“Drop it!”
Buddy Lee glanced back over his shoulder. Two deputies were standing behind him with their hands on their guns. Buddy Lee dropped the bat. It clattered against the Italian marble that covered the floor.
“Thank God for white privilege,” Buddy Lee said under his breath.
He launched himself at Christine and Gerald. Gerald pushed his wife at Buddy Lee. Buddy Lee swatted her aside and grabbed the butcher knife in Gerald’s hand by the blade with his right hand. He punched Gerald in the face with his left. The second his knuckles connected with that lantern-sized jaw was the happiest moment Buddy Lee had experienced in months. Even as strong arms snaked around his body, he kept hitting Gerald. He wrenched the knife from his hand and let it fall to the floor. Blood flowed from his sliced palm and rained down on the tile. When he was out of arm’s reach Buddy Lee kicked at Gerald’s face. The deputies struggled to get him down to the ground.
“He killed my boy! He killed my boy! My boy! My boy!” Buddy Lee screamed until his words ran together and became an unintelligible song of sorrow.
* * *
Buddy Lee leaned back against the cold cinder blocks that lined the holding cell. They had bandaged his hand and tossed him in the tank an hour ago. It was a weekend so there were a lot of drunks sharing the twenty-by-twenty space with him—a few raggedy-faced boys who were in the throes of opioid addiction and one quiet fella that seemed primed to burst into tears at any minute.
It was like the good ol’ days all over again. He probably wouldn’t get bail, or if he did, it would be so high he’d have to climb on a table to pay it. He was looking at least a couple of felonies. Add to that his past convictions, he could be looking at real time.
He’d failed. Failed Derek. Failed Isiah. Failed Ike. Failed Mya. Failed Arianna. He was what he had always been. A fuckup.
“Jenkins.” A deputy with a face made for radio said. Buddy Lee squinted at him.
“Yeah.”
“Get up. Somebody wants to talk,” the deputy said. Buddy Lee didn’t move. Who the hell wanted to talk to him?
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Get your ass up, or do we have to come and put you in the chair?” The deputy asked. The “chair” was a four-way restraint device for unruly prisoners. Buddy Lee had been in the chair once. He didn’t seek another ride on that particular conveyance. He stood up and faced the wall. Two deputies joined Hatchet Face. They handcuffed him before leading him out of the cell. They led him down an antiseptic white hallway lit by a series of flickering fluorescent lights. They came to a room marked LAWYER with black letters on a gold background. Hatchet Face opened the door, and the deputies guided him into the cool narrow room. Strong hands pushed him down into a chair. They uncuffed his right hand and looped the empty cuff to a ring on the underside of the table.
“Who wants to talk to me?” Buddy Lee asked. The deputies didn’t respond. They slipped out without closing the door.
“We need to have a conversation, Mr. Jenkins,” Gerald said as he walked into the room.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Buddy Lee tried to jump up out of his chair, but the handcuff caught him short. He sat back down as Gerald closed the door behind him. He walked to the other side of the metal table and pulled the chair back just far enough to stay out of Buddy Lee’s reach.
“It has always bewildered me why these tables are bolted to the floor but the chairs aren’t. This room is supposed to be where defendants meet their attorneys. If you are that angry at your advocate that you would hit him or her with a table, you probably are guilty as sin,” Gerald said. He smiled at Buddy Lee. A purplish welt had sprung up on Gerald’s chin. Another one was located just above his eye.
“You killed my boy,” Buddy Lee said. He instinctively wrenched his handcuffed arm.
“Buddy, you need to listen to me.”
“You killed my son,” Buddy Lee seethed. Gerald shook his head. To an observer it would have appeared to be an empathetic gesture.
“Buddy, we have to approach this like adults,” Gerald said.
“I’m gonna cut your dick off and make you eat it,” Buddy Lee said. Gerald leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. He wasn’t smiling.
“This room doesn’t have any recording or video equipment, so we can speak frankly. My associates have the girl. Your granddaughter. You know where Tangerine is. They will contact you when you get out of here and arrange the details of the trade. You and Mr. Randolph will bring Tangerine to a location of our choosing. You will do as you’re told or I’ll have my associates chop that girl into bite-size pieces,” Gerald said.