A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (10 page)

“Give us some names. Write down the names of even one of the guys you know—his street name, name his momma gave him, whatever. But it better be right. Pull a fast one, and I’ll have you serve all of their time put together. I can do that, you know.” He was leaning on the table now where I was seated. His facial expression was serious, angry and frustrated. I knew the routine. He was playing “bad cop, good cop.” I wasn’t playing. The bad cop puts the fear in a prisoner and the good cop poses as a reasonable ally who the prisoner can mistakenly trust in and bargain with.

“Stand up!” the “bad detective” yelled, not giving a fuck about who could hear him. I stood. A tough guy, he took off his gun and handed it to his partner like he wanted me and him to shoot a fair one. There is no such thing as a fair one between a cop and his prisoner. The cop is hands-free and the prisoner is not. Even if I defeated the cop using only my trained feet, even if I knocked him out using the metal cuffs I was wearing as a weapon and banged him at a point on his body that I had already studied, even if I head-butted him into unconsciousness—and I could do all that—I knew if a man in custody, a prisoner, moves one muscle in his body, a cop is authorized to kill. And this detective wanted to kill somebody. He threw his best shots to my stomach, didn’t like not seeing the look of pain on my face, and began slamming his fist into my sides. I felt it. I didn’t react. His partner pulled him off me and
pushed him outside the door. Now I was supposed to believe the “good cop” is my protection. I don’t need it. I don’t believe it. It was all a show to me.

Knowing they got no kind of charges they could stick on me, hadn’t seen or caught me with any drugs, weapons, or even cash, I did a breathing routine I learned in my training, to shift the energy around in my body after the detective attacked me. The “good detective” stared at me. But all he could observe was my silence. He walked out saying, “I’ll give you more time to think. Choose yourself, or choose them.” He pointed to the photos.

Three detectives entered two hours later, two familiar, one not. One was carrying the Sunday edition of the
New York Daily News.

“Where did you drop the package?” the unfamiliar detective asked me.

I’m not no fucking mailman.
So, I didn’t answer him. The unfamiliar cop laid his newspaper on the table. I took a good look at him. He was the same build as the foot cop I saw posted on the corner late last night. The same height and frame, I was sure.
He saw me exit the Laundromat carrying the red bag
, I told myself. He must’ve also seen me drop the letter in the mailbox. But he couldn’t have seen me clearly from across the street where he was posted on the corner in the darkness of midnight.

“Was it the mailbox?” he asked with an urgent tone. Ignoring him, my eyes closed in on the
Daily News
headlines, one word in big bold black block letters:
EXECUTION
. One big photograph and it was me. I moved my eyes from it.

“Do you think we can’t open the mailbox and look inside?” My mind is speeding. My face is blank. I’m thinking: he was definitely on the corner last night. I’m guessing he was the extra dirty cop in this setup. He saw me carrying the red bag, but he also saw me set it down, pull something from my back pocket, and drop something into the mailbox and then walk away without the red bag. If I would’ve held onto the bag like the Red Flamingo suggested, he would not have tipped off the cops who swarmed on me at the
subway. Maybe I had confused him by both carrying the red bag and not carrying the bag till I got off the block. Maybe he thought
he fucked up
and lost the trail of the drugs.

My mind moved to the letter. Could they really open the mailbox?
The detective is bluffing
, I thought to myself. It was past noon. The mail had to have been collected already. They’re looking for drugs, not mail. Maybe they had already opened the mailbox. If they did, they already knew there were no drugs dropped inside. At least, not dropped by me. Even if they opened it already, I told myself, the mail still would’ve got delivered. Long as Umma receives my letter, I’m good.
Oh, it’s Sunday
, I reminded myself. Maybe they don’t collect the mail on Sunday. It’s America’s day off. In the East, where I’m from, Friday is the day we go to mosque for Jummah prayer. Friday and Saturday is our weekend, and Sunday is our first day of the workweek.

“Answer the fucking questions, fuck face!” the bad detective screamed, playing his role. I sat silent. My eyes were back to the photo of myself executing the enemy last night on my Brooklyn block, a two-second hold, then my gaze was back onto the wall in front of me.

“What do you think those guys are going to do to you when they find out you handed the drugs to the government? The mail is federal property. What were you thinking? How much was in the package, a kilo? Two? Enough for you to pay with your whole life I bet. More money than your life is worth. These guys are gonna kill you. They’ll put a price on your head and some crackhead on the street will blow you away for two rocks.” The bad detective was leaning into my face and holding one of the photos up to try and extract fear in me.

The
Daily News
cover photo of me looked like it was shot from both behind and overhead. Maybe from a news helicopter. But I didn’t see or hear no copter last night at the block party.
The stage!
The thought shouted on the inside of me. A photographer could’ve caught the shot from the stage, which stood high over
the crowd.
Alhamdulillah
, the photo did not capture my face, only my back, my physical form and clothing, and my extended arm, my gloved hand holding my black milli. My barrel shoved in his mouth.

“Your loyalty to them is gonna backfire,” the good detective said. “Cooperate with us. We can protect you. Give us the right info and we can even relocate you so that you’ll never run into these guys again.”

Funny, how he thought I was the dupe in this scenario. He thought I was protecting some drug syndicate because I didn’t know any better. Actually, the good detective was the dupe, from how I see it. He was protecting the dirty detective who posed as a uniformed cop posted on that drug block—’cause he, the good detective, seemingly didn’t know any better. The words the dirty D was saying revealed what his main focus was: Where are the missing drugs? He was concerned not because he needed to seize them and turn them in to the precinct. He was concerned because he was the real drug dealer, or the overseer and protector of a drug syndicate, who lost track of the package. Probably considered the worse possible fuck-up in their line of “work.” Now nobody could get their payoff, at least not from last night’s take, ’cause their drugs were missing.
Somehow, somebody g’d off
, I thought. Whether someone in Redverse’s crew had the drugs and was acting like they didn’t. Or someone who was supposed to deliver the drugs to them stole the product while pretending that they delivered it and that I stole it. Or even the cops could have one of their guys steal the product. I didn’t know. I didn’t give a fuck. I didn’t have nothing to do with drugs, don’t use ’em, don’t sell ’em, but I could see now that I was somebody’s come-up, somebody’s fall guy and the diversion all in one.

“We’ll take your fingerprints and match them with the package. Once we book you and you’re in the pit with some of these other guys, you’re done! Game over, finished!” the dirty cop threatened.

I knew there was no package in their possession. Not with my
prints on it; that’s why this bullshit boring-ass precinct interrogation was ongoing. They made a huge police scene in the train station last night. They thought they caught me red-handed. They made the mistake. Now, they had no evidence and no explanation. They needed me to do their job right now. They needed my mouth to snitch on the hustlers. They couldn’t do their job; they weren’t intelligent or clever or even capable of what they call good police work. And what about the fact that at least one of them in the room and probably a few of them in the precinct were part of the “red laundry bag crew”? They had to get some sucker and lock him up to cover up their own hands. They needed to make it seem like they wanted to stop the hustlers from hustling when they actually needed the hustlers to hustle to get their food, their cut, which I was sure had to be more than their little paychecks ever paid them.

“Smart-ass, you think we got nothing on you? We got your laundry bag that you left beside the mailbox . . .” he said. His hands were leaning on the tabletop. His fingers were pressing down hard and turning pale pink with stress. I knew the fact that they had the bag didn’t mean shit. I was wearing gloves when I carried it that short distance. He couldn’t see my black gloves on my black hands last night. And I had trashed the gloves in an outdoor trash can before I entered the lighted subway system immediately before my surprising arrest. There were no prints on the bag, at least not mine.

I saw the newspaper caption beneath the cover photo:

Brooklyn youth executed in a crowd of hundreds. The bold assassin caught on film in the above photo. State senator outraged. Story on page 3.

Bad detective flipped the table, pushed me out the chair and onto the floor. I didn’t resist. He swiftly grabbed the chair I had been seated in and got ready to crack it over my head. The dirty detective laughed. The good detective intervened, stopping the bad
one by separating and distancing him from me. The dirty detective threw the chair into the wall.
Yeah, this is personal for him
, I thought. Maybe the missing drugs under his watch would catch him a bullet in the back of his head.

“Take a break,” the good detective told the bad one and the dirty one. They both slammed out the door.

Good detective picked up the chair. “Sit down,” he ordered me. I sat. Then he picked up the table. Next, he picked up the pad, pencil, and newspaper. Lastly, he placed all of the drug dealer photos back on the table.

“Last chance,” he warned me. “I’m sure they’re preparing to move you. I can stop them from putting you in that cell. I can even let the judge assigned to your case know just how helpful you were to us, if you make the smart choice. Think about it.” He left.

Cuffed, I was still able to slide the Sunday paper over so I could read it:

Senator Montgomery, a liberal Democrat who supports legislation for minority youth recreation, was rebuffed last night when an event he organized and sanctioned went haywire. It was a perfect day of sunshine and summer heat. A lineup of stellar performances and the excited crowd of thousands enjoying and cheering for hours ended in a chaotic and tragic melee. New York Police Department says groups of youth gangs began firing gunshots randomly into the air and others threw bricks and bottles at the police from the rooftops. In the confusion, one man focused and then executed another with a 9-millimeter, the same weapon used by the police department, and in the presence of the Housing Authority police, the NYPD and hundreds of spectators including the state senator. Despite the strong police presence, the assailant somehow managed to escape into thin air. The weapon used to murder Lance Polite, age 19, has not yet been found.

The police conducted a full sweep, arrested 89 mostly juveniles, and the homicide investigation is ongoing. Community parents are outraged. However, only 18 parents showed up to protest in front of the 73rd Precinct late last night.

Many parents interviewed last night say their children are minors being held and questioned without parents or attorneys present. The district attorney has issued a statement raising the capture of the murderer to top priority. He said, “The State of New York is populated by millions; 95 percent of them are law-abiding good citizens. We will never and have never tolerated murder, and we won’t rest until the assailant is apprehended, tried and convicted of this violent, unconscionable heinous crime.”

If I ripped the cover photo of myself out of the newspaper and laid it across my chest, or taped it to my forehead, it would probably be the only way the stupid cops and dumb detectives could “capture” me. I smiled.

Even though I was in the same room with them, and one of them actually had my photo in his hand on the cover of his newspaper, they were that slow and blind. I knew I could get away from these narcotics detectives. They had nothing drug related to hold me. They were betting I’d break down from their high-pressure performance and their bluff.

I knew I might even get away with the murder that I had planned to take responsibility for, but . . .

The good detective busted back into the room, interrupting my thoughts.

“Stand up!” he yelled. He was fired up about something. Now he had a style change. “Holy fucking . . .” He grabbed the Sunday
Daily News
off the table. He was staring at the front page. He took a quick look at me and began flipping the pages. I counted: one, two, three. He was reading. Then, he looked my way again. He walked
towards the camera and stood in front of it like he was blocking it from capturing any images. He waved me to move toward the back corner. I did. He moved behind the camera, shouted, “What the fuck!” and kicked the camera from behind with full force. It didn’t fly off the tripod but it did topple over. He kicked it again like it was a soccer ball, then picked it up from behind, pressed a button on the camera, and removed it from the tripod. He shot out through the door with it in his hands. I didn’t know what was happening now. He left without giving me one of the commands they seemed to like to give. I was still standing in the corner. Before I could do anything else, he rushed back through the door without the camera.

Suddenly he grabbed the vacant chair from under the table and jammed it underneath the handle of the door. He yanked the table from its position and moved it to the side, away from the darkened window.