ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story)

by Glenn Langohr

  Hector said, “This is your chance to make a big name for yourself, B.J. Can you handle it?”

  I thought about it and struggled to keep my impulse message sender from nodding out of pride. It took all of the strength I had left to articulate something I held as close to the truth as I could recognize.

  “All of the jobs I’ve done that were successful in the short term took a lot of planning, my own planning, not someone else’s.”

  I stopped myself. I caught what I’d said about my jobs being successful in the short term. Weren’t even those the vines that were strangling me? Even if I handled this, wouldn’t I just end up in similar circumstances again and again in this drug business?

  L’il man asked me, “How would you execute Argenta?”

  “I’d watch him from up here for as long as it took to cover all of the angles. I’d want to know who lives in that house with him. If he lives alone, I’d look for a way to handle it without a gun because this exit strategy next to the police station sucks for a big bang exit. If he doesn’t live alone, I’d watch him for a few weeks, or however long it took to find out what his schedule is like. Where he goes and when until I could dissect a spot ideal for the job.”

  L’il man nodded his head like he could respect what I just said.

  Hector shook his head and said, “We don’t have that kind of time. The murder at Mr. G.’s is going to bring a ton of law enforcement heat. It needs to go down quickly. B.J., I’ve got a Ducati speed bike that is legally mine from a salvage yard. I’ll let you use it to go past Argenta’s house and you could park it and do some recon on foot. You could make your way to his backyard and watch his house to see if you see anyone else. If you can climb his fence and get it done your way, it’s a done deal.”

  CHAPTER 110

  Felipe listened to the conversation about Argenta from just out of view on the ledge below. He heard B.J.’s name and remembered the white guy he met in the canyon who had the Festiva when Ricky mentioned Argenta’s name. He heard B.J. and the other two leaving and climbed back to his perch and lit another cigarette and waited patiently.

  An hour later, he watched B.J. ride up and down the street on the speed bike. The third time B.J. went by Felipe used his binoculars to see B.J. park the speed bike well past Argenta’s house. He watched B.J. enter the foothill and struggled to see him through the brush and couldn’t. For two hours Felipe imagined B.J. hopping Argenta’s gate. He expected to hear the report of a gun being fired any time. Instead, he saw Argenta’s front door open. He watched Argenta come through the front door in his wheel chair and saw a little girl behind him. Felipe studied the little girl pretending to push Argenta’s wheel chair and remembered his niece Maria. The little girl looked just like her when she left for California at the age of 11. She had the same brown curly hair and the same smiling face.

  CHAPTER 111

  I rode the speed bike and felt all of my adrenaline surging. I rode up and down Argenta’s street and imagined an exit strategy. There looked to be enough time to get the job done and race to Hector’s garage to hide the Ducati. As I rode I thought about Argenta. He was in violation of my rules and regulations. I could do this job. I parked a couple hundred yards past Argenta’s and walked into the foothill.

  I got to Argenta’s wrought iron gate and looked for signs of a security system. I didn’t see one. He must feel safe with a ten foot high gate. His backyard had a large pool and spa in it and there wasn’t a dog. I looked at the one story house and looked for signs of other people living there. There was a kitchen window I could see in from an angle. With the binoculars I could see two glasses and two plates on the counter. There was a living room window, but the drapes were closed. There was a bedroom window but the drapes were closed. I was getting the feeling that Argenta usually lived alone.

  I stayed there for over an hour imagining myself climbing the gate and entering the house. I felt the Momentum of my thoughts at the edge of tipping over into an action. Then images of my grandfather’s face at the airport flashed. I saw his face and heard him telling me, “Nothing good can come of this drug business… Remember, your Mom is up there watching you.”

  I imagined my Mom watching and asked, “what do I do?” I pictured her telling me not to do it. Then I pictured just riding the speed bike all the way back to Orange County. Then, I saw Argenta injecting a 15 year old girl with heroin. If my Mom knew that would happen would she want me to do it? I felt my spirit struggling with what was right and what was wrong. Who would I be serving if I killed Argenta? I prayed and asked God, “Do you want me to rid the world of this evil person? Show me a sign so I know what to do!”

  I heard Argenta’s front door open. I ran to the Ducati and started it and waited. I watched Argenta’s front gate open and his white van backing out. I pulled my handgun out and held it against the throttle with two fingers in control of the gun and three in control of the throttle and headed toward him.

  I saw the white van back out and drive toward the freeway and caught up to it. I pulled even with the van and looked at Argenta’s face and pointed my gun at him as I pulled further ahead of him. Then I saw the little girl. I looked at her and imagined that was my Mom at her age.

  CHAPTER 112

  Felipe watched Argenta pull away from his house. B.J. was pulling up to the van and pointing a gun at him. Instead of seeing the spark of gunfire and hearing the pop of the gun exploding, B.J. put the gun away and raced past Argenta’s van. He watched Argenta stop the van and flip a U-turn. Felipe ran down the hillside and got in his black B.M.W. and drove down the street to his destiny.

  Felipe parked in front of the gate and saw Argenta power his wheel chair through the front door, leaving it open. Felipe jogged through the door and caught up to Argenta on the phone.

  “Let me have the phone and let’s go outside to your beautiful pool.”

  Argenta watched the phone get taken from him and his wheel chair being pushed into the backyard. He watched Felipe pull out a hypodermic needle and wished there was some strength in his frail body to fight with.

  “Argenta, since you like to inject young women with needles full of heroin, I thought it would be poetic for you to die that way also. The problem is, your death will be a lot easier than the one you put my niece Maria through. She suffered a lot more than you did as a prostitute in your world away from her loved ones in our world in Mexico. So all I can do is tell you that this needle full of heroin you’re about to feel enter your blood stream is the same amount we tested on a 900lb. bull. The bull we chose to test it on was past his prime and out of testosterone. Kind of like you. It took a half an hour for the bull to die, so I figure you’ve got about 4 to 5 minutes.”

  Argenta watched the needle slowly get closer and closer to his vein and felt it puncture his arm and felt the squirt of fluid from the needle. He felt his body getting warm and thought, this isn’t such a bad way to go. Then he felt Felipe push his wheel chair to the edge of the water and imagined his worst nightmare coming true. To drown.

  “Let’s see if you can swim Argenta.”

  CHAPTER 113

  I went back to Hector’s and Bob called from jail. I found out he was being charged with manufacturing speed. I asked him what was up with Argenta and he filled in all of the missing pieces. He gave me some advice, that I should go back to Orange County and get an attorney on retainer for the case I was still running from, and see if I could also get help with my investment problem with Mr. Dudley. I told Bob I would follow his advice and look into getting him an attorney also. As soon as I got off the phone, L’il man ran into Hector’s house and told us a bunch of cops were in front of Argenta’s.

  We ran up that hill to watch and got there in time to see Felipe in handcuffs getting put in a squad car. Crime scene detectives, child protective services and the coroner showed up. We watched Argenta’s body bag get walked to the back of a van…

  CHAPTER 114

  I got back to Orange County the following night and went to
Tom’s. As soon as I entered, it felt like a dark cloud of death hung in the air like a cloak. Tom’s roommate looked at me with a stink eye, like I had just ridden up on the pale horse of death. I absorbed my part of the blame due. He informed me that Tom had finally gone to sleep after 28 days without any. Tom had come clean with his speed habit, lost his job and was looking for a rehab. I respectfully excused myself and unhitched my horse.

  CHAPTER 115

  I went to Paul’s next. It was three a.m. when I drove up his street. I could hear power tools going full blast and couldn’t believe my eyes as I approached. I pulled over and observed a baffling spectacle. Paul had his boat parked in the driveway with a tarp built over the top of it almost to the point it completely circled the entire boat. He had lights going underneath the tarp as if it hid what he was doing. All it did was make it look like they had a secret mission going underneath a glow tarp. I watched Paul in his half closed garage cutting wood and saw a team of three people working on his boat underneath the glow tarp. Paul ducked his head under the garage door and walked some wood to the boat and knocked on it. One of his worker’s looked like he was used to that knock system and popped his head out of the boat to accept the wood.

  I walked into Paul’s garage while he was cutting some more wood. He didn’t notice me duck under his garage door, he was too busy with his loud task. His face looked like it was stuck. Like he was barely holding on to his sanity, but somehow was. When I got his attention I saw his face change from holding on to that sanity, to shock, fear and confusion. All of those emotions flashed by in an instant and I watched his will power manage to compose himself back to just barely holding on.

  “B.J.! You scared the shit out of me! What’s up?”

  I looked at Paul and realized our situations were reversed. He was where I usually was. Locked and loaded at the edge of his seat. I was the one who couldn’t keep up. My spirit was spent and I was exhausted. It took every last drop of energy I had to explain a few things. Paul did what I usually did, assessed things, chiseled through them, and moved on.

  “So Big Bob is busted for a manufacturing case… I’m glad I got another speed connection while you were gone. That glass I’ve been getting is a good seller, everyone loves it. But that purple shit you brought back from Oceanside is the best shit I’ve ever seen. It’s so good I don’t even sell it. I use it to have those guys work on my boat 24/7. Can you get any more of it?”

  I mumbled, “The piece of shit I got it from in Oceanside got murdered by the guy who used to own the Festiva. I’m too tired to explain. It’s all over the news though, check it out.”

  I watched Paul’s expectant face waiting for me to explain more. I couldn’t. I just wanted to rest and that didn’t seem possible at an apartment with a glow tarp in the driveway. From where I was standing inside the garage I noticed some new construction. It looked like Paul had built a small enclosed wooden room that I assumed was a bathroom. He saw me looking at it.

  “I built that room. It’s an escape hatch for Gina. She’s been getting on my case that I’m a bust with this boat in the driveway for the last three weeks. So I built the tarp first and then the escape hatch. I couldn’t stop re-decking my boat in the middle of the job so I improvised. Here let me show you.”

  I stepped inside the wooden room. There was a table with one of those large water dispensers on it with a funnel attached to the top of it. I sat in the same swivel chair I used to spin circles on and looked at the ladder. It went up to the escape hatch. Paul explained.

  “I cut a hole through our closet so Gina can climb down and dump any speed I leave her in this jug of water.”

  I laid my head down on the table and felt like crying.

  CHAPTER 116

  The next morning I woke up on Paul’s couch from a nightmare and didn’t know where I was. I sat and thought about things. Images of jumping through Bob’s kitchen window flashed by, then Hector’s house, the hillside, stalking Argenta on the speed bike, Felipe being escorted in handcuffs into a squad car, Argenta being carried in a body bag…

  I sat there and realized my hand instinctively searched the pockets of my pants and found my wallet, and then my speed. I wondered why I cared about it so much. I pulled the speed out and looked at it. There was about an ounce and a half of the purple looking ice left. I got stuck just sitting there looking at it wondering if I was going insane, or was I already there.

  It didn’t feel like I had any control of my thoughts. It felt like Satan was shoving them in front of me to ruin me further. Thoughts came at me in a flood, Bob’s in jail, Argenta’s dead, Mr. Dudley owes you money, you have nowhere to live, you have no reason to live, what are you going to do? I felt these thoughts force their way into my subconscious and tried to build a barricade against them. Instead of letting them in, I told myself that Satan was disgusted with me for not doing his bidding with Argenta.

  I didn’t even notice Paul standing next to the couch watching me.

  “B.J., are you alright? You look like you’re almost catatonic sitting there staring at your speed. I went to the bathroom an hour ago to shower and saw you in the same position you’re in right now. What happened to you in San Bernardino besides Bob getting busted? By the way, do you want to sell me any of that speed?”

  I realized my back was hurting from sitting in the same position for so long and lay back down and told Paul. “Get on your computer and look for news in San Bernardino.”

  I heard Paul pecking away on the computer and then him reading. “Two murders may be related to a mob war brewing over the control of methamphetamine. Authorities are investigating whether a murder at Mr. G.’s strip club in Rialto is related to what is being ruled as another homicide in San Bernardino a day later.”

  I sat up and watched Paul turn on the T.V. in time to watch a channel 9 news report. Felipe was being escorted from a police car to the jail and the news reporter was saying, “Felipe Nevarrez, a Mexican National, is being held on murder charges. Investigators believe it is a drug related mob hit. It’s unclear at this point if it’s related to another drug related mob hit that happened just days earlier at a strip club twenty miles away.”

  I forced myself to get up by finding a reason to be grateful. That could have been me in handcuffs facing a life sentence. I explained it all to Paul and realized my problems were cut in half. I was done with the speed business! All that was really left was dealing with Mr. Dudley and getting an attorney for Bob and I. Paul had an idea.

  “I know a good attorney you can call. You can see how much he wants for a retainer to take the case you’re on the run from. He can work out a deal with the D.A. and let you know what it is so you know what you’re facing and like Bob said, he can advise you about your business deal with Mr. Dudley.”

  I took Paul’s advice and called Mr. Simon Barries. I explained that I had been on the lam for almost five years for selling marijuana and got into my investment with Mr. Dudley. Mr. Barries made the pot charge seem like it wasn’t a big deal and told me to bring my investment contract with Mr. Dudley along with a $5,000 check as a retainer.

  Paul and I went into his garage so I could weigh up the speed for him and I found I just couldn’t sell it all to him. The more I wondered about it, the more I wanted to keep some for myself! I fought with myself over whether I should keep a half ounce or a quarter ounce and settled on a quarter ounce as if I’d shown some real discipline. I snorted a couple lines and had an idea. Why don’t I go to Mr. Dudley’s and have him write a check for my attorney?

  CHAPTER 117

  I drove the Festiva over the cobble stone drive and waited for the gate guard to let me in. Images flashed through my mind of coming over to Mr. Dudley’s house every day for months to learn about his custom Harleys. I drove through the gate and imagined how I must have looked from above driving a cheap little car into a gated community with mansions and wealth all around me. I wondered, how could Mr. Dudley justify scamming me the way he did with promises of getting me to
the Promised Land?

  I parked around the corner where Mr. Dudley always put me and saw that Brock’s truck was gone. I wondered, maybe they’re at the dealership, I should have called. I walked to the front door and stood there. I didn’t have anything planned, what was I going to say. I thought about walking back to my car for a second. Then I knocked.

  Mr. Dudley answered the door. He was dressed in his pajama bottoms and a white wife beater tank top. I watched the expression on his face flash from irritated to composed.

  “B.J… What are you doing? You should have called first.”

  I stared at Mr. Dudley’s composed face covering up all of that fraud he had inside of him. “I need to talk to you about my investment.”

  Mr. Dudley hesitated for a second and then let me in. I sat on the couch in the same spot I always had while he poured himself a drink. He came back and sat down in the recliner he always sat in.

  “What about your investment?”

  I watched Mr. Dudley compose himself the same way he had all those months ago. He was leaning toward me like a clinical psychologist, like he cared. I was done with the charade.

  “Mr. Dudley, you’re a fake and a fraud.”

  Mr. Dudley’s expression didn’t change much but I realized he must have already considered an exit strategy. Then it hit me, his plan had probably been to utilize the police if this came up. I watched Mr. Dudley take on an indignant look.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Dudley I would like you to write out a check from my investment to my attorney. Write it out to Simon Barries.”