Direct evidence, p.5
Direct Evidence, page 5
“Misdemeanors only in there, you can go back to your cell, drink it there.”
Stu didn’t want to go back to his cell. It made him think about the future.
About the possibility of the cell becoming his home.
“Can’t I just—“
“Go back to your cell.”
Stu’s experience in negotiations told him that saying anything else would either be a waste of time or even detrimental to his cause.
Clenching his teeth and squeezing his water bottle, Stu was resigned to going back to his cell when Rodrick approached.
“Is a’ight, is a’ight,” the huge inmate said with something that could have been a comforting nod. The guard was a giant, but Big Roddy had at least two inches on him and ten, maybe fifteen pounds. Both were some of the largest individuals that Stu had ever seen in person.
The last thing he wanted was to see these two monsters square off, so he shrunk away a little.
But neither Rodrick’s posture nor tone was aggressive.
“Hey, Boss, this fish ain’t no chomo, is he?” Rodrick asked. The guard shook his head. “Why he in PC then? How he get his ass thrown in the hole?”
“He ain’t.”
“He got a be new booties, though, right?”
“Yep.”
Stu understood one of every three words, perhaps fewer. For all he knew, the two men were conspiring to extort him.
Or rape him.
“Then why he a no-go in gen pop?”
The guard looked at Stu. Throughout this cryptic exchange, the man’s hard expression did not change.
“He’s on a hot one,” the guard said. “That’s why.”
Rodrick sucked his chin in and now both men stared at Stu. Feeling uncomfortable—more uncomfortable—Stu twisted the cap off his water and sipped.
“He a J-Cat?” Rodrick’s voice went up at the end, confirming that this was indeed a question.
“Naw.”
“No shit. I’ll tell you what then, Boss, if all he wanna do is drink his water, I’ll be his watch.”
This, Stu mostly understood. Rodrick was trying to do him a favor.
Stu didn’t want a favor because favors had to be paid back.
“I’ll just go back to my cell,” he said.
“Nah, don’t be no slug. Come wit’ me.”
Before he could protest again, Rodrick had his heavy arm draped over his shoulder, and just like that, the guard nodded, opened the door and the two of them stepped into the common area.
There were a couple of inmates—a half-dozen, maybe—in the room, all wearing the blue jumpsuits, but no one paid them much attention.
Stu tried to direct them towards an open table, just wanting to sit down and be alone, but Rodrick didn’t allow it.
“Naw, you stayin’ wit’ me. I got you in here and now you owe me a favor.”
Stu’s heart skipped a beat.
So soon?
“What—?”
Rodrick squeezed his shoulder so tightly that Stu cowered.
“I ain’t no gump, but I am a prison wolf. And you’re gonna earn your keep, Gramps.” Big Roddy’s lips parted, revealing that now sinister-looking gold incisor. “You gonna earn it real good.”
Chapter 10
Tate grabbed the man’s wrist just as his wallet disappeared from the counter. Then he spun and got a good look at the man who dared steal from him.
He was a pale man with wide-set eyes. His broad shoulders were covered with a heavy leather coat even though it was warm out. His hairline was terrible, mostly just dark patches on the sides and wishful fluff on top.
And he was grinning.
Tate immediately let go and stepped back.
“You’re late,” the man hissed. His voice was dry and there was a hint of an Eastern European accent on his tongue.
“I was away,” Tate replied defensively.
The man in the coat opened his wallet, pulled out two twenties—all Tate had in there—then tossed the pouch back on the counter.
“Mr. Abernathy? Is everything okay?”
The man pointed a stubby finger at Tabil.
“Shut the fuck up,” he warned.
“Hey, you can’t talk to me like that. He’s in the FBI, you know! He’ll—“
The man glowered at Tabil.
“I don’t give a fuck if he’s the president. You should just mind your own business. If you don’t, I’ll break your jaw.”
Tabil looked to Tate for backup, but Tate did nothing. Ashamed, he averted his eyes. Thankfully, Tabil took the big man’s warning to heart and remained quiet.
“You’re late,” the thug repeated.
Tate took a step backward.
“I know, Marco—like I said, I was away for work.”
The man snorted and Tate got the impression that he was actually pleased that a payment had been missed.
“And now you’re back. Let’s go to the bank so you can get the money you owe me.”
Tate swallowed hard—his Adam’s apple, which was not prominent on most days now seemed to be the size of a softball.
“I’ll get your money,” he said, his eyes darting from side to side.
The thug nodded.
“Okay. You can get it for me tomorrow.” It was a statement, not a question.
It was also impossible.
Tate had a mere two hundred dollars to his name. That wouldn’t even make a dent in his debt.
But he wasn’t about to argue.
“Okay,” Tate nodded. “Tomorrow—“
He never saw the punch coming. There was a flap of nearly imperceptible movement as Marco’s leather jacket flexed, and then a fist the size of a cinderblock hit Tate in the stomach. There was an odd delay of about a second or so before the signal from his midsection reached his brain during which everything seemed to freeze… everything except for Tate’s eyes. He was somehow still able to look around. He spotted Tabil crouching behind his cart, a horrified expression on his face. He saw Marco’s eyes narrowing as he put as much force into the blow as he could.
Somewhere behind him, Tate heard a dog bark—a single, high-pitched yap.
And then it felt as if he’d been eviscerated. Tate dropped not to one knee but both, sending more pain this time from his kneecaps up his thighs and hips and then culminating in his groin.
He couldn’t breathe.
His diaphragm had been paralyzed and his inner organs rearranged.
He wanted to put his arms up, thinking that this would mechanically stretch his lungs and force them to expand, but that was impossible. It was as if someone had taken a cattle prod to his abdominals.
Instead of stretching, his body did the exact opposite.
It curled into a ball and a horrible croaking sound, like a bullfrog drowning in desert sand, left his mouth.
Tate’s face felt as if it were on fire, and tears streamed down his cheeks. But they weren’t cooling tears, they were tears of hot magma that seared his flesh.
“Tomorrow,” Marco repeated, and then Tate listened to the swish of his cracked patent leather jacket as the big man walked away.
A few seconds later, Tate’s dwindling consciousness detected the presence of another person.
Tabil.
“Mr. Abernathy, do you want me to call police?” the man asked desperately.
Tate managed to raise his eyes, and through watery vision, he saw that Tabil was holding a cell phone.
He tried to shake his head, but he still had no control over his faculties.
“I call police,” Tabil said with a nod. “I call police.”
This motivated Tate, and somehow, he managed to lift his arm a little and reach for the man’s leg.
“And I call ambulance.”
“No.”
Tate wasn’t sure if he’d said the word or just made another one of those dry croaking noises, but either way, Tabil had already come to a decision.
Breathe, he told himself. Breathe. Breathe, you fucking pussy. Breathe!
And then he did.
Tate sucked in a massive, shuddering breath, and he felt oxygen flood his body.
The feeling was nearly orgasmic.
“Yes, I would like to report an assault.”
“No, hang up the phone,” Tate said with as much force as he could muster.
Tabil closed one eye as he looked at him.
“Hang up,” Tate instructed.
Tabil stared for another second and then put his phone away.
With the man’s help, Tate made it to a knee and then to a standing crouch. He spotted his coffee cup, now empty and crushed probably from Marco’s size fifteen boots, on the ground and he Smeagoled over to it.
It took him three tries, but Tate finally managed to pick it up.
“Do you…” he croaked, turning his head in Tabil’s direction, “Do you do free refills?”
Chapter 11
Stu was absolutely terrified. This is what he feared. This is what everyone feared.
But this was also jail. Jail wasn’t supposed to be this way. Jail was for the short-term, prison was where the really bad stuff happened.
Many of the people in prison hadn’t even been convicted of a crime. The last thing that someone awaiting trial wanted to do was something that would guarantee a conviction.
Something that would all but guarantee they would be shipped off to the bad place known as prison.
But none of this mattered to a man like Rodrick. A man with face tats who had been in and out of prison his whole life.
A man who had nothing to lose, a man who just wanted fresh meat for his—
“I’m fucking with you, Gramps,” Rodrick said with a laugh. He let go of Stu and gave him a playful shove.
Stu was so confused and uncomfortable with what had happened that he stumbled and nearly slammed into a corrugated metal table. He dropped his pack of gum and then left it there, thinking that the blue package was roughly the same size and shape as a well-worn bar of soap.
“Relax, Stewie. This ain’t ESP,” Big Roddy said.
“E-ESP?” Stu stuttered.
After a quick glance to make sure no one was within striking distance, he bent down and picked up his gum, standing so quickly afterward that he nearly dislocated a hip.
“Yeah, ESP—Ely State Prison. You know, the maximum-security prison that you’re going to be going to if you’re convicted of a hot one.” Rodrick must’ve seen on his face that he was confused again because he clarified. “Murder, man. A hot one is a murder. That’s why you’re here, ain’t it?”
Stu wanted to deny it, it just seemed foreign—yes, I’m being charged with murder—and, well, fake. But he said nothing.
“It’s a’ight, it’s a’ight,” Rodrick said. He sat at an empty table and gestured for Stu to join. Stu was grateful to rest his weak legs. He gulped his water hungrily and watched as Rodrick tore into one of the moon pies.
They said nothing for some time, which Stu was okay with. He didn’t understand the language here, he didn’t understand the culture, and he didn’t understand the charges he was facing. But after a while, his mind started to wander, started to go places he didn’t want it to go.
And then he thought about Rodrick, about ‘ESP’. According to the veteran, Stu didn’t need to worry about being raped or sodomized, or shanked in jail, but that it would be a real concern in the maximum-security prison.
But that couldn’t happen. It didn’t happen to people like him, like Stu Barnes.
Even if he was guilty, it didn’t happen.
“When’s your arraignment?” Rodrick said after swallowing his second moon pie.
“I—I don’t know,” Stu admitted.
Rodrick raised the eyebrow with the ‘NOW’ tattoo above it.
“What you mean, you don’t know? How could you not know?”
Stu just shrugged. Will had asked about the arraignment, but the giant guard had refused to answer.
Rodrick chuckled.
“Y’all got an army of suits on your side, and you don’t know.” He shook his head. “Well, it gotta be tomorrow or the next day. If it don’t happen within forty-eight, they gotta cut you loose.”
Stu’s face brightened but Rodrick immediately dashed his hopes.
“Ain’t goin’ happen on a hot one, though. Don’t getcha hopes up.”
“Right,” Stu said dryly. “What-what happens at the arraignment?”
He knew so little about the judicial process that it was shameful. But what do normal people know about it? Normal people don’t get arrested, normal people don’t have any experience in jail or prison. They don’t know what happens, and Stu, for all of his money and business savvy, had no idea either. He knew a little bit about being sued—nobody got to where he was without stepping on some toes.
But being sued was something that lawyers did after you signed some paperwork.
Even suing someone, being on the other side of the table, was a bit of an abstract process. His altercation with Market Slice and their owners Kevin Park and Connery Sinclair was different. That was fucked-up in every sort of way, but that had been unique.
And Stu had put as much distance between himself and them as fast as humanly possible.
“At the arraignment, they’ll read the charges and you enter your plea. And then they decide on bail.” Bail. Stuart had forgotten about bail. “Thing is, ‘cuz you in here for a hot one, they’re prolly gonna take two days before y’all go in front of a judge. Before that, the DA will give all the shit he got on ya to ya lawyer, see if y’all want to plead it out.”
“Plead it out?” Stu repeated, incredulous.
Rodrick shrugged.
“Yeah, man, plead it out. Most these guys,” he gestured to the men in the room with them who were all pretty much doing the same thing that Stu and Big Roddy were doing: sitting around, chatting, killing time. “They just gon’ plead it out. Pay a fine, probably go on parole for thirty days or some shit. Problem is, what they don’ realize, is now they’s got a felony on their record. That means you ain’t gon’ get no car loan, no mortgage, start a business or any o’ dat shit.”
This surprised Stu.
“Why don’t they fight the charges? Take it to trial? They can’t all be guilty.”
Rodrick stared at him as if he was speaking in tongues.
“They ain’t, but they c’aint,” he said simply.
Once again, Stu’s confusion was plastered all over his face.
Rodrick licked his lips, rubbed his palms together, and leaned forward.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “With us niggas, the DA do somethin’ called stacking. That’s when they pick you up for hanging outside the local 7-11. They nab you for having maybe some coke on you or a little meth—whatever. Maybe they don’t even grab you, but your boy standin’ wit’ ya. He’s got some cash on him and then he start arguing with the 5-0 and maybe your boy pushes a cop, or maybe he don’t but the cop say he do. And your boy got a piece on him, cuz erryone do. Now, they really gotchu. They drag ya ass down here and charge ya with loitering, possession, possession with intent to distribute, and illegal possession of a firearm. If you got a prior, they stack more charges—illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Like, why the fuck they do that? You get two charges for holding the same fuckin’ piece?” Big Roddy sucked his teeth. “I know this one guy; he got picked up because he broke into someone’s crib. Popo grabbed him for breaking and entering, but he was carrying a piece, too. Now they get him for breaking and entering and illegal possession of a gun. On top of that, he stole something—o’ course he did. So, they stacked on stolen goods. Broke a window to get in, so they added destruction of property. This is all for the motherfuckin’ same crime! Anyway, so, they stack all these charges, and when you go meet with the DA, and you got this fuckin’ Podunk public defender who ain’t even got hair on his balls yet, and he say to you, look, you can take this to trial, but they goin’ hitchu with all them charges. You plead out? They toss half of ‘em. The mans make it look like you gettin’ a deal.”
Rodrick gestured at Stu and, at first, he didn’t realize what the other man wanted. But then he realized that Big Roddy was thirsting from all the talking.
He handed over his water bottle and Rodrick gulped from it. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his CDC jumpsuit sleeve.
“But it don’t end there. Even if you wanna fight it, they set bail at like five stacks, which they know you ain’t got. So, you can’t pay, meaning you gots to stay in this place until trial. Even if you win, then what? You missed work for at least a week and yous prolly fired. Now you broke broke, can’t pay for your kids or nothing, and your life is a hot mess. Plead it out, pay a fine, or don’t, whatever, but at least you keep your job. So yeah, most erryone just plead out.”
Stu was impressed, not just by the man’s understanding of the legal process, but by his enthusiasm. He had experience if nothing else. That was clear.
“But with you? With a hot one on your rap? Bail goin’ be tight.”
Stu balked.
“What do you mean, tight?”
The man shrugged.
“Maybe they not even give it to ya. I’ma be honest, you look like you gots money. And if you gots money, then they don’t want to give you no bail because they know you might not show. I’ll tell you what, Gramps, when you find out who your judge be, lemme know. I’ve seen ‘em all, and they all want you to act a little bit diffy. In the end, they all hoes. You gotta be their bitch, fuckin’ act the way they want you to so that they treat you good.”
Stu was apparently terrible at hiding his true feelings.
“What? You don’t believe me?” Rodrick said. “Watch this.” He leaned back, whistled, and waved at three young black guys who were all sitting together. “Carter, getchya ass over here.”
The tallest of the three men hurried over, his eyes downcast.
“Hey,” Rodrick said, “What happens if you give Judge Samuel some lip?”
Carter didn’t even hesitate.
“That mothafucka set the bail so high that Bill Gates can’t even pay.”
