Buying Time (30 page)

Mancuso folded her arms. “You told me you don’t even know who he is.”

“I don’t. I’ll just have to figure something out. Maybe we can set up some kind of undercover sting or something. I can wear a wire.”

“It’s not that simple,” Mancuso said, toying with her pink bracelet.

“What do you mean?”

“The D.A.’s Office won’t put money into that kind of effort until you spill your guts. And that’s not something I’d recommend that you do.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are too many uncertainties. You could be left holding the bag.”

“You’re the dealmaker. Get me a deal.”

“It doesn’t happen with a snap of the fingers. And it definitely doesn’t happen when my clients write me bad checks.”

“I’ll make good on it. I didn’t know that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had frozen my accounts when I was in your office the other day,” he lied.

The skeptical look on Mancuso’s face said she didn’t believe him. “I want you to write down everything you can remember. Then we’ll go over it and figure out our next steps.”

“You have to get me a deal,” Waverly pleaded. “I can’t do time.”

Mancuso tapped her pink pen on the table. “I’ll see what I can do. In the interim, you need to figure out what you’re going to use for collateral.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t work for free. I’m sure you can come up with something.”

Waverly wanted to laugh. “Okay,” he said, standing, “we’ll figure it out at our next meeting.” Since he had to conserve his limited funds, there wouldn’t be another meeting.

He was a few miles from home when a frightening thought hit him.
Britney!
If somebody was actually killing his clients, then Britney was in danger. He pulled over and started fumbling through the papers in his briefcase until he found her telephone number. He had to warn her.

Waverly dialed her number, but her voicemail came on.

“This is Waverly. Waverly Sloan, I need to talk to you right away. Call me back as soon as you can. Please.”

Waverly sounded much too panicked. If she had read that
L.A. Times
article, she’d be too afraid to call him back. He would never be able to forgive himself if something happened to her. He should at least go by her place to check on her.

He tried Britney’s number again and this time, she picked up.

“I was calling to check on you,” Waverly said, relieved to hear her voice.

“I read that newspaper story about you killing your clients!” Britney shouted into the telephone. “Stay away from me. If you come anywhere near me, I’m calling the police!”

D
re had not heard from Angela for two days. He was so concerned about Cornell coming after her again, that he had begun following her to make sure that he didn’t.

He borrowed a buddy’s 4Runner so she wouldn’t spot him. He trailed her to work and back, and even followed Cornell for a few days. Maybe the dude had finally gotten the message.

Dre had tried to reach out to her, but his phone call and text message both went unanswered. Hell, he’d faced tougher situations than this before. Angela just needed some time to think things through. To realize that he was no longer the man he used to be. He had decided to change his life, in large part, because of her. He was not about to give up on being with her.

But Dre could not make that happen if Angela wouldn’t even talk to him. He purchased a throwaway cell phone figuring that she might pick up if she didn’t recognize the number.

He dialed her office. When she answered, he didn’t waste any time. “Hey, it’s me.”

She remained silent.

“We need to talk. You asked me why I did what I did and I owe you an explanation. How about if I drop by your place tonight?”

Angela still didn’t say anything and he waited. He construed it as a positive sign that she hadn’t hung up in his face.

“Not my apartment,” Angela said finally. “I’ll meet you at Baja Cantina. I’m working late. It’ll be close to eight before I can get there.”

“Okay,” Dre said, then hung up.

It was now 8:21 and he figured she wasn’t coming. He took another swig of beer and was about to leave when he saw Angela enter the restaurant. She looked pretty jazzy in a black, double-breasted pantsuit. He couldn’t help smiling. No woman had ever taken hold of his heart like this before.

She walked up to him at the bar. “Thought I wasn’t coming, huh?”

He decided not to respond. At least she was in a playful mood.

“Let’s go get a table.” Angela turned and walked off.

Dre chuckled to himself as he followed after her. Women were such a trip when they knew they had you by the balls.

Angela avoided making eye contact until they had placed their food orders.

“Okay,” she said, her head tilted, her arms folded against her chest, “let’s hear it. Why does a smart, articulate, college-educated guy like yourself decide to become a drug dealer?” She fixed her lips into a pout.

“It’s a long story,” Dre said.

“I have the time if you do.”

“Is this how you do your thing in court? Just pin ’em against the wall and fire questions at ’em.”

“Pretty much.”

He wasn’t sure where to begin. But he knew he couldn’t feed her any bullshit. The truth was, he didn’t really have a satisfactory explanation. At least not one that would be acceptable to her.

“You probably can’t tell,” Dre said, “but I’ve always been a little hardcore.”

“Oh, so your life of crime was genetic. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Stop givin’ me attitude and hear me out.” He took a sip of beer. “For most of my life, I was pretty average. Average in sports, average in school. Except I did okay with the ladies.”

Dre smiled. Angela didn’t.

“I made it through Long Beach State, but just barely. I only had a C average, but I got my degree and I’m proud of that. When I finished up and started lookin’ for work, it was a joke. I’d interview with all these stuffed shirts. Didn’t matter whether they were black or white. I was way too hood for their environment. I didn’t even know how to dress. Definitely didn’t speak the language. So I ended up gettin’ the only job a brother could get, working security.”

Angela seemed to be listening and that encouraged him.

“I spent most of my days sittin’ in a guard booth reading. One day, this dude from my old neighborhood came up to me. I knew he was cracked out. He asked to borrow ten dollars. Said if I loaned it to him, he’d pay me back twenty bucks on the first of the month when he got his disability check. I didn’t think he would, but I loaned him the money anyway. But he paid me back right on time. I ended up loanin’ him money three more times and he paid me back every time. I made one hundred percent profit on every dollar I loaned him.”

“Oh, I see,” Angela said, with a cynical punch to her voice. “So you were a loan shark before you became a drug dealer?”

“Yeah, basically, I was.” He could tell that his admission surprised her. “He told other people and everybody started comin’ to me for loans. Ninety-nine percent of the time, ninety-nine percent of the people paid me back. One hundred percent on the dollar.”

“Okay, so you loaned money to a bunch of crack heads so they could get high until their government checks came in. Great.”

“If I didn’t loan them the money, they would’ve done something illegal to get it.”

“You’re good with your hands. Getting a job at Home Depot never crossed your mind?”

“When I applied for jobs like that they told me I was overqualified. Lookin’ back on it, I had too much attitude. I was too angry. I didn’t know how to interview or even how to dress. Nobody was goin’ to hire me.”

The waitress set their food on the table, but Angela pushed hers aside. “Go ahead. I’m curious about how you went from loan shark to drug dealer.”

Dre decided to ignore the sarcasm. “One of my regular customers came to me one day, said he knew a guy he could buy drugs from. Said since I had dough, if I fronted the cash, he would sell it for me and take a small cut. That’s basically how I got started. And it just blossomed from there.”

Dre could not interpret the expression on her face. He suspected she wanted a more sympathetic story. Alcoholic parents, foster care, juvenile hall. But he had none of that. His sister was a social worker and his brother, a pretty successful plumber. His father had been in and out of the picture during his younger days, but his mother worked as a legal secretary and provided a stable home life. His family was under the impression that following his short stint behind bars, he had traded the drug business for flipping houses full time.

Angela picked up her fork and stabbed at her enchilada. “You said you don’t do it anymore. Was that the truth?”

“Yep.”

“When did you stop?”

“A while ago.”

“What’s a while ago?”

“A few weeks.”

“
A few weeks?”
Angela laughed. “This is unbelievable. So why’d you quit?”

“’Cuz I met you.” Once again, his response caught her off guard. He just hoped it earned him some brownie points. “It was never a life I planned to be in for the long haul. And now I’m out. Completely.”

The waitress returned and refilled their water glasses. “Anything else you wanna know?”

“No,” Angela said softly. “Not at the moment.”

Dre was glad that she had finally run out of questions. He picked up his beef taco and took a bite. “Cornell hasn’t been hasslin’ you anymore, has he?”

Angela chuckled dryly. “No, but he’s been telling everybody that he broke off the engagement. He told one of my friends that I cheated on him so he had to put me out.”

“What a punk move. That brother has some serious issues.”

“That’s certainly what my sister thinks.”

“And you don’t?”

“Yeah, Cornell has his issues,” she said, looking him dead in the eye, “but don’t we all.”

Dre stared back at her, wishing he could reach across the table and kiss her. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess we do.”

E
rickson gazed at the huge seal on the wall across from his desk. He still couldn’t believe it. He was the Attorney General of the United States of America.

His office wasn’t nearly as plush as his corner suite at Jankowski, Parkins and his salary, not even half of what he earned as chairman of the firm. But the degree of influence he wielded and the pride he felt sitting at the helm of the U.S. Justice Department could not be equaled by anything he’d ever achieved in either his personal or professional life to date.

He had just returned to his office following a meeting with five Democratic congressmen when his assistant rushed in with an urgent message from Wrigley, the President’s Chief of Staff. Erickson was wanted at the White House. Immediately. A driver had already been called and was waiting downstairs.

Erickson’s mind raced with possibilities as the sedan zoomed along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House. Erickson presumed that the President needed his sage legal advice on some confidential, high-security issue. That thought heightened the sense of power he felt.

Once he reached the White House, instead of going to the Oval Office, Erickson was escorted into Wrigley’s office. The Chief of Staff was speaking into a headset. He pointed Erickson to a seating area near the window. Wrigley paced back and forth as he conducted his call. Erickson picked up snatches of the conversation. It did not appear to be anything urgent.

Erickson was disappointed that he hadn’t been summoned for a meeting with the President. He had only spoken with Bancroft twice since taking the job and only for a matter of minutes. It was Mark Wrigley who really ran the show at the White House.

Wrigley finally took off his headset. He walked over and sat down on a couch across from Erickson.

“I’ve received three calls today about you from various sources of mine in Los Angeles. What in the hell is going on with your stepdaughter?”

Wrigley’s words landed like a punch Erickson hadn’t seen coming. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t fucking play me!” Wrigley yelled. “Your stepdaughter is running all over town accusing you of murdering your wife. Don’t sit there and act like you don’t know anything about it.”

Erickson was not used to people talking to him in such a manner. Other than his father, no one spoke to him that way. Ever.

“My stepdaughter is an emotionally troubled young woman,” Erickson tried to explain. “She—”

“I don’t care about her mental state or yours. I only care about the impact of her allegations on this administration. Do you know how incompetent we’re going to look if we have to go out and find yet another Attorney General?”

“You won’t have to do that,” Erickson assured him. “And there won’t be any fallout for the President because I had nothing to do with my wife’s death. Claire died of cancer and Ashley is just having trouble dealing with the loss.”

“Then lock her up someplace until she
can
deal with it. As it stands now, her conduct has the potential to create problems for this administration. I’m not going to let that happen. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Erickson said.

“And the next time I have to hear something this serious about you from somebody else, I’m not going to be very happy about it. If there’s something going on in your personal life that could cause embarrassment for the President, I need to know about before anybody else. You got that?”

“I understand,” Erickson said.

Wrigley stood up. “Then fix this. Now!” Wrigley stalked back over to his desk.

Erickson waited until he was in the security of his office before calling Becker.

“We have a problem,” he said. “The White House has gotten wind of Ashley’s allegations. I just got chewed out by Wrigley.”

Becker groaned in exasperation. “I’ll try to talk to her, but you know how volatile she can be.”

“I’m not going to lose this job because of her defamatory theatrics!” Erickson said. “I want her silenced.”

“And exactly how am I supposed to do that?” Becker asked.

“I don’t care how you do it, just get it done,” he shouted. “I told you weeks ago that Ashley’s allegations were going to be a problem, but you said they were no big deal because no one would listen to her. Well, you were wrong. They’re certainly a big deal now. My career and my reputation are on the line.”