, buster … le’s have da res’,” Maybeline pressed.
“Bullshit…I gottsa have walkin’ ‘roun money. I needs dis ta stay in b’iness … how I gonna buy more toot?” Rudolph pleaded.
“I ratly don’ give a rat’s ass! Maybe y’all need to get yo lazy ass a real job!” Maybeline shot back. “Le’s have da res’a da money,” she insisted.
“Fuck it, man…I ain’ doin’ it. She need mo’, y’all can come back ta me…den I see wha’ I ca’do.”
“Y’all ain’ gonna be ‘roun fo us ta be aks’n fo’ nothin’. Dem cops aksed a lotta questions ‘bout y’all…dey was real interested in findin’ yo black ass.”
“Maybe I go stay wif ma cousin ‘till da heat be off,” he said.
“Yeah…maybe y’all oughta think ‘bout movin’ ta Souf Carlina er someplace else far ‘way,” she suggested.
“Yeah…maybe you’ze rat.” Rudolph agreed, as he headed out the door and sashayed back down the street.
~•~•~
6
THURSDAY NOON, APRIL 12th
The Owl Bar is located in the Belvedere Hotel which was designed in the style of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. It was built in 1908 and given the same name as the home of John Eager Howard, the governor of Maryland from 1789 to 1791. His mansion, which had been located just down the street, was razed several years before the hotel was built. This extraordinarily magnificent building with its hand carved, gilded moldings and Rembrandt-style frescoed ceilings happens to be situated around the corner from the building where I reside.
The bar had already begun to fill up by the time I got there. The hostess advised that there would be about a fifteen-minute wait for a table. When she took my name I noticed it was actually the first one on the wait-list. I sat at the historic, dark-oak bar with its original brass rail admiring the stained glass windows and the wise old wooden owls, whose orange-glass eyes guarded each end of the bar. The story has it that in the speakeasy days, the eyes would blink to forewarn of danger. Patrons of The Owl Bar included among its many luminaries, kings and presidents who had quenched their thirst, no doubt seated on the very stool I now occupied.
Since there was no one that I was trying to impress and still not having fully recovered from the preceding night’s gambol at the Den and the activities earlier in the morning, I ordered a coke instead of a Stoli Crystal gimlet on the rocks in a snifter with a twist of lime.
The stool next to me was occupied buy a gentlemen wearing a clerical collar with whom I struck up a brief conversation. When I asked if he was from one of the parishes in the neighborhood, he advised that he was the pastor from the gay church at the corner of Charles and Eager Streets.
I had only taken a couple sips of my coke when Ray showed up and joined me at the bar. I introduced him to the pastor and explained that he was from the gay church just down the street. I told him about the brief wait for a table.
“That’s okay,” he said. “My next appointment isn’t until two-thirty…I’ve got plenty of time.” Then, addressing the pastor, he asked, “Just out of curiosity, Reverend, what distinguishes a gay church from any other kind of church?”
“Oh,” he replied. “In our church only half of the congregation kneels at the same time.”
Ray glanced at me trying to decide if the minister was kidding. Neither of us was sure.
We were seated by twelve-forty-five and our lunches were served by one. While we were eating, Jill Banister came in with a couple of other ladies from work. She is an insurance adjuster with American Mutual Insurance Company who helped me with a serious case involving the survivors a young couple who were killed in an auto accident. She and I met for a drink the in the Owl Bar after work one evening and have been seeing each other regularly ever since. She came over to the table. “Hi Bruce, what a nice surprise,” she said as she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Jill, I’d like you to meet my good friend Ray Wheaton,” I said and introduced her to Ray. As I recalled, it was also a Thursday evening the first time Jill and I met. “It’s our anniversary,” I declared. By way of explanation to both her and Ray, neither of whom knew what the hell I was talking about, I said to Ray, “Jill and I met on a Thursday.”
“God, I can’t believe you remembered that,” she exclaimed.
“How could I ever forget something as important as that,” I asked. “Don’t you think we should celebrate? Why don’t we have dinner tonight?” I suggested to her.
“Great! What time and where?” she responded.
“I’ll pick you up at seven. We’ll go to the Pimlico Hotel, okay?”
“I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard it’s a great place. I’ll see you at seven,” she said as she left to re-join her friends.
~ ~ ~
It was nearly two-thirty by the time I returned to work. Kelly came into my office with a stack of letters that required my signature. She placed them in front of me on my desk, and asked, “Do you remember Maybeline Hicks?”
“Isn’t she the lady who wanted to sue one of the car rental companies because the car she rented had flees?” I inquired with a wide grin on my face remembering when she came in to consult me. She actually took the car to a veterinarian to have it sprayed and told me that the vet didn’t spray cars…only dogs.
“Yeah, she’s the one…I have her on hold. Do you want to speak with her?”
“Sure, she was a really nice lady…what line?”
“One,” Kelly informed me.
“I lifted the receiver, pressed the button for line one. “Hi, Maybeline…how you doin’?”
“Ya ‘member me?” she asked.
“Of course I remember you. I wrote down your story about the fleas in my book,” I reminded her. “So, how have you been?”
“Oh I be doin’ fine, but my friend Geraldine Carter…she ain’ doin’ too good.”
“No…what happened to her? She didn’t rent a car that had flees did she?” I asked jokingly.
“Uh-uh…not nuffin’ like dat, but I be over her house wif some uva girls ‘n we was playin’ Canasta. All of a sudden, the dohs come crashin’ in ‘n the pó-leeces come bustin’ in wif dey guns out. Dey turned the whole place upside down ‘n sayed dey foun’ drugs unner her bed.”
“What kind of drugs?”
“I ain’ fo’ sure, but I think maybe it were crack.”
“How much did they find?”
“I only seen two li’l baggies.”
“That doesn’t sound like much,” I said.
“Uh-uh, but dey han’cuffed her ‘n carried her away…she be busted ‘n I wants y’all to hep her out.”
“Do you know where they took her?” I asked.
“I guesses to da Eastern Disrick,” she replied.
“I hate to ask you this Maybeline, but does she have money for legal fees?”
“I gots some money fo’ ya…ha much y’all’s fee gonna cos’?”
“It sounds like she’s just charged with simple possession. That could cost about thirty-five hundred dollars, but if she’s charged with intent to distribute, it could cost a whole lot more.”
“Well, I got three thousan’ here…you think you could do it fo’ dat much, ‘till I sees if I can git mo’?”
“For you, Maybeline, I’ll do it for three and you don’t have to worry about getting more…at least not for right now. So you want to come to the office and I’ll get whatever information you have, then I can go see about getting Geraldine out of jail.”
“Firs’, I gotsta git one a da uva girls to watch da house…cain’ lock it up ‘cause de dohs be all bust in, so somebody gotsta stay an watch da place…know I’m sayin’? So, I guesses I cain’ get dere much befo’ a hour…at leas’…dat be awrat?”
“That’ll be okay…I’ll wait for you,” I promised.
Surprisingly, Maybeline showed up just before three-thirty. She related the story of the raid and her conversation with Rudolph. I assured her that I would leave immediately and try to get Geraldine released from the Eastern District lock-up before they transported her to the Women’s Detention Center where it would be a lot more complicated to secure her release. She paid my fee with the money she had taken from Geraldine’s son, which I immediately knew was drug money by the way the bills were folded into five hundred dollar packets. That’s how the street dealers keep their money. They don’t have to spend time counting the bills when they make a deal. It’s a standard procedure with drug dealers to fold tens and twenties into hundred dollar packets, fifties and hundreds into five-hundred dollar packets.
Kelly called the Eastern District Police Station to see if Geraldine Carter was still in the lock-up and to find out what time the court commissioner was due there for bail reviews. There was good news and good news. Geraldine was still there and the commissioner was due in at four o’clock. Maybeline and I got on the elevator together. I told her that I would probably have Geraldine released, or at the very worst, have bail set for her before nightfall. I promised to call her as soon as I knew something.
I changed elevators in the lobby of the building and pressed the button for the first level of the underground garage where my car was parked. We…me and my 500 SL…headed north to Federal Street and then east to the 1600 block of Edison Highway where the Eastern District Police Station is located. It took me about twenty minutes to get there.
~•~•~
7
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 12th
The Eastern district is the smallest of Baltimore’s nine police districts. The police station which was built in the late seventies is typical of what you might picture a police station to look like. The sterile, institutional looking waiting area has pale green, bare, concrete-block walls. The shiny gray, asphalt-tile floor was polished to such a high luster that I could actually see my reflection on the surface. The area exudes the distinct heavy smell of industrial-strength disinfectant similar to the malodorous aroma of the Baltimore City Jail minus the body odors associated with the eye-tearing, gut-wrenching scent of that fine institution.
The relatively small space is furnished with gray, molded-plastic chairs with tubular chrome legs. There is a window in the center wall with a chest-high opening through which one can pass papers and a four-inch round hole through which to communicate with the desk-sergeant who is seated behind the glass.