Mafioso

by Nisa Santiago

  After Gloria’s lengthy opening statement, Fitzgerald Spencer stood up in the courtroom and gave a compelling opening statement. Arnold Meade followed with his opening statement. Day one of their trial was long and exhausting, but day two was going to bring about the U.S. Attorney’s first witness.

  The witness was escorted into the courtroom, and Layla and Scott were dumbfounded by who it was. It was the snitch, Whistler Hussain Jackson. But no one was more shocked than Layla. She had killed him. How could he still be living when she shot him twice? She leaned into her lawyer’s ear with questions, but Fitz told her to be cool.

  Whistler looked to be in horrible shape. He was missing one eye, compliments of Layla’s .45. His unsightly face was making the female jurors uneasy. They immediately didn’t like him. Layla and Scott despised him for their own reasons. He was a snitch and they wanted him to rot in hell.

  The U.S. Attorney believed Whistler’s testimony against the defendants would make her case concrete. But right away, it started to fall apart for the prosecution. Question after question, Whistler stammered his reply and he seemed unsure. He would take an incredible amount of time before he answered. It was annoying and irritating the jurors. Gloria tried to work her magic with the witness, but it was an uphill battle.

  Meanwhile, Scott and Layla looked furiously at Whistler, the snitch and the pedophile. If Layla had the chance, she would kill him again.

  “You were a major player in their crime organization. Right, Mr. Jackson?” the U.S. Attorney asked him.

  “I-I . . . I was.”

  “Can you tell us your job with the West organization?”

  Whistler spoke slowly and softly. He described himself as an enforcer, lieutenant, and a friend.

  “Have you ever killed for them?” Gloria asked.

  “Objection!” Arnold shouted out and gave his reasons.

  “Overruled!” replied the judge. “Answer the question.”

  Whistler looked like he needed to think long and hard with his answer. Gloria tried to guide him into answering, but Fitz gave his objection. It was going to be a very long trial.

  It was the third day in the courtroom, and Whistler was still on the stand. The U.S. Attorney was trying to make him a reliable witness for the jurors, but day three was shoddier than day two. The U.S. Attorney seemed to grow testy with him, and the judge was equally irritated. Both would have to ask him to try and answer the questions promptly. Whistler sat in front of everyone a shell of his former self. He wasn’t what Scott and Layla remembered. Is this a joke? so many thought. Whistler would whine, scratch his head, and then dig in and around his exposed eye socket with a napkin, which made all of the jurors cringe. It was torturous for everyone. They had tuned out his testimony long ago.

  “Who was the one that shot you?” the U.S. Attorney asked him. “Can you point them out in this courtroom?”

  “Objection!” Arnold shouted out and gave his reasons.

  And once again, the judge overruled.

  It took Whistler a moment to answer. Layla didn’t break her icy stare from him. She hated a snitch—even one that she tried to kill. She was seething every day she saw him in the courtroom. It was her blunder.

  Three long days the U.S. Attorney had Whistler on the stand. She wanted to squeeze every bit of information out of him, and with his current condition it was laborious but necessary. She wanted her witness to paint Scott and Layla as a deadly and murderous couple—just like the mobsters they idolized. When the prosecution tried to introduce testimony about their children’s names, the objection was sustained.

  The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York rested with her witness, and now it was Fitz and Arnold’s turn to poke at Whistler and discredit him for what he was—a liar and a pedophile.

  Fitzgerald started first. He had everything he needed to know about Whistler. He started with his background—his upbringing and his criminal past. Arnold went deeper into Whistler with pedophile accusations that made Gloria sing with objections after objections. The two defense attorneys were shaking up the memory of a snitch. And it took an additional four weeks for each council to redirect.

  Scott was antsy. He wondered why Arnold was asking so many questions. He was tired of seeing Whistler in front of him, snitching. But Arnold’s reply was that Whistler was a dream come true. He assumed that by the time the trial ended, the jury would be so annoyed with Whistler and dizzy from all his longwinded answers that they wouldn’t trust anything he said.

  Layla continued to sit stone-faced in the federal courtroom. The entire trial was tedious and exhausting. One day it was looking good for them, but then the U.S. Attorney would bring in an expert witness, another snitch, or a forensic specialist and the FBI, and it would start looking bad for them. It was a seesaw of emotions—a tug-of-war of guilty or not guilty.

  It was a horrendous ordeal for Layla. She had to see Scott daily, her soon to be ex-husband and her codefendant—the ex love of her life. They were still married on paper, but their relationship had long been dissolved. If he went down, she went down. She felt already down from the pain and hurt he bestowed on her to be with Maxine. If she could kill him too and get away with it, she would have. But this was her life and her freedom on the line, so she didn’t have a choice but to endure his presence.

  However, what turned her stomach the most with upset and anger was occasionally seeing Lucky in the courtroom—seated in the back, looking aloof and distant from her own parents. The same bitch who’d left her high and dry. She heard through the grapevine that she was a grandmother now. Lucky gave birth to a beautiful, but premature baby girl. Layla didn’t know if she would ever see her grandchild. Everything was starting to look bleak for her, but Fitz promised her that he had an ace up his sleeve. But he wasn’t sitting in her position, looking at a life sentence. She and Scott had been charged with fifteen indictments, and the U.S. Attorney was hammering away to make sure they would be found guilty of every charge. She had no idea how this bizarre trial would end.

  The U.S. Attorney stood once again in the center of the room and gave her closing statement, painting the defendants as murderous animals and menaces to society. She pleaded for a guilty verdict from the jurors and pushed for life incarceration.

  Fitzgerald Spencer stood up to give his closing statement to the jurors. He painted his client as a married and educated businesswoman who made smart investments with her husband and who had no reason to run a criminal empire. He painted the U.S. Attorney’s case as a fraudulent and tacky attempt to discredit and slander an African-American woman who was a pillar in her community. He spoke of Layla’s kids, alive and deceased, a speech that made Layla somewhat tearful, and he even mentioned that she had become a grandmother recently. Fitzgerald poured it on heavily for the jurors to hear. Like Gloria, he was articulate and engaging to the jurors about his client.

  Arnold Meade stood up, fixed his tie, and placed himself for everyone to see clearly. His voice boomed out with anger at the U.S. Attorney for trying his client in a criminal case, boasting that Scott was a man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and became a self-made millionaire. He too characterized Scott West as a pillar in the community, a smart investor, and philanthropist who gave millions to charities and the less fortunate.

  “Scott West has nothing to hide. We have proof of his income and his tax returns, but yet, the U.S. Attorney wants us to believe he’s this murderous drug kingpin running a criminal empire who moonlights as a do-gooder on the weekends!” Arnold Meade exclaimed.

  He poured it on thick and locked eyes with certain jurors, definitely capturing their attention. He moved strategically in front of the jury box as he proclaimed his client’s innocence—his incorruptibility from the man he was born to be—a businessman. His closing statement was lengthy too, but it appeared effective. He finally sat down next to his client feeling optimistic of the end result.


  Finally, the trial was over and the jury’s deliberations would soon begin. For Layla, it felt strange having her life in the hands of twelve strangers who would decide her fate. The lawyers had done their job and she couldn’t be any prouder of Fitzgerald’s performance. He was an incredible lawyer, but she couldn’t give him too much credit, because the verdict hadn’t come in yet. The only thing they could do was wait.

  The judge banged his gavel down and dismissed the courtroom. There were deep and emotional breaths from the lawyers and the jurors—even a few spectators. It was their time now, to decide the fate of Layla and Scott West. Who would they believe, the U.S. Attorney or the defense?

  Scott and Layla stood up from the defendant’s table and were approached by the court officers. It was that time again to be led into the back room where they were to be shackled and ushered back into lockup.

  ***

  So far, the jury had been out for four days deliberating, and Scott and Layla had no idea what that meant. Were they leaning toward a guilty verdict? Fitzgerald and Arnold assured them that the longer the deliberation, the better—it meant that the jurors weren’t so quick to convict them. But that answer still didn’t bring their clients any relief. Until the foreman read a not-guilty verdict, they couldn’t relax.

  Scott sat in his jail cell and started to read nearly three hundred pieces of unopened mail to pass the time. Since he had been incarcerated he would receive letters from reporters, online journalists, desperate women searching for the infamous kingpin to wife them, and other supporters and admirers. He had become a very popular guy.

  To take his mind off the wait, he took the time to open and read each letter. One letter deep in the stack caught his attention. It read from: Bonnie, Clyde, Gotti West, with a Maryland post office box. Scott ripped open the letter and received the shock of his life.

  44

  Maxine walked around in the comfort of her Manhattan high-rise with a glass of water and some crackers. She was nine months pregnant and bigger than a house. It was a cold night outside, the temperature dropping to twenty degrees and windy. She sat in a cushioned chair and breathed out. Getting around the place was becoming difficult; she was waddling more than walking. She couldn’t see her feet anymore, but she had everything she needed. Bugsy made sure of that. The baby’s room was decorated with every imaginable toy and teddy bear, cushioned rocking chairs, a clear acrylic crib, and Disney wallpaper of numerous characters. She was ready to have her baby, and her wish was about to come.

  On the coldest day of the year with snow in the forecast, her water finally broke as she was getting up to use the bathroom. This was it. She was going into labor, and Bugsy was right there to assist her. He was all smiles and anxious about the birth of his first child. He and his goons rushed Maxine to the hospital, exceeding the speed limit.

  Bugsy wanted the best and he got the best for Maxine and his newborn son. They had a large private room with mahogany walls and cream sofas and silken throw pillows, along with ambient lighting for that radiant glow. There was even a posh kitchenette inside the room. A florist delivered enough flowers to Maxine’s room to scent the entire hospital. Bugsy was a happy man and a proud father. Maxine was beat. She had gone through eleven hours of labor, but she was unable to push out the baby after it’d crowned. She had to be rushed in for an emergency C-section, subsequently delivering a 10lb, 4oz baby boy, who they named Dillinger John West after the American gangster, John Dillinger. It was a family tradition that Maxine first mocked and laughed at, but Bugsy convinced her otherwise and she bought into it. She thanked God that she had a boy; she could only imagine the drama if it had been a girl.

  “You did good, baby,” Bugsy said, kissing Maxine on her lips.

  She held her newborn son wrapped in his receiving blanket in her arms and she didn’t want to let him go. He was the most precious thing in her life. He was an angel, sent from God. She hated that she waited so long to become a mother, but she was one now and she wanted to make every day count. Her newborn son was her everything.

  Meyer came to visit his newborn nephew, but Lucky refused to see the baby though Bugsy had invited her to the hospital. Meyer was looking better and better each day. He put his feelings for Maxine aside and figured if Bugsy was happy, then he was happy. He was an uncle—twice. He gently held his new nephew in his arms.

  He laughed, saying, “Dillinger, huh? I’m gonna teach you how to become a gangsta out there. Ain’t nobody gonna want to fuck wit’ you.”

  Maxine had some concerns with Meyer holding her son and talking gangster, but she kept quiet about it. She’d never seen Bugsy so happy. It looked like he was a different man. He was a father, and she already felt that their son was changing him. She wanted the feeling to last forever.

  Meyer and Bugsy, together again—they looked unstoppable, like a superhero duo. They celebrated outside smoking cigars in the cold. Then Bugsy got the phone call. It was Arnold Meade.

  “The jury came to a verdict,” he told Bugsy.

  This was it. Their parents would be either locked away for nearly life or become free again. The twins felt ambivalent about a verdict.

  45

  Layla sat in her jail cell thinking about the outcome of her trial. There was absolutely no way she would spend the rest of her life inside a prison. She didn’t understand how Maxine could have done over twenty years and still come out sane. Or had she?

  The thing that kept Layla going was the deep, deep hatred she now had for her daughter. Lucky had taken everything from her, and over what? Because she didn’t want to reveal the location of her hidden money? Layla felt if Lucky was in her shoes, she would have made the same choice. But Lucky blamed her parents for everything and never took accountability for her own mistakes and flaws. They had spoiled Lucky and given her everything she ever wanted, and the spoiled child had turned into a spoiled adult. Lucky had a sense of entitlement that had come between a mother and daughter. Lucky left Layla high and dry when she needed her the most. Lucky had stopped visiting her months ago. She didn’t even write or place any money into her commissary. Had it not been for Bugsy, she would have been forgotten.

  There was an insane thought in Layla that made part of her hope that she got convicted because she knew if she ever got out that she would kill Lucky with her bare hands and have her buried somewhere. She had that much animosity toward her own daughter. She knew that she was a vengeful bitch. No way was Lucky going to live after everything she’d done to her—from stealing, disrespecting her, and abandonment. No fucking way!

  And then there was Maxine. Layla hadn’t forgotten about her.

  She paced around her jail cell seething and worried at the same time. Word came to her that the jury had finally reached a verdict. She sat down on her cot and took a deep breath. She was only moments away from finding out her fate. But before she was to find out, she noticed a letter from Maxine was placed inside her cell. She wondered who’d put it there and why Maxine was reaching out to her. There was nothing that bitch could say to make Layla spare her.

  She ripped it open and immediately a small picture dropped out. It was a photo of a newborn baby, and the letter was laced with love and forgiveness.

  My dearest Layla, despite what you may think, I would like you to know that I would never want to see you in a cage. I’ve been there and that place changes you forever. It steals your humanity. I would like to finally say that I still love you. You were and still are my best friend. I hear that your trial isn’t going well, the witness and all that. I empathize with you, sweetheart. And just as you were there for me during my incarceration, I would love to be there for you. You are, of course, the grandmother of my first child. Please meet Dillinger John West, my little bundle of joy. Bugsy and I are so proud of him. He’s perfect! Once you’re sentenced, please add me to your visiting list so we can catch up. BTW, you don’t have a problem with Bugsy and I, do you? It just happened, j
ust as you and Scott just happened, right? So let the past stay in the past as it is all love.

  Love you forever, plus one day.

  Maxine

  Layla trembled in fury and screamed at the top of her lungs. How did she not know? The boldness of her. The bitch had gone to full term with her son’s child and no one told her anything. It was like on cue that the letter showed up in her cell—right before she was to know her fate. Did Maxine know something she didn’t? The nerve of her, gloating. On the surface, the letter read innocent and sweet, but Layla knew its true intentions—payback! She read between the lines and its subtle sarcasm was clear to her.

  “I’m gonna kill that bitch!” she screamed so loudly that her voice seemed to echo for minutes. “I hate her! I fuckin’ hate her!”

  She started to trash her cell and continued to scream at the top of her lungs. Finally, several guards rushed into her cell to restrain her. They were baffled by her behavior. Usually inmates didn’t react like this until after the verdict was heard. But Layla was beyond angry. She continued to rant and curse, and she even started to cry. How did her life take such a drastic turn?

  When her anger finally subsided, the guard told her that it was time to return to court. She had about an hour before the verdict would be read and her fate would finally be known.

  Epilogue

  Scott and Layla sat in the federal courtroom stone-faced, both of them unsure of their future. The room was packed with spectators. Bugsy showed up with Maxine and his baby and Lucky was there with Packer. Meyer didn’t even bother to show up. The jurors were all seated, quiet and looking straight-faced. It was hard to tell which way they’d gone—guilty or not guilty. It had been a long, arduous journey for them both. So many had turned their backs on them, but there was no bigger betrayal than that of their own children. Bugsy had gotten Maxine pregnant and hijacked his operation and men. Lucky damn near stole her mother’s identity while subsequently leaving Layla with nothing—not even a roof over her head.