“Okay,” said Jesse. “I got a big drug case where the defendant is going to get probation. The kid's name is Clark.”
“How connected is he?” asked Hardaway.
“He worked for the Union before they disbanded,” said Jesse. “Claims he actually met T -Bone himself.”
“How big was his crew?” asked Hardaway. He was almost salivating.
“Ten, eleven guys. You want him or not?” asked Jesse.
“Cool,” said Hardaway. He reached over to Denise's desk and wrote out a note.
“You'll make sure I get him, right?”
“Sure,” said Jesse. “But I want you to give Denise here a freebie on her next capital case.”
“No problem.” Hardaway passed the note to Denise. “Peace.” Then he got up and walked to the door.
“Look at this, Jesse,” said Denise. “He wrote the eyewitness's name and address on this paper. He knew it all along.”
“Hardaway's only useful if he keeps getting clients who are connected,” said Jesse. “Sometimes after he gets money from the cops, he comes here to hook another street informant. I hate his guts, but that's just the way it is.”
“He's almost a criminal himself,” said Denise disgustedly.
“Damn, I gotta get to the cops and have them pick up this guy. I'm sure with an eyewitness the defendant will plead.” Denise got up and shook Jesse's hand. “I owe you,” she said.
“You're welcome,” said Jesse.
Jesse left the office and moved on. He approached the next office, the big one that belonged to Richard Steel. He was a group leader and Jesse's boss. Richard was white, late thirties, and a vicious lawyer. He and Jesse were the only ones in the office who had never lost a murder case, and Steel had ten years on Jesse.
It was no secret that Richard Steel wanted to be county prosecutor. He often associated himself with high-profile cases just to take the credit for a victory. Behind his back they called him Dick Steals.
Jesse and Dick Steals did not get along. They were too much alike, hard-driven, bright, and competitive. Jesse was every bit as good as his boss, maybe better. This caused a serious rivalry in an office where whites ruled, but they worked in a city where blacks had power.
As Jesse passed by Steel's office, he tried not to look in, but he couldn't resist. The office was empty. A rarity this time of day. Steel didn't do many cases these days and was usually in his office wheeling and dealing with his many political connections.
Jesse walked into the refreshment area, a sad little place with three vending machines and several tables. Clerks, paralegals, and other office workers sat, talked and got food, and left. No one lingered. It was not the nature of the office. There was just too much work.
Jesse got a bag of chips and a Pepsi and started back to his office. He had a pile of work, and he didn't want to take any of it home. He was almost back to his little cubby when Marcia came up to him.
“Boss man wants you, Jesse,” said Marcia.
“Dick Steals got his underwear in a bunch again?” asked Jesse.
“Not him, the real boss.”
Jesse stop munching on his snack. “Why?”
“Don't know. But I guess you'll find out soon enough.”
Marcia walked away. Jesse hurried back to his office, put on his jacket, and went to see the head of the prosecutor's office.
5
D’Estenne
François “Frank” D’Estenne was an elegant man. He was tall, silver-haired, and slim for his fifty-eight years. He was always immaculately dressed and had a stride that looked as if he were gliding across the floor. It was said that he could charm a nun out of her panties, then sell them back to her. He was a calming influence in a nerve-racking business, Valium in a six-hundred-dollar suit.
D’Estenne was also a hard-ass, no-nonsense veteran of smoke-filled rooms and cutthroat politics. He dined with governors while ruining livelihoods, and laughed with senators while destroying would-be opponents. He was as mean as he was classy, and that was why he'd been county prosecutor for a decade.
D’Estenne was weak in the black community, however. And in the coming election he was being challenged by Xavier Peterson, a black community activist, ordained minister, and successful defense attorney.
Peterson was not the first black man to challenge D’Estenne. Several had tried their hand, but none of them had even come close to succeeding. But Peterson was different. He was well liked across the board, and that made D’Estenne nervous. This election was going to be a war.
Jesse worked for D’Estenne but was a friend of Peterson, a fellow black lawyer. This put him squarely in the middle of the coming fray.
D’Estenne's legacy of power and the equally powerful challenge he faced were on Jesse's mind as he entered the big office one floor up from his own.
Jesse walked into the room with its tasteful French decor. D’Estenne took his heritage seriously. He peppered his speech with French and visited Paris every year. A bust of Napoleon sat on a column by his large mahogany desk. Behind the desk was D’Estenne, dressed in a flawless steel gray suit and cranberry tie. And standing next to the head of the little general was Richard Steel.
“Jesse, come in,” said D’Estenne. He shook Jesse's hand heartily.
“Frank, Richard, what's up?” Jesse asked. He was nervous enough being summoned. Richard's being here only made it worse.
“Have a seat,” said D’Estenne. All three men sat down.
“Excuse me if I'm a little upset,” said D’Estenne. “You know Mayor Yancy and I were close. He's in a better place now. Grace à
Dieu.”
Jesse didn't think D’Estenne looked upset. Just the opposite in fact. He looked great. All the same, Yancy and D’Estenne had been good friends. Yancy had backed D’Estenne in every election since he became county prosecutor.
“I have a special assignment for you and Richard,” D’Estenne said.
“What is it? Or should I say, who?” asked Jesse. The prospect of working with Dick Steals did not thrill him.
“It's the Yancy case.”
“We have a suspect?” Jesse said. He almost rose from his seat.
“Yes, we do, but it's... complicated. You see... well, that is--” D’Estenne hesitated.
This was something that never happened, Jesse thought. D’Estenne was a master at controlling situations. Jesse became even more anxious. What could be so complicated as to make D’Estenne at a loss for words?
“What we want to do,” Richard said, “is deal with--”
D’Estenne gave Richard a look that stopped him dead. D’Estenne's eyes narrowed into slits of severity, and his smile fell into a flat line. Here was the other D’Estenne, the bureaucratic killer who took no prisoners.
“Sorry,” said Richard.
D’Estenne shifted in his big leather chair. His face went back to that of the congenial boss.
“Jesse, you're one of my best soldiers, a star actually. I plucked you right out of law school because I could see it.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jesse. A compliment. Now he knew whatever it was, it was very bad.
“And I don't want to bullshit you because I can't,” said D’Estenne. “The suspect in the mayor's case is African American, a woman. In this town, with my reelection looming, we can't have whitey wielding the sword of justice alone.”
“I know what you mean, sir,” Jesse said, realizing how big this case was. “The defense will make a racial issue out of it if there is no black prosecutor on the team.”
“Yes,” said D’Estenne. “And I will not give them an advantage like that, not with the large numbers of African American judges and jurors in our system. This isn't Los Angeles, where they add the black lawyer as an afterthought. Pas ici.”
D’Estenne picked up a crystal paperweight with the Arc de Triomphe etched on it. “But I don't like anyone telling me how to run my office. I don't see color, Jesse. I'm making you co-chair on this case because you're good, but you h
appen to be African American too, so it suits the cause of justice.”
“Thank you. I accept,” said Jesse. He was elated at the news. Working with Dick Steals would be a drag, but a chance to put Yancy's killer away was something he was not going to pass up.
“Great,” D’Estenne said. “Okay, now that we're all on board, we can work with the police to bring our suspect in with as little fanfare as possible.”
“Agreed,” said Richard, feeling as though he needed to say something.
“She's not in custody yet?” asked Jesse. “Why don't we just have two uniforms pick her up? I mean, I know she's black, but she's still a murder suspect.”
D’Estenne leaned across his desk. He looked troubled, yet his eyes were full of intensity.
“It's not that simple when the woman you're arresting is the mayor's wife.”
6
Cane
Gregory Cane stood at the edge of the roof. It was almost morning and the sky was a deep, eternal black. The roofs coarse tiles felt rough and strangely good on his bare feet. A thin breeze cooled his nude body, causing his flesh to tingle.
Cane waited. Every day He came, ushering in new possibilities of life. But He also brought chances of death. And that's why Cane was here, naked, with nothing but what God had given him when he arrived to this misery.
Gregory Cane had been born to a heroin-addicted mother in the county hospital. He struggled in the intensive care unit for months, before his tiny body purged the drug from his system. He lived, but his left eye was rendered useless, a lifelong reminder of the battle.
After he recovered, Cane's mother reclaimed him. It would have been better if she had left him an orphan. Cane's life as a child and young man was filled with beatings, hunger, neglect, and hopelessness. He watched his mother turn from addict to prostitute to helpless invalid.
Cane's hard life turned him immediately to crime. He started stealing cars for a man called Tango when he was ten. After that, he was in and out of juvenile detention on a regular basis.
Juvenile prison was just as bad as its older brother the penitentiary. Cane was hardened even further, learning to fight off rivals, perverted rapists, and cruel “guardians.” He killed his first time at twelve. The bigger boy had attacked Cane on kitchen detail. Cane cut the boy's throat with the top of a tuna can and watched him bleed to death.
When he was sixteen, Cane ran afoul of two guards in a facility called Clearwater. The guards were running contraband, and Cane had gotten in their way with his own deals. The guards took Cane to an unused basement they called the Pit. They beat him savagely and left him there for four days in total darkness.
Cane thought more than once that he'd died during the ordeal. But in that unending darkness, hungry, bleeding, and smelling his own waste, he'd found himself. He saw that patterns of life were built on violence, and the strongest men were the ones who had no fear of that. And the average man feared his worst nightmare: sudden, painful death.
Cane walked out of the Pit after four days, looking like death. The juvenile facility's doctor couldn't believe he was still alive.
The corrupt guards were transferred, and Cane became a legend. But he was changed. He realized now that God had cursed him. God brought him into the world, realized the mistake, but could not take Cane out. Cane had defied God at birth and again in the dark basement. He and God were enemies now, and that would be his life's work, to beat Him at the game of life.
So Cane did not fear what the new day brought because he was already dead. Dead in his heart and in the eyes of society. He was a black drug dealer, a thief, and a killer. But at least he was the master of his own fate, and not even the power of the morning could change that.
The night faded, and the day spilled over the horizon, shining with crimson rays. The light turned golden and rushed over the earth into Cane's face. His eye blinked, and his mouth curled downward. He looked into the glow, into the face of God. He spoke, his voice a rumbling whisper.
“Fuck you,” he said.
Cane stepped off the roof of the old house and went back inside, where he got dressed and put a big knife in his pocket. He never carried guns. He didn't believe in them. Guns made weak people think they were strong.
Gregory Cane was six feet three inches of thick, wiry muscle. His body was hard like an old piece of iron. His arms were longer than they should have been, and his hands were oversized. His face had a perpetual scowl that only changed to different levels of menace. His eyes were brown. At least one of them was; the other was gray in a milky white pool, a reminder of the day when God had almost won.
Cane finished dressing and got into his car, a Lincoln, and drove to a house a few miles away. The old house was a meeting place on Grand Boulevard where he and his crew got together to do business.
Cane got out of his car and went inside the huge house. It was three stories high, old and abandoned. It stank of garbage and urine. Broken furniture was on the floor, and debris was piled in corners. Two black men were waiting inside. Cane walked up to them.
“He's in the back,” said Tico, one of Cane's men. Tico had known Cane since they were both sent to Clearwater. Tico was a brown-skinned man with a bald head and big gold teeth. He was a tough roller, but not as ruthless as Cane. Tico liked the money and women, but he could never get used to the bad part, the violence that supported these things.
The other man was Walker Lakeston. Walker was thin, dark-skinned, with a head of long dreadlocks. He always wore a pair of dark shades and lots of jewelry.
Walker had been born in Jamaica and came to America illegally. He'd joined Cane's crew a year ago, but Cane had known him a long time before that. Walker was a fierce competitor in the drug business. He had a reputation for having a lot of women and kicking ass. The only reason Walker had joined Cane was his own crew was busted by the cops and Walker had almost gone down with them.
“Muthafucka won't talk,” said Tico.
“That's why I want him to meet my friend,” said Cane.
“I ain't gain' down there,” said Tico, a tinge of fear in his voice.
“Don't have to,” said Cane. “I'll do it. This is the last time anyway. Smell's gettin' too bad.”
“Why don't we just cut off one of his fingers, snip, snip?” asked Walker. His Jamaican accent ran smoothly under his words. “Always works for me.”
“I want him to see what death looks like,” said Cane. “And I want to see her again.”
Walker was about to protest, but Tico cut him off with a look. Cane walked into the back of the house and grabbed a man who was tied hand and foot and lying on the floor.
“Time to talk,” Cane said. He got the man to his feet and headed toward the basement.
Cane was the leader of a big crew on the west side. After the Union had collapsed, everyone had been confused for a while. The streets were filled with independents, nickel-and-diming and shooting one another over nothing. Cane got a crew together and slowly incorporated as many of the others as he could.
Cane's crew was rolling strong, and times were good. He and Tico dealt with the white suppliers, and Walker was his man for everything else. Detroit still had many crews, but his was now by far the largest. At least on the west side.
On the east side of town a group of women had assumed power. They called themselves the Nasty Girls or just the Girls. They had grabbed prime pieces of territory and consolidated power just as Cane had. And now they were expanding, adding to their numbers and pushing out each day-- closer to him.
LoLo Wells and her women were tough, smart, and very careful. But LoLo was a hothead. She had a bug up her ass about the men in the business, and she was easily set off. That would be her downfall, Cane thought. Those who made it in the life needed to have level heads.
Cane walked down the creaky wooden stairs to the house's basement. The man he pushed along was probably one of LoLo's. The man had found one of Cane's supply houses and tried to rob it. The thief obviously had been watching the home f
or a long time. The man was caught, but he wouldn't tell who he worked for.
“Last chance, Earl,” said Cane to the man. “I want to know who sent you to steal from me.” Cane ripped the duct tape from the man's mouth.
“Fuck you,” said the man named Earl Young. “Go on and shoot me, but I ain't droppin' on nobody.”
Cane took Earl the rest of the way down the stairs. It was a long staircase. The house had been built pre-World War II and had what used to be called a root cellar, a deep, cavernous room below the house.
The basement was cold and dark. They were almost at the end of the stairs when the smell hit them. The house already smelled bad, but this was worse. It was like an open sewer, a hard and thick stench. Earl choked as the smell filled his lungs.
“Death don't mean nothing to you,” Cane said, “because you haven't seen it. I'm gonna show it to you, and then you'll tell me what I need to know.”
Cane took Earl into the basement and turned on the lights. For a second both men were blinded. Cane closed his good eye to the light. When it strained, it watered, and he hated that.
When the room came into focus, Cane saw the big cat chained in the corner. Earl saw her too and began to back away.
“What the--”
Cane hit Earl hard in the stomach. Earl fell but didn't take his eyes off the corner. The tiger roared. It was a weak, sickly sound but still scary. Her eyes were evil yellow lights in the shadows.
“She's hungry,” said Cane. “The other people I brought here yesterday talked, so she didn't eat.”
The tiger was about twenty feet away. There was a large brown spot directly in front of her. “See that spot?” asked Cane. “Those are the muthafuckas who was like you. Now, for the last time, who sent you?”
“Man, you can't do this,” said Earl.
Cane picked the man up and pushed him closer to the cat. Earl struggled like mad as the cat advanced and stopped when her chain reached its limit. Man and tiger were now only ten feet apart.
Double Dead Page 4
