My Lawyer

by JC Kane

  “When we do this,” Lee said, “we’ll triple, maybe even quadruple, our profits. Does that sound dumb to you?”

  “Yes, it does,” Bruce said. “You already have more money than you need. We have money hidden in so many different places I can barely keep track of it. And, you won’t be alive to spend any of it. Someone will kill you or you’ll end up in prison. I am not going down with you. I like being alive and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a prison cell.”

  “It’s not just about the money,” Lee said. “You know that. That’s not why we got into this business in the first place.”

  “You’re right. It’s not about the money anymore. It’s about my freedom. I would like to keep it. I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t want to get gunned down while I’m standing in line to buy a coffee. You, on the other hand, seem to be trying really hard to do the opposite. And the worst part is that you’re going to get me killed just by associating with you. I just don’t understand you anymore.”

  “You don’t understand me because you got soft,” Lee said. “You don’t care about the power anymore. You don’t care if people disrespect you. You don’t care about growing and expanding and taking things you want so you can maintain order and control. That’s how you get power and respect. You have to demand it. They have to fear you.”

  Bruce threw the gun on the couch next to Jesus. “If you want to go out in a blaze of glory, you can do that. But I’m not going down with you.” Jesus quickly grabbed the gun and pointed it at Bruce.

  Bruce walked towards the door, then stopped and turned towards Lee. “I’m done, man. You do whatever you want, but you’re on your own. I’m out.”

  Chapter 13

  Bruce parked his motorcycle in front of the Two Zero Five clubhouse. The clubhouse was located in east San Jose at the base of the Diablo Range. The closest neighbor was far enough away that they didn’t complain about the parties they threw at least three times per week.

  Inside the club, there were two members of the club playing pool and a prospect picking up garbage. Not that unusual for a Wednesday afternoon. Bruce waved to them and walked back to Green’s office.

  “What brings you here today?” Green asked. “You slumming it?” Green’s office wasn’t pretty, but it had a desk, a few chairs in front, and a file cabinet for keeping important documents like motorcycle magazines and pictures of naked women.

  “Slumming it?” Bruce said. “I wish I had a twenty-acre property like this.”

  “Well, you know you’re welcome any time, almost any time, since you refuse to join the club,” Green said.

  Bruce sat down and flipped through one of the motorcycle magazines piled up on Green’s desk. “I have some news for you.”

  “You’re giving me your Harley Davidson JDH?” Green joked.

  “No,” Bruce said. “I’m officially out of the drug business. I told Lee I was out, so that’s it. I’ll continue to dissolve the corporations, move things around, cover our tracks, but no more deals, no more money. I’m done.”

  Green was stunned. Bruce was in the drug business since the day they met. He was good at it and Bruce was the main reason Green felt so comfortable being a significant part of the operation.

  “You serious this time?” Green asked.

  “I know this is going to impact you too,” Bruce said. “I wanted to let you know what’s going on and get your thoughts on this whole thing. If you want to continue working with Lee, I can talk to him and maybe try to smooth things over.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I want - to work with Lee Giordano,” Green said sarcastically. “How the fuck did this happen? Couldn’t have been pretty.”

  “I brought this amazing, legitimate investment opportunity to Lee, but he wasn’t interested. Okay, that’s fine. No problem. But then he told me that he’s planning to sell heroin and meth, in addition to cocaine. He wants to expand the business after telling me for weeks that he’s willing to shut it down. It’s like he has a death wish. He wants to go out in a blaze of glory. I told him I didn’t want any part of it.”

  “Wow. Does he know that the Sinaloa cartel is running the heroin and meth around here? That could be a really bad move for him.” Green stood up. “Come on. This calls for a drink.”

  Green walked behind the bar in the main room of the clubhouse and opened a cabinet marked Green’s Private Stash. He pulled out a bottle of Yamazaki Whisky. Yamazaki was an expensive 18 year old single-malt, something you wouldn’t expect to find in a motorcycle clubhouse. Bruce took a seat at the bar and Green poured a glass for each of them.

  “Here’s to change,” Green said. “The only certainty in life.” Bruce and Green clinked their glasses together and drank the overpriced firewater.

  “That’s really good,” Bruce said.

  “It better be for what it cost me.”

  “So, what’s going through your mind right now?” Bruce asked. “What’re you thinking?”

  Green took another drink and then let out a deep breath. “I think it’s long overdue. You should’ve cut your ties with that guy a long time ago. You can’t trust him.”

  “He’s not as bad as you think.”

  “Oh, please,” Green said. “Lee is a virus and he infects everyone around him. All he cares about is feeding his massive ego. You can’t reason with him. He doesn’t listen to anyone. Like you said, he wants to go out in a blaze of glory. There are no other options for him and he will never leave the drug business. Never.”

  “You don’t know everything he’s done for me.”

  “Whatever you think you owe him, I’m sure you’ve paid him back a hundred times and then some. He didn’t build this drug empire, you did. It was because of the precautions you took, and the processes you put in place that you guys have avoided jail for this long. Do you think he’s smart enough to pull that off by himself? Hell no. He’s the one that owes you. That’s for damn sure.”

  Bruce finished his whisky. “Well, you don’t see everything. He does a lot more than you think.”

  “Look, I know you guys got history together,” Green said. “But people change. Some people grow. Some don’t. You’re trying to grow and evolve and Lee is intentionally preventing you from moving on so he can squeeze every last bit of usefulness out of you. And when he’s done using you, he’ll drop you in a heartbeat. Loyalty has its limits and you’ve been too damn loyal for too damn long. You don’t owe him your life.”

  “Why don’t you get out of all this?” Bruce asked. “Is it all about the power for you?”

  Green laughed. “I’m not stopping until I get killed or I go to prison, and I don’t ever plan on going to prison.”

  “You’re the same as Lee.”

  Green thought about it for a second. He filled both glasses with more whisky. “There are a couple very important differences between me and Lee. First, I actually care about the people I surround myself with. It’s not about the power for me. It’s the ride. The rush. I need the adrenaline. I need the brotherhood. It’s the lifestyle for me that matters. Second, I don’t use people and then throw them away when I have no more use for them. These guys are my family. That includes you, too. I would do anything to protect my family. When I go down, I don’t want to bring anyone else down with me. When Lee goes down, he’s gonna bring as many people as he can with him. That’s who he is. You mark my words.”

  Bruce nodded. “This is gonna get messy, isn’t it?”

  “It might not be the cleanest breakup in the history of mankind. You guys have been partners for a long time and you control all the information. You know where the money is. You know how the business works. He has no fucking clue about any of that stuff. He doesn’t know shit and now you have to split everything up, just like a divorce.”

  “I’m tempted to just let him have everything and be done with it.”

  Green slammed his glass down on the bar. “If you do something stupid like that I will personally kick your ass up and down the street.”

>   “You think that’s possible?”

  “You’re killing me over here,” Green said. “Why would you even think about giving that arrogant prick anything? He may have had the relationships you needed in the beginning, but you have done all the work to grow the business, and maintain it, without getting caught, for all of these years. You created a legitimate, profitable company that sells bread, for fuck’s sake. You deserve a hell of a lot more than he does, and you better fight for every penny. I wouldn’t give him shit.”

  “We just have so many assets, so much cash, bank accounts, so many things out there. I don’t see how we can split the Oceanic Bakery business, the commercial properties, really all of the businesses we use to clean the money.”

  “He probably has no idea how much cash you have hidden away. You can tell him whatever you want as far as money in the bank, money stashed in this house or that house. He has no clue. If he wants Oceanic Bakery then you take an extra five million, or whatever the value of that asset is. You know what I mean? Let him start from scratch. Let him actually do some work for a change so he knows what it feels like.”

  “You don’t want to work with Lee anymore?” Bruce asked. “You don’t want to continue your part in the business? The Two Zero Five is a major part of the distribution network, if you guys bail, that could be a big problem for Lee.”

  “There is no way in hell I would work with him. Believe me, it won’t be difficult to watch Lee and Jesus fall from their pedestals and sink into a deep, dark depression that slowly destroys them from the inside out, but there is absolutely, positively no way I could work directly with those two idiots. Without you as the buffer, it wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t be fun anymore.”

  “You’d be giving up a lot of money. I’m sure your guys don’t want to lose out on all that money. Don’t you think you should run it past them before you make a decision?”

  “I’ll take care of my guys.” Green looked at his brothers in the other room. “I have a few ideas floating around in my head. I just need to think through the details before I move forward.”

  “I hate to come down here and hit you with this news, but I wanted you to hear it from me first.”

  “You know I support you, man.” Green gave Bruce a hug. “This is a good thing for you. A really good thing.”

  “I appreciate the support. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

  “You know I will.”

  Chapter 14

  “It’s not gonna happen,” Severo said.

  That wasn’t the answer Lee was looking for. Lee poured some water into his glass. Severo fidgeted in his chair. It was a hot and sunny day in San Jose and Lee, Jesus, and Severo were sitting on the patio at Lee’s house.

  “You’re joking, right?” Lee asked. “My drug supplier can’t supply us with drugs? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “There’s a lot of demand for heroin and meth right now,” Severo said. “But not enough supply. For the volume you want, my people just don’t have the connections.” Severo knew Lee wouldn’t be happy, but they had been doing business for almost six years and Severo expected Lee would get over it quick enough. Lee always had big plans but rarely followed through on them. Bruce was usually the person that made things happen.

  Severo’s connections were in Mexico, mainly in the Mexican state of Michoacán. They grew opium poppies in Michoacán but the demand for opium paste, which is used to produce heroin, exceeded the available supply.

  Lee stood up and laughed. He took a drink of his water and looked out at the city of San Jose. “Well, I guess you’re going to have to find some new connections then, aren’t you? I want to make this happen and it has to happen fast.”

  “I’ve talked to everyone I know and they all shut me down as soon as I brought it up. They laughed when I told them how much heroin I wanted.”

  Lee walked over to Severo and stood near him. “You’re telling me that you can’t get any heroin, at any price? No one in Mexico, Bolivia, Columbia, or Peru will sell you anything? I find that hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that there is no possible way that we can get heroin or meth shipped up here to sell?”

  “I can probably get the meth if I talk to some local people, but there’s a lot of risk because I don’t know the guys very well and we would have to check out their operation to make sure they can meet our standards for quality and discretion. The heroin is going to cost a lot of money and there’s a lot of risk in that, too.”

  “Oh no! Risk?” Lee mocked Severo. “What should we do, Jesus? There’s risk involved. Should we just give up now? Should we forget about the millions of dollars we could make because there’s risk involved?”

  “Okay, go ahead,” Severo said, “make jokes, but if you get involved with the wrong people, you’ll end up in prison. This isn’t something you jump into head first before you test the water. There are a lot of factors to consider.”

  “Just get the damn drugs. Let us worry about the rest of it.”

  “Have you talked to Bruce about this?” Severo asked. “This doesn’t seem like something that Bruce would sign off on.”

  Lee set down his drink on the table in front of Severo. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lee asked. “You think I need permission from Bruce? You think I care what he thinks about this? I asked you to get me a supply of heroin and meth so I can sell it. Do your fucking job! And get the fuck out of my house. Did I ask Bruce about this?” Lee looked at Jesus. “Get this fucking asshole out of here before I really lose it. I make the decisions in this business. Bruce does what I tell him to do so don’t ask me if he signed off on this, you piece of shit. Stop wasting my time and get my damn drugs. The longer it takes you to get my drugs, the more money I lose. I should charge you for the money I’m losing.”

  Jesus grabbed Severo by the arm but Severo pulled away. Severo stood up and slowly walked towards the patio doors while Jesus followed close behind.

  “Do you think the Sinaloa cartel will just let you start selling heroin and meth in their territory?” Severo asked. “If it’s true that they’re selling in San Jose, then you are declaring war. Why would you go to war when you have a perfectly good thing going that provides you with a life of luxury and very little risk? I think it’s a bad business decision and you’ll end up regretting it.”

  Lee walked over to Severo. He grabbed Severo’s shirt with both hands and pulled him closer. “I’m not interested in your thoughts and opinions on the way I run my business. I’m interested in buying drugs from you. If you can’t supply me with the drugs I want then you are of no use to me. Stop giving me advice and bring me what I want.”

  Chapter 15

  Detective Wendell Hatchett sat in front of Assistant District Attorney Mark Umbers’s desk. Mark was an assistant district attorney in Santa Clara County and one of the lead attorneys in the Major Narcotic Vendor Prosecution Unit (MNVP). His job was to prosecute major narcotics traffickers and manufacturers.

  “He hasn’t called me in three days,” Hatchett said.

  “I told you not to let him go,” Mark said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you never see him again.”

  “I don’t know,” Detective Hatchett said. “I believed the guy. I think he knows some heavy hitters and he’s gonna deliver.”

  “You can’t trust these confidential informants. They’ll say anything to stay out of jail. You should’ve just brought him to jail and worked it that way.”

  “I’m telling you, I have a good feeling about this one.”

  “Even now that he hasn’t shown up and hasn’t called in three days?” Mark asked.

  “I’ll give him a little room to work. If he screws me over, the charges are still there.”

  Mark shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “Listen, I want to give him something solid when I talk to him. I want him to know that the charges are gone if he delivers a big fish. Is that okay? Can we dismiss the charges against him if he comes through?”

  “He was caught
with two kilos of cocaine, right?”

  “Yep, two kilos.” Detective Hatchett said.

  Mark shook his head. “I can’t believe you let him go. But, what can we give him?” Mark shuffled some papers on his desk as he thought. “I don’t care. That’s fine with me. If he delivers someone bigger, I guess we can let him off the hook. I’ll leave it up to you. I really don’t care. I have no shortage of criminals to prosecute.”

  “Good. I want him to know that if he comes through, that he’ll walk. No charges. No probation. Nothing.”

  “If he doesn’t deliver within a couple weeks, I think you should bring him in and we should prosecute. Two kilos is nothing to sneeze over.”

  “Look, we got the drugs off the street. He’s gonna deliver his supplier, so it’s all good.”

  Mark scratched his chin. “I wish it was all good. I really do.”

  Chapter 16

  A Chevy Suburban and Lee’s Lamborghini pulled into the parking area in front of the Two Zero Five clubhouse. Lee and Jesus stepped out of the Lamborghini. Four members of Lee’s security team jumped out of the Suburban and surrounded Lee as they all walked towards the front of the clubhouse.

  One of Lee’s security detail opened the front door. That turned out to be a mistake. Four members of the Two Zero Five stood inside with their guns pointed directly at the doorway, daring Lee and his thugs to enter. Green stood behind them. He had his Colt Gold Cup .45 handgun pointed at the doorway, ready to fire.

  “Not smart,” Green said to Lee and his crew. “If you’re going to invite yourself into another man’s castle, you might want to work on your manners.”

  Lee was barely visible standing behind his massive bodyguards. “Hey, hey, hey, I come in peace,” Lee said. “I came here to apologize to you.”