The Falau Files Box Set 1

by Mike Gomes

  A commotion suddenly shattered the silence from the second tier.

  “Guards, quick! Santos looks dead!” yelled a skinny African-American man pointing back into the cell where Santos lay in a pool of his own blood.

  The other inmates all looked at Falau, who let a wry smile curl his lips for just a second.

  Chapter 19

  Terrell Wilks ran by the name T-Bone on the streets of Boston. He was a big fish in a little pond, meaning his gang was small but he was the leader.

  Black Boston 617, or BB617, was well known despite having only thirty members. They were up and comers, known to run their small spot of turf with power and aggression. Anyone caught dealing on one of their streets would be shot on sight, whether day or night. The streets around Ruggles Transit stop belonged to them, approximately a half-mile in all directions other than the college Northeastern that was on the other side of the track. They knew to stay clear of the college kids. Nothing would cause the police to come down harder than some lily-white college kid getting zapped in the subway.

  With a gang so small it was hard to hand out assignments to lower level guys. There just were not that many bodies to go around, and recruiting was job one, so that’s where most of the manpower was going. T-bone preferred to lead by example. Stepping up and doing jobs himself made it impossible for other guys to say no when asked to do the same thing. In another gang, leadership never played a street role, but this was T-bone, a man known for pulling his own trigger and pushing his own supply of smack. It was said that he liked the risk, and enjoyed dancing with death.

  A scarred face and battered body were the results of loving that danger. He wore his leadership on his body like badges of courage. He was not exactly disfigured, but one needed to tell themselves to not stare at him when they met.

  In his younger days he had a standoff with a rival gang member who looked at his already deeply scarred face and told him, “You look like ashes and smell like smoke.”

  T-bone reacted in a rage and ended up burning the young man after beating him senseless. Rumors spread throughout the years that he just may have been from ashes and smoke, because no matter what anyone did to him he would not die. He had been shot, stabbed, and run over, but he always came back and would later burn the people responsible for attacking him.

  Now he stood in a prison yard holding his own little piece of turf. Only himself and two other inmates were from BB617, and there was no way they could compete with the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings or MS13. Their numbers were just too great. Besides, the big gangs didn’t worry about the small timers. They saw them as drone bees working for the bigger gangs, and they didn’t care about their vibrato as long as they brought back the money from the drugs sold and the special assignments given to them.

  A toothpick sat in the corner of his mouth as he leaned against a twenty-foot high chain-link fence, just one of the many barriers to get through if someone attempted to escape. Taking a breath, he lifted his hands to his mouth, blowing out and warming them as he watched the newcomer Falau strolling about the yard as if he did not have a care in the world. The guy who cut off and jammed Santos junk into his mouth and got away with it. The guy who caused Santos to attempt suicide when he was told he was going back to the same cell block as Falau. The guy who was in the prison as a special delivery like him.

  Two years earlier T-Bone saw BB617 on the verge of rapid expansion. They were just at thirty members, up from twenty a month before. Kids on the street were seeking them out and wanted to know how to join. BB617 had killed a police officer during a drive-by shooting of a rival gang’s home. The story got embellished by the kids on the street, who said that T-bone walked up to the officer and shot him in the face and then lit him on fire. It was a great story for the angry kids to focus on, and BB617 was not about to change the story that was helping them gain a ton of street credit.

  The truth was far more simple. T-bone led three others in a drive-by of a rival gang member who lived just one street over from their turf. The kid ran with the South Side Possy, made up of six members. His name was Ramon and he had a habit of drifting up into the BB617 territory to sell his junk. He liked to dance both sides of the street that defined where BB617 had control. He was brash, and attempted to instigate with the larger and more successful gang.

  T-Bone saw this as a potential opportunity to recruit the SSP and make them members of the BB617. To him it seemed like a win-win situation for everyone. Ramon would get better protection and could sell anywhere in the area, and BB617 got more members. The problem was, Ramon didn’t see it that way, and declared war on T-bone and the BB617.

  Six months later T-Bone stood on a street corner and was selling a small bag of heroin to a college kid, who crossed the tracks to get his fix, when a 2012 Ford Taurus raced up the street with two-gun men hanging out the passenger side windows. As they hit the corner, T-bone saw them coming. He smiled at the mistake that they didn’t wait to show themselves till the last second. He dove behind the car that got rattled with bullets streaming from a shotgun and an Uzi.

  One of the bullets found its way into his right arm. Rolling over to stand, he could see the college boy standing perfectly still where he had been before the transaction. He was shaking and silent. T-bone stood up. “You okay man?’

  But nothing came from the boy.

  Police sirens filled the air and T-bone made a run for it. Looking back over his shoulder he could see the boy still not moving, paralyzed by the shock of what had happened. With a bullet in his arm he made his way to a doorway he knew was unlocked and looked down the street, seeing the police arrive at the boy.

  Later that night, after trying to remove the bullet from his arm for hours by using hospital forceps and gin to pour on the wound, he gave up and went to the hospital. The ER doctor removed the bullet quickly, but the police arrived just as he finished, insisting they would take T-bone in for questioning.

  T-bone was a direct admission to the House of Correction. The kid buying the drugs was the son of a close personal friend of Mr. Wise. T-Bone wasn’t even given the hope of the telephonic trial or a trip to the local precinct. He just went to jail, knowing nobody would know or care if he was there. If anyone snooped around too much they could just kill him, and nobody would ever know. Just as Falau had been told, it was better for him to keep a low profile and shut up.

  A smile drifted across T-bone’s face, watching people avoid Falau as he walked toward them. They were literally clearing a path for him. Just one month after almost killing a man and doing unspeakable things to him, every inmate and guard thought he was insane. Nobody dared cross the man that would rip your nuts off and feed them to you. The more time went by the more the story got embellished. Going from dismemberment and a ram into the mouth, to Falau spoon feeding him his manhood while he was still conscious. All of this was greatly increased because the mystery man spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to him. He walked in silence and would randomly smile or mutter to himself.

  “Must be the voices in his head. Who is he talking to?” questioned one of the inmates.

  “Maybe the fucking voices told him to do it. It’s just a matter of time before he does it again. I had a cousin like that and when he got the taste for killing he kept going,” spouted off another inmate.

  T-Bone didn’t believe any of it. He watched, and examined how he always walked the same pattern around the yard. How he always ate at the same seat in the mess hall. How he would always take the same spot in line. He was a creature of habit. He liked things a certain way. He liked them predictable and steady. He liked things set in a way that he could control. And with just one insane action of ripping off another man’s genitalia, he had gained just that; control of the people around him, the environment, and how he was treated. The guy was smart and cagey. Crazy like a fox. He knew what he was doing and who he was doing it to, and if need be he would do it again in order to control things.

  This was the guy that could help, thought T-bone. He
can be the one that gets out of this place and can make some waves for the rest of us. There are some debts to be settled, and this guy has the mind, skill and attitude to overtake and destroy the biggest, meanest and most aggressive inmate on cell block G. If Santos couldn’t take him out or even leave a scratch mark on him, then who could? Not a guard or another inmate.

  Falau turned at the edge of the yard and started making his way toward T-bone. He had a good fifty yards to go before the two would be face to face. T-bone made his assessment of the possibly insane killer and he was sure Falau had also made an assessment of him. The stakes were as high as they could be. If he stopped Falau or walked with him, and Falau was indeed insane, he would probably attack him and rip a chunk of his body off.

  But if he was right, and the man was more tactical than insane...

  Well, then he would have just made the best friend he could have in the entire prison.

  Chapter 20

  Falau watched as the black man stepped out from his spot along the fence and squared himself up in the pathway. He was in no way a large man, but his confidence shone through like a flashlight piercing the dark.

  The man wore orange prison pants like the rest of the inmates and on his top half was a denim jacket with orange stripes down the sleeves. A wool cap sat on his head and he flicked a toothpick in his mouth as his head sat cocked to the side.

  Falau knew he was being measured up by the man he’d observed every day in both the TV area and yard. They called him T-Bone, a small-time gang leader who lived just a short distance from Falau’s apartment. Of all the people to step up and challenge him, it was surprising it was this man. He had little backing in the joint, so if things went bad for him with Falau there would be nobody to jump in and help him.

  Choosing not to break either his stride or his direction, Falau calculated that the low-level gangster would choose to risk his life fighting the man who now had the entire prison backing away from him. Moving closer and closer he could see the hardness in T-Bone’s eyes. He wasn’t breaking eye contact, and when he’d reached within ten feet T-Bone tilted his head, and said, “Sup?”

  Falau stopped in in his tracks, stared at the gang member, and didn’t say a word. He tightened his eyes and gritted his teeth behind his lips.

  All eyes in the yard turned to the men in their sudden standoff, and an audible buzz went from person to person, spreading the news that a standoff was actually happening.

  The guards outside the first fence and in the towers had shifted their attention to the two men. If they were to fight one-on-one, then the ground guards would stop it. If it were to turn into a riot then the tower guards would be ready to fire if a guard on the ground got into trouble.

  T-bone smiled and nodded his head again. “Sup?”

  “Not much,” grunted Falau, unwilling to show he was impressed with the man for his guts and determination.

  “Mind if I walk with you?”

  “Do whatever you want.”

  “Good.”

  T-bone turned to the side, opening the path for Falau, and joined him as he walked by. Falau watched his movements and examined T-bone, looking for his angle with the walk.

  The different groups, men that gathered by gang affiliation around the yard, watched the two making their way around the outdoor area. Immediately, all the groups wondered if T-bone was making a play to get Falau as a new member, or at least have good relations with the man they all felt was insane.

  “I hear your name is Falau,” T-bone said, nervously starting a conversation.

  “Ya.”

  “What is that, Mexican?”

  “What do you want?”

  A devilish grin crossed T-Bone’s face and he wasn’t afraid to show it. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you Mr. Falau. No casual chit-chat for you.”

  “You out here walking with me for exercise, then fine, we can keep walking. But if you’re out here for anything else then get to it,” snapped Falau, giving no quarter in his prison personality.

  “Just relax, man. I’m not here for any trouble. I like my balls right where they are.”

  The casual quip caught Falau off guard, and a swift smile crossed his face before he rapidly dismissed it and dropped into character.

  “Ya! I saw that. There is a little human inside there.”

  “What do you want, convict?”

  “Okay, but I will get you to laugh,” said T-Bone in the most disarming way he could. “I think you and I could help each other out.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? You haven’t even heard what I have to say,” T-bone replied, looking both confused and outraged. He was not used to the total lack of respect. There was a certain way things were done in prison, and Falau was not following prison culture. He was brash and aggressive, and all without a reason. “Listen to me, man. You need friends in here whether you like it or not.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Then you’re going to end up dead in here. If not by some young punk who wants to kill the guy who dropped Santos, then it will be old age. Either way, your last days will be spent in this shit hole.”

  “I’m going to do my time and walk out of this place. That’s it.”

  Stopping and placing his hands on his hips, T-Bone shook his head. “You think you have a release date from here?”

  Falau kept moving and T-bone moved quickly alongside him. “Release dates are for formal prisoners, not guys like us.”

  Falau’s head tilted and looked over to the man walking beside him. “What do you mean, like us?”

  “I mean, guys who got stuck in here from that mother fucker Wise.”

  Falau’s face contorted as he processed the words he’d just heard.

  “Ya, that’s right, you’re not the only one in here because of him. There are four of us in total. They try to keep us away from each other by putting us in different cell blocks. Someone screwed up and put you with me.”

  “What does it matter? We’ll get out at some point.”

  T-bone started shaking his head and looking at the ground. “Come on, man, you’re smarter than that. Why would they ever let us go? They don’t need us talking about what happened to us. They don’t want us going to the press. They don’t want us taking revenge.”

  The word revenge dug deep into Falau’s mind. The sentence was truer than anything he had ever heard, yet he had not acknowledged it before this moment. Of course they would never let him go, because he could return and attack Wise and his family. It was better to leave him in prison and let him rot.

  “How can they do that?” asked Falau, now with less defiance in his voice. “They can’t just leave us here.”

  “Man, it’s been happening since the beginning of time. If you have power you can remove your enemies. Just get rid of them by killing them or sending them away. It’s just the way it happens in Boston, like everywhere else in the world. Same shit, different city.”

  Falau knew the man was right, and realized that prison life was now a permanent possibility.

  “You didn’t think that they just let that situation with you and Santos go by without doing anything? You do that to a man, even in prison, there are charges and more time added to your sentence. But you’re a ghost in here. You don’t exist on the records, so nothing happened. You were never going to get out anyway.”

  “You’re from Boston?” asked Falau, changing the subject rapidly so he could buy time to process the information.

  “Ya.”

  “What part?”

  “A block or two off Massachusetts Avenue on Columbus Avenue going outbound.”

  “Down near Ruggles T?”

  “You know the area?”

  “I live a few blocks over in one of the old brownstones on Massachusetts Avenue. Guess we’re neighbors.”

  “The brownstones. My uncle Grady lives over there.”

  Falau stopped short and raised his head to T-bone for the first time. “Grady’s your uncle?�
�

  “You know him?”

  “You could say that. We’ve shared a few stories and many drinks over the last few years.”

  Falau started walking again feeling a growing kinship with T-bone, though his darker side began questioning if the kid had done his research and was just playing to Falau’s emotional side and weakening him up for something sinister.

  “I can get you out,” said T-bone, plainly and without emotion.

  “The hell you can. If you could get me out you’d be long gone yourself.”

  “Ya, you would think that, but the problem is I got nowhere to go. My family and friends are all in a two-block section of town. I can’t take off and leave them all to make a new life somewhere.”

  “Isn’t it worth a shot if you’ve found a way to get out?”

  “Man, I have the system down to a science. It’s easier than you think, but what happens when I get to the outside? I don’t have the skills or money to be on the run. They would find me in a week.”

  Falau glanced over at his walking partner. “What makes you think I could do any better.”

  “Come on, man. Everyone here knows the way you handled Santos was not just the actions of some goofball fighter from the street. You walked out without a scratch on you. That is some serious secret agent stuff, or at least top-shelf military. Hell, normal people can’t do something like that and then walk down and watch TV.”

  “I’m just a regular guy,” Falau said with a smirk.

  “If you’re a regular guy then I’m the leader of the Klan. You have what it takes to get out of here... and then you can do me a favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “Ya, a favor. I’m not going to give you a present this big without you doing something for me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to kill, or ask for money. Nothing like that. I just want you to expose Wise and what he’s doing. Drop a dime to the press.”