The List

by Robert Whitlow

  One of the men spoke into a microphone clipped to his shirt. “It wasn’t a seagull, Mr. LaRochette. We have a young man in his twenties, brown hair, about 150 pounds. He was trying to come through the skylight in the corner bedroom on the north side of the house…. Yes, sir.” He addressed Renny, “Do you want to tell us your name?”

  “Renny Jacobson. Mr. LaRochette knows who I am.”

  “Oh, really.” The man seemed surprised. “His name is Renny Jacobson, sir. He says you know him.”

  “Yes sir. We’ll bring him around.”

  “Mr. LaRochette wants to talk with him before we call the police.”

  Renny got shakily to his feet. He was covered in sand and sweat.

  “Don’t even think about running,” one of the men said, grabbing Renny roughly by the arm and jerking him forward.

  “If you want to be a cat burglar,” the other said as they led Renny around to the front of the house, “you need to be a little lighter on your feet.”

  Renny didn’t answer.

  “He’s too dirty to take inside. Let’s put him in the spare room in the garage.”

  Coming to a detached three-car garage on the south side of the house, they put him in a small, windowless room with a chair and a couple of tires.

  “I’ll be right outside, so just sit quietly.”

  In a few minutes, the door opened. One of the men was explaining to LaRochette, “He triggered a check-status light when he kicked out the security light at the corner of the house. Jack and I saw him on the roof when we came around the north side of the house.”

  LaRochette shook his head. “Hello, Renny. I’m sorry you’re such a mess.” Turning, he said, “You can leave us, Rankin. Mr. Jacobson is not a threat to me.”

  “Yes sir. We’ll be outside the door if you need us. Do you want a chair?” “No, I’ll stand,” LaRochette replied.

  Once they were alone, LaRochette began, “I knew you would come back.”

  Renny didn’t respond.

  “Of course, you were attracted to the power of the List. But you are going about everything the wrong way. The List can be yours, but only after you are prepared to handle it. Listen, I know you were embarrassed at the meeting, but if you will let me lead you through the necessary process, you will look back in years ahead and thank me for the discipline and instruction of this time.”

  Renny maintained his silence.

  “Actually, I’m not even upset at tonight’s escapade; it just shows me the intensity of your desire to be close to the power. But you don’t seize power; you are groomed to assume it.”

  Renny sighed. “You’re totally wrong.”

  LaRochette raised his eyebrows. “Really. How?”

  “I didn’t come here to take the List for myself. I came here to destroy it.”

  “No, I don’t believe you. I saw you the other night. You were drawn to it.”

  “I don’t dispute your assessment of the other night. But that was then; this is now.”

  “What’s changed?” LaRochette asked sharply.

  “I’ve changed, or at least I’m trying to change,” Renny answered.

  “That’s my role, to help you change.”

  Renny looked down at his feet.

  LaRochette softened his tone. “Do you realize the danger of your current situation?”

  “Yes. I’m in a mess.”

  “All I have to do is call the police and you will go to jail.”

  Renny slumped into the chair as the reality of his predicament hit him at a deeper level.

  “Let me make it clear to you. I am willing to forget about all this.” LaRochette stepped forward and laid his hand on Renny’s shoulder. “Unlike your father, I want to help you become all you can be, to reach your full potential. All you have to do is say yes, and I will take you places you’ve not dreamed existed.”

  Stung by the accuracy of LaRochette’s statement about his father, Renny wavered. LaRochette could have already called the police and had him shipped off to jail. Deep inside, he knew the leader of the List could deliver what he promised. Visions of grandeur danced before his eyes as LaRochette’s hand continued to rest lightly on his shoulder. All he had to do was say …

  “No,” he said, pushing away LaRochette’s hand. In an instant the visions evaporated. “I don’t need a replacement for my earthly father; I already have a heavenly One.”

  LaRochette abruptly stepped back. “You’ve sealed your own fate, then.” He paused. “And, you’re a bigger fool than your father.”

  “What?” Renny asked, startled.

  “I never laid a hand on your father, but your father’s heart attack was not due to hardening of the arteries.” LaRochette sneered.

  “But how?”

  “Before the LaRochettes came to Charleston, they owned plantations in Haiti and learned the ways of true power.”

  “Black magic?”

  “A childish term. You wouldn’t understand if I told you.”

  “Do the others know?”

  “They know what I tell them. Some more, some less. In fact, I could hasten your own departure if I chose to do so.”

  Renny felt his chest tighten and his left arm began to tingle.

  “But I prefer the unknown time, young Jacobson.”

  Renny gasped as the tension released.

  “Jo has no part in all this,” he said when he regained his breath.

  “I totally agree.” LaRochette chuckled. “She was your project. Is she doing well?”

  Renny bit his lip.

  “She’ll be out of her misery soon. Without your help it would have been much more difficult,” LaRochette said.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Too late for that.” LaRochette shook his head. “But my only regret is for you. Someone with your potential doesn’t come along every generation. But there will be others, even if I don’t get to train them. The List will endure, Renny, but without a Jacobson sharing in the spoils.”

  LaRochette opened the door. “Rankin, please call the police and have our young burglar deposited in the local jail.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Jacobson. There is no au revoir for you and me.”

  29

  If any man sin, we have an advocate.

  1 JOHN 2:1, KJV

  Renny was sitting in the backseat of the police car when the silver Mercedes sped up the drive and parked in its usual place. Roget and Layne, returning from their dinner at the Inlet Waterway, looked curiously in his direction as they walked up to the front door. Renny put his head in his hands.

  The officer dropped the plastic bag containing Renny’s crude burglary tools in the front seat.

  “An investigator will be out in the morning to take pictures of the skylight and interview you and your partner,” the officer told Rankin, LaRochette’s security chief. “Were there any other signs of attempted entry?”

  “Not that we know of. I think he was just getting started when we saw him. He seems like an amateur.”

  “Amateur or not, he’s started with a bang. I’ll have multiple warrants issued by a magistrate as soon as we get to the station.”

  Renny stared out the window as they drove down the long drive.

  “Where are you from?” the officer asked.

  “Charlotte, no, uh Charleston.”

  “Pretty confused, huh.”

  Completely sapped, Renny didn’t try to explain. The implications of his predicament and the information LaRochette dumped on him had blown his circuits. He was even more confused about where he was going than where he was from. Reduced to the most basic level of functioning, he was only capable of dealing with simple problems. That’s where he started.

  “What do I need to do about my rental vehicle?” he asked. “I have a leased Jeep parked on the beach near LaRochette’s house.”

  “That’s considerate of you,” the officer said, looking curiously at Renny in the rearview mirror. “You know, thinking about the rental car co
mpany at a time like this. You can give the information to the booking officer at the jail. They’ll make arrangements with the company to pick it up since you won’t be needing it for a while.”

  Oblivious to the officer’s mild sarcasm, Renny said, “Thanks.”

  The radio squawked to life. “We have a domestic D-7 at 675 Trade Street.”

  “I was over there last night,” the officer said to Renny. “One night the husband calls; the next it’s the wife.” He then spoke into the radio transmitter, “This is Blakely. I’m bringing in a burglary suspect and can’t respond.”

  The Georgetown County Correctional Center was a modern facility built for maximum security—multilevel security doors, cells without windows where day and night were determined by the flick of a light switch, and omnipresent surveillance cameras that removed every vestige of privacy. GCCC had no Barney Fife ready to greet Otis when he stumbled in after a night’s binge and make sure that the town drunk had clean sheets, fresh flowers in his cell, and two eggs over easy with buttered toast and hot coffee when he woke up in the morning. Prisoners were processed and incarcerated with sterile, impersonal efficiency.

  Renny was taken through two electrically operated steel doors to the booking area. A bored female officer with bleached-blonde hair took his fingerprints and snapped his mug shot: Georgetown County Prisoner 243758. He told her about the rental vehicle, and she gave him a look similar to the one Officer Blakely had given him in the car. She would have someone check into it.

  “Take a seat in the hallway. One of the detectives will interview you after the magistrate completes the warrants.”

  Nobody paid any attention to him as a succession of drunks and kids on drugs were brought in and placed in one of two holding tanks located across the hall from the booking area. Renny’s only constant companion was a mild but pervasive smell that could best be described as a mixture of human body odor and hot beer. Every so often someone in one of the two holding tanks would start screaming profanity and banging on the solid metal door. A male officer in the booking area would open a small sliding window in the door and tell the offender to keep quiet or risk transfer to an isolation cell. It seemed to work, and Renny wondered what was so bad about the isolation cells. He didn’t want to find out.

  After an hour, a slender man in his late thirties with a thin black mustache and a face that appeared incapable of smiling came over to him. “I’m Detective Cook. Come with me.”

  He led Renny down the hall to a small, windowless room that was bare except for a gray metal table and two folding chairs. It reminded Renny a little of his office at the law firm. As soon as they sat down, the detective took out a sheet of paper and read Renny his Miranda rights.

  “Let me get some background information.” Detective Cook wrote down Renny’s name, address, and birth date. “Now let’s get the particulars on your activities this evening.”

  “I’d like to have a lawyer present before I talk about the charges,” Renny said. “I’ve never been through anything like this before.”

  Cook’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Suit yourself, but you are already crucified, boy. I mean on the c-r-o-s-s. Johnny Cochran couldn’t help you.”

  “Is there a phone I can use?” Renny knew it was pointless to talk.

  “At the end of the hall past booking. Long-distance calls are automatically limited to three minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  Cook stood and let Renny pass. “Remember, boy. I said c-r-o-s-s.”

  Renny didn’t turn around.

  He had no intention of calling a lawyer first. Jefferson McClintock didn’t make house calls at the Georgetown County Correctional Center on Tuesday nights, and even if he did, Detective Cook was right in his blunt description of Renny’s situation. He wanted to talk to a lawyer, but he needed to talk to someone else first. A sleepy voice answered the phone.

  “Mrs. Stokes. It’s Renny. I’m sorry to call so late, but I’m in trouble and only have a few minutes.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m in the Georgetown County jail. I need you to contact some people for me. Call Jo’s mother, Carol Edwards, early in the morning and see how Jo is doing. Don’t tell her where I am; they’ve got enough to worry about. Just tell them I’m still on the coast and unable to reach them. Then call Agnes Flowers, the lady I told you about.” Taking the slip of paper out of his pocket, he gave her Mama A’s number in Charleston. “Tell her where I am and ask her to pray for me.”

  “You’re not hurt, are you? What in the world has happened?”

  “I can’t go into it now. I’ve been arrested for attempted burglary and only have a few minutes to talk. I’m OK physically, but I’ve made a serious mistake in trying to solve some problems.”

  “My goodness. Let’s see, I have Jo’s phone number here. Is it the same as her mother’s number?”

  “Yes.” Renny paused. “Mrs. Stokes, go ahead and call Mama A tonight. She would be upset if I didn’t let her know I needed help. If nothing else she can pray for me. They’re going to take me back to a cell in a minute.”

  “All right. Oh, Renny, this is awful.”

  “It’s my fault. Thanks for your help.”

  The phone clicked off before she could reply.

  A young guard took him to a shower where Renny cleaned up and changed into a white cotton jumpsuit with GCCC stenciled on the back in large black letters. He was given a pair of blue flip-flops and told to put his own clothes and personal belongings into a plastic bag. He had over two hundred dollars in his wallet.

  “That should keep you in cigarettes and candy bars for a while,” the blonde said as she counted the bills on the table. “We’ll note the amount on your account for personal purchases.”

  The guard opened a thick metal door to the main cellblock. Renny had heard enough jailhouse horror stories to cause him to panic, but for some reason, perhaps the immediate result of Mrs. Stokes’s intercession, he was surprisingly calm.

  “In you go,” the guard said, sliding open a cell door.

  There were six bunks in the cell. Only two were occupied by sleeping forms; neither acknowledged Renny’s entrance. He climbed up on a bunk beside the door where he had a clear view of a camera mounted on the wall and quoted Psalm 23 to himself until he fell asleep.

  At 7:00 the next morning, bright lights flooded the cellblock. Renny woke up suddenly and for several seconds had no idea where he was. Reality crashed in, and he closed his eyes, hoping everything would change.

  “Good morning, up there,” a voice from one of the other bunks said. Renny rolled over and saw a small, balding man in his late forties putting on a pair of steel-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m Winston Morgan.”

  “Renny Jacobson.”

  “Welcome to the GCCC version of The Truman Show,” Morgan said with a flourish of his right hand. “Where day is day when they turn on the lights and your every move is viewed by at least two people via countless visible and concealed cameras.”

  Renny couldn’t help but smile.

  “Our other companion here, the one pretending to be asleep, is my former codefendant, Ralph Abercrombie. Say good morning to Renny.”

  A muffled voice said, “Good morning.”

  “Welcome to the white-collar crime cell,” Morgan continued speaking rapidly. “Our breakfast will be served by meticulously groomed attendants in about eight minutes.”

  “Who are you?” Renny asked.

  “I told you who I am. My immediate purpose is to set your mind at ease regarding your cellmates so that your stay on the set of the show will be as pleasant as possible.”

  Renny hopped down from the bunk and stretched. “Thank you. I woke up feeling lower than I’ve ever felt before.”

  “A common condition for the first night in the pokey.”

  “Why are you and Ralph in here?” Renny asked.

  Morgan held up his right index finger. “Lesson number one: Never ask a fellow inmate why he is in jail. If he vo
lunteers the information, fine. But don’t ask. You’ll find that no one is here because they committed a crime. The most common explanation is that they were framed and double-crossed by their best friend or ex-wife. A close second is they were represented by an idiot lawyer.”

  “Sorry. I’m afraid I’m guilty with no excuse.” Renny decided it was best not to mention his profession.

  “Not a good position. But to answer your question, Ralph and I wrote a few too many bad checks—a few hundred too many.”

  “Oh.”

  “A few is usually not a serious problem, but a few hundred has a way of attracting major negative attention.”

  “I guess so.”

  “But don’t worry about us. As codefendants, the authorities initially placed us in separate cells and appointed different lawyers to represent us. Our lawyers convinced us to testify against each other, which we did as persuasively as we could. I said it was all Ralph’s fault, and he said it was all my fault. The jury said it was all both our faults.”

  Renny thought for a moment. “So, you’re in both categories—you were double-crossed by your best friend and represented by an idiot lawyer.”

  “Bingo! You catch on fast, young man. You’ll do well here.”

  A guard with a cart of food trays rumbled down the hall.

  “Breakfast in bed again, Ralph. Rise and shine.”

  After breakfast, Renny lay in his bunk praying for Jo. A guard rapped on the bars. “Jacobson, you have a visitor.”

  Renny ran his fingers through his hair and wished he’d had an opportunity to brush his teeth. “Let us know if it’s snowing outside,” Morgan joked as Renny, his flip-flops slapping the concrete floor, followed the guard down the hall.

  “Will do.”

  They passed through the main door of the cellblock and went down the hallway past the booking area to the same interview room where Detective Cook had compared Renny’s status to Jesus’ on the cross. The guard opened the door and let Renny go in.

  The door slammed, and one of the largest men Renny had ever seen turned around and faced him. Dressed in a white shirt and khaki slacks, the man extended his hand and smiled. “I’m A. L. Jenkins, your lawyer.”