Meritti sat down and lit a Winston. “I can see the headlines now. ‘Gangster kills judge and jury and escapes,’” he bitterly remarked with a flourish, tapping the ashes from his cigarette.
“Do you know what kind of message that would send?” Meritti continued his rant. “Every fuckin’ nut with a gun and half a heart will think he can do the same thing!”
Smalls nodded. “No courtroom in America will be safe. The next thing you know, people will be shooting DAs and judges in the street!”
“And rioting in county jails to bust out the kingpins,” Meritti added in a tone of disgust.
Smalls knew where Meritti was going with the conversation. “I take it chief feels the same way?” Smalls asked, already knowing he did.
Meritti nodded, watching his partner of six years, knowing what the chief was asking of him, and he knew Smalls didn’t like to lie. To Meritti, Smalls had always been an annoyingly honest detective.
“If I go out there and tell those people that James is dead… if we cover up his escape and it gets out…”
“It won’t get out,” Meritti said cutting him off.
“But if it does?”
“It won’t.”
Smalls saw the logic in the decision.
Even though Dutch had committed a heinous act, if the world thought he was dead, potential copycats would think twice because Dutch didn’t survive. But to Smalls, a lie was still a lie.
However, if the truth was told, Dutch would become a legend-the gangster’s hero, the outlaw that blasted his way to freedom. No, Smalls’s heart decided, the truth couldn’t be told-yet. Not until James was firmly in his grasp. For the sake of justice everywhere, the truth had to be concealed.
Smalls rose slowly, feeling the full weight of his fifty-four years in his arthritic knees.
“Okay, let’s go meet the press,” he said, smiling at Meritti weakly.
Meritti took one last look at the room and wondered aloud, “But HOW did he do it? There are metal detectors on every floor, even right outside this door, and he smuggled in a fuckin’ arsenal? How?”
Smalls looked at Meritti with steel in his eyes. “I don’t know. But I promise you, I will find out.”
With that, they left the courtroom.
CHAPTER TWO
Delores Murphy clicked the power button to her television and heard the reporter confirm her son’s demise.
“Thank you,” she whispered, grateful that it was finally over.
Delores had silently witnessed the rise of her only child from a petty car thief to a vicious drug lord. Now, she was too numb to cry. Pain and a sense of relief mingled in her soul, and for the first time, Delores questioned herself.
Where did I go wrong?
She had tried to raise Bernard like any other single black mother in the grip of poverty. She tried to instill in him the basic moral principles of love, honesty, and a belief in God. She had also tried to teach him the value of his freedom, of his black manhood, and of his own self-worth in a society that wanted to brainwash the black man into believing that he was worthless.
Materially, Delores never spoiled Dutch, but she always tried to give him the best, just like any mother would. But Delores still felt that she had gone wrong somewhere. She felt that the hate and rage she carried against the system in her youth had somehow seeped into her son.
She wondered if hate so deep could be genetically inherited.
She also wondered if every lesson she had taught Dutch had been filtered through her own bitterness and resentment. And maybe her very own breast milk had contaminated his soul.
“Nigga, go on out there and take back what them people took from you!”
Delores remembered preaching those words when Dutch came home from prison. He had gone away a man-child and returned a man. Had her words somehow unlocked the fury trapped inside him and unleashed her son’s demons onto the streets?
As Dutch emptied the book bag on Delores’s worn kitchen table, stacks upon stacks of rubber-banded rolls of money landed with soft thuds.
“Ma, we movin’,” Dutch announced proudly, wearing his father’s smile like it was his own.
Delores’s eyes widened. She was weary from working two jobs, and her son, not even a year out of prison, had brought home more money than she’d seen in her entire life.
“Bernard, where did you…”
Dutch’s soft kiss on her quivering cheek cut her off.
“It’s what the world owes us, Ma. And I won’t take no for an answer. Not even from you.”
Her silence became her approval. She knew all about the Month of Murder. She also knew that her son was called Dutch, the black gangsta the mob feared. But she had never said a word. What would she have said? The truth was that a large part of her was proud of him, and she wasn’t mad at all.
Now he was gone. He left a wicked memory on the streets and a tragic memory in her mind that joined the memories of his father to this day. Not a single day went by without her recalling her only love’s luscious kisses and calloused caresses, and the feeling of his manhood deep inside her followed by the mellow croon of his baritone in her ears.
I love you, Delores.
I love you, Bernard.
If she ever needed his embrace, it was now. She had had other men in her life after Bernard, other friends, other lovers, but none had managed to touch her heart like Bernard had. She never married, refusing two proposals in her lifetime, because she believed in her heart that he’d come back to her one day. But he never returned. Now, the last thing she possessed of his was also gone. Just as she lost him to the Vietnam War so long ago, she had lost his son to a war that unfortunately raged right outside her front door.
Delores felt all alone. The only thought that consoled her was the one that was now in her imagination-Dutch going out like his father, guns blazing, fighting for freedom.
She didn’t know how right she was.
The ringing phone brought her back to reality. Delores slowly stood up and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” her frail voice answered softly.
“Is this the Murphy residence?” a male voice questioned.
“It is.”
“May I speak with Delores Murphy?”
“Who’s calling?” she asked, although she already knew who it was. His tone and style were a dead giveaway.
“This is Detective Meritti. I’m sorry to inform you that your son, Bernard James, has been killed,” Meritti explained softly but matter-of-factly. “We need you to come and identify the body. I know this is difficult, and I’m sorry that I’m not there in person to deliver-”
“No,” Delores interrupted. “No, it’s quite all right. I’m already aware of Bernard’s…” She cleared her throat and added, “I was expecting your call.”
“If it’s all right with you, ma’am, I think it would be best if I sent a car for you.”
“No, I don’t need a car. I can get there. I’ll be there within the hour.”
Meritti sighed with relief. He didn’t want to appear pushy, but the sooner they completed their official charade, the sooner they could concentrate on finding Dutch.
“That would be great, ma’am. Do you know how to get to the County Coroner’s Office?”
“I can find it, Detective Meritti,” Delores replied, her tone sending the message that the call was over.
“Very good. We’ll be waiting for you.”
Delores hung up.
“Who’s fooling who in here?” Meritti asked.
“I wonder if she’ll buy it?” Smalls wondered aloud.
“Please, God. Don’t let it be true! Burned beyond recognition? Charred remains…”
The detectives took Delores to a clean room where a body lay covered by a white sheet on top of a table. Detective Meritti introduced himself and recounted to Delores all that had transpired.
“It looks like his accomplices, these, um, Angel’s Charlies, were the actual culprits. It seems they started the fire so that your son could escape. But he didn’t make it out. And it looks like the coroner has already identified a set of matching dental records,” he added as he flashed them at her before placing them back into the folder next to the body.