The Adored

by Tom Connolly

  “Mr. Barnes, would you please step out of the car?”

  This was strange he thought but followed the officer’s request.

  Once out of the car the officer said, “Mr. Barnes, please turn and face your car with your hands on the roof.”

  “Officer, what is this about,” Barnes asked, while complying.

  The second officer came around from the back of the car and patted Barnes down.

  “He’s clean.”

  “Mr. Barnes, I have a warrant for your arrest. We are going to take you to the Stamford Police station.”

  “This must be some mistake, I don’t have any outstanding tickets; nothing else is wrong,” Barnes said, now in a plea.

  “Mr. Barnes, the charges in the warrant are for insider trading in stocks,” the first officer said to Barnes.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “This is a federal warrant. Once you are in custody, an agent from the SEC will be arriving to go over the charges with you in more detail. Our job right now is to bring you in,” the officer continued. “We’ll lock your car up and take the keys.”

  The second officer put handcuffs on Barnes and placed him in the rear of the Ford sedan. The second officer locked Barnes’ car.

  They were at the police station in ten minutes. Barnes was read his rights along the way. He remained silent, wondering how this involved him. The tips that Lenny gave him and that he had Kish execute were for Rocket Solar. Everything was fine there; the stock was a rocket, up 30 percent in the past three days. Could they have somehow found out about Lenny’s information to him? Could Kish have… “Oh my god,” he said audibly.

  “What’s that, Mr. Barnes,” the booking officer asked as he fingerprinted him.

  “Nothing,” and what had startled him was that Chunk DeLuna was most likely in this very jail. “Oh, my god,” he said again, but this time to himself.

  “As the arresting officer has stated to you, we are helping execute a federal warrant. The filers, the New York City Police Department and the SEC will be sending representatives here in the morning to formally charge you. You will have a special arraignment, and then you will be eligible for bail.”

  “I want to call an attorney this moment; there is no reason for me to be held overnight here,” he said, determined to not share the same space as DeLuna.

  “Once we’re through here, I’ll get you a phone, and you can call your attorney.”

  When they completed their work, Barnes was allowed to make a call from a cubicle that gave him some privacy. He dialed Gideon Bridge. This time for himself. Once again he received Bridge’s answering machine. He thought of hanging up and calling his father, but that would be worse.

  “Gideon, it’s me Parker. I’m in the Stamford Police Station’s jail on some charge of insider trading. I need you to come here tonight and get me out of this. Please hurry. Thanks.”

  “All set?” the processing officer asked, approaching Barnes.

  “No, not really,” Barnes said in a panic.

  “Well, I’ll take you to a cell. You can wait there until your attorney gets here.”

  “I’d rather not,” Barnes said defiantly. “I would like to wait right here until he comes.”

  “Here?” the officer said, “You can’t wait here; we have things to do. You’ve been arrested. When that happens you wait in a cell until the next event takes place.” The officer said back firmly, expecting trouble, and letting Barnes know if there was trouble, the officer was ready for it.

  “Please?” Barnes begged.

  “Mr. Barnes, this happens all the time; there is nothing to worry about.”

  Barnes thought of telling him that if DeLuna was there his life could be in danger. But that may make matters worse. Maybe DeLuna, seeing him also jailed, would keep his mouth shut.

  “Come along now,” the officer said as he walked towards a door.

  The door led down a flight metal and cement stairs. Very firm Barnes thought, the whole building has the feeling of a fortress. Every stair he descended seemed to be taking him further from the privileged life he led. When they reached the bottom, they went through another door. An officer sat behind a desk; beyond the desk were metal bars and gates. For all the trouble Barnes had been in his life over drug use and driving while intoxicated, he had never been jailed. The thought of losing his freedom, of being unable to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, was paralyzing him.

  “This is Mr. Parker Barnes, Jerry,” the processing officer said to Officer Jerry Lott, a very large, barrel chested man who was probably serving out his time here until his pension.

  “Let’s see. Would you like a single or a double, perhaps a water view?” Lott said sarcastically. “Ah, here we are, I have a lovely single. It’s in a noisy neighborhood, but things usually calm down by 11 p.m.”

  He opened the sliding gate with his keys, and he and Barnes walked down an aisle of about twelve cells, six to a side. Every cell had one or two men in them.

  “Here we are, your room with a view,” he said, sliding the barred gate to the cell to the left as Barnes entered.

  “I trust you’ll sleep well; see you in the morning,” and he slid the metal gate shut.

  “When my attorney comes,” Barnes began quietly as he could see there were men in the cell directly across from him on their beds, “would you please come and get me.”

  “Yes sir, if your attorney comes tonight, we will get you. I’d get a good night sleep. Usually the lawyers don’t show up till morning,” and the officer walked back up the aisle.

  “Your attorney?” it was the voice of DeLuna, “Don’t you mean our attorney, Mr. Barnes, sir,” and he slurred the “sir” in the same sarcastic manner as Officer Lott.

  No nightmare could be worse than this. Parker Barnes was in jail, and Chunk DeLuna was in the cell across from him.

  The other occupant of the DeLuna cell was startled by the name Barnes. He listened as his cellmate DeLuna spoke across the bars. It was only an hour before that DeLuna had started confiding in the black man about the deal that had gone bad.

  “We had it complete. All the drugs came off the boat. Hell, I even gave the kid who brought the drugs in his boat half his money up front. If I can’t get out of this, I’m screwed. I’ll be out a million and a half and have nothing to show for it.”

  As DeLuna told his tale, nothing about it seemed familiar. CJ Strong thought now, how could he have missed it—rich kid, own boat, father’s a big shot builder, running for Senate. Hadn’t CJ’s mother told him that her employer Jonathan Barnes was running for Senate? Yes. But Strong had been so focused on tomorrow, Saturday, the meetings, then Monday the hearing with the judge, he did not pick up on it.

  “Barnes,” DeLuna feigned a whisper, loud enough for the entire cell block to hear. “When we getting out.”

  “DeLuna, shut the fuck up,” Barnes screamed in a low stifled rage. “Are you nuts? Be quiet. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “What, you got yourself arrested on something else?” DeLuna said, and then added. “God’s punishing you. You were going to leave me in here, and He didn’t think that was right. When your lawyer comes, we walk out together.”

  “Damn it, DeLuna, be quiet,” Barnes said, knowing that the runt across the way was a caged animal. Barnes could sense his relentlessness.

  “Barnes. What did they get you for? Is it something with us?

  “I already told you, it has nothing to do with you.”

  “Then what. Tell me. I have to know,” DeLuna persisted.

  “Insider trading. Buying stocks with information only company people should have,” he blurted out to shut him up.

  “I know what that is. Did you do it?” DeLuna asked.

  “No. Now be quiet,” Barnes said

  Turning to Curtis Strong on the bed, still facing the wall, DeLuna said, “This is my boy across the way. He’s the one I’ve been telling you about. Big shot. He and his old man. It was his boat we used to bring the st
uff in. That’s why he’s going to get me out of this,” DeLuna concluded, having said this loud enough for Parker Barnes to hear.

  Barnes was trembling. “Mother of God,” he said to himself. “This imbecile is going to take me down with him.” “DeLuna, be quiet. We’ll never get out of this if you don’t shut up.”

  “Then tell me how this is going to work. How do we get me out of here?”

  “I’ve got calls in to my lawyer. He’ll be here. He’ll get me out. I’ll get you out. Now stop.”

  DeLuna sat back down on his bed. He whispered across to Strong, who had not responded to anything DeLuna had said since he came in the cell, and now figured DeLuna was talking to him as you would to yourself, only Strong could hear everything. “This kid is gonna fuck me. I know it. He says he’ll get me out of here. I don’t think so. Well I’ve got a surprise for him,” DeLuna continued in his monologue, loud enough for Strong to hear but muffled to Barnes in his cell. “The surprise he’s gonna get is that I’m tougher than anyone alive. I can take anything. If I go to jail for this, he’s coming with me. If they give me twenty-five years for bringing millions of dollars of drugs in, they’re gonna give Parker Barnes twenty-five years for bringing millions of dollars of drugs in.”

  Around midnight DeLuna created a scene, screaming for the jailer. He made a case that his one call was to someone who couldn’t help him. He needed to call his girlfriend and he would be quiet. The jailer had another officer come downstairs; they cuffed DeLuna from the front and took him to a small office by the front of the jail by the stairwell. The officer handed him his cell phone. “Make it quick and be quiet.”

  “Lupe, Estou na cadeia em Stamford Estação de Polícia,” DeLuna said in Portuguese and continued, “you need to get Carlos. This has to be done quickly. Tell him it’s the Olinda operation again. (Olinda had become the gang’s code for putting an operation together to attack an enemy location.) He’ll need all of the boys to get me out of here. He needs to do it before tomorrow morning.”

  The jailer returned, “OK, Poncho, time’s up. Hand over the phone.”

  “I love you, Lupe. Help me, quickly or I’m done,” and he closed the phone and handed it back to the officer.

  In the meantime, while DeLuna was out of the cell, Curtis Strong called across the aisle to Parker Barnes, who was lying in a funk on his mattress.

  “Parker, it’s me, Curtis Strong.”

  Barnes thought he heard his name. He got up off the bed and moved to the bars where a black man in DeLuna’s cell was looking at him, speaking to him.

  “Parker, it’s me, Curtis Strong,” he repeated.

  “Curtis,” he stammered in disbelief, “how the hell,” Barnes said, beginning to comprehend what Strong’s mother said about him going to be freed. “Curtis, Hi.”

  “Parker, listen, this guy in here with me has been saying he’s going to take you down with him.”

  “No way. Nothing to that.” Barnes said. “He’s a vendor of my father’s, importing cement.”

  “Says he brought the drugs they caught him with in your boat. Says he left a bag behind, hidden, for proof, for his insurance.”

  “Shit,” Barnes said.

  “It’s true?”

  “He’s a sly little bastard.”

  “Parker, is it true?” Strong said as they heard the jailer open a gate at the end of the block.

  “Yes, but damn it, Curtis, please don’t say anything,” Barnes pleaded.

  “I won’t say anything,” Strong replied as the jailer returned DeLuna to his cell.

  DeLuna noticing both men at the cell bars, asked Strong, “Are you and my boy Barnes there becoming friends?”

  Strong went back to his cot without answering.

  DeLuna said to Barnes, “Bet you, I get out of here before you.”

  The jailer returned to DeLuna’s cell. “It’s getting late; you said you’d be quiet if I let you make the call. No more talking.”

  DeLuna nodded and laid back on his bed. Soon he was asleep, snoring loudly. “Finally,” Strong said to himself.

  Now it was Strong who was astir. But what of Barnes. How could Strong help him. He smiled to himself, “You are the one who’s nuts. Why help him. You did ten years in prison for what the guy in the other cell did. And you want to help him? Yes, came his answer. It was the Barnes family who looked after Mrs. Strong. They even tried to help him, by hiring an attorney when he was charged. And then it hit him. Did old man Barnes know what Parker did? Is that why he hired the attorney? Is that why he took care of my mother? Is that why Parker got away with it? No, that can’t be. Billy Stevens said it was just the two of them. They got away, no one else ever knew. As sleep started to take him, his last thought was, no, I must help.

  At three in the morning, Officer Clark Watson came to Barnes’ cell, opened the door and gently shook Barnes awake.

  “Your attorney is here.”

  Barnes got up quickly and quietly, and followed the officer down the aisle, careful not to breathe for fear of waking DeLuna.

  They went upstairs and to a glassed-in office. “In here, Mr. Barnes.” Officer Watson said, and as he walked around the officer, there was Gideon Bridge.

  “Got your message when I woke up to take a leak. What the hell’s going on, Parker?” Bridge said.

  Bridge shook his head as he listened to Barnes tale. He said he believed Barnes, that he did not buy any of the stock in Rocket Solar based on inside information. He said Barnes should just spend the night, and he would be back first thing in the morning when the NY police and the SEC were here. They would all meet, and he would get this straightened out.

  At 3:30 a.m. Barnes went back to his cell and exhausted, quickly fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 74

  After Lupe heard from Chunk, Lupe, from DeLuna’s apartment on 28th St in Chelsea, called Carlos at his condo in Port Chester. There was no answer. She called him on his cell phone and got him. “Carlos, Chunk has been arrested. He’s in jail in Stamford.”

  “That’s what happened,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “After we got the shipment,” then he paused. DeLuna was very strong on compartmentalizing gang knowledge. Carlos was not sure that Lupe was aware of what they were up to.

  “They got him, and the shipment,” Lupe said. So much for compartmentalizing. “He said you need to get him out or he’s done for.”

  “I see,” he said, his mind moving toward thought, rather than the girl he lay on top of. He rose up, “What else did he say?”

  “Not much, it was short. He did say it’s the Olinda operation.”

  “Shit, this is going to be hard. Where are you going to be, Lupe?”

  “I’ll come there if you want?” she asked.

  “No, you stay there, in case we need you. I’ll call that lawyer, the one Chunk set up. We’ll use him.”

  “Carlos, are you stupid. Chunk said it’s the Olinda operation. I know what happened in Olinda. You guys didn’t use any lawyers,” Lupe said. Chunk’s gang had come to respect Lupe, and she could be as hard as Chunk to deal with. “Now listen to me Carlos. Chunk said you need to do this before tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s impossible!” Carlos said loudly.

  “Carlos, he needs you and the boys to get him out or it’s all over for him and us.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” Carlos said and closed his cell phone. He unplugged himself from the girl, said something to her and she left the room. His head began to hurt—the pressure to act was enormous. He only had hours. He opened the cell phone again and began pushing buttons. His direction was the same to each of them: “Come to my place in one hour, ready for war and bring your vests.”

  His last call was to two brothers in Stamford. “I need you both at my place in one hour.”

  The two brothers Henri and Francois Piermont, Haitians who were part of his dealer network in Stamford, had been arrested recently and had been held in the same location as Chunk and would
be valuable in locating Chunk quickly. These Haitians had been very helpful to Deluna in establishing the US drug operations in Stamford and New York City when Chunk and Carlos and their original gang members moved to the US as Chunk began securing cement contracts with Barnes Construction. Deluna’s childhood friend, Angel Pagan, took over all operations for Chunk with his own crew in Brazil. The Haitians were loyal and dependable. They were also known for their ruthlessness and their imposing size would be an asset in what Carlos was planning.

  At 5 a.m., two cars and six men, three in each car, pulled up to Stamford Police Headquarters. The June morning air was cool but comfortable. They parked the cars in the street and took two duffel bags from each car. It was just becoming light, the street was deserted and no one was stirring around the station.

  When they got to the front of the building, the six men gathered round the four duffel bags. They were dressed in jeans and t-shirts and Kevlar bullet proof vests. They reached in, each taking Uzi sub-machine guns and extra clips, which they were jamming into their pockets.

  Carlos reminded them, once more, “We follow the brothers. I do the talking. We only shoot when confronted.”

  Inside Police Headquarters there were five officers on duty. One at the front desk, a duty sergeant in back of him, two dispatchers, one officer downstairs in the jail. Also, a patrol officer, Rita Vercillo, arrived early to work out in the small gym at the rear of the building. It was her way of getting some privacy from the testosterone bunch that came in at 6 a.m.

  As soon as they walked in the front door, the front desk officer instinctively punched the alarm button. He was alert, looking forward to the shift ending in two hours. He had been keeping himself busy with the crossword puzzle from the Stamford Advocate. At 5 a.m. six Latino guys walking in the front door of police headquarters gets your attention. It’s not a big jump from that to the Kevlar vests and Uzis for you to realize you have fifteen seconds to live.