“Sounds to me like Moses never had any intention of coming back to stand trial. His only hope was to make a run for it.”
Andie glanced toward Trooper Stratton’s body, which the med-180
James Grippando
ical examiner’s team was now pulling from the vehicle.“Yeah,” she said softly.“And shoot to kill anyone who gets in his way.”
Moses and his red car were in an Orlando chop shop before midnight. The O-Town Posse leader had contacts in every major Florida city. Organization was the key to success.
It was difficult to maintain that organization, however, from behind prison bars. Sure, Moses had heard of mob bosses running the Mafia from jail. But O-Town Posse didn’t have that kind of structure. Not yet, anyway.Things had been breaking down in Moses’ absence, and tonight’s run-in with the state trooper was proof of that. Moses’ Overtown soldiers had neglected to tell him that they’d used
his
car to carry out the drive-by hit on Theo Knight.
This precious little detail came out in a phone conversation with his right-hand man, minutes after Moses shot Trooper Stratton in the forehead.
“How could you not tell me?” Moses had said to him.
“Dude, we—I don’t know. You ordered the hit, we did the hit.”
“Yeah, and you fucked that up, too.”
“The brotha’ went down on the sidewalk like a rock. Blood was coming from his head.Was dead for sure, we thought.”
“You just wasn’t
thinkin’
, period. Use my wheels? How crazy is that?”
“It seemed to make sense at the time.We figured if somebody spotted the car, we’d tell the cops it was stolen. No way you coulda’
pulled the trigger.You was in jail, dude.”
Moses knew that was a crock. His soldiers were smart enough to understand that any acts of O-Town Posse would be linked to Moses, whether he was in or out of prison.They obviously realized how stupid they’d been, were afraid to fess up, and were hoping that no witnesses had given the cops a description of the vehicle.
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That hope had bordered on delusional. Had Moses known that there was even a possibility of a BOLO, never in a million years would he have gone flying up the interstate at ninety-plus miles per hour. Fortunately for Moses, his car was equipped with a police radio (no self-respecting gang lieutenant traveled without one), so he heard Trooper Stratton radio in the vehicle description in response to the BOLO. Moses had reacted accordingly.
Regardless, back in Miami, some idiot’s head was going to roll—literally.
“I got about a half-dozen cars you can choose from,” the chop shop owner told him. His name was Jamahl, a fat guy who appeared to live day and night in his grimy garage coveralls. “Come out back with me.Take your pick.”
The noise inside the garage was deafening. Jamahl’s chop team was busy at work on the latest acquisition—pounding, sawing, cutting, ripping—quickly reducing the red car to parts for sale and shipment to Latin America. Moses took one last look at his wheels and followed the owner outside to the junkyard. Five completely intact vehicles were lined up in front of a mountain of quarter panels, wheel wells, and discarded parts from chopped vehicles. Moses zeroed in on the metallic blue 1995 Caprice Classic.
“This one stolen?” said Moses.
“None of these is.”
“Right,” said Moses.
“I speak the truth, dude. Some of my inventory has to be legit to keep the IRS off my back. And this is it. My five beauties.”
Moses walked around the Caprice, inspecting the body, paint job, tires, and rims. It needed a wash, but everything was in good condition.
He opened the drivers’-side door and climbed behind the wheel.The keys were in the ignition.The engine started on the first turn, and he liked the sound of it. The odometer posted twenty-eight thousand miles, but Moses figured that the real number was probably double.
“What you want for it?”
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“For you? A straight-up trade, brotha’.”
Moses nodded. “Appreciate it, dude. But I need to keep my police radio.”
“No problem.”
They didn’t bother with paperwork. A title transfer in Moses’
name would only have put the state of Florida on alert and defeated the purpose of his new wheels. He took the police radio from his old car and drove off the lot around 12:30 a.m. The radio told him that the Florida turnpike was crawling with cops, so he followed the back roads out of Orlando, and he would continue on a dark, winding route until he could pick up the interstate.
The police radio was abuzz. They were looking not just for Moses’ red car—which was now history—but for him, too. He needed a disguise and a phony ID if he was going to be on the road.A dead cop was a top priority for law enforcement. It was also big news for the media. He couldn’t just keep quiet and let it hit the newspapers in the morning. There was one other phone call he had to make.
He dialed the number—he had it memorized—and a man answered in a sleepy voice. In two minutes, Moses told him exactly what had happened since his release from jail.The end of his story was met with stone-cold silence. Moses could sense the anger on the other end of the line.
“Don’t worry,” said Moses. “I’m still working it the way we planned.”
“The plan went out the window when your boys dropped the ball in Overtown. So far, I’m the only one who keeps his promises.You went from no bail to ten thousand dollars bail, thanks to me. Less than twenty-four hours later, a state trooper is dead and you’re in king-size trouble. Do you realize how bad this is going to look?”
“Nobody even knows you’re involved. It ain’t gonna look like anything for you.”
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“I’m not talking about me. I pulled in a huge favor.That trial judge who cut you a break on your bail this morning is an elected official. The media will absolutely skewer him. I’m going to have one very angry old man on my hands.”
“You deal with that end. I’ll take care of mine.”
“You haven’t taken care of shit. Make it right, or don’t ever call me again.”
The loud click in Moses’ ear could only have been the telephone slamming down. Moses simply smiled as he put away his cell.The man’s words—
Don’t ever call me again
—traveled straight to his funny bone.
“Dream on, dude.”
I t was lights out at TGK, and Theo lay awake in his bunk. Plotting his next move was head splitting.There was only so much time he could spend thinking about the O-Town Posse tattoo and Moses’ sudden departure, not to mention his search for the man who played the role of “safety valve” in Isaac Reems’s extortion scheme.Theo desperately wanted to know the upshot of the cell-to-cell inspection of inmates, but Jack couldn’t just stop by to provide hourly updates. Too much contact with the real world (particularly outside of regular visiting hours) would arouse suspicions within TGK and potentially blow Theo’s cover. Jack would have to fill him in at tomorrow’s meeting. In the meantime, sleep was essential.
Theo was giving his brain a rest, playing one of the many mental games he’d invented while on death row.This one drew on his musical background and was called “Duets You Hope You Never See.” He quit when he conjured up the image of Ozzy Osbourne and Keith Richards clad in skimpy Cher wear and singing “If I Could Turn Back Time.”
The cell’s lock disengaged with an ominous click, and the iron door slid open. Officer MacDonald was suddenly standing over Theo.
“Get up, Knight,” he said.
Theo slid out from under the blanket and sat on the edge of the bunk. He was wearing only underwear and a T-shirt. “What’s going on?”
“Just get on your feet.” He grabbed Theo’s orange jumpsuit LAST CALL
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from the shelf and threw it across the cell. It hit Theo in the chest.
“You’re coming with me,” the guard said.
Theo walked slowly to the toilet and urinated. Charger lay quietly in the top bunk, pretending to be asleep. Theo didn’t really need to pee that badly, but taking care of business gave him a minute to evaluate the situation. Pulling an inmate out of a cell at this hour was unusual, and it made Theo wonder if the FBI had decided to make MacDonald privy to his undercover status. Maybe MacDonald needed to take him somewhere private to pass along information from Jack or Andie. Or perhaps Jack had come on the pretense of some phony emergency to deliver a message himself.
“Move it,” said MacDonald.
Theo pulled on his jumpsuit, a pair of socks, and his prison-issue tennis shoes with Velcro and no laces.“All right. Let’s go.”
Theo went first, and MacDonald gave him a needless shove from behind as they exited the cell.The iron door slid shut behind them, the ratchet of the lock echoing throughout the dark cell block.
“Where we headed?” said Theo.
“Eyes forward,” said MacDonald.“Just do as I say.”
The guard gave him another shove, and Theo started walking.
Most inmates were asleep in their cells. Some stood at the bars to see what was going on, their hands protruding from the blackened cells. For Theo, it was eerily reminiscent of his predawn walk down death row.
Theo stopped at the guard’s command. They were at the end of the cell block, standing before a locked security door. A buzzer sounded, and the door opened. MacDonald gave him another unnecessary shove. If this jerk didn’t knock it off, he’d be in serious trouble when inmate Knight returned to his life as citizen Knight.
Then again,Theo considered the possibility that it was all an act—
that MacDonald was in on the undercover operation, and that he was being rough only to keep suspicions from rising among the inmates.
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The security door locked behind them. MacDonald gave a nod and a hello to the guard posted in the short corridor that joined the cell block to the next wing.
“To your left,” MacDonald told Theo.
Theo obliged and braced himself for another cheap shot from behind. MacDonald didn’t disappoint him. This one nearly made Theo stumble forward. Each shove was a little harder than the last.
“Stop,” said MacDonald.
They were standing outside the isolation chamber—not a cell, but a private room in which the guards interrogated inmates, from informants to troublemakers.
“Hands behind your back.”
Theo did as he was told. MacDonald bound the prisoner’s wrists with metal cuffs, unlocked the door, and pushed Theo inside.
He followed right behind him, switched on the lights, and locked the door.
The room was ten feet by ten feet. It had no windows and only one door in or out.The floor was bare concrete, the walls were yellow-painted cinder blocks, and the only furniture was an old oak chair in the center of the room.
Theo had been around the proverbial cell block enough to know that it wasn’t standard procedure for an interrogation to be conducted by one guard. This was the moment of truth. Either MacDonald was a player in the FBI’s operation and this was going to be something good—or he wasn’t, and . . .
A nightstick to his kidneys brought Theo to his knees and his speculation to an end. Theo remained on the floor on hands and knees, keeping his head down. He’d had the holy hell beaten out of him before, both as a child and as an adult, but his body was no longer conditioned for a blow like this one. It took a minute for him to catch his breath.The hot, stale air didn’t make it any easier.
He was sweating already.
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MacDonald circled him in silence, and Theo could hear only the soft step of his shoes and the steady tap of the nightstick in the palm of his hand.
“Isaac was your good buddy, huh?” he said.
Theo didn’t answer, which brought MacDonald’s boot to his belly.Theo went over on his side, the wind gone from him again.
“You seem to have a knack for making friends with the wrong people, pal.”
Theo stayed low, the right side of his face on the floor. Obviously MacDonald wasn’t part of the undercover team, but Theo was beginning to think that MacDonald knew why Theo was in jail—and didn’t like it one bit.
“Get up,” said MacDonald, as he grabbed Theo by the collar.
“In the chair.”
Theo sat in the interrogation chair, his cuffed hands behind the backrest.
MacDonald faced him directly, boring the blunt end of his nightstick into Theo’s chest. He turned it like a screwdriver as he increased the pressure, which hurt like a bitch.
“Nobody sits at Moses’ table on his first trip to the cafeteria,”
said MacDonald.“Nobody but you.”
“He invited me,” said Theo.
“Just like that, he decides you’re his new pal.”
“Yeah,” said Theo.“Just like that.”
MacDonald bent over and stared straight into his eyes, close enough for Theo to smell the coffee on his breath.The guard said,
“I can see this is gonna be a real painful lesson for you, boy.”
He jammed the nightstick into Theo’s groin, and Theo fell to the floor again.Theo looked up at the ceiling, but he could barely see straight. He rolled onto his side and assumed a fetal position. It had been a long time since he’d felt pain like this.
MacDonald was circling again, taunting him with that tap of the nightstick against the palm of his open hand.
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“You and your buddy Isaac Reems stained my perfect record with that escape.”
“It was
his
jailbreak.”
“But you helped.That’s why you’re here.”
The residual stabbing pain in his testicles was still making it difficult for Theo to form coherent thoughts, but that last remark suggested that MacDonald didn’t know anything about Theo or his actual status.This “interrogation” appeared to be about nothing more than a petty correctional officer’s bruised ego.
Theo was still lying on his side. MacDonald stepped behind him and pressed Theo’s fingertips beneath his boot—slowly at first, then harder, as if trying to mash them into the concrete.Theo grimaced in pain but tried not to cry out, refusing to give MacDonald the satisfaction.
“Lucky for you, I’m a nice guy,” said the guard. “I’m gonna give you a chance to help me earn back my superstar reputation.”