Influence

by Carl Weber

  “Wouldn’t you? He was loud enough to wake the dead. As if the fact that he was Bradley Hudson wasn’t enough to get people shook.” Lamont smiled. “Dad’s going to be fine.”

  “I hope so. Did you see that asshole’s face when they were bringing him out?” Desiree said, standing up. “I wanted to smack his smug ass.”

  “You weren’t the only one,” I agreed.

  We all knew who she was talking about—ADA James Brown. He might have thought he was fooling people with his fake concern in front of the cameras, but everyone in this room knew damn well that inside, that motherfucker was thrilled. While everyone else rushed to Bradley’s side after he collapsed, James Brown was too busy shaking hands and making friends. I’d already had a bad vibe about that guy, but now I saw how heinous he really was.

  A knock on the waiting room door caused all of us to turn. A nice-looking woman walked in, carrying takeout bags. She looked familiar, but I didn’t think much of it until Desiree sprang to her feet.

  “Jerri?” She greeted her cautiously. “What are you doing here?”

  Oh, shit! I thought. That’s the woman from the elevator.

  “I heard about your father,” Jerri said. “I figured you guys would be hungry, so I brought some food. I hope it’s okay.”

  “Thanks,” Lamont said, looking at his sister for an introduction.

  “Uh, this is my friend, Jerri,” Desiree said, and her eyes flashed at me. I looked away in a hurry to avoid the awkwardness.

  “Nice to meet you, Jerri,” Carla said. “And thanks for the food. I’m not hungry, but I’m sure the guys are.”

  “You got that right,” Perk agreed.

  Desiree didn’t have much to say as she helped Jerri unload the bags and spread the containers on the table. We were all pretty numb at that point, so there was no small talk as everyone helped themselves to plates of food. Desiree talked quietly to Jerri in the corner, looking nervously toward Perk from time to time. She shot a few more glances in my direction, too, but I think she finally realized I wasn’t going to say a word about the elevator incident. No way was I getting in the middle of whatever was going on.

  The door opened again, and a doctor in surgical scrubs entered the room.

  Carla rushed over to him. “How is he? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine. He’s stable and in recovery. The surgery went very well.”

  “Thank God!” Carla clapped her hands and looked upward in praise.

  “That’s great!” Jerri grabbed Desiree’s arm.

  “Can we see him?” Desiree asked, nonchalantly pulling away from Jerri.

  “Not until the morning. He’ll be asleep for a while. Honestly, considering how late it is, the best thing is for you all to go home for the night and come back in the morning, when he’ll be moved to a room.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Desiree said.

  “That’s your choice.” The doctor shrugged. “But really, there’s no need for anyone to stay. I’ll keep you updated.” He walked out of the room.

  “I told you he would pull through,” Perk said. “Bradley is a fighter. He wasn’t going down like that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Lamont said.

  With everyone able to breathe a little easier, we began packing up the food and throwing away the trash.

  “All right. I’m leaving. I need to call Mom and update her, and I need to make sure Langston knows that Dad is okay. I’ll be back in the morning,” Lamont said. “Carla, can I give you a ride?”

  “You can just take me to get my car from the courthouse. You don’t have to take me home.” Carla grabbed her coat and put it on. “You gonna be okay here, Des?”

  “She’ll be okay. I’m with her,” Jerri said.

  Desiree gave her a weak smile.

  That left Perk and me there with Desiree and Jerri. We were cleaning up the rest of the food when Desiree told us, “You guys don’t have to stay. You can leave.” She looked at Perk and said, “I’m sure Lena is waiting on you.”

  Perk shook his head. He was about to say something, but his phone rang.

  He checked the screen and answered the call. “Nate. What up? Sure, I’ll be right down.”

  Ending the call, he told me, “We gotta go down to the lobby. Nate’s waiting for us.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Desiree as Perk and I left for the lobby. She seemed relieved to see us go.

  In the lobby, Nate was waiting for us near the entry.

  “Hey, sorry to bother you at a time like this,” he said, “but something’s been on my mind ever since I gave you that report the other day. I know the verdict was a heavy blow for the Hudsons.”

  “Okay, talk to me,” Perk said.

  “I didn’t do the report. A friend of mine with the Feds did it down in Quantico,” he said.

  “Was there something wrong with it?” I asked.

  “No, no, the report was fine. The drugs weren’t a match.”

  “So, what’s the problem then?” Perk asked, sounding impatient.

  “They did match another case the DEA did a few years back. Drugs belonged to a guy by the name of Diego Gonzales.”

  “Name doesn’t ring a bell. You got anything on him?”

  “No, just a name. Thought it might help.” He shrugged.

  “Who knows? It just might,” Perk said, then reached into his pocket and handed Nate some money.

  Perk

  64

  I kept thinking about what Nate had said about the heroin they’d found in Langston’s car being connected to an old drug case. None of it made sense. There had to be something we were missing. Times like this, I would usually find Bradley in the office and talk it through, but with him in the ICU fighting for his life, I couldn’t. Still, I was determined to figure this out, not only for Langston, but for Bradley. I decided to go back to the office and reexamine everything in my files from start to finish.

  As I walked down the dark hallway toward my office, I noticed a light coming from under Bradley’s door. I stopped, lowering my hand down to my piece, and opened the door without knocking.

  “Perk.” It was Carla, and she was balled up under a blanket on the leather sofa in Bradley’s office. She’d obviously been crying, because her mascara was all over her face. “You damn near scared me to death.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would be here,” I said as I stepped inside. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be at home.”

  “I couldn’t stay in that house without him, Perk, so I came here, to the one place he loved more than the courtroom.” She sat up on the sofa, folding the blanket. “I can’t tell you how many times I fell asleep on this couch when he worked late.”

  “I remember,” I replied.

  “So, why are you tiptoeing in here this late?” She tried to smile, but the poor woman looked heartbroken.

  “Couldn’t sleep, so I decided to come in for a bit,” I said, sitting in one of Bradley’s office chairs. “Got some things on my mind about Langston’s case that’ve been bothering me, and I thought coming here might help me to think it through.”

  “My God, I hate to admit it, but with everything going on with Bradley, I almost forgot about poor Langston,” she said with a weary sigh.

  “We’re missing something, Carla. I can feel it. These boys have been adamant about the drugs not belonging to them. Every last one of them swears they didn’t even know they were in the trunk,” I said. “Even Tony until today.”

  “So, maybe one of them is lying. We’ve all thought that, to be honest.”

  “Or maybe they’re telling the truth. And if that’s the case, then those drugs must’ve already been in the car,” I told her. “My source told me tonight those drugs match up with a bust from a few years back, Carla.”

  “Langston only had the car for two days, and you said it sat on the lot almost six months. We’ve gone over the previous owners and found nothing. We pulled the VIN report.” She got up and stretched, gesturing
for me to follow her. “But it does sound like we’re missing something.”

  We walked to the end of the hall and down a flight of stairs, until we reached a door with a keypad lock. The room lit up the moment we came through the door. It looked like something out of NASA with all the computers and big screens on the wall. We walked to her office, which had another keypad lock, and then she sat down behind her sleek, modern desk.

  She reached into a tall stack of folders piled at the edge of her desk and took one out. “Previous owner was Leonard Gazda. We ran a background check on him. He’s clean. Married, two kids, works as a marketing director for a furniture company in Hartford, Connecticut.”

  “Leonard Gazda. Are you sure he’s clean?” I asked, taking the folder from her and flipping through it. There was a full background check, with all his information, including his driver’s license. I had the exact same paperwork in my own file, so I knew she was right.

  She began typing on her computer. “The guy’s a Scout leader with no record. Hell, he’s never even gotten a parking ticket, and you know that’s damn near impossible.”

  “Have you ever been to Hartford? It’s possible,” I joked, in a failed attempt to lighten the mood. “You said he’s married. What about his wife? Did we check her out?”

  “His wife Delia is just as clean as he is. She works as a church administrator and has no criminal background either,” Carla said.

  “Does he have any family ties to the Mob or organized crime, maybe?” I suggested.

  “None. We’ve gone over them with a fine-tooth comb. They had the car for two years, regular maintenance with the records to prove it when the car was traded in. Routine oil changes, tire rotations, and tune-ups. Car was in pristine condition and sat in the back of the dealership. You’ve seen the car lot surveillance. The car was never moved until Jacqueline purchased it. To be honest, she got a hell of a deal,” Carla said. “And we got a dead end.”

  I told her, “There’s one thing Jaqueline has been on me about since day one: she said, ‘Find the source of the drugs and you solve the case.’ So, my guy just told me the drugs match a federal bust of a guy named Diego Gonzales.”

  She typed the name into her computer. “A Diego Gonzales was arrested in Trenton, New Jersey in 2014, along with three other men: Manny Gonzales, Pedro Gonzales, and Dominic Gonzales. He’s presently serving a twenty-five-year sentence in Petersburg, Virginia for RICO charges, among other things.” Carla looked up at me. “Perk, I think this guy is the key.”

  “Yeah, so do I. I think I’m going to pick up Michael and head to Virginia in the morning. It’ll be easier to see him if I have a lawyer with me.” I massaged my tired eyes. “Dammit, why couldn’t we have gotten this break a month ago?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing. But, Perk, this could also turn out to be nothing. I mean, who knows what this Diego Gonzales is going to say. He’s been in jail almost four and a half years.”

  I sat back and processed everything Carla was saying. Then, I sat up in my seat, flipping through the folder again. “Wait, you said this Leonard Gazda cat had the car for two years, right?”

  “Yeah.” Carla nodded.

  “But the car was three years old,” I said.

  “Gazda purchased it after it came off a lease. It wasn’t new.”

  “Who had the car before that?” I asked. “Did you do a background?”

  “We did, and the original owner of the car was Sky Baronet. She was just as clean as Leonard Gazda. So’s her family.”

  “You checked her credit history? Seems like she leased the car for an unusually short time.”

  “She only had it for about six months,” Carla said.

  “Any idea why she turned it in so fast?”

  Carla shook her head, looking kind of embarrassed to admit, “I didn’t even think to look into that.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” I told her. “I didn’t even realize before now that Gazda wasn’t the first owner. Once I saw that the car hadn’t moved from the lot, I kind of moved on to other angles and didn’t even think about the car again.”

  We shared a look of regret.

  “Can’t hurt to check into her again,” she said, clicking her mouse to navigate through a few screens. Then she began typing faster. A new page popped up, and after she read it, she looked confused.

  “What is it?” I leaned closer to the screen.

  “The car was returned to the dealership after only six months,” Carla said.

  “You already knew that. So, she can’t handle money. That doesn’t help us,” I said.

  Carla shook her head. “But it says here her credit history is fine. No blemishes, no repossession.”

  This was confusing. Why would she turn in a car after only six months if it wasn’t about money? “Can you run a check, see if there are any connections between her and Diego Gonzalez?”

  Carla entered some more info and clicked through a few more screens.

  “Oh my fucking God!” she yelled.

  “What? What?”

  “Sky Baronet was never arrested, but she did call the cops once on her boyfriend, Manny Gonzales.”

  I felt my heartbeat quicken. We were onto something. “The same Manny Gonzalez who was arrested with Diego Gonzalez?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “What did they seize after the Gonzalez bust?” I asked, and she began typing.

  “They seized four cars, a house, and confiscated sixty-eight kilos of heroin.”

  I locked eyes with her, almost afraid to believe we’d finally found the evidence we’d been looking for all along.

  “Carla, the drugs in Langston’s car match the drugs seized from Gonzalez. Can you verify that the car Jacqueline bought was one of the cars seized after his arrest?”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t hack the Feds.”

  “Huh? Why? I seen you hack all kinds of stuff.”

  “Yeah, state and local stuff,” she said. “But we hack the Feds and get caught, they will shut us down. The last thing we need is for my ex-husband to have a reason to be on our ass.”

  “Yeah, Russell Jackal ain’t no joke,” I agreed. “But if you can’t do it, I know someone who can.” I reached for my cell and dialed a number.

  “Hello?” I could tell by her tone she was pissed I’d called so late.

  “Jacqueline, if you want Langston out of jail, I’m gonna need your help.”

  Langston

  65

  It had been less than forty-eight hours since I was convicted on all charges by a supposed jury of my peers. I was still in a state of disbelief about that and my father’s heart attack. I was starting to understand why Krush had killed himself. Sometimes life just wasn’t worth living.

  I’d decided to venture outside for some yard time. Summer was in full effect, although the sea air was much cooler than I’d anticipated. I looked around the yard, rubbing my hands together to warm them a bit as I began walking. Over in the corner, I saw a group of men clustered together, all wearing the familiar kufis. Among them was Kwesi, whose eyes caught mine. I quickly looked away, remembering the last interaction that had taken place between us. I began walking in the opposite direction.

  “Langston,” he called out.

  I turned to see Kwesi headed toward me. My first reaction was to ignore him, but for some reason, I couldn’t. Despite how he’d treated me and everything that had happened, I still felt some small tug of loyalty to someone I once considered a brother. I would at least hear him out.

  “What’s up?” I said, my voice void of any emotion.

  “Just seeing how you’re holding up. I heard about the verdict and your father. I hope he’s okay. He’s a good man,” he told me.

  “Yeah, he is, but I’m good.” I turned to walk away, but he put a hand on my arm to stop me.

  “Lang, I . . . we . . . man, I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I hate that this happened, and—”

  “Yeah, we all are,” I told him.

  “They
transferred Tony to the barge in the Bronx this morning.”

  “I heard.” Knowing that Tony wouldn’t be anywhere near me made me feel better. It meant that I wouldn’t run the risk of crossing paths and putting my hands on his ass. I wasn’t a fighter by nature, but the level of anger and hurt that I still harbored for him guaranteed I would fuck him up on sight.

  “It’s just crazy. A couple of months ago, you were planning graduation, and I was going to be chapter president and finish up my senior year. And now, Krush is dead, and the three of us are serving time for something we didn’t even do.” Kwesi shook his head. “Damn, I can’t believe Krush is gone.”

  “Me neither,” I said, feeling that old pull of brotherhood. No matter how things had turned out, his death had been a significant loss for all of us.

  “I think it would’ve made more sense to people if I had done that instead of him,” Kwesi said.

  I’d thought something similar on more than one occasion. Krush had always appeared to be a strong dude who could hold his own, whereas Kwesi seemed to be the softest one of our bunch.

  “Nah, you’re stronger than everyone thinks, Kwesi. I learned that while we were pledging. If you weren’t strong, you definitely wouldn’t have made it across those sands, and you know it.” I gave him a halfhearted smile.

  “They could have allowed us to go to the funeral though, Lang. I would have liked to have paid my respects and said a final goodbye.”

  “Man, his parents wasn’t having none of that. They weren’t gonna let us anywhere near that service. Hell, they ain’t even let my parents come, and they offered to help pay for the arrangements,” I said. “But, I guess it’s understandable. It’s a messed-up situation all the way around.”

  “And now, here we are.” Kwesi’s smile faded a bit.

  “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Go ahead.” Kwesi shrugged.

  “You think that it really was Krush’s dope? Maybe that’s why he took himself out; because he was guilty?” I stared at Kwesi and waited for his answer. Out of all of us, Kwesi had been the most level-headed and honest.