The younger Sheriff asked, “Would you do the same thing with houses that were moving heroin and cocaine?”
The elder Sheriff responded, “We wouldn’t charge them for sales unless we thought they were dealing directly with the cartels. We’d just charge them with possession of a controlled substance and usually for possession of stolen property. Most of the dealers are just micro dealers managing drug habits for a hustle to keep them off the street.”
I watched the narcotic detectives come out of my room and back to me on the couch. Detective Pincher said, “Okay Benny. I heard your younger brother tell you he loved you on his way out the door on his way to juvenile hall. It looks like he really looks up to you. Do you love him?”
I stared at the narcotic detective and thought about how he and the other one shot down the Sheriff’s proposal of letting me ride the whole beef and letting my brother off. Every injustice I’d seen and lived through wanted to boil out of me. That righteous anger that burns until it finds an adversary felt the presence of one. Narcotic detective Pincher got impatient with me.
Are you listening to me Benny? I’m going to try and help you and your brother…But you have to pay attention and give me one hundred percent cooperation or I can’t help you.”
I felt the handcuffs biting into my wrist behind my back so I tried to move things around to relieve the pressure unsuccessfully. “You say you want to help my brother and I huh?”
Narcotic detective Pincher tried to seize what he mistakenly took as an opportunity.
“Benny… I’m the only one that can help you!”
I almost raged and spat out… Liar!! I just saw you keep those Sheriffs from letting my brother go! You don’t want to help us, you’re a fraud and I see right through you. Instead, a temporary calm settled over me and I said, “If you’re the only one that can help us than you must think you’re God. Where were you when I got thrown into a tree, or beaten so bad that my spleen busted open and I was in the fetal position for a few days to keep it from releasing poison into my body?”
I continued, “Or how about watching your younger brother cry himself to sleep knowing he didn’t know why his Mom was gone. All he understood was what he heard his father telling other people on the phone. That his Mom was a whore who abandoned her kids and must not love them and that her kids were going to be worthless now.”
I could see the narcotic detectives didn’t have any compassion. Detective Pincher looked irritated.
“Benny I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about you and your brother possessing over ten pounds of high quality marijuana for sale!”
I lost it and spoke to fast. “What are you talking about? There’s only four pounds and it’s all mine… Both backpacks!!”
I realized I shouldn’t have said anything! My backpack had four pounds in it. My brother’s had another half a pound in it. Thankfully, it didn’t look like detective Johnson was listening that carefully. He was so focused on coercing me to work with him.
He clarified how he was getting the ten pounds. “You’re forgetting about your cultivating operation. We are trained to pull the plants up by the roots and weigh up whatever soil hangs on.”
What a slap in the face! We still hadn’t mastered growing marijuana. This time had turned out even worse than last time. We hadn’t identified a male plant among the garden of females and it had pollinated the whole harvest to seed. There wasn’t a smoke able ounce of marijuana in the closet. Detective Pincher just got worse.
“I tell you what… You call all of your dealers and order as much as you can… I’ll let your brother off the cultivation charge.”
I got up and walked to the phone. Detective Pincher took off the handcuffs and I picked up the phone and dialed. I looked into the detectives beady eyes and told him, “You’re a real saint.”
I then told him. “They aren’t answering; do you want to hear their message?”
I handed him the phone. The message played.
“At the tone the time will be…Four twenty.”
CHAPTER 25
A year after detective Maltobano searched his Buick at Strands point in Dana Point; Damon got a call from Bob Prescott for some pot. Damon thought about how Bob had asked for the price on a pound, and then for the price on five of them.
Damon replayed the phone conversation and how he’d told Bob, “I don’t usually sell pounds. I usually just buy one at a time to break it up and try and double my money. Why are you trying to buy pounds anyway, you usually only buy twenty bucks worth?”
Bob had responded, “Hey Damon! This guy I used to know is back in town! He used to do big things around here before he headed to Texas and started doing business there… Now he’s back in town and you could make a lot of money together!”
Damon remembered how at that point his instincts were detecting a possible earthquake. Then he remembered how Bob had finished the conversation.
“Hey bro, if this works out for you I want to make a hundred or two as the middle man until you two get comfortable doing business together… This account should be worth at least five hundred for me hooking you two up!”
Damon thought about Bob’s greed. That made it feel more plausible.
Damon got on the freeway and headed north to meet Bob at the Best Western hotel. He looked in his rearview mirror every minute or so to check for cops and every time he did he checked to make sure his backpack with the pound of pot in it was still laying there by the tailgate. He laughed at his concern that it was going to fly out. He considered why he had it back there and how he was going to act like he didn’t know anything about it. That’s not my backpack! Someone walking by must have thrown it in the back of my truck.
From these thoughts Damon wondered if his plan to deliver the pound of pot to Bob was foolproof. Bob expected me to come to room 290 with it. How about I come to his room empty handed and get a look at his friend first? Then I could have Bob walk with me to my truck and grab it himself so it never touches my hands in front of his friend. That way my security isn’t at risk during the exchange.
Waiting to turn into the hotel, just barely in view, was a cop car parked in the lot to the left. Damon thought about the hotel’s layout and parking lot. It was a spacious three story hotel and the parking lot circled around and in the back gave the option of sliding into an underground parking lot or continuing the circle. If I continue the circle I’ll have to drive past that squad car. I better flip a U-turn out of here and call Bob to see what’s up with that cop! Around the first corner on the way to the underground lot another vehicle caught the eye. A tan Ford Taurus was parked backward with two watchful people in it. Driving by there were two male occupants in it. The driver had his hat on backward and was staring like he was trying to make an identification. The passenger had a burly looking goatee and was staring at something else. Driving by, Damon followed his gaze to a truck parked across and a couple parking spots down. It was a Ford F-150 with tinted windows. Damon thought he noticed someone moving behind the tint as he drove by. He turned the next corner and entered the underground lot.
In the underground lot Damon sped up and looked for an open space to slide his truck into. He circled the first corner and didn’t find any. The second corner, nothing. He screeched to a halt behind the parked vehicles and got out. He hustled to the back of his truck and hesitated just short of grabbing the backpack. He looked around and thought about what he was doing. Am I over reacting? Where would I even stash my backpack? Damon wondered if he should just toss it under a parked vehicle nearby and hesitated again. I could lose my pound of pot. There had to be a better spot to stash it. There was. There were washers and dryers visible in the lobby where the underground lot opened to the hotel.
Damon reached for the backpack and froze with his hand on it as the Ford Taurus turned the corner. The Ford Taurus stopped ten feet away facing him. Damon let go of the backpack like his hand was stuck in the cookie jar. There wasn’t any way to get the backpack out withou
t the occupants in the Taurus seeing it.
Stuck, Damon looked towards the lobby and saw Bob Prescott arrive. He stood there with his bleached spiked hair and looked like he expected to see someone else. He looked back at Damon and waved, “Come on! I’m in room 290!”
Damon acted as normal as possible and nodded his head. “Alright! Let me find somewhere to park and I’ll be right there!”
Damon got back in the truck and sped out of the lot. He looked in the rearview and the Taurus was right there. He drove back the way he’d come in to get out of the Best Western and right into a road block of four black and whites blocking the exit.
CHAPTER 26
Narcotic detective Pincher slammed the door of the Sheriff vehicle on Damon handcuffed inside and watched the vehicle accelerate away on its way to the county jail. He looked at Detective Marks standing next to Bob Prescott with his bleached tipped hair and remembered how they had both proposed that we should have hid all of our vehicles in another parking lot so Damon couldn’t see us. Detective Pincher knew they’d been right, but detective Marks shouldn’t have followed Damon into the underground lot with the Taurus!
Bob Prescott watched detective Pincher trying to figure things out. He looked pissed. He’s probably going to take this shit out on me and say that bust doesn’t count as one for me. He laughed to himself at how the detective looked. Like he was always trying to fit in and couldn’t. This time he had a pair of Doc Marten boots on with white socks, outdated O.P. shorts, and then a Hawaiian print button down shirt like it was supposed to hide the fact he was a detective. Then he had that police issue mustache with premature grey in it, thin wispy hair with premature grey in it that flew everywhere but didn’t cover up that dominant bald spot at the top of his head, and then those beady eyes of his. They looked like finding fault with others is what he lived for. Fuck him, he’s a dumb ass! I can’t believe how stupid this county is to pay someone like him to be a narcotic detective! I’m just going to bail on this county and go to Long Beach where I can leave all of this shit behind, as soon as I can.
CHAPTER 27
Damon stepped out of the squad car in handcuffs in the parking lot of the Orange County jail in Santa Ana and followed the directions of the officer. At the entrance to the jail the officer stopped Damon right next to a phone and asked, “Do you want your one phone call?”
Damon said “Please.”
The officer said, “Tell me the phone number.”
“949-498-1408, that’s my wife Jade.”
The officer said, “Just talk when she answers, it’s on speaker.”
The phone rang until the machine picked it up. Damon waited for the beep and said, “Hey baby, it’s me. I’m getting processed into the jail in Santa Ana. Someone threw a backpack into the back of my truck and it had some pot in it… Can you call the jail and try and bail me out please?!”
The officer laughed under his breath somewhat and offered, “You’ll probably get released on O.R. if you don’t have any cases pending and aren’t on parole or probation.”
Damon asked, “What’s O.R.?”
“O.R. is own recognizance. It means you’ll be released without any bail. You just have to show up to court on your own to deal with your case of the magical backpack.”
Damon reiterated what the officer just said in case the message machine didn’t pick it all up. Then he asked the officer, “What’s the phone number to the jail so she can call and check on me?”
“It’s 714-888-0666”
CHAPTER 28
Jade woke up to the message machine at a little after midnight and got up. She put her Doc Marten boots on over bare feet and climbed into a black skirt and put on a white T-shirt. She remembered thinking to herself before she went to bed that the day couldn’t possibly have been any worse. Now this shit with Damon! She woke up her five year old Ryan and then her one year old daughter Victoria and managed to get her in the car without waking her.
A half hour later she pulled up to the county jail and wondered if she should have stayed at home until Damon got released and called. I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. The jail was lit up like a Christmas tree and was packed with people in continuous motion. Jade looked at her watch, it was 1a.m. A couple of hours since Damon called.
It took twenty minutes to find somewhere to park and then another twenty minutes of standing in line to talk to a tired receptionist behind a bullet proof window. Victoria took that Moment to start crying. Ryan chose that Moment to run to a vending machine. Jade managed to get Ryan, soothe Victoria, keep her place in line and give the receptionist Damon’s information. Ten minutes later the tired receptionist came up with nothing.
“His name isn’t coming up yet. If he’s released on O.R. it could be in a couple of hours or it could be many more than that. You might want to go home and wait for him to call.”
For the next six hours Jade sat in the Buick, put her kids to sleep and thought about her husband. He’s loyal and true which is rare these days. He doesn’t drink or use hard drugs, which is also rare these days… He just occasionally smokes some of the pot he sells. I remember how his pot dealing started a few years ago when we got married. He started losing all of his landscaping clients he’d built up in his parent’s neighborhood and didn’t know what he was going to do to provide support. He blamed the invasion of Mexico as the reason he had to get in the pot business for the illegal money and even rationalized that the government would probably make it legal one day anyway, just like they did with prohibition. Jade also remembered how he’d promised that if he ever got busted he’d quit the business instead of being one of those people who just kept getting busted and sent to prison. It was time to hold him to that promise.
Jade wondered how Damon got busted. He never brings any pot to the house. He keeps it in storage and seemed really careful who he did business with. I wonder what he’s going to do now. Maybe it’s a good thing he got in trouble. Now maybe he’ll find a real job, start another business or go to a technical school or a trade school. That all cost money that we don’t have. We can barely afford all our bills as it is. Just this morning when I went to the free clinic in Laguna Beach for my check up I got denied. I guess Damon’s right about the invasion. You have to be from outside of the U.S. to get free medical.
CHAPTER 29
Detective Marks watched his partner carry the backpack found in the back of Damon’s truck into the evidence locker room. He watched detective Pincher deal with cataloging the seized marijuana and remembered the scene at the Best Western. After telling Bob Prescott that his cooperation as an informant wasn’t going to count if a conviction of sales wasn’t obtained on Damon, he’d really blown his top.
He’d yelled, “I’ve never had a criminal outsmart me, and I’m not about to start now!”
Detective Marks remembered how he tried to console his partner. “Damon didn’t outsmart you! He’s on his way to jail for Possession for sales and transporting for the purpose of sales. It’s a good bust.”
Detective Pincher had exploded, “The sale never happened! Don’t you remember your training and seminars? He only had one bag of pot in the back of his truck where anyone could have thrown it… There wasn’t any pay owe sheets to prove he’s selling product, there isn’t a scale to prove he’s weighing product… It’s a fragile case the district attorney might just throw out. Even if they get a conviction it will get plea bargained to almost nothing. Just a possession, probably. Damon will probably only get a slap on the hand and informal probation!”
Detective Marks remembered telling his partner, “You can’t take the whole world on your shoulders. I remember that part of our seminars. That’s what you’re doing. You have to let the courts do their job and not worry about it. Not every bust is going to go down exactly the way you want it to.”
Detective Pincher had ranted and raved and finally found the solution in his head. “We blew it! I blew it! I should have had the phone conversation between Bob Prescott
and Damon Smith recorded! We would have been able to give it to the district attorney and it would have insured the sales charge! God dammit!”
Detective Marks wondered if his partner was doing what he thought he was doing with the pound of pot. He had it on the counter and opened the freezer sized zip lock bag. He reached inside it and pulled some out and put it in a smaller sandwich sized zip lock bag. He did the same thing two more times. He sealed the bag that once held a pound of marijuana in it and taped the necessary paper work to the outside of it. The paperwork consisted of the name of the suspect, the arresting detective, the time, date and the weight of the narcotic. Detective Pincher wrote the weight down at 418 grams, 30 grams short of a pound. He then placed it in the evidence locker, shut the door and shut the lock on it and said, “Let’s go to Damon’s house and wait for him to get there.”
CHAPTER 30
Damon walked through the last corridor of the county jail with his up-coming court date paper in one hand and a plastic bag of his property in the other. Outside the jail he squinted his eyes against the midday sun and felt the excitement of being free from the jail eroding into anxiety. He thought to himself, it’s time to face the music. That started with calling Jade. What am I going to tell her? What is she going to ask me? She’s going to remind me over and over about the one and done rule. The, if I ever got busted it’s over forever, new career. She’s going to want to know what my new career is going to be. I don’t want to get back into landscaping and compete with the illegal migrants who will underbid me at every turn… Damon caught himself from allowing the same bitter resentments from building any more Momentum and stopped that train of thought. It was time to be a man and face it for what it is. I should have held on to the handful of clients I still had and advertized harder for more. Even if I would have suffered through some hard times, I’d still have been better off than I am now.
ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) Page 9
