One thing is for sure: I’m in a unique spot to dig out the truth about what happened to Trent. I might only be seventeen, but I think I know the people in the club better than the cops—I’ve been around them for half of my life—and maybe even better than Bill. Maybe Brenda can help me too—if she’s still talking to me after Jamie’s arrest. She must know plenty of things I don’t, especially about the meth trade.
Even though it’s the last place I really want to go, I decide to cruise by the clubhouse. I have a little time before Jamie’s 2:15 p.m. appearance in bail court and maybe I’ll pick up some clues. There’s no way my brother will get bail today but they have to start the process. I wouldn’t mind some advice from a real lawyer rather than the free one provided by the court, but Mom and I can’t afford that and Jamie’s apparently broke too. Maybe the club can help. Ripper’s the guy I want to talk to there.
There’s always something creepy about the clubhouse, even on a good day, and this definitely isn’t a good day. When I pull up, I see Carlito standing outside, talking with the big guy from the Popeyes I saw going into the diner a few days ago. I don’t know why they’d be together. I don’t know Carlito that well and I don’t trust him at all, and the Popeye genuinely scares me. It creeps me out to think Jamie spends time with guys like this, his “bros.”
I’m his real brother.
Carlito spots me and nods.
“What’s up?” he says.
The Popeye just stares. No smile. No nod.
“Hoping to find Ripper,” I say.
“He’s not here,” Carlito replies. A pause and then, “Too bad about your brother.”
I don’t tell them that I’m here because sometimes the club jumps in and helps set members up with experienced lawyers. For most charges, like drunk driving and assaults and petty drug things, members are expected to pay up and keep things straight with the lawyers. For big cases that could affect the entire club or its reputation, the president has the power to activate an emergency legal fund.
I heard that once, before I was born, Trollop was suspected of murder but he was never charged. The victim was a friend of the club who was suspected of shooting a cop. The cop was supposedly crooked. It’s all part of the Trollop legend, which I suspect is mostly self-created. Who knows what’s true? The story is that Trollop’s victim wouldn’t stop hanging around the clubhouse and bringing police heat to the other bikers. So Trollop supposedly shot him and placed his body in a field near Trollop’s barn. As Trollop tells it, the cops were lenient with him after that out of gratitude. Whatever the truth is, the murder was never solved.
“Stay in touch,” Carlito says as I hightail it back to the Cruze.
It could be an attempt at friendliness, but somehow it sounds more like a threat.
Chapter
16
Someone from our family should be at Jamie’s bail appearance, and I’m all there is. Dad’s AWOL and Mom doesn’t need to see her eldest boy looking frazzled and unshaven, sandwiched between wife-beaters and drunks. Besides, it wouldn’t do Jamie any good to see Mom looking lost and distraught and beaten down by life, just like she did on the day he punched out Dad.
I slip onto a bench in the back, four rows behind the reporter from the Sun-Sentinel, who doesn’t look in my direction. Just as well. I don’t want to talk with anyone and I don’t want to be seen either.
I feel both ashamed and strangely protective as Jamie is led into the courtroom by a uniformed guard. He’s prisoner number three in a string of bleary-eyed losers who remind me of a row of fish hanging from one of those chains anglers use to hold their catch, before they knock them on the head and gut them.
His eyes dart about the courtroom. I’d hoped someone from the club would show up to support him. It’s frowned upon to wear club colors in court, since that just excites the judge and the cops and intimidates potential witnesses. But it wouldn’t kill a few bikers to put on street clothes, cover their tattoos, and turn up to let Jamie know they’re thinking of him. But no one else is here for him. No boss. No girlfriend. No club brothers. No parent. Just me.
Jamie gives me a little nod and then lowers his eyes. He’s trying to look cool, and is standing stiffly with his shoulders back, but I know it’s just an act. After about twenty minutes, and cases involving a drunk driver and an unruly john who argued too loudly with a prostitute, I hear our family name called. I’ve never felt less proud.
The public defender taps Jamie on the elbow and he stands up.
“Does the prosecution oppose bail?” the judge asks.
“Yes, Your Honor,” the prosecuting attorney replies. “Most certainly. Due to the severity of the charges and the fact that the accused is part of an organized criminal group.”
Organized criminal group! They might break the law here and there but no one ever called the Annihilators organized. The hungover schoolteacher and the scruffy john who are chained to Jamie both shoot him impressed looks. He’s the top fish on their little chain now. I wonder if it made the prosecutor feel tough to say “organized criminal group,” like he’d just bagged El Chapo or a modern-day Al Capone.
“We need to keep the accused in custody,” the prosecutor says.
“Need?” the judge asks. He is considerably more animated now than he was during the two previous cases, which had all the drama of someone returning a pair of slippers to Costco.
The prosecutor and the judge seem collegial, almost friendly. It’s easy to picture them going out for a beer and a few laughs once the workday is over.
“For reasons that will become abundantly clear in the fullness of time,” the prosecutor says. This just sounds pompous to me.
“Excuse me?” the judge says.
“Let’s just say we don’t wish to interfere with police operations, and we also certainly don’t wish to endanger anyone connected with the police,” the prosecutor replies.
“Anyone connected?” the judge asks.
“Yes, Your Honor,” the prosecutor says. “Suffice it to say, police have ongoing operations and operatives to consider. This is a first-degree murder trial, after all.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “A first-degree murder trial involving figures associated with organized crime.”
It sounds like the prosecutor has just admitted in open court that they have an informant, maybe more than one, working for their side. Is he making this stuff up? Is he hinting that Jamie would go after the informant and harm him or her if he’s released on bail? That’s what it sounds like. Or is he hinting that Jamie might become an informant himself?
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Rats die in my brother’s world. Maybe he’s just trying to throw a scare into Jamie, or maybe he’s just plain stupid, but I don’t see how anyone could be that dumb and hold such an important job. I’m glad I’m sitting down because otherwise I think my knees would buckle. I’m shocked yet again when I notice that the big guy from the Popeyes has slipped into the courtroom and is now sitting in the back row. He must have heard everything.
Jamie sees the Popeye and his face tenses up even more.
Maybe the out-of-town guy is wondering if Jamie will turn rat now that the pressure is on. I’ve heard that powerful bikers have ways of getting at people behind bars. I have the feeling that Jamie’s life has just been put in even more danger.
I want to slap my brother right now. How could he get himself into this mess? Our coach sometimes tells us, “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” If that’s true, what does all of this say about Jamie? He was a role model for me, back when he was a football player himself, but now . . .
According to the coach, there’s a positive in every situation, if you just try hard enough to find it. All I can see right now, though, is Jamie being led out of the courtroom, still in custody, looking lost and afraid.
Chapter
17
T
he next morning, I get to the jail almost an hour before visiting hours begin. A few other people are already waiting on the metal benches just inside the main doors by the reception desk. It’s only a day and a half after the arrest, and I could use a break from police and guards and bikers. But Jamie’s my brother and you don’t abandon your brother, I tell myself.
Visitors have to be buzzed in through the front door and they only take a dozen or so at a time. Signs in the reception room let us know that we are being recorded on camera. Everyone keeps to themselves, either embarrassed or sullen or a bit of both. None of us can act too superior under these circumstances. One by one, we pass our identification through a slot in the thick Plexiglas wall of a guard’s booth. A teenager ahead of me in line doesn’t have any ID and just leaves, pulling his headphones on and trying to keep his swagger.
The guard behind the Plexiglas asks about my relationship to Jamie, then I’m handed a key for a locker that’s just a few feet away. I drop off my keys and cell phone and pens and loose change and everything else I have that contains metal, including my belt.
I am wearing an old purple and gold Golden Ghosts’ football jersey with my number on it—51. I didn’t put it on as any big statement, but it does feel comforting. My brother likes to wear his club colors to prop himself up and I suppose I’m doing the same. Different game, same feeling.
Next, I’m directed through a door controlled by buzzers to a holding room decorated with grim posters, bearing images of things like syringes accompanied by the helpful statement “Your lifestyle could be the death of you.”
A woman who looks like she’s in her thirties sits on a bench near two school-aged boys who somehow seem to think it’s normal to be here. The younger of the pair is reading a book called 500 Amazing Things while his older brother works earnestly on a tablet. A couple of the women on another bench are trying to look hot, their brightly colored bras peeking out from too-tight blouses. The overall effect is more valiant than sexy. Near them sits a good-looking but somehow scary girl who’s about nineteen. She has two long blond pigtails, and she looks like a super-tough Heidi, someone you don’t want to make angry.
Such loser lives. Convict family lives. I like to think we’re not there yet, that we’ll never get there. When I was a little kid, Jamie made me feel proud and safe. When did things change so much?
I wonder if anyone else in the room has a family member facing the kind of sentence Jamie could be looking at. If he’s convicted, I’ll be spending a lot more time in places like this. At some point, maybe it’ll start to feel normal for me too.
I’m not sure what kind of a reception to expect from Jamie. I know he doesn’t really want me to see him here. I love my brother, but I can’t remember the last time I actually said that to him. He’s not that affectionate either, to be honest, but right now I sort of wish things were different.
Jamie has to be feeling humiliated. Underneath all the biker swagger, he has a pretty thin skin, and it must be hard to convince yourself that you’re a winner when you’ve just been paraded from a cell into a courtroom and then back again.
There’s another set of buzzed doors to get through, but first we all have to get wanded like at the airport. Finally I’m walking down a hallway toward the visiting room. At a couple of points, through the windows, I can see a tiny enclosed green space with a bench. Grass seems oddly out of place here with all the swirls of razor wire.
I sit on one of a dozen stools in the room where I will actually get to see my brother, albeit through Plexiglas. I notice that the stools are all bolted to the floor.
There are a couple of sterilizing stations meant for cleaning the phones that we’ll use to talk to the people we’re visiting, but a middle-aged woman in a “Kiss the boys and make them die” T-shirt grumbles that one of them is out of soap. The cinder block walls are painted a wimpy institutional blue that is so inoffensive it’s actually offensive, in a denial-of-life kind of way.
At last, Jamie is led into the room on the other side of the Plexiglas. Everyone on the prisoners’ side looks ridiculous and guilty in their orange jumpsuits, like a mutant cross between Krusty the Clown and the Boston Strangler. Jamie is still trying to look cool and in control as he settles down on his stool.
“They treating you okay?” is what I start with.
He shrugs and says nothing. He knows when I get nervous I talk too much and can say amazingly inappropriate things. But what’s the right thing to say when your big brother could be facing a life sentence for murdering the older brother of the girl of your dreams?
I try not to hear the conversations happening around us but I can’t help it. A woman is crying. A man beside her is angry. Another prisoner passes behind Jamie and taps him on the shoulder. Jamie turns and smiles. They fist bump and nod and the other man walks away. My brother already has jailhouse “bros.”
Jamie looks at the team jersey I’m wearing and for a second his mind seems to drift away. I remember Dad taking me to watch him play when I was little. Jamie seemed like such a superstar, and I was so proud to be his brother. I even taped his number, 38, on a T-shirt to wear to his games. That seems like so long ago.
“What do you do in there?” I ask.
“Play cards. Bridge mostly. Might learn how to play chess.” A quick smile, like he’s somehow in control of the situation. Like everything’s okay. Like he planned for things to turn out like this.
“I know you didn’t do this,” I blurt out, hoping he’ll confirm it, say it’s all a big mistake. Instead, Jamie looks startled for a moment, then regains his composure. He doesn’t answer me. He just looks down.
“How can I help?” I plead.
Jamie’s tone changes immediately. His voice is no longer flat and casual. He’s clearly angry.
“Stay out of it.”
He glares at me. There’s no hint of warmth to him now.
I want to scream back, “How can you do this to me? How can you do this to Mom? It’s our name too! We have lives too! Do you realize you’re hurting all of us? Who are you to give me orders?”
Right now, I can’t believe I ever looked up to Jamie.
Can’t he understand that Mom’ll snap if he goes to prison? And who’s going to take care of her if he ends up behind bars? It’ll have to be me.
The woman on my right is sobbing loudly now, and it’s tough not to turn my head and tell her to shut up.
“I heard a guy in here last week had his ear cut off.”
There’s a little hiccup in his voice at the word “guy,” but he doesn’t look all that unsettled. Why would he tell me this? Am I supposed to be impressed? Or find this funny? It’s hard to believe this is the same Jamie who took me to Cub Scouts and swimming lessons. But I decide to play along.
“With what?”
“Porcelain knife.”
“How did they do it?”
“Slowly, I’d imagine.”
He smirks for just a second, but I can tell he’s creeped out too. Is he wondering what sort of a person belongs in a crazy place like this? Then he just shrugs and adds: “They flushed it.”
I want to ask Jamie what he knows or suspects about Trent’s murder. I want him to help me understand, but I keep reminding myself that our conversation is being recorded. And I’m sure there are plenty of things about Trent’s death he won’t tell me anyway.
I know in my brother’s world solid people, the ones who are respected, just mind their business and do their time when they have to. They don’t peek or eavesdrop or gossip or say things that might be overheard. Jamie’s goal right now is to be solid, not to fight for his freedom. But someone has to. I have to.
“I want to do something,” I say.
“You deaf?”
That comes off as rude, and that’s how he wants it to sound. He glares at me again. A pause. He can see my feelings are hurt. His tone softens a little: “
Let the lawyer handle things.”
Jamie immediately realizes how stupid this sounds. The club hasn’t said they’re springing for a good attorney. The public defender is overworked and will hardly be Jamie’s best advocate. I have to wonder: What kind of a loser breaks the rules and still winds up with next to nothing?
Jamie can see my mind is turning.
“Want to really do me a favor?” he asks. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Rehab your leg. Be a star. Make lots of tackles. Get that scholarship. Make Mom proud. Make me proud.”
He finally smiles and reminds me of the big brother I used to know, before he started hanging around with guys with names like “Bear” and “Four-by-Four.” Is he afraid I’ll turn out like him if I don’t get a scholarship and get out of town? Jamie still seems to think he can just give me advice. It’s maddening but kind of sweet too. He’s still protective of me and Mom, even though he’s caused us so much stress over the years—never more so than now.
“Don’t just dance with that girl from Trollop’s party. Marry her!” He’s happy now, at least for the moment. “You’re a lousy dancer anyway.” He’s embarrassing me a little and enjoying it. “Have lots of babies. Start a little tribe of football players. Hopefully they’ll look like her, not you. I’ll pray for that.”
He does have charm, my brother.
I don’t remind him that that girl is the little sister of the man he’s accused of murdering. Or that Brenda and I have never even held hands, let alone kissed.
“Sounds like a plan” is the best I can do.
He’s such a nice guy right now, but I know nice people can do very bad things, just like bad people can do nice things. Once I saw Trollop rescue a caterpillar that found itself inside his house. He carried it outside and placed it on a leaf so it could be free. I imagine Trollop took credit for every butterfly that flew past his window after that.
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