Rush

by Wozencraft, Kim

  Vince saved the big one for last. By that time, the jurors, all but the woman in the hat, looked tired, bored with going over the same details case after case. She was into it, fists clenched neatly on the table, but I couldn’t get my mind off my feet, which were hurting from the contortions forced on them by high heels.

  “Okay,” he finally said, “your partner has already testified on this case involving Will Gaines, but I’d like to just run over it with you.”

  I pulled the report from the stack in front of me.

  “Let me direct your attention to the twenty-sixth of April, 1978, that’s a month or so ago. Do you recall that date?”

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  “Sometime after six p.m. on that date, did you have occasion to speak to Officer Raynor in your apartment?”

  “Yes sir, I did.”

  “Did the two of you discuss a Mr. Will Gaines?“

  “Yes sir.”

  “What was the nature of that conversation?”

  “We discussed the possibility of making a cocaine purchase from Mr. Gaines that evening.”

  Yes we did, Mr. Assistant District Attorney, ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury, we did indeed discuss the possibility of buying coke from Will Gaines. We decided it couldn’t be done.

  “And where did you go to make the purchase?”

  “To the alley behind the Drillers Club.”

  “What time did you arrive?”

  “Shortly after eleven o’clock.”

  “What was your assignment?”

  “I was to wait in my car, near the back door of the club while Agent Raynor bought the cocaine.”

  “When he bought the cocaine.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “From Gaines.”

  “Yes sir, from Will Gaines.”

  “And what did you see while you were sitting in your car that night?”

  “I saw Will Gaines step out back, and there appeared to be a short conversation, and then Gaines handed Agent Raynor a manilla envelope.”

  I had solemnly sworn that my testimony would be the truth, and so I made my words true. I lied with conviction, I made myself believe it. I had to. I pictured the whole thing as I lied to the jurors, I saw it happening, saw Gaines make the delivery, just as he would have were there any justice in the world. He had to be taken down, and so, to appease the remnants of my tortured little Catholic girl conscience, I took the long view and gave the jury the words they needed to indict Will Gaines for a crime he did not do.

  One statute, another statute, it didn’t matter. Jim and I were turning it around on him, discarding all the rules that he chose not to live by, and somehow, it was right. Our action was Justified. Q.E.D.—almost.

  When Vince stood up, I thought it was over, but just then the woman in the hat raised a tentative hand.

  “Excuse me,” she said timidly, ‘but I’m not used to all this, and I’m confused about one thing.”

  Vince shot me a glance and then told her to go ahead with her question.

  “Earlier today,” she said, “there was a sergeant in here, Sergeant Dodd, I believe, and he mentioned something about a young man. I believe his name was Walker, and I’m just not sure what his part was in all of this. Could you explain?”

  I looked to Vince, but he apparently had nothing to say.

  “I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” I said.

  “What I’d like to know,” the woman said, “is whether or not this young man was one of the ones selling drugs. It was never made clear by the sergeant.”

  I had no idea what Dodd had said or how much Vince knew about our informant. If I said the wrong thing, Vince would know it was perjury, and I didn’t know how he would react to that. I phrased my response carefully.

  “All I can tell you about that,” I said, “is that I never personally bought any narcotics from him and I never witnessed him selling any narcotics to anyone.”

  The woman fingered the flowers on her hat and cocked her head to one side. Vince jumped in quickly and dismissed them for the day.

  I wondered why the videos weren’t mentioned.

  Outside the jury room, having received accolades from Vince and nods of gratitude from the jurors for my courageous sally into the world of crime, I stood leaning against the wall wondering where Jim had gone. Dodd walked up, nodding respectfully to the jurors as they passed along the wide, high-ceilinged hallway.

  “He’s in the men’s room,” he said. “Asked me to wait on you.”

  “What’s the deal with Walker?” I asked.

  “What deal?”

  “What did you tell them about him?”

  Dodd was standing there trying to look confused when Jim walked up.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Problems,” I said. “They asked about Walker.”

  “Let’s go outside.”

  It was almost dark as we stood on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, a pink granite art-deco tower that sat in the middle of the town square. The row of parking spaces next to the building was filled with a line of S.O. cars, white Pontiacs with black-and-gold emblems on the doors. Most of them had the new red-and-blue Visibars, but there were a few with the old double-cupped red lights on top.

  “So,” Dodd said. He sat down on a fender and lit a cigarette.

  “What’d you tell them.” Jim eyed Dodd.

  “And why,” I said. “Why’d you burn him?”

  “Didn’t have a choice,” Dodd said. “Don’t ask me how they knew. But they did. Anyway, I took care of it. Ran straight to the office after I testified. His paperwork is right here in my boot.”

  “You mind if I hang on to it?” Jim took Dodd’s cigarette to light his own.

  “No problem.” Dodd reached to hike up his jeans but stopped suddenly and straightened. “Oh, man,” he said. “Here comes just the person I do not want to talk to right now. Thinks he’s another Melvin fuckin’ Belli or something.”

  Waddling toward us was a short, dark-suited fellow with a thick strip of black hair that ran around the back of his partly bald, partly shaved head, from one ear to the other. His tie was pulled loose and he carried a large satchel stuffed full and overflowing with papers.

  He nodded at Dodd, stuck his hand out at Jim. “Charles Somer,” he said, grabbing Jim’s hand and shaking it vigorously. He stepped toward me, stood barely a few inches away, and offered a dishrag handshake. “Friends call me Chuck. I’ve heard so much about you both. I’m representing, at the moment, forty-three of your defendants. I anticipate that number increasing as the trials begin.” He stepped back two measured steps, pulled the satchel to his chest.

  “I don’t expect we’ll have many trials,” Jim said. “Most of the defendants will see the light and cop a plea.”

  “I’ll withhold judgment on that,” Somer said. He stepped in close again. “But from the stories they’ve been telling me, I think I have good reasons to anticipate some lively courtroom encounters.” Again, back two steps.

  “Hey, Chuck,” Dodd spat, “how’d you wind up with forty-three defendants anyway? You get advance notice or something? Wait at the jailhouse to sign them up?”

  “You know my reputation in the community, Sergeant, I’m sure.”

  “Is that reputation good or bad?” I asked.

  He smiled and said, “It’s simple. I’m without peer. And, as your good sergeant is well aware, I make it my business to keep tabs on Beaumont’s Finest.” As he stepped forward, I stepped back a couple of paces. He smirked at me.

  “God knows,” Dodd mumbled.

  “Well, Chuck,” Jim said, “we’ve got to be somewhere. Nice of you to introduce yourself.”

  “My pleasure, I assure you. Let’s face it, thanks to the duo of Raynor and Cates, I’m going to have an especially lovely Christmas this year. Might even take the wife on a cruise. Business, as they say, is booming.”

  He did an about-face and walked away, still clutching the satchel to his chest.

&
nbsp; “What an asshole,” Dodd said. “Son of a bitch decided he was real smart when he won a civil suit against the department. Got two million dollars for a punk who claimed some harness cops kicked his butt one night.”

  “Did they?” I asked.

  “Hell no, “ Dodd said. “All’s they did was knock on the front door to serve a warrant. Unfortunately his old man was sitting in the living room watching ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’ when it happened.”

  “So how’d he win the suit?”

  Dodd smiled at a memory and scuffed at the pavement with his boot.

  “They knocked with a sledgehammer.”

  “Well,” I said, “Chuckie sure has his priorities lined out. Good Christmas, a cruise, wonder what his clients will be doing.”

  “Picking cotton,” Dodd said.

  Jim was still watching Somer waltz across the parking lot when Dodd handed him the files.

  “Yeah,” Dodd said, “that’s what it’ll be. Jump down turn around pick a bale o’ cotton.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Jim said. “Dude’s probably one hell of an attorney.” He tossed away his cigarette. “He’s about a cold-blooded bastard.”

  17

  Icily composed was how they described me in the newspapers. Valium calm would have been more accurate. Eight or ten of the defendants had jumped out and insisted they wanted to go to trial. I took light blue pills and got on the stand and said what the prosecutors wanted to hear, trying to answer in a manner that would make the defense attorneys cringe.

  Nettle was loving it. He trooped us around to every civic organization in town, showing off his prize narcs, feeding us mashed potatoes and roast beef before standing us up in front of the Elks so we could talk about “Drugs in Your Town, Mr. Citizen.”

  Jim would stand behind a podium in his three-piece suit, his hair neatly trimmed, looking, as the papers said, “handsomely All-American,” and tell the businessmen of Beaumont that they should thank God that their police department was doing everything possible to fight the drug epidemic which had, through no fault of their own, infected their town.

  One by one we gathered up the defendants who had tried to run. By July, there were only seven at large, all either FNU LNUs or people we knew by first name only. Sometimes that was enough. We would feed someone’s street name into the computer, get a printout of each one on record, check the birthdates, and pick out those within range. Then we would send for D.L. photos and see if we recognized anyone. Though most of the pictures in the state’s driver-license file were pathetically blurred, we usually managed to find the person we were looking for.

  Nettle took a personal interest in each and every case, and used the computers for other purposes. He checked out prospective jurors as if they were applying for a position with the CIA. He had everything from voting records to traffic tickets, he knew where they went to church, what organizations they belonged to, how many kids they had and whether those kids were Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or delinquents. I felt like asking him what color toothbrushes the members of the jury panel used, but I was afraid he might know the answer.

  * * *

  Foolish little Douglas led the charge of the sacrificial lambs. He was the first defendant to go to trial, ran right out front. They gave him a life sentence. Jammer got thirty years. Cowboy went down for seventy-five. Lester the Mo was up for the Big Bitch, habitual offender, three strikes and it’s life with no parole. He got it.

  Lawyers began making appointments to see Vince and the other A.D.A.s who were helping with the cases. The words plea bargain were whispered behind his office door. Chuck still hadn’t brought a case to court. He was laying back, perhaps waiting to see what the others got, and in the meantime his clients were showing up at our office claiming that he was costing them everything but their pocket change.

  A few of them even offered to snitch. Butch Cravin, a shag-headed blond fellow with a scar that ran down the left side of his huge nose, said he was desperate, he would do anything. He sat across from Jim’s desk, sweating like a hog in a sauna, his T-shirt growing dark around his armpits as he spoke.

  “I just can’t afford that Mr. Somer,” he said. “Hell, he’s got the title to my car, he’s taking twenty percent of every paycheck I get, and I still owe him thousands. I got to have a little relief. I can get you a guy down in Port Lavaca who deals pounds.”

  “Pounds of what?” Jim asked.

  “Pounds of pot.”

  “Not interested,” Jim said. “We want cocaine.”

  Cravin sat there for a moment, staring at the floor, and then wiped his sweating palms on his thighs, streaking the denim darker blue.

  “All right,” he said. “But you got to get me off completely, no probations, ‘cause I’m gonna have to leave the state if I want to stay alive.”

  “We can’t promise anything,” Jim said. “But we’ll do what we can.”

  I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you. The guy had sold us some prescription diet pills and a few grams of coke, small time deals. But he was looking at big time, anywhere from two to ten on each case. If the juries continued their hang-’em-high ways, Cravin would get an even thirty years.

  I sat at my desk, staring across the hall at the evidence vault while Jim bargained with him. I had Valium in my purse, pot at my apartment, and there was no telling what Jim had stashed away, and here we were, part of the system that had Cravin’s head in a vise and was tightening, tightening.

  He made the calls from our office, actually put Jim on the line to talk to the connections. We could get a kilo in two weeks.

  When he hung up, Jim scribbled down the straight-line number and handed it to our newest informant.

  “Call every day at four-fifteen,” he said. “I’ll let you know how we make out with the D.A. Your paperwork’s in his office, so we’ve got to go through channels now.”

  “Thanks, man,” Cravin said. “I mean, I wouldn’t do this, only I got a family, a couple of kids, you know, and I just can’t pay what Somer is asking.”

  “You could try for a court appointment,” I said.

  “I don’t qualify. I have to get broke before they’ll give me one.”

  * * *

  “What about it?” Nettle said. He pulled a paper from his in-box and began reading it. The air conditioner hummed away; his office was a cold as December. I pulled a chair up to his desk.

  “It’s a kilo of coke,” I said. “A good bust.” I wanted to add, “for a change.”

  “I don’t see where Port Lavaca has anything to do with what’s going on here in Beaumont.” He cleared his throat.

  “It’s a step up the ladder. We bust a local’s connection, et cetera.”

  He put the paper down, pinning it to his desktop with his fingertips.

  “Look,” I said, “Jim’s already talked to the guy. We can make the buy next week.”

  “It’s out of our jurisdiction.”

  “What about the State?”

  “Not interested,” he said. “They have a bad reputation.”

  “Chief,” I said, “our defendants are starting to talk, they’re giving up sources. I just spent three hours visiting with Jammer in the county jail. He said he’d go to work for us tonight. If you won’t do the Port Lavaca deal, what about getting Jammer out?”

  “Unless I misunderstood you, the only thing he can do is a speed lab in Dallas. That’s not our problem either.”

  “It is our problem,” I said. “It’s a damn crank lab. Crystal meth. You know how much of that we bought. They’re all over the state. This is a source.”

  He reached beneath his desk and brought out his briefcase, centering it carefully on the polished mahogany before he stood up.

  “Officer,” he said, “it’s late. I’m tired. Good-night.”

  It was almost midnight when I got home. There were lights on in my apartment. Standing outside the door, I heard the twanging guitar of Willie Nelson. I slipped my gun out and worked the key with my left hand.


  Jim and Walker were sprawled on the couch. In the center of the coffee table was a pyramid of empty beer cans, next to that a bong and a bag of weed.

  “Hey, baby,” Jim said. “How’d it go? You flip that bastard?”

  “He gonna cooperate?” Walker slurred.

  I ignored him and pulled a chair over from the dining room.

  “He says he can do a speed lab in Dallas.”

  “All right then,” Jim said.

  “No, it’s not. El ‘Keep-my-ass-on-the-promotion-track’ Jefe says no way. He wants deals in this county or no deals at all.”

  “Man,” Walker said. “Some fucking cop he is.”

  “Shut up, Walker, you’re drunk,” Jim said.

  “You’re both wasted,” I said. “Lock the door when you leave.” I flipped the stereo off as I walked to the bedroom.

  “By the way, Raynor,” I said, “could somebody explain to me why I’m out working until midnight while my partner is at home getting loaded?”

  “Damn,” Walker said, “I think I’ll hit the road.”

  “Good idea.” I shut the bedroom door, slipped off my shoulder holster, stuck my gun under my pillow, and passed out.

  When I woke the next day around noon, Jim was lying next to me, also fully clothed.

  I showered and dressed and was scrounging around the kitchen for something to eat when he wandered in.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “An hour and a half before work. You want some lunch?”

  “Sandwich sounds good. Think I’ll shower.”

  I dug around in the refrigerator and slapped a couple of sandwiches together. When I opened the box of saltines, I found a rig tucked in between the wax-paper packets of crackers. Used. A thin film of red inside, coating the cylinder.

  I heard the shower running and began searching. Tore the kitchen apart. When I’d finished, I’d found three more. All tinted red, one still with a few fresh drops of bloody liquid in it. I lined them up neatly on top of Jim’s sandwich and slipped back into the bedroom to get my badge and gun before I drove to the office.