favorite was Divorce Court. I liked Lynn Toler, but thought that Madeline was better. Halfway through the show, Nick walked in. “How you feelin’?” he asked and sat down on the bed next to me.
“I’m a’ight,” I lied. I still felt kind of tired and my chest hurt.
“Good. Get dressed, we’re up,” Nick said and got up.
I reached for the gun I had under my pillow and got out of bed. “Where we goin’?”
“We’re goin’ to kill Ralph Watson.”
“That one of the niggas that robbed us?” I asked and got out of bed.
“Yeah. And hurry up before we miss him.”
Chapter Twelve
Kirk
I didn’t seem to be making any headway in this case. I really thought we were on to something when Sanchez and I rolled up on Leon Copeland at Nina Thomas’s apartment. But both of our sources have been telling us that Leon hasn’t been a player in this game in years. I really wasn’t all that surprised by that though. Leon and Mike Black were good friends those days, and he did seem to drop off the grid about the time that Black killed just about every other dealer in the area. Black made a deal with Chilly and setup what became know as the dead zone, where Black permitted nobody to sell drugs. Maybe Leon still respected the dead zone on the strength of his relationship with Black, so we had nothing. Then we caught a break.
I was at my desk, reviewing what little I had on the case, when an officer walked up. “Hey, Kirk, you know an asshole named Timothy Thompson?”
“I know a lot of assholes,” I said and keep reading my file.
“This one says he talked to you and Sanchez the other night.”
Now he had my attention. “What about him?”
“He got popped trying to sell to an undercover today. Instead of lawyerin’ up, he said he would only talk to you and Sanchez. You want to talk to him?”
“Shit, yeah.” I called Sanchez and told him to meet me down there.
When Sanchez got there, I filled him in and we went in. “I was startin’ to think y’all didn’t wanna talk to me,” Thompson said.
“What would make you think that?” Sanchez said and pulled up a chair next to him.
I grabbed a chair, pulled it up to his other side, and sat down. “We’re here; but now I wanna know what a small-timer like you could possibly wanna talk about?”
“I want outta here, that’s what I wanna talk about,” Thompson said.
“Tell me something I don’t know and I’ll consider it,” Sanchez said.
“The night Big K and them got shot, somebody got through our security.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a cop.”
“I’m listening,” Sanchez said.
“The reason we stayed outta y’alls way is that we had lookouts everywhere. If a cop car or anything that even looked like an unmarked car came our way, we’d shut down until they was gone. But this mutha fucka rolled up and walked up on us, made his buy quietly, and walked off. But instead of leaving, he steps to Kenyatta. They beefed for a while and then he leaves.”
“How you know he was a cop? And if he was a cop, how come none of you assholes are in jail?”
“After he left, I asked Kenyatta what was up with that. She said he was a cop tryin’ to shake her down.”
“You get a good look at the guy?” I asked. “This cop.”
“I ain’t tryin’ to incriminate myself, but I was as close to him as I am to you right now.”
“What was he driving?” Sanchez asked.
“Midnight blue Camaro.” I looked at Sanchez and I could tell he knew something by the look on his face.
“Can you pick him out if you saw him again?” Sanchez asked.
“I saw him today when they busted me. I started to talk to him, but I figured he didn’t have no juice.” Thompson looked at Sanchez then he looked at me. “So can we do somethin’ here or do I need to call my lawyer?”
“I’ll see what we can do,” Sanchez said and bounced up. He headed for the door.
“What’s that mean?” Thompson wanted to know.
“It means you sit here and you don’t talk to anybody,” I said and followed Sanchez out of the room.
I knew that Sanchez knew exactly who Thompson was talking about and was on his way to go after him. The fact that he was in on an uncover operation meant that it was one of Sanchez’s men.
I had to hurry to catch up with him. “Slow down, Gene, and talk to me,” I said and Sanchez kept walking. “You know who he’s talkin’ about?”
“It’s one of my men: Nelson Brown. Drives a blue Camaro.”
“So where you going?”
“I’m going to tear him a new asshole, that’s where I’m going, Kirk.”
“Slow down, Gene, and let’s talk about this,” I said and got in front of him.
“What?”
“All we got now is the word of a scumbag drug dealer tryin’ to make a deal to get out and sell some more drugs. Let’s check this out a little and if he comes up dirty, I’ll hold him while you tear him a new asshole.”
Sanchez finally exhaled. “Okay.”
Sanchez and I discretely dug into Brown’s life; his finances and the luds from his phone, just like we would any other criminal. The picture that was being painted by the information we found, made one thing crystal clear: Brown was dirty. But I wanted more before we confronted him, so I suggested that we follow him. We lost him in traffic the first day, but the second, Brown led us right to what I was looking for.
“Get a picture,” I said and Sanchez got out his camera.
That next morning, Sanchez called Brown into his office. Before he got there, I made Sanchez promise to take it slow. “Don’t let that famous Latin temper of yours blow this.”
“I’m cool,” Sanchez said as Brown walked in.
“You wanted to see me, lieutenant?”
“Yeah, come in and close the door,” Sanchez said.
“Detective,” Brown said to acknowledge my presence in the room.
I just nodded my head and took another sip of my coffee.
“How’s the car running?”
“Like a dream, lieutenant. It’s worth every penny of that fat note I pay for it every month,” Brown said.
“Kids doing good in school?” Sanchez asked, and I was surprised that he was actually taking it slow. Normally, Gene was the kind of guy that would have called him a dirty cop and asked for his gun and shield as soon as Brown walked in the door.
“They’re doing great.”
“I remember when my kids were that age; wanting something all the time because the other kids had it. I used to have to tell them all the time that they didn’t know what their parents were doing to get all that stuff.”
“It is tough, but me and Kathy, we get by,” Brown said cautiously.
“I know it must be tough paying that fat car note and keeping three kids in private school,” Sanchez said and the look on Brown’s face told the story. “Mount Holy Oak, that place ain’t cheap.”
“What’s going on here, lieutenant?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Kenyatta Damson,” Sanchez said.
“The vic from the other night; what about her?”
“How much did you ask her for?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brown said and squirmed in his chair.
“Well maybe you’d like to tell me what you were doing with Bryce Tyler, and what you had to talk about for an hour?” Sanchez said and I dropped the pictures of him and Bryce Tyler in front of him.
