Eyes of the Predator (47 page)

The two Atlanta’s could not have
been more disparate. Old money and the nouveau riche lived lives of elegance
and extravagance mere blocks, sometimes feet, from enslaving poverty and
ignorance. A dark shadow of underworld crime and gang violence hung heavily
over the poorer sections of the city and crowded the edges of the upscale
neighborhoods. The gas station was at the line of demarcation between the city
and one of the neighborhoods.

“Don’t make a sound
motherfucker.” The voice was thick and deep, coming from behind. The words were
emphasized by a sharp forearm to the back of older man’s head causing his chin
to impact painfully on the car’s door.

“What do you want?” the man said,
wiping gingerly at the trickle of blood that had started down his chin.

“Keys motherfucker and I said
don’t make a sound. Shut the fuck up.” The man behind leaned hard against him,
pinning the older man to the side of the car. The hard object pressed into his
back reinforced the demand for the keys. The man had no trouble recognizing it
for what it was, the barrel of a handgun.

“Here,” he extended his arm
backward for the man to take the keys from his hand. “Take the keys, and go.”

The gunman jerked the keys from
the outstretched hand, pressing the button and unlocking all of the doors.
Jerking the driver’s door open, the gunman pushed hard, forcing the older man
into the car.

“Just take the car. Go. You don’t
need me.”

“Get in.” And with those words,
he gave a shove hard enough to push the old man across the driver’s seat to the
passenger side, his legs still dangling out the driver’s door.

“Pull your legs in or I’ll shoot
your stupid ass now.”

The older man awkwardly complied.
Sitting up straight in the passenger seat, he became aware of a second male
sitting in the rear seat, directly behind him. He also was armed with a
handgun. For the first time, the old man could see his assailants. They wore
ski masks so that their faces were not visible to him or the video cameras that
the gas station almost certainly had recording activity in the lot. That would
have been standard practice in this part of town.

The man in front pulled the car
from the pumps and out onto the street slowly, sliding the ski mask up so that
it sat high on the top of his head in a style familiar to the area. Sounds from
the back let the old man know that the man in the rear had done likewise. They
appeared calm and cool. Without the ski masks, they could have been taken for
two young men taking their uncle for a Sunday afternoon drive.

Fulton County Superior Court
Judge, Clayton Marswell, filled the tank of his black BMW every Sunday
afternoon at the same gas station. The station was at the edge of the upscale
neighborhood where Clayton had resided with his wife, May, for nearly thirty
years. They had chosen their residence deliberately. The area offered the more
refined lifestyle and ambiance that they desired, but was very near the hard
streets of their roots.

Others had urged them to move
“further out”, the term for escaping the desperate conditions of the poorer
sections of the city. For a time they had considered such a temptation. Having
reached a level of prosperity uncommon for the area, the Marswells could have
relocated to any area or city they chose. Deep ties to the area and the civil
rights movement that had been largely driven by a pastor at a church not far
from their childhood home kept them close. It was a matter of principle to
them. They would not allow education and success to separate them from their
past and the struggles they and others had endured.

Clayton Marswell had grown up
poor in a shabby house on Atlanta’s south side. May had lived on the corner of
the same street in a slightly larger house, befitting a deacon in the Altoona
Park Baptist Church, a position her father held for nearly twenty years.

They had become sweethearts at an
early age. When Clayton went off to Morehouse College, May followed a year
later. When he graduated and worked his way through law school, she taught
school and waited for him.

On his graduation from law
school, they married. Their first home was within a block of the street where
they had lived as children. Clayton worked long hours, taking every case that
came his way, mostly young black men in trouble with the law.

As a natural community leader,
Clayton became a fearless spokesman for his people. Professionally, he soon
gained a reputation among the white courts and white lawyers as “that upstart
nigra lawyer”. He did not win every case, but his elegant and eloquent
arguments caused the white judges, prosecutors and juries of the day to go
through a good deal of mental and legal gymnastics to justify their verdicts.
His voice was one that had pricked consciences and kept the movement alive.
Twenty years later, he had been elected to the bench, where his service took a
different, but not less important turn.

“You the judge, right?”

Marswell looked at the young
black man driving the car. The handgun lay between his legs on the seat.
Clayton would have no chance in trying to reach for it.

“You the judge?” the driver
repeated.

 “Answer the man!” A hard
thump from the barrel of the gun accompanied the barked order of the man in the
back seat.

“Yes, I’m Judge Marswell,” he
said rubbing the swelling that began to rise on the back of his head. “You know
me? Have I ever heard one of your cases in court?”

Grinning briefly, the driver
looked at him and replied, “Naw man. You ain’t never heard none of our cases.”

The man in back gave a short
laugh. “Nope. You sure haven’t heard our case in court.”

Marswell sat quietly after this
exchange, pondering his situation. They hadn’t killed him, yet. They seemed to
have a purpose beyond just jacking his car. They were calm, professional and
not to be trifled with. Their air of criminal professionalism was somewhat
reassuring. They were not about random murders and robbery. He went back to the
thought that they seemed to have a purpose and that gave the Judge some slight
comfort.

Clayton Marswell was unaware of
the white, nondescript delivery truck that had pulled from a parking lot and
started following them a block from the gas station. It was a truck like a
thousand others roaming the streets of the city, making deliveries and picking
up shipments. The fact that a white man was driving was not remarkable. Whites
drove many of the trucks, but they went somewhere else to sleep at night. This
was not their territory. The truck kept pace a few car lengths behind the BMW
as it wound its way through dingy streets into an industrial area full of empty
warehouses with weeds springing up wherever the asphalt was cracked.

The young man driving made a
sudden right turn pulling to the rear of a large concrete block building.
Loading docks that appeared to have been deserted for years lined the back of
the building. A chain link fence surrounded the lot, separating it from an
identical warehouse building on the other side. A scrawny, hide-worn yellow and
white tabby ran from the building and scurried under the fence as the car
rocked to a sudden stop.

The driver immediately exited the
car and moved to the rear. The muzzle of the handgun thumped Marswell in the
back of the head as the man in the back seat said, “Stay put.”

Clayton Marswell heard the rear
door slam shut and sat motionless for a minute. Then noises from the back
caused him to turn his head.

The white truck parked directly
behind the car surprised Marswell. A large white man sat behind the wheel. The
clanking of steel on concrete caught his attention and he saw the two young
black men rolling a hydraulic jack from the rear of the truck to the car. It
took only a few seconds for the jack to raise the rear of the car and within a
few minutes, the rear tires and wheels were gone, rolled to the rear of the
truck. The front tires were removed by one of the carjackers while the other
searched under the hood apparently looking for parts  that would be of
value.

Unconsciously, Marswell relaxed a
bit. This was a carjacking, a professional one for sure, but still, a basic
carjacking. Feeling that his chances for survival had improved somewhat, he
allowed himself to think about May. She would have the Sunday ham about ready,
waiting for his return. The two girls, their husbands and the grandchildren
would be over for Sunday supper soon. A slight smile crossed his face as he
thought of the story he would have to tell them this evening. Supper would be
undoubtedly delayed as the police report and interview with the detectives
would take a bit of time, especially in light of his prominence as a Superior
Court Judge and well-known public figure. But this would be a story worth telling
tonight and at innumerable official dinners and gatherings in the future. The
smile on his face broadened.

Marswell jerked in his seat as
the jack released and the car slammed to the pavement minus its tires. One of
the men, the one from the back seat, leaned through the driver’s window and
spoke.

“Your wallet. Gimme your wallet
man.”

Marswell reached into his back
pocket and handed over the leather wallet. It took only seconds for the young
man to remove all of the cash, two hundred and thirty dollars, and the credit
cards, two Master Cards, two Visas, an American Express and an old Sears card
that had not been used for years. He then threw the empty wallet into the floor
of the car. 

“What else you got?” The man
scanned Marswell quickly then said, “Your watch. Give me your watch.”

Marswell began to remove the
watch.

“And the ring, man. Give me the
ring.”

“You mean my wedding band?”
Marswell asked, trying to think of a way to delay or prevent the inevitable
theft of something so precious to him and his wife.

“Yeah. The ring. Give me the
ring.”

The loss of the gold and diamond
studded wedding band that May had given him on the renewal of their vows on
their fortieth anniversary would dampen the humor and effect of the story he
would have to tell. Still there was nothing to be done but to comply with the
demand. Marswell took comfort in the fact that throughout the thefts of his
wallet, watch and ring there had been no weapon present. The young man had
leaned through the window and made his demands. Marswell had complied. No
weapon was necessary.

Sensing that the ordeal was
drawing to a close, Judge Marswell began to relax slightly. The men would leave
soon in the truck that had followed them and that now held the tires and other
vehicle components removed from the BMW. He would find a way to call the
police. The report would be made, the investigation begun and he would be given
a ride home.

The carjacker turned with both
hands full of the items he had taken from Marswell and handed them to the man
who had been the driver and initial carjacker. Turning he leaned back through
the window to address Marswell.

“The console. What you got in the
console?”

“You mean the glove box?”
Marswell asked. “Nothing there.”

“Yeah. What you got? Open it up.”

The Judge complied and after a
brief examination, the carjacker grunted his agreement that there was nothing
of value in the glove box.

He turned and spoke to the other
carjacker who had remained standing behind. Hands full of Marswell’s cash and
possessions, he walked to the passenger side of the truck.

It was almost over. A few more
minutes and they would be gone. Marswell’s level of anxiety eased a bit more.

“That’s it? You ain’t got nothing
else?” the man leaned through the window again apparently eyeing Marswell closely
for any sign that he was concealing some valuable item.

“Nothing. There is nothing else
that is worth anything at all.”

“All right then.” The young man
turned to move away and towards the truck and the Judge began to let out a
long, low sigh of relief. Almost as an afterthought, the man turned and leaned
back through the driver’s window again. A large handgun filled his hand,
pointing directly at Marswell’s face.

Marswell was no expert in
firearms and did not recognize the gun as a .357 Magnum stainless steel, Smith
and Wesson revolver. To him, it was just the biggest gun barrel he had ever
seen.

Electric impulses between the
synapses in the Judge’s brain began to fire, sending the realization into his
consciousness that Clayton Marswell, devoted husband and father, hero of the
civil rights movement and “uppity niggra” who had fought tirelessly for the
rights of the disadvantaged would not see his grandchildren that evening at
Sunday supper. Moving at the speed of light, the electric impulses delivered their
message to Marswell’s conscious brain as the hammer fell on the revolver. The
blinding white light that followed extinguished all that was Clayton Marswell.

The smoke from the fired round
filled the car with its pungent odor as the carjacker brought the weapon down
after its recoil and back to bear on Marswell’s lifeless body. Roaring echoes
of the magnum’s discharge reverberated loudly between the concrete block
buildings. The young man regarded Marswell’s mutilated head with interest. The
impact had caused him to slump against the passenger door and then forward so
that his head leaned against the door handle. A hole in the blood spattered
passenger window indicated that the powerful magnum round had penetrated the
Judge’s head and exited the car through the window, ricocheting off the block
walls of the building.

Assured that Marswell had not
survived, the young man walked to the truck and climbed in beside his companion
and the truck driver. Quiet returned to the empty warehouse district as the
gun’s echoes died. It would be hours before the Judge’s body was discovered.
There was no hurry. The truck pulled slowly and deliberately from behind the
building onto the empty street. A few turns and several minutes later, it
merged into traffic on I-75 and headed north out of Atlanta.