by R. A. McGee
“I think ‘disgraced’ may be too strong of a word. I’d call me a freelance former federal employee.”
Rivera smirked. “Call yourself what you want. All I know is I’ve done more dumb shit since I met you… and if it gets any worse even McDonald’s won’t take me.”
“I get it, don’t worry. I’ll stay way out of the way,” Porter said. “Tell you what, I’ll just go hang out at the bookstore a few blocks down. The second you get back with Hughes let me know.”
“Fine.” Rivera gathered all the paperwork and put it into the file. When she finished, she stood up and walked out of the conference room, motioning for Porter to follow her. They walked over to her desk, where she opened the standing cabinet in her workspace and pulled out her body armor and duty belt.
Detectives didn’t carry around all the same gear that patrol officers did. Hell, most didn’t even wear their armor when they were making an arrest. At least Rivera was gearing up before she went.
“I’ll call you when it’s done. Don’t be far.”
“Count on it.” Porter headed to the exit, through the front entryway.
Officer Fischer was arguing with someone on his phone. Probably the wife he’s trying to run around on, Porter thought. Officer Raymond had a spaced-out look on his face when Porter walked by.
Porter walked over to his truck and fired it up.
That went better than I expected. Letting the A/C run to cool everything down, he went over the plan again in his head. He was sure it would work—if he could get Jamal to play his role.
A short drive later, he pulled into the parking lot of the plain two-story building that housed the mom-and-pop bookstore. He figured he had time until Rivera called back.
He entered the bookstore, the smell of musty paper and old ink wafting into his nose. He said hello to the wizened old couple sitting behind the counter, then headed upstairs to the graphic novels. It made him feel much more grown-up to say he was reading a graphic novel than to say he was thumbing through a comic book. Deep down, however, he knew the truth.
Porter hadn’t been the most popular child. Sure, he’d had Ross, but that wasn’t until junior high school, and that was about it. He had moved often due to his mother’s job, so he never had a chance to put down roots until the family settled in Tampa. The fact that he was bigger than everyone else put the other children on edge. Couple that with the fact that he was the darkest person in most of his classes, and he was an oddity. There were a few other friends, but Porter was never the guy who had large numbers of kids around him. Whenever his siblings bothered him, he would retreat into his room and read the comics he had bought with the allowance money he’d managed to save up.
Porter lost track of time as he flipped through a few of his old favorites. Taking a few of the ones that interested him the most, he went to the front counter and paid for them. He figured it was the least he could do after browsing through their stock.
He thanked the couple and walked out of the store. Before he could get to his car, his phone rang. It was Rivera.
“Where are you?”
“I’m close. What’s up?”
“Come back to the office. We got him.”
Thirty-Five
Porter drove the short distance back to the sheriff’s office. When he arrived, he noticed that the lights in the lobby were off. Further down the building, he saw Rivera standing outside a small emergency door. Her clothes were muddy.
She motioned him to come over.
“How did it go?” he said.
“I think you can tell. Look at my clothes. Hughes ran from us. We caught him around the corner and when we did he didn’t fight, but I had to get down there and cuff him. In the mud. This is not how I wanted to spend my Monday, Porter. I swear whatever you are pulling better be good.”
Porter tried to stifle a smile, but he couldn’t.
“That’s funny to you?” Rivera said. “I’m not laughing. I should add some charges onto his warrant. Resisting arrest. Fleeing to elude warrant service. I’m sure I could find some more.”
“Come on, detective, don’t do that. We need him to make this whole thing work. Besides, it’s not like he fought you. He was just a decoy.”
“What do you mean decoy?”
“I mean he was a decoy. It’s pretty common to have someone run and draw all the attention from the cops if they roll up. That way all the guys holding have a chance to get away and drop their drugs. Usually it’s a juvenile or someone who won’t get in trouble. In this case, it makes sense it was Jamal. He hasn’t been in trouble with the cops in years,” Porter said.
Rivera groaned. “Of course he was the decoy. I should have known that; I’m just so mad about my new Nikes. The whites were so white…” She trailed off. “You could have told me he would run. I could have put something else on.”
“I’m not psychic, Christina Marie Rivera. I can’t tell you things that are going to happen, just why some things do,” Porter said.
“How did you know my middle… you know what, never mind. Let’s get in there and talk to this guy so I can go home.”
Rivera led the way through the emergency exit and into the back of the office. The place was deserted.
“You here by yourself? Not a great idea to handle arrestees alone, even a muddy bulldog like you.”
“I wasn’t alone. The patrol officers that helped me arrest Jamal helped me get him into the interview room. He’s cuffed up, and the door locks from the outside. I wasn’t going to mess with him again until you came back. I figured if you’re as tough as you act we shouldn’t have any issues,” Rivera said.
Porter kept pace with her as she wound her way through the maze of cubicles until she arrived at the interview room door. It was the same room Porter had been in a couple of days earlier.
“What do we do now?” Rivera said.
“Now it’s time to talk. We have to see if we can get Jamal on our side.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth,” Porter said and opened the door to the interview room.
Jamal Hughes had his head on the desk, and complained loudly when he heard the door open. “Man, this is some bullshit. I didn’t even do anything. Y’all know you didn’t catch me holding.”
He lifted his head up as he spoke and saw that it was Porter who had entered the room. A look of confusion washed across his face, followed by disgust.
“It’s the corny nigga. What you doing here? Thought you weren’t a cop. See, this is some entrapment bullshit.”
“At least you don’t think I’m a bill collector anymore,” Porter said.
“Oh, I know you ain’t no bill collector. I seen that with my own two eyes. I just can’t believe you’re a cop.”
“Jamal, I’m not a cop and you know it. I do have a question for you, though,” Porter said.
“I ain’t answering shit without my lawyer,” Jamal said.
Porter smiled. Jamal was smarter than he let on. “Actually, the detective and I were just talking about her letting you walk out of here tonight. No need to go to jail over a no operator’s license warrant. Right, Detective Rivera?”
“I should take you to jail. You made me chase you and ruin my new shoes. I’m pissed about that,” Rivera said.
“I’m sure Jamal is very sorry for doing that. Aren’t you sorry, Jamal?” Porter said.
“Man, I’m not—”
“Do you want to get out of here tonight? If so, say ‘I’m sorry,’ Jamal,” Porter said.
“Fine. I’m sorry, Jamal. There.”
“Close enough. Right, detective?” Porter said.
“Whatever,” Rivera said, and sat in the chair nearest to the exit.
“Good. Now that that’s done, I still have a question to ask you, Jamal,” Porter said.
“What question, man?”
“Do you want to take back full control of the Acres?”
Thirty-Six
“The Acres is already mine, fool, wha
t you talkin’ about? Huh? You bring me all the way down here to ask me this dumb shit?”
“We both know that’s not true,” Porter said. “It’s just the three of us in here; you don’t have to front.”
Jamal didn’t say anything. He just shrugged his shoulders and looked at Porter.
“Thought so,” Porter said. “I’m being straight with you. I want you in charge of the Acres and I want Hector Quintana gone. I think it should be easy to do that.”
“Why? What Hector ever do to you, huh? What, you want a piece of his business?” Jamal looked at Rivera in the corner. “I mean, alleged business. Alleged.”
Rivera glared at Jamal, then went back to work. She was holding one of her Nikes in one hand, dabbing at it with a paper towel in the other hand.
“It’s pretty simple, Jamal. The day I met you I was talking to Miss Leona about her little girl. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know. Shit, everybody knows Danisha’s missing.”
“I told her I’d find out what happened to Danny, and I intend to keep my word.”
“It’s messed up, that little girl gone. Me and my guys tried to help Miss Leona, but we couldn’t find nothing,” Jamal said.
“What if I told you that Hector Quintana kidnapped her?”
“I’d say prove it,” Jamal said. “Talk is cheap.”
Porter pulled out his phone and scrolled through the videos until he got to the one he was looking for. “The voice you’re about to hear is Hector’s brother, Abel. Just listen.” Porter sat the phone down between them on the table and hit play.
Jamal didn’t say a word as the recording told the story. He sat there and listened, face getting redder the longer the recording played, and when it finished, he launched into a diatribe about what he wanted to do to Hector. It took several minutes before Jamal had calmed down enough to talk to Porter.
“You don’t seem too happy,” Porter said.
“Hell naw, I ain’t happy. Not even a little. Danny’s one of us. She belongs in the neighborhood. We’re supposed to look out for each other. Shit’s messed up.”
“I agree. You going to help me fix this?” Porter said.
“I want to, trust me. You don’t even know how bad I want to. But we got a truce right now. The last time I took a shot at getting rid of Hector, a buncha good people got hurt. Hector don’t care, he’ll shoot anything up. I’m not worried about my soldiers, they’re real gangstas. It’s all the other people I gotta worry about,” Jamal said.
“I have an idea about how to make sure no one gets hurt. You interested?”
“Hit me,” Jamal said.
Porter spent the next ten minutes outlining his plan. He left out a couple of crucial details he figured Jamal didn’t need to know. Porter thought it was a good plan, but he didn’t want Jamal to leak something that could hurt Porter. As much as he wanted everything to go smoothly, he wanted to live even more. “So that’s why I need you. I won’t get a meeting with Hector on my own.”
“I can get down with that. I think this shit might even work,” Jamal said.
“Good. So here’s the thing: I need you to make this happen tomorrow afternoon. Think you can do that?”
“No doubt. I’ll send a messenger to Hector and tell him we have to meet. I say it and it’s done.”
“Where do you meet?” Porter said.
“The old clubhouse at the back end of the hood. It’s off Wendell Street, you know, that road around back? It used to be for the leasing agents and birthday parties and shit. Nobody ever goes over there anymore, so we use it. No interruptions.”
Porter thought back to the map he had seen of the Acres. There was a small side street on the back edge of the property. That could work.
“Tell me more about the meeting. Who comes, how many people, things like that,” Porter said.
Jamal spent five minutes telling Porter the lineups: how many people each guy got to bring, lieutenants, soldiers, lookouts, the whole setup. Porter was satisfied.
“Once we get that meeting, everything should go off without a hitch. Detective Rivera? You good?”
The fact that Porter had left out a few parts for Jamal meant that Rivera wasn’t fully informed either. Porter didn’t think she would appreciate some of the more nuanced parts and when it was all said and done, he knew she needed deniability. Better to keep her out of the full loop.
“Yeah, I got it. As long as Jamal has the juice he says he does, it should be smooth sailing.” She left her chair, went over to Jamal, and took his handcuffs off.
Jamal stood up and rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had been. Porter stood, too. The two men exchanged phone numbers. “This shit better work. I got a lot on the line.”
“Don’t worry, it will,” Porter said.
“Hey cop lady, you gonna give me a ride back to the crib? You drove me all the way over here,” Jamal said.
“Nope, but I’ll walk you out the back. Come on, let’s go.”
Jamal groused but followed Rivera out of the interview room.
Porter stood outside the interview room going over some of the finer points of his plan. It had to work. He just needed Jamal to play his part and everything would work out. But just to be sure, Porter had a little trick up his sleeve—and it was a doozy.
Thirty-Seven
After a few minutes, Rivera came back into the office. By then, Porter had moved to her desk and was leaning back in the beat-up office chair.
“Jamal’s gone. He made a call and said some of his boys were coming to get him. He didn’t want me to wait with him. Said people would get the wrong idea about him if he was hanging out at a cop station. He walked off down Kennedy.”
“He can’t let people think he’s a snitch. It’d be bad for his health,” Porter said.
“I guess so,” Rivera said. “Porter… about this plan. It seems like a stretch. Why would Hector’s guys flip to Jamal? Aren’t they all scared of Hector?”
“Probably so, but that's what the tape is for. Maybe a little evidence will convince them he’s not the guy they think he is. We’ll figure it out.”
“What do you mean ‘we’? There is no ‘we’ in this. I can’t be involved with trying to take down a gang leader. I’m sure that breaks at least a dozen rules. I did my part, bringing you two together. You’re on your own with the rest of this,” Rivera said.
“It was the royal We. Look, if you need to cover your ass, I dig it. It’s probably better if you stay out of it. But you can’t tell me that having Jamal in charge isn’t better for everyone involved. There won’t be as much violence; there won’t be any real drug problems, just weed; and there damn sure won’t be any little girls getting snatched off the streets. Sounds like a win in my book.”
“What I’m missing is what I get out of this deal,” Rivera said. “You promised you were closing this case; you didn’t say anything about playing kingmaker.”
“Your case is only going to get better. You think Hector was the one who did the dirty work? Doesn’t seem likely. I’ll bet we can get him to flip on the guy who… did whatever they did to Danny.”
“And you just want to flip your way up the ladder and see where it takes you?” Rivera said. “Real seat-of-your-pants type stuff?”
“Why not? We’ll apply pressure as we go along and see who will tell us what. You could arrest Hector if you want, but you said it, the confession won’t hold up in court. Let me build you a better case. I told you I’ll do it, and I will. You just have to trust me.”
Porter watched as Rivera took in what he was saying. She seemed convinced to go along with Porter’s plan. “Fine, but I’m still not going to be part of what happens tomorrow. I can’t afford to get in trouble.”
“Don’t sweat it, I’ll get some help. I’ll call you tomorrow evening and let you know what Hector tells me,” Porter said.
“That’s if he tells you anything.”
“Stick with me, kid, and I’ll take you places,” Porter said.
“What?”
“It’s just something my dad used to say.” Porter stood up and patted his pockets to locate his keys, then moved toward the emergency exit with Rivera in tow. “Just keep your phone on.”
Rivera pushed open the exit door and Porter stepped out into the night. It was muggy, but at least the sun wasn’t out. He pointed at Rivera. “Phone on, detective.”
“It better not be another late call or I’ll arrest you myself,” Rivera said as she allowed the emergency door to close between them.
Porter fired up his truck and put it into drive, pulling through the empty spot in front of him. He didn’t have anywhere to go. His house was a wreck and he needed some rest before tomorrow.
Only one place to go.
“And she just went and arrested him? Just like that?” Ross said between bites of pasta.
“Rivera’s smart. She knows Hector is the key and she want to find out what happened just as bad as anyone.”
“I guess so. I just figured she’d be worried about getting into trouble.”
“She is, and I don’t blame her. But I came up with a plan to get things rolling.”
“What can I do? And before you try to shine me off, just shut your damn mouth. I’m already involved. My best friend got shot, so I think that means I’m in now. If you try to tell me no, I’ll—”
“You can help,” Porter said.
Food fell from Ross’s open mouth. “Did you say I can help?”
“I need your help,” Porter said.
“Okay. Great,” Ross said, before narrowing his eyes. “Why do you need my help?”
“I can’t be in two places at once, can I?”
“Well, no,” Ross said.
“That’s where you come into play. I’ll shoot straight with you, it’s not the safest thing. Still want in?”
“I’m not a pussy. Just tell me what to do.”
Over the next ten minutes, Porter outlined the plan to Ross. The full plan, more than either Jamal or Rivera knew. He trusted Ross—in this case, with his life.
